“Yes, yes yes, a thousand times yes’.”
Tumbling backward onto the sand they kissed once more. This was truly a magical night.
34. Nexus
“What the fuck happened to you? I’ve been on my lonesome for days now, you skiving sod,” said Petera light-heartedly.
Tony explained.
“I had a funny turn, and was carted off to hospital. The missus thought I had had a heart attack, but it turned out that it wasn’t.”
“You should have told me, naughty boy. Sure you’re OK?”
Tony smiled at his friend.
“Yes. I just got over stressed and collapsed. I thought that Nadine was onto our operation here. Remember she rang the restaurant and some pillock told her that I didn’t work there? Well, she hasn’t stopped asking questions about it. She thinks there’s something fishy about the whole deal.”
Tony Graham-Collins was an expert at telling lies and he knew that there was greater safety in telling half-truths. Petera slapped him on the back.
“Good to have you back pal, I missed you.”
“Thanks Bro’, but I can’t say that I’m glad to get back to this shitty job. What are we doing today?”
“I’ll put the jug on and bring you up to speed over a cup of tea.”
“Sounds good. How was your trip away with Rewa and Robbie?”
“Brilliant. The Bay of Islands is definitely the place for me, when I’ve got enough money together. I’ll retire from this hellhole and move up there. I reckon if I ask Rewa to marry me she’ll say yes, but I’ve got to be clean. I couldn’t be doing this shit behind her back; I couldn’t stomach telling her lies.”
“What about Alice? She’ll be jealous. Wouldn’t surprise me if she never speaks to you again.”
“Oh, she’ll be fine, a couple of apples and she’ll be putty in my hands. She loves Rewa as much as I do. She’ll forgive me.”
“What did you get up to while you were up in Paihia?”
“Robbie and I went fishing. Out past the “Hole in the Rock” it was brilliant. We caught some really nice snapper and Robbie caught a small bronze whaler. Everyone on the boat said that he should keep it, but you remember what he’s like about killing things, he wouldn’t have a bar of it. So, we released it. He hugged me so hard I was speechless. He’s such a great kid Tony, anyone would be proud to be his father.”
“You’d better ask his mother to marry you, before someone else does. Actually, I might ask her myself. If Nadine doesn’t give up with the questions, I think I might swap the old one for a newer model.”
“Get behind me brother. But you’re right, I don’t think I can wait much longer. It’s like an itch I can’t scratch and it’s getting worse each day.”
“An itch? You’re talking about the woman you love you big lug, not a bloody flea.”
“I’m not as educated as you, I haven’t got the fancy words that you’ve got,” explained Petera. “This is my first serious love affair since I fell in love with my maths teacher at school. I’m a novice in this department.”
“Bloody hell, a thirty-year-old virgin, I thought they were extinct. We should have you in a museum.”
“It’s a good job that I know you better, I’d swear you’re making fun of me.”
Petera looked at his friend and smiled. There was nothing he could say that he hadn’t already said. He was hopelessly in love with Rewa and Robbie.
Petera put the mugs of tea on the table.
“Here you go, get your laughing tackle round that, I suppose you want a bloody biscuit as well.”
“Course I do. Have I ever refused, especially the chocolate ones you buy?”
“Yes, you greedy sod, you eat all mine before you start on the shitty things you buy. It’s about time that you coughed up for some Squiggles.”
“I can’t stand seeing your biscuits go stale while mine are still in the packet, it doesn’t make sense.”
They both laughed and both spilled their tea. Even though they were both from very different worlds, they had a bond between them. Yet there were secrets that they could never share. The life of a gang member was a million miles away from that of a middle-class chemist. Only Tony knew the Sutic brothers, the world of Terra Brasil and of the money. Only Petera knew Sonny Rewaka and the world of drug distribution. Tony and Petera were at the focal point where those two worlds shared a converging purpose, – crystal ice, and the generation of money.
***
Alex MacLean arrived at work early Wednesday morning, at Customs House in the heart of Auckland’s Central Business District. Arriving early meant he could leave earlier than normal; he had a dentist appointment in Dominion Road. A root filling that needed completing, thankfully the painful part of the procedure was over.
At his desk, Alex logged onto the Customs Database in the normal way, then opened his e-mail. There were twenty-two, most of them housekeeping notes about the imminent closure of the database while Datacom technicians installed much needed modifications that would speed up the beast. Not before time either, the waiting time for the system to process information had become embarrassingly slow as the system had expanded. With the recent advent of the Secure Export Partnership, the New Zealand Customs side of the US Container Security Initiative, the database had had to double its capacity overnight, dealing with export intelligence data as well as the more traditional import data. The system would be down for three hours on Thursday, starting at midnight, as a result all the current data had to be backed up and secured. Although the intelligence analysts had been preparing for this down time for a couple of days, everyone was a little worried that the process might wreck something vital.
Alex had recently returned from a residential Advanced Intelligence Analysts course, (AIA). During this course they had half a day on the second customs service database and data-mining tool called Nexus. This collated information about all imports into and exports out of New Zealand. What it allowed the customs officers to do was target a specific cargo, say light bulbs, imported from specific origins, say Iceland, over any specified time period, say 1997 to 2000. This would give all kinds of information to the intelligence analysts about every light bulb shipment from Iceland between those two dates; who imported them, who shipped them, what ship they arrived on, who was the import agent, what import duty was paid, how big the shipment was and so on. All the intelligence officer had to do was to specify the parameters of the search. But that was the difficult bit, and why it was specifically treated on the AIA course. One of the issues addressed on the course were the pitfalls of entering the wrong search parameters, ones that would cause the system to crash, a big deal for a national database and very embarrassing for the analyst who caused the system to fail. Another point addressed on the course was that if incorrect search parameters were entered, the search result would also be erroneous, and this may lead to incorrect analysis, the worst being that a smuggling operation would go undetected.
Armed with a new analytical tool, and faced with the Customs Database downtime, Alex would use Nexus to compile information about his pet project, the mysterious Tony Graham-Collins.
The first search, not surprisingly, revealed that Graham-Collins hadn’t imported anything. That was not unexpected, he was supposedly a restaurant manager and they were usually too low down the food chain to be involved in the importation of goods for the restaurant. Perhaps the owners of Terra Brasil, Dino and Levorko Sutic, had imported goods? The second search told Alex that they hadn’t. However, when he entered the name of the restaurant, it registered a number of import entries, mostly for catering equipment and a few specialist foods such as manioc and guarana. Alex scoured the import manifests for anything suspicious, but there was nothing. The import agent who dealt with all the restaurant imports was a man called Jonathan Littman. By this time other intelligence analysts had arrived in the office, and Alex looked across the room and saw that Robin Hickman, his collective analyst, had also arrived.
“Hey Robin
, have you ever heard of an import/export agent called Jonathan Littman?”
“I don’t recall the name. I don’t know all of them though, Damien may know, he’s dealt with most of the agents. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, I was just doing a Nexus search on Terra Brasil, the Brazilian restaurant on the waterfront. His name popped up as their usual agent.”
“Still after that chemist-come-restaurant-manager? I thought you would’ve dropped that by now.”
“Well, I have really, but as we were taught how to use Nexus on the AIA, so I thought I’d have a go with it this morning.”
“Hey Damien,” Robin shouted across the room to Damien Afu, the most experienced intelligence analyst in the Goods section, “can you spare a minute?”
Damien Afu was of Tongan extraction and had worked for the New Zealand Customs Service for over twenty years. During that time, he had been in nearly every department, with the exception of the Dog Section, he hated dogs for some reason.
“Damien,” asked Alex, “have you ever had any dealings with a Jonathan Littman, he’s a…”
“An import/export agent. Yes, I know him quite well actually. He’s a good bloke, got a small bond store near the Orakei Basin. Why, has he stuffed up his tariff calculations again?”
“No,” interjected Alex “I was just doing a Nexus search for a restaurant on the waterfront, and his name came up as the shipping agent.”
“Alex is pursuing his mysterious chemist/restaurant manager again,” laughed Robin Hickman.
“I thought you had got that out of your system a wee while ago Alex,” said Damien.
“Nexus came up on the AIA course, so I thought that I’d search for anything to do with the Graham-Collins guy.”
“Well, don’t let Robin put you off the search. If you have a hunch that something is wrong, go with it until you’ve exhausted every means possible to prove or disprove your hypothesis. You’ll be surprised how many times a hunch turns up a positive result. So, stick with it Alex.”
Alex smiled at his confederate.
“Well, I think that I’ve come to the end of the road with this particular hunch, there doesn’t seem as if there’s anything fishy about this guy after all. Anyway, thanks for the heads up with Littman, I appreciate your input.”
“No problem Alex.”
When Alex returned to his desk, he looked at the information he had discovered about Terra Brasil before he pressed the print button. Even though he had been doing this job for over a year, he still found it hard to read any lengthy report from the computer monitor directly, he much preferred a hard copy. The printer was in another room and so Alex had to walk past the coffee room to retrieve the printed version of his Nexus search. The temptation was too great, so on his way back to his desk, he stopped to make himself a strong coffee. By the time the kettle had boiled he had finished reading the report. The only thing he found of interest was that a single ship conveyed most of the materiel for the restaurant, a ship called the MV Olga Tovic. She was a medium sized cargo vessel owned by some Croatian consortium, but registered under the Liberian flag of convenience.
Alex understood the owners of Terra Brasil were Croatian, so the fact that they used a Croatian vessel for most of their few imports was of little significance. He decided he would have to search Nexus for details of the other cargoes the Olga Tovic brought to the New Zealand shores, that is when he had a free minute from his routine analyses. Routine, that meant Contac NT, the plague of every branch of the New Zealand Customs Service. If he didn’t keep going with the reports his personal work queue would get out of control. So, the Olga Tovic would have to wait a little longer.
***
“She’s out of hospital then?” enquired Petera.
“Yes, both she and her devil spawn,” replied Petera’s lifelong friend, Hohepa Morgan.
“Do you think she’ll continue her crusade against Sonny?”
“I saw her in hospital a few weeks ago and the subject didn’t come up, but I doubt it. She’s crippled with that smashed kneecap, something she’ll be reminded of every time she moves. She never mentioned the Turangi incident once. Janet Packwood though, she’s still spitting fire and brimstone, still seeking revenge for the death of Vince Eremia. Ngaire though wants to forget the whole thing. If it comes to an arse kicking competition she’ll always be handicapped. I understand that when Packwood tried to rev up Ngaire about continuing the feud she was told to “shut the fuck up.” Sort of tells me that her heart ain’t in it anymore.”
Petera grunted. “What about the Rupene brothers?”
“I haven’t spoken to Pete, he’s got no brain anyway, but Brian told Mere that he wished he’d never listened to Ngaire in the first place. I think Brian’s scared shitless. He knows that Sonny will kill him the next time he steps out of line. Both he and his brother will never run again, so Sonny and his boys can easily catch them any time they want. So, with her so-called muscle quaking in their boots, she’s got no one to fight her battles. Packwood’s all piss and wind and no fucking use in any battle. So Ngaire has isolated herself, game over.”
“I think knee capping the lot of them sent a strong message to any floaters that if they’re disloyal, in any way, they will be fucked,” stated Petera.
“Certainly, make you think twice about it, wouldn’t it?”
“Another brew?”
“Don’t mind if I do Bro’, have you ever known me to refuse a drink?”
When Petera returned, Hohepa saw that his friend was pensive.
“What’s fuckin’ with your head now Bro’?”
“It’s Rewa I love her and I can’t stop thinking about her. I think I want to pop the big question.”
“So, you’ve come to your senses at last, have you?” exclaimed Hohepa. “It bloody well took you long enough. So, when’re you going to ask her?”
“I haven’t got that far yet. I was just running it by you first. What do you think?”
“I’m surprised you even have to ask me. I love the girl too; I think she’s brilliant for you. I’ve told you as much a thousand times. If you don’t ask her soon, I’ll bloody ask her myself.”
“Bog off Casanova. It wouldn’t be the first time that you’ve stolen a girl off me. And this one’s off limits to you, you dirty dog.”
Hohepa stood up. “I think we need something a little stronger than Lion Red, what do you say?”
“Yes, it’s a Jim Beam moment, I think. Stay where you are I’ll get it.”
“No, I’ll come with you, we’ll share a bottle.”
As the night wore on and the level of bourbon in their bottle diminished, a single question remained unanswered. If he married Rewa he would have to give up the farm, and the Skorpions would no longer have a representative working in the lab. Petera couldn’t think of anyone that Sonny could replace him with. He was fucked to say the least. He also realised that his cover story, of inheriting the farm, would fall over and as sure as eggs are eggs, Rewa would discover what they were really doing at The Finches. That would mean the end of their relationship. The only answer was to talk to Sonny to see what he thought. What had started as a celebration had now deteriorated into a tormenting conundrum.
***
Alex held Leanne’s hand as they were shown to their table at the Terra Brasil restaurant. Neither of them had ever eaten Brazilian food and so had no fixed expectations of what it would be like. When Alex looked at the menu it was all in Portuguese, and other than broad headings that he interpreted as hors d'oeuvres, entrées, and desserts, he didn’t have a clue what to order. He called the waitress across and asked her what she would recommend.
“I will of course help you with your order, though we do have an English version of the menu if you wish. I must apologise, the Maître d́ ought to have asked you which menu you required before you were seated.”
Within a minute the young waitress returned with the alternative version of the menu.
“Sir, I would recommend that you start with
Pastel Frito with a shrimp filling. These are deep fried savoury pastry pockets that can be filled with a multitude of things, but the shrimp is a favourite. For a main course what meat would you like, chicken, beef or a seafood dish?”
Alex looked across the candlelit table at his wife. “Leanne?”
“I think chicken would be nice, what do you suggest?”
“I would recommend Chicken Ximxim this is a Chicken stew with shrimps it also has in it roasted peanuts, tomatoes and coconut milk. Or an alternative might be Frango Ensopado. This is a Chicken cut sautéed with annato in a sauce. We import the annato seeds from Brazil. They don’t have much flavour, but they add a rich yellow-orange colour to the dish. At home I would use a mixture of paprika and turmeric. Both of these dishes are served with a bed of wild rice.”
Crystal Ice Page 40
