by Carlos Luxul
Choukri stared at him before switching his eyes to Assam and returning to his mangoes and ice cream. The engineers went back to their technical data, Snoop and Assam to their bickering.
‘A well-fed crew is a happy crew.’ Cookie smiled, leaning against the doorway.
The next morning, Khan’s engineers and the crew were back at work early. Electricity hummed, welding torches flashed into life, sparks flew, the process under way.
Assam had prepared a couple of lists for the practice run, one for the material and another for the physical stages. The mock-up of the terminal had taken shape. There was a clear outline of the main building with stones laid out for the walls and oil drums for the door openings, all set eighty metres back from the quay, just as it was at Moritz. He’d given his team their instructions and they knew their individual roles.
Choukri stood on deck and pressed the stopwatch button. ‘Go.’
The men worked in relays, carrying everything by hand across the hold, through the access door, along passageways, up flights of stairs, down the gangway to the jetty. The sun was overhead, the day becoming hot. Assam ran from point to point, checking, cajoling. One of the men stumbled on the stairs. A clammy hand lost its grip and a package bounced down the steps.
‘Cunt!’ Assam yelled, sweat arcing in the air as he shook his frustrated head and stamped a boot down. ‘And now you’re a dead cunt. And I’m a dead cunt if I’m anywhere near you!’
The materials were on the jetty. Now it was time for the oil. A hose was connected to a fuel tank manifold and run over the side. The man to receive it was not in place on the jetty. Snoop leant over the rail and cursed as the linesman ran down the bouncing gangway.
Choukri pressed the stopwatch. ‘Now take it all back and start again.’ He let his expression say the rest: there would be no point any of them asking what time would be good enough.
Assam looked at Snoop, back to Choukri.
‘But boss, there’s people getting in our way,’ one of the crewmen moaned.
‘Just like on the day,’ Choukri said.
Snoop’s head slumped. There was a cut on his cheekbone, his chest heaving, sweat running down his forehead into blinking eyes. The Dogg’s tongue was almost hanging out.
‘Can we use the basket, boss?’ he panted.
A smile crept from the side of Choukri’s mouth. ‘Please,’ he said, sweeping his hand as if he were inviting him in for tea.
As they trooped away wearily, he leant his hands on the rail and looked out over the yard, his mind switching to the targets’ coordinates, the wish list. In the main office a team of clerks were in a side room with copies of it. He had briefed them carefully the previous evening with Khan. They worked in pairs. One called the numbers in a quiet steady voice while the other typed. The pairs were in sync with each other, filling the spreadsheets quickly. Each hour they stopped and reversed their roles. Every two hours they exchanged with their colleagues and started checking, one looking at the list, the other reading out the numbers.
He had dismissed the option of laser targeting. In some instances photographic images were appropriate, but the vast majority were just map coordinates, long sequences of numbers expressing degrees, hours, minutes and seconds. It was repetitive and tedious work but they were good clerks and prided themselves on their accuracy.
Stepping back across the passageway, he peered down into the hold. Once the guns were fitted in the ship there would be no point in maintaining the weapons cache behind his bunk. The crew had racked out one of the ship’s storage containers and a couple of men were transferring everything – Kalashnikovs, Glock pistols, rifles, ammunition.
‘Hey, careful with that,’ he called, as one of them handled a particular rifle. ‘That’s special.’
~
Just before six o’clock, Hassan Khan walked down to the ship and followed the sound of voices until he peered around the mess door.
Mubarak rose from his place and beckoned him in, signalling to those seated next to him to move up and make room.
‘Cookie,’ Mubarak shouted. ‘Bring coffee and your pistachio cake for Mr Khan.’
Choukri moved from his usual place mid-table to sit opposite Khan, and poured him a glass of water.
‘Hmm, this is so good,’ Khan said.
Cookie beamed at the doorway. The table was quiet. All eyes faced west, watching a man eat cake.
‘Cookie makes it for us when we’ve been good. So we don’t get it often, do we, Assam?’ Mubarak said, raising an eyebrow.
The crew laughed, easing Khan’s self-consciousness. He took a mouthful of water and pronounced the cake the best he’d had. The crew nodded their appreciation.
‘So,’ Khan said, his eyes switching between Choukri and Mubarak. ‘We’re ready on shore.’
Choukri gestured to Faisel. ‘Get the hatch open,’ he said, continuing around the table and allocating roles – crane driving, rigging, lighting, shore labour.
One by one the crew left the table. Those without a specific task joined them, to assist their mates.
‘So,’ Kahn said, pushing his chair back. ‘Shall we?’
Two trailers were alongside the ship. The hatch was open, the hold bathed in orange light spilling out ethereally to the jetty. A crane lowered slings to the first packing case. Choukri climbed onto the trailer and checked the shackles. The crane took the weight of the gun slowly, inching from the trailer bed. Hands guided it, reaching upwards, eyes watching anxiously as it rose and swung gently over the hold wall before descending from sight.
When all four guns were on board, lined up at the side of their bays, the crew unpacked them. By nine o’clock it was done. Khan watched with satisfaction as the men stood back and looked at the transformation of their ship, permitting themselves a reverential touch of the guns’ smooth grey paint as if it were the coat of a sleeping tiger.
Twenty-four
Dan signed in and took the lift to the fifth floor. The carpet in the high-ceilinged corridor felt soft underfoot, the light switches metal and shining. Colours were less utilitarian than other parts of the building. There was a studious hush. Some of the doors were closed, some open. Glimpses into offices gave a hint of people and place on a floor he hadn’t seen before.
He found the meeting room and went through the open door. A large polished table was in the middle of the floor. Panelled walls stretched to a tall, ornate ceiling. On the far side were three lofty sash windows overlooking the river. One side of the table was unoccupied. He took it in at a glance, his place obvious, but he waited to be told. At the end by the door was a woman in her forties. He thought he recognised her, along with the younger woman at her side. He assumed they were both from HR but couldn’t place them with certainty. Clymer was sitting next to her boss, David Myles, whom Dan had only met briefly. Bookending the table was Edmund LaSalle.
Clymer leant across and poured Dan a glass of water, saying nothing, a concerned smile playing in her eyes. Nice touch, he thought.
LaSalle hadn’t taken his eyes off Dan from the moment he stepped through the door, though he’d said nothing and hadn’t acknowledged him.
David Myles opened the meeting. ‘You know why we’ve called you here?’
‘I think so,’ Dan said, without elaboration.
He hadn’t gauged the tone yet and knew it was usually better to let the other side talk. Was this a discussion forum, a rebuke, a firing, or something else? He’d expected Clymer to be accompanied by perhaps one or two HR officers. David Myles’ presence was understandable too, but LaSalle?
‘So, let’s get up to date,’ Myles said, his head cocked to one side. ‘You met with Jo and she instructed you to close the file. Subsequently you put in a written request for an operational case, which she denied in writing, and repeated her instruction to close the file. And as at this morning it’s still open.’
Dan’s eyes flicked around the table. Five heads, all still, all waiting for him. He sat back. ‘Yeah. I’d been meaning to.
’
‘Let me tell you, our reaction is no different from Jo’s. We’ve reviewed the file, found no case to answer and sent it over to Six – and that’s it,’ Myles said, looking across questioningly.
‘Okay,’ Dan said, adding no more, realising what Myles had just said – that he’d sent it to MI6. It contradicted Clymer. She’d said the file was to be closed and there was nothing solid to send over. Had she changed her mind or been overruled by Myles, or could it have been LaSalle? He glanced along the table but failed to meet his eye or, for that matter, to detect in his expressionless face the merest flicker of recognition for what Myles had just said.
Clymer straightened her back and spread her fingers across the table. ‘So, I followed the file with interest, supported it, supported Dan. He’s been very passionate about it and put a lot of good work in, but it reached critical mass and, as we all know, I made my decision. But, I truly believe he didn’t mean any harm.’
Dan had avoided eye contact with Clymer, though she was directly opposite him. His attention had been on LaSalle, who was keeping his own counsel. Now his gaze lifted, his eyes narrowing as Clymer left the last word of her eulogy, ‘harm’, to hang.
‘I don’t think there’s any question of motive,’ Myles said. ‘But there have to be consequences, and all this after receiving written instructions from your line manager once due process and case review had been completed. You can see we are obliged to take this most seriously.’
‘I do.’
Myles looked to his left. ‘Rosemary.’
The senior HR woman tidied the edges of some sheets in a folder and took a sip of water. ‘A disciplinary caution will not be marked in your file and no further action will be taken at this stage, though we trust you understand that we unanimously feel a caution would be warranted. After discussion, and taking into consideration certain unusual influences,’ she said, pausing and looking in LaSalle’s direction, ‘we have jointly concluded that for everyone’s benefit, and yours particularly, a six-week suspension is appropriate, which will be marked in your file as a sabbatical – a paid sabbatical.’ She paused again, her head tilting to one side. ‘We recognise you’ve been under considerable stress lately and feel sure the break will do you good – a chance to recharge the batteries. Do you have any questions?’
Dan limited his response to a single, ‘No,’ sighing inwardly. Stress? Spare me the bullshit HR sanctimony, will you …
Myles left Dan’s terse reply to settle before picking things up again. ‘I hope that will close the matter,’ he said. ‘How are things generally, how are you settling in? I hear you’ve been implementing very effective new protocols in the ferries.’
‘Yeah, that’s been … interesting. And everything’s fine.’ Dan nodded.
Rosemary from HR cleared her throat. ‘I understand you were involved in a pub brawl just before Christmas, in the Queen’s Head.’
‘What? That’s bollocks! I didn’t start anything, I stopped it.’
‘No one’s suggesting you did, but would it not have been wiser to walk away? The service manual is quite clear about compromising positions.’
‘Look. It was nothing. Vikram bumps into this guy, spills his drink. He’s apologising but the guy won’t have it, calling him a Paki and getting set to spark him, so I stepped in. And nothing happened.’
‘Spark him?’
‘Punch him.’
‘But how could you know? Had he said something?’
‘Lady. Please. I just know, all right? I come from there. The guy had the look …’
Dan could see she was taking offence, feeling patronised. He was grateful for LaSalle’s intervention when she drew breath and leant in to reply.
With his hands spread across the table, LaSalle coughed once and looked up. ‘Can we move on. If you don’t mind, David, would you?’
‘Jo’s transferring in early June,’ Myles said. ‘She’s going up to run Home Office Liaison. We haven’t confirmed who will replace her yet. It’s still in process.’
Clymer was looking at her phone, scrolling through messages. She lifted her eyes to meet Dan’s.
‘I’m pleased for you,’ he said, though the pleasure was all his own. HOL was an important role and a major step up. It would come with an office on this very floor and a key to the government’s door. He made a quick calculation in his head. Today was 20 April. His return would dovetail precisely with her departure. No prizes for guessing who had pressed for the six-week period, he thought.
‘I’m looking forward to building the team,’ Clymer said.
‘It’s what you do,’ Dan said, looking away and fleetingly catching LaSalle’s eyes, which were quietly smiling.
‘If there’s nothing more, I—’ Myles started to say.
LaSalle leant in. ‘I’d like a word with Dan.’
Clymer looked up the table. LaSalle was perfectly within his rights, though procedurally it was irregular. And he clearly meant a private word.
‘So, I want it on record that I do not appreciate this continual undermining of my position,’ she said. ‘I cannot tolerate my authority and judgement being compromised.’
LaSalle held his hands up. ‘Your protest is noted. And with respect, Jo, we’ve been through this.’
David Myles held the door open as Jo Clymer gathered her things together and filed out, without looking at either LaSalle or Dan, leaving the two them alone.
‘A variety of emotions are running through my head – bemusement, frustration, disappointment. But foremost is anger,’ LaSalle said, leaning across the table, his jaw muscles twitching below the ears. He ran his eyes up and down Dan, quartering him like a hawk, before eventually turning away and letting out a long and exasperated sigh. ‘Do you take me for a fool? I simply do not know what to do with you. Simply do not know …’
He turned back, his head shaking from side to side, teeth clamped together, eyes locked on Dan’s. ‘Why can’t you get it into your thick skull? You are to leave this business alone.’ His voice had risen to a crescendo before subsiding in frustration. ‘How could you possibly imagine I wouldn’t learn of your incursion in Bar Mhar? Hak is another matter, and thankfully not my problem. But you? On any other day you’d be straight out of the door without a moment’s hesitation – or regret,’ he thundered.
Dan could accept the hesitation. The regret was hard to take. Everything was collapsing. His case was gone, his colleagues deserting him, and the person he looked up to most in the service was plainly washing his hands of him. ‘My wife told me I’m a bonehead over the weekend,’ he said. ‘My colleagues haven’t got time for me and JC gave up a while back, and I don’t blame her. And I’ve made myself look stupid in your eyes.’ He paused, looking down before lifting his gaze once more. ‘This case has crushed me. I mean really crushed me. Friday night? That was closure. It was all dead ends. OceanBird – dead end. Bar Mhar – dead end. And I had a shit weekend, and I was a shit to my wife. Now it really doesn’t matter because it’s over, and I know it.’
LaSalle sat back in his chair, folding his arms and studying Dan’s face.
‘Everywhere I turned,’ Dan added. ‘Everything I thought was wrong turned out to have an answer, a believable answer. It made sense, you see, and now I don’t believe myself. I don’t trust myself. I’ve fucked up big time.’
He lifted his eyes, keen to gauge how the stream of consciousness he had poured out was being received across the table. LaSalle had sat up again. He was leaning forward, a finger absently stroking his nose.
‘Do you know,’ he said. ‘I think I believe you this time.’
‘Was it Azmi?’
‘Was what Azmi … who told me? Never mind.’
LaSalle pushed up from the table. His tall frame was silhouetted in the middle window, his hands on his hips as he rocked on his heels. The chair creaked when Dan stood up but there was no movement at the window. Taking it as his cue, he stepped across, taking up a position at his side, the pair of them looking down
on to the river.
‘One thing you must understand,’ LaSalle said, without turning, without acknowledging the person at his side, ‘in this business, there are always angles and perspectives, levels and subsidiary levels. And they’re always linked and they always develop exponentially. They evolve like brewer’s yeast – though their end product is rarely palatable.’
He turned, catching Dan’s eye and nodding in the direction of the river. ‘You see that barge. It’s simply taking waste to a processing plant. The man on the barge, the one in blue, he’s seen something and reported it. In its own right it’s important, but meaningless in the greater scheme. Our bargee friend, and quite possibly whomsoever he reports to, are unaware that Special Branch is investigating a minister who awarded a contract to unsavoury elements in the waste-disposal business, whose seemingly legitimate enterprise is a mere laundry for their lucrative activities in the drugs trade. These people also own a string of nightclubs, where the wild son of the minister rubbed up with the wrong crowd and compromised himself – and his father. And the deeper Special Branch delves, the more they uncover. The cocaine comes from Colombia but is routed via The Gambia, so our friends in MI6 are involved, who find the Gambian logistics is managed by a Belgo–Turkish enterprise that is already under investigation by Interpol. Then, as an aside, it’s discovered that our waste-disposing drug distributors are also wholesaling to Belfast, where the trade is controlled by the IRA, who are partially paying in firearms, which our waste disposers are selling to Bosnians in Luton, who are connected with … who in turn are connected with … And before we know it our yeast will mutate once again and only God understands, only He knows how it will develop and what it will breed. We mortals can but try to contain it, in part. In part …’ he repeated, turning and holding Dan’s gaze.
I know what you’re waiting for, Dan thought. You’re waiting for the last sign of reluctance in my eyes to be replaced with acceptance. Fine, you can have it …