Den of Snakes

by Damian Vargas

  The entire crew was looking at Eddie now.

  He knew he should walk away and get the hell out of this accursed town, but Charlie was right. Again. Eddie had seen what Bobby Pickering and his crew were capable of. They were not ‘old school’ villains. They were of a new breed. The kind that was willing to do anything and hurt anyone that got in their way. Eddie had shot men in the army, and he had shot Gerry Lannigan. That made him a killer. Pickering, however, was a cold-blooded murderer and Eddie had no doubt that he was a threat to the women. Sending them back to England would make them no safer.

  And if that was true, he thought. ‘Then what’s stopping the bastard getting to Mary’ He sat back down on his chair and downed the remains from his glass of scotch.

  ‘I’ll do this, but not for you or this fucking crew,’ he said. ‘I’m doing it for my daughter’.

  ‘Good,’ said Charlie. ‘Set it up Mike’.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Moroccans

  The decision made, and after several industrial-strength coffees, the Five Bullet Crew swung into action with all the efficiency of the old days.

  Kenny drove back to his apartment block and promptly broke into his neighbour’s flat to steal the absent man’s boat keys. Bill, acting upon Eddie’s advice to disguise himself, acquired a golden-blonde toupee and mirrored shades, then set off to a commercial vehicle rental shop in Malaga along with Roger, to hire a truck. Eddie purchased several maps of Spain from a local newsagent, then returned to the cafe where he set about planning the routes to and from Santander. Mike, as Charlie had instructed, accompanied Lucian to buy a set of Soviet military radios from an Israeli contact who operated out an industrial estate on the outskirts of Cádiz. Charlie drove to a chiringuito beach bar in Estepona to meet with the Moroccan’s man in Spain and to conclude the drug deal.

  Their tasks concluded, the Englishman all met back up later that afternoon to review their progress.

  ‘So how’d it go with the Moroccan?’ asked Mike.

  ‘Seems like a straight-up geezer,’ said Charlie. ‘I met him in a mad beach bar in Estepona. You know it?’

  ‘Did you see the steel door at the back? I was told it goes underground to some old military bunker or something. Some local mafia boss owns it’.

  ‘Yeah, the Moroccan told me that too,’ Charlie replied. ‘Anyway, it’s on. And they only want seventy-five grand for the first shipment’.

  ‘They must know it’s worth a lot more than that?’ said Eddie.

  ‘He said his old man runs things over there and is keen to find a long-term partner who can handle all the logistics - getting it all into Spain, distribution across Europe. It’s low risk for them that way. They just need to produce the stuff and get rich’.

  Charlie put a briefcase onto the table and opened it. ‘I’ve got forty-five grand here. Did you boys raise the rest?’

  Bill reached into his jacket and Kenny into a backpack he had brought along. Together they put another twenty-five thousand pounds in.

  ‘We’re still five grand short,’ said Charlie.

  ‘I’m picking up eight grand from the pawnshop in the morning,’ said Roger. ‘It’s for my sound system. It’s worth twice that. Bastards are robbing me’.

  ‘Buy another one when this shit’s over,’ said Charlie. ‘Good, we’ve got the cash to buy the dope.

  ‘How are we doing with the boat and truck?’ asked Eddie.

  ‘Truck’s sorted,’ said Bill. ‘I got us a Volvo. It’s in decent shape. It’s parked up behind Roger’s place in Estepona. It’s an open-backed jobby, but we picked up a big tarpaulin to cover it over’.

  ‘Good stuff, and the boat?’

  ‘Piece of piss,’ said Kenny and placed a large key fob onto the desk. The metal key ring was in the shape of three leaping dolphins.

  ‘The radios are in the back of my car,’ said Mike. ‘They’re Russian’.

  ‘Russian? Are you sure they’re okay?’ asked Eddie. ‘Did you try them out?’

  ‘Soparla did. He said they’re fine’.

  ‘He better be right. Without radios, we’ll never be able to coordinate the drop-off. We’ll also be using them on the drive up to meet the buyer. One will be in the truck, the other in an escort car that will go a few miles in front to scout for any trouble’.

  Eddie spread one map on the table and ran an index finger along the proposed route. ‘We go from here to Granada, then up to Madrid. From there we go up this road, the E5, to Burgos. From there it’s a straight line all the way to San Sebastian and on to where the exchange will take place, in a French village over the border, here in Hendaye’. He pointed to the ultimate destination. ‘I’ve got alternative routes planned in case we run into the law along the way. It will be tight to get up there and back in time, Charlie. I don’t like it. Can’t this Dutch arsehole meet us a little nearer?’

  ‘He won’t cross the border. The Spanish police know what he looks like,’ said Charlie. ‘That’s why he can’t do the deal himself’.

  ‘Sweet deal for him,’ said Roger. ‘We do all the work and take all the risks then he doubles his money’.

  ‘Beggars can’t be choosers,’ said Bill.

  Eddie clapped his hands to gain everyone’s attention. ‘Stealth is the order of the day here, gentleman. Stealth and vigilance. You all know what we’re doing. Finish this, and we put this bleeding business with Pickering to bed. After that, you can focus on getting things back on track. Agreed?’

  The crew nodded.

  Eddie checked at his watch. It was just after six o’clock. ‘Well, I suggest everyone grabs what kip they can. We’ve got a long day ahead of us tomorrow’.

  They met up again that night at eleven o’clock outside Puerto Banus.

  Kenny, Eddie, Mike and Charlie made their way down to the port before sneaking past the security booth - which turned out to be unmanned - and then along the gangway up to the yacht.

  Bill and Roger loaded all the kit into the back of the truck, then started it up and headed off to the secluded car park on the western end of Casares Costa.

  An hour later, as planned, the beach crew made the first radio call to the men on the boat which was ploughing its way out to sea. It was a cloudless night and the Spanish coastline soon became but a dark shape on the horizon. Kenny piloted the craft, with Eddie at his side perched on the second seat, scanning the horizon with a pair of binoculars. Mike and Charlie sat in two of the rear seats.

  Bill’s voice rang out from the two-way set. ‘Mother Bear, this is Papa Bear over. You receiving, over?’

  Mike looked at the device with disdain. ‘Mother fucking Bear? What twat came up with that for fuck’s sake?’

  ‘It was Roger’s idea,’ said Kenny, chuckling. ‘He said you’d hate it’.

  Eddie lifted the radio’s receiver and depressed the transmit button. ‘This is Mother Bear. Picking you up loud and clear. Are you having fun at the beach party, over?’

  ‘No gatecrashers to the party so far,’ said Bill. ‘Do you expect to arrive on time, over?’ Eddie glanced at his wristwatch. ‘Roger that, Papa Bear. We should be at the off-license in five minutes or so. If all goes well, we hope to join you at the party in under two hours, over’.

  Charlie called out from behind him, ‘Over there’. Eddie directed the binoculars to where his brother was pointing. ‘Is that them?’ he said.

  ‘Looks like it,’ Eddie replied, then peered again. ‘Yes, I see the green signal light’. He picked up the radio receiver again. ‘Papa Bear, we have located the off-license. Everything looking good, over’.

  ‘Copy that. Call us when you are on your way, over and out’.

  Kenny directed the boat towards the Moroccan’s fishing trawler, and they pulled up alongside. Eddie counted half a dozen men on the deck of the elderly craft. One of them, a large black man called out. He seemed somewhat anxious to Eddie, who scanned the rest of the Moroccan crew for signs of an ambush.

  ‘You are Charlie?’

&nbs
p; ‘I am,’ Charlie shouted back.

  ‘You made it in very good time, English’. The man reacted and chortled.

  ‘Nothing to this smuggling lark,’ Charlie shouted back.

  ‘Not when the sea is good to us like tonight,’ the man said, flashing a set of remarkably white teeth. ‘You have my money, yes?’

  ‘We got it, my old mucker. Give us a sec’.

  Charlie pointed at the tightly wrapped black package that contained their seventy-five thousand pounds. ‘Get that over to them, boys’.

  Eddie and Mike lifted the package which they had tied to a spherical buoy. They heaved the float overboard along with the bundle of money. The Moroccan produced a long pole with an iron hook at the end and fished around for the submerged rope. He located it in a few seconds and began tugging the package and the float up onto the fishing trawler.

  Eddie put his hand to his waist and on the cold metal of the Browning pistol he had stuffed into it. ‘This is where we find out if we can trust them,’ he whispered.

  The Moroccan with the bright teeth grabbed hold of the money package and dropped it to his deck. ‘I check it. If it is okay, we give you the hashish’.

  Charlie looked tense. Mike too. He had a shotgun ready at his feet, out of sight of the men on the other boat. Kenny was holding a silver revolver under the ship’s wheel in one hand. Eddie’s heart was pounding. If the men on that boat had automatic weapons, they could overwhelm Charlie’s crew in the blink of an eye.

  ‘Is all good,’ the Moroccan called out. He said something to his waiting crew.

  ‘Be ready,’ Eddie whispered his hand on the pistol butt. The safety catch was off, and he had a round chambered already. He need not have worried, however. Two of the Moroccans lifted another float, this one an empty oil drum, and pushed it over the side of the trawler. An orange nylon line followed it and then, one by one, rectangular packets, about the size of four shoe boxes, splashed down into the water.

  ‘Help me get it hooked up, Mike. Eddie, you keep an eye out for unwanted visitors,’ said Charlie.

  Eddie picked up the binoculars and began scanning the horizon for other vessels. The moonlight was glimmering off the water. The yacht was a dark blue colour, but still all too visible, he thought. ‘Hurry it up guys, we’re sitting ducks here’.

  ‘I got it,’ said Mike. He heaved on the pole, pulling the float towards the side of the boat. Eddie heard the dull thud as it contacted the yacht’s hull.

  ‘Thats it,’ said Charlie. ‘Go on, pull it up’. Mike heaved on the pole once more until the float was level with the side of the boat, then Charlie grabbed it and yanked it on board. Both men then started heaving on the line.

  ‘You have it?’ the Moroccan called out.

  ‘We got it,’ shouted Mike, as he wrapped his hands around the first of the packages, then dropped it onto the wooden deck. ‘Keep them coming’. Eddie put the glasses down to help.

  Charlie chuckled. ‘It’s like a tug of war,’ he said. Only each time we pull, ten grand lands at our feet’. Kenny left the cabin to push each of the damp packages to the rear of the vessel. It took fifteen minutes to get the entire load onboard.

  ‘You have it all, English?’ said the Moroccan.

  ‘We do,’ Charlie shouted in reply. ‘Pleasure doing business with you’. The Moroccan laughed as he saluted a brief farewell, then started barking orders at his crew. The trawler’s engine, which had been lazily chugging away, increased in intensity and the water behind the vessel churned.

  ‘Let’s make like shepherds,’ said Eddie to Kenny.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Get the flock outta here’.

  Kenny pushed the boat’s throttle lever forward, and the engine below them roared. ‘Full steam ahead,’ he shouted.

  Eddie watched as the distance between the two boats increased. In a few minutes, he had lost sight of the Moroccan’s. ‘What a business,’ he thought. They must be able to live like kings in Morocco, doing this. He sat back, leaning against a pile of the hashish packages, and looked up at the moon. The vista looking back towards the Spanish coast was serene, almost cartoon-like. He was struggling to keep his eyelids open. ‘No harm in catching forty winks,’ he told himself, but had closed his eyes for only a few seconds when Mike shouted out a warning.

  ‘I hear another boat’.

  Eddie grabbed the binoculars and sprung up. ‘Where?’ he said.

  Mike had his hands cupped around both ears, trying to gauge the direction of the sound he had just heard. ‘That way,’ he said, pointing over to their left.

  Eddie could make nothing out above the sound of their own boat engine at first, but then he heard it. The subdued roar of what could only be some kind of naval vessel. He bounded over to the cabin and hit the light switches. ‘Kill the engine,’ he barked at Kenny. ‘Everyone, quiet!’

  The boat’s engine coughed to a stop, and they sat bobbing from side to side in the gentle swirling sea, the water lapping at the ladder at the craft’s rear.

  ‘I see it,’ said Mike. ‘Coastguard patrol boat’.

  ‘Fuck,’ Kenny said, voicing what the others no doubt also felt.

  Eddie lifted the binoculars towards the sleek grey vessel. ‘It’s six or seven miles away, I reckon. Looks like it’s heading south west’.

  ‘Won’t they pick us up on their radar?’ said Kenny.

  Eddie looked back in the direction they had just come. ‘The Moroccan’s boat will be a much bigger radar signature. The hull was metal. This thing’s fibreglass and plastic’. He peered at the coastguard boat again and breathed a sigh of relief. ‘I think we’re okay’.

  ‘We should get moving in case they change their minds,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Aye aye, skipper,’ said Kenny, and he pushed the throttle forward to full power. Mike looked at his watch.

  ‘How long will it take to get to the truck?’ he asked.

  Eddie checked the charts, peered at the mountainous coastline. ‘About an hour, maybe less’.

  ‘I’ll let Pappa Bear know,’ Kenny said, reaching for the radio receiver.

  Mike shook his head. ‘Next time, I pick the fuckin’ call signs,’ he muttered then slid down to the deck, resting this head on his forearm and shut his eyes.

  They arrived, fifty minutes later, at the eastern end of Playa Ancha, the long sandy bay that stretches from the small fishing village of San Luis de Sabinillas to the rocky outcrop at Casares Costa which is dominated by the ruins of a sixteenth-century Moorish watchtower.

  As Kenny had said, the new estates of holiday homes, or urbanizacions as the Spanish called them, remained very much under construction, and the beach appeared free from prying eyes.

  Eddie and Mike jumped into the dark shallows and were greeted by the visibly relieved Bill and Roger, who bounded across the sand to help unload the hashish bales.

  ‘Are we glad to see you lot,’ said Roger, as Kenny released the anchor down into the water.

  ‘How’d it go,’ asked Bill. ‘Any trouble?’

  ‘Almost ran into the coastguard on the way back,’ said Kenny. ‘Other than that it went like a dream’.

  ‘We could do this every week,’ Mike declared as he dangled the first of the dope packages over the side. ‘We’d pay for them apartment blocks of yours in no time’.

  Charlie muttered something under his breath. ‘Let’s just get this job done, hey?’ said Eddie, once again acutely aware of how vulnerable they were at that moment.

  It took ten minutes to empty the boat of its illicit cargo, at which point Kenny clambered down the ladder at the back of the yacht and splashed his way out of the shallow waves. Behind him, a flickering orange glow was emanating from within the cabin.

  ‘You didn’t tell me you would burn the fucking thing,’ Eddie hissed, his survival instincts now even more heightened.

  ‘Don’t wanna leave no evidence, do we?’ said Mike as they ran back to the car park. The fire was taking hold quickly.

  ‘Jesus fucking chris
t, move it before somebody sees it,’ Eddie ordered.

  They raced to the back of the truck, which was waiting in the darkness with the engine ticking over. Roger was at the wheel. ‘All aboard that’s coming aboard?’ he shouted in a playful voice.

  ‘Get a fuckin’ move on,’ shouted Eddie. The truck pulled away at an agonisingly slow pace, and he scanned the road for signs of traffic. It was approaching three o’clock in the morning on a weekday, he reasoned, and they were hardly in the middle of tourist central. ‘Still,’ he thought. ‘I’ll be glad when we’re a few miles down the road’.

  The lorry came to a halt in the empty yard behind Roger’s car dealership on the industrial estate north of Marbella. It was just past four o’clock. It was deadly quiet aside from an occasional shrill call of a randy cicada, and a distant dog barking.

  The weary crew disembarked from the truck’s rear door and made their way into the single-story building via the back door, lugging their rucksacks. Once inside they each claimed a space on the floor and unpacked their bedding.

  Eddie crawled into the same sleeping bag he had taken to London for the United Security robbery. That job had proven to be a failure on account of the haul of ‘diamonds’ turning out to be worthless quartz. It had, however, shown the crew at their most capable. Eddie drifted into sleep, hoping that the Five Bullet Crew would be just as professional over the coming twenty-four hours. He harboured a strong suspicion their days as a unit were numbered.

  Little did he realise just how short their future together would be.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Roadtrip

  Eddie drifted back into consciousness at six o’clock the next morning. It took several seconds for him to establish where he was. It was dark, but he could sense someone moving in the room. He put his hand down to where he had left the Browning.