by Mike Coony
Fionn mac Cumhaill, my ancestor, would be spinning in his grave at the cut of them, so he would. And I want nothing more to do with them…the bad bastards!
They say that there’s no such creature as an ex-Provisional IRA commander walking the Earth. You’re either in, let out due to ill health, or dead. Now, we’ll just have to see about that won’t we!
54
HONG KONG, WALES, IRELAND, THE NETHERLANDS and ENGLAND
I am surprised to have received a message from Finn Flynn. He has asked me to get a tip off about his heroin shipment to Broken Elbow of the Macau 14K Triad. Broken Elbow must learn that two hundred kilos of heroin ‘belonging to the Sun Yat Sun’ is en route to Belfast, Northern Ireland via Hull, England. This information should then reach the ears of the 14K’s friends in Belfast – Master Fu’s ‘rivals’. Finn Flynn assures me this will be beneficial to Master Fu.
I suppose by rivals Finn means the Ulster Freedom Fighters; they are the ones trying to take over illegal gambling from the Sun Yat Sun. Why they call themselves ‘Freedom Fighters’ is beyond me. Who is supposed to give them their freedom? Irish politics is as fanciful as the Irish people.
Nevertheless, the tricky part will be to make certain that the UFF believe what they hear. I have been told that most of the UDR and RUC Reserves are also members of the UFF. Master Fu can use a known police informant to whisper into the ear of his RUC controller that a large shipment of heroin is on its way to Belfast. The RUC will spread these whispers to the RUC Reserves and the UDR, and the combined intelligence – from the 14K and the RUC – is certain to convince the UFF about the drugs.
I can’t imagine what Finn is hoping to achieve by guaranteeing that an attempt will be made to steal his heroin. I would dearly like to know what he has planned. But if it helps Master Fu – and upsets Broken Elbow’s friends – I am happy to help.
Finn Flynn has learned something of our Chinese ways during his short time with us. He has realised that when speaking to an elder you make requests, not demands…and never give orders.
———
I’m in Wales…just like Finn told me to be, see. I used the money he wired through Western Union to buy a used Winnebago camper van, and I had it serviced this afternoon. Finn calls me once a day in the B&B, checking up on me I suppose. When he rings tonight I’ll tell him I’m leaving for Rotterdam in the morning, see.
If it weren’t for my darling daughter I wouldn’t be involved in any of this. I felt guilty for not marrying her mother. But how could I? I’m already married, see. And I only started gambling when I didn’t have the money for airfare to visit Mei-Xiu in Singapore.
I guess that’s not exactly true….Us brokers gamble millions on the fickle ups and downs of shares, but it’s all other people’s money, see. Shares go up and shares go down – makes no odds to us. We get our commission either way, see.
Damn it! I’m only back in Wales a week and already I’ve slipped back to the way I talked as a kid – practically every statement ends with a see…see. I’ll have to watch it when I get back to those rich buggers in Hong Kong. It’s nothing but the Queen’s English and my finest Sloan Ranger accent for them…which is funny, seeing as half of them come from Essex and talk with a flat London accent. At least they do when they’re rat arsed after a few grams of coke or a jeroboam of champagne.
———
I’ve never been comfortable relying on complicated plans, especially when I have little control over the players, the timing and the outcomes at every stage. But the idea is to get the UFF nicked with the heroin, or failing that, Paul Wills. Even if the heroin makes it to Hull, things can go wrong. If the shipment isn’t grabbed by the UFF the plan will be bollixed, and I’ll have to settle for Paul being done for the drugs. But if they do grab it, and the police don’t respond in time, the UFF bastards will get away with two hundred kilos of ninety-eight per cent pure heroin worth over six million pounds. Anyway, it’s my plan, and I think I’ve done all I can to make it work. Of course, that doesn’t make me feel any better.…
Paul is leaving for Rotterdam in the morning. When he drives the Winnebago camper van on to the ferry in Hull a satellite phone will be handed to him. I’ve told him to carry out any instructions he’s given by a caller with an Ulster accent.
When I phoned Eddie he told me that Broken Elbow knows about ‘the Sun Yat Sun’s heroin’ arriving in Hull, and he guaranteed me that he’ll be in Rotterdam in time to meet the shipment. Eddie will pack the heroin into the camper van himself and drive it on to the ferry. He’ll make the crossing to Hull and leave the van at the ferry terminal car park for Paul.
After that, I’m depending on those UFF bully boys being unable to resist taking a lolly from a baby. Psychology 101 at Trinity College didn’t cover this rather specific scenario so, as usual, I’m working on a wing and a prayer. I can only hope that they’re hungry enough to throw caution to the wind, but we’ll just have to wait and see if greed gets the upper hand.
I’ll need the IRA code word when I make the call to the Anti-Terrorist Branch about the Winnebago camper van in Hull – or else they won’t take me seriously. The code word is used to confirm genuine bomb threats to the Special Branch, and the Anti-Terrorist Branch is part of the Special Branch. A new word is called in to a secure number in London’s New Scotland Yard each morning before nine a.m., and Mac has access to the word. Anyway, I’ll have to say the van is full of arms.
Feck me! Assuming the UFF know about the shipment, they still don’t know exactly when or where it’s arriving in Hull. Now, if they were to get the number of the driver’s satellite phone, that would make things much easier for them. I’ll have to talk to Uncle Sui….
———
Finn Flynn’s plan is devious, conniving, smart and very Chinese. Who could imagine that a gweilo would think like that? I see how this will definitely benefit Master Fu.
Finn has requested my assistance in making sure that the UFF pricks get the number of the satellite phone that will be carried by Paul Wills. Finn believes the UFF will contact Paul and order him to drive the shipment someplace of their choosing. The UFF does not know exactly when or where the drugs will arrive in Hull, so I suppose this makes sense; having contact with Paul will save them time and trouble. The UFF will threaten him and tell him he is being watched to make him comply; they will not know that he will be expecting their call.
I will accomplish this last favour for Finn Flynn in a way that serves Master Fu directly. Since the UFF began stepping on the Sun Yat Sun’s toes in Belfast, Master Fu has become suspicious of one of his ordinary members, a 49er. And Master Fu’s suspicions are never incorrect.
Master Fu’s most trusted Straw Sandal, his liaison officer, will meet the 49er for breakfast the morning the heroin arrives in Hull. The Straw Sandal will whisper hints about a large shipment arriving in the UK that morning, and he will say that he must contact the driver with instructions. He will be called away on urgent business, and he will not notice that he has dropped the number of the satellite phone on the floor. If Master Fu’s suspicions are correct, the UFF will receive the number within minutes…and the 49er will no longer be a problem.
———
The shipment has arrived in Rotterdam; Mac rang Paul and told him to leave the camper van at a pier off Vondelingenweg. Uncle Sui’s friends lease the whole pier, so no port authorities will bother them while they stuff the van with heroin.
I’m counting on the UFF wanting to get their thieving hands on the smack as soon as it arrives in Hull, but I don’t want those bastards getting Paul to drive all the way to the ferry terminal in Stranraer, Scotland. I better ring him with instructions.
———
I just left the camper van where the guy with the Ulster accent told me to leave it, see. Damn, the satellite phone is ringing again.…I hope I left the van in the right place.
“Hello.”
“Listen up now Paul….You’ve to travel back as a foot passenger on the nine p.
m. ferry. I’ll ring when you get to Hull and tell you where to collect the package. Within thirty minutes of my call the UFF should ring you. You have to insist that you can’t drive the camper van more than twenty kilometres. Tell them you’re running out of diesel and you’ve no money to buy more if you have to. Act frightened, but insist you’ve got to stay in Hull, or nearby. Got it?”
“Got it.”
I took a taxi away from the docks, and the driver dropped me at a coffee shop he recommended. He advised me to get back to the port a good half hour before sailing if I want to get a berth, or a decent seat near the exit.
I ordered coffee and Dutch-style sausage and mash, but I’m so nervous I can hardly swallow the food in my mouth, never mind chewing it. Sweet Holy Divine. How did I get in this mess? I asked myself. First the 14K Triad, then the IRA, and now the bloody UFF! It’ll be a miracle if I make it out of this alive….
If I sit in here staring out the window much longer they’re going to get suspicious. Thank God there’s a bench twenty metres down the road where people can sit and watch the traffic pass by. I can wait there for the evening sailing to Hull, see.
Stretching out on the bench, I fell right off to sleep. I woke at eight p.m. and headed back to the docks in time to board the ferry for the nine o’clock sailing.
I got a kind of reclining sleeper seat right alongside the door that leads out to the deck. With the help of a half bottle of Dutch gin, and a litre of tonic water, I fell asleep.
———
The Sun Yat Sun Three Harmonies Society was first established in the Dutch East Indies – modern day Indonesia – and they are well ensconced in the Netherlands. It is thanks to them that Finn Flynn’s two hundred kilos of heroin arrived in Rotterdam Port, hidden inside the spare tyres of a shipment of Toyota Land Cruisers from Cyprus.
The Three Harmonies Society opened the wall panels of the camper van and helped Eddie Tang load the heroin. Of course, they only loaded one hundred ninety-five kilos. At seventy-five thousand US dollars a kilo, wholesale, our little taste of five kilos comes to three hundred seventy-five thousand dollars. I am sure Finn Flynn does not expect us to work for nothing.
Eddie Tang drove the camper van on to the ferry in Rotterdam, and he will drive it off the ferry in England. But he is not being paid anything…once a lapdog, always a lapdog.
Finn Flynn has been a nuisance, but he is not the terrorist thug I was expecting when I first agreed to offer him refuge. He is not so bad for a yellow-haired gweilo…no, not so bad, not so bad at all. The Sun Yat Sun would not have the Russian prostitutes without him. He has had his uses…he has definitely had his uses.
If he settles down with the right woman he will live a good life – no man should be without a family. But I think women will be his downfall. That woman from Sweden, the one who helped him with the Russian child, she might be the one to make his wife. I do not expect to be invited to the wedding, although I would send a wedding gift…a book on Chinese philosophy perhaps.
———
The lorries and cars revving their engines woke me, we’ve docked in Hull, see. Half awake, I staggered out on deck to see the first of the vehicles driving on to the wharf.
I joined the line of disembarking foot passengers just in time to see a silver and white Winnebago camper…Christ! There’s a red Welsh dragon on the roof! I never climbed up that little ladder at the back to check the bloody roof, see. Why would I? Good God! If Finn Flynn’s setting me up to be arrested I couldn’t have made it easier for him!
The camper van’s in the queue of vehicles approaching the HM Customs and Excise checkpoint. Four officers in their bright yellow high-visibility coats are approaching the van….They’re going to stop it for a search. Fuck!
A white Ford van is trying to ease past the Winnebago I left in Rotterdam only yesterday…it seems like it was a lifetime ago…silly, silly man. Thank Christ, they’ve signalled the Ford van to pull in for an inspection and they’re waving the Winnebago on.
Fuck me that was a close one. It’s a good thing I wore gloves while driving the van, see. Otherwise they could have got my fingerprints, couldn’t they? What am I thinking? The van isn’t getting searched. All the same, I’m glad I thought to wear gloves. No one suggested that to me. I’m no man’s fool, see.
———
I took one of Brother Leader Gaddafi’s satellite phones and tramped through the woods, up towards the old silver mine in the hills above Glendalough. Mac will have the IRA-Special Branch code word of the day by the time I reach the mine.
Glendalough has always been one of my favourite places in Ireland. Saint Kevin’s Bed and the two lakes are so peaceful before the tourists arrive. It’s said there are bodies in the upper lake – British Black and Tans weighted down with stones in the pockets of their uniforms. They were drowned in revenge, for evil deeds long forgotten, and dropped in the middle of the lake where the water is deep and sunlight never reaches the corpses.
I wonder if the revenge I’ve planned will be remembered. Or will it be forgotten, like the long dead soldiers of the Crown who were released from prison to wreak bloody havoc on the Irish? Still, if a few more ordinary, decent Unionists see their heroes in jail for a massive drugs seizure, maybe they’ll think again about supporting the evil bastards.
Paul Wills is getting off lightly, but he wouldn’t be if it weren’t for his Mei-Xiu – with her cheeky smile and Minnie Mouse T-shirt. He doesn’t know how lucky he is to have such a treasure. Then again, maybe he does, and that’s why I’m going easy on him.
I’m passing the old miners’ cottages; they’re just piles of stones now. Their owners are long gone away to seek work in Australia, America, or even Africa.
According to my watch, the Rotterdam ferry has docked in Hull. I’ll ring Paul to tell him to collect the camper van in the ferry terminal car park, and to wait for the call from the UFF.
Ten minutes after I talked to Paul the satellite phone rang. It must be Mac.
“Drogheda dogs boss, Drogheda dogs,” was all he said.
A minute after I got the code word from Mac the phone rang again.
“Finn, the UFF told me to drive to a service station and café at Whitecross Road, and they said I better not try any funny stuff.”
“OK Paul, now don’t panic. Just do what they said, but leave the camper van across the road, don’t drive into the car park. Put the ignition key in your pocket and force the fuel tank key into the ignition. Then sneak out the passenger side and ring me.”
In case the Special Branch is slow in arriving, the wrong key jammed in the ignition should delay the UFF’s getaway, a bit anyway….
I answered the satellite phone again; Paul’s at the service station. “Right Paul, go over to the café and keep your eyes on the van.”
I phoned New Scotland Yard and asked to be put through to Commander Smyth Bryson-Jones immediately. There was a moment’s delay before a crisp Sandhurst type came on the line.
“Drogheda dogs, commander, is the word for the day. And another wee word from the Army Council…a silver and white Winnebago camper van, registration J7446K, is parked outside the café at the service station at Whitecross Road, where the A165 joins the A1035. If you hurry you’ll find two hundred assault rifles and assorted ammunition, property of those loyal citizens of the Queen, the Ulster Freedom Fighters. Be sharp now commander, they’ll be gone in ten minutes I’d say.”
He didn’t utter a word in reply and the phone went dead. I can just picture the panic in the Anti-Terrorist Branch….
I phoned Paul back and the man can’t control himself. The cool investment manager with the fake Sloan Ranger accent is no more. He’s babbling away thirteen to the dozen in that singsong voice unique to the valleys of Wales.
“Everywhere, see, they’re everywhere. Came in here they did, see, even came in here and bought a screwdriver from the shop and fetched it back to the camper van, see. I suppose they’re going to turn the ignition with the screwdriver, see.
Oh God, look! Now they’re trying to tow-start it…it’s spluttering. I’d say they’ll have it running next time….”
“Calm down Paul. Use a public phone to dial nine nine nine and ask for the police. Tell them what’s happening, and say you saw one of the men with a machine gun, then hang up. Right! Do it now!” I yelled over the noise of the wind and the screech of a kestrel swooping above my head.
If the Special Branch doesn’t get there before the feckin’ UFF piss off with the camper van – and all that heroin – I’ll have wasted Ingrid’s legacy. And Paul Wills won’t have learnt feck all…I want him to see the arrests, so I do. Bollocks! Bollocks! Bollocks! Paul’s my only link to the action….I’ll ring him back to see if anything’s happening.
“I c-c-can’t r-really t-t-talk. I j-jumped in front of the c-camper v-v-van. I-it was the only w-way to s-s-stop them, s-s-see. Ah fuck! The window’s just c-c-crashed in! This mad f-f-fucking g-gunman just leapt out of another c-c-car and shot at m-m-me through the w-window….Why me? I suppose b-b-because I t-t-tried to s-s-stop the v-van. Yes…that m-m-must b-be it. Oh my God! He’s hit the two w-w-waitresses standing j-just inside the w-w-window…they were j-just l-looking at what w-w-was occurring ou-outside. The t-two g-g-girls are c-c-covered in b-b-b-blood! I’m hit….Christ that hurts….The g-girls aren’t m-m-moving…I think they’re d-dead! He’s c-c-coming towards me f-f-firing that little m-m-machine gun! Thank God…he’s j-just d-d-dropped to his knees and th-th-thrown his hands a-a-above his h-head. The m-machine gun is sl-sl-sliding across the c-car p-park t-t-towards the sh-sh-shattered window….I can f-feel my shoe f-f-filling up…it’s warm and st-sticky…it’s my b-b-blood! My shoe is f-f-filling up with b-b-blood!”