Black Coke

by James Grenton

  ‘I want that promotion.’

  ‘We can discuss that too.’

  ‘I want more than a discussion,’ Nathan said. ‘I want to know why George blocked it.’

  ‘You have my word.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll be in the office first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘Good man. We’ll sort this out. Together.’

  Nathan tossed the phone across the room onto the carpet. He was answering no more calls today, especially not from Soca.

  Chapter 11

  Central London, UK

  7 April 2011

  Next day, Nathan was at the coffee machine, chatting to some of the lads from the intervention department, when Cedric called him. They met in a small meeting room, a place with no windows and just a table and two chairs.

  ‘Sorry about the board meeting,’ Cedric said, placing a folder on the table.

  ‘Forget about it. Now, what’s the plan?’

  Cedric folded his pudgy hands. ‘We had a long discussion after you left. The board has agreed to bring this up again at their next meeting. In two months.’

  ‘Way too late.’

  ‘I’m pushing hard. I may take it to the home secretary.’

  Nathan’s eyes opened wide. Under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, the home secretary set Soca’s strategic direction and appointed the chairman.

  ‘Wouldn’t that get rather messy?’ Nathan said.

  ‘It’s more like a threat. They wouldn’t want an argument. It would be terrible for George’s career.’

  They looked at each other.

  ‘Be honest with me, Cedric. You wouldn’t dare.’

  ‘Then you don’t know me well enough.’

  ‘That leak to the BBC. Was it you?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘The interview with George on the radio. The journalist said she’d been speaking to a senior source in Soca. Was that you?’

  Cedric’s eyes glimmered. ‘I have absolutely no idea what you’re on about.’

  ‘Okay, I get it.’ Nathan smiled. Sometimes he forgot just how crafty Cedric could get. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘You were right.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘This.’ Cedric slid the folder across the table to Nathan. ‘Amonite Victor. She’s still alive.’

  For a long moment, Nathan didn’t move. The very mention of Amonite’s name seemed to provoke a physical reaction inside him. A tightness around his chest. A pulsing in his temples. A mixture of fury and fear. He was back in the streets of Juárez, hunting her down with a team of ex special forces operatives. Their fixer led them into a trap. Amonite killed all the others, but dragged Nathan to her torture chamber, from which he barely escaped alive.

  ‘Nathan?’ Cedric said. ‘You okay?’

  Nathan flicked open the folder. There were photos of Amonite coming out of a pub. A poorly painted sign saying the White Lion hung loosely above the door.

  ‘I saw them kill her in Mexico,’ Cedric said. ‘You were there too. You saw her. We weren’t dreaming.’

  ‘I never trusted the Mexican police,’ Nathan said. ‘They could have replaced her with someone else. Easily done.’

  ‘But what’s she doing here?’

  ‘Pretty obvious, isn’t it? She’s expanding the Front’s empire. Is this the pub where that killing took place the other day?’

  Cedric nodded. ‘The Met’s drugs squad had it under surveillance. They’re after Tony Maxwell, a big-time crack dealer in north London who runs dozens of houses. Amonite walked in, shot everyone except Tony, and left.’

  ‘And the Met just let her go?’

  ‘They didn’t know who she was. They didn’t realise there’d been a shooting until Tony stumbled out and ran off.’

  Nathan grunted. ‘Bloody useless.’

  ‘They’ve put someone else in charge of the investigation now. Steve Willinston. A good copper. Takes no crap from the scroties. You should speak to him.’

  ‘Okay, chief.’ Nathan didn’t react to his boss’s uncharacteristic use of police slang. ‘What about those samples from Colombia? Are the test results back?’

  ‘Soon.’

  Cedric got up and left the room. Nathan went to his desk. There was an email from Caitlin.

  Did you get the promotion?

  Nathan had forgotten to raise the issue. Cedric hadn’t mentioned it either. He deleted the email and searched the Soca database for Steve Willinston’s phone number.

  ‘Soca needs help catching baddies?’ Steve said after Nathan had introduced himself.

  ‘I’m trying to nick Amonite Victor.’

  ‘That’s like trying to catch the invisible man.’

  ‘Look, we need to meet up. Where’s the best place to start?’

  ‘Tony Maxwell. If anyone knows about Amonite Victor, it’ll be him.’

  They arranged to meet next day.

  Nathan stared blankly at his computer screen, feeling numb inside. An email popped into his inbox with the headline ‘Drugs and Development: Caught in a Vicious Cycle’. It was an article from The Guardian by Nick Crofts, a senior research fellow at the University of Melbourne. Crofts said 2011 marked the 50th anniversary of the global war on drugs. Nathan blinked. Fifty years? And what was there to show for it? Just massive corruption, unprecedented levels of violence, whole countries devastated, and new groups such as Front 154 popping up on a regular basis.

  He read the article. Crofts argued that conflict, poverty and the drugs trade were intricately linked through a vicious circle: poor development fuelling conflict, which fuels the drugs trade, which generates profits that fuel conflict, which fuels poverty. Croft called for drug control agencies to look beyond the simple realities of drug production to the social and economic factors behind it.

  Nathan filed the story in his file entitled ‘the case for legalisation’, alongside the recent front cover story in The Economist about how the drugs war was devastating Central America. He leaned back in his chair and looked around the office at his colleagues typing away or speaking on their phones. Was all this just a massive waste of time and money?

  He turned back to his computer and searched for more information on the Front. There was an article on the New York Times website that the Front was extending its web of influence to the Caribbean. An anonymous source from the US Drug Enforcement Administration claimed he’d received intel that the region was becoming a hub for the Front’s drug smuggling. There was another article, this time in The Independent, asking how the Front had access to such high tech machinery such as military helicopters. It raised the question of whether there were links between the Front and the Colombian government.

  Nathan put his head in his hands. Front 154 was turning into one of the largest paramilitary illegal drug operations in modern history, yet he was the only person at Soca working on it. What could one man do against an international drugs cartel?

  He kept working all morning, trying to ignore the anxiety inside him. He grabbed a sandwich for lunch and ate at his desk, scrolling through more articles and reports about the Front’s atrocities and growing power. He vaguely heard his colleagues switching off their computers, picking up their coats and leaving for the day. Still he kept searching, driven by the desperate hope that something, somewhere could give him a clue about who was behind the Front, how Amonite had become involved, and what could be done to stop it.

  He glanced at the time on his screen: 9.27pm. He rubbed his eyes. He’d been working for more than twelve hours again. He’d found masses of stories about the Front, but no significant break-throughs. It was time to go home to Caitlin. He’d take her out for dinner at the Spanish restaurant in King’s Cross if it wasn’t too late. She loved Spanish food.

  He left the Soca headquarters and took a circuitous route home, regularly checking for tails in his rear-view mirror.

  He had a distinct feeling he was being watched.

  Chapter 12

 
Kingston, Jamaica

  7 April 2011

  Rev Elijah Evans fingered his dog collar and wiped his nose. He glanced back at the four strong men balancing the polished wooden coffin on their wide shoulders. The one closest to him, a young man with moist eyes but a stern face, nodded to show they were ready.

  Elijah smoothed the creases from his long black robe and centred the wooden cross round his neck. He straightened himself to his full six foot two. He breathed out slowly, once, twice. He opened his leather-bound bible to the gospel of John chapter 11. He cleared his voice and stepped through the open doors into the church, the coffin bearers right behind him.

  ‘I am the resurrection, and the life,’ he read out in a booming voice as he led the procession down the aisle. ‘He who believes in me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.’

  The pews were packed with men and women in their best clothes. They were weeping and looking grave for the funeral of Shaun Davis, a twenty-one year old who had been beaten to death, beheaded and set on fire the previous Saturday night in Tivoli Gardens in downtown Kingston. He’d been a pillar of the church, the leader of the choir, and a final year student at Jamaica’s University of the West Indies.

  Elijah reached the pulpit. He turned to face the congregation. In the front row were Shaun’s mother and father, grey-haired, backs bent and with deep lines of sorrow etched into their ashen faces.

  Elijah would comfort them later.

  The coffin was placed on a pedestal, closed. Shaun’s body was too mutilated for an open casket. Elijah read from Isaiah 13:9.

  ‘Behold, the day of the Lord is coming, cruel, with fury and burning anger, to make the land a desolation.’

  A pause. Everyone was looking at him with anticipation. He raised his left hand for emphasis.

  ‘I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity; I will put an end to the arrogance of the proud and abase the haughtiness of the ruthless.’

  A series of half-hearted ‘amen’ rippled through the congregation. He slammed the bible shut with a flip of his hand and lifted his gaze to the oak beams overhead.

  ‘We are here today to mourn the passing of an innocent young man whose life was stolen by evil drug dealers.’

  Sobbing gushed from the front row. Shaun’s mother crumpled to the floor. She lay there in the foetal position, trembling. Her husband and two other church members struggled to help her up. She collapsed onto a pew, her body heaving.

  Elijah bowed his head.

  ‘Drug dealing is a sin,’ he said. A murmur of approval ran through the crowd. ‘And drug dealers will be punished on the day of reckoning by the Lord our God.’

  Elijah looked up, ready to unleash a ferocious tirade.

  He faltered.

  At the back of the church, standing behind the last row of pews, a woman as wide as two coffins was staring at him. She was in a heavy black coat despite the heat outside. She had a stubby nose and two close-set eyes. Her threadlike lips looked like they’d been sliced into her face with a three-star ratchet knife. She ran a black gloved hand through her slick hair. Then she made a gun sign with her finger and thumb and pointed it at Elijah.

  A lump clogged up Elijah’s throat.

  The congregation was looking at him questioningly.

  Elijah bowed his head as though deep in prayer. The bible nearly slipped from his sweaty fingers.

  ‘God has called Shaun back to heaven,’ he muttered. He rattled through the rest of his sermon, trying to avoid looking towards the back of the church. He led the congregation into the closing hymns. As they sang their way through ‘There is a Redeemer’, he dared another glance. The woman had gone. He launched into the final verse with renewed gusto.

  Once the service had ended, Elijah stood outside the front doors at the top of the stone steps, shaking people’s hands as they filed out. He hugged the grieving parents and promised he would pray for them. He walked round the church to the graveyard. Everyone was standing round the hole that had been dug in the ground. Elijah uttered the prayers of committal as the coffin was lowered. Workmen filled the grave with earth. Everyone sung more hymns.

  At last the grave was full. Wreaths and bouquets were placed on it.

  Elijah said a prayer of thanks. Then he rushed back to the church so fast he drew glances from his church elders. He slammed shut the heavy front doors and made his way to his office in a side room. He pulled a small bag of black powder and a mirror out of the top drawer of his desk. He placed the mirror next to the pot of tea that had been brewing on his desk since that morning. He tapped out a long line of powder and snorted it with a rolled-up bank note. His nose, mouth and throat went numb.

  He slumped into his chair. A delightful tingling spread through his body, building up to a crescendo of pleasure, like the start of an orgasm. He lost track of time, until the drug wore off and a headache settled in with pounding strength.

  Was that really Amonite Victor he’d seen at the back of the church? Or was it a demon come to haunt him for Shaun’s death?

  It took all Elijah’s willpower to resist taking another line. He had to be in a fit state for the evening service. He took off his robe and turned round to face the mirror on the wall. He admired his firm jaw. He straightened his pin-striped suit. Soon he’d have a church large enough to rival those Pentecostal groups who got all their riches from the US. He’d be so wealthy his relatives would be falling over themselves to do his bidding. No longer would he be seen as the failed one of the family. Even his father would be proud of him.

  But now he needed to relax. Maybe he should go home for the afternoon to see his young lover, Patrice. Elijah’s groin stirred at the thought. He leapt from his chair and hurried down the stairs. He stepped into the main hall. He gasped, grasping the back of a pew to steady himself.

  Marching towards him, down the centre aisle, fleshy paw out-stretched, was Amonite Victor, a wide grin on her sun-tanned yet unbelievably ugly face.

  ‘Reverend, it’s been too long,’ Amonite said in her absurdly deep voice. ‘So wonderful to see you again.’

  Elijah shook Amonite’s hand vigorously.

  ‘Nice of you to drop by our troubled island.’ Elijah’s voice was trembling. ‘Still up to the same old mischief?’

  Amonite gave a roaring laugh that made Elijah jump. ‘Ah, you know what I’m like.’

  Elijah nodded rapidly. He led Amonite into his office. Why had Amonite decided to come to see him in person? Had she found out about Elijah’s links to the Brixton yardies?

  Elijah gestured to the ripped leather armchair that was placed at an angle in front of his desk. He plonked himself into his own chair and clasped his hands.

  ‘How can I help?’ he croaked.

  ‘That was a lovely funeral, if I may say so. I hear Shaun was one of your best.’

  ‘Best what?’

  ‘Don’t take me for a fool, reverend. I’m not one of those old farts from your church.’

  ‘So you heard?’

  ‘That Shaun tried to double cross you? Sure I did. How much did he take?’

  ‘Two keys.’

  ‘Too bad.’ Amonite flashed a smile like the rictus on Shaun’s dead face. ‘I hear business is booming.’

  ‘Cup of tea?’ Elijah reached for the pot. ‘It’s fresh.’

  ‘Sure.’ Amonite leaned forward. ‘I have a little favour to ask.’

  ‘What may that be?’

  ‘Always the same.’

  ‘No problem at all.’ A grin eased across Elijah’s face as he poured the tea into two small cups, grateful that trust had been restored between them. ‘You got rid of the previous shipment?’

  ‘Once I’d dealt with your double-crossing countrymen in Brixton, it sold like hotcakes. Have you tasted that sample?’

  ‘It’s not because they’re Jamaican that—’

  ‘Sure, sure. Whatever. What about the sample?’

  ‘It’s incredible,’ Elijah blurted
.

  ‘The next is just under a ton.’

  ‘Wow. Consider it done.’

  ‘Oh, and… Don’t screw up. No more Shauns.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ Elijah sipped from his tea. ‘It’ll be fine.’

  ‘It better be,’ Amonite said. ‘El Patrón’s rather sick of Jamaicans at the moment.’