One Last Time

by James Hampson

  ‘Most importantly… he sees this as an opportunity to get one over on the British, who he detests due to the Falklands war, during which his eldest cousin was killed aboard the Belgrano when it was sunk, that’s why it was so difficult to get him to speak to us’ added Mike.

  Lyndon and Jack Reuben raised their eyebrows and Lyndon asked.

  ‘I can see why he hates the British after what happened to his cousin. What was the reason for him not being charged with murder?’

  ‘Lack of evidence the official report says, personally I think he has some influence over the authorities’ Mike answered.

  ‘Well I for one am looking forward to taking him down and I am sure you three are too, we will have to stay on guard though! Now for the technical stuff, which Jack will take us through.’

  Lyndon grabbed his cup off the table and walked to the refreshment table to pour some more coffee before taking a seat at the long table with his chair facing the screen at the front of the room.

  Lyndon Powell, Chris Hampshire and Mike Williams were seated around the long table in the room facing the projector screen where Jack Reuben was waiting to give his presentation. Jack Reuben was the technical brains of the crew that Lyndon Powell had assembled twenty years ago, always keeping pace with the changing technologies and staying one step ahead of the people whose money they were trying to take. Jack worked behind the scenes, rarely coming face to face with the mark, when he did it was for technical reasons that were all part of the long con.

  Jack looked at the screen and turned to the others in the room.

  'Now it is time for the boring but important stuff, as Chris told us Mr Ramos is Argentinian and hates the British, which helps us and how this job will work, by playing on that hatred'

  Jack then pressed a button on the remote to change the slide on the screen which was an atlas style map of the world. The others sat there looking bored already when Mike spoke out.

  'Every time we plan a job and have the brief do you have to show a map of the world, just put the part that we need up' he then let out a quiet chuckle to himself.

  Jack frowned at Mike.

  'Would you like to do the presentation?'

  Lyndon interjected 'Can you two give it a rest and let's get through this so we can go and get our stuff together and get set to go on this.’

  Jack clicked the remote again and the screen changed to a close up of the Falkland Islands with the two-hundred-mile exclusion zone shown as a lighter shade of blue compared to the dark blue of ocean on the map, within the exclusion zone four red dots had been marked in a horizontal line a hundred miles north of the islands.

  'As I am sure you are all aware that over the last few years it has been confirmed that there is oil in the South Atlantic, more specifically in the exclusion zone which was set up during the conflict with Argentina.'

  The others nodded in acknowledgement. Jack continued.

  'The company I have created for this task is called South Atlantic Oil and Gas, which is what Chris and Mike have been using for their meetings with Mr Ramos, I have secured drilling permits from the government for the four sites that I have marked out on the map, we paid twenty thousand pounds for the drilling permits. How does that make us fifty million pounds I hear you ask?’

  The others in the room stayed silent and shuffled in their chairs, they were used to this every time Jack discussed his plans.

  'Our government has legislated that only British companies can drill for oil within the exclusion zone, South Atlantic Oil and Gas has been registered at companies house in Cardiff with Lyndon as Chairman, Mike as Chief executive and Chris as the Managing director, websites have been made and accounts filed so any checking by Mr Ramos or his associates will bring back a company that is new on the scene but ultimately doing quite well and turning a profit, however it needs investment to develop the company further, which is the point where Mr Ramos comes in. He is willing to take control of our company for the price of fifty million pounds, which would put it under the control of ESPoil, yet remaining a British company just under a Spanish parent company. Most importantly what he wants are the drilling permits, that we have secured, allowing him to drill for oil In British waters.'

  Lyndon then stood up and walked towards the screen at the front of the room next to Jack and looked at Chris and Mike and asked.

  'So where are we up to with Mr Ramos?'

  Mike answered 'He is very much on board with this but he needs to meet with you Lyndon to seal the deal, shake hands, sign papers and all that stuff, what I don't understand is how is this a con when we actually have a company along with the drilling permits to sell?’

  'Well to put it simply it isn’t a traditional con, oil exists in the South Atlantic but nobody knows for sure where it is exactly, it is all guesswork at the minute, so basically Mr Ramos and Espoil are buying our company so they have the right to drill under a British name but the chances of them finding oil in those locations are slim.’

  Lyndon then walked over to where he was sat earlier, he took a sip of his coffee whilst still standing he then smiled and looked at the others in the room, he then leant on the table with his palms spread flat.

  'Right fellas, I am sure we have got all of the information we need for this.'

  The other three nodded in unison, agreeing with Lyndon.

  Lyndon then asked 'We are good to go on this then?’

  Mike replied 'Jack has prepared all of the paperwork to take with us, I will call Mr Ramos now and arrange the meeting then we can get ready to go.’

  Mike pulled his smartphone from his pocket and dialled Mr Ramos's number which after four rings was answered.

  'Hello Mr Ramos, it is Mike Williams calling from South Atlantic Oil, how are you?'

  Mike waited a few seconds for Javier Ramos to finish speaking then continued.

  'Very well thank you, as promised I have spoken with our Chairman Mr Lyndon Johnson and he is very much looking forward to meeting with you and getting this deal completed.'

  Another pause.

  'Ok, I have got that yeah ok we will see you on Tuesday, thank you good bye.'

  Mike ended the call and put his phone back away into his pocket and said nothing.

  Lyndon looked at Mike and said to him.

  'Well... what did he say and where are we meeting him?'

  'Next Tuesday, in Seville, Spain he has his summer residence there, he will tell us where exactly we will meet when we arrive.’

  'Right ok, it sounds like he wants to keep the upper hand all the way through this but let him have it his way and let him think he is getting the better of us, we will have the last laugh on this one. Jack as you are typing away am I right to assume that you are already looking at how to get us there?'

  Jack continued typing away and looked up at the others.

  'No direct flight from Liverpool, we either go over to Dublin or fly to Malaga from Liverpool then take a train from there, which takes about two hours. I have booked us rooms at a place called Hotel Ayre in the new town, which has a pool and is opposite Santa Justa Railway Station with a bus stop outside to get us into the old town, where I assume Mr Ramos will want to meet with us.’

  'Good work we will take the Malaga route, no point in taking two flights. We will leave Sunday, that then gives us two days to get a feel for the place and find our way around, we will call Ramos on the Monday and let him know we are there.'

  'Flights are booked, we leave Liverpool at seven Sunday morning due to arrive around eleven local time, we will then take a local train from the airport to the main station, where we will get on the train to Seville.’

  'Good work Jack, right then we best get packing, linen shirts and suits for me. I suggest the same for you guys I heard it is very hot this time of year but we still need to look the part.’

  Mike, Chris and Jack nodded in agreement with Lyndon. Jack closed his laptop and put it in his carry bag and the other three got ready to leave also. Lyndon straightened his tie an
d said to the other three.

  'We have a few days to relax, get ready and go over everything again before we set off.’

  The four men then left the conference room into the noisy and busy foyer and bar area, Chris went to the reception desk to let them know that they had finished with the room and walked back to the other three who had not moved.

  'Let's have a drink first before we go back home' Lyndon said.

  The four men walked into the bar area and took a seat at a high table with four high bar stools, a waitress then came over to take their order and they ordered four Belgian lagers. The waitress brought the beers over a few minute later and Lyndon gave the waitress a fifty-pound note and said to keep the change, the waitress thanked him profusely and smiled, she then walked away from their table. Lyndon took a sip of his beer then asked.

  'How do you feel about this one then?'

  Chris answered first.

  'Pretty good, everything is good to go and this is the biggest job we have ever done so a bit nervous too.'

  'It feels like our first job together twenty years ago, all nerves and a lot at stake, obviously this is the most we have ever tried to take and I will be very happy once we are back here with the money in our bank account.' Mike said.

  Jack said 'I agree with these two.'

  Lyndon then said 'I know that this will work out because we have the best team to pull something as big as this off, you really are the best and it's been a great twenty years, we have a great opportunity here and we just have to do what we do best and nothing will go wrong.'

  They continued chatting and when they had finished their drinks, they left the Hilton hotel and got into a taxi that the concierge had called for them. They set off for their homes to get ready to leave for Spain in a few days and hopefully pull off the biggest shakedown they had ever attempted.

  THREE

  Two hundred and twenty miles away at MI6 headquarters in London; the phone on Lawrence Sharif's desk began to ring, so he picked the receiver up after the second ring and pressed the little button on the console to open the line.

  He answered 'Sharif.’

  He then listened and moved the mouse on his computer with his free hand and clicked on his e-mails, he then replied with.

  'OK, copied thank you.'

  He clicked off the call, keeping the receiver in his hand and opened a new line and dialled four numbers which meant an internal extension number. Whilst waiting for the call to be answered he typed a letter in the address box on his emails and an address came up straight away as he had e-mailed it a number of times so the system recognised it, he then began typing when his call was answered.

  'Hello sir, I have just taken a call and we have a location for our target. I have read the briefing and I am ready to go' he said.

  He then listened and replied.

  'Yes sir, I will get my man on it and I will leave in the next thirty minutes' he listened again.

  'Yes sir, I understand, I will sort it all when I arrive thank you.’

  Lawrence hung up the phone and continued to type, he pressed send and logged off his computer then picking up his sports bag which was already packed from under his desk and left his office for Stansted Airport in Essex.

  At RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus; Wing Commander James Shaw dressed in the Multi-terrain combat uniform was sat with his chair laid back resting his feet on his grey wood standard military issue desk with his eyes shut. He was hungover and he had hung a sign on the outside of his office door saying meeting in progress, he was in no mood for visitors in his current state, his head was throbbing and his right hand had bruised knuckles. Even though his window was closed he could hear the whap-whap-whap of helicopters taking off and landing, along with the roar of jet engines which caused the filing cabinets in his office to vibrate and rattle which shook him awake every ten minutes or so.

  The sound of a Eurofighter Typhoon taking off shook him awake once more, he moved his right hand to his computer mouse and noticed that he had a bunch of un-read e-mails, which he ignored and closed his eyes again. Just as he started to drift off the phone on his desk began to ring, the screen showed that it was the station commander's office.

  'I am not in the mood for this today' he said aloud.

  Putting his feet on to the floor he grabbed the receiver and answered the call.

  'Yes, I will be there in twenty minutes thanks.'

  It was the Station commander's assistant calling to notify Shaw that Group Captain Bartlett wanted to speak to him in his office in thirty minutes.

  He then stood up and walked towards the mini fridge in his office, taking out a bottle of water, he unscrewed the cap and downed the bottle. Shaw wiped his mouth with his sleeve. He walked back to his desk and put the empty bottle in the bin before grabbing his beret off the desk, he then put it on his head as he walked out of his office and headed towards station headquarters to meet with the station commander.

  As Shaw walked into the bright sun outside, he said in his head.

  I wonder what this is all about then.

  He met with the station commander on a weekly basis as part of the station brief along with the other commanding officers for various departments and he spoke to him in the officers mess some nights. The station commander had never asked for him to meet in his office alone, except for the time when he had first arrived in Cyprus. That was a part of his job, to personally meet with all the new officers when they arrived at RAF Akrotiri.

  Wing Commander James Shaw arrived at station headquarters seven minutes after he had left his own office and stepped into the air conditioned cool of the building. The building was built in a T shape and the station commander’s office was along the left-hand side of the top of the T shape. Sat behind a desk in an open office was a corporal also dressed in multi-terrain combats, he was the station commanders P.A the one who had called earlier, Shaw said good morning to him and the P.A returned the compliment and said to go straight in. Wing Commander Shaw knocked on the door and heard a voice say ‘Come in.’

  He opened the door and stepped in to the office and saluted Group Captain Bartlett who was sat behind the military standard wooden grey desk in a high back leather chair. The office had a book case next to a filing cabinet, a plant in one corner and a fridge and drinks tray which had a decanter with an amber liquid in and glasses on in another corner.

  Scotch Shaw thought to himself, his hangover seemed to get worse as he thought about it. Group Captain Bartlett pointed to the visitor's chair with his hand opposite his desk, which was also a leather chair but with a low back instead of the high back the station commander had, he then asked James Shaw to take his beret off.

  At least this is informal he thought to himself, as he was in no mood for a formal chat, he just wanted a nice easy day to get over his raging hangover.

  The Group Captain who was dressed in a pink flying suit, they were standard issue in hot and sandy places, stood up and walked around his desk to the drinks tray and poured two drinks and handed one to James Shaw.

  He must be flying this afternoon Shaw thought to himself.

  ‘There are a couple of reasons I called you here James’ he said as he walked back behind his desk and sat back down.

  ‘I see Sir’ Shaw said before taking a sip of the drink which he figured to be some kind of bourbon, Makers Mark he thought to himself as the warm liquid worked its way down his throat and into his stomach.

  ‘Firstly, I took a phone call from a Cypriot Detective in Limassol this morning, asking if this man was one of mine, stationed here’ he said.

  He then rotated the screen for his computer around so that Shaw could see the image, which was a still taken from a CCTV camera, it was him outside of a bar in Limassol with two bodies on the floor next to him.

  ‘Is he one of ours Sir, I have never seen him before’ Shaw said with a smile.

  ‘That’s what I said to the Police five minutes before you walked in here, I said “I have gone through the systems and fo
und no match with the man on the picture to any of our personnel.” Now you are lucky that OC (Office Commanding) Police is on leave and that he had his out of office on his e-mail because the Cypriot police called the RAF Police and they put the call through to me, would you like to explain what happened last night or rather at three o’clock this morning.’

  Shaw took another sip of his bourbon and thought back to the night before, when he had gone out with some of his staff from the Intelligence office.

  ‘Well Sir, we went for some food in the village then after we had finished, a few of us took taxis into Limassol, we had some drinks and then we got separated’ He took another sip of bourbon.

  ‘I was walking along the road looking for a taxi, when a women started talking to me and asked if I would like to go with her for a drink, so we went to a bar nearby and got a beer for me and a Malibu for the woman, I can’t even remember what her name was, anyway after a few more drinks I decided to pay the bill and the barman showed me a bill for two thousand euros, naturally I laughed at him and said ‘’you have made a mistake on this pal’’, he didn’t laugh or even crack a smile.

  Then two bouncers came over and started demanding that I pay up, I obviously refused, saying I didn’t have that kind of cash on me. Or words to that effect. I remember then looking around and I noticed that the women had done a disappearing act. Even though I had had a fair bit to drink I realised it was a clip-joint scam.’

  Group Captain Bartlett was sat back in his chair listening and then asked.

  ‘What is a clip joint?’

  'It is a scam whereby an attractive woman approaches a tourist, usually a male before she then asks them for a drink whilst flirting with them and when the bill comes the women is nowhere to be seen, the bill is extortionate and you are strong-armed into paying it by intimidating doorman' Shaw replied.

  'Interesting scam, I could see how men would fall for it. So, what happened after you refused to pay?'

  'The bouncers then said ‘’we will take you to a cash machine so you can pay’’, they were Russian I think, definitely Eastern European, then we stepped outside with one behind me and one in front of me. We took about five steps forward before I launched my right elbow back smashing it back into the guys face behind me, I felt his face crush into my elbow then as the front guy was turning around to see what was happening I brought my arm into a forward motion made a fist and followed through into the side of his head, they both went down like empty suits and didn’t get up so I left and went to find a taxi' Shaw said before finishing his drink.