The Spoilers / Juggernaut

by Desmond Bagley

  ‘Very profitable,’ agreed Warren. ‘It’s big business over there. A pound of heroin at the point of consumption is worth about $170,000. Of course, that’s not all profit—the problem is to get it to the consumer. Heroin is ultimately derived from the opium poppy, papaver somniferum, which is not grown in the States for obvious reasons. There’s a chain of production—from the growing of the poppy to raw opium; from the opium to morphine; from morphine to heroin.’

  ‘What’s the actual cost of production?’ asked Hellier.

  ‘Not much,’ said Warren. ‘But that’s not the issue. At the point of consumption in the States a pound of heroin is worth $170,000; at the point of the wholesaler inside the States it’s worth $50,000; at any point outside the States it’s worth $20,000. And if you go right back along the chain you can buy illicit raw opium in the Middle East for $50 a pound.’

  ‘That tells me two things,’ said Hellier thoughtfully. ‘There are high profits to be made at each stage—and the cost at any point is directly related to the risks involved in smuggling.’

  ‘That’s it,’ said Warren. ‘So far the trade has been fragmented, but rumour has it that a change is on the way. When the French gang was busted it left a vacuum and someone else is moving in—and moving in with a difference. The idea seems to be that this organization will cut out the middlemen—they’ll start with the growing of the poppy and end up with delivery inside the States of small lots in amy given city. A guaranteed delivery on that basis should net them $50,000 a pound after expenses have been met. That last stage—getting the stuff into the States—is a high risk job.’

  ‘Vertical integration,’ said Hellier solemnly. ‘These people are taking hints from big business. Complete control of the product.’

  ‘If this comes off, and they can sew up the States, we can expect an accelerated inflow into Britain. The profits are much less, but they’re still there, and the boys won’t neglect the opportunity.’ Warren gestured with his hand. ‘But this is all rumour. I’ve put it together from a hundred whispers on the grapevine.’

  Hellier laid his hands flat on the desk. ‘So now we come to your facts,’ he said intently.

  ‘I don’t know if you could dignify them by that name,’ said Warren tiredly. ‘Two names and a place. George Speering is a pharmaceutical chemist with a lousy reputation. He got into trouble last year in a drug case, and the Pharmaceutical Society hammered him. He was lucky to escape a jail sentence.’

  ‘They…er…unfrocked him?’

  ‘That’s right. This crowd will need a chemist and I heard his name mentioned. He’s still in England and I’m keeping an eye on him as well as I can, but I expect him to go abroad soon.’

  ‘Why soon? And how soon?’

  Warren tapped the desk calendar. ‘The opium crop isn’t in yet, and it won’t be for a month. But morphine is best extracted from fresh opium, so as soon as this gang have enough of the stuff to work on then Speering will get busy.’

  ‘Perhaps we should keep a closer watch on Speering.’

  Warren nodded. ‘He still seems to be taking it pretty easy at the moment. And he’s in funds, so he’s probably on a retainer. I agree he should be watched.’

  ‘And the other name?’ enquired Hellier.

  ‘Jeanette Delorme. I’ve never heard of her before. She sounds as though she could be French, but that doesn’t mean much in the Middle East, if that’s where she hangs out. But I don’t even know that. I don’t know anything about her at all. It was just a name that came up in connection with Speering.’

  Hellier scribbled on a piece of paper. ‘Jeanette Delorme.’ He looked up. ‘And the place?’

  ‘Iran,’ said Warren briefly.

  Hellier looked disappointed. ‘Well, that’s not much.’

  ‘I never said it was,’ said Warren irritatedly. ‘I thought of giving it to the police but, after all, what had I to give them?’

  ‘They could pass it on to Interpol. Maybe they could do something.’

  ‘You’ve been making too many television pictures,’ said Warren abrasively. ‘And believing them, at that! Interpol is merely an information centre and doesn’t initiate any executive work. Supposing the word was passed to the Iranian police. No police force is incorruptible, and I wouldn’t take any bets at all on the cops in the Middle East—although I hear the Iranians are better than most.’

  ‘I appreciate your point.’ Hellier was silent for a moment. ‘Our best bet would appear to be this man, Speering.’

  ‘Then you’re willing to go on with it on the basis of the little information I have?’

  Hellier was surprised. ‘Of course!’

  Warren took some papers from his file. ‘You might change your mind when you see these. It’s going to cost you a packet. You said I could pick a team. I’ve been making commitments on your behalf which you’ll have to honour.’ He pushed two sheets across the desk. ‘You’ll find the details there—who the men are, what they’ll cost, and some brief biographical details.’

  Hellier scanned the papers rapidly and said abruptly, ‘I agree to these rates of pay. I also agree to the bonus of £5,000 paid to each man on the successful completion of the venture.’ He looked up. ‘No success—no bonus. Fair enough?’

  ‘Fair enough—but it depends on what you mean by success.’

  ‘I want this gang smashed,’ said Hellier in a harsh voice. ‘Smashed totally.’

  Warren said wryly, ‘If we’re going to do anything at all that is implied.’ He pushed another paper across the desk. ‘But we haven’t come to my price.’

  Hellier picked it up and, after a moment, said ‘Humph! What the devil do you want with a property in Soho? They come damned expensive.’

  Warren explained, with feeling, the trouble the Soho Therapy Centre had run into. Hellier chuckled. ‘Yes, people are damned hypocrites. I’d have probably been the same before…well, never mind that.’ He got up and went to the window. ‘Would a place in Wardour Street do?’

  ‘That would be fine.’

  ‘The company has a place just across the road here. We were using it as a warehouse but that’s been discontinued. It’s empty now and a bit run down, but it may suit you.’ He returned to his desk. ‘We were going to sell it, but I’ll let you have it at a peppercorn rent and reimburse the company out of my own funds.’

  Warren, who had not yet finished with him, nodded briefly and pushed yet another paper across the desk. ‘And that’s my bonus on the successful completion of the job.’ Ironically he emphasized the operative word in mockery of Hellier.

  Hellier glanced at the wording and nearly blew up. ‘A twenty-bedroomed country house! What the devil’s this?’ He glared at Warren. ‘Your services come high, Doctor.’

  ‘You asked for blood,’ said Warren. ‘That’s a commodity with a high price. When we go into this we’ll come smack into opposition with a gang who’ll fight because the prize could run into millions. I think there’ll be blood shed somewhere along the line—either ours or theirs. You want the blood—you pay for it.’

  ‘By making you Lord of the Manor?’ asked Hellier cynically.

  ‘Not me—a man called Ben Bryan. He wants to establish a self-governing community for addicts; to get them out of circulation to start with, and to get them to act in a responsible manner. It’s an idea which has had fair results in the States.’

  ‘I see,’ said Hellier quietly. ‘All right; I accept that.’

  He began to read the brief biographies of the team, and Warren said casually, ‘None of those people really know what they’re getting into. Suppose we come into possession of, say, a hundred pounds of heroin—that would be worth a lot of money. I don’t know whether I’d trust Andy Tozier with it—probably not. I certainly wouldn’t trust Johnny Follet.’

  Hellier turned a page and, after a while, lifted his head. ‘Are you serious about this—about these men you’ve picked? Good God, half of them are villains and the other half incomprehensible.’

  ‘W
hat kind of men did you expect?’ asked Warren. ‘This can’t be done by a crowd of flag-waving saints. But not one of those men is in it for the money—except Andy Tozier. They all have their own reasons.’ He took a sour look at himself and thought of Follet. ‘I discover I have an unexpected talent for blackmail and coercion.’

  ‘I can understand you picking Tozier—the professional soldier,’ said Hellier. ‘But Follet—a gambler?’

  ‘Johnny is a man of many parts. Apart from being a gambler he’s also a successful con man. He can think up ways of pulling money from your pocket faster than you can think up ways of stopping him. It seems to me that his talents could be used on other things than money.’

  ‘If you put it that way I suppose it seems reasonable,’ said Hellier in an unconvinced voice. ‘But this man, Abbot—a newspaperman, for God’s sake! I won’t have that.’

  ‘Yes, you will,’ said Warren flatly. ‘He’s on to us, anyway, and I’d rather have him working for us than against us. He was on my original list, but he dealt himself in regardless and it would be too risky to leave him out now. He’s got a good nose, better than any detective, and that’s something we need.’

  ‘I suppose that seems reasonable, too,’ said Hellier glumly. ‘But what doesn’t seem reasonable is this man, Parker. I can’t see anything here that’s of use to us.’

  ‘Dan’s the only really honest man among the lot of them,’ said Warren. He laughed. ‘Besides, he’s my insurance policy.’

  II

  Hellier propounded some of the philosophy of the film business. ‘Most countries—especially the poorer ones—like film companies. The boys at the top like us because we’re not too stingy with our bribes. The man in the street likes us because on location we pay exceptionally high rates, by local standards, for colourfully-dressed extras. We don’t mind because, when all’s said and done, we’re paying a damned sight less than we would at home.’

  He hefted a large book, foolscap size and neatly bound. ‘This is a screen play we’ve had on the shelf for some time. About half the scenes are set in Iran. I’ve decided to resurrect it, and we’re going to make the film. You and your team will be employed by us. You’ll be an advance team sent out to Iran by us to scout out good locations—that gives you an excuse for turning up everywhere and anywhere. How does that suit you?’

  ‘I like it,’ said Warren. ‘It’s a good cover.’

  ‘You’ll be provided with vehicles and all the usual junk that goes with an advance team,’ said Hellier. ‘Give me a list of anything else you might need.’ He flicked through the pages of the script. ‘Who knows? We might even make the picture,’ he said sardonically.

  Andy Tozier approached Warren. ‘You’re keeping me too much in the dark,’ he complained. ‘I’d like to know what I’m getting into. I don’t know what to prepare for.’

  ‘Prepare for the worst,’ said Warren unhelpfully.

  ‘That’s no bloody answer. Is this going to be a military thing?’

  Warren said carefully, ‘Let’s call it paramilitary.’

  ‘I see. A police action—with shooting.’

  ‘But unofficial,’ said Warren. ‘There might be shooting.’

  Tozier stroked the edge of his jaw. ‘I don’t like that unofficial bit. And if I’m going to be shot at I’d like to have something handy to shoot back with. How do we arrange that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Warren. ‘I thought I’d leave that to you. You’re the expert.’ Tozier made a rude noise, and Warren said, ‘I don’t really know what we’re going to get into at the other end. It’s all a bit difficult.’

  Tozier pondered. ‘What vehicles are they giving us?’

  ‘A couple of new Land-Rovers. They’ll be flown out to Iran with us. The country out there is pretty rough.’

  ‘And the equipment we’re getting. What does it consist of?’

  ‘It’s all part of our cover. There are some still cameras with a hell of a lot of lenses. A couple of 16-millimetre movie cameras. A video-tape outfit. A hell of a lot of stuff I can’t put a name to.’

  ‘Are there tripods with the movie cameras?’ Warren nodded, and Tozier said, ‘Okay, I’d like to have the Land-Rovers and all the equipment delivered to me as soon as possible. I might want to make a few modifications.’

  ‘You can have them tomorrow.’

  ‘And I’d like some boodle from this money mine you seem to have discovered—at least a thousand quid. My modifications come expensive.’

  ‘I’ll make it two thousand,’ said Warren equably. ‘You can have that tomorrow, too.’

  ‘Johnny Follet might be more useful than I thought,’ said Tozier thoughtfully. ‘He knows his weapons—he was in Korea.’

  ‘Was he? Then he’ll get on well with Dan Parker.’

  Tozier jerked his head. ‘And who is Dan Parker?’

  Warren grinned. ‘You’ll meet him sometime,’ he promised.

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ said Ben Bryan when Warren told him of what was happening.

  ‘And why would we need a psychiatrist?’ asked Warren.

  Bryan grinned. ‘To inject a modicum of sanity. This is the craziest thing I’ve heard.’

  ‘If you join us you’ll be as mad as we are. Still, you might come in useful.’ He looked at Bryan speculatively, then said, ‘I think you’d better be in the main party. Mike Abbot can go with Parker.’

  ‘What’s he going to do?’

  ‘He’s our Trojan Horse—if we can find the Delorme woman—and that’s proving to be a hell of a problem. Hellier has a team in Paris going through birth certifi—cates, pulling out all the Jeanette Delormes and running them down. They’ve found eight already. On the offchance she was born in Switzerland he has another team there.’

  ‘Supposing she was born in Martinique?’ asked Bryan.

  ‘We can only try the obvious first,’ said Warren. ‘Hellier’s investigators are good—I know because they did a bang-up job on me. Anyway, he’s spending money as though he has his own printing press. We’re already into him for over £70,000.’ He grinned. ‘Still, that’s only a couple of years’ upkeep on his yacht’

  ‘I’ve never heard of a rich man really keen to part with his money,’ said Bryan. ‘You must have knocked the props clean from under him. You made him take a look at himself—a good, clear-eyed look—and he didn’t like what he saw. I wish I could do the same to some of my patients. Perhaps you should change your profession.’

  ‘I have—I’m in the business of raising private armies.’

  Everything seemed to happen at once.

  It may have been luck or it may have been good investigative practice, but the Delorme woman was traced, not through the patient sifting of birth certificates, but from a pipeline into the French Sûreté. It seemed that Mike Abbot had a friend who had a friend who…

  Hellier tossed a file over to Warren. ‘Read that and tell me what you think.’

  Warren settled back in his chair and opened the folder.

  Jeanette Véronique Delorme: Born April 12, 1937 at Chalons. Parents…

  He skipped the vital statistics in order to come to the meat of it.

  ‘…three months’ imprisonment in 1955 for minor fraud; six months’ imprisonment in 1957 for smuggling over Franco-Spanish border; left France in 1958.’

  Then followed what could only be described as a series of hypotheses.

  Believed to have been involved in smuggling from Tangier to Spain, 1958-1960; smuggling arms to Algeria, 1961-1963; smuggling drugs into Italy and Switzerland, 1963-1967. Believed to have been implicated in the murders of Henry Rowe (American) 1962; Kurt Schlesinger (German), Ahmed ben Bouza (Algerian) and Jean Fouget (French) 1963; Kamer Osman (Lebanese) and Pietro Fuselli (Italian) 1966.

  Operational Characteristics: Subject is good organizer and capable of controlling large groups; is ruthless and intolerant of errors; is careful not to become personally involved in smuggling activities, but may have been director of large-scale jewel th
efts, south of France, 1967. This, however, may be considered doubtful.

  Present Whereabouts: Beirut, Lebanon.

  Present Status: Not wanted for crime in Metropolitan France.

  There were a couple of smudgy photographs which had not survived the copying process at all well, but which showed a blonde of indeterminate age.

  Warren blew out his cheeks. ‘What a hell-cat she must be.’ He tapped the folder. ‘I think this is the one—everything fits.’

  ‘I think so, too,’ said Hellier. ‘I’ve stopped everything else and narrowed it down to her. A man has already flown out to Beirut to pinpoint her.’

  ‘I hope someone has told him to be careful,’ said Warren.

  ‘He just has to find out where she lives and…er…her standing in the community. That shouldn’t be too risky. Then he pulls out and you take over.’

  ‘I’ll get Dan Parker out there as soon as we know something definite. Mike Abbot will support him—I’m not sure Dan could pull it off on his own. This might need the sophisticated touch. Oh, and we have a volunteer—Ben Bryan will be joining the Iran group.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear that Mr Bryan is going to earn his manor house,’ said Hellier, a shade acidly. ‘There’s still nothing on your man, Speering.’

  ‘He’ll make a move soon,’ said Warren with certainty. His confidence had risen because the dossier on Jeanette Delorme fitted in so tidily.

  ‘Well, the same thing applies. There’ll be an investigator with him all the way—probably on the same plane if he flies. Then you’ll take over.’

  Speering moved two days later, and within twelve hours Warren, Tozier, Follet and Bryan were in the air in a chartered aircraft which also carried the two Land-Rovers. Parker and Abbot were already on their way to the Lebanon.

  III

  It was snowing in Tehran.

  Follet shivered as the sharp wind cut through his jacket. ‘I thought this place was supposed to be hot.’ He looked out across the airport at the sheer wall of the Elburz Mountains and then up at the cold grey sky from which scudded a minor blizzard. ‘This is the Middle East?’ he asked doubtfully.