by Robert White
I felt a pang of envy, or was it jealousy? Whatever, I knew deep down that Lauren wasn’t interested in me romantically. I also knew that it would be crazy for the three of us to be anything more than comrades in arms. When this was all over, we’d see who was left standing and take it from there, simple as.
I shook all thoughts of romance out of my bored bones and opened the door. Rick was about to step out into the hallway when I noticed it was too dimly lit. Something was wrong and the shortest of hairs stood to attention on my neck. I heard the spit of a silenced handgun first and then actually saw the two rounds slam into the door casing inches from Rick’s head.
I grabbed the collar of his coat and tugged him into cover. He dropped into a crouch and drew his gun as two guys dropped in to chat. They were both straight out of a gun crime video, young black and very serious. They wore street clothes. Hoodies with sports inscriptions, pulled up over cropped heads, scarves over their faces, each with one outstretched gloved hand holding a big shiny Israeli Desert Eagle self-loading pistol. I wasn’t sure if they were going to kill us or rap about us.
Now yes, the Desert Eagle is one of the most powerful handguns in the world and it makes you feel like Clint fuckin’ Eastwood, but even silenced as these were, the muzzle flash is atrocious. So much so, that matey boy who had just let off two .50mm mothers into my cardboard hotel room doorway was just about blind. Tip from the wise now, never shoot one of those fuckers in the dark if you want to see for the next twenty seconds or so.
The shooter who was first through the door was squinting so much he looked like he was in a Benny Hill sketch. He shifted his weight and waved his Eagle in my general direction. I punched him square in the throat before he could get a shot away and I heard the cartilage that protected his windpipe pop and the boy make a wee whistling sound that was far from healthy. He dropped like a stone, grasping his neck. It would do him no good of course, the only thing that would save his life would be a tracheotomy and I was in no mood to perform it for him.
Player number two held his gun out at a strange angle. I’d seen it in some of the American gang movies. How the fuck you thought you could hit anything with your weapon lying on its side was beyond me. He bobbed from foot to foot aiming first at me, and then at Rick, who had his own gun trained at the boy’s head.
His mate was making horrible choking sounds on the carpet near my feet and the increasingly nervous youth kept glancing down at him, unsure what to do. Now when most people are faced with an issue like I’m describing to you now, their heart rate increases and adrenaline flows through them like a river. For me, it had always been different. I felt an almost surreal calm. I suppose my nature was to sit and wait, my talents were best served on a roof in the rain with a sniper rifle, or a hole in the snow with binoculars. So when, in a grubby little hotel room, faced with this kid, who was as young as some of the African soldiers we all get so upset about by the way, you would have to forgive me for feeling a mixture of disappointment and confidence.
“Your mate’s dead, son,” I said, clicking the safety off my own weapon but leaving it hanging loosely by my side for the kid to see.
“I don’t mean that in a medical way, see. I mean it like; he’ll be dead in a few minutes maybe. If he’s a strong lad, he may even last half an hour. But he’s dead to you, and any family he may have had. There’s nothing you can do to save him so stop pissing about and do what you came here to do. Understand, sonny?”
The guy’s eyes were wild and seemed uncannily white against his sweating black face. His woollen scarf was falling down and he tugged it upward nervously.
I raised my gun.
“Do you want to die here, son? Is that what you want? Because if you don’t put that big stupid fuckin’ gun down right now I promise you will die just as slowly as your friend here.”
The guy bolted, we were off and the race was on.
He burst through the first fire doors, using his head he was so wired.
I was a couple of yards behind him. We pounded down the narrow carpeted hallway past the lift doors and toward the fire escape. He looked over his shoulder directly at me, I knew what was coming. He twisted his body violently in an attempt to get a shot off. The big cumbersome Eagle and silencer slowed his movements and the round pinged off harmlessly to my right. I could have killed him there and then but I needed the kid alive. I wanted to know how he’d found us and more importantly who sent him and where they were.
The green and white illuminated sign was only feet away and I was almost upon him. I stretched out my left hand. Just a few more steps and I would have him.
As he pushed at the fire escape door I was inches away and I grabbed at his clothing with my free hand and dug my pistol into his neck. We almost fell into the stairwell and the door banged shut behind us.
“Drop the fuckin’ gun now!” I hissed.
I have to admit I wasn’t prepared for what came next.
The split second he felt my touch he raised the Eagle to his temple and without a word, pulled the bastard trigger.
A fountain of blood erupted from the left side of his head as parts of his skull burst through his hoodie, tearing the sweatshirt material like wet paper. The massive power of the .50 soft nosed shell created a vacuum in its wake and fashioned an exit wound the size of a fist in the kid’s head. Bits of bone, brain and copious amounts of claret formed a gory mural on the white wall to the left of the landing. The kid bent at the knees and slipped from my grasp. He fell forward onto the concrete steps which were to have been his escape route with a nasty crack, and even more blood poured from his head. I could smell the warm metallic liquid as it created a crimson river downward.
I took one last look at the kid. Now, with his hood and scarf pulled away from his face I got the full picture. I reckoned he was fifteen at best.
I walked swiftly back to the room and noticed that no other hotel doors had opened to see what the commotion was all about. Either the occupants were out, deaf or just too scared to look. Either way it was a good thing. As I entered my room Rick had just finished hiding the body of the other shooter in the shower room. I didn’t want to look at him. I already knew he was of a similar age to the lad on the stairwell. I had seen kids fight and die his age, and younger in Africa. Now in cities all over Britain kids the same age were fighting and dying too. Life is really shit sometimes.
“He fuckin’ topped himself,” I heard myself say, my mouth dry. I felt a little sick; I was suffering from guilt, plain as.
Rick either didn’t feel as disturbed as me or just hid it perfectly.
“We need to get the fuck out of here now.”
He pissed me off with his attitude, as usual.
“I know that,” I snapped. “Most of the kit is under the bed.”
We cleared the room of every particle or presence of us in twenty-five minutes.
Lauren North's Story:
Rick rang.
The shit had hit the fan. Somehow Tanya’s family had found Des’s hotel room, or followed Rick to it, and sent a message to us that Tanya’s death, together with the Moston bomb, was firmly placed on our shoulders. Having Yardies after us when we were already targeting Europe’s biggest cocaine dealer was not what we needed. It would seem that the Williamson organisation’s plan of propaganda and divide and conquer was still working a treat.
Also, the drink with Rick had kind of done my head in a bit and, before the call I’d spent most of the evening thinking about him.
I’d even considered ringing Jane back in Leeds, but quickly realised I could never do that.
Everything I’d known before was gone. Can you imagine that?
The emergency, and I didn’t get to hear about how hairy it was ’till we’d made Spain, meant we were holed up in Rick’s lock-up, freezing our bits off and pretty pissed off.
By seven-thirty in the morning we were all up and about looking pretty bleary-eyed, having washed in cold water and slept little, each of us in different vehicles.
I’d chosen a van thinking I could stretch out in the back in my makeshift sleeping bag, but I was cold and the van stank really badly inside.
Rick looked smart and was getting the red Porsche ready to do the deal with Makris.
Des and I had no choice but to sit it out and wait for him to come back. I wasn’t like we were going to starve; we had supplies from a nearby Spar shop and a small radio for entertainment. I felt safe enough, no one knew of Rick’s lock-up and it was built like a fortress.
My secure feeling was about to take a knock.
“I’ll be a few hours.”
Rick checked his watch. “If you don’t hear from me by 1300hrs, split the cash and weapons we have between you, and go your separate ways.”
I felt myself nod, but didn’t want to even dream of being alone and hunted. Des shot me a glance and a cheeky grin that made me feel a little better.
“We’ll be just fine, pal,” he said.
“Don’t even consider leaving me alone with this mad Jock,” I joked, hoping I sounded more confident than I felt.
I suppose this was the kind of moment I’d ‘signed up for’.
There was a cold blast of air as the roller shutters were raised and the lock-up was filled with the noise and fumes from the Porsche as Rick rolled it out into the open air.
Within thirty seconds the doors were firmly shut again and the waiting game began.
Rick Fuller's Story:
Spiros Makris’s house was half an hour or so from the city centre. It was everything a home should be. Warm and inviting, full of the noises you would associate with a large family all living together under one roof. I don’t know how many rooms the house had, as I was never invited to look around, but it was substantial and I would hazard a guess that you would need a couple of million pounds to buy it.
Not that it was overwhelming in any way, small children ran around playing games. Delicious smells came from a distant kitchen and a white-haired grandmother surfed endless daytime television channels in a cosy study with the volume far too high for the rest of the household.
Despite the fact I was about to be robbed blind, I smiled as Makris sauntered toward me in the untidiest hallway I’d ever seen. I had to stop myself from hunting for a vacuum and rubber gloves.
He wore his customary faded, stained polo shirt and cheap jeans. He was wiping his hands and hairy forearms with what appeared to be an ancient tea towel.
“Richard! How good to see you, my friend. My heart is full again. Come and sit in my office.”
He waved his hand around at the wrist and shrugged a very Greek shrug. “This place is a menagerie, no? How can a man do business in such a place? Come, please.”
I followed him upstairs to a small office.
The room was equally untidy by anyone’s standards and I marvelled the man could ever find anything. Piles of papers, pictures of bygone days simply pinned to walls. Blemishes long forgotten and bothersome dust basically pushed away with the naked palm.
He flopped in a worn armchair, opened a small drawer, removed a pack of Marlboro Red and much to my disgust, lit one and exhaled sending a bluish plume of smoke toward me. He must have noticed my obvious distaste as he quickly wafted the smoke with his hand and stubbed out the offending article.
“Sorry, Richard,” he muttered. “I forget myself sometimes. I think all my visitors are Greek and smoke.”
I managed a weak smile. “No problem.”
Spiros settled further back into the armchair, locked his fingers together and nestled them behind his neck, revealing a damp patch under each armpit.
“So...you have the pictures and names I need?”
“Of course, Spiros.”
“Good.
“And the car?”
“Outside. Do you want to have a look now?”
Spiros shook his head. “I trust you, Richard, you know that. Just as long as you have the documents so I can sell the car on legitimately if you, how you say, don’t come home to roost, eh?”
I removed a wallet with all the documents I had kept since I’d collected the car from the unfortunate Jimmy at Bootle Street police station. I dropped them onto Spiro’s cluttered desk.
“Everything you need is there, all genuine. The car has to be worth eighty thousand.”
“It’s a buyers’ market Stephen, I’ll be lucky to raise half of that, but you are a long term valued customer and I’m willing to make exceptions for you.”
I was in no mood to argue, besides, I had nothing to bargain with. We were on our uppers with both the Williamson organisation, and what appeared to be left of Tanya’s family, chasing us around Manchester, we needed to move quickly and without fuss.
I wanted to know timescales and exactly what was on offer. “What about the hardware and when can you deliver?”
Spiros became serious. “You want it conveyed to Spain, no?”
“Puerto Banus.”
“Ah! The home of many gangsters.”
“I suppose.”
He looked at me. It was a look I’d never noticed before. I saw affection, a strange feeling; I’d never considered that Makris actually liked me.
“I will have the most excellent documents available anywhere in the world for all of you. No problems with H.M. Customs or any nosey Guardia Civil. I will also ensure you have good quality weapons, together with enough ammunition to take on Hitler himself, dropped in the back of a nice restaurant that serves the finest Beluga caviar and Bollinger. I myself have dined there when visiting my cousin in San Pedro. I avoid Banus these days, my friend, it came under the spotlight and many reporters and television people spoiled the good atmosphere. I make a point of never visiting now. It is a home for villains with no class.”
He shrugged the very Greek shrug again.
“It is full of ‘chavs’.”
I had to suppress a smile, but I had to admit he was right.
Puerto Banus was a millionaire’s playground. Just a few kilometers west of Marbella, famous for a picturesque marina filled with multi-million-dollar yachts, Puerto Banus also boasted a beach that stretched for almost a mile. The golden sands though, were not the only major attraction to this town. Neither was the three hundred euro fee for the hire of a sun bed for the day in the trendiest parts.
In 2003 Britain held a list of over two hundred known criminals wanted for questioning by UK police, sheltering in Spain. Most of the guys they were ‘looking for’ lived openly in and around Puerto Banus.
You could find a prick in a baseball cap, with a full sleeve of tattoos and more sovereign rings than an average car boot sale, driving a Hummer, any day of the week in Banus. It was that kind of gaff.
It was a place I hated, but a place where everyone turned a blind eye.
“You are right, Spiros, but beggars and choosers and all that.”
He waved a hand knowingly.
“Twenty-four hours from now, you can collect your papers from my youngest son’s café bar in Liverpool, which is where I suggest you depart from, my friend. The weapons will be in Spain twelve hours after you text my private number to say you have arrived safely.”
Spiros leaned forward and placed his hand on my shoulder. I felt myself stiffen but managed to stay still.
“My dear Richard, yes, leave me the car. Rest assured, it will be here when you return. I will also be here to collect my substantial fee which I’m certain you will deliver.”
I had to marvel at the man’s abilities. Not just three full biometric passports in twenty-four hours, but fully automatic weapons and handguns too. No expense spared. If he’d been a woman I’d have kissed him.
We had some tea, and Spiros insisted I try his mother’s kleftico, which I have to say was first class. Once fed and watered, he walked me to a double garage and handed me the keys to a battered Ford Ka. It looked like he’d been dodgem racing in it.
“Take care of my car, my friend. I had her from new, no?”
I shook his hand. Sometimes you just knew who your f
riends were.
I didn’t hang around. I squeezed myself into the little Ford and headed for Liverpool John Lennon Airport where I paid cash for three return flights to Malaga from the EasyJet desk. No point in pussyfooting around this time. I didn’t care if we were visible once we got to Spain, but I didn’t trust online booking with all the technology available to Williamson and Goldsmith. The fact was, once we left the country, I wanted them to come to us. I just hoped we’d be using both parts of the ticket this time.
Des Cogan's Story:
Rick was back in good time and seemed in equally good spirits. Lauren and I had passed our temporary incarceration by packing our kit and stripping and cleaning all the weapons.
Routines had to be kept up no matter what. Lauren didn’t complain and did a fair job of her tasks, asking questions only when she was stuck removing a mechanism from an MP5K.
The weapons and the hopefully valuable hard drives that would become evidence against Williamson and Goldsmith were secured in Rick’s safe in the lock-up. We kept a handgun and ammunition each for the journey to John Lennon and the plan was to leave those in the Vectra until, hopefully, we all returned in one piece.
It was going to be my job to collect our new weapons and ammunition in Puerto Banus and deliver them, by sea, to Gibraltar. I always got the good jobs, eh?
On paper Rick thought it wouldn’t be too hard. Then again it wasn’t him who was going to have to swim the final mile or so to one of the best patrolled shores in the world whilst pulling a float with over fifty kilos of kit. It was going to be a test of my fitness and my stealth.
I was secretly looking forward to it. All this pissing around was even starting to get on my goat. The time had come for the reckoning and I was as ready as I’d ever been for the fight.
We had twenty-four hours to wait for our docs. Something I was good at but Rick was his usual caged lion the whole time. He prowled around the lock-up, checking his packing and cleaning everything in sight including the Vectra which positively gleamed. Lauren worked out, and I read the papers and drank enough tea to keep a plantation in business.