Waging War To Shake The Cold

by Wild Wolf Publishing

  Kats had no real idea what Nick had stashed away, but from what Badger had said it was at least five million and growing. Badger said these things got big really quickly. Folk with lots of money were easy prey to greed, and the thought of even more easy money was too good to resist.

  The rumours would spread like wildfire and pretty soon everyone would want a slice of the action, the money would pour in on the promise of easy tax-free profits. So if Nick had been siphoning it off, then it had to be well into the millions as Badger had said. Kats therefore applied one of life’s simplest principles: Aim high, Get more.

  “Er… now hold on… I may have done a few dodgy deals over the years but it never earned as much as ten million!”

  “Well how much is it then?” asked Kats.

  “A couple of hundred grand, and that’s all,” he said hopefully.

  “Fuck off,” said Kats, his anger flaring unbidden. “That’s pocket change to cheatin’ bastards like you. D’ye think am some kinda dummy? D’ye think that ‘cos ah didnae go to Uni or whatever that am a thicko? Rich bastards like you make me sick. You already have everythin’ ye want and still it’s no’ enough for ye. You and yer fancy motor and yer wee penthouse apartment wi’ yer fine wines and shit, yet ye still huv the cheek tae plead poverty so ye can justify fleecing folk left right and centre. There are good men oot there in Iraq and Afghanistan dyin’, dyin’ man, tae protect this country. And fur whit? So that selfish arrogant shits like you can steal from folk. An’ whit are all these poor sods that have given you money to look after supposed to do when they need it back or whatever? Like you could care less of course; you’re only interested in yourself. You’ll be long gone by then won’t ye? I seen the airline tickets, am no’ stupid, ye canny fuck off to the Caribbean tae live without serious money. I know you’ve got more than a couple of hundred grand in there, so if you want to see tomorrow you’d better take a sensible pill. Now start talkin’.”

  He was now standing menacingly over Nick, holding the pistol he’d picked up from the table.

  “Quite a speech,” said Nick, feeling somewhat brave all of a sudden, mainly because he was irked by the lecture.

  This guy had an axe of some sort to grind, hadn’t he mentioned Iraq? He must be a military man gone bad. Who the hell did he think he was anyway? Another bloody loser with a hard-luck story, who by the evidence of his present actions had turned into a criminal, an armed criminal at that, and here he was, lecturing him about right and wrong. He wasn’t going to be talked down to by some cheap crook, even if he did have a gun.

  The gun had shocked him initially, of course, but it strangely didn’t frighten him so much now that he knew they wanted money. He had all the access codes to the bank, only he knew all the passwords, the new Codemaster was in transit to his flat, therefore they needed him alive.

  That was something he could bargain with and he was sure the gun was just for show. Sophie might well have picked the wrong approach and the wrong man to do her dirty work.

  Maybe he could work him a bit. Risky, but it could be worth a try. Principles are always worth money in any negotiation after all, and this guy seemed to think he had the moral high ground for some obscure reason.

  “Okay, relax will you? Let’s try to sort this out. It’s not anything like you made it out to be, honest, everyone who took out a policy in good faith will be covered under the FSA’s Compensation Scheme, no-one will lose out. This is a victimless crime, I swear it. Everyone who makes a claim will be able to get compensated in full. I wouldn’t have done it otherwise, I’m not a crook.” He smiled as warmly as he could at Kats. “You mentioned Iraq. Were you out there then?”

  Kats just looked at him silently. This was a new twist, all he had suspected was an investment scheme – what was it Badger had called it... a Ponzi scheme... this was something else. So the bastard was into more than screwing rich investors. What a toad. But then, there was a compensation scheme so he says. Kats hadn’t known about that either.

  The notion of victimless crimes appealed to him. His recent career had been along similar lines after all; as far as he was concerned a lorry load of whisky or fags nicked from a multi-national corporation produced no victims, especially if the driver wasn’t hurt in the process, and Kats had made sure that hadn’t happened on any of his lifts, although he knew some of Big Davie’s other employees were less scrupulous. And if the punters who did business with Nick got compensation paid out, then who paid for that?

  The government of course. Well bloody good for them: at least this way the government, however indirectly, would be paying him something back for his services to the nation. But he said nothing of any of this and continued to stare at Nick.

  “Okay, I understand you don’t really want to say too much,” Nick went on. “I support the war you know. I always give to military charities and stuff, poppy day, that sort of thing. It must have been tough for you out there so I can understand what has made you get involved in something like this, I really can. You’re maybe not so different from me in a lot of ways. Seems maybe like we both found ourselves in a tough spot and just did the best we could to get ourselves out of it. Surely we can sort this out between us? There must be some way we can settle it all?”

  Kats considered the underlying messages of what he was hearing. The guy was smooth alright, real smooth. He was trying to buy him off and coming the ‘I’m just one of the lads’ act. Pretty convincing too he was. So much so that Kats decided to play along a little.

  “I’m not interested in hurting you mate, and I couldn’t care less about Sophie,” both of which statements were actually true: “All I want is something back for what me and my mates did out there, and if you’re offering me a wee share of what you have stashed away for myself, then that will fit that bill nicely. I lost some good friends in Iraq and no one back here seems to care. If it’s a victimless crime then no-one need lose out, especially if there is enough to go round in your wee slush fund. You say you supported the war? You don’t even know the first thing about why we were out there and what was done to the place in your name, or what we have to put up with when we come back home. It’s time guys like me got our share.”

  “Well, I know that we toppled a Dictatorship and gave the people of that oppressed country free and fair elections…” began Nick,

  “Free and fair elections!” spat Kats. “What’s the point of so-called free and fair elections when the basics of life aren’t even in place? When raw sewage runs down the streets and there is no electricity for most of the day? When ye can buy satellite dishes but ye canny buy rice? And when people who can barely read or write are given the power to vote, who the hell d’ye think they’re gonnae vote for? I’ll tell you who: they vote for the guys with the biggest guns, or the guys who will hand out free food to feed their kids, or the guys who lead their tribes or clans, or the guys who help them pray to their Gods. That’s what free elections mean out there - complete fuckin’ chaos. Everyone is corrupt and no one gives a shit about freedom. And it’s a bloody chaos at that. People are blown to bits by so-called insurgents, terrorists, every single day, for nae reason other than they are in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Yeah, but that’s the Iraqi civilians innit,” said Nick. “I mean, you boys have lost a few men here and there but it’s not like it’s a proper war is it?”

  Kats looked at him incredulously. “Whit dae ye mean, no’ a proper war?”

  “Well, it’s not as if there are massive casualties or anything. What are we up to now, two hundred British soldiers killed or something? There’s more people than that killed on the roads every year and we don’t have a big hoo-ha about that.”

  “And yer point would be?”

  “I just mean it’s a shame some blokes have been killed, but surely that is what the army is all about? I mean you don’t get forced to join up or anything, you volunteer and you must know at the time you could end up in a conflict zone. It surely must be a risk that you are willing
to take on some level or other when you go in?”

  “So, ye think it’s okay for British troops to be put in harm’s way, get shot at, wounded and killed for… what? So the Americans can get free access to the biggest oil reserves on the planet? That’s worth the lives of oor boys then is it, in your book?”

  “That’s not what you went out there for though,” said Nick, now so engaged in the discussion he was quite forgetting his predicament. “Surely you went out there to stop Saddam from launching nukes at us or whoever? I mean the man was sponsoring terrorists wasn’t he? I know they never actually found anything but he must have had them. If he didn’t then why would he obstruct the investigators? He should have been done away with in the first war anyway, that’s where the real mistake was made. I think we were absolutely right to go in there and, hey, it’s bad that some guys were killed as you say but you can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.”

  Kats glared at him. “You fuckin’ arrogant shit. You sit there with God knows how much stashed away of other people’s money and you talk about my mates getting killed as if it was somehow inevitable. As if they mean nothing. Fuckin’ eggs? I’ll give you fuckin’ eggs.”

  Nick swallowed.

  “Right. I’m only goin’ to ask you once pal, so listen closely: how much is in that account?”

  “I’ve already told you, a couple of hundred grand, that’s it. I didn’t have time to build up any more than that, and the FSA would have caught on a long time ago if I had taken any more anyway. Look, I don’t know what Sophie offered you to do this, but what if I doubled it? What if I just gave you double… triple even… and you just leave now and we’ll call it quits? What do you say?”

  Kats didn’t answer, and Nick took that to mean he was considering the offer. He watched as Kats got up and walked to the kitchen area, picking up the already boiled kettle.

  “Making tea?” asked Nick, perhaps just a little too flippantly.

  Kats walked quickly back to him, pulled his head down and poured about a cupful of the boiling water down his neck and back.

  Nick screamed and writhed in agony, almost knocking the chair over. Because of the shock, Kats knew that it wouldn’t hurt him too badly immediately, but within seconds he would feel it trickling down his spine in a molten line of white pain. It would seep into his shirt and spread, burning and blistering the skin.

  “The thing about boiling water,” said Kats carefully, “Is that not only does it hurt like a bastard when it lands on ye, but if it’s left alone it burns deep into the tissue and will form a nasty permanent scar. You will be in pain for weeks. Every time ye move you’re gonnae feel it pullin’ and crackin’. The blisters will burst and most probably get infected. It’s the gift that just keeps giving if ye like, and that was only a wee bit of the stuff.”

  Nick was whining and moaning, “Take it off, get my shirt off, do something, please!”

  Kats went back to the kitchen and filled a cup with cold water. He poured it over Nick’s neck and back.

  “That will cool ye off a little,” he said, heading back to the sink.

  He refilled the kettle and, as Nick looked up at him, he flicked the switch to the ‘On’ position meaningfully.

  “Your back will be fine,” said Kats, impassive. “But before ye answer my next question, I just want ye tae think whit it would feel like if I threw a whole kettle full in yer face, not to mention whit it could do tae yer chances with the ladies from now on.”

  Nick was now white with fear.

  This guy will actually do it.

  It wasn’t worth the risk. Nothing was worth that kind of risk. He would just have to own up and try to salvage what he could from it all.

  “There is, give or take a little, six point five million US dollars in that account. That would convert to more or less £4 million pounds at the current exchange rate.” He watched as Kats’ mouth fell open. Gotcha. So you were just guessing then.

  “But, you can’t leave me penniless. If you do there is no incentive for me to keep schtoom about all of this now is there? I mean, by law Sophie is due half and I am guessing you are on commission from her so why can’t we settle for that? It’s still £2 mil. That’s a lot of money man. If I don’t get away then the FSA will be all over me. The cops will get involved, I’ll have to tell them about this and about Sophie paying you to do it… she’ll lose it all. Maybe both of you will do time as well. She’s certainly not going to keep quiet if she’s picked up is she? Better to have a hundred percent of two mil than nought percent of £4 mil…” he tailed off, swallowing dryly.

  Maybe he’d pushed it a bit too far, but it was his last chance to hold onto something and he knew he’d never forgive himself if he didn’t at least take a shot at it. He might not be brave enough to face torture, but doing a deal under any circumstances was hardwired into his genes.

  To buy time and keep the pressure up, Kats simply said, “That’s always supposing I let you live.”

  Nick gulped but said nothing, watching Kats with slightly wild eyes, waiting for his next move.

  Kats considered the proposition. He had no clue who this Sophie person was, ex-wife probably but who cares, so he wasn’t overly concerned about the cops getting involved.

  The thing was though that he now knew Big Davie had something going on with Nick. Why else would Boots and DJ be sniffing around after all? If he cleaned Nick out completely then there was a better than even chance Big Davie would assume he’d stolen his money too, and would make it his life’s work to track him down. £4m was a big incentive after all. He looked Nick over coolly, and as the kettle clicked to indicate it was boiled, he made a decision.

  “Right pal. I have your PIN number and the CodeMaster already.”

  Nick’s eyebrows flicked up at that. “So all I need is your user name and password. I am going to log into your account and I’ll be having that £2m just as you said, for Sophie, plus I want an extra £300k from you, as a sweetener for me letting you keep a share. Call it my performance bonus.”

  Nick let out his breath slowly in relief. He wasn’t about to tell him he had a new Codemaster being delivered. That might be some additional leverage. “Deal,” he said. “Now let me out of this and we’ll get it done.”

  “Nah. That’s not how we’ll be doing things. You’ll be staying here. I know how these things work, it will take three days for the money tae come through, so me and you will just huv tae get to know one another a lot better while we wait. So you give me the numbers and I’ll go and do the necessary, then I’ll be back here to wait it all out, nice and cosy like.”

  “No, no, there’s no need for that,” said Nick. “The bank operates an instant transfer system. If you do it online, put in all the details correctly, it will go through there and then. The only time it doesn’t is if there are insufficient funds to cover the transfer and that won’t happen here.”

  Kats looked at him sceptically.

  “It’s true,” said Nick. “I do it all the time. All the banks are signing up to this system.”

  He thought about it for a while. This, if indeed true, made life a lot easier. Keeping Nick captive for any length of time presented a number of practical and technical challenges, and he hadn’t been looking forward to that, but it had to be done if he had to wait for the transfers to go through. This potentially changed all of that. He still needed time to make sure all was well though.

  “Okay, but you’re staying here until I’m sure. I want those numbers, and provided I get logged in to your account and everything goes through immediately like you say, then I’ll be back to let you go early tomorrow morning. That’s the deal, take it or leave it.”

  “You can’t just leave me here!” said Nick panicking. “How do I know I can trust you to come back, or you might just clean me out totally?”

  “I suppose you don’t know, do you? But whit you said makes sense: I’d rather huv my money and spend it in peace without the cops sniffing about trying to track me down �
�cos they’ve pinched you for fraud. Let’s jist say I now have a vested interest in you getting away wi’ this.”

  Nick thought it over. What choice did he have? “Okay, okay. I’ll do it. But there’s another problem.”

  “Oh aye?”

  “I knew the Codemaster was missing so I ordered a new one from the bank.”

  “Ye whit?”

  “What did you expect me to do? I’m not stupid you know. You didn’t expect me to leave the keys to my house and access to my bank unchanged after you’d nicked them now did you?”

  “So where does that leave us then?”

  “They sent a new one out. It was to be delivered today and I was going back to the flat to pick it up when you jumped me.”

  Kats was fuming inside but there was little he could do. He considered the possibility that Nick was lying, but dismissed it. The guy was broken; he could see it in his eyes.

  “Look, give me my phone. They may have left me a message or sent me a text about it. I was on the phone to them earlier and the driver said he’d wait till half five. It’s way past that now, but they may have sent a message about where the package is.”

  Kats picked up his phone and looked at it. There were three messages waiting, and four texts. He scanned through the texts: one was from a number rather than an identified name from the address book. He opened it and read; ‘We tried to deliver your package today but were unable to do so. We left the package with a neighbour who signed for it. A signed copy of the delivery note is available for you online if you sign in to our website.’

  “It says here one of your neighbours has it.”

  “Can only be old Andy then. He’s the only one that could be in. Let me call him and check.”

  “Okay – gimme the number.”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier to untie me?”