Offshore Islands

by John Francis Kinsella

The Sally Anne docked and after an interminable problem with the dock side stairs, which appeared to have hydraulic problems, they disembarked and were herded towards a row of waiting buses. The climbed aboard one of the buses and were soon bumping over the uneven roads of the ex-Soviet Republic of Estonia. A pretty guide gave a non-stop stream of incomprehensible information in Estonian to the tourists.

  At first view it was similar to the other countries of the old Communist world that Barton had visited, run down and drab. As they left the port area things seemed to cheer up somewhat. The passers-by were almost indistinguishable from their nearby Finnish neighbours, they were brightly dressed in light clothes in the unseasonably warm weather, the young women with their blond hair were attractive, even if there was slight a hint of them being over dressed and over made-up.

  The bus pulled into a square where they climbed out and were relieved to see the post and telegraph building as per their instructions. Checking their map they then headed towards the old town, over the tram tracks and past the stalls of flower sellers. It was just after 9.30 Saturday morning, but they could not help remarking that there were very few cars. In just over ten minutes they reached the practically deserted Kirku Plats, the main square. It was strange that such a square was without the Saturday morning market and hubbub that could be found in just about any other town in Western Europe.

  They paused and looked around, as if checking that they were not being followed, the era of spies was over but they had heard a lot about the Mafiya that had sprung up like mushrooms in the newly independent states. Barton hung tightly on to his bag containing the Swedish money.

  “You know what a Moskowitz looks like?” Barton asked Kennedy.

  Kennedy, a little puzzled, thought for a moment.

  “No...what about you?”

  “No.”

  They walked around the picturesque cobbled square that rose to one side, facing them were two or three cafes with tables and chairs set outside in the bright but cool sun.

  “Let’s take a coffee?” suggested Barton.

  “No, if the taxi arrives we won’t have time.”

  Barton shrugged. They made another circuit of the square checking the streets leading into it, there were no taxis, there were no cars. The only thing remarkable was a couple of down-and-outs, looking like a pair of dead souls, their skin black with filth and their dirty blond hair hanging dishevelled over their foreheads, stinking even at a distance of ten metres.

  They hurried away as if it was a contagious condition.

  “Perhaps it’s a pedestrian area,” thought Kennedy aloud.

  “What shall we do now?”

  “Nothing, we just wait, there’s nothing else to do!”

  A worn out greyish saloon bumped into sight and made a slow tour of the square. They observed the car with indifference as it pulled up in front of one of the cafes. The driver climbed out and looked around and then disappeared into the cafe.

  Barton pulled out a packet of cigarettes, put one between his lips and drawing heavily lit it up, he puffed the smoke out without inhaling it, his smoking was almost a nervous tic.

  They looked into the shop windows only half interested, wondering what to do next.

  “Mister Kennedy?”

  Kennedy looked around, it was the driver of the grey saloon. He was unshaven and his shirt was grubby and unbuttoned down to a hairy bulging stomach.

  “What!” exclaimed Barton warily.

  “Are you Mister Kennedy?”

  “Who are you?”

  “I am driver, we go to Olympia.”

  “Very nice,” said Barton, “let’s go then!”

  They quickly crossed the square and as the climbed into the car, Kennedy realised that perhaps when the car had been new – a considerable number of years before - it could have been green.

  “Is this a Moskowitz?” Barton asked the driver.

  “What you say?”

  “A Moskowitz.”

  “No, we go to Olympia.”

  “Don’t confuse him for Christ’s sake,” Kennedy told Barton speaking quickly just in case the driver would understand, “he’s just the bleedin driver.”

  Five minutes later they pulled up in front of the Olympia Hotel, a monstrous twenty-five story megalithic block of bad taste, which had recently built by the Finns to develop the newly independent republic’s tourist industry. The driver showed them into the lobby, where he quickly introduced a person whose name they did not catch and left.

  “Mr Kennedy, my name is Geidar Aliev. I am a friend of Demirshian, even though he is an Armenian,” he said with a broad smile, “we shall take my car to meet him, it is about ten kilometres from here, fifteen minutes, come!”

  They followed him to the car park where he proudly showed them a new Volvo and climbed in. He drove somewhat recklessly towards a large avenue and headed eastward at great speed away from the old town of Tallinn. In the distance they recognised the skyline, it was the new town they had seen on the horizon from the Sally Anne as they had approached the port.

  Twenty minutes later, amongst the soulless monuments to fifty years of planned socialism, Aliev parked the Volvo, near to the litter-strewn entrance of a seventeen-story apartment block.

  “I’m sorry the lift is not working, but we are lucky we only have seven floors to Demirshian’s.”

  They arrived panting heavily in front of a flaking blue door on the seventh floor. Aliev knocked several times in what appeared to be a code. Kennedy looked at Barton who lifted his eyebrows nervously at the melodramatic procedure.

  The door open slightly and they were inspected by an overweight woman of Russian appearance. She made a sign to Aliev and they were ushered into the apartment and were shown to a living room. It was clean and well furnished, though it had a rather plastic kitsch appearance, brightly coloured icons decorated the walls. They were left alone two minutes before Aliev returned with two men he introduced as Demirshian and Lauristin.

  “So Mr Barton, you have kept your rendezvous, we like people who keep their word,” said Demirshian, a thickset swarthy man of about forty.

  He wore a fixed smile that Kennedy, who stood just behind Barton, was not too sure whether it was threatening or not.

  “Naturally we kept our word,” Barton returned forcing a nervous smile.

  “I am pleased,” Demirshian returned.

  This time, Kennedy who listened in silence was sure that there was a hint of threat, his stomach suddenly feeling slightly queasy.

  “What can we offer you to drink...vodka?” Lauristin the Estonian asked relaxing the atmosphere, “or beer?” he added as an after thought.

  “A beer would be very nice,” said Barton hurriedly whilst Kennedy made an effort to appear relaxed, wondering what the hell Ortega’s idea was to have sent him there anyway.

  That’s what you get for playing around with foreign crooks, who looked like the cutthroat Chechens he had seen on the hotel TV in Moscow, he thought to himself grimly.

  Lauristin instructed the woman in Russian to bring in the drinks. Kennedy tried to weigh up the situation, there were in a nondescript apartment in a suburb of Tallinn, with members of what was certainly the Russian Mafiya, about to transact an illegal currency deal, handing over three million Swedish Kronas against a large quantity of one hundred dollar bills, C-notes as Erikkson liked to call them.

  Good-for-I-don’t-know-how-many-years-in-prison, if we don’t get our throats cut, he reflected to himself helplessly.

  The Russian women reappeared with a tray of drinks that she set on the dining table, which was covered with a plastic lace tablecloth. Lauristin poured the drinks whilst Demirshian looked on silently.

  “So let us drink to good business,” he said with a fierce smile. He then stopped and fixed them with his dark eyes, “You do have the money don’t you?” Before either of them could answer he laughed, “Yes of course, you wouldn’t be here otherwise, would you!”

  They lifted the
ir glasses and gulped their beers nervously.

  Demirshian made a sign to Lauristin who left the room and returned some moments later carrying a khaki kit bag that he placed on the floor with a dramatic flourish.

  “Our money!”

  “Five million!” added Demirshian with a crooked smile, leaning forward he tugged at the cords on neck of the kit bag. He pulled out a box of chocolates and opened it; it contained a packet about the size of a thick paperback book, wrapped tightly with newspaper. He waved it at them then he tore one edge open. They just had time to see the green bills, then he tossed the chocolate box to Barton.

  “Please check!” he said waving at them in an offhand manner.

  Barton handed the box to Kennedy, who opened it carefully on the table, inspected the bundles of new 100$ Super Notes wrapped in what appeared to be a US Federal Reserve wrapper, and then extracted a single bill. He then pulled out his wallet and took out a new one hundred dollar bill, which he laid on the table alongside the other. They had to be careful. Barton had told Kennedy that a lot of forgeries were around.

  He inspected them both carefully, remembering what he had been told to look for. The bills were crisp, slightly rough in the heavily printed areas, but not limp, shiny or waxy. Then with a small magnifying glass he took from his pocket, he compared the bills in detail for a long moment, the printing was sharp and well defined, the water mark was hardly noticeable until he held it up to the light and the hologram looked like the real thing.

  “I’m not an expert, but I can say they look like the real thing,” he said laughing at his joke, finally leaning back with a look of admiration.

  The others laughed louder, he was a little surprised they thought him so funny, perhaps that was the Russian sense of humour.

  “Mr Kennedy we’re not amateurs, these bills are of a quality previously unknown in our country outside the currency printing division of the Central Bank,” said Demirshian with a smirk. “I would also like to remind you that we are partners, in case you have forgotten.”

  The penny slowly dropped. Kennedy understood. The notes that he was looking at were forged, counterfeit currency.

  Holy Mother of feckin Jesus Christ! It was that fecker Erikkson’s fault, he and his Estonian tarts, who was compromising him with this crooked deal, Kennedy thought to himself, he quickly rationalised that it was not his affair, though he could not push the idea from his mind that he had already become dangerously over-involved in a game which seemed to be going very seriously beyond simple amusement.

  One of Kennedy’s qualities was that in spite of everything he had a mind as quick as an Irish fox especially when it came to squirming out of a situation or turning it to his advantage, ideas flashed though his mind. Something would come up once he was out of this bandits dive, he told himself. In the meantime he clung to one of his favourite adages ‘in for a penny in for a pound’, he could not resist thinking that if he could worm a profit out of the deal he would.

  “So perhaps we should check the kronas!”

  “No problem!” replied Barton. He unzipped his rucksack and pulled out a heavy, thick, brown manila package, though much less impressive in size than the Armenian’s packet. The exchange rate was a mere fraction of the rate for real dollars.

  “There you are, count them.”

  Demirshian nodded to Lauristin who opened the package, he flipped expertly flipped through the wads of one thousand krona bills.

  “No problem.”

  “Excellent!” grinned Demirshian, looking pleased for the first time. He poured them a good shot of vodka, picked up his glass and lifted it in a toast.

  “To our success…and our investment.”

  Kennedy and Barton lifted their glasses and drank, Kennedy choked on the vodka, but felt a great deal more relaxed as the throat-cutting scenario started to recede, and his stomach was warmed by the fiery spirit.

  “Now let us talk a little about our other business, first our investment, and then a little favour - you have brought your boat tickets with you by the way?”

  “Yesh,” replied Kennedy hesitantly exchanging glances with Barton.

  “Good, we’ll come to that after, first our investment. As agreed with our good friend Stig, these kronas will be deposited at the Bottens Handelsbank branch here in Tallinn, he will use this money and our agreed share of the dollars, once they have been banked, to set up our investment in Cuba. When the procedure is run-in we shall deliver the rest at regular intervals.”

  They nodded.

  “As I said the quality of our bills is absolutely impeccable. As you have certainly seen on CNN, our country is going through a grave economic crisis. Unfortunately the cost of living for the Gosbank’s engravers and printers in Moscow has not kept pace with hyperinflation, which is bad for our ‘ex-empire’, as you say,” he paused and then emptied his glass of vodka. “I say unfortunately - that is to say for some. We have been lucky, as certain specialists at the bank have decided to join the capitalist movement by printing their own money.” He gave a hearty laugh grabbing the vodka bottle and refilling his glass.

  “Our only problem is that there is so much counterfeit money in circulation, many milliards of dollars, which even our own high quality product is subject to much suspicion, it draws too much attention. Not only that, we also have to compete with ‘dirty money’!” he laughed again, “from other businesses! But who cares, it’s all in the family!”

  Chapter 60

  A Catalan