We left the Land-rover and gingerly made our way up to the chalet through the morass of mud. The rain was coming down a bit harder now and even after the short walk up to the chalet my suit was soaked. Raymond already had the keys ready and quickly unlocked the door and let us in.
‘Wait here,’ said Raymond, ‘I shall get you a change of clothes.’ Raymond disappeared through a doorway and we heard lot’s of opening and shutting of cupboards. I raised my eyebrows at Rich.
‘What the fuck are we doing here, Rich?’ I whispered.
‘I dunno, I’m starting to get a bad feeling about this.’ He whispered back. Raymond returned and handed me a flannel shirt, pullover and a pair of pretty eighties stonewashed jeans.
‘Sorry,’ said Raymond, ‘it’s all I could find.’ He handed Rich a similar combination of clothes.
‘We’re gonna die out here looking like Milli Vanilli,’ quipped Rich. Raymond looked at him frowning.
‘You know, eighties pop group?’ said Rich, helpfully. Raymond looked at Rich, but didn’t seem to get the joke. He searched through his keys again.
‘We’re going down here,’ he led us a flight of stairs that led down to a basement. He unlocked the door at the bottom. We walked into blackness but then some motion sensors flicked some fluorescent on overhead. We were in another gleaming basement. I’d say one thing for Raymond, he knew how to treat his cellars.
Raymond picked another key out and we walked a couple of meters to another door which he unlocked at the top and the bottom. Rich glanced at me, worried. After the door was opened Raymond felt along the wall and flicked a series of switches.
Fluorescent lights pinged on randomly illuminating racks of machine guns, rifles and pistols. Boxes of, I guessed, bullets were stacked neatly on shelves. A shooting range was to the side of us, with a pulley system – a bit like a shopping line – that held a couple of paper targets of a man holding a gun.
‘Holy shit,’ I said. I was – I’m ashamed to admit it – excited by all this hardware. I’d seen so many films, played so many games that I could name a lot of the guns from memory. But having the opportunity to fire them would be something else, I forgot about my fear of using them in a real life situation and gave in to my boyish excitement.
Raymond smiled expansively, ‘it’s a small collection that I have pieced together over the years,’ he seemed embarrassed, ‘I used to say to myself that a man in my line of work should know his inventory, but…I just like guns.’
‘You ever use one of these in…you know?’ I asked. Raymond shook his head.
‘I am an enthusiast, I have never shot a man,’ he said reflectively, ‘that is not what I do. ‘ I was walking along the racks as his said this. I couldn’t help stroking the guns, I just wanted to touch them, just to know that I had.
‘Is this an MP44?’ I asked Raymond. He walked over and took it off the rack.
‘You are quite right,’ said Raymond taking it off the rack, ‘it’s an original so regrettably I don’t fire it.’ He offered it to me, ‘it’s not loaded.’
It was heavy, much heavier than I expected. I lifted it up to my shoulder and looked down the sights. ‘Jesus, those Germans must be strong,’ Raymond smirked at that, ‘why don’t you fire it?’
‘Every gun has a lifetime and this one is nearly at the end of his life.’
‘His?’ Raymond smiled sheepishly. I handed the gun back.
‘So,’ said Rich, who was leaning casually against a pillar. He looked like he was in an A-ha video. ‘What’s this puzzle then?’
Raymond walked back towards Rich and took a machine gun off the wall and took to the table in front of the range. ‘There is a couple of reasons for the puzzle,’ he didn’t take his eyes off of Rich and pushed and then pulled the magazine out. He pulled the stock, which came away as well. ‘Firstly, I never talk about what I do on the phone, not even indirectly,’ he continued to dismantle the gun and lay it out in pieces in front of him, ‘secondly, I get the impression that you are both very inexperienced with firearms and you are about to get involved in something that requires you to be at least conversant with them.
‘This is a Heckler and Koch MP5, it fires 30 9mm cartridges on single shot, 3 shot burst or fully automatic. I am selling you a number of them.’ He finally looked down at the pieces of the weapon in front of him, ‘you will receive the guns like this and you will have to assemble them yourselves.’
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘do they come with a manual?’
‘No,’ said Raymond flatly, ‘so I am going to teach you how to do it.’
‘Why?’ I asked. Raymond looked at me.
‘Firstly, you should use this bit of theatre to intimidate the others you may be working with,’ he said, ‘secondly, you never know what may happen and you need to know how to use these, you may even have to us them in anger yourselves.’ Rich looked at me. I nodded slowly, Raymond was right.
‘Finally, I think that it’s good business to look after my clients,’ he shrugged, ‘besides if you get away with whatever you’re doing then maybe you’ll buy some more things off of me – I sell much more than guns.’
‘Like what?’ asked Rich.
‘I like to think of myself as a wholesaler of things you cannot buy.’
‘So, all things illegal?’ said Rich.
Raymond grimaced, ‘yes and no. I don’t have anything to do with drugs – not because I have any aversion to drugs, I don’t. They’re just not my area of expertise. I also do not traffic people – again because it is not my area of expertise but also because I find the whole business distasteful.’
‘Will you supply arms to dictators? Terrorists?’ I wondered aloud.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ sighed Raymond, ‘how do I know that I’m not supplying the Baader-Meinhof gang or the IRA? I don’t…I don’t really know what to say. It does sometimes effect my conscience whether or not a crate of plastique is going to blow up in a bus….but I’m selling guns to you, how do I know that you two won’t shoot 30 children in a kinder garden for fun?’
‘That’s a fair point…but still, it must bother you?’ I continued.
‘Of course it does,’ conceded Raymond, ‘but I work for a legitimate arms reseller and I can assure you that they are far less discriminating than I am.’
‘Why do you do it then?’ I asked.
‘Why does anyone do anything? Money.’
‘Maybe we should move on…’ said Rich.
Raymond touched Rich’s arm, ‘it’s okay, I enjoy having these discussions,’ he turned back to me, ‘I think what is difficult is that what I do has a more overt effect – a clearer result. But if I sold diamonds, would my responsibility be any more diminished?’
‘I don’t understand,’ I said.
‘The diamond trade has caused more death than these,’ he pointed to the guns gleaming on the racks, ‘if I work in a gas station? Or for a pharmaceutical company that refuses to discount it’s medicines for Africa?’
‘I see your point,’ I said. I got the feeling that Raymond has probably had this discussion before and knew all the dead ends and Mexican standoffs.
I could see his point and that the guns were probably not the issue, but I think it would keep me up at night. ‘Okay, we need to learn. This is a Sig P226 pistol. It’s a very simple, reliable and easy to maintain pistol used all over the world. Dan I would like you to rebuild it.’
With a bit of instruction I managed to slide it all back together. Once I knew where the bits went it took seconds to put together. I felt very satisfied.
‘Dan, I want you to take it apart and put it together ten more times,’ he instructed, ‘Richard, I want you to do the same with the machine gun.’ Rich took considerably more time with the machine gun and had to keep asking Raymond for help.
Raymond left us both to it and went to a small cupboard. ‘Hey Rich?’ I said.
‘Hmmm?’ rich’s tongue was sticking out the corner of his mouth. He pulled back the slidey thing and
put the magazine back in.
‘Is this fun, or what?’ he grinned at me. Raymond came back with three headphones, some cloths, little brushes and a small bottle.
‘Dan, Richard needs more time to learn to field strip the MP5 so you can clean the Sig. After I cleaned and oiled the gun and reassembled it we swapped places.
‘Okay, this is a bit more complicated. Firstly, turn the selector to here and then press this lever here and take out the magazine,’ I nodded when he looked at me, ‘then , you pull the charging handle all the way back, this ensures that there is no ammunition in the housing. See in here? Then pull this and the stock comes all the way back, unscrew here and you can remove it…’ After twenty minutes of breaking it down and rebuilding it I could do the process in under three minutes. Raymond was a very patient teacher.
‘Okay, now we are going to practice shooting,’ he went to the gun rack and took another MP5 down and gave it to Rich. He placed a box of ammunition on the counter, ‘you need to load your guns, make sure that the bullets ate pointing in the right direction when you push them in the magazine.’ It was surprisingly hard to push them in, but once a few were in it became easier. When I finished I pushed the magazine in, Raymond laid a hand on my arm and I stopped what I was doing.
‘A little gun etiquette, Dan. When you load a gun always make sure that the selector is in safety, okay?’ Said Raymond earnestly, ‘secondly, once your gun is loaded – whether the safety is on or not – always point it at the ground. You only point it at someone if you wish to shoot them.’ I nodded and checked the selector and then reloaded the gun. Rich did the same. ‘I would suggest selecting single shot here or three round burst – it’s better to be accurate than wasteful.’
I put the headphones on and turned the selector to single shot and lifted the gun up but the stock wasn’t retracted, so I turned the selector back to safe. I looked at Raymond who smiled and nodded. Rich was watching what I was doing and did the same thing. I lifted the stock to my shoulder and wedged it comfortably and aimed at the target and thought: what the hell and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened, I frowned and looked at Raymond who laughed.
‘This gun works quite simply,’ shouted Raymond, muffled through the headphones, ‘the charging handle is named for a reason. You pull it and it will take a round into the chamber, but the recoil will do it for the next round so only need to do it once.’ I pulled the charging handle. ‘Don’t worry, everyone who shoots for the first time forgets it.’
I aimed again and pulled the trigger. The gun jerked back and upwards, but there was less recoil than I was expecting. I took my time with the second shot and squeezed the trigger slowly and controlled the jerk a bit more so that my third shot was quicker. I squeezed the rest of the magazine off and then lowered the gun. It felt warm and the smell of cordite was overpowering. I waited while Rich finished his magazine.
Rich pulled off his headphones, ‘now that was fucking fun!’ Raymond smiled.
‘How’d we do?’ I asked. Raymond indicated that we pull in the targets ourselves. I made the gun safe, put it on the counter and then pulled the target towards me.
I looked at the target. I counted ten shots. One head shot and nine body shots. Rich showed me his; fourteen shots, no head shots. ‘I got a headshot though…’ I said.
Raymond tugged off the headphones, ‘hmmm, out of a thirty round clip you managed ten on target? Next clip, try and just shoot the target; go for the centre of the body, not the head,’ he placed two ready loaded clips on the counter, ‘again.’
We spent another hour shooting the MP5 getting progressively better and better. We now rarely missed the target and I could group my shots easily.
Raymond loaded the Sig. ‘This is harder to shoot. It is less accurate because it has a shorter barrel and no stock, obviously. So the trick is to make one arm a stock and one arm an aim, like this.’ He squared his body like a boxer and laid his hands around the weapon so that one was straight and the other bent. ‘Headphones,’ he said and once we had them on he quickly emptied the clip into the target.
He pulled in the target and almost all were in the target bull’s-eye, a couple were dead centre. ‘Wow,’ said Rich.
‘Now you try,’ we loaded the clip and started shooting. After firing the MP5, the sig felt wild and inaccurate. I felt my arms getting tired holding it. ‘Raymond, this is heavy after a while.’
‘Try and hold it up, fire three shots off and then lower it. There are nine bullets in the magazine and three groups of three is an effective field of fire – that can be easier.’
We practiced with the sig for half an hour, but by then I was done in and my arms sung from holding the guns. My shoulder started to ache from the MP5 as well. ‘Raymond, I am loving this, but I am tired.’
‘Me too,’ said Rich, rubbing his shoulder, he kicked the shell casings on the floor, ‘we must have cost you a grand in ammo alone.’
Raymond flicked his hand, ‘it’s of no consequence,’ he picked up the weapons and put them back on the rack, ‘You’ve both done well, now let’s relax a bit.’
CHAPTER 12
When we got back to Raymond’s Mr Frosty was waiting in the garage, he opened Raymond’s door when the car came to a stop.
‘Most of the guests have left,’ said Mr Frosty, ‘only Deringer left a message, I have left that in your study.’
‘Okay, did Henry turn up yet?’ asked Raymond, walking to the back of the car and opening the tailgate.
‘Not yet, and no phone call,’ Raymond handed Mr Frosty our crumpled and wet suits, ‘do you think you can do anything with these?’ Mr Frosty looked at them and turned them over in his hands.
‘I should be able to get them looking presentable, it might take an hour or so,’ he said.
‘Fine,’ he tossed Mr Frosty the keys to the land rover, ‘Stefan, would we have anything to wear that doesn’t make our guests look like – who did you say?.’ Raymond asked Rich.
‘Milli Vinilli,’ said Rich. The corners of Stefan’s mouth arched slightly.
‘I will have a look,’ he turned to us, ‘if you will follow me, we have some other clothes upstairs.’ We followed Stefan the same way we came down but then went up a different flight of stairs.
‘Are you, like, a butler or something?’ I asked.
‘Yes, but I am more of a personal assistant than a butler,’ said Stefan.
‘I didn’t think people had butlers any more,’ said Rich.
‘You’d be surprised, many wealthy people have them,’ said Stefan leading us into a large room that seemed to be exclusively devoted to clothing.
‘Does it pay well?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ said Stefan. Stefan went into a walk in wardrobe and emerged with a pair of chinos and a polo shirt for me and another pair of chinos and a plaid shirt for Rich. ‘These should fit. Are your shoes okay, are they not too wet?’
‘Mine are fine,’ said Rich. I nodded as well.
‘I will leave you to dress, do you remember the way back to the main sitting room?’ We nodded and Stefan left.
‘I dunno about you mate,’ I said pulling on the chinos, ‘but having him mooching about would give me the heebies.’ Rich smirked and buttoned up his shirt.
‘I wanna beer,’ he said, ‘shooting that MP5 was the bomb, man.’
‘Do you reckon we might pull this off?’ I asked. Rich looked at me a while and smiled a crooked smile.
‘You asked me that a week ago and I would have said no, but now?’ he shook his head, ‘it seems crazy, but we could, if we’re lucky.’
‘There is that,’ I said, ‘we do need a bit of luck.’
‘Let’s go,’ we went back downstairs and found the room empty apart from Raymond and Stefan.
‘Ah, you look more of this century,’ Raymond said, ‘what would you like to drink? We have everything.’
‘I would really like a beer,’ I said.
‘Got any Czech beer?’ asked Rich. I nodded too. Stefan disappeared to get the
drinks.
‘So,’ said Raymond, ‘you enjoyed the target practice?’
‘Amazing,’ I said, ‘I really loved it. Thanks Raymond.’
‘It’s nothing, I am glad you got pleasure from something that I enjoy,’ he put his glass down, ’now, I am a little worried about this project you are undertaking – you seem a little…you two do not seem the type.’
‘With all due respect, Raymond…’ Rich started, but Raymond held a hand up.
‘Do not worry, I do not want to know the details of what you are doing…but I do know that Mr Gibbons is someone not be crossed.’
‘Don’t we know it,’ I said. Raymond took a slow sip of his drink.
‘I like you two, ‘he said, ‘but you will end up in prison or worse, I have seen it before.’
‘We cannot get out of it,’ said Rich, ‘Gibbons has us by the short and curlies.’
‘We have tried to buy our way out, beg our way out,’ I said, ‘we even considered offing the bastard…’ I said. Stefan returned with our drinks. He put some coasters on the table and poured our beers and placed another two full ones next to the glasses. Raymond had obviously briefed him. I waited for Stefan to leave the room.
Insecure Page 15