by Derek Fee
“You could say that,” Kane said. “Stupid buggers think that I land all the juicy ones.”
“And maybe you do,” Davenport said. He pushed one of the folders on his desk towards Kane. “This is you. We’ve gone for the simple solution. The less complicated the background the better. Your name stays the same. You are now Tom Bell’s nephew so you’d better get used to calling him Uncle Tom.” He watched Kane pick up the folder and scan the pages it contained. “You’re ex-army. Recently demobbed because of the Department of Defence cuts. You’ve been a bit of a bad boy during your military service. Lots of action and lots of disciplinary problems. A complete file on you has been lodged with the ministry and you’ve been added to the computer database. Anybody with the right connections who wishes to check you out will find a full file on you. We’ve opened a bank account for you as well. Full history going back to your student days. You’re a bit of a spendthrift. Rather heavily overdrawn for the moment.” He saw Kane’s eyebrows raise. “Don’t worry. The bank is fully informed. There’s no chance of the bailiffs snatching any of the rubbish you have stored in that flat of yours.”
“You obviously don’t know banks as well as I do,” Kane said, continuing to read the file. His latest reincarnation was a right bastard which wasn’t so far from his actual character. “When you don’t pay your debts, the bailiffs lift your stuff and when you complain the bank puts it all down to computer error. My stuff gets lifted, SO10 pays up. Agreed?”
“In the unlikely event—” Davenport began.
“Agreed?” Kane asked again.
“Very well.” Davenport shuffled the papers in front of him. “We have established you as a fairly capable if undisciplined individual who likes to spend more money than he earns. You like to drive fast and you like to take risks. We can only hope that the drug smugglers become alerted to the possibilities of taking a man of your undoubted talents on board.”
Kane closed the folder. Davenport had done his job. The background material would be easy to learn and even easier to pass off. There were no complicated stories to trip him up. Lots of Hooray Henry high jinks and a propensity to leak money. “I’m still not convinced that I’m the man for this job,” he said, stuffing the folder into his jacket pocket.
“On the contrary,” Davenport said. “You’re perfect.”
“What makes you so sure that I’ll be able to race powerboats?” Kane asked.
“They tell me it doesn’t require a lot of skill but that one needs nerves of steel. I think you might fit that bill.”
“This whole operation is cockeyed,” Kane continued. “Bell has set the whole thing up and he’s nothing but a bloody amateur. And I don’t care much for those desk-bound clowns in Holland. They’re not real coppers.”
“You mean not like you and me. Don’t sell either them or Bell short. This operation will succeed or fail on our ability to develop good intel. Bell is one hell of a businessman and as far as I can see he’s an excellent organiser. He’s also persuasive. After all, he persuaded Strofeld and me to go along with him. We’ve checked out the boatyard he’s decided to sponsor and we couldn’t have made a better choice ourselves. They’ve got total credibility in the powerboat racing world and they’re down on their luck. They were begging for a guardian angel like Bell to come along. Watson is already installed in their yard as a mechanic so everything is in place. Don’t worry. I couldn’t have organised it better myself.”
“And you really think this Watson guy is a good idea?”
“In this case, yes. If you were staying in Britain where we could monitor you locally, I’d let you off on your own. But you’ll be off station for a large part of this operation where we can’t easily keep an eye on you. That makes Watson a necessity. He’ll be our link if anything goes wrong. Don’t undersell him. He’s a hell of a good copper. You can trust him with your life.”
“Looks like I’ll have to. And that doesn’t sit well with me.”
“Watson’s committed. His daughter died of an overdose when she was sixteen. He hates drugs and the people that peddle them.” Davenport handed Kane a file. “That’s Watson’s file. Check out the photo near the end.”
Kane flicked quickly through the file. Watson hadn’t been lying about his operational experience. But he had never worked undercover. The second last page showed a young girl spreadeagled in a toilet. The needle was still in her arm. “Can I keep this?”
“No, you can read it here. But you take nothing with you on the op. Take it from me. Watson is a useful man to have around.”
“I still don’t like it but I said I was in, so I suppose...” Kane tailed off.
“That’s the spirit,” Davenport said, filling the pause. “Let’s nail the bastards. De Vries expects you in The Hague tomorrow for a final briefing and then it’s off to Cornwall with Bell. Or perhaps we should start calling him ‘Uncle Tom’.” Davenport smiled. “It all sounds pretty exciting. I rather envy you myself.”
“Yeh, right,” Kane said as he pushed himself out of the chair. A vision of the photograph of Henri Lamont’s Columbian necktie flashed into his mind. “I’m sure it’ll be jolly hockey sticks.”
Chapter Seven
The Hague
Kane found himself back in The Hague one week after his initial visit. This time he travelled alone. He had spent the week clearing his desk and was now assigned full-time to the ‘Bell operation’. De Vries, who he had learned was an inspector in the Dutch police, met him at the entrance and led him directly to the conference room. Watson was already there.
“Mr Bell is expected shortly,” de Vries said. “Perhaps you and DS. Watson could get acquainted while I ensure his admittance to the building.”
“I think they expect you and me to do a bit of bonding,” Watson said as soon as de Vries closed the door.
“I don’t bond all that well,” Kane sat across the table from Watson. “Or didn’t they tell you?” He reckoned Watson to be somewhere in his forties. Mid-forties and still a detective sergeant. There was a story there somewhere. A light brown moustache covered his upper lip. The craggy face was lived in but not one that would be forgotten easily if it had once been undercover. The body resembled the face in that it appeared sinewy and hard. Kane noticed that lines even stood out on the back of Watson’s hands.
“Your reputation proceeds you,” Watson said. “We’ve even heard about you in Manchester. Some people say that you’re a grandstander. There’s a whole load of folk who think that I’m deranged for agreeing to work with you.”
“Do they now,” Kane smiled. “They say that forewarned is forearmed. Grandstander or no grandstander. Stay out of my way. I’m used to running a solo operation and that’s the way we’ll play this one. I don’t need back-up. Especially from someone who hasn’t worked undercover before.”
“Okay,” Watson said returning Kane’s smile. “I don’t particularly like working in pairs either. Especially with someone people say is more like a raging bull than a police officer. And how the hell did you know that I never worked undercover before?”
“Your face is not one that people would easily forget. The kind of people we deal with are like elephants. They never forget who put them away. That’s why you’ve got to look like me. I put on a beard or a moustache and I look completely different. That wouldn’t work with you. How did you get into this business?”
“They were looking for a copper with operational experience who could also pass as a first-class mechanic,” Watson said. “I scored high in both areas. When they told me the operation’s objectives, I volunteered?”
“You don’t look like you’re that stupid,” Kane said. “Being undercover isn’t like working around some nick or other. You’re in the face of the bad guys and if they smell a rat then it’s goodnight. I hope you’re up for this.”
“Don’t worry about me. I get the easy job. I work on the engines and ask a few silly questions. And I try to keep an eye on what you’re up to.” He spread his hands on the tabl
e palms upwards. “Easy.”
“Tell me about it when someone shoves a gun in your face and you loosen your bowels.”
“It didn’t happen in Helmand and it won’t happen here.”
“You want to bet.”
Watson smiled. “Why don’t we start this bonding shit again. People generally call me ‘Doc’.”
Kane raised his eyebrows.
“You know, Doctor Watson, Sherlock Holmes’ friend. My father was considered a bit of a wag. He named me John and in the next breath he stuck the nickname ‘Doc’ on me. Since I can’t very well go around calling you DS Kane, what do I call you?”
“My first name is Mark,” Kane said. “But not too many people get close enough to me to use it.”
“Good,” Watson said. “Mark will do fine. Now, Let’s get one thing clear. This is no lifetime partnership so we don’t have to fall in love with each other. However, it would be nice if we didn’t manage to get killed by being at each other throats all the time. Let’s agree that for this one time we’ll work together and try to bring down the bad guys.”
“Under different circumstances, Doc. I think I could even get to like you.”
“That’s a good boy,” Doc smiled broadly.
De Vries returned with Bell in tow before the conversation could resume. Bell shook hands with Kane and Watson and sat beside them. A secretary deposited a tray of coffees on the boardroom table and departed.
“Okay,” de Vries stood in front of an electronic whiteboard and removing his jacket revealing a perfectly ironed blue striped cotton shirt and the matching blue braces.
Kane looked at Watson and nodded in the direction of the young Dutchman. De Vries fashion sense only increased Kane’s opinion of the employees of Europol as displaced investment bankers.
“Let us begin,” de Vries said.
Kane passed a coffee to his new pal and took one for himself. Bell ignored the tray.
“And now to business,” de Vries said. He opened the folder which he had brought from the desk. “Following our meeting of last week, we have completed a dossier on all the drivers in the Offshore Championship.”
Kane sipped the black coffee savouring the liquid as it ran down his throat. Europol might not be real coppers but they knew how to brew a decent cup of coffee. “How can you do that in such a short time?” he asked.
De Vries turned to face Kane. “We are specialists in the obtaining of information. Although you may not consider us to be policemen in the true sense of the word, I assure you that we are excellent at what we do. We have access to virtually every database in Europe. If you are a criminal, then you deal in money. We can follow every financial transaction made in any one of the Member States of the European Union.”
“I thought most of that stuff was confidential,” Bell said with more than a degree of apprehension.
There speaks the voice of the true capitalist, Kane thought. The poor bastard must be shaking in his boots knowing that these bods in the Hague can dip their fingers into his financial affairs anytime they wanted.
“Maybe it should be,” de Vries warmed to his explanation. “Credit companies need to know about their clients, so a lot of financial information is freely available. All the people on your list are in the public eye so they’ve been written about in newspapers and business journals. That makes finding information on them relatively easy. We’re linked into every personnel database on earth. Within a few days of launching this operation, we had a full dossier on every powerboat driver collated from all those databases. From then on it was only a question of pruning and sifting. The results are in the files we have prepared for you.” De Vries tapped his finger on the bound volume in front of him. He turned to Bell. “We have developed personal and financial details on everyone you named.”
“That’s amazing,” Bell said more to himself than to the others.
“It is our strength and our weakness,” de Vries said. “As you may know since the days of the Gestapo, our German colleagues have been paranoid about the collection of personal data by police organisations. They have a rather pathological fear of the information falling into the wrong hands. We have had more than a little difficulty having our charter ratified because of this point.”
“It’s nice to know that the European Union works,” Kane said before draining his coffee.
“And have you come up with anything?” Bell asked.
“The short answer is no,” de Vries said. “All of these people are what our British colleagues would call ‘pukka’. For a start, everybody is who they say they are. Except for Mr Jackson but we will get to that point later. From what we have established there is no obvious criminal. Some of them have questionable backgrounds in either their private or business affairs but plenty of honest men have cheated on their wives and,” de Vries stole a glance at Bell. “Most businessmen are prone to utilise sharp practices. We are dealing with some seriously rich people here who did not get that way by playing by the Marquis of Queensberry’s rules. I am digressing. Let us start at the beginning.” De Vries picked up a remote and pushed a button. A head and shoulder picture of a dark-haired man appeared on the white screen behind him.
“The man you are looking at is Harry Hakonen,” de Vries began. “Hakonen’s company is responsible for over fifty per cent of the Finnish shipbuilding industry. He also owns two paper mills. The records show that he made lots of money during the first decade of the Millennium but since then there has been a turndown in his business. There are rumours in the press that Hakonen is under pressure from some of his bankers and investors. He is not quite on Skid Row but his financial position has been better.” De Vries pressed the remote and a second and younger face appeared on the screen. “This is Angelo Tardelli. Playboy supreme. Tardelli inherited €50 million from his father. Most of it has been invested and Tardelli prefers to live off the interest. He is a bone fide member of the international jet set. We can find no record of his ever being employed.” De Vries’ nose crinkled as he spoke. The thought that somebody should fritter away their time was anathema to a Dutchman. “He does not appear to think about work. That’s for the plebs. Tardelli is into every thrill that money can buy. Powerboat racing is only one of the ways he gets his kicks. The dossier we have compiled on him could form the basis for a shopping-and-sex novel. We have found some evidence of drug abuse but only on a personal level. There is nothing linking Tardelli with trafficking in drugs.”
De Vries flicked the remote again and the image of a dark-skinned moustachioed face appeared on the screen. “Constantinos Karakatis. Scion of a Greek shipping family. He likes to buy things. Shipyards, islands, hotels, people. You name it, he has tried to buy it. He appears to use the powerboat scene to promote his shipping and boatbuilding ventures. Financial records indicate that he is a multi-millionaire with heavy on the multi. Karakatis caused us the most problems when we tried to examine his business affairs. He is a very secretive individual. That does not necessarily indicate that he is dishonest. It simply means that he does not like people prying into his affairs. I should say at this point that we have simply collected and collated information. For your files, we have tried to summarise a vast amount of information. The men who have the means to indulge themselves by racing powerboats are a rather interesting cross-section of the business community. They work hard and play hard. It is not the function of Europol to come to any conclusions as to their guilt or innocence. We are simply providing information.”
Kane flicked rapidly through his dossier.
“Perhaps I can help you, DS Kane?” de Vries asked.
“I’m searching for the disclaimer,” Kane said. “I’d hate to see you people with your asses hung out because we’re trying to nail some major drug-traffickers, murderers or God knows what.”
De Vries ignored the remark and pushed the button on the remote again. An extremely handsome face filled the screen at the end of the room. “This is perhaps the most well-known individual on the powerboat circuit.”
He looked from Watson to Bell and on to Kane. None of the men reacted. De Vries brow furled. “None of you recognises Doug Jackson.” His tone was one of astonishment. “He is,” he searched for the words. “A superstar of screen and TV.” Still no hint of recognition from Bell, Watson or Kane. De Vries sighed and put on his professional face “Born Southend, England as Wilfred Micklejohn. I suppose they don’t give out prizes for guessing why he calls himself Doug Jackson. He has had a routine acting career. Lots of small parts, lots of what actors term ‘rests’, a lot of poverty. Then quite suddenly he gets a part in a top detective show that sells all over the world and everything is happening for him. Movies, mini-series, even a romantic record. The trade press is beginning to talk about Jackson as the next James Bond. He is making large sums of money. As far as we can ascertain, he made ten million dollars last year alone. It also appears that Doug is not financially naive. He has made some very shrewd investments including a strong position in cryptocurrency. His only passion is powerboat racing.”
Kane glanced at his watch. He always hated briefings and what he hated even more was that de Vries obviously got off on this crap. The Dutchman was probably pulling down three times his salary by sitting behind a screen in a luxuriously appointed office. He glanced over at Bell and Watson and found them engrossed in de Vries’ exposition.
De Vries pressed the remote button and a new face appeared.
“Now here is an interesting character,” de Vries began. “Georges Lemay. Born Algiers 1977. Not exactly on the right side of the tracks. Lemay’s father ran a small shop in Algiers. There was involvement in nefarious business during the French withdrawal from Algeria but as soon as things got hot, he piled himself and his family into the boats along with everyone else and made for the mother country. They left virtually everything they owned behind and people say they can clearly see the chip on Lemay’s shoulder. He carries his pied-noir background around with him like a badge of honour. The world owes Lemay and he intends to collect. He began his working life as a mechanic in an exclusive garage in Lyon and was picked up by the Renault racing team. Apparently, he tried his hand at driving and almost made it to the big time. If the press cuttings are to be believed, Lemay has balls of steel. He gave the spectators exactly what they wanted, passes on the chicane at Monte Carlo. He took risks other men would eschew. His motor racing career ended a decade ago when he was involved in an accident after the start of the Australian Grand Prix. Some people were rash enough to suggest that Lemay’s car purposely touched the car of one of the contenders for the World Championship and put him out of the race. There were allegations of bribery but nothing was ever proved. After the incident, Lemay was not welcome on the grid and his team dropped him at the end of the season. He tried Formula Two but his reputation followed him there. The logical move for Lemay was the powerboat scene. Last season he drove for the ‘Gitanes’ team and although his progress was less than spectacular, he was retained for this season. His sponsors are more than a little anxious to get some publicity return from the money they have put into setting up the team. This is Lemay’s make or break season. Unlike the millionaires in the other boats, Georges Lemay is hired help. Total financial assets eight hundred thousand euros consisting mainly of a flat in the Sixteenth Arrondissement in Paris. We have reports that he is an alcoholic but so far we have no connection to drugs.” De Vries looked up from the file.