Dilemma
Book Two Steve Regan Undercover Cop
Stephen Bentley
First published by Hendry Publishing in 2018
Copyright © Stephen Bentley, 2018
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Stephen Bentley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
First edition 2018
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Foreword
Author’s Note
1 | The Bombs
2 | Lucky's Bar
3 | Mama-san
4 | The Elephant
5 | No Feelings, Just Sex
6 | Chiang Mai, Thailand
7 | Dilemma
8 | Escape
9 | Blow Out
10 | I Can't Swim
11 | I'm a Nobody
12 | Doctor Death
13 | Ciao!
14 | Graham Graham
15 | Phetchabun, Thailand
16 | Trust Me
17 | Sabai Sabai
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Further Reading: Rivers of Blood
Also By Stephen Bentley
About the Author
About the Publisher
To a wonderful lady, a kind soul, and the inspiration for this novella. She taught me how to love and live again during one of my life’s darkest periods. I will be forever grateful.
To Zabrina, my wife, thank you for understanding me. Your tolerance and patience fill me with admiration. I love you.
Foreword
It is possible to read this novella, Dilemma, as a stand-alone although it is Book Two in the Steve Regan Undercover Cop series.
As the author, I believe it may be beneficial to you, the reader, to have some background to the series. What follows is an edited version of the ‘Foreword’ to Book One in the series - Who The F*ck Am I?
* * *
I penned a bestselling memoir, Undercover: Operation Julie - The Inside Story. It tells the tale of my role as one of only four undercover detectives on what is still one of the world’s largest drug busts. It was pioneering work and is still a point of reference today for all British covert policing and training of undercover operatives.
In that book, I write about uncovering a huge plot to import massive quantities of cocaine into Britain from Bolivia via Miami back in the 1970s. The two people involved in that conspiracy were known to me as Bill and Blue. They were never arrested by the British police. But, I was told by my former operational boss, Dick Lee, that they had been arrested by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), a branch of American federal law enforcement. I was further informed they ended up doing serious time in a federal penitentiary.
I always had my doubts about who Bill and Blue really were. Were they “bad guys” or something completely different? It is that question that inspired me to write this book. Please remember, what you are about to read is fiction. None of the characters are real...
... Steve Regan is not me! Red is not my undercover buddy on Operation Julie. I have not got a clue who the real Bill and Blue were; they are not the characters of the same name in this novel. Caroline Sewell and Callum Colhoun are fictitious and bear no resemblance to any of the barristers I knew during my days at London’s Criminal Bar - well, only small bits.
Before I start my story, please allow me to say this: As far as I am aware this book is unique in British literature. It is the first work of crime fiction about an undercover cop written by a former undercover cop. Please correct me if I am wrong.
* * *
I hope that helps. It will make more sense once you delve into this book, even more so, if you read Book One first.
Many readers have told me they see my non-fiction undercover cop memoir as a prequel to the Steve Regan Undercover Cop series. They may be right.
Finally, once you have read this book please consider leaving a review on your favourite bookstore’s website. They really do help indie authors like me. Thank you! - Stephen Bentley
* * *
Author’s Note
The Thai expression, Sabai Sabai, is often used by me in writing this novella. Some of you may not be familiar with its meaning.
“Sabai Sabai in Thai approximates to Easy going – laid back – relaxed – comfortable – just fine, very, very fine...
You are likely to find Thai ways very “laid back” compared to Western cultures. If you are a person who worries often about schedules, always being right on time, watching the clock, if you find yourself becoming agitated when things do not go exactly according to plan, then be ready to adapt and to cultivate patience and openness to the unplanned or unexpected.”
Discovering ‘Sabai Sabai’ was a lesson in life for me whilst living in Thailand. A wonderful lesson . I thank the wonderful lady who first said it to me, but much more than that, also showed me its true meaning. The Philippines has a similar attitude, one I suspect derived from strong faith. I also thank my wife, Zabrina, for continuing to show me what, in essence, is a Filipino version of the same concept.
1
The Bombs
Tick Tock. Tick Tock. Tick Tock. Boom! Boom! Boom!
Three bombs ripped apart three Italian restaurants in three cities. All exploded at the same time give or take a few seconds. Regan listened to the BBC World Service report on the small radio kept by his bed in Lucky’s Bar, Phuket, Thailand. An American news reporter spoke into a microphone.
“I’m standing outside the federal building in Philadelphia. So far no federal law enforcement spokesperson has said anything on record about the three simultaneous explosions. Here is what we do know. Three bombs, apparently timed to explode at the same time, at one-thirty yesterday afternoon, ripped apart three restaurants in Philadelphia, Manhattan and Boston. They all had one thing in common. They were Italian restaurants and believed to be used by local Mafia chiefs on a regular weekly basis. I can tell you ten people are known to have been killed in the explosions, including the ten-year-old grandson of Vincenzo Lusardi, the head of the Philadelphia mob. The FBI and local law enforcement continue to conduct investigations. I am given to understand that Carlo Vitale has been placed on the ‘most wanted’ list in connection with these murders. This is Ken Veevers, WKSV, reporting from Philadelphia.”
* * *
Vacuums in an organisation can cause problems. People jockey for power. It’s human nature. Carlo Vitale grabbed more power when he became capo of the Miami Mafia following the death of former capo Bill Morris, whose real name was Guglielmo Di Maria. Vitale wasn’t content. He wanted to control the whole of the eastern seaboard.
Vitale justified murdering the bosses of the Philly, New York, and Boston mobs to his new counsellor, Consigliere Tomas Quiglano. “They should have listened. They didn’t. Now they’re dead. Progress. They couldn’t keep up with the times. You can’t stop progress.”
Tomas nodded but said nothing. He was thinking of the little boy killed along with his grandfather by a bomb in Philadelphia. He was unaware the boy was in someone else’s thoughts. Those thoughts were in the mind of the dead boy’s cousin, another grandson of Vincenzo Lusardi, the Mafia boss
blown apart in the Philadelphia bomb explosion.
Marco Lusardi was twenty-five years old. He was late for lunch with his grandfather. It saved his life. It did not spare him the sight of the carnage. He saw what the bomb had done. In particular, he observed the lifeless body of his ten-year-old cousin. Marco would come to see that vision in his sleep. A small boy. Torso separated from legs and arms. Just a torso with half a face. A look of horror in the one remaining eye.
Marco was in town taking a break from his medical research studies. His grandfather and father, respectively Vincenzo and Federico Lusardi, had insisted he become a doctor of medicine, a dream shared by those two men and funded by his grandfather and his uncle, Antonio Lusardi, the capo bastone or underboss in the Lusardi crime family. Antonio was a brother to Marco’s father, Federico, who remained in Sicily to live a simple life.
Progress, to Carlo Vitale, was expanding into other products. Heroin for one. Sex trafficking for another.
“Anyways. Change the subject. What do you think the English guy was doing in Boston?” Vitale said.
Tomas said, “Who?”
“Snap out of it, will ya? Who do you think I’m talking about? How many English guys do I freakin’ know?”
“Regan?”
“Yeah. Him. Something about that guy. I should have drowned him in Miami when I had the chance. Should have used the piece on him in Boston. Lucky for him that cop came along.”
“Perhaps coincidence?” Tomas said.
“Maybe. Maybe not. Funny I see him just after the meeting in Boston. I know Bill said he’s no cop but I’m not so sure. I’m not convinced about him. Not sure at all. I’m making the arrangements for the bomb and out he pops. Weird. Like an omen.”
“You getting paranoid?”
“Paranoid is what keeps me alive, Tom, never forget that.”
“There’s going to be plenty of heat after those bombings. We had better lie low for a while.”
“Not we. Me,” Vitale replied.
* * *
The arrangements were made. Carlo Vitale first travelled to Canada under a false identity. Two ‘made men’ dressed in identical black leather jackets, dark chinos, and black loafers drove him to Montana in a Chevy truck with blacked-out windows. In a small Montana town called Shelby they met with an older guy. He escorted Vitale across the border into Canada using back trails. Once in Canada the old guy received his reward. Two .22 bullets in the back of his head.
Vitale walked the six miles to the highway, then to the small town of Lethbridge by hitching a ride. There, he rented a compact car using his fake identity and a credit card in the same name. He drove north to Calgary, then west until he reached the Pacific Ocean.
After he had rested up in a small motel near Vancouver airport, Vitale bought flight tickets. Three weeks later the FBI suspected he had fled the jurisdiction.
He had flown to Thailand.
2
Lucky's Bar
Regan knew it was dangerous. He was, after all, an undercover cop. Not one of those guys who wore a police shield or badge hidden under his jacket, pretending to be an addict. You know, those buy and bust operators. They made an arrest then went home. He was more than that. He was an infiltrator. He became someone else, assumed a different identity, became embedded in a strange landscape. Regan knew it was no nine-to-five job. It was dangerous.
Waiting, for most ordinary people, was boring. Waiting was part of infiltrating. To embed, you had to wait. You had to establish yourself. Regan found waiting boring. It was also dangerous. Inaction and waiting could lull you into a false sense of security. Worse, it could make you careless. It was dangerous any way you looked at it. Regan knew all this and more. He was embedded. He was trying to infiltrate. He was in Thailand, and many thousands of miles distant from London, his boss, his native Liverpool. Red and Barnard, his fellow undercover operatives, were also in London. He was alone in Thailand.
He sat in a bar with only his thoughts for company and waited. As Regan waited, those thoughts turned to movies he had seen and novels he had read. Regan loved Al Pacino in Serpico. He was fond of crime fiction. No waiting in films or books. No boring bits. It was all action, action, action and drama, drama, drama. Just as well, he thought. Who would want to watch the months of boring waiting? But that was movies and books. They pretended to be cops doing dangerous things. He was a cop, and what he was doing was dangerous in the extreme, even the waiting. He knew that.
Regan likened the waiting to fishing. You threw out the bait and hoped for the big one. He glanced down at the bag. The bait was now inside the bag. Regan checked the bag once more. All there. Fifty thousand dollars. Drug buy money. Enough to buy a lot of drugs. Heroin, to be exact. Heroin, smack, ‘H,’ whatever you wished to call it, was big business in the Golden Triangle.
Thailand butted up to the other two countries in the infamous triangle: Laos and Burma. And China was also close by, though it did not share a border with Thailand as did Laos and Burma. This area was responsible for producing most of the world’s opium crop in the 1970’s and 1980’s. It was notorious not only for opium and heroin production, but for also being infested with bandits. Bandits who smuggled.
He sat at his usual table inside Lucky’s Bar in Patong and waited. The time, ten o’ clock in the morning. There were no customers. The bar girls who worked at Lucky’s would not show until about eight in the evening. No bar girls, no customers - a simple equation. A middle-aged Thai lady cook was out back in the kitchen. One slightly overweight thirty-year-old Thai lady was behind the bar cleaning. She was ready to take food and drinks orders from any casual passer-by. That was the lunch trade, usually couples or families looking for inexpensive Thai food. The trade consisted of mostly tourists, foreigners like him, or farangs as they were known in the Thai language. The single male foreigners of all ages would not appear until the bar girls showed up.
Nerves showed when he tapped his feet to a non-existent tune. The third cigarette in thirty minutes also betrayed a nervousness.
A voice in Regan’s ear startled him. “You no look happy. No sabai sabai. You look serious,” said Fon, smiling with her enigmatic eyes which Regan perceived as more Chinese than Thai.
Serious? Regan thought. No wonder. There’s fifty grand in that bag. Regan smiled back at Fon, unable and unwilling to tell her the truth.
She was the Mama-san controlling the girls who worked there. Regan had inherited her in that position when he became embedded as the farang manager of Lucky’s. In the four months he had been there, he had come to rely on Fon, respect her and started to have feelings for her. But he had to go along with the subterfuge, pretending to be a farang hippie with a wealthy uncle who owned Lucky’s. That was Regan’s cover story. That, and the uncle who had sent him to Thailand to escape his creditors. The ‘uncle’ was the UK government’s secret covert ops crime division - DOCS, Destroy Organised Crime Syndicates.
Fon was right. This is serious, he thought. Fifty thousand dollars serious. Regan waited for another westerner, a farang or foreigner just like him. The plan: to hand over the drugs money and in return Regan would be taken to the drugs - heroin - somewhere out of town and hidden away. But the farang was late. In truth, Regan had been waiting for four months for this meeting. Four whole months of biding his time, establishing his credentials as a bar manager not averse to risk-taking in the form of a drug deal. That was how he intended to flush out the big guys, the real players in this game.
It was a long, lonely wait. He had all the time in the world to ponder because he could not talk to anyone about his true identity or real motives. Regan mused during these abundant thoughtful moments: It’s nothing like the movies or a novel. There are no dull moments in films or books. The hero is always doing something. Not that he considered himself a hero. He recognised he remained an undercover cop and a damn good one.
All thoughts of going rogue had disappeared after what happened in London. Blue and Bill both dead. Bill was a Mafia mobster who
had infiltrated British Customs and worked undercover with Blue. Bill’s real name was Guglielmo Di Maria. Regan came close to doing a massive drugs deal with Bill. He was tempted because his mother needed a life-saving operation and he needed money to pay for it. Regan came to his senses in time.
He contemplated all these things while waiting. He also thought of his wife and daughter killed in a car crash. Regan felt his chest swell with sadness but suppressed the emotion. Deep down, buried in his subconscious, remained the need to find another woman to love and trust. It was omnipresent, like an albatross following a ship. He would just not admit it to himself or anyone. Regan also saw he needed a woman to trust him. He still blamed himself for the death of his wife and daughter all those years ago. He should have been driving, not his wife. Regan had lied to her. Told her he couldn’t make the trip to visit her mother as he needed to work. Regan did work. The lie lay in the fact he did not have to.
He could have gone to visit his mother-in-law. He could have been driving. He could have avoided the truck that destroyed the family car and the precious lives inside it. It all could have been so different. All this waiting made a man think. What else was there to do but think?
As he waited it was time for another smoke. Regan lit yet another one. As he lowered his head, raising the lighter to his lips, he heard Fon scream something in Thai. He looked up to see a silver-barrelled gun pointed right at him. Regan recalled Carlo Vitale pointing a gun at him in Boston two years earlier.
The man holding the gun, tall for a Thai, spoke English. “Give me the bag now!” he said raising the gun towards Regan’s head.
Fon screamed at the gunman once again in Thai. The gunman struck her in the mouth with his fist, causing blood to spurt from the corner of her pretty mouth. Regan stopped thinking. And waiting. On reflex, he rammed his right fist in the gunman’s face as he jumped up from his chair.
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