by Howard Marks
I had to go back to Hong Kong to pick up some money being sent over by Gerry. I would have to overnight in Bangkok. There are worse fates. Phil was out of the country, so I checked into the Bangkok Peninsula, which is walking distance from the Erawan Buddha. It was a Friday. Sompop was there.
‘Sawabdee, Kuhn Marks, sawabdee, Kuhn Marks. I have Buddha for you. Please wear always.’
He gave me what looked like an antique bronze coin, but it clearly wasn’t currency.
‘Wear always, Kuhn Marks, except when with woman or when in toilet or when in bath, mai dee. Wear in sea or lake is okay, dee mak mak. No harm come to you, Kuhn Marks. You have good luck. Buddha look after you. Tomorrow you buy gold chain for Buddha. Wear always, Kuhn Marks.’
‘Ka poon kap, Sompop, thank you. How is the tuktuk going?’
‘Ah, Kuhn Marks, Sompop no more have tuktuk. You give money. I buy flower-seller business. You number one, Kuhn Marks.’
Sompop now had a gang of flower sellers hawking their wares to free-spending businessmen having a night of drinking and fucking in Patpong. As a means of intelligence-gathering, these would be second to none. I tried him out.
‘Sompop, have you seen my friend, the one I was with when I first met you?’
‘You mean Kuhn Phil. I know him but he no recognise me. Two night ago, him drink in Kings Castle with big black fahlang and fahlang from Amsterdam. Last night he leave for Australia.’
So Mickey Williams had somehow got hold of Phil, and the Dutch air-freight scam had, presumably, been resurrected, this time without me. I couldn’t really complain. I didn’t own Phil, and it wasn’t I who had introduced him to Mickey. But I was glad to know what was going on. Sompop was proving most useful.
At a Bangkok’s jeweller’s I bought a gold chain and also set the Buddha into a gold frame. I put it round my neck. I would abide by its rules.
At Hong Kong I met Daniel, Gerry’s powerfully built boat skipper. An Alaskan crab boat had been bought. It was being prepared for its duties. Daniel gave me a few hundred thousand dollars. I gave it to Malik’s friend in BCCI. Daniel also gave me a ghetto-blaster which had been modified into a short-wave radio transmitter/receiver. One could sit on a beach with it and communicate to the boat without attracting attention. Daniel wanted me to take it to Karachi. He said Gerry was on his way to London to see me.
A night in Hong Kong, drinking in Bottoms Up, was followed by another night in Bangkok, and then a day in Karachi. I put Dan’s ghetto-blaster into a room in George and Assumpta’s house that had been set aside for my own use.
I flew to Zurich to meet Hobbs. I was still too nervous to go to Amsterdam. I owed them seven months of my life. Hobbs said he thought the Amsterdam telephone-switching system, through which the previous few months’ travel, meeting, and banking arrangements had all been made, had been compromised. He couldn’t put his finger on the problem. It was just a feeling he had. He looked extremely worried. I told him to close down the Amsterdam operation, give me a bunch of passport photographs, and have a holiday in Bangkok. I told him how to contact Sompop.
In London, Gerry Wills, together with a friend of his, Ron Allen, had arrived before me. They’d brought some money. I’d asked John Denbigh and Jarvis to relieve them of the cash and take care of them until I got back. John and Jarvis both thought they had been observed during their meetings with Gerry and Ron. Another worry.
Ron Allen was from Chicago and was a major distributor of marijuana in the Midwest and Canada. Gerry wanted Ron to check the quality of the dope in Karachi. I couldn’t see that as presenting any problem.
Jimmy Newton gave me a false passport in the name of William Tetley. I gave him some money, orders for three false passports, and six photographs of Hobbs.
Hong Kong International Travel Centre’s Piccadilly office was officially opened by His Excellency Hu Ding-Yi, the Ambassador for the People’s Republic of China, and Madame Xie Heng, the Ambassador’s wife. His Excellency was introduced by Peter Brooke, the Member of Parliament for the area. Other guests included the Right Honourable Lord Bethell, MEP, senior members of foreign Embassies, and Hong Kong Government officials. Over a hundred people from the travel industry were present. I had invited all my family and friends. They would be impressed and comforted by my legitimate business success. We were the tenth largest travel agency in Great Britain, and we were doing most of the ticketing to Hong Kong and China. My daughter Francesca presented the Ambassador’s wife with a bouquet of flowers.
Balendo had become very keen on exploiting Malik’s relationship with Pakistan International Airlines to offer a cheap deal to China. He wanted to go to Pakistan and do some of his own travel research. I suggested he go immediately. I could use his company over there to lend credibility to my travel-agent cover. Visiting Karachi with two well-known American dope dealers, one needs all the front one can get.
Balendo, Gerry, Ron, and I flew separately to Karachi. I went first. I got drunk on the flight and reeled through Karachi airport looking for George and Assumpta, whom I’d asked to meet me. They were nowhere to be seen. I thought they might be waiting in their car outside. I walked out into the open car park. I could see the yellow ILCK car about twenty yards away. George and Assumpta were standing by its side, waving. To my left was a white car with three Caucasians inside. The driver looked like Harlan Lee Bowe. I drunkenly staggered up to the car. It was Bowe.
‘You waiting for me?’ I slurred.
The three stared at me in embarrassed silence.
‘Come on, admit it. You’re waiting for me, aren’t you?’
‘Why do you think we are waiting for you?’ one of the others said in a pronounced Dutch accent. I guessed him to be Holland’s ‘drug man’ in Pakistan.
‘I’m expecting to be met. You’re obviously waiting for someone, aren’t you? Are you sure it’s not me? Who are you waiting for? What are you doing here?’
‘Look,’ drawled Bowe, ‘we are not here to meet you, okay. Who were you expecting to see?’
‘Someone who fits your description.’
‘His name?’ asked Bowe.
What the hell was I doing? It was definitely not cool to be having this drunken banter with the DEA and Dutch CRI while I was in the middle of the biggest deal I’d ever done from Pakistan. I wriggled out.
‘Ah, there’s the guy I’m meeting. Sorry.’
I walked over to the ILCK car and got inside.
Balendo was arriving the next day. At the arrivals hall, I was peculiarly pleased to catch sight of Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise Officer Michael Stephenson furtively creeping around and whispering to Pakistani Immigration Officers. Let him see me meet Balendo. Let him see my impenetrable straight front. This would be fun.
Balendo did not emerge. Stephenson had disappeared. I gave it another hour, then asked an Immigration Officer if any more passengers from London were still to come through. I was told there were always some delays. I called Malik. Aftab and Malik arrived within about forty minutes. Malik had checked the passenger list. Balendo was on it. Malik had rung up the Immigration Department. Balendo was being detained. No further information.
I found this hard to take. Why would Balendo get held? If this happened to my straightest contact, what would happen when Gerry and Ron arrived tomorrow? Should I stop them?
Malik went to the airport Immigration Office. He would have a friend or cousin who worked there. After a while he reappeared with three Pakistani Immigration Officers and Balendo. Immigration were maintaining there was some irregularity in Balendo’s passport. It was a British Hong Kong passport, which as such did not entitle the bearer to quite the same range of privileges as a normal British passport. However, as Malik had offered to sponsor Balendo, it would be all right for Balendo to spend his intended few days in Pakistan. Malik seemed content with the explanation. I wasn’t. Perhaps simply because I’d noticed Stephenson.
George and Assumpta had employed a secretary for the school. She was one of the very few Chinese
living in Pakistan. Her mother, Ellie, ran an illegal Chinese restaurant which was very popular with the Europeans, almost a home from home.
We thought it would be a good idea to take Balendo, who was staying with us in George’s house, for a meal. Some Cantonese noodles might help him recover from his immigration ordeal. Armed with a few bottles of wine, the four of us turned up at Ellie’s. Sitting at a table were Bowe, the Dutch cop, and a few others. On the wall above them was a large poster advertising the International Language Centre, Karachi. They looked astonished to see Balendo. They got up and left. We had a good meal.
Malik and Aftab were waiting for us at George’s house. The Immigration Department had just called Malik. Balendo had to go back in detention. Malik had arranged that Balendo be ‘detained’ at the Karachi airport hotel, but that was the best he could do. We drove Balendo to the hotel. Balendo apparently fitted the description of a wanted Chinese heroin trafficker and could not be officially let into the country until extensive enquiries had been made.
Something was clearly adrift. Balendo has an enormous raspberry birthmark covering the side of his face. There isn’t another birthmark like it in the world.
The hotel was comfortable enough, but Balendo had seen enough of Karachi. He didn’t feel he could recommend it as a stopover to China. He wanted to go home. Malik fixed it.
George and Assumpta had made a number of friends in Karachi. One of them was Eddie, an American who was a medical consultant at the Aga Khan Hospital. He was away for a week and had garaged his car for safe-keeping at George’s house. The afternoon after Balendo’s arrival, I dressed up in my Afridi costume and drove Eddie’s car to the airport. Gerry and Ron were arriving from London. They had flown via Amsterdam. I hung about in a crowd of Pakistanis waiting for their friends and families to arrive. Bowe and Stephenson, each wearing dark glasses, drove up in the same white car I’d seen previously and ran into the airport. They quickly returned, got into another car, a dark blue one, and drove off.
Gerry and Ron came through Customs and Immigration. They laughed at my outfit as we climbed into Eddie’s car. I gave each of us a ready-rolled joint of our freshly made hashish. Blue fumes filled the car. I drove off in the direction of the city centre.
It wasn’t long before the dark blue car appeared in the rear mirror. As a pedestrian I have no difficulty losing a tail. As a driver I do, particularly when I’m stoned. I couldn’t think where to go. Bowe and Stephenson did not know I was driving this car. They were following Gerry and Ron, not me. There was no pressing reason to think they knew we were fellow scammers. I shouldn’t go anywhere where I was known. But I only knew how to get to places where I was known. God, I was stoned.
I mustn’t let Bowe and Stephenson get any information they don’t already know. That’s the key. I drove Eddie’s car to the Aga Khan Hospital and parked in the car park. Ron turned down the radio.
‘Whaw, this is some hash you got us, buddy. What do you think of it, Ron? You gotta sell it,’ said Gerry.
‘I’m stoned all right, guys, but I’d like to smoke some without tobacco, and without that fucking music. Man, is this place primitive. It’s like Mexico. Howard, why are we parked in this hospital? You got an appointment or a sudden medical problem? Don’t tell me this is where the dope’s stashed.’
‘Hey, that’s real cool,’ said Gerry, ‘stashing it in a hospital. I told you, Ron, this Howard is something else. Do you have another joint, buddy? This one’s kinda had it. Man, this is good gear.’
‘The DEA were waiting for you at the airport here.’
‘So fucking what?’ said Ron. ‘Those bastards wait for us everywhere. They were always on our backs in Mexico. They don’t know what we’re doing here. They don’t even know where we are right this minute.’
‘Yeah, it would be a drag if they knew where our stash was,’ commented Gerry.
‘They followed us here from the airport. They’re probably parked outside waiting for us to leave. The stash is nowhere near here.’
‘Then why the fuck are we here?’ asked Ron. ‘Let’s drive off, lose the tail, and go to the stash.’
‘This car belongs to someone who works at this hospital. That’s why we’re here.’
‘Oh, you’re returning his car,’ deduced Gerry.
‘No, he’s away for the week.’
‘Then why the fuck are we here?’ asked Ron, again. ‘Gerry, turn that fucking music off.’
‘Hey, man, some of it’s really far out. They can get it on. What’s the night-life scene like here, Howard? As good as Hong Kong? I thought Amsterdam was kinda neat with them hookers in the windows and cafés selling joints. I bet there’s loads of them here.’
‘Gerry, there’s nothing here: no bars, no hookers, no night-spots, nowhere you can smoke hash in public. Everything is illegal.’
‘You’re kidding. I thought this was where it all happened. Don’t you have a massage parlour here or something?’
‘That’s in Bangkok. We could go there if you like.’
‘Bangkok. That’s it. That’s full of hookers, right? Yeah, let’s go there when Ron’s seen the load. What kind of girls are they in Bangkok?’
‘Quit it, you guys, let’s get on with what we’re meant to be doing. Howard, you still haven’t told me why the fuck we’re parked at this hospital. Can we please get out of here?’
My security precautions were clearly lost on Ron. Luckily, it was getting dark. I passed out a few more joints, started the car, and drove like the clappers. I definitely wasn’t being followed.
We arrived at George’s house. Gerry and Ron were offered a drink. Gerry requested Jack Daniels on the rocks; Ron asked for a Heineken. They made do with home-made vodka and a bottle of London Lager, brewed and bottled in Murray Hill Station, Pakistan.
Malik turned up and took Gerry, Ron, and me to his warehouse, which now contained the entire load of twenty thousand kilos. Ron was happy. We went to Bangkok and checked into the Hyatt. The Panache body-massage parlour was in full swing. Phil came round. He quickly realised Gerry and Ron were smugglers and displayed his most hospitable side. They were given the best Thai weed available and shagged themselves stupid. They wanted to live in Bangkok. Once this Pakistan load had landed safely, they’d turn right around and pick up a load of Thai, a really big one. They were deadly serious.
Hobbs was still in Bangkok. He’d found about a dozen European gays prepared, for a small consideration, to make lifetime marital commitments to unknown Hong Kong hookers. He had their passport photographs. I explained to him that I needed to set up more telephone-switching stations as we were going to be very busy doing a load from Pakistan. I still favoured switching stations, but resolved to use each one only for a few specific calls. He would set one up in Hong Kong with his new wife’s assistance. He also had a friend in the Philippines, Ronnie Robb, who would be prepared to set one up in his house.
Gerry wanted to know if there was anywhere else like Bangkok in the Far East. Leaving Ron in a Bangkok massage parlour with the newly found love of his life, we flew to Manila on separate flights and checked into the Manila Mandarin. Gerry tramped around the brothels and fell in love with a Filipina hooker. For a small fee, she was delighted to make her telephone available. I saw Ronnie Robb and made an arrangement with him for the use of his phone. I had a couple of dinners with Moynihan and apologised for not having enough time to fly down to Davao and eat a tuna’s jawbone. Joe Smith and Jack the Fibber were both away in Australia. Gerry and I ran out of the personal dope we’d smuggled from Bangkok, found it impossible to score in Manila, and flew to Hong Kong.
April got us some dope, agreed to set up a phone station, and supplied Gerry with a stream of hookers. More of Gerry’s couriers arrived with bags of money, which I passed on to Malik’s man in BCCI. The total had reached $2 million.
Another phone station was set up in Singapore by Daniel and another of Gerry’s crew, and two more in London by Jarvis and John Denbigh. Flash had set up a few more
, masquerading as AIDS hot lines, in the United States.
By mid-December 1985, Gerry’s boat was in the Arabian Sea ready to be loaded. To Malik’s never-ceasing amazement, Gerry and a friend of his, Brian, stayed in the garden of George’s house and maintained continual contact with the boat via the modified ghetto-blaster. The time came to load. At a quiet little dock near the main port of Karachi, a wellcrewed dhow lay laden with our hash. Brian got on board. The dhow disappeared into the cool night. Two Pakistani Customs motor launches escorted it for a while, then silently returned. Gerry maintained radio silence. After what seemed like forever, but was probably about eight hours, the Customs motor launches set off again into the Arabian Sea. As dawn broke they returned escorting the dhow. A dour-looking Pakistani got out, carrying a crate of champagne as if it was filthy offal. He gave it to Gerry. Gerry gave it to me.
‘Ernie told me “champagne” was your code for success. We did it, buddy.’
Gerry and I flew to Bangkok for a quick celebration. Gerry stayed there. I went on to Hong Kong, bought a couple of suitcases full of Christmas presents and flew back to London.
‘So you’ve decided to be home for Christmas, have you? We are honoured.’
‘Sorry, love, it got complicated out there for a while, but it’s all okay now. I can take it easy for a few months.’
Christmas 1985 was fairly free from major business interruptions. I picked up a couple of false passports from Jimmy Newton to facilitate Hobbs’s bigamy and mailed them to Hong Kong. I ordered several more with the passport photographs of Hobbs’s Bangkok cronies.
