Oil & Corruption

by Gareth Flood

  Derek had become slightly tense since sitting down. It was immediately apparent that Tarrant was perturbed about something.

  This was not a good sign.

  Tarrant was very perturbed.

  Things were not turning out as they were supposed to for him: He had two loose cannons of knowledge running around on the continent talking to god knows who, there were a few botched assassination attempts that had left a mess in a few cities and to top it all off, his partner in the East was suddenly acting very strangely.

  If the truth ever came out, he knew he could kiss his grand ambitions goodbye. The idea behind all this was to become ridiculously wealthy and powerful. That was his destiny. If the deal did not come off, then he would only be modestly wealthy and powerful. Sure that would sting and definitely beat the pants off prison and thereafter having to slum it with the Proles again. Yet the real motivation for Warren Tarrant was power. The whole kick out of this was power.

  It was all going so smoothly, but after the last few days he suddenly felt uneasy about everything. It was as though his grip of control on the situation was loosening.

  He needed back-up plans in case the whole thing threatened to become public.

  Plausible deniability was what he needed and as little evidence relating any events to anywhere near him as possible.

  ‘Thanks for coming so quickly, Derek.’ Tarrant began, as he fished a manila folder out of his leather briefcase.

  ‘Of course, Sir.’ Munro replied, ‘always ready to serve the organisation.’

  Tarrant smiled, ‘Yes, your father would be proud.’

  Munro granted himself an inner smile. That was what made his sometimes nefarious deeds worthwhile.

  ‘Here’s the situation,’ continued Tarrant, ‘Someone wrote a report that could have some negative implications for the organisation and some of our partners. It may potentially be leaked. A minor information spill is occurring. I’d like you to clean it up.’ Tarrant reached into the folder and pulled out a couple of pictures, which he slid across the small glass drinks table.

  Munro picked them up and studied the faces of a man and a woman.

  ‘Last seen in France.’ Tarrant continued. ‘They are traitorous employees of the organisation. Their full details are in this file. Mission one is to have them permanently “restructured”.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Munro, ‘you mean permanently “outsourced”?’

  ‘No. Let me be clear. This level of management must be permanently “delayered”.’

  ‘Ah. Got you.’ Munro confirmed, last thing he wanted to do was disable someone when Tarrant actually wanted them killed.

  ‘Good.’ Tarrant said. ‘I would have asked you to do this sooner but I left it up to a business partner to sort out and he has let me down – so it’s now a matter of urgency. I also want you to put watches on the entire portfolio team on the twelfth floor of the head office. If any of them starts acting in even a remotely strange manner - I want to know about it. Any more potential leaks about a large project we are working on will come from them. For mission two, I’d like you to set up an operation to also permanently delayer this individual.’

  Tarrant slipped another photo across the table.

  ‘I want you to get your men mobilised as soon as possible.’ Tarrant said.

  Munro’s eyes widened involuntarily as he looked at the picture on the table. He let out a long, slow whistle.

  After a few moments silence, he looked up and asked, ‘Is this really who I think it is?’

  ‘It is. Your father would be proud.’ Tarrant said, with face of stone.

  Derek Munro looked down at the photo again.

  He was holding a picture of the new Vice-President of the Russian Federation.

  34

  Madrid

  Jonathan was lying on a chaise lounge, being fanned what he could only assume, were three hundred dollar an hour hookers in bikinis.

  As his relations with the Arab and the Hebe improved, he had been upgraded off the floor, to a couch and then apparently given a woman by the Arab.

  Cool air caressed his face that was being manufactured by the kind of girls who had University degrees but had quickly tired of corporate crap and glass ceilings and found an easier and more tax efficient route to quickly make a lot of money.

  As he looked up at the Amazonian beauty keeping him cool, he mused how she was probably close to being mortgage free, while he would die in debt if he died this week. He then looked down and across at the hairy, fat Arab, and re-considered that the girls would be classing this week as work for sure. The Arab sat before him on a cushion, sucking on the hookah pipe. The Hebe was rocking back and forth on a wooden chair in his doorway, studying Jonathan intently.

  The Arab coughed roughly and offered Jonathan the pipe, ‘Come, my friend in the Spanish desert. Have a gorge.’

  ‘Uuh, I do not wish to be rude, but no thanks.’ Jonathan said.

  ‘Huh.’ harrumphed the Arab, ‘If you did not bring me the promise of gold coin, I would have your tongue cut out and fed to the oasis vultures.’

  The Hebe knocked on the door to get everyone’s attention before he started speaking.

  ‘If what you say is true - it is a particularly large play. Things you describe lead me to conclude you speak the truth-’

  ‘Look at his eyes!’ the Arab yelled while gesticulating madly, ‘I have looked into the eyes of the hawk and find them worthy to drink from my clan well.’

  ‘Yes, well, be that as it may,’ replied the Hebe, thoroughly unimpressed at being interrupted, his eyes never deviating from Jonathan. ‘The interesting part is that you are not trying to profit from all this.’

  Jonathan’s throat and eyes were being irritated by the strong smoke from the Hookah pipe. He cleared his throat before he started speaking, ‘My motivation is that the sooner I can get the truth out there and the more people know about it, then that takes away the motivation to kill just me. The focus will go elsewhere.’

  ‘Indeed,’ The Hebe considered, before his eyes eventually shifted to the Arab. ‘Most of our business has always been in the Middle East,’ The Hebe continued, ‘but we are looking to expand. Some of our Chinese partners are looking for the same thing. This could be the way to do it. But there are some pieces missing. We can put together a deal in Russia but we need to first find out the entire story and then pull in someone who has connections in that part of the world.’

  The Hebe went silent as he looked to the Arab for a response.

  Eventually the Arab turned to make eye contact with him and immediately spluttered on his pipe. ‘Not him.’ the Arab cried, ‘The only thing he will get from me is urine on his dead body. You cannot be serious. Besides, he does not like us. I curse the hair on his flesh to be carried into the dunes by the night scarabs with teeth on their legs.’

  ‘He will like us if we bring him this deal.’ The Hebe said flatly.

  ‘Then I open the tent-flap and offer him daughter number eighty seven.’ the Arab turned to Jonathan, ‘Isn’t it annoying how one race of people are much smarter than the rest of us combined?’ he turned back to the Hebe with an effort. ‘Yes, for you are right. He is the one who can stitch it all together - like a fine tapestry woven by Persian virgins.’

  ‘You must leave tonight.’ the Hebe said from the doorway to Jonathan. ‘I give you my best man, Avi the Giant, to protect you.’

  ‘And I,’ the Arab said grandly, ‘give you ACKKKKKKKK, with his Desert Falcon to guide you.’

  One of the largest of the Arab guards garbed in white stepped forward off the wall.

  Next to him was a hooded bird of prey on a stand. The man took a leather glove that came up to the elbow and pushed his left hand into it before holding it in front of the bird. The winged carnivore obediently stepped up and gripped onto the glove when it was brought near. The guard bowed, ready to serve.

  While Jonathan was still digesting this sight, he became distracted and turned as a large shadow was cast over
the Hebe as a giant of a man in a grey suit materialised behind him.

  Jonathan almost gasped aloud.

  It was the largest Jewish man he had ever seen. Avi must have been at least seven and a half feet tall and filled out his suit well with a bulk of muscle.

  The Hebe knocked on the door again to get everyone’s attention. ‘This thing will all be resolved for better or worse in a couple of days. You must go now.’

  Both the guards started moving toward the outer doors of the respective hotel rooms. Jonathan was ushered by the hookers to join ACKKKKKKKK as he went for the door.

  Julie is not going to believe this…Jonathan thought.

  35

  London

  Deep within the headquarters of MI6, a meeting was being held to update William Gladstone on progress on the case.

  Once again, Harry Shaftsbury sat quivering before his own personal dark lord and a few of his pinstriped, black suited minions.

  The only difference between this meeting and the last one that Harry attended, was the disembodied voice of someone called “Whorehay” occasionally floating over the proceedings from a speakerphone. The Spanish accent of the voice was so thick it was hard to make any sense out of it, like the man was not so much constructing sentences as trying to ask for a glass of water with a mouth that was very, very full of bread.

  One of the senior agents on the case had just finished a PowerPoint presentation showing the latest mind maps of scenario planning for what could happen in the next few days. Gladstone leered at the screen over his china teacup. He hated all this modern rubbish of presenting everything on “slides”. He sometimes felt some of these modern agents couldn’t take a crap unless a bullet point flying in from the left of the screen said it was okay.

  ‘Jorge.’ Gladstone yelled at the black speakerphone in the centre of the table. ‘Are you any closer to tracking down the information source within the portfolio department?’

  ‘Weesa gotta few leeeds,’ came back the thick voice, ‘but Ima gonna needa few more deays.’

  The brow of Gladstone crinkled.

  ‘You, Barry,’ he singled his ire on Shaftsbury, who visibly jumped in his seat ‘this acquaintance of yours causing havoc on the continent, he has not contacted you again?’

  ‘N-no, sir.’ Harry replied

  The Gladstone brow crinkled into a mini ravine. The china teacup was placed on the boardroom table.

  ‘Let me tell you what will really happen in the next few days, gentlemen, without the backup of eighty “slides”. This thing is really going to explode. Either this Marshall chap will be dead or he will turn up somewhere unexpected and go public with what he knows and all the intelligence agencies of the western world will be caught with their trousers down. Either way, all of our masters in Government will not be pleased. I am currently not pleased.’ he paused and looked around the room for effect.

  ‘Now you agents spend less time on laptops and more time in the field. Find this troublesome little bugger. Jorge!’

  ‘Yes, boss.’ came the voice.

  ‘Find that second information source in the portfolio department within twenty four hours and grab him. I want that source in an interrogation room in the basement of this building by tomorrow night. All of you go. Now!’

  Harry did not need to be told twice.

  36

  Madrid

  On a rooftop diagonally opposite the plush Madrid hotel in which Jonathan and Julie’s lives had just taken another bizarre twist, their fates were being redesigned yet again.

  The Tatar was just finishing setting up his sniper rifle and adjusting the scope to zoom in on the entrance to the hotel.

  This will be easy. he thought to himself, as he allowed himself a rare smile while clicking the safety catch to the “off” position.

  Thinking himself on the brink of failure for the first time in his professional career in France, he could not believe his luck when the woman made a rookie mistake by keeping her cellular phone. She had obviously thought it was safe by not switching it on.

  She was wrong.

  Even turned off, the battery still emitted a very faint, low-level signal to keep the memory of the phone going. You could track this signal if you had the right technology. The Tatar had access to the right technology.

  The phone was in the hotel. That meant they would come out of the front door at some stage.

  When they did, they would die.

  This had become personal now for the Tatar since they had evaded him back in France.

  It would be easy this time.

  He was contemplating whether to first wound them each with a stomach shot, maybe watch them writhe on the pavement for thirty seconds before finally sending bullets through their skulls.

  He put his eye to the scope and focussed the cross hairs on the main doors to the hotel as a large Mercedes with black tinted windows pulled up to the entrance.

  So easy…

  Julie’s eyes widened in horror as she saw Jonathan walking across the lobby while being sandwiched between a scary looking Arab with a murderous goatee hanging off a pointed face and bird of prey on his arm and what looked like Lurch from the Addams Family.

  She scrambled around in the lobby chair she was in or something she could use as a weapon: a pen, an ashtray – anything. She quickly stood up and reached across to pick up a nearby small side table lamp to use as a club.

  ‘It’s okay Julie,’ Jonathan said before as they approached her, ‘they are here to help us.’

  Julie’s eyes narrowed at the two men and the bird, she hefted the lamp up to her shoulder like it was baseball bat and looked back at Jonathan.

  Jonathan was smiling and his body posture was relaxed. She had known him long enough to recognise a genuine smile – she lowered the lamp slightly.

  ‘Help us how?’ she asked, ‘drawing attention to us by walking around with wildlife?’

  Jonathan looked around – the bird was causing quite a few people to look at them.

  ‘No, the meeting went well upstairs, we have to go and meet a middleman who can piece the whole thing together for us. These two gentlemen are going to take us there and act as our bodyguards.’

  ‘And where is this middleman?’ Julie asked, still holding the lamp and eyeing up the two strangers with distrust.

  ‘They can’t tell me his name or where we’re going yet.’

  ‘But Jonathan that’s crazy.’

  ‘After what I’ve just seen and been through upstairs, it actually seem quite normal. I’ll explain the whole meeting in the car – these guys are okay – trust me.’

  Julie’s physique relaxed and she put the lamp back down. Jonathan was impressed yet again at her ability to seemingly take strange new events in her stride.

  Avi the giant leant forward. ‘Come, we must go.’ he said in a deep baritone that befitted his impressive physique as he made moves to herd them toward the main door. ‘We have a Mercedes waiting outside.’

  As they walked out the main doors of the hotel, the Tatar blinked twice through his small viewing screen of his sniper scope to ensure the best vision of the target.

  All he had needed to identify Jonathan was a glimpse of the top of his hairstyle. The problem was that the target was being obscured an absolutely huge man, at least seven foot tall.

  The woman was there as well but being obscured by a man dressed in a white bathrobe with a freaking big bird on his arm!

  It was all bizarre and unexpected but would not ultimately matter to the task at hand. The Tatar could not get a clear shot - the two men were shielding them.

  The Tatar recognised they now had bodyguards.

  Did they know he was here? Both of the target’s heads were bobbing erratically behind the two strange men as they moved towards the car.

  One of the back doors of the car opened.

  The Tatar needed to make his move now or the targets would get into the car while still being covered by the men.

  He shifted the cross hai
r of the rifle squarely into the centre of the huge man’s chest and squeezed the trigger.

  The huge man twitched forward.

  The man in white yelled something and lifted his arm up. The bird flew off.

  The Tatar fired again and the big man twitched again before reaching back with his arms and grabbing the front of Jonathan’s shirt and Julie’s right arm. The giant man fell forward towards the car, pulling them with him.

  The man in white went down towards the car at the same time. There was no clear shot throughout the movement.

  The Tatar spat and swore in Russian. Now he did not have a shot at all.

  Fine, he thought, no more keeping it clean. You can all burn in hell!

  He stood up and pulled the long silencer off the rifle and switched it to fully automatic mode before levelling the gun at the car letting rip by jamming his finger on the trigger.

  The black Mercedes started rocking as it became riddled with the silver pockmarks of bullet holes.

  Huddling against the car, Julie’s screams could still be heard over the cacophony of bullets tearing into metal and shattering glass.

  Jonathan realised that Avi had been shot only when the bullets had started to hail down on the Mercedes.

  Avi seemed completely out of it and the Arab could not be seen.

  Jonathan moved over to his left on all fours to cover Julie while they both cowered down against the pavement by the middle of the car as bits of metal and glass rained from above.

  The noise was incredible, a staccato of ding, ding, ding seemed to pierce Jonathan’s skull as the bullets continued to pour into the car at an unbelievable rate.

  He wondered if the car would eventually explode.

  Avi released a low moan and rolled slightly to his side. The jacket of the big man fell open to reveal the black butt of a handgun sticking out of a waist holster. Amidst the noise and shrapnel pandemonium, Jonathan felt he had a decision to make. If they just lay there, the assassin may make the car explode or do something else, like put down his rifle and pick up some kind of shoulder supported missile.