The Spoilers / Juggernaut

by Desmond Bagley

  ‘He can’t have been working on his own,’ said Tozier.

  Warren was probing among the benches. ‘He’d need a few assistants, but once he’d made this set-up he could get by with unskilled labour as long as he did the supervision. Some of our hospitable Kurds upstairs, I suppose.’ He looked about the room, at the coffee-pot and the dirty plates and the empty whisky bottles. ‘Ahmed doesn’t give him Chivas Regal, I see. He’s been living down here all the time, I think. They couldn’t let him give the game away by allowing him to walk around the settlement.’

  His gaze settled on the boxes and he investigated one that had been opened. ‘Christ Almighty!’

  Tozier looked over his shoulder at the cylindrical objects. ‘What are they—cheeses?’

  ‘That’s opium,’ said Warren. ‘And it’s Turkish opium, by God! Not Iranian at all.’

  ‘How do you know it’s Turkish?’

  ‘The shape—only the Turks pack it that way.’ He stepped back and looked at the stack of boxes. ‘If these are all full there must be ten tons of the stuff here.’

  Tozier tested the weight of a couple of boxes at random. ‘They’re full, all right.’

  Warren began to think that the figures supplied by Raqi were correct, after all. He found a corner of the room used for chemical storage and started to check the remaining chemicals against Raqi’s list. After a while he said, ‘As near as I can get to it he’s used about half—but where’s the morphine?’

  Follet made a muffled exclamation which was covered by Tozier’s voice as he held up a rectangular block. ‘What’s this?’

  Warren took it and scratched the surface with his fingernail. ‘More opium—wrapped in poppy leaves. From Afghanistan, I’d say. It looks as though they’ve been getting the stuff from all over the Middle East.’ He tossed it on to the bench. ‘But I’m not interested in that—I want the morphine.’

  ‘What would it look like?’

  ‘A fine white powder—like table salt or castor sugar. And there ought to be a hell of a lot of it.’

  They searched the room carefully and eventually Follet said excitedly, ‘What’s this?’ He hefted a large glass carboy half full of white powder.

  Warren sampled it gingerly. ‘This is it. This is morphine.’

  ‘Cut or uncut?’ asked Follet.

  ‘It’s pure—or as pure as you can make the stuff in a slum like this.’

  Follet whistled. ‘So this is what you were after. You played it close to your chest, didn’t you, Warren?’ He tested the weight of the carboy. ‘Jesus! There must be twenty pounds here. This lot should be worth half a million bucks.’

  ‘Don’t get any ideas, Johnny,’ said Tozier.

  Warren whirled around. ‘Twenty pounds! I’m looking for a hundred times that amount.’

  Follet stared at him. ‘You serious? You must be joking, Doc.’

  ‘This isn’t a thing to joke about,’ said Warren savagely. He flung out his arm and pointed to the boxes of opium stacked against the wall. ‘There’s enough opium there to extract a ton of morphine. Speering had used half his chemicals so we can say his job was half done—he’s been here long enough to have extracted a ton of morphine with help—and the scale of this laboratory set-up is just about right, too. So where the hell is it?’ His voice rose.

  ‘Not so loud,’ said Tozier warningly. He nodded to where Speering lay breathing stertorously on the bed. ‘We could ask him?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Follet. ‘But he might make a noise while we’re doing it.’

  ‘Then we’ll take him with us,’ said Tozier. ‘Some of the way.’ He turned back to Warren. ‘What do you want done with this place?’

  ‘I want it wrecked,’ said Warren coldly. ‘I want it totally destroyed.’

  ‘Half a million bucks,’ said Follet, and tapped the carboy with his foot. ‘An expensive bang.’

  ‘Would you have any other ideas?’ asked Tozier softly.

  ‘Hell, no,’ said Follet. ‘It’s not my line. I stay on the legal side—although I must say I’ve been stretching it a bit on this trip.’

  ‘All right; then stick Speering down the shaft. Nick, you can give me a hand with the explosives.’

  Follet ripped a sheet into strips and began to truss up Speering, ending by making a gag and stuffing it into his mouth. ‘That’s in case he comes to half-way down the shaft. Give me a hand with him, Ben.’

  They lashed the rope around Speering’s slack body, dragged him through the doorway and began to lower him down the shaft. When the strain eased off the rope they knew he had touched bottom, and Follet prepared to follow. He went over to Tozier and said, ‘Ben and I are going down now.’

  ‘Okay. Wait for Nick and me at the bottom.’ Tozier looked at his watch. ‘I’m setting the time of the bang at three hours from now. That should give us time to get out with a bit to spare.’

  Follet left and Tozier completed setting the charges. The last thing he did was to set the clock carefully and, very delicately, to push over a small lever. ‘She’s cocked,’ he said. ‘An alarm clock to wake up Ahmed. Come on, Nick, let’s get the hell out of here. Armed charges always make me nervous.’

  Warren launched himself into the darkness of the shaft and went down the rope hand over hand until his feet splashed in water. ‘Over here,’ whispered Bryan, and Warren splashed up-stream.

  Follet said, ‘Our friend is coming round.’ He flashed his light on Speering who rolled his eyes wildly while choked sounds came from behind the gag. A long knife came into view and highlights slithered along the blade held before Speering’s eyes. ‘You make a noise and you’ll end up with a cut throat.’

  Speering became abruptly silent.

  There was a muffled thump and a splash from the direction of the shaft. ‘All right,’ said Tozier. ‘Let’s move fast. Can Speering walk?’

  ‘He’d better,’ said Follet. ‘I’ll be right behind him with this pig-sticker.’ He flashed his light on Speering’s feet and cut away the bonds. ‘Get on your feet, you son-of-a-bitch; get on your feet and move.’

  Despite the encumbrance of Speering they travelled rapidly up the qanat. Tozier went first with Speering right behind urged on by the fear of Follet and his knife, while Bryan and Warren brought up the rear. Because Speering’s hands were bound he found it difficult to keep his balance—he plunged about from side to side of the qanat, ricocheting from one wall to the other, and sometimes fell to his knees, while Follet pricked him mercilessly with the knife and kicked him to his feet.

  After three-quarters of an hour of punishing progress Tozier called a halt. ‘It’s time to have a breather,’ he said. ‘Besides, we want to talk to Speering, don’t we? It should be safe enough here.’ He flashed his light upwards. ‘We’re well between shafts. Take out the gag, Johnny.’

  Follet brought up the knife close to Speering’s face. ‘You keep quiet—you understand?’ Speering nodded, and Follet inserted the knife under the cloth that held the gag in place and ripped it free. ‘Spit it out, buster.’

  Speering coughed and choked as he ejaculated the wad of sheeting that filled his mouth. Blood ran down his cheek and matted his beard from the gash where Follet had cut him in hacking away the gag. He swallowed violently, and whispered, ‘Who are you?’

  ‘You don’t ask questions,’ said Tozier. ‘You answer them. Carry on, Nick.’

  ‘How much morphine did you extract, Speering? And where is it now?’

  Speering had not yet recovered his breath. His chest heaved as he shook his head. ‘Oh boy!’ said Follet. ‘We’re talking to a dead man.’

  Tozier moved suddenly and viciously. His hand came up fast and he rocked Speering with a hard double slap. ‘My friend is right,’ he said softly. ‘Answer the questions—or you’re dead.’

  ‘How much morphine did you extract, Speering?’ asked Warren quietly.

  ‘They’ll kill me,’ gasped Speering. ‘You don’t know them.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Tozier.

  ‘Fa
hrwaz and Ahmed.’ Speering was terrified. ‘You don’t know how bad they are.’

  ‘You don’t know how bad we are,’ said Follet reasonably. ‘Take your choice—die now or die later.’ He pricked Speering’s throat with the knife. ‘Answer the question—how much morphine?’

  Speering arched away in an attempt to get away from the knife. ‘A thou…thousand kilograms.’

  Tozier glanced at Warren. ‘You just about hit it. That’s twenty-two hundred pounds. All right, Speering; where is it?’

  Speering shook his head violently. ‘I don’t know. I swear I don’t know.’

  ‘When did it leave?’

  ‘Last night—they took it away in the middle of the night.’

  ‘That must have been while we were there,’ said Tozier thoughtfully. ‘They lifted the stuff right out from under our noses. Where did they take it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But you can guess,’ said Follet, putting a fraction more pressure on the knife. A trickle of blood ran down Speering’s neck. ‘I bet you can guess real good.’

  ‘Iraq,’ Speering burst out. ‘They said it was going to Iraq.’

  ‘We’re about thirty miles from the Iraqi border,’ said Tozier. ‘It begins to add up. I’d swear I heard camels last night. Did they take the stuff out on camel back?’

  Speering tried to nod but ran his throat on to the knifepoint. ‘Yes,’ he said weakly.

  ‘Why didn’t you acetylate the morphine here?’ asked Warren. ‘Where are they going to turn it into heroin?’

  ‘I was going to do it here,’ said Speering, ‘but they changed their minds. They took it away last night. I don’t know anything more than that.’

  Tozier looked at Warren. ‘Wouldn’t they need Speering for that?’

  ‘Maybe not. It’s not too difficult a job. It looks as though we threw a scare into Ahmed. He got the stuff out of the way prematurely as a safety precaution, I’d say.’

  ‘As a safety precaution it worked,’ said Tozier grumpily. ‘If he hadn’t done it we’d have copped the lot. As it is, we’ve lost it. The stuff will be in Iraq by now.’ He turned to Speering. ‘Are you sure you don’t know where it was going to in Iraq? You’d better tell the truth.’

  Speering twitched his eyes back and forth. ‘Come on, baby,’ said Follet encouragingly. ‘It’s the last question.’

  Speering gave in. ‘I don’t know exactly—but it’s somewhere near Sulaymaniyeh.’

  Tozier checked the time. ‘Gag him again, Johnny. The road to Iraq goes past Fahrwaz’s settlement. We have to be on time when the balloon goes up.’

  ‘What can we do with Speering?’ asked Warren.

  ‘What can we do with him? We leave him here. With his hands tied and a gag in his mouth he can’t do much. Hurry it along, Johnny.’

  Three minutes later they were on their way again without Speering. As they left Warren turned round and flashed his light down the qanat. Speering was slumped against the wall in the position they had left him, but then he turned and stumbled away in the opposite direction. Warren met the eyes of Ben Bryan. ‘Come on, Ben; let’s go.’

  Bryan hesitated fractionally, then fell in behind Warren who was making good time to catch up with the others who had already drawn well ahead.

  Warren’s mind was busy with the implications of what he had learned. The mountains of Kurdistan formed part of an age-old smuggler’s route—Fahrwaz and Ahmed would know them well and he had no doubt that the morphine could be smuggled into Iraq with little difficulty. The writ of the law did not run strongly in any part of Kurdistan and had broken down completely in Iraqi-Kurdistan where the government forces were held at arm’s length.

  He plugged along mechanically behind Follet and wondered what the devil they were going to do now. It was evident that Tozier had no doubts. ‘The road to Iraq goes past Fahrwaz’s settlement,’ he had said, and had taken it for granted that they were going to Iraq. Warren envied him his stubborn tenacity.

  His train of thought was broken by Bryan thumping him on the back. ‘Stop,’ said Ben. ‘Tell Tozier.’

  Warren passed the word on and Tozier stopped. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Speering is going to die,’ said Bryan. ‘The last I saw of him he was heading in the other direction. If he doesn’t get killed in the explosion the roof of the qanat will cave in and he’ll be trapped. So he’ll die.’

  ‘He can climb a shaft,’ said Follet.

  ‘With his hands tied behind his back?’

  ‘He’s going to die,’ said Tozier flatly. ‘So?’

  ‘But to die like that!’ said Bryan desperately. ‘Tied up and stumbling around in the dark.’

  ‘Don’t you think he deserves it?’

  ‘I wouldn’t want anyone to die like that. I’m going back.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake!’ said Tozier. ‘We haven’t time. We have to get back to the vehicles and be on our way before the big bang. That settlement is going to swarm like an ant heap when that underground room goes off pop, and I want to be on the other side when it happens.’

  ‘You go ahead,’ said Bryan. ‘I’ll catch you up.’

  ‘Hold it, Ben,’ said Warren. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘Untie his hands and turn him round,’ said Bryan. ‘It gives him a chance.’

  ‘It gives him a chance to raise a goddam squawk,’ said Follet sourly.

  ‘To hell with it, I’m going back,’ said Bryan, and broke away suddenly. Warren flicked on his light and saw him retreating rapidly into the darkness of the qanat.

  ‘The damned fool,’ said Tozier in a gravelly voice.

  Warren hesitated uncertainly. ‘What do we do?’

  ‘I’m getting out of here,’ said Follet. ‘I’m not risking my life for a guy like Speering.’

  ‘Johnny’s right,’ said Tozier. ‘There’s no point in waiting here. We’ll bring the trucks down the pass and stand by to pick up Ben. Let’s move.’

  It seemed the best thing to do. After an initial pause Warren followed, splashing on the heels of Follet. Tozier imposed a back-breaking pace, secure in the knowledge of free passage ahead and spurred by the imminence of the impending explosion behind. They passed shaft after shaft with monotonous regularity and Warren checked each one off in his mind.

  Tozier finally stopped. ‘This is it.’

  ‘Can’t be,’ gasped Warren. ‘I only make it thirty-one.’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ said Tozier with certainty. ‘I have hold of the rope. The sooner we’re all on the surface, the better I’ll be pleased.’

  He went up the shaft and was followed by Warren, who collapsed gasping for breath on the raised rim. Tozier helped Follet up, then said, ‘Johnny and I will go for the trucks. You stay here and give us a flash when you hear the engines.’ He and Follet disappeared into the darkness and there was just the rattle of loose stones to indicate their passage.

  Warren looked up at the sky. The moon was setting behind the mountains but still shed a bright and even light over the rocky landscape so that he could see the roofs of the settlement in the distance. He waited for a while in the profound silence then leaned over the shaft and called, ‘Ben—Ben, where are you?’

  His voice echoed hollowly in the shaft, but there was no reply. He bit his lip. Undoubtedly Ben had acted stupidly—but was he wrong? Warren felt a turmoil within himself, an unaccustomed battle between idealism and self-interest which was something he had not felt before. Hesitantly he grasped the rope and prepared to let himself down the shaft, and then he paused, wondering if this was the right thing to do, after all. What about the others? Would he not be endangering the lives of them all if he went down after Bryan?

  He dropped the rope and disconsolately sat on the edge of the shaft, fighting it out within himself. Presently he heard the low rumble of an engine and cautiously flashed his light in that direction, being careful to shield it with his hand so that no glimmer could be seen from the settlement in the distance. A Land-Rover loomed up sudd
enly and stopped, its engine dropping to the thrum of idling speed. Tozier got out and walked over. ‘Any sign of him?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Warren despondently.

  ‘Bloody idealists!’ said Tozier. ‘They get on my wick.’

  ‘He’s in the profession of life-saving,’ said Warren. ‘It’s hard to change suddenly. So what do we do now?’

  Tozier peered at the illuminated fingers of his watch which he carried face inward on his wrist. ‘She’ll blow in thirty minutes. I was hoping to be on the other side of the settlement by then.’ He sighed in exasperation. ‘That bloody young idiot has cocked everything up.’

  ‘You push off,’ said Warren. ‘I’ll wait for Ben.’

  ‘No,’ said Tozier. ‘I’ll wait. You and Johnny head for the settlement. When the bang goes off make a break for it—you should be able to get through in the excitement. Wait for me on the other side. If you hear any shooting be prepared to come back in and bail us out.’

  ‘I don’t know if that’s a…’ began Warren.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, move,’ said Tozier forcefully. ‘I know what I’m doing and I’ve had more experience. Get going.’

  Warren ran for the second Land-Rover and told Follet what was happening. Follet said, ‘You’d better drive then.’ He lifted his machine-pistol. ‘It’ll leave me free to shoot.’

  Warren got in and drove off, trying to make as little noise as possible. They bumped across the valley floor towards the settlement, making a speed of less than ten miles an hour, while Follet kept glancing at his watch with a worried eye. At last Warren braked gently; ahead he could see the first low, flat-roofed buildings but there was no movement in the moonlight. The only sound was the gentle throb as the engine ticked over.

  ‘Less than a minute to go,’ whispered Follet.

  Even as he spoke there was a deep thump as though a giant had coughed explosively, and the ground quivered under them. A plume of dust shot into the air from the shaft of the qanat nearest the settlement—the shaft which had formed the secret entrance to the underground laboratory. It rose higher and higher in the form of a ring, coiling and guttering in the moonlight as though the giant had blown a smoke ring. There was a brief change in the skyline of roofs, but it was so imperceptible that Warren could not pin it down.