In Pazardzhik you lived however you could, fought for your life, and never took your eye off your opponent, not once. Down in the bowels of the building, without glass or even a window, daylight was a luxury and tobacco was worth more than gold. Class A drugs were considered a death sentence – for those inmates that possessed them, or those that smuggled them through the daunting outer main doors. But still it arrived. Alcohol too, when not distilled on site in ways that defied ingenuity.
Fresh fruit and clean water were worth more than that gilded nugget itself.
This was far from a conventional place, where conventional prisoners were sent. Below the three stories, visible and open to visitors and priests, lay a subterranean network of cells that were little better than an underground ghetto. It was said that the Bulgarian prison system had somehow avoided the attention of its government for decades. The buildings from the sixties, not just at Pazardzhik, were considered to be in a deplorable state, with living and sanitary conditions beyond questionable. Some cells in the worst quarters of the system had no sanitary facilities, making them worse than some third world institutions.
Obsolete, overcrowded, lacking in security and medical facilities, housed among old, past tense buildings, now awash with heroin; contrary to the rules. Inmates existed in a few square metres per person – again contrary to what society deemed fit.
But it was a prison after all. Why should they have rights?
The European Courts had been repeatedly pressed by humanitarian groups, all to no avail. According to those groups, Bulgaria might well have been a despot African nation, not a developing country only hours from Europe’s central administration centre.
They were learning; the government assured those that listened. They were investing, and only the very worst of society would be housed in the older establishments.
Pazardzhik was a forgotten place where the inmates had given up caring and the staff less so. In the summer it was unbearable, endlessly hot, everywhere. In winter, death was considered a better option.
One man knew the prison well. Constantin Nicolescu had spent only a few desperate months there many years before. It was 2002, may have been three. Time was a commodity he had no control over, so he never wasted any more worrying about it.
A prisoner of the Bulgarian government – locked away, underground, the result of his opportunistic offending, a burgeoning burglar, he had been caught; young and naïve. He soon learned. Learned to love his fellow man – it provided for temporary stimulation and currency, his choice being lower-tier drugs which would one day lead to a heroin addiction that ruled his life.
Constantin had learned to map the building in his mind. He knew every corner, dark or otherwise. With his eyes closed. He knew who to talk to and who to avoid. Showers were rare, once a fortnight at best. He avoided them too.
He knew the way to the prison wing office, in broad daylight. And it was there that he read the signals correctly. That the man who stood proudly before him, immaculate shining boots and newly issued epaulettes, the man before him with buckling legs, biting his lip to avoid detection, the man upon which Constantin was committing an act that would have seen the officer dismissed in disgrace, sent to prison himself, would one day become a most useful commodity.
Abused, malnourished and disinterested Constantin had lost faith in everything and everyone until he met the only beacon of hope in his pitiful and illegitimate career. It was November; he had no idea what year, or week, or day – they were all one back then in his alcohol-bewildered mind. It may have been raining or even snowing. The sun would not have been shining, that much he knew. It never did in that part of the world.
Fourteen or fifteen years later, he lay in a cell in Britain, staring at the graffiti-laden walls, with its orthodox light green paintwork, which he recalled was designed to bring a calming influence. He marvelled at the light that flooded in from a two-by-two glass block window to the outside world. He knew his cellmate was awake, pretending to be asleep.
This was the Hilton in comparison to Pazardzhik. The beds were five star. The cell even had a toilet, with paper and a basin with warm water. As comparatively luxurious as it was, he had no intention of becoming a long-term resident, he would be gone by the morning. A plan to head south – to meet up with his leader. A man he owed his life and existence to. He had been his salvation. It seemed like yesterday that he had carved the deep blue sign of lifelong affiliation into his cold skin.
Now, in the winter of 2015, they would meet again. Constantin had planned to repay the debt, arranging to strike a deal with the very man who had convinced the Romanian government to release Stefanescu into their custody – to punish him for his sins. Deputy Commissar Andonov.
The Romanians were intrigued and delighted by the offer and sent one of their own in exchange for five Romanian nationals – whose charge history combined would not create a tenth of the disorder that Stefanescu had. If the Bulgarians really wanted to punish him for his legacy of attacks upon their nation, then so be it. He was out of their hair. The sooner, the better.
For Constantin it was tangible – his dream-like thoughts had such substance, as if it was that morning. He could almost taste the place on the tip of his tongue, its stench filling his nostrils. He was there again, in that subterranean hell-hole.
He could taste Deputy Commissar Andonov too.
Nicolescu had kept low on the radar, served his time in Pazardzhik, back then in the darkened days that he considered a part of his past. He had moved on, quickly, across Europe to Germany and Britain without ever looking back. It was where heroin had first got a grasp. Sold to him by a whore whose throat he should have cut when he had the chance. In her defence, she didn’t do what many would have done; abandon him, naked and penniless in a cheap hotel with questionable sheets, mould-encrusted bathrooms and tacky carpets. She had standards this girl, this nameless, shameless and pretty young thing, now pock-marked, with collapsed veins and shrunken cheekbones and no doubt dead.
He recalled how he had left her in a five-star hotel, curled into a foetal position, soaked in sweat and doused with alcohol, awash with class A narcotics, paid for from his illicit earnings as a commercial burglar. He was adept at it too. She had exploited him for the now. Another leech. He had to move on. Anywhere was better than Pazardzhik.
‘Do not ever forget that, Constantin.
The one freezing shower he had taken that winter’s morning, around seven, had proven to be cathartic in more than one way. Another inmate was in the block, showering alone. Two more, stood at a distance were obviously aware of the male – connected. He wasn’t of a large build, muscular, but not what Constantin would later describe as impressive in stature. Yet he struggled to take his eyes off him. Not for any other reason than he had a look, a presence, a sense of divinity. He was for Nicolescu the nearest thing to God that he would ever experience. He knew he was a fellow Roma; no words were needed to confirm that.
It was then he saw the tattoo. The simple arcing mark on his right wrist. He had heard stories, in Romania, out on the streets, in the Roma community and certainly here, in Pazardzhik. They talked of the image of a blue wave, a sense of belonging to a better thing, a brotherhood, but more. Its leader was not a large man physically, but they told of his sheer presence among men. They said his bloodline was pure gypsy – those that thought the word offensive to the Roms said it with vigour.
Gypsy!
They almost spat the word out.
They said he was the leader of Primal Val – The First Wave.
They said he was the King of the Gypsies. He knew better than to associate with this title, for it was not what it seemed to the uninitiated. In Romani folklore, the holder of the title was often considered to be nothing more than a liaison between the Roma and the Gadje, or the non-Romani. The King would often place himself at risk of arrest rather than bring harm to his people.
As such, he refused to be associated to the title.
He saw himself inste
ad as the King of Men.
The curving black streak on his wrist confirmed it. As he stood in the shower, frigid water cascading off his honed body, the scene in monochrome played out before the older man who stood, staring.
Yes, there it was, the black wave. That simple linear mark, drawn in a prison, using only rudimentary tools under the light of a scarce match.
The best Constantin could offer, as he stood before him, naked and intimidated, was, “Sastipe!”
To the uninitiated it was a foreign language – to the men in the shower block it was pure Romani. The Indo-Aryan language of the travelling people.
The dark-haired male turned to face Nicolescu. Comfortable with his surroundings and the intense cold. He showed no sign of fear. He dried himself with the miniscule piece of cloth supplied by the prison, thought deeply, then spoke.
“Sar san?” How are you?
“Mishto, palikerav tut.” I am well.
“Soi t’jiro nav?” He was staring into his eyes now. What is your name? This was not the time to lie.
“Miro nav si o…Constantin.” My name is…Constantin.
The male with the black tattoo extended his stare, raised an eyebrow. He needed more.
“…Nicolescu.”
“Loshalo sim te maladjov tut.” Pleased to meet you.
Nicolescu bowed slightly, keeping his eyes on the group.
“Me vi loshalo sim.” The pleasure is all mine.
The male smiled. He had cold, hooded and black eyes, olive, pock-marked skin, a strong, straight nose and thick black hair that shone with blue-grey hues. His hair was matted to his head, still cold, still wet, but the colours were striking, like that of a bird, similar to a Magpie, better still a Jackdaw.
“No, Constantin Nicolescu, the pleasure is all mine.” In English. For he spoke at least five languages.
“Come.” He beckoned.
Constantin began to walk, desperately afraid of what would follow.
The male threw the cloth to one side, and as naked as his new associate, held open his arms. Constantin stepped forward and waited to hear his neck crack, to feel the home-made shank driving up and into his spleen. But it never came.
The male held him in a strong embrace. Whispering into his ear.
“They call me Alex – King of Men. You have heard of me?”
He nodded. “Of course.”
“Speak up. Let them hear you. I am looking for someone to work for me, someone who knows of many ways to kill and steal. They tell me you are the one. Is this so?”
“Yes. I am that man.”
“Good. I always need honesty. I am pleased that you wish to join us.”
Nicolescu nodded, feeling that he had no choice but equally that he had nothing else to cling to.
“Then give me your wrist.”
‘What now?’
Was this the moment he feared? Blood on the walls? His life washing down a drain in a country he could never call home?
Alex Stefanescu held the wrist, dried it with the cloth and summoned one of his aides. A basic metal spike appeared, rinsed under the cold water and then run across the skin on the inner side of his wrist. Too shallow and the homemade ink would not adhere to deep and he would probably bleed to death.
“Come to my cell later. We will add the ink. Yours will be blue, like these proud men beside you. Primal Val accepts you into its family. We live by the sword, but never die by it my brother. That is a fool’s game. OK?”
“OK. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. You have no idea what I need you to do. Let us just say we shall drink Tuica together in my club, very soon – and then you shall travel to London and become rich. But first you need to get me out of here.”
He laughed, a cackling bird-like laugh. It was a sound colder than the stone room they stood in, on a winter’s morning in Pazardzhik, alongside the Trakia Highway, in the winter landscape that was Bulgaria.
Constantin was good to his word – to his orders. It was only days later that he had engineered an escape from the place the government considered escape-proof.
Alex Stefanescu told him that he would forever be in his debt – at the very least he assured him he had a job for life and should never have to worry about money again. Quietly he trusted the drunk as far as he could kick him, but he knew how capable he had become; reading books, endlessly studying ways to cause the very chaos that Alex craved, and yet cautiously watching from the corner of his eye in case the man whose life he spared ended up being his murderer.
That was then. He had barely aged and was still in good condition for a man who had abused his privileges. For a man who they had been hunting for, for so long. A man hated by the authorities who barely knew where to incarcerate him, let along how to deal with him. Solitary confinement just made him a martyr and increased disorder in the prison system tenfold.
As he walked around his two-by-two cell, Alex Stefanescu could only smile. It was in a cell just like his many years ago that he had initiated so many fine men into what over time had grown from the small team called the First Wave into the fabled strongest event of the oceans, Septal Val – the Seventh Wave. A group so organised, so well led, that it had caused fear and chaos across Europe. Interpol held files too thick to bind. Police forces from Spain to Britain wanted him for a smorgasbord of offences.
He had taken twenty years to create an empire in his Romanian home – where the authorities were happy to allow him to co-exist. Money talked. Girls too, and he had plenty of those from around the world. Pretty girls, attracted to crime and criminals. It never ceased to amaze him how this happened so often. He had lost count of the amount of women he had slept with; European, African, one particular Australian, Roma, Gadje, all different but all manipulative.
They were cunning, and he admired that, so he rewarded them well. Those that abused the privilege weren’t abused or beaten, but killed – in ways that even shocked him. In time he had drowned them, dragged them along deserted mountain passes and starved them to death.
But he had a heart. He was charitable, ever looking after the meek. And he had a daughter. And a wife. Once.
That was until he had been caught. Again. The British had helped the Spanish and Bulgarians to capture him. Better to get him off their radar. The man they called Johnnie Hewett had betrayed him. He had allowed him into his home. What type of sociopath would do that? Open his home to a stranger? Give him a bed for the night? He asked of anyone that was prepared to listen.
It was all an elaborate game.
He knew, of course, that as soon as Hewett had served a purpose he would have met his demise either at his own hand or by one of his teams. Dumped in a forest, or buried in the dunes on the west coast of France – that was a favourite. Or just dropped down a sewer, head first.
He was surrounded by betrayal – it was just varying degrees of treachery. Did these people not understand that trust was the élan vital of the Roma people? They knew nothing. You remained loyal, or you paid the price. And blood was not necessarily thicker than water. It wasn’t difficult.
And Cade. How he had made himself look so important to his bosses – to his government. Once a lowly police officer until he had met with Nikolina – Mrs Alex Stefanescu. And his beautiful daughter, Elena.
Jack Cade. He would kill him one day. He had missed the chance. Should have let the assassin called Valentin play with their lives for a while, then flick the switch.
The rest of the hangers-on would be dealt with by his team – piece by perfect piece. But Cade was his, and he had spent many months dreaming up ways to end his infuriating life and those that he loved and that loved him.
And then, there were the others – the key pieces on the magnificent chess board. They still owed him, and he intended to cash in.
And what of his dear little brother Stefan? Surely he was still loyal, despite the elaborate stories that he wove around his audience; a web, spun, delicate, but so very strong.
His daydream came
to a crashing end.
“Prisoner! I am talking to you.”
On the top floor of Pazardzhik Prison, Alex Stefanescu found himself manacled and stood loosely to attention before the deputy commissar.
He smiled and nodded and made pleasant small talk.
Miroslav Andonov was a career prison officer. He had joined the glorious service at the age of eighteen and had risen rapidly through the ranks. Just one more step to becoming Commissar of his own prison. Over the years he joked that he was one of the few that hadn’t been able to escape Pazardzhik, having stayed there for the majority of his service. He enjoyed the challenge that so many had declined. He also knew that to date no one had escaped and survived to boast to their friends and families.
He had hunted them down. And that made him a rising star.
He shivered as he looked out of his office window. God alone knew what it would be like to be on the run out there, and he knew he also needed to get out soon, to start afresh, somewhere new.
Bobov Dol or Sofia were the places he craved, the flagships of the service, not this desolate shit hole. His words.
“Mr Stefanescu, you know that I have a duty to keep you away from the people of Bulgaria? That the people you call your own don’t want you back? I must also protect the government from your illicit trading in drugs and firearms and people?”
Stefanescu frowned.
Deputy Commissar Andonov held his hand aloft. “Wait, I have not finished yet.”
The Jackdaw nodded, a delicate movement only, with a half-smile on his lips.
“And above all, to protect you from yourself. We agree?”
“Of course, Deputy Commissar. A point, if I may? I do not deal in drugs or firearms. Look to the north and south for those commodities, but please sir, do not suggest that is how I made my millions. You have a very difficult job to do and one, may I say, that you do very well, and have always done very well, with compassion for the people of your wonderful country and my fellow prisoners, and above all the glorious people, outside those cream-coloured walls.”
Seven of Swords (The Seventh Wave Trilogy Book 3) Page 2