TURKISH DELIGHT: Ben Nevis and the Gold Digger book 1

by Barry Faulkner

  I gave her a pen and writing pad from the desk drawer and sat opposite. I’d seen her do this before; her cyber experience in Mossad had given her a pretty good idea of where on the net and dark web to go to get answers. Her fingers flashed over the keyboard and every now and then she made notes. I craned forward to read them.

  ‘Go away, you’re putting me off.’

  I retreated to the kitchen and made two cups of coffee –French type, not even a nod of thanks when I put hers on the desk. I took mine and stood by the window, watching the people and traffic in the high street below. Everybody down there had a home, a life, a story, maybe a family; most would have problems too, money, marriage, job, health. And there we all were, thrown together by this thing called fate to be in the same place on the same planet at the same time; and we’d never know each other than by a passing glimpse maybe. I bet there’s some great stories walking along Borough High Street.

  Ten minutes of that was enough – my imagination was getting the better of me. I went back to my chair, unnoticed by Gold. I should have taken an Evening Standard paper off the free stand at the front of the building. Not only was I bored, I was getting hungry too.

  ‘Back in ten minutes – don’t answer the phone,’ I instructed Gold. She nodded without giving me a glance, not that she would answer the phone. I picked up the printed page with the Turkish identity at the top and left.

  A hundred metres down the Borough High Street from the office I pushed open the door to the Kurzine restaurant; it was still early for diners so Mehmet, the owner was arranging his wine bottles behind the bar. His kebab bars turned slowly, taking the heat from their upright grilles and dripping fat into the trays beneath. He smiled when he saw me.

  ‘Mr Nevis, how are you sir? You haven’t been here lately.’

  ‘Hello Mehmet.’ We shook hands. ‘I’ve been away. I want two tasty doner kebabs with salad and some advice.’

  Mehmet said something in Turkish to one of the staff who attended to the kebabs, putting two flatbreads into the toaster and slicing down the shards of meat into a tray.

  Mehmet turned back to me. ‘Advice? What advice can I give you? You want to know how to make a kebab?’ He laughed.

  I gave him the Turkish page. ‘Tell me what this is all about.’

  He read the page, every now and again he raised his eyes and looked at me with a worried expression. When he finished reading it he slowly put the paper down on the counter and looked at me. He spoke slowly, ‘This is official Turkish Government business, not for you. This is trouble.’

  ‘Trouble?’

  ‘This lady they talk about, she is government employee – government defence ministry employee, she is a very high up person in army. Where you get this, Mr Nevis? This it says top secret at top.’ He pointed to some words. ‘This about missiles and working with Republic Guard in Iran – this is dangerous. Burn it, Mr Nevis – burn it.’

  ‘What’s her name?’

  He looked down to the paper. ‘Aydin, Serife Aydin.’

  ‘You are a star Mehmet, thank you.’ I took back the paper.

  The chap at the kebab counter called over, asking if I wanted sauce – of course I did, you can’t have a kebab without the traditional sauce.

  I paid Mehmet, who was still looking at me through worried eyes as he made a great pretence of not accepting my money, but he always does that and he always takes it in the end.

  ‘No no no, you get free, Mr Nevis,’ he said, raising his palms towards me. It’s been like that since the day four years ago when I went in for a takeaway and found panic in the place. Mehmet’s fourteen year-old daughter had disappeared at the same time as one of his young counter assistants; he’d tried to stamp out the relationship and sacked the boy, but as usual with kids that had made it worse and now his daughter had stormed out. The whole Turkish community of the area looked for her but nothing doing. I got the lad’s name from Mehmet, checked DVLA and got a registration number and made a couple of calls to people I knew in the Met; we had the car found outside a B&B in Greenwich and the couple inside. I paid them a visit and persuaded the boy he’d rather face Mehmet than me when he refused to take the girl back; amazing what an index finger bent back to the point of breaking from the knuckle can do to change a person’s mind. Yes, I know I’m cruel, but come on – the girl was just fourteen; it might be legal in Turkey, but it certainly isn’t in the Borough. I took them back and haven’t paid for a takeaway since. I would go more often, but I find it embarrassing. I see the daughter around now and again, she always smiles in a friendly way, behind the smile maybe a yearning to plunge a knife in my back; as for the boy I have no idea what happened to him, but the doner kebabs tasted better after that. I joke! I hope.

  I picked up the meal, put a tenner on the counter, hurried out before Mehmet could pick it up and catch me and made my way back to the office.

  Gold had got the other pages laid out on the desk.

  ‘Some very interesting stuff here.’ She picked up a page.

  ‘Wait, food first.’ I was starving, and I didn’t want bits of kebab and salad on the pages. Eating a doner kebab full to the brim is an art – if you manage without some salad spilling out, you are a kebab pro. I never could, so I made more coffee for us both – coffee and kebabs, a perfect marriage – and we sat away from the desk and enjoyed our meal.

  I picked up the wrappers when we’d finished, put them in the trash bin and we both washed our hands.

  ‘Okay, let me tell you what I’ve found out about our lady.’ I told Gold what Mehmet had told me as we dried our hands. ‘So we have a name to go on, Serife Aydin, and we know she’s a top peg in the Turkish military. I’ll get digging on her tomorrow. What have you got from the other papers?’

  ‘Murder, mayhem and financial investments moving around the world – all associated with arms dealing.’

  ‘Sounds interesting.’ I settled back to listen.

  Gold took a long breath and began. ‘Okay, the obituaries are all of top business people: three men and one lady, high flyers in big UK and international companies. Their deaths were all in the last six year period and they were all late middle age or older, so none of the deaths were flagged up as suspicious.’ She pointed out the papers one by one. ‘Herbert Langford, CEO of First Security, an international company with interests varying from mining in Africa to helicopter gun ship component manufacturing. Julian Hastings, MD of DPL, a London-based small arms manufacturer with government supply contracts worldwide, including the Middle East. Sir Randolph Roberts, owner of Mercandle Enterprises, ammunition suppliers including grenades and air-to-earth missiles; and Estelle Barniere, CEO of Euro Systemes in France, a conglomerate working in the air-space defence area.’ She paused and looked up. ‘Get the gist?’

  ‘Yes, I don’t think any of them would be in the running for the Nobel Peace Prize.’

  ‘Not a chance – all those companies are in the top ten of arms and weapons suppliers worldwide. Anyway, over the six years covering their deaths each of the companies they worked for had their public shares gradually bought up by a shell company in the Caymans called, and you’ll love this...’

  ‘Go on?’

  ‘Rambart-Reynolds International.’

  It took me a few seconds to get the connection: Nicholas Rambart and my client Jameson Reynolds – the same Jameson Reynolds who told me he didn’t know anything about the Rambarts. He was part of the armaments smuggling, and a big part at that. So just what game was he playing?

  ‘You’re kidding me?’

  ‘I’m not – that company now has financial control of those companies; and, listen to this, as leading shareholders they replaced the dead executives with people from Rambart-Reynolds International, and over a period of time with their majority share holdings were able to elect more of their people onto the various boards.’

  ‘Sounds like they have a pretty good foothold in the armaments market.’

  ‘If you combine the turnover of those companie
s, only BASF is bigger in the weapons market.’

  ‘If I was the CEO of BASF I’d be worried.’

  ‘And quite right to be – not all those bosses died in their beds. Julian Hastings fell from the twentieth floor balcony whilst on holiday in Barcelona with a belly full of whisky, and Herbert Langford had a skiing holiday accident – went off piste and down the side of the mountain. Ringing any bells?’

  ‘Eve Rambart’s previous husbands.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘So she must have been part of the plan at that time.’

  ‘Yes. So who killed her, and why?’

  ‘Got to be Nicholas Rambart – her body was taken to his warehouse, probably to be dropped into a vat of acid or cremated on a bonfire; and after all he’s the one who offered a million to me to kill her.’

  ‘Don’t you think it strange you haven’t heard from him at all?’

  I hadn’t really thought about it like that; I just thought I’d better keep out of his way for a while after the warehouse break-in and his wife’s murder at the apartment. ‘Strange in what way?’

  ‘Maybe he’s dead – maybe the lady Serife Aydin is knocking them off and the Turks are taking over? They would have lost quite a few millions in the ship going down and God knows how much when their arms warehouse went up. They can’t be too happy – that’s a lot to replace and a lot of money needed to do it.’

  I nodded, ‘Cheaper if you own the production companies.’

  ‘Yes, much cheaper, all done at cost.’

  ‘Okay, so if that is the game then there’s only one person left to pull the strings at the top.’

  ‘Reynolds.’

  ‘Who is now in mortal danger – or in complete control with Aydin.’

  ‘Are you going to tell Woodward, put him in the picture? Might be a good time to hand it over and back out.’

  She was making sense, but I didn’t like Reynolds lying to me – I’d been played by him; all that nonsense about only knowing Rambart six months and I shouldn’t touch Eve Rambart or Nicholas with a bargepole. But he didn’t know she had already told me that it was him who had suggested me to her, so what was he up to? No wonder he had me sweep his office for explosives; if he was a player in this armaments game with the Turks and the IRG, he was walking a thin line. Perhaps Eve Rambart had asked him to recommend a security firm for some task like sweeping for bugs, knowing his past and knowing that anybody he suggested would probably be in the hit market too. No, I wasn’t going to hand over to Woodward; I wanted to open the boxes on this one, even if some of those boxes might go bang. First job was to find if Nicholas Rambart was dead or alive – but I would send Woodward the photos of the paperwork and details on Serife Aydin. Just a safety net really; if I ended up dead he’d have the means to follow up the case with MI6’s forensic accountants, trace the money, trace the shares, re-open the four CEOs’ deaths and put it all together and make arrests.

  Life is never straightforward. One minute I’m going to be very rich with a million, maybe two, in the bag, and the next I’m down to two hundred grand and mixed up with MI6, a Turkish lady assassin and a friend who may not be a friend after all. Perhaps I should try being the sort of PI who follows the wife to find out who’s shagging her for the husband; sounds a much easier way to make a living.

  ***************************

  CHAPTER 21

  Nicholas Rambart had disappeared, but whether he was dead or alive I didn’t know – what I did know was that he’d disappeared from his Hilton suite. Alarm bells rang in my head when I went to see if I could get a meet with him in the hotel bar, a very public place; always choose a public place if the person you are meeting might have a reason to kill you – at least I wouldn’t be snuffed out there, might get a drive-by as I walk from the hotel, but inside I was pretty safe. The alarm bells rang when I went to ask reception to phone up and tell him I was in the foyer; I had hoped that might bring him down for a chat. He would be surprised I knew where he was for a start and would want to know how I found him, but the first thing I noticed at the reception glancing at his keycard pigeon hole was that the card was there but no green or red slide was showing. The suite was vacant.

  ‘They left yesterday,’ was the receptionist’s answer to my question.

  ‘Any forwarding address for mail?’

  ‘No sir, sorry.’

  I was tempted to drive into the city and face Reynolds with what I knew, see his reaction, but I thought better of it; I had the upper hand knowing he was involved, and he didn’t know that I knew that. Complicated, eh?

  So that really only left one way forward.

  ***********************************

  We were parked in the darkness sixty metres away from the main gates to the Purley warehouse. The exterior floodlit the entrance and security gatehouse; a single guard sat inside watching TV. I was ready for another look inside: dark clothes, earpiece, Beretta 92 and AK-47, ‘tooled up’ as some of my criminal friends would call it.

  ‘Are you going in the back way again?’ Gold asked.

  ‘No point, go strut your stuff, time to upset the apple cart.’

  I couldn’t see any reason to take on the razor wire again – this would surely be the end game; we knew what was what and who was who, and just needed to tie up the loose ends and put an end to Rambart and Reynolds’s business.

  I watched as Gold left the car and made her way towards the gates. When she got to within twenty metres she started wandering a little on her feet; she hadn’t told me how she had attracted the guard from the gatehouse the last time we were here, now I guessed she’d played the drunk slapper card – it never fails. It didn’t this time either. She got to the gate and the guard hadn’t seen her, so she grabbed the gates where the padlock and chain fasten them together and shook them about. That got his attention. He must have recognised her as he was on his way out of the gatehouse and across the driveway pretty quickly – and he was smiling. They exchanged some words; it all seemed very cordial, he was smiling and Gold was laughing.

  She reached through with her right hand and patted his arms – it was getting personal, I knew what was coming next; he didn’t. Her right hand reached up quickly to behind his head and rammed it forward onto the steel gate bars at speed, knocking him out. The guard slumped to the ground and Gold knelt to unhook his key chain from his belt and quickly found the one that released the chain from the gates. I picked up her AK-47 and joined her as she closed the gate and draped the padlock and chain in position but didn’t lock it; a quick escape might be needed. I did a fireman’s lift on the guard and carried him back into the gatehouse. Gold joined me. We used a roll of duct tape from the desk to secure his hands behind him and tie his feet together, plus a piece over his mouth and round his head. The cut and bruise on his forehead from his meeting with the steel gate post was pretty savage, so I taped over it to stem the blood – this man was going to have one hell of a headache. Lastly I bent his legs up behind him and taped them to his hands and pushed him under the desk.

  Gold had been kneeling at the door, her AK-47 poised.

  ‘All quiet?’I asked.

  ‘All quiet.’

  ‘Follow me.’ I led off to the side of the building, thinking the side door that I got through the last time would be our best bet for entry. It was. A triangle of light came out of it and lit the ground; it was open. A car was parked nearby.

  ‘Rambart’s car,’ Gold whispered.

  We kept to the other side of the drive that circled the warehouse keeping close to the perimeter wall – the dark side – and made it to the far side of the car. I pushed a hand over the bonnet; it was warm, a good sign that whoever was inside had recently arrived and hopefully had enough business to do to keep them busy whilst we took a look around.

  I clicked the safety off my AK-47 and quickly made it round the car to the door; I listened – no sounds. I peeped inside, couldn’t see anybody so I slowly moved inside. It seemed empty, lots of various sized wooden crate
s just like last time in stacks and singles, somebody could be there amongst them and out of my view. Gold joined me.

  ‘I’ll go right, you go left – check it’s all clear.’ Army training kicking in: you circle right, your partner circles left, that way you cover all the sniper angles.

  We met at the far side of the warehouse. I pointed to the steel staircase at the end and the office on the mezzanine floor that held it. ‘Cover me.’

  She nodded. I made my way through the crates to the staircase and started up them. I could hear talking coming from the office. The blinds were closed so I couldn’t see who was inside from the staircase; maybe I would get a peep through at the top.

  I didn’t get that far. The crack of the shot and the metallic ting of the bullet ricocheting off the metal stairs were simultaneous.

  ‘Don’t move, stay where you are!’ The loud shout came from the open door; I knew who it was by the accent. I was right. Serife Aydin stood just inside the warehouse door holding a pistol with both hands that was pointing my way. A professional grip; aiming a pistol from that distance with one hand and the percentages were in favour of missing the target, with two hands the percentages favoured hitting it. As the target was me I did as I was told and raised my hands as an added reason for her not to shoot; I couldn’t see Gold but felt good that she was out there somewhere and would know what was going on. Above me those in the office had heard the shot, the office door banged open and Grant Rankin came out, pistol in hand. He took in the scene and turned the gun on me. He didn’t speak; he didn’t need to, he could see the situation from above.

  Aydin shouted at me, ‘Put your weapons on the stair above you.’

  I laid my AK-47 where she had said and raised my hands again as she came to the foot of the staircase, a few metres away from me.

  ‘I am not stupid. The gun as well, very slowly.’

  It was worth a try. I took out my Beretta 92 slowly and placed it on the stair with the butt towards me so I’d be able to pick it up and fire it in one movement if I got the chance. Yes, I know it’s an old model automatic but I still rate it as a top pistol.