by Mike Coony
We were invited to have lunch with the bank president, right there in his office. Quick as a flash, Vinnie cried off, claiming he had to catch a flight back to Hong Kong, but he suggested that I stay there and cover any ‘outstanding details’. I could’ve kissed the guy. A chip off the old block – Uncle Angelo would be proud of him…damn proud!
As soon as Vinnie left, the banker wanted to know what’s in the deal for him. When I said twenty-five basis points – that’s a quarter of one percent – he nearly ripped my arm off and wanted to know how much we can lease.
When I got back to my hotel room I immediately telephoned Angelo.
“So, tell me…how did young Vincenzo do?”
“Angelo, I gotta tell ya, for a while, I thought it was you in the room reeling in the banker.”
“That good? Was he really that good, eh? You’re not jerking me around are you Earl?”
I can hear the emotion in Angelo’s voice. He’s finally convinced – Vincenzo’s completely redeemed.
“No Angelo, I’m not jerkin’ you around.”
“Fantastico! Now…here’s the way we’ll play it Earl…the boys down in Panama City will take everything the duck farmers have, and then some.” After twenty years working for the Mob I’m not easily surprised, but I’m breathless. I tried to fit a word in, but that’s not easy when Angelo’s on a roll. “First, I want the Russian broad and her kid out of there, now. I’m sending the Gulfstream tonight…have them ready by noon tomorrow. We’ll fly them to Canada and put them up in the house in Alberta. OK?”
“OK Angelo, they’ll be ready….But the duck farmers…everything they got? We’re talkin’ billions Angelo…and I mean billions! How’re you gonna lease all they got?”
“Don’t worry about it Earl. That Panamanian son-of-a-bitch Noriega can issue treasuries. We’ll cash the treasuries at Citibank and use the money to lease the duck assets. The greedy bankers will jump at the treasuries.”
“You got a ballpark figure?”
“Eh, you want to work out your commission already?! Let’s say…eight billion for starters.”
I did a quick calculation of 25 basis points – what Vinnie and I will get out of eight billion greenbacks – that’s around ten million each! Not bad for doing nothing but talking!
47
HONG KONG: NOVEMBER, 1985
I did what I could to absolve Vinnie of the guilt he’s feeling over Susie’s slaughter. I don’t want his misplaced feelings of responsibility affecting the two things he can do to help. He needs to organise passage for me and Mac, and dig up money – in case the shite hits the fan and we have to leg it out of Asia in a hurry.
During my Trinity College days I read some commentators on human behaviour who claimed that revenge is a dish best served cold. I doubt these authors were ever called upon to kill for revenge; I have been…too many times. But killing these savages from the Siberian steppes, the gutters of Moscow – or wherever these butchers were born – will be a pleasure.
My philosophy is get on with it; don’t let your feelings fester or overwhelm you. The quicker you dispatch those who need dispatching, the quicker you’ll find a sort of peace. It will probably be a numb, troublesome peace, but peace nevertheless – and that’s what you need most of all.
I know from bitter experience that revenge, however brutally executed, offers no shelter for a tortured soul. It might help you achieve a state of numbness, but it won’t get rid of all the pain. Once you’ve killed whoever needs killing there are no longer live human beings to direct your fury at, and sometimes that can serve to frustrate you further. As much as you’d like to, you can’t kill the same people twice.
———
I’m not sleeping very well, especially since Anna left. I thought exercising might help, but it hasn’t. I shadow boxed for hours – because there aren’t heavy punching bags in five-star hotel health clubs. I ran twenty-five kilometres on the treadmill, lifted weights, and swam thirty laps of the pool. But no matter what I do, it doesn’t tire me. All the exercise is having the opposite effect – I’m more awake, more alert, more keyed up.
Thankfully, Mac is arriving tonight; I’ll go to the airport in a few hours to collect him. Roger Wynne has organised a suite for Mac across the hall from mine, and he had the hotel’s special seven foot bed – that was built for German Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s visit – moved in for Mac. Roger told me there will be a limousine on standby to take me to the airport, and anywhere else I want to go.
The front desk just phoned. Chief Superintendent ‘Chopper’ Conway rang while I was in the health club; he wants to see me. As much as I’m reluctant to meet any policeman, even one as switched-on as Chopper, I better make the effort after I collect Mac. I rang Central Police Station to confirm that I’ll attend there around eight p.m. to meet Chief Superintendent Conway.
Mac isn’t due in until five thirty, so I’ve a couple of hours to kill before I leave for the airport. I’m wound up and I can’t stand still for more than a minute. This is no condition to be in when I greet Mac off his flight; it doesn’t do to spook him before an operation.
I headed over to the FCC to play pool with Sam, the basement bar steward. He beat me four frames in a row. A lesson in humility is just what I needed.
———
There’s Mac, the man who will bring devastation to my enemies, solace to my friends, and a little peace to me, please God. He’s just about as fit as I’ve ever seen him…‘fightin’ fit’ he calls it. Mac is definitely up for the job.
He barely escaped being blown up by a Tamil Tiger bomb at Bandaranaike Airport in Sri Lanka, but Mac is his usual upbeat self. The nose of the Boeing 747 he flew in on was blown off just after they landed in Colombo. But without a bother on him, Mac headed to where the planes take off for the Bangkok and Hong Kong sectors and boarded a smaller aircraft.
He’s telling me about his first flight with Air Lanka, and the two big-breasted girls who served him using only their right hands – because, according to their religion, their other hand is ‘unclean’. I’m content to let him prattle on about the in-flight service until we’re away from prying eyes and listening ears.
We checked him into his suite and chatted for a bit, before talking over our options. I’m in favour of a public execution, as opposed to a low-profile-just-vanished operation. Mac has no preference, other than to get the job done and get the feck out…ideally together, alive, and uninjured. We won’t be able to settle any details until we meet Uncle Sui. He’ll give us the information we need about the number of Russians we’re dealing with, their habits, and their vulnerable points.
“Right Mac, get some sleep. You’re going to need it.”
“Will do…I just need ta make a call first.”
———
“Is it yourself boss?…Am I gone soft in the head? Sure, who else would I be? It’s been feckin’ magic catching up with Finn again so soon….Right, fair enough. Time’s money….I’ll get to the point, right enough.
“Jaysus, he’s looking rough. I wouldn’t say that he’s been sleepin’ nights. Boss, Finn doesn’t know it, but I’ve been talking ta Anna, his Swedish helper. She described the scene they came across inside Finn’s apartment after collecting the child from Moscow. It’s no wonder the poor fecker looks the way he does. They sliced the poor girl’s breasts off, so they did. No matter what happens with these Russian pricks, I’m going ta try and persuade Finn ta come back home…as far as Europe anyway.
“Like I’ve told people before, and I’m not sure they believed me, but the thing ya have ta grasp…there’s a powerful soft side ta Fearless Finn Flynn. He can be as tough as an old soldier’s boots, as ya know, but he’d still climb a tree ta rescue a kid’s stranded pussycat. Anything involving children…that’s his weakness. Forget the I’m a tough, ruthless bastard…he’s a bit of a softy under it all. Don’t get me wrong. When it comes ta standing up ta being tortured by the Brits or fightin’ the Orange bastards, he’s still the descendant of
mac Cumhaill, right enough. No question. Remember when those MI5 bastards had him for fourteen days? Water torture and beatings…Jaysus, they broke every rib in his body and both his thumbs. And he was still tellin’ them ta feck off, so he was. Tommy Furlong in the next cell could hear Finn roarin’ and cursin’ at them ta ‘try a little harder, why don’t you?!’ Mad, altogether! I don’t know if you ever got ta hear about the time I’d just left him when he got in a fire fight with a squad of UFF volunteers three kilometres outside Lurgan Town. They pinned him down with crossfire, but he still managed ta take out three of them before leggin’ it back ta Dundalk, grabbing two volunteers out of Murphy’s Bar, racing back over the border and finishing off the rest of them. The original mad bastard…that’s Finn Flynn for ya!
“…Ah, you agree with me….You already know all about it. Well, why didn’t ya say so then? Of course I’ll watch out for him. Why wouldn’t I?…No, I’ve not got the chance ta tell him yet….I know it’s fantastic news….Of course he deserves to know….I will, as soon as we get a quiet moment together, right?…I’ll have to go. I don’t know who’s paying the bills in this gaff, but this phone call must be costing a fortune….OK, I’ll hang up first. Jaysus!”
———
Before I see Chief Superintendent Conway I’ll just slip across the hall to check in on Mac….He didn’t answer my knock, so I used my yoke to open his door. I’m happy to see that he’s sound asleep. I left his phone off the hook – just in case housekeeping rings – so it won’t disturb him.
I got out of the lift at the ground floor lobby, walked out the front door, turned sharp left and cut through Pacific Place to Queensway. I haven’t far to go, so I walked to Queen’s Road, went across to Wyndham Street and up to Central Police Station on Hollywood Road.
“How are you coping Finn?” Chopper asked.
“Well enough, I suppose…under the circumstances. Keeping meself busy….” I gave him the kind of reply people expect to hear.
“Good, glad to hear it Finn. To cut to the chase, our intelligence source leads us to believe that Susie Cooke’s disfigurement and murder were carried out by members of an illegal Triad Society.”
When I heard Chopper say ‘Triad Society’ my heart sank to my boots and my brain turned to blancmange – my favourite pudding as a kid. Nothing makes sense. I can’t gather my thoughts. Uncle Sui? The Sun Yat Sun? But why? I took a couple of deep breaths.
“The 14K Triads are a vicious bunch of thugs.” My head cleared when I heard Chopper say ‘14K Triads’. “That treatment of a woman is typical of them, although we believe that they were working under contract for others…probably Malay investors wiped out by the recent crash of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The Securities and Commodities investigators are looking at possible links between the 14K, the Clarrion Group, and a questionable investment broker up to his neck in debt to the 14K.”
No, not Paul Wills…no…he’d never help them do that to Susie. He and his wife were in our home, and they ate and laughed with us. Susie even befriended his girlfriend during our trip to the Frog and Toad for the Mud Olympics for Christ’s sake. Why? Why would Paul do such a thing?
“Of course Finn, these are just lines of enquiry at the moment…and I’ve told you these things when, strictly speaking, I shouldn’t have. You see, I don’t want you to think that we aren’t committed to this enquiry, because we are. I’ve ordered a team of twelve detectives to stay full-time on the investigation until we get a result. Susie was a special girl…all of us at the FCC think so.”
I’m not sure that I remember accepting Chopper’s offer of a lift back to the Island Shangri-La in his official chief superintendent’s car. We were driven by an elderly constable who saluted both of us before opening the back door of the black Jaguar, and he called me sir.
It’s been a bizarre day altogether. I’ve been saluted by a policeman who’d be introducing me to his size twelve boots under normal circumstances, not calling me sir. And then there’s Paul Wills. How the feck is he involved? Could he have crumbled under pressure from the 14K?
Chopper didn’t exactly come out and say why he thinks the Malay investors had the 14K murder Susie. Did they find out she was giving her husband information for his Clarrion stories? Or was her death just revenge against her husband?
Where I come from, ‘intelligence source’ means that they have a rat, an informer. Maybe they have. Nothing surprises me about the Brits when it comes to planting informers. They did it to the Japanese in the Second World War; the man printing the war charts for the Japanese Imperial Navy was a British spy, planted twenty years before the war began. So why not plant an informer in a Chinese Triad?
I can’t keep Mac hanging around Hong Kong while Chopper’s detectives piece together all the snippets of evidence. We have a job to do, and we can’t wait for them to arrest someone.
———
When Finn looked into my room I feigned sleep. I hadn’t finished my fantasy dream of being marooned on an island with two of the girls from my Air Lanka flight. Anyway, it looked like Finn was all dressed up with somewhere to go, and I really did fall back to sleep.
I can’t have been asleep for more than an hour or two when Finn marched back into my room. He flung open the curtains – even though it’s dark – ordered me out of the bed and marched me up to the pool on the roof of the hotel. I’ve been brought to meet the famous Uncle Sui. He’s sitting beside the glowing blue pool, nibbling at a plate of salmon and watercress sandwiches.
I’m impressed with this old Chinese man; he got straight down to business. Uncle Sui gave us the whereabouts of twenty Russians at various times of the day, photographs, addresses, car registrations, even their mobile phone numbers. And we agreed that twelve of his operatives will assist us.
“Do you object to women being involved in the killing team?” Uncle Sui asked me.
“Not at all. Some of our best assassins in PIRA are women.”
I went through the list of necessary communications equipment, and then we discussed weapons. I was expecting they might be a problem.
“Uncle Sui, is it possible to get an M21 with a night-sight scope for meself? And Glock automatics or Heckler and Koch submachine guns for everyone else?” I asked.
“The weapons you request will be awaiting your arrival in Macau, with a thousand rounds of ammunition for each weapon. But would you accept a Sardius M36 in place of the M21? I have one in stock, and I am told they are the best.”
“That’ll be grand, so.”
“Very good. If you wish to test fire or zero any of the weapons please give me two hours’ notice…so that I may arrange transportation to one of the smaller, uninhabited islands where you can fire your weapons undisturbed.”
Jaysus, I said to meself, a feckin’ Sardius M36 is an Israeli sniper rifle used by special forces all over the world. If only the Chief could meet this man, we’d have the Brits and Orange bastards pissing themselves. I’m mighty impressed. That doesn’t happen often, let me tell you!
———
I gave Mac the nod to disappear for a while. I want to hear Uncle Sui’s comments; I didn’t have to wait long.
“He is a giant, your red-haired friend. But is he a gentle giant? Does he have the stomach for so much killing, Finn Flynn? You and he will have to kill every Russian. No one can be allowed to escape and organise reprisals….This is essential, Finn…essential.”
I told Uncle Sui about the Unionist youths killing Mac’s family in Warrenpoint – and Mac’s single-handed, murderous reprisals. There are no further questions about Mac, or his willingness to kill.
———
Finn arrived back at my suite and we’re looking through the surveillance photographs of the Russian brutes. They’re getting in or out of Lincoln Town Cars and Mercedes 500s, or they’re wrapped around petrified-looking young girls in casinos and restaurants.
I particularly like the photos of them eating. The pictures must’ve been taken by the waiter, or someone stand
ing very close to them. You can see the food in their mouths…and the sauces dribbling down their fat chins. It makes it all the easier to picture plugging these sneering pigs.
Jaysus, I better tell Finn the great news while I have a chance.
———
“Mac, can you stop staring at those photos for a minute? What the feck’s going on in that head of yours?”
He can’t contain himself. An impish grin has swept the fierceness away from Mac’s craggy face, and his eyes are dancing with a joy I’ve not seen in them for a long time.
“Spill the beans Mac…for Jaysus’s sake!”
“The Yanks are after fuckin’ up…isn’t it great! The Chief got a copy of a top secret memo confirming that you were in County Suffolk, England when the lad got shot after the kidnap! God knows how long they have your name attached to a photograph of Fintan Fury! It was him preparing a bit of work at yer man Jim Priory’s farm…you know, the Northern Ireland Secretary fellah. So anyway, the Yanks are goin’ ta tell the Garda gobshites in Dublin Castle that it couldn’t have been you in the woods outside Clonmel. Of course that doesn’t help ta find the bad bastard that said you were involved in the first place, but that’s another day’s work.”
“Well Mac, I didn’t shoot the young guard. So at least they won’t be scouring the Earth looking for me on account of the young fellah’s killing….They’d want to be looking closer to home for the one responsible, so they would!”
TOP SECRET
M E M O R A N D U M
TO: Chairman U.S. Senate Oversight Committee
FROM: Director of Central Intelligence Agency
DATE: December 15, 1983
RE: REPUBLIC OF IRELAND / BRITAIN – Field Report
* * *
// Authorization for covert surveillance granted by Northern Ireland Secretary and Deputy Chief Surveillance Commissioner, Home Office, Whitehall.