The Untouchable (57 page)

'We need, my friend, a cloth to clean the table.'

When the table was cleared and wiped, Mister sat down. With the Eagle and Atkins, he took one side of the table, made the living room into a board room with him playing the part of chief executive officer.

Mister had said, the last thing before they'd hit the gravel in front of the house, 'We find a room with a table, we sit down one side of it. We do not take off our jackets or loosen our ties. We are not slumped in easy chairs. We are in control - they are bloody lucky to have us.' They sat opposite. They were casual in dress and posture, and their jewellery dripped from them. The contrast was powerful, as Mister had wanted.

It was the nearest he would come to an apology in that finest hour. ' I regret that I do not speak Italian, Russian or Turkish. Neither do my colleagues. I hope we can manage in the English language.'

They gazed at him impassively.

'That's taken, then. Two things I want to say first. I am grateful to you, Serif, for making this meeting possible. I appreciate that it has not been easy for you to bring together three gentlemen with differing schedules, all important. You have, Serif, my sincere thanks.' The Eagle wondered whether they had carried guns into the house. Atkins had left their own weapons in the Mitsubishi, as Mister had instructed, and each of them during the introductions had, offhand, flapped back their jackets to show they were not armed, as Mister had ordered. ' I work on one strong principle that is not negotiable. My word is my bond.

I make a deal and I guarantee that, to i he best of my ability, the deal is carried through, and the "best of my ability" is good. Serif will tell you that I have done a deal with him and that the promised monies are now lodged in his account in Nicosia, as I said they would be. You will all have associates in London. You will have checked with them. You will have asked about me. You will have been told that I am a serious player. So, gentlemen, do I have your attention for my proposals?'

The Eagle could not decide which of them had the cruellest eyes.

'You will allow me to give you my evaluation of the common factor affecting all three of you. In London you do not fulfil your business potential - you fall far short of what could be achieved. That's where I can help, where I can make a difference in your profitability.'

The Italian had the youngest eyes, but there was no sparkle in them to match his smile.

'You bring in, Marco, product from Venezuela and Colombia, but your difficulty is getting it into the European marketplace. I suggest you ship direct to the ports of Montenegro, then take a series of options.

You can handle the product yourself and use the Adriatic bridge to Italy, or you can avail yourself of the lorry network I will be setting up in Bosnia. It can be used to move your product either east or north. If you wish it, and your product goes to the UK, I will make available to you the dealer and distributor infrastructure that I already have in place. You will meet with no competition, you will not have to fight a turf war because I will be your ally and no man in London will fight against me. The market will be cleared for your use. That's what I'm offering you, Marco, and I would like you to consider it carefully.'

The Russian had narrow, slitted eyes, and the bags under them were puffed.

'As I understand it, Nikki, you and your colleagues make a great deal of money, but that's where your difficulty starts. What to do with the money? I anticipate that you will find it increasingly hard to use the facilities of Russian banks in New York, Cyprus or Hungary. Those banks are going to come under intensive law-enforcement scrutiny. To maximize the return on your hard-earned profits, you need access to legitimate banking. That's the City of London. I can provide you, for a most reasonable fee, the opportunities to rinse through the City, through introductions. No more grey hairs, stress-free banking

. . . In addition, you are engaged in people-trafficking, but it's chaotic and amateurish, and too many of your people consignments go down because you do not have the expertise of .1 British partner. I can be of help

- a n d I can help with your automobile trade, and your weapons trade. London is not merely a major street-market, it is also .a name. London is respectability. The name of London opens doors, as you will find if you take up my offer, worldwide.'

The Turk had small eyes, set close together, and they squinted.

'Thank you for your patience, Fuat. You're a big man. Where you operate you are king, except in one area. I handle your product. I'm at the end of the line, but in Green Lanes. I am buying the product you have purchased, refined, then shipped on for importation into the UK. The importation is where you are not king, far from it. I read my newspapers, just as I am sure you read yours. Not a month goes by without the interception of a consignment of product at the British ports. Naturally, you rely on Turkish transportation -

Turkish lorries and Turkish shipping. The cargo on such lorries and ship containers attracts the greatest attention. Payment is on delivery, so if the importation is busted you don't get the money. I am suggesting that you deliver into Sarajevo, that Sarajevo is the transit point for both of us. A blind donkey can bring the product into Sarajevo, any lorry with any plates can get through, and that's where you'd be paid. It's less for you, of course, than for importation direct to the UK, but it's less risk. I can use British-registered lorries with British passport-holders driving them, and they're waved through when your transport is stopped, searched. With due respect to you, nothing gets a Customs man's nose sniffing faster than a Product of Turkey stamp on a cargo consignment of ceramic tiles or oranges or whatever you want. What you gain is money, what you lose is the headache and the hassle. That's my proposal to you.'

The smoke of their cigarettes made a wall along the middle length of the table and watered their eyes, but they stared at Mister unblinking.

'I've done my deal with Serif, and I'm very happy with the terms agreed. I can predict with confidence that he is going to be a good friend to me, like a brother . . . Each of you three gentlemen had influence in the running of this country, and I believe that influence will grow as the foreign powers withdraw. I intend to operate here, and I am asking for your co-operation, your partnership, in our mutual self-interest . . . I'd like to take a break now. In the break you, Marco, Nikki and Fuat, have a chance to think over what I've said and to decide whether to take it further. If any of you decide not to, then, please, feel free to back off, and leave. If you feel you wish to move ahead, into those new areas of product profitability that I have outlined, then I will talk detail and percentages. Would a fifteen-minute break be satisfactory? I want to settle it at this session, I want to wrap it up.'

He stood, smiled briefly, then went to the door, Atkins and the Eagle in his wake.

It had been Mister's finest hour, a masterclass. He'd heard it all before, of course, but there had been no mere parrot's recitation of the Cruncher's vision. It had been softly spoken persuasion, and never an interrupt ion, never a yawn. They were the Cruncher's words, but only Mister could have spoken them into the cruelty of those eyes.

'How did I do?'

They were the courtiers. Atkins told him he'd done well. They knew their lines and meant them. The Eagle said he had been magnificent.

'Christ, I fancy some fresh air, away from that bloody cigarette smoke.'

The dog, Nasir, played up, was whining, and Muhsin tried to soothe it. Joey didn't know why they'd brought it. He sat cross-legged on the flat stone in front of the gully. He had the camera slung round his neck, with the big lens attached, and beside him was the dish with the antenna probe, but Maggie had said all she could hear was music, at least four sound sources, and the radios cluttered up any chance of voices. She'd said that if she'd been in her workshop she might have been able to clear the music off the track and get to hear the voices, and he'd said that she wasn't in her bloody workshop but on a bloody hill in Bosnia, and she'd chucked the earphones off her head.

The sun was down over the hills in the west. When the darkness had come, Joey had gone onto the flat stone, as if that was escape from them, and from the dog. He didn't know when Frank had told her, hadn't heard him whisper the name of Judge Delic.

The dog wriggled on its back behind him and Muhsin whispered to it, and Joey heard his fingers scratching at the dog's belly.

Joey knew everything about the dog, and the dog's name. Muhsin had thought he'd be interested, when they were in the gully, to know the history of the animal and its name, and Frank had tediously translated.

'He was the best fighter that came out of Muslim Bosnia, better than any of those who were generals or brigadiers, better than Serif. Nasir Oric held Srebrenica for three years. If he had not been there it would have fallen months before the end, perhaps years before. He was a natural leader, only twenty-six years old when he took command of us. He had been a bodyguard to Milosovic in Belgrade, but he came back to us when war was inevitable. He called his men the "manoeuvre unit" and his own weapon, he carried it himself, was a fifty-calibre machine-gun.

The Serbs were terrified of him. He went out from our perimeter lines into their villages .. .'

Maggie had interrupted, 'Fuck the shaggy-dog story. What you did was inexcusable. To carry on, not telling us, like nothing had happened when authorization was withdrawn - to tell Frank now, that is a fucking disgrace. It's betrayal. We are illegal. What is this bullshit about promises?'

He ignored her, didn't rise to her carping, and asked Frank to go on with the story, as told by Muhsin.

'When the word spread in the enclave that Nasir Oric was going out that night at the head of the manoeuvre unit, with the fifty-calibre, the people in that part of the front line where he would go out would leave the aphrodisiac of watered honey mixed with crushed walnuts in jars outside their homes, and he would drink, and then he would go to kill Serbs. It was not so that he could fuck better that they left out the aphrodisiac, but so he could kill better .. . And, I called the dog Nasir . . . '

Maggie had said, 'Shit, my people would scalp me if they knew - after all I've done for you.'

Since the dark had come, and the cool, it had been harder to keep the dog quiet, and the big brute had lost interest in the bone, and . . . Light flooded out of the door ahead of him. Joey, from the rock, waved for quiet down in the gully.

He saw the three of them, Mister, the Eagle and Atkins, standing tall.

They left Dragan Kovac's home. It was becoming a ritual, and welcome.

At the end of the day, when the dusk made it impossible for them to work in their taped corridors, a few of them - and the foreman - came to his home, sat on his porch with him and drank his plum brandy He thought they needed the alcohol because of the work they did. The sun was long gone over the hill to the west of the valley when they lurched off up the track to the junction where their pick-ups were parked by the caravans.

The foreman shouted back, as he disappeared into the evening darkness, 'Thank you, Dragan, and have a quiet night.'

He laughed loudly. 'I have enough of them to know them too well. They are all quiet nights.'

'They think it's going according to his plan,' Maggie murmured. 'Sounds as if there's been a preamble, and now it's a break. The detail's going to follow if the others decide to come in . . . Eagle says that Mister's done well, but he says the others are hostile, suspicious and wary, but they like the money on offer.

The money's good but - this is Eagle - they're still cautious. Mister says it'll depend on the percentages

. . . God, can't one of you throttle that damn animal?'

She was on the flat stone beside Joey, the earphones on her head, and she tilted the dish with the antenna spike so that it was aimed at the three men who stood on the gravel between the house door and the parked vehicles. Frank was with her, and Ante and Fahro.

Behind the stone, in the gully, Muhsin and Salko lay on the squirming dog, scratched its stomach and tousled its neck.

'The Italian, that's Marco, is going to be asked to pay fifteen per cent of the value of cocaine handled by Mister's network in the UK - no, that's the negotiating point. They'll come down to twelve and a half per cent, it's Eagle, he says that's the bottom line . . .

Nikki, the Russian - City banking, City of London, laundering. Ten per cent is the minimum, but starting at eleven and a half per cent of all monies washed through Mister's placemen. They've gone on to more percentages - still with Nikki, but it's people-trafficking . .. God, they are talking big money.

Corporation stuff .. . Jesus, throttle it or gag it, but shut it up.'

'The weapons trade, Mister - I suggest not too hard to start with,' the Eagle said, in deference.

'London's the conduit for the trade, Mister. Best place he could work out of - access into Africa and the Middle East.' It was Atkins's first contribution: he felt shut out, sidelined. He was ignored.

'Start at six and three-eighths, on the first million, and go down to five and seven-eighths,' Mister said, with confidence. 'Nine per cent on the second million, ten on what's on top of that, if he goes through our contacts.'

'Sounds about right,' the Eagle muttered. 'Now the Turk, that is some evil bastard.'

Mister grinned balefully. ' I expect his mother loves him.'

'The Turk we pay thirty-five thousand pounds sterling, delivery in Sarajevo, for refined product, per kilo, as against the forty-five you're paying now.'

'So, I'd he getting, maximum, thirty-six per kilo?'

Somewhere in the darkness above them, a dog barked. It was ,It sharp, baying, deep-throated bark.

'Three point six million for one hundred kilos. I think I can live with that. If it's not lorries, I was starting to think of all those regattas over the North Sea . . . '

There was a second bark, but it was stifled abruptly, then a low whine, then nothing.