“Tea?” said the Driver.
“Proper tea, I am pissed off with this crap they call coffee in this country! I’d love a proper brew.”
The cabby followed the Driver back to his make shift camp where he unpacked his teabags and made them a cup. “Bloody marvellous,” said the cabby as he took a sip.
“So, tell me what’s a London taxi driver doing out here?”
“Simple really, the wife and I were watching the telly one night and they showed the poor buggers in Aleppo. The kids starving and all that shit, so I started shooting my big gob off, as usual, saying how somebody ought to do something to help. I was giving it large about how no bastard ever gets off their fat arse and does anything and then she says to me that perhaps I should get off my fat arse and do something if I felt that strongly about it. So I fucking did. I got an appeal going. Got the London Taxi Drivers association involved and Bob’s your uncle, I find myself here, in the armpits of the World completely fucked.”
“Seemed a good idea at the time I suppose?” said the Driver.
The cabby laughed, “Nice to hear a bit of good old British sarcasm.”
The Driver pursued the matter. “Do you have some sort of documentation for this convoy of yours or did you just turn up?”
“Of course I do. I am not a complete idiot, just a bit fucking stupid to get involved in this fuckup in the first place. I got letters from the Foreign Office, letters of passage from the UN, letters from the Turkish Consulate and I am pretty sure I have a letter from Father fucking Christmas somewhere. Every man and his dog has papers here, but the arseholes at the crossing are only interested in one thing, money. If you can pay enough you jump the queue, otherwise you can sit here with your thumb up your jacksie till the cows come home.”
The Driver asked for a look at the paper work. It was all-in order and a plan formed. “I have space for your load and could move it and I have the money to pay the border guards, what I don’t have is the right paperwork. Perhaps we could help one another?”
“What have you got on your wagons?” the cabby asked.
The Driver knew theer was no point in lying that he had some sort of humanitarian aid, as it would be pretty self evident what his load was when he re-branded it with the red cross paraphernalia from the cabbies’ convoy,” Missile launchers.”
“Missile launchers, you are fucking joking. I am trying to help the poor buggers not fucking blow them up.”
“I understand that and I applaud it, but as you like to say. You are fucked without me.”
There was a long silence while the cabby absorbed the offer and the situation he was in. He was clearly far from happy. “I have no bleeding choice do I? Fuck, I will do what I have to do.”
It was surprising how easily the bags of rice, flour and bundles of clothes and blankets could be packed around the missile launchers. The transformation was completed with buckets of white, red and blue paint that one of the soldiers brought back after a taxi ride and a trip to a supermarket.
They stood back from their handy work. They had transformed an army convoy carrying weapons into a UN Red Cross humanitarian aid hybrid within two days. The next part was the gamble that had to be taken.
Dave and the Driver gathered their paper work and took a cab to the border post along with Jazz acting as translator.
It took nearly four hours but they eventually had an audience with the post commander. “How can I help?” He looked less like anyone willing to help than the Driver had met in a long time. He did however speak English, yet another Turk who had worked in England, this time for his uncle in his Kebab restaurant in Wood Green in North London.
“We should like to cross the border, we have a humanitarian aid convoy headed for Aleppo.”
“I would like to help but things are difficult and confused at the moment, the coup etcetera. I am sure matters will sort themselves in good time. You will need to be patient. Now if there is nothing else?”
The Driver slid a large packet across the table. “These are our documents. I was wondering if they would give us an exemption, they require us to have priority?”
The Captain of the guard looked into the envelope. Then he turned his back on the three of them by swivelling his chair round. He was clearly counting. That was a good sign for the Driver. It established the principle he was open to bribes and now it was just a matter of how much.
He slid the envelope back across the desk.” I am not sure that your documents are completely in order, so I fear at this stage you will have to wait.”
The Driver reached into his pocket and placed another envelope on top of the one sitting on the desk. “Oh! I seem to have not included these.”
The Guard looked in the additional packet and picked both envelopes up and put them into his tunic inside pocket. “My men will take you to the rest stop and escort you across the border. Are you ready to go now?”
“More than ready,” said the Driver, “And thank you.”
Chapter 20
It was as if the day was smiling down on them as they crossed the border from Turkey into Syria. There was no wind and the sky had a large, red streak that merged into yellow and orange surrounded by a beautiful rich lilac. The colours of a Rio carnival, the Driver felt elated. How his fortunes had changed in such a short while. From being trapped in the docks in Istanbul, to being very rich was a vindication of him taking the biggest gamble of his life.
The mood amongst Jazz, his son and the other soldiers was also one of elation. They, ironically, were possibly the only refugees fleeing into Syria, the rest of the Country, was trying to go west. The Driver had given them ten thousand dollars each to drive the convoy and they hoped to make their way west and claim asylum avoiding Turkey.
Even the Taxi driver was buoyant, fulfilling his ambition to make a difference in the World. The Driver had chipped in enough money to his cause, to hire some trucks to take his aid onwards and allow the cabbie to fly back to the UK from Turkey in style.
The conversation with Adnan had been brief, now the Driver was waiting some forty kilometres inside Syria for Adnan, and most importantly, from the Driver’s point of view, for the money to turn up.
The wait was not long. Adnan and Nizar had not been optimistic that their goods would make it across the border, having lost their contact in Turkey, when Mehmet was murdered, but they and the twenty or so ISIS fighters and drivers had made their way to the border just on the off chance. The coup d’etat attempt had muddied the waters and played into their hands. They had set off immediately to collect their bounty when the Driver contacted them.
The Driver could see the open backed Toyota trucks approaching and the well armed men sitting in the backs. He felt a sense of relief. In a very short time he would have his money, pay back Lesta, his dodgy Baltic Bank and get the Russian mafia off his case. He felt the excitement rise as the trucks stopped and he saw Adnan step from the cab of the first one.
“You did it,” said Adnan shaking the Driver’s hand.
“No thanks to you.”
“What can I say? I was not to know that our contact would go and get himself murdered in a bath house.”
“No, but you could have told me that you did not have the transit and export papers before I did the fucking deal.”
“That is true but then you would have pulled out of the deal. We would not have our missile launcher and you would not have made a fortune. So, as they say, all’s well that ends well.”
The Driver did not exactly adhere to that sentiment, for he knew at this precise moment had things not gone well, he would now by running from a bunch of crazy Russian fuckers looking for their one hundred and seventy five million dollars back.
They stood quietly as Adnan’s men made the rounds of the convoy and inspected the cargo on board. They were clearly pleased. They failed, however, to notice the Russian drone flying silently some forty thousand feet above, that was watching their every move.
“Satisfactory?” asked the Dr
iver, as he handed the tablet to Adnan.
“Very, I shall make the money transfer then we shall be on our way.”
The Driver waited impatiently for the payment to be transferred in to his account, “Problems?” he asked.
“Trouble with connections”
“You had better not be fucking me over,” said the Driver.
“Look for yourself,” he handed the tablet back to the Diver.
That was what the drone operator had been waiting for. Seeing Adnan handing back the tablet to the Driver, the operator assumed that the transaction was complete. He spoke into his headset, “mission green, go go go.”
Lesta had no choice but to give up the Buks to the State for destruction, but he had managed to persuade them to, at least, allow the money to be transferred from ISIS to the Driver before wiping them from the face of the Earth. The convoy had been spotted waiting at the border and its every move had been tracked by the Russians.
The Driver and Adnan both jumped as the three Russian jets appeared roaring in the sky above them. They both dived to the ground as the planes unleashed their missiles. The heat of the explosions was unbearable and over in an instant
The stood up shaken and disorientated and looked at the trucks. They were no more, just a burning pile of twisted metal. The pilots knew their job and had done it well. Adnan, more used to air attack than the Driver, recovered his wits first. He turned and ran back to his men and their waiting vehicles.
“What about my money?” the Driver called after Adnan, but he knew the answer. He had been that close. A dodgy internet connection had cost him everything.
To his surprise his phone rang. “Please transfer our money we are waiting,” Lesta said.
He was stunned. It dawned on him that he had been under surveillance from a drone or satellite. “I don’t have it.”
“Don’t fuck with me. You were observed receiving payment. I have just received confirmation from the drone operator. Make the transfer.”
“I can’t,” he said lamely.
“You are a dead man,” and the phone went silent.
Chapter 21
Vasiliev Nikhil, Sokolov Yerik and Volkov Lesta the ultimate beneficiaries of the Baltic Bank sat round the television in Nikhil’s Moscow apartment. On the screen was a bird’s eye view of the Turkish Syrian border. The images from the drone were as good a quality as you would experience at the movies. The men lent forward as the Convoy came into sharp focus.
The camera zoomed in to the exchange between Adnan and the Driver.
“There, he hands him the computer and you can clearly see the Arab tapping away at the key board,” said Lesta.
“I agree he is definitely making the transfer. Look here is where he hands it back,” said Nikhil.
The air strike began and ended with the destruction of the convoy. All three were impressed with the precision of the missile attack. The drone remained in place long enough to capture the aftermath and confirm that the shipment had been complexly destroyed.
“Look, you can just see the fucker answering his phone to me,” said Lesta. As the drone flew from the scene of carnage, the Driver could clearly be seen at the edge of the shot pulling his mobile out and putting it to his ear.
“There is no doubt that he was paid before the Buks were destroyed.”
“Find him and either get the one point seven five million or kill the fuck. We have to send a message, or every piece of shit we lend money to, or launder money for, will think they can take the piss,” said Nikhil.
“We will, I assure you, make a fucking example of him, trust me.”
“Now look at this,” said Yerik.
After a pause the screen sprang to life again as Yerik pressed buttons on the remote. The BBC news from England appeared on the screen. The headline was a leaked report on the investigation of the shooting down of a passenger jet over the Ukraine. The news reader announced that the report confirmed the jet had been downed by Russian Buks and showed footage of the launcher being moved around on a lorry.
“That does, sort of, look like our launchers being driven across the border from Russia into the Ukraine. Doesn’t it?”
“Watch”
The clip cut to an interview on the late night programme “News Night”, again on the BBC. The Russian spokesman was being questioned by the interviewer as to Russia’s involvement.
“We totally deny any involvement and state that no Russian missiles were deployed against civilian aircraft. There were many military groups operating in the area and in the confusion of war, these things happen, but I stress that there were no Russian involvement.” Yerik switched off the television with his remote.
“The Kremlin is satisfied that any link was destroyed and waited until the money was transferred before they ordered the air strike. We just have to find the fucker with our money and either get our money back or kill him,” said Lesta
“Or both,” said Nikhil, as they all laughed.
At that point in time, the object of the Russian’s search and kill mission was in central London using a phone box.
“I need help, you have to help me or I am dead,” the Driver said into the receiver.
The voice at the end of the phone sounded disappointed and resigned in equal measures. “Again when will this stop?”
“Please, I am desperate. I owe nearly two hundred million to a group of Russians.”
“Are you insane, who are they?”
“They run a bank that launders money for the Russian mafia, drug dealers, everybody. It is big bucks and they don’t fuck about. You pay or you die.”
There was a silence. “Give me their names?”
He did and he was given a place to pick up a key and an address. ”Thank you” he said as he hung up.
Several hours later he sat in the small flat in Dartford, a small town about twenty miles south of London. The flat was in what had been a Church before conversion. He looked at the stained glass window that had been dissected by the floor that had been built to give and upper and lower level. The flat contained the upper part of the window that was arched and depicted the upper torso and halo over the head of a Saint. The rest of the tableau was lost in the lower portion so there was no way of identifying the Saint in question. He sat just staring at the light filtering in, wondering what he could do now.
He was without funds. Any attempt to access his bank accounts would lead them to him as would use of the internet. His credit cards were useless, he had bought an unregistered pay as you go phone as his means of communication. He knew that if he was to survive and not be tracked down and killed, he had to live completely off the radar, buy everything with cash, not drive for fear of being stopped and having his license run through a computer check, not work or use his passport. In short, if he wanted to live, he had to live as a non-existent dead man.
He knew in the end he would be found, these people would never give up. They had the resources and they would never let anyone get away with stealing from them. To do so would be to invite every criminal to do the same. They could show no weakness.
He was a hunted animal and he had only one friend he could rely on. Only one person he could always trust. For now he had a roof and sustenance and one small glimmer of hope that the person he had known all his life would help somehow.
Chapter 22
Hambros Benedict was not in the best of humour has he stood on his terrace and looked out across the marina in Monaco. He had been trying to contact the Driver for days, but had heard nothing. He had taken him from nowhere to massive wealth. He had passed the business to him and now it seems he had been repaid by the theft of his twenty five million dollars.
He went inside as Mimi looked up from her laptop. “I found two gorgeous guys on the net who are vacationing in Monte Carlo.”
He moved across to view the screen. The two men going under the names randyjim6552 and tomcock85 did look well endowed and obviously both worked out regularly, as evidenced by their muscled frames
.
“Can I fuck them, please?” she said in a silly schoolgirl voice.
“Why not, I could do with a bit of distraction and fornication.”
“I am glad you said that, I invited them over this afternoon.”
As the time approached for their arrival he could see his wife becoming increasing agitated as the sexual tension increased. He took a Viagra and undressed, apart from a dressing gown. She was in the bedroom when the entry phone buzzed. Mimi left the bedroom completely naked and crossed the lounge to the hallway where she pressed the enter button.
The sight of his wife, sexually aroused, had the same effect on him as his penis became erect. She entered naked holding the penis of one of the guests, which she had pulled from his trousers immediately on their entry into the flat. Benedict thought she was obviously very keen, which was not unusual. There was hardly a word spoken as she led the men to the centre of the lounge. She began to suck the now erect cock that she had led into the room. He was big, but she was undaunted. She had overcome her gag reflex years before working as a prostate in the Philippines.
The second man began to undress and showed he was even better endowed as he stroked his erect penis. When he was completely naked, Mimi turned her attention to his hard penis giving him a blow job, while the other participant rid himself of all his clothing.
Benedict was enjoying the sight of his young wife ‘sucking cock’ and undoing his dressing gown began to slowly stoke his penis. His wife assumed a doggy position and while one fucked her from behind she sucked the cock s of the other.
The pace quickened as the three fucked and groaned ever louder. Benedict, while rubbing his penis furiously became increasingly aroused at the prospect of his wife being filled with semen, which he would clean from her orifices with his tongue, before ejaculating in the process.
Mimi was in the throes of sexual ecstasy, “Fuck me in the arse, fuck me,” she wailed, completely lost in her orgasmic arousal. He retracted his penis from her cunt and slowly entered her anus. “Yes, yes, harder, fuck my arse.”
Dealer (A Tim Burr Thriller Book 3) Page 8
