Tanker (A Tim Burr Thriller Book 1)

by Nicholas E Watkins

  “You need to stay here,” said Yosuf. Tim looked hesitant. “You have to trust me or go it alone.”

  In the street Yosuf made his way to a supermarket, part of the Geant Casino chain and bought a mobile phones for cash. Further along the street he entered another shop and purchased another. By the time he arrived at the metro he had four unregistered phones. He made a phone call and removed the sim card smashed the phone and discarded it in a bin. His journey to the Paris suburbs involved a change of trains before he entered the Turkish café in the mostly immigrant quarter of the City. He drew no attention from the other occupants who were engaged in playing backgammon and sipping the bitter sweet thick as mud coffee. He ordered coffee and sat at a table with a backgammon board in front of him. He drank his coffee, a taste of home and sipped the glass of water that accompanied it. He took the Turkish language newspaper from a rack and settled down.

  The man who joined him was small with very dark skin. He had a small beard unusual for a Turk who in the main preferred the clean shaven look. The facial hair served a purpose in that it coved a long scare that ran under his chin. “Cousin,” he smiled at Yosuf as he sat opposite. In truth they were not cousins but they were vaguely related and had been close as children. Yosuf had not seen Osman since he had had a run in with the Turkish police.

  “How is business? Are you still in the same line of work?”

  Osman smiled “What is a poor man to do? What else do I know?”

  “I am need of your services.”

  “I am happy to help. I shall be eternally in your debt for without you my home would be in a nice Turkish jail. What can I do?”

  Osman had been rounded up as a part of a Turkish look tough policy for the benefit of the West on people smuggling. Of course the real people who benefited and lined their pockets were higher up the food chain, the politicians, police and Government officials, were not affected by the so called crackdown. Yosuf had used a few contacts and a few bribes to get him released and a visa to France but not before he had had a taste of police hospitality which resulted in the scare and the new beard.

  “I and a friend need to get to England without going through the usual channels.”

  “Consider it done my friend,” beamed Osman.

  Tim woke with a start as the door to the room opened. He sat bolt upright. “It is only me.” Yosuf entered the room and placed a plastic bag on the table.” Food,” he announced.

  Tim had not realised how hungry he was as he took a bite from the baguette filled with ham and cheese. “I fear I am not a very good Muslim,” said Yosuf as he ate his. “Everything is arranged. We travel tonight. A car will pick us up outside the hotel and take us to the coast.”

  Chapter 13

  Rome four in the morning, there was the sound of the clatter of glass bottles on glass bottles as the garbage carts collected the empties from the myriad of small bars and restaurants throughout the city. The clanking of empty bottles rose to a crescendo as the carts rolled over a roughly cobbled section of road. The locals were used to the din and quietly slept on while visitors in their hotel beds always woke up with a start to the racket.

  The street, on which the hotel Bella Roma sat, was unusually crowded for the time of morning. Two men, on the corner, one, is a doorway and a road sweeper, who had swept the same patch for the last twenty minutes, were all present. A signal was given and the two men entered and approached the night porter.

  Lisbon two hours earlier and apart from the sound of a dog barking or a drunken argument in the distance the Beacon Hotel was getting the same treatment. Two men entered and approached the desk.

  At both locations the photos, obtained from their passports, of Yosuf and Tim were shown and the register checked.

  “Fuck,” said Mailer. Jason looked across the desk at him as he put the phone down. He had scurried to Mailer’s office in Whitehall an hour earlier, “Get over here. We have a hit on Tim’s phone.” He had said.

  “Well?” said Jason.

  “Red herring, he posted his phone to a hotel in Rome. Clever, I suppose. Not helpful but clever. Yosuf’s, the Turkish chap’s phone turned up in Lisbon.”

  “It does tell us that it is now highly probable that he and Yosuf are together as both the letters containing the phones were postmarked in Menton. We must assume that our Mr. Burr is now much more of a problem than he was. This Yosuf is trained and tracking them and containing the problem will not be as simple.

  “So where the fuck are they now?”

  ********

  Traffic on the perepherique, the ring road around Paris, was moving at a snail’s pace. Tim and Yosuf sat in the back of the Renault as their driver negotiated the necessary lane changes to get them on the right road to the coast of France. They had been in heavy traffic for nearly two hours and they had only reached Charles de Gaulle airport. The planes could be seen on the airport apron waiting to take off. Their journey would not be the thirty or forty minute hop to London by plane but considerable more arduous and lengthy.

  The driver spoke. Yosuf immediately recognised him as Kurdish in origin. “You are to take this package with you and deliver it to the address written on the piece of paper. Please remember the address and contact number now and then throw the paper from the car. The other items in the bag are a gift from Osman. He felt they that might be useful to you.” He took a holdall from the front seat and passed it back to Tim.

  Tim was surprised at the weight of the bag which he guessed it to be well over twenty kilograms. He unzipped it and looked in. There was a ten sealed packets wrapped in a layer of duct tape. He showed the contents to Yosuf.

  “Seems like Osman has moved on from people smuggling,” Yosuf said as he recognised the bound blocks of heroin. The Turks were long established in the heroin trade into the United Kingdom. Prior to the year two thousand most of the heroin originated from the area know as the Golden Triangle centred on Thailand, Vietnam and surrounding areas. Now its production was centred in Afghanistan in the area referred to as the Golden Crescent. Iraq and Pakistan were the main routes out and onward via the Turks into the United Kingdom.

  It was a lot of the drug and Tim looked at Yosuf feeling a wave of fear run through him. Yosuf seemed unconcerned at the prospect of spending a long time in prison for drug smuggling. Yosuf of course had rationalised the situation and on balance caught with drugs or no drugs was a minor issue as the outcome of being caught would be the same, death and the only difference would be the location, in a French prison or a Turkish prison. On balance the French prison would be far more comfortable.

  Tim reached in further and felt round the side of the blocks of heroin. He withdrew his hand holding a gun. He was stunned and Yosuf seeing the gun reached across and took it from him before he shot himself or anybody else by accident.

  Yosuf looked at the gun. He was familiar with it. “A Makarov,” he said checking that the gun was empty. The Markarov had been introduced by the Russians in the early nineteen fifties and was basically an enlarged version of the Walther PP. It had a detachable clip loaded with eight .9mm Makarov cartridges. Tim pulled a second Makarov from the holdall along with the ammunition clips and a box of shells.

  The driver spoke, “Osman would like you to have them as a present. A personal thank you he said for past services.”

  Yosuf placed the guns and ammunition in his big black bag. “I will show you how to use these later,” he said to Tim.

  Turning his attention to the driver he spoke. What is your name?” he asked conversationally. Tim was taken aback by the casualness of the whole thing. He was now a drug smuggler and had a gun and Yosuf had taken this in his stride without even a sign of emotion. Tim was beginning to understand that his partner was used to this as a matter of course and that he was going to be on a steep learning curve if he were to get through this in one piece.

  “They call me Ali the Kurd, but they usually just say the Kurd.”

  Yosuf smiled and the conversation continued. The Ku
rd was just another displaced person from that region of the World. His family and where he lived had been hit by all sides, persecuted by the Turks and Iraqis and in conflict with ISIS. Ali was earning his living as driver for the drug smugglers.

  The perepherique gave way to the A26 motorway and the signpost to Calais. They turned off the Motorway and the Renault headed to Arras. The countryside reminded Tim of the West Country in England. The roads were straighter and the farmsteads were clearly French in design but it was a distinct change from the Mediterranean where he had been the previous day. It was late afternoon when they arrived in Berk Plage.

  There were the usual seaside attractions, a small children’s carrousel was circling with little cars and horses and the odd smiling child while music played form the speakers, a crazy golf course, seaside shops and of course the almost deserted beach. The Kurd pulled the Renault up in the car park by the carrousel.

  “You need to take a fishing trip. Tell the skipper you love fishing in the Seine. Good Luck.” With those words the Kurd drove off. Tim carrying a bag full of heroin and Yosuf carrying his big black bag now with a small arsenal added to its contents headed to the small boat

  Chapter 14

  ISIS had no conflict in dealing heroin having the duel benefit as a source of funding for the Jihad and the corruption of the West. The partnership with the Turks was beneficial to both. The Turks had a virtual monopoly on the supply to the United Kingdom and ISIS offered good protection to the poppy growers of the Golden Crescent. It had only been a matter of time before the supporters of ISIS in France responded to the appeal on their many web sites for information on the travelling Turk and Englishman,

  The three ISIS assassins had not taken long to get from Menton via Nice to Paris and they now entered the café where Osman was indulging his passion for back gammon. They moved to the table where he sat and stood in front of him. Osman ignored them sipped his thick sweet coffee and rolled the dice.

  The smallest of the three, short but clearly very muscular under his poorly fitting jacket and white shirt swept the back gammon set across the table and sent it crashing to the floor. Osman’s opponent rose and moved away from the conflict. The other two ISIS strongmen moved round the table and flanked Osman, who took another sip of coffee.

  The leader of the hit squad pulled a large knife from his pocket and his friends stepped closer to crowd Osman. “Don’t fuck with us,” he said. “I need information now where are they.”

  Osman looked up and spoke, “I suggest you leave now you are interrupting my game.”

  The two men either side grabbed Osman’s arms and forced him down into his seat. There was a series of clicks like beetles scuttling across a tiled floor. The three became aware of the silence in the café. The two men holding him released their grip and lowered their arms to their sides. They stared at the café patrons. The small man turned to see a room full of guns pointed at them and he let go of the knife.

  Osman rose and lent across the table his face inches from his would be assailants. “Fuck off cunts,” he said, “don’t come to my house with your fucking threats. You count for sod all here. We run things here not you. Piss off back to your fucking camels and tents in the shit hole you live in.”

  He sat down “Can I get some more coffee?”

  He looked up and addressed his would be intimidators. “Now” he shouted “we don’t want the hassle of cleaning your brains off the walls.”

  Ali the Kurd sitting in Osman’s Mercedes watched as the band of three entered then left the café. He watched as they walked down the road. He started the engine and the car moved forward. He pulled up along side them as they contemplated their next move. “Gentlemen may I offer you a lift,” he said.

  ******

  The small boat had made Tim feel quite nauseous and he was glad when he and Yosuf boarded the larger fishing vessel as it headed out into the Channel. They lay in the bunks sleeping as the boat began to trawl for fish off the south coast of England. The boat continued to follow its usual fishing routine. The crew worked efficiently using the winches and ropes to catch the fish along the coast.

  The fishing continued all night and they joined the crew for breakfast in the galley. The crew made no contact and said nothing. They were being handsomely paid to smuggle immigrants from France to England and wanted to know nothing beyond that. The demand was so high that the fishing was now merely a by product of the people smuggling business.

  “Time to go,” the skipper said.

  Tim looked at Yosuf concerned. They were after all still miles from land. “Just a moment,” said Yosuf I just need to use the john. Without waiting for a reply he stood up and taking his big black bag he headed for the toilet, He closed the door and removed the Makarov from the bag and pulled out the clip. It was empty. He opened the box of cartages and checked them. The Makarov notionally took a .9mm shell but the Russians measured the bullets slightly differently and consequently the ammunition for these vintage weapons was different from the standard. The box of cartridges was Makarov and matched the guns. Yosuf was satisfied and loaded both clips into the guns. He then put a gun in each of the outside pockets of his jacket. He left the safety on the gun in his left pocket and exited the toilet carrying his bag in his left hand and kept his right hand in his pocket holding the loaded gun with the safety off.

  The skipper led them up onto the deck. Along side and lower than them was moored another boat. It was wide and fairly squared nosed with a large cabin with a canopy that extended over the aft deck. Two men wearing large aprons and Wellington boots stood on deck. Lobster pots were stacked at the rear of the boat and two large barrels, one full of lobsters the other empty sat on the deck. Their bags were attached to a line and lowed down to the fishermen below.

  Yosuf replaced the safety catch on the gun and took his hand from his pocket. “These gentlemen will take you on the rest of your journey, farewell,” said the skipper. Tim and Yosuf scrambled down the rope ladder onto the deck of the lobster boat and were told to go below and stay out of sight.

  Tim had thought the fishing boat from France slow but it was a greyhound in comparison to the tortoise of the boat they were now on. It moved slowly along the south coast of England rising and failing in the swell. It was not long before Tim had made several trips to the toilet to rid himself of the contents of his stomach.

  The captain stayed in the wheel house guiding the boat to its destination while the sole crew member sat on deck. He took one lobster at a time from the barrel and after measuring it secured its claw by winding a thick rubber band around them. To aid in this the band was first stretched open using a specially adapted tool which allowed the band to be neatly fitted over the pincers.

  “It seems to me that smuggling people or drugs into Britain is not the most complicated of exercises,” said Tim.

  “Too much coast, that’s the problem with islands,” smiled Yosuf. He and Tim were beginning to develop a bond. In a way Yosuf felt that he was atoning for his friend Berat’s death at the hands of ISIS by helping this Englishman. In any event he was beginning to like Tim and his slightly stuffy English manners.

  It was mid morning when the boat approached Eastbourne harbour. For once the sun was out and shinning on the Sovereign Harbour development. The harbour was an artificial one and was not at the juncture of a river entering the sea. It had been carved out by developers and the marina, flats, and shops had been constructed. The boat passed the old Redoubt on its portside as it followed the buoys in the dredged channel to the lock. There were a series of these redoubt fortresses along this stretch of coast and most had been adapted to serve as tourist attractions housing museums and exhibitions. Two seals basked on the mud, lazily watching the boat as it entered the lock.

  They waited in the lock as the water level rose. The top of the lock was lined with people out for a stroll. They leaned over and watched the water as it flowed in. The fishing boat rose slowly until the water levels matched and the gates opened allowin
g them to sail into the harbour

  The fishing dock was under a bridge and left as they entered. The captain contacted the bridge keeper on the radio and the bridge was raised. Tim could see the pedestrians waiting for the bridge to be lowered so they could continue their promenades as they sailed under it. The boat pulled into the quay and the crewman tied off.

  There was only one other fishing boat moored and the crew had clearly departed. The area alongside the boats was littered with ropes, fishing pots and nets. They stepped ashore. The captain pointed “Over there past the gym is the shopping centre, busses and taxis.”

  Having taken their farewells they headed in the direction indicated to them

  They were in England.

  Chapter 15

  Osman had received feedback and was pleased that his cargo had reached England. Of course getting the drugs to the UK was only the first part of a complex chain that would lead to the drugs getting to the hands of the junkies. The heroin he had shipped was virtually pure and any addict injecting it would be sure to overdose. By the time it was for sale on the streets it would be about thirty per cent heroin.

  His bulk customers in London had a sleek operation. When they got the heroine they would cut it with paracetamol reducing it down to about seventy percent. The drugs were then repackaged and sold on to the big players up and down the UK at about twice the price Osman had sold it to them for. The logistics of moving the drugs around the Country was a whole serious transport operation in itself. The cars and vans used to transport the dugs had to be constantly changed. The UK has the most surveillance cameras in the World per head of population and the vast majority of road side cameras were linked to the police’s ANPR system, automatic number plate recognition and the majority of the police cars also had the system installed. Once a car had been flagged up as a possible drug use vehicle, say through a routine traffic stop it was of no further value. They were constantly buying and selling cars through auctions.