Driffter claimed some shade under the chopper, cat-napping on a blanket he’d spread out. I killed the time with a reconnoiter around the airstrip. Having never been to Cuba, I wanted to see what I could, even in that short a time. The land along the southern coast of Cuba was mostly flat, agricultural. Palm trees. Some scrub. Rural poor and shabby. Down the road a piece a little settlement, not big enough to qualify as a village, just a clutch of squalid shacks. Other than the squad that refueled us, nothing seemed to be moving very quickly. No Benjamins circulating, I suppose. The few people I encountered eyed me with suspicion. I was surprised at the vintage American cars —1950s Fords, Chevys, Buicks, Pontiacs—still running and looking well-cared for. I covered a couple miles and returned to the airstrip, and presently Driffter announced it was time to leave. He slipped back to the cargo bay and strapped on a holster. He’d be packing a .44 magnum Desert Eagle with a brushed chrome finish—a hand-cannon that, just pointed at you, carried almost enough impact to knock you to the ground. “Get yourself a G3,” he told me.
“Expecting trouble?”
“Don’t know what to expect, so best arrive prepared,” he said. He started the engine, warmed it up, and we lifted off. A few minutes later we came upon another small airstrip, just a dirt runway and a couple rundown sheds, apparently deserted except for a Mercedes sedan. Driffter landed the chopper out of pistol range and throttled the rotors down to a slow idle. And then we sat there.
Two Latino men climbed out of the Merc and strolled over, walking a professionally-trained distance apart. They wore tropical weight suits, with bright floral ties, and neat panama hats. Their pointed-toe shoes gleamed in the midday sun. One of them asked up to Driffter, “Do you bring a package for us?” He had a Spanish accent.
“Depends on who you are,” Driffter drawled.
“We’re the ones collecting the delivery,” said the other man, “the package.”
“Sorry, I don’t work with delivery boys,” Driffter replied.
“The boss sent us. He said you are to give us the package.”
“Do you have the money?” Driffter asked.
“No. The boss has the money. You give us the package. We take it to the boss. If he’s satisfied, we’ll bring the money back.”
I looked around the strip. I could see no means of refueling. “We need gasolina for the ride back to George Town,” I said. “Where’s the gasolina?”
“The boss has the gasolina,” was the reply. I looked at Driffter, and he gave me a sly smile and a wink. “Cover them,” he muttered to me. I shifted my G3 into a ready grip.
Driffter took off his flight helmet, set it aside and swung his legs around from in front of the seat. Keeping a close eye on the two men, he dropped down to the ground and drew his pistol in one motion. “You,” he said to one of the men, “what’s your name?”
“Enrique.”
“Enrique, you step over here, take your time.” Enrique walked slowly to Driffter. Driffter patted him down, extracting an automatic pistol, which he tossed back toward the chopper. “You,” he said to the other, “what’s your name?”
“Jorge.”
“Okay, Jorge. You see my co-pilot there in the cockpit has an assault rifle. His gun is aimed at your belly. He is a very accurate shot. Now, I want to see the boss. Himself. Right here. Where is he?”
“Oh, a long way away,” said Jorge. “That’s why he sent us to receive the package. Because he is a long way away.”
“That’s okay. We’ll wait here as long as it takes. You want to take the car and go fetch him? Can you call him on a phone?”
“I have a phone,” Jorge admitted.
“That’s good. Okay. So would you please call the boss and tell him we want to deliver his package to him. And tell him to bring the money and the gasolina. But before you do that, I want you to take your pistola out and toss it to me. Remember, my co-pilot in the helicopter has his rifle aimed at your belly. Okay?”
Jorge hesitated. He was flustered. He was embarrassed. He resented the hell out of this. But finally he pulled an automatic out of a shoulder holster, looked at it in fond farewell, and reluctantly tossed it at Driffter’s feet. “Good,” Clyde said. “Now call the boss and ask him to join us here. So we can deliver his package to him.”
“I haven’t seen no package yet,” Jorge protested. “How do I know if you got the package? I can’t tell the boss if I don’t know you got the package.”
“Jake,” Driffter said, “get the package and hold it out where they can see it.” I went back to the cargo bay, hefted the aluminum suitcase, brought it to the chopper door and held it out. “See,” said Driffter, “there’s the package. It’s all right, everything’s there. We’ll deliver it to the boss, and collect our money and gasolina and be on our way, and everything will be all right.” Jorge looked at me with the suitcase and then at Driffter with the big pistola. He went back to the car, came up with a cell phone, and made the call.
The boss couldn’t have been too far away because in less than ten minutes another Mercedes, with a driver and a passenger, came down the dirt track, pulled onto the airstrip and stopped a few yards away. The passenger door swung open, and a man eased out and stood up straight. He was in expensive tropical clothes, tall and a little beefy, with a beard similar to Fidel Castro’s. Designer sunglasses notwithstanding, the greying hair, weathered face and jittery way he handled his cigarette contradicted the in-control image he tried hard to project. This was one troubled man.
Driffter holstered his pistol and gestured to me to keep everything covered. He stepped up to the man. “We’ve brought a package across from Grand Cayman Island. Who do I have the pleasure of addressin’?” he asked.
“I’m Robert Vesco,” the boss replied. “I’m the guy who hired you. You’re wasting my time. I’d appreciate it if you and your pal would hand over my package.”
2 | Babalu
“You’re THE Robert Vesco?” Driffter gasped. “The one who ran off with $200 million from that IOS fund?”
“Half right. I’m that Vesco, and I ran IOS for a while, but Bernie Cornfeld had that company screwed, blued and tattooed before I ever got there. I was trying to save it, couldn’t bring it off, and then the SEC fucked me over, and I had to find some place with no extradition treaty to stay for a while until things cool off.”
“Goddammit, I lost every cent I had in IOS,” Driffter said, growing more heated. “Seems to me if you got away with that much you could come up with my stake.”
“Well, I didn’t get away with that much,” Vesco said coolly. “And I sure can’t come up with your so-called stake. I’m up against it myself. That’s why you brought that package. Bastards ripped me off, and I’m trying to locate my money. Say, how about if you don’t wave that gun around? Making me nervous.”
“That so? Maybe I’ll do more than just wave it. We’ve brought your package. You owe us the rest of the fee. And you also owe me $230,000.”
Vesco looked at Driffter, shook his head and chuckled. “I don’t fucking believe this,” he said. “I’m trying to retrieve $70,000,000, and you come whining to me about $230,000? That’s rich, you penny-ante redneck. Who the hell do you think you are, anyway?”
Some things you don’t say to some people, and Vesco just then nailed it. Driffter’s eyes flashed, and he drilled them into Vesco’s like he was doing a root canal. “I’m Clyde P. Driffter, formerly with Air America and the Central Intelligence Agency, and now representing the United States of Go Fuck Yourself, you slick-assed crook.”
Vesco was one of those operators who could turn on a dime and radiate charm when he needed to, and he knew he needed to. “Calm down, Mr. Driffter,” he said, suddenly soothingly. “Look, there was never any $200 million. That was a figure the SEC—Sees Everything Crooked—made up for the sake of publicity. They had it in for IOS, and they had it in for me. Now, the IOS was just a Ponzi sc
heme. Bernie Cornfeld ran a bunch of offshore mutual funds, had a big sales force conning U.S. servicemen in Germany into investing with him. Superior returns. No taxes. Sure. That was the story. In reality, he lived large off the incoming money, ran a lifestyle Hugh Hefner would envy, took it right out of the funds. It appeared that IOS funds were coining money only because the incoming was greater than what he spent on mansions, girls and parties, and he cooked the books to show portfolio gains. When I took control, IOS was a sinking ship, leaking money in every direction. The SEC tried every way they could think of to indict Cornfeld and close down IOS. Now me, they were after me because I’d come too far too fast—a poor boy from Detroit who became one of the richest men in the U.S. in just a few years. I must be doing something illegal, right? Wrong. I was just smarter than their clerks. Of course I used shell companies, options, warrants, forward contracts, hedges, big leverage. It’s high finance, not a lemonade stand. You leverage, then you re-leverage. You shift into tax shelters and tax havens, reissue stock, swap companies around, use every edge and every dodge you can find. It’s the only way to stay ahead of the big corporations. They don’t play patty-cake. Okay, maybe I sailed a little close to the wind here and there. You can’t keep track; they change the laws every day. I had a team of the best lawyers in the business, but the upshot is that the SEC had to have something to show for all the resources they’d devoted to shutting me down, and they finally got something to indict me on. I had to clear out with what I could. Self-preservation, that’s all.
“Look, here’s the situation. The people who ripped me off, I know the money disappeared into the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. So I hired some people to, er, requisition their records over on Grand Cayman. That’s what you carried over here. With those records, I think I can ferret out my money. And if I do, I’d certainly be happy to make good on your stake. And that’s doing more than I’m required to do by law. The SEC ruled the IOS in violation of every law on the books. So as an American overseas, using undeclared funds and paying no taxes, technically your BCCI deposits were illegal, with no recourse.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about all that. I had the money in a Swiss bank account, and my manager invested it in IOS.”
“Oh, well, then it’s all right, isn’t it? A Swiss bank account? So the IRS wouldn’t find out about it? And I suppose you made your money perfectly legally running a dry cleaning shop or a McDonald’s franchise?”
Driffter guffawed. “Vesco, I haven’t done anything legal since the age of 15. Legality is neither here nor there. The issue is, you screwed me out of $230,000. What I’m thinking is, if you can’t come across with it right here and now, I’ll bet what’s in that suitcase is worth a hell of a lot more than a quarter million to somebody else. And I bet I can find a cash buyer.”
Vesco took a half step closer to Driffter, locking eyes with him. “You know why I paid you so much to ferry that stuff over here? Because it’s records of the financial transactions of every crook, scumbag and dictator in the Caribbean. Not to mention the Western Hemisphere. Not to mention the whole fucking world. I heard from my contact in George Town that you’ve already been shot at, and that’s just a taste. Here in Cuba I’m safe, Castro’s protecting me, but if you take those documents out of here, it’s open season. Give me the stuff. I’ve got your money here in my car, and there’s a tank truck five minutes away. Gas you up and you can go home. Deal done, okay?”
“You’ve told me nothing so far that I haven’t dealt with worse, before,” said Driffter.
“You think? Pal, you have no idea, no fucking idea, not the first fucking inkling of the first fucking hint, what you’re getting yourself into. BCCI is a Third World bank, the biggest bank in the world that isn’t controlled by white people. It’s Muslims. From Pakistan. You want to mess with Muslims? The guys that rack up virgins in Paradise for killing infidels? They’d like their records back because their operations are very dark, very secret. But that’s just the beginning. Let me give you a rundown of their clientele, the folks who do those very dark, very secret deals, who don’t want records of their very dark, very secret deals falling into the wrong hands. Just off the top of my head—every oil sheik in the Middle East; Saddam Hussein; Manuel Noriega; Iranian ayatollahs; the Colombian Medellin drug cartel, Pablo Escobar’s boys; the CIA and the KGB finance their covert ops through BCCI; mafia families send their money there; Armand Hammer does illegal deals with the Russians for Occidental Petroleum; hmm, there’s the Palestine Liberation Organization, also the Mossad; the Sandinistas, the Contras, and tin-pot dictators here, there and everywhere. And let me tell you another—Jimmy Carter, Bert Lance, Andrew Young, Clark Clifford—Democrat honchos up to their ears in BCCI-related illegal banking in the U.S. You think Democrats are just a bunch of touchy-feely tree-huggers? Boy, you do not know Democrats. And ponder this: that’s just a list of the ones I’ve heard of. The BCCI clientele you don’t know about, they’re the ones you have to worry about.
“Now, you leave this island with the contents of that suitcase, and you are going to soon meet a number of people you most assuredly do not want to know. But don’t worry, you won’t know them for long, just as long as it takes them to get that suitcase away from you, however they have to do it. I’m safe with it here in Cuba. Castro is interested in it too, so nobody is going to come here after it, his secret police will see to that. But with the contents of that valise, off this island, you’ll be ducks in a shooting gallery.”
It was clear enough to me. Give him the goods, collect our paychecks and blow this joint. But Driffter’s eyes had grown brighter and brighter as Vesco’s tale unfolded. “Jake,” he said, “I think we can do better than the deal he’s offering. What I’ve seen in that valise, I know people who’d pay a lot more for it than he will.”
“I don’t see where I’d fit into a scheme like that. I vote we deliver the goods, get paid and go home.”
“Oh, I’d give you a fair split for ridin’ shotgun—60 - 40 after my expenses. We’re talkin’ six figures for your share, easy.”
Vesco was listening in disbelief. “Are you guys crazy? Nobody’s going to pay you for that stuff. They’ll just kill you and take it away.”
Driffter ignored him. “We’ve got plenty of fuel to get us to safety. He’s just bluffin’. Dammit, he stole my stake, and he owes me big. This’ll settle the score. Look, Fonko, I’m leaving with that valise. Stay here if you want.” He left the issue hanging while I looked from him to Vesco, to the shiny suitcase, to the shabby airstrip, to the hostile hills in the western distance…
“Well, you with me, Fonko?” he demanded, “Or do you want to stay here and spend the next ten years in a Cuban jail?”
What’s that old Jack Benny joke? Your money or your life! Don’t rush me, I’m thinking! I wish I’d had a little time to think about it.
“Let’s go,” I said.
“Okay,” he said. “Now, first we got to take care of a few things. Stow the case and bring your G3 down here.” I did as told. “Keep ‘em covered. Now, gentlemen,” he said, turning to the three men with their hands up, “hand over your phones. One at a time, and do it slow.” In turn, Driffter received a phone from each, tossed it on the ground and stomped it with his heel. He then walked to the parked cars. He threw open the door of the first Mercedes, rummaged around and came out with another phone, also an Uzi. He stomped the phone, then raised his .44 Magnum Desert Eagle and deliberately fired a shot through the hood.
“Hey, wait a minute,” yelled Vesco. “You can’t do that. It isn’t my car. It’s a government car.”
“Calm down,” Driffter said. “Cubans are good at fixin’ cars, have it back on the road in no time. What’s a couple of Mercs to a guy with $200 million, anyway?”
“I’m telling you; I don’t have $200 million!”
Driffter strolled over to the other Mercedes and repeated the routine—no Uzi this time. Both cars di
sabled, he came back to the chopper, pausing to pick up the discarded pistols and remove their clips, which he slipped into one of the pockets of his cargo pants. He tossed the pistols back on the dirt runway. “Mount up, and we’re gone,” he told me. We climbed up into the cockpit, me still holding the G3 on Vesco and his partners. Driffter added the Uzi to his arsenal in the cargo bay. I stowed the suitcase.
“You’ll regret this,” Vesco yelled as Driffter throttled the rotor up from idle. “You cannot even imagine how much you’ll regret this!”
“Always a pleasure doin’ business with you,” Driffter replied with a big smile and a hearty wave. I doubt Vesco could hear him as we lifted off the strip and surged away from the airstrip, but the gesture clearly further pissed him off.
“What’s with the cars?” I asked.
“Just a normal precaution, a delaying tactic. I didn’t want them getting help too soon. As for the cars, if I make what I expect to on this deal, I’ll buy Fidel a couple new Mercs. I do a little business in Cuba, surely don’t want to queer it. That was to give a little head start, get us into the mountains before they scramble a plane after us. I figure we’ve got an hour, be halfway to Jamaica by then.
“Jamaica?”
“Can’t very well go back to Grand Cayman. Jamaica’s the only friendly land in range. That’s all right. I sometimes work out of Jamaica, have friends there. We’ll just go east to the Sierra Maestra, slip through the valleys and line up with Jamaica, then pop across the Strait and set down in the mountains. I figure we’ve got maybe an hour before Vesco and his boys can get some opposition organized. Put on a helmet, strap yourself in and keep a sharp eye on the horizon.”
And so we flew down the coast of Cuba, skimming over rolling hills and green farm fields, streams and rivers flowing south, woods here and there, bypassing towns and villages. Driffter kept us low, under radar detection and close enough to the ground to make Cuba’s rural squalor—shabby shacks, ragtag peasants, bare-assed infants, malnourished livestock, hand labor tending vast fields of sugar cane—apparent as we streamed above it. This would have been a comedy of errors, were anything funny about it. I sign on for a simple delivery job, and the next thing I know I’m a paperless fugitive fleeing the Cuban military, the sidekick of an international desperado. But there I was, and now that I’d gotten into partnership with Driffter, I needed more information. “Clyde,” I said, “what’s the big deal about BCCI? That was quite a client list Vesco rattled off. Why is that rogue’s gallery doing business with a Pakistani bank significant?”
The Jake Fonko Series: Books 4, 5 & 6 Page 3