It Wasn't The Bullet (19)
Samantha realised she had been spell bound by Charlie’s story. It made her feel part of his life. The sun was beginning to dip below the horizon and the orange tongue was creeping along the waves toward them as they sat in their respective silences. She asked Charlie if he wanted a sweat shirt and another pitcher. He nodded, and she went inside. She knew, deep down, that she was at an emotional and ethical crossroads within herself. Was she just pretending? Had she really reconciled the events of the past months? She had been witness to a cold-blooded murder. Should it matter whether it was, as Charlie said, kill or be killed? Did she want to really want to know how many lives Charlie had taken? Would it gnaw at her for the rest of her life if did or she didn’t. Charlie had told her in one of his narcotic trances that if she wanted to leave she could take the money and disappear. She just couldn’t get to grips with which way to go. Part of her said, walk away, part of her said she loved the adrenalin. It made her a different person. She heard movement behind her as Charlie weaved his way back to the chair. The one thing she was positive of was she trusted this man with all her heart. While she was fixing the drink she decided she wanted to ask some questions. When she returned the patio was bathed in twilight, the moment when magic is at its most powerful. It gave her goose bumps as she looked at the darkening ocean and the aqua blue sky. The last of the sunset stained the sky with a small plume of amber smoke. She sat down next to Charlie and placed her hand on his thigh. “Do you enjoy smuggling? I mean is it the excitement that captured you?” “It’s the complexity of it all. To not get caught or shot. It takes a lot of discipline to do it well. I mean, we never imported container loads like the guys you read about in the papers. So it’s all about planning and misdirection. For instance, when we had a piece of luck and Justin got introduced to some Italians who were trying get into the UK market. Most of the gear came through Den Haag in Holland. Container ships routed halfway around the world to disguise the port of origin. Getting it to Europe was fairly easy for anyone to do. No sea or air borne crossing. The UK was a lot harder. The British drug squad were a lot more stringent in the efforts. So we used human nature. It was a pretty brutal plan but it worked. We would hire several people that needed money in a hurry, give them £500 up front and promise them another £1000 when they got to England. We would load up one person with a half a weight of amphetamine sulphate,” Charlie paused seeing the questioning look of her face, “Speed, that’s the proper name for speed. It’s dirt cheap. Then the others with two or three kilos of coke. Terry and I would shadow our guys from Holland; make sure that they didn’t get drunk on the ferry. When we got close Terry would smear some amphetamine paste on the bags of the guy with the pound. We’d get the others in line behind him at customs. The dogs would go crazy, the customs officers would search the bag find the brick, pats on the back all round, it never occurred to them that right behind was another ten or so keys.” “That’s horrible. You set one of your guys up to take a fall?!” “That’s business. Sometimes Terry and I would stake out a drop zone for two days. Watching everything until we had a pattern of every little thing that happened in the course of a normal day so we would be able to spot the abnormal. Every time I went home, I would park my car two or three streets away and spend forty-five minutes making sure there was nothing untoward going on. As we got bigger, it was a case of ‘We know that you know that we know’ with the police. The drug squad called us by our first names. They could never get enough evidence to form a case. They knew what we were doing. Sometimes we would have to set them up on a dummy deal to lure them away from Justin’s real thing. Terry and I were the point men. I trusted Terry’s methods’ which is why we were never arrested.” Samantha stifled an involuntary laugh. Charlie looked at her, his lips in an annoyed pose. “Well, what do you call being hunted by the entire British police force!” Charlie tensed, and let out a curse. He pulled himself out of the chair and began stiffly to pace backwards and forwards. A couple of minutes later he said, “Something ain’t fucking right here” Chapter Eleven Charlie said nothing as he watched “Green never arrested me. Never charged me with anything. Just an empty threat. There was no fucking Parkhurst.” He continued pacing, his body looser now. “Why the fuck would he do that? He knows I would never give anything up. How did he know about Oban? He couldn’t have known about that. Eight people knew, four came back.” “What are you talking about Charlie? I don’t follow.” “Ok, Terry was right. We were going after the Yardies that murdered Annie. Justin found out which crew it was and arranged a major coke deal with them. They found it really difficult to import themselves, and usually hired someone to do it for them. Justin is a genius at brokering that kind of thing. So he set these guys up, we brought the cocaine in and set up the exchange in Oban. The west coast of Scotland. Took it all the way around from Spain. Terry and I went up to the drop site two days before. It was fucking freezing. Justin and Mikey were on the boat. Well these stupid fucking cunts try to double cross us. About five hours before the rendezvous, two of their crew turn up and hide on the beach. Stupid fuckers. We marked their positions, I took one and Terry the other. Boat anchors and Justin and Mikey come ashore in the dingy. The money guys arrive and they do the deal. Just as the exchange takes place the two Muppets who were hiding stand up with their shot guns and say some movie kind of thing. That was the last thing they ever said. Bang, bang, you’re dead. The money guys were so surprised they didn’t even see Mikey shoot them both in the head. We took the money and the drugs, the bodies went out to sea and probably provided a tasty meal for some fish. My point is no one else knew where the drop would be except us. The money guys had to call one of our cut out guys six hours before the drop. We had told them to be Glasgow at a certain time and date. There are only two people alive that could have passed on that information to Green.” Charlie sighed, tossed his cigarette onto the beach, “I’m going for a run.” Samantha watched him take off down the beach; he soon became a silhouette, and then blended into the night. She watched the fluorescence of the waves and thought of the things he had revealed. She found herself thinking that he was justified. In her former reality she would have been mortified that life could be considered so expendable. But now, having spent so much time with Charlie day in day out, she saw his reasons and understood the logic behind his actions. He lived in a world that had different rules, a radical set of values. She recalled the seminars on drug addiction. How the philosophy was changing, that there will always be drug users and people to supply them. The most lucrative business on the planet. If there were such a thing as good drug dealers, then she thought Terry and Charlie were probably them. Her mind wandered back to Todd. She saw Charlie had no choice. He would have killed them both or turned them over to people that would have ended up with the same result. He also made it look like an accident. The cunt deserved to die, she said to herself. Happy that she felt the malice the swear word offered. She sat outside, wrapped up in the sweat shirt that Charlie had discarded before he set out on his run. She sat alone with her thoughts, not really pondering on anything specific, she took in the majestic shadows on the mountains, the black velvet sheen of the water. She waited for Charlie to return. He could run for three or four hours if he had a mind to. She was awakened by a tender touch on her hair. “Come on Sam. It’s bedtime.” She let herself be led inside and fell into a deep sleep. The last thing she recalled hearing was the sound of the shower, and hoping by some miracle it might wash away some of Charlie’s pain. It was a glorious Mediterranean morning. The sun felt warm through the open window, she glanced at the bedside clock. It was seven ten. She sensed she was alone in the bed. Then she smelt the aroma of an English breakfast. She basked awhile in the early sunshine letting it caress her body. She heard Charlie shout something and assumed it was a call to eat. She pulled on her sarong and went to the kitchen. “Here you go luv. Nice bit of grease.” Charlie smiled and passed her a plate of bacon, eggs and fried bread. She saw Charlie’s towel on the floor, dropped there after his shower. In a weird way it pleased her that it was irritating. She wanted to tell him not be such a slob. So she did. Charlie laughed and apologised. He indicated he would remedy that situation after breakfast. Samantha finished her meal and wandered over to the front windows of the cottage. She looked down the long twisty driveway to where it went into a dip. She loved the semi tropical trees that grew along the roadway. Then she thought she saw a puff of dust where the road was out of sight. Then again, a car came into view. “Charlie, a car coming up the driveway!” He moved quickly over to the window. He stood motionless and watched the vehicle inch closer. It would be at the door in moments. “Take the dress off, wrap that towel around you.” Samantha was m momentarily stunned. “Now, for fucks sake. Move Sam.” He shot off to the bedroom and was back just as she had tied the towel around her. “No, don’t tie, hold it under your arm. If whoever it is mentions my name or yours, let the towel go.” Samantha eyes were wide, but she understood what to do. The car had pulled up to the front of the building. The blue driver’s side door opened and a fit looking man in his forties got out. He appeared stiff from a long drive. He stretched briefly, and removed his sunglasses and surveyed the entrance. Samantha took in his appearance, black faded jeans, a tight fitting black dress shirt that blended into his suntanned face and slightly greying close cropped hair. Charlie was pressed up against the wall, in between the picture window and the door frame. “Sam, try not to look so sacred.” “That’s easy for you to fucking say.” Charlie smiled at her. “Hey, nothing bad is going to happen to you when I’m near. Don’t forget that.” There door vibrated slightly as the man rapped his knuckles on the wood. Charlie held up his hand, and then nodded for her to open the door. She pulled it open, and said, “Oh, sorry for my attire but I was just about to have a shower.” “From where I’m standing that’s quite alright with me.” He spoke with a very British accent. Almost a military stanza. “I, too, am sorry for dropping in on you unannounced but I’m looking an old friend of mine. I was told that Charlie might be living here. Is he in?” Samantha dropped the towel. Charlie moved so fast his shoulder connected with hers and she was knocked off her feet. All she heard was whop whop of two body blows, she turned to see Charlie leading the man into the living room, he had two fingers stuffed up the strangers’ nose. As he passed the threshold, Charlie chopped the mans neck with his other hand. The man dropped to the floor face down. Quicker than she could see, Charlie had a knee in the man’s back, and his gun three inches away from the nape of his neck. There was a silence as everything became still, she heard a metallic click, and Charlie said, “You have thirty seconds.” The man lay inert for close to fifteen seconds. Then he spoke in an almost conversational tone, “My name is Captain Simon MacDonald, retired. Terry always said, ‘It ain’t a fucking cup of tea unless you can stain a wooden floor with it.’ “His speech remained calm and unhurried. Even Samantha could see that this man was not a stranger to guns or threats. Charlie sniffed, she heard another slight metallic click, and Charlie slipped the weapon back into the waistband in the small of his back. He released the pressure on his knee and said, “Slowly get up using..” “….my thumb and forefinger, then put my hands in the front pockets of my jeans, and go and sit on the chair by the table.” The man looked at Charlie with a steady gaze form his prone position. “Yes, we all went to the same school.”
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