Offshore Islands
Page 62
The return trip to Helsinki was direct taking only two hours and on arrival they disembarked without the least formality. Erikkson’s assistant Björn Naseman, who had already collected the two girls, met them at the exit from the ferry terminal. He dropped Kennedy and Barton off at the Vakuuna Hotel, which faced the central railway station, where they were booked for the night. As Barton stood at the hotel entrance, the bags on the pavement, he observed the coming and going in the large square and could not help thinking that the strange station looked almost Hitlerian with its massive architecture.
“I will pick you up for dinner at eight - you like jazz, don’t you?” Naseman turned and was gone with the two girls before either of them could reply.
After checking-in and they took the lift to their rooms on the sixth floor a little puzzled as to the next step.
“What now?”
“Feck knows!” replied Kennedy.
“Too bad for the Estonians...they were nice.”
“You’re just getting horny.”
“What about that?” said Barton pointing to the knapsacks.
“We can’t just leave that in our rooms whilst we’re out for dinner. I don’t trust anybody, if we loose it those bastards will cut our throats.”
“Look we’ll stick them in one of the suitcases and leave it locked in the left luggage downstairs, the hotel staff here is honest, Okay?”
“Good idea! We’ll do it right away.”
It was eight o’clock when Naseman accompanied by the two girls, who had dressed themselves up in what were unmistakably new outfits, picked them up. He drove them to a jazz club called ‘The Village’, behind the Parliament building, not more than three or four minutes from the hotel by car. They went down to the club in the basement where he paid the entry fee and then took a table in a corner, as far as possible from the musicians.
“You like Salsa, they’re playing Salsa tonight, Finnish version!”
The two girls were excited by their new surroundings, now looking even more attractive in their new clothes and makeup, stimulated Kennedy and Barton.
“Well before we get on with enjoying our evening, let’s get a couple of business items out of the way,” said Björn Naseman.
“What’s the deal then Björn,” said Kennedy superciliously.
It went over Naseman’s head; he was too thick in Kennedy’s opinion to see himself. He was tall, somewhat over-weight, and a moustachioed poofter to make things worse. That’s how he got ahead in Sweden, Kennedy thought to himself. That’s why that fecker Gable likes the little bastard.
“Tomorrow morning we will drive to Pori. That’s about three hours from Helsinki by road. In Pori I’ve booked an air taxi, which will fly us to Sundsvall. There’s a lot of passenger traffic between Pori and Sundsvall, I mean for this part of the world, you know paper machinery engineering companies.”
“What time do we leave?”
“Early, six, it’s best like that. There are practically no formalities, and as we do a lot of business with those engineering companies there’s nothing unusual, a piece of cake.”
“That’s fine with us,” replied Kennedy looking at Barton.
“I’ve fixed the girls up with Finnish passports, so there’ll be no problems. As for the special goods you’re transporting, pack them in your suitcase, there’ll be no checks, just act normally and there’ll be no difficulties, okay!”
“Okay.”
“So let’s enjoy ourselves.”
The jazz club served Mexican food, or at least the Finnish version. The music started an hour later, a nine piece Salsa band, it was without any doubt a local version, ear splitting, without rhythm and monotonous. Kennedy was about to tell Barton that he had enough when Barton grabbed Marietta and left for the small dance floor. There was no other alternative by to do the same with Iris.
The rhythm was Finnish, but Iris was Estonian and had dreamt of this moment, enjoying the pleasures of the West. She put all that was missing into the rhythm and when the music slowed she pressed her body against Kennedy, who represented the excitement she had been anticipating. This was a man who had money and influence in the West, he could bring her to that tropical island that her father had talked about, the name of which she could not even pronounce. Her father and Demirshian had instructed her to carefully follow the example of Erikkson’s friends. Erikkson was to them a model of those businessmen who had succeeded in the West.
Iris’ father, Landseberg, had been an apparatchik in the ex-Soviet intelligence system, he had adroitly moved over to the independence movement at the right moment, keeping friends with all those who could be useful, both in and out of power, nevertheless times were difficult, only hard currencies were of any real long term value. It would be a long up hill climb to consolidate his position in the newly developing capitalistic society, for that he needed money, and a lot of it.
He had been introduced to Erikkson by Anders Johansson, a Swedish businessman, when a Swedish investment group visited Tallinn, and had immediately seen how the Swedish banker could serve his needs. He had known Johansson for some time, he travelled frequently to Estonia where he had fallen under the charm of one of his daughter’s friends, Marietta.
Landseberg had taken advantage of Johansson’s liking for Tallinn and his infatuation to introduce him to a friend, Demirshian, an ex-KGB man, who had strong connections to the Russian and Chechen Mafiya. Demirshian using subtle KGB methods had soon introduced Johansson to his friends in Bashkiristan, who operated a large pharmaceutical plant, using him to channel funds from Estonia and Russia to Sweden.
The latest arrangement was another step to accelerate his enrichment and allow his daughter to enjoy some of the perks of his system, holidaying in the Caribbean on a Finnish passport acquired with freshly printed dollars. There was no point to attract unwanted attention by the lengthy visa procedures in Tallinn when they could take advantage of the EU passport. With Iris present she would be able to keep a watchful eye on Marietta and Erikkson.
Iris, a childhood friend of Marietta, had remained so even after Marietta’s family had fallen from grace under the communists. Marietta’s father had been interned in a psychiatric asylum by the regime, to cure his democratic and independentist deviation, and had returned a broken man after the communists had been ejected.
Though Marietta was a pretty girl she was perhaps more than a trifle naive, when she had met Johansson she had been encouraged by Landseberg who took advantage of her innocence. However there had been no way that Landseberg could detach his own daughter Iris from her friend Marietta and neither did he want to. Landseberg, who denied nothing to his daughter, had finally resigned himself to the fact that wherever Marietta went so would Iris. When Iris learned of Marietta’s departure to Sweden and the Caribbean she needed no more than a few moments to decide that she would join her with her father’s help.
Kennedy needed no encouragement as he danced close to her, holding her narrow waist he pulled her gently close to him, Iris offered no resistance. He could fell the softness of her hair and the warmth of her breasts pressed against him.
The music stopped and the leader of the Salsa band announced something that Kennedy could not understand in Finnish. A blast of the trumpets told him that it was time to return to their table as the band broke into a noisy version of ‘Maria’. Iris took him by the hand tightly and guided him back to their table, she sat down still holding his hand and looked at him tenderly, directly into his eyes.
The next morning they left the hotel as planned at six in the taxi they had been booked by the travel agent, a luxurious minibus fitted out with red velvet upholstery, the passenger seating arranged in an ‘L’ shaped form, with a table, TV, bar and a supply of hot coffee in thermos flasks and Danish pastries. Iris took the seat next to Kennedy.
“How are we this morning then!” Said Naseman not expecting an answer as he took the thermos and poured coffee into the plastic cups he had set out on the table.
There
was no reply. They had not drunk that much the previous evening but the night had been too short, the last two days had been exacting and had taken their toll in stress and fatigue. They just wanted to relax, but there was still another demanding day before them. Only when they had unloaded the money at the Handelsbank and were on the flight out of Stockholm could they really relax.
The drive to Pori was without incident; very little traffic just the monotony of flat endless pine covered landscape. The airport at Pori was tiny and there was no more than a cursory glance at their passports before they walked out onto the tarmac and climbed aboard a twin engined Cessna. Less than thirty minutes after arriving at the airport they were already taxiing to the runway and shortly after were climbing to small plane’s cruising altitude over the Baltic.
Naseman gave his usual self-satisfied smile and winked at Kennedy as if to say I told you so. The flight lasted just over an hour and they landed at Sundsvall airport on schedule. They picked up their bags from the conveyor and passed the passport control without the slightest sign of suspicion from the lone official. Naseman had been right; counterfeit currency smugglers did not use those small provincial airports.
Chapter 63
Johansson