Max Argand owned a fine home not far from Hendaye, close to the village of Urrugne in Basque Country of France, it was a small mid-eighteenth century château that he had renovated with the help of Isaac Stein, transforming it into a stylish residence with all the comforts of the nouveaux riches, with nine guest rooms for his friends, a gymnasium and jogging course in the woods on his land that surrounded the house.
“You understand John my friends need discretion, they come down here to relax, here they have everything they need, the pool, the sauna. If they get tired of that they can take out the boat in the marina at Blanco’s.”
Serge Blanco’s was a luxury health resort hotel at Hendaye Beach facing Fuentarrabia on the Spanish side. The locals called it the ‘Thalasso’. It was a fashionable health centre for the wealthy, it naturally dispensed thalassotherapy to those who afford it, or could convince their doctor that the French National Health service would look after the bill, curiously there never seemed to be many needy or seriously ailing clients taking advantage of the massages and mud baths.
Moored in the marina was Argand’s extravagant ocean going motor yacht, sailing was not his thing, it was far too slow and required too much effort. The Tomahawk had been built a French yard; it was a Guy Gouach 3000, a magnificent boat, 30 metres long with three decks and capable of a speed of 32 knots. With a capacity of 18,000 litres of fuel it could cross the Atlantic from the Canaries to the Caribbean without the slightest difficulty in three days.
It was justified as a professional accessory for Argand’s television shows, to entertain his guests, the stars and celebrities who appeared each week in his spectacular presentations.
Argand’s television producer was also his close friend, Marc Gable, who produced and presented Argand’s fortnightly sports show on European and American pay television. They enjoyed a huge success sponsoring top-level international sports meetings around the world, excerpts of the best events were screened every Friday evening on their TV show ‘World Sports Report’. However they owed their success to a new and original formula that they had developed. They covered not only all top sports but devoted half of their show to the glamorous lives and loves of the star players, attracting a large female audience.
Argand had made a fabulous amount of money in the space of five years and had become an internationally know figure in the world of sports. He had cleverly reinvested his money in hotels and restaurants guided by the recommendations of his friend and financial advisor Xavier de Montfort.
It had been in Guadeloupe, where Argand had sponsored a world boxing championship meeting, he had met Courtauld. Courtauld had tried to sell Argand the idea of participating in the new hotel club complex to be built at Gosier, encouraged by de Montfort. They struck up a friendship motivated mutual interest and Courtauld, a sports fan, jointly sponsored a return match, which was a financial success and a first class promotional operation for Caribbean Property Development and Prestige Hotels.
Argand’s motor yacht was based in Europe during the summer months and in the Caribbean during the winter. At the beginning of May he had decided on a few days rest aboard the yacht, joining it in Saint Martin for the crossing to Las Palmas, before it continued its crossing with a stop over in Mohamedia, Morocco, and finally Palma de Mallorca.
The Tomahawk could comfortably sleep eight guests in four cabins, while Argand had a suite that covered the full width of the boat, reached by a lift from the main deck. For the Atlantic run his crew was six and the crossing from Saint Martin they would need eight days including the stops.
Stein was to join them for the run from Point-à-Pitre, as well as Gable who liked to vaunt his skills as a sportsman, though there was not so much sport on such a motor yacht except in its small gym, boredom was more the rule for such trips aboard the Tomahawk, especially when the weather got rough, ruining appetites, drinking and card playing sessions.
Arrowsmith had no intention of making the trip with Argand, eight days on a motor cruiser was much too long to support in their hollow company, too closed in, too tiring, with the constant drone of its motors and air-conditioning and the endless movement. The crossing was by no means guaranteed calm and the vast open stretch of water was too much for his very limited seamanship.
Gable had other plans for the Tomahawk in the marina at Gosier. Their business required vast amounts of money to set up the sports meetings to maintain his prime time slots, to cultivate the stars, and maintain the jet-set image.
The celebrations and parties went on night after night in the marina or at anchor in the bay. The coming and going of the motor launches during the day with food, drink and personnel, and during the night with guests and TV crews.
Under the cover of the almost constant arrivals and departures another cargo was loaded onto the boat, pure cocaine, almost two tons.
The TV and sports stars, the minor celebrities and hangers on that drank Champagne and paraded themselves before the cameras on the deck of his boat knew little of the cargo that was hidden in the false bulkheads below the decks, neither did they care, they were to full of themselves, their fixed smiles that had made their dentists rich, their empty conversation. They also were the clients of the dealers, sniffing cocaine at one hundred dollars a gramme.
The girls with their silicon tits and silicon lips, the men with their hair implants and face lifts. The noise of the music was so loud that their conversations were limited to sentences of three or four words. The majority of the men were interested by the men and the women by the women.
When the week long party finally came to an end, the Tomahawk departed from Gosier, after a flurry of goodbyes from the local celebrities, officials and organisers not forgetting the television reporters, for its long trip back to Europe via St Martin and the Canary Islands.
Gable disembarked at Las Palmas leaving the final run to Palma de Mallorca to his crew. He returned to Madrid and San Sebastian by air where he awaited news of the successful delivery of the goods.
Marc Gable had sensed that there was a killing to be made in the stockmarket. The Nasdaq was forging ahead each day in leaps and bounds in Hi-Tech share trading. He was a man who was persistently unsatisfied by his lot in life; in spite of the wealth he had accumulated in showbiz he felt it was not enough. He had instructed his broker to invest in hot shares that were riding high in the economic boom.
To his satisfaction his worth increased daily and he boasted that he would soon be a dollar billionaire. He invested profits and future profits of Argand’s company, Argand Productions Inc., in shares and borrowed heavily against their market value from the company’s American bankers.
When the crash came Argand Productions was deep in debt, owing over one hundred and fifty million dollars to the banks.
Running cocaine on the Tomahawk into the Canaries and Mallorca, was his only hope of staving off financial collapse, each trip was worth tens of millions of dollars. With his links to the Miami Mafiya he could delivery of up to two tonnes of cocaine on each trip to Europe aboard the Tomahawk. The cargo had a market value of over two hundred million dollars.
The Tomahawk carried nineteen tons of fuel and ten tonnes of water. A small reduction in the fuel and water requirement by one or two stops left more than enough capacity for their cargo. In any case a couple of extra tonnes were no problem for the Tomahawk. The displacement of the motor cruiser over one hundred and twenty tonnes, the cargo changed practically nothing to her water line.
Gable was an international celebrity known for his success and wealth and his arrival in Marbella or Mallorca simply attracted his fans and the media, but never any possible suspicion as to his illegal activities.
Chapter 68
Bowled Over!
Offshore Islands Page 67
