Heavy Duty Trouble (The Brethren Trilogy) (9 page)

And I could see he was right of course.

‘
The c
ops
’ll be on the case now, so
we don’t
actually
have to do much.
Her
M
ajesty’s constabulary will do most of it for us. They’ll be keeping an eye out for any of The Brethren or Rebels who try to come in and they’ll get turned around sharpish
.
’

‘But they’ll be after you as well though won’t they?’ I asked. ‘Won’t that be a problem?’

He waved his
hand
dismissively,
‘
So we’ll get some shit for a while, have to keep our
heads
down
. S
o what
?
We’ve had worse and it’ll blow over
.

‘
Y
our
lot
,
’
by which
he
meant
the
Press
,
‘
will move
on to
something else and then it’ll be back to
business
as usual. But business on our terms, not anyone else’s.
’

‘
But that can’t be it, just
like
that
,
surely
?’

‘
Fuck
no,
of course it won’t, this was just the first round.
’

‘
There’ll be a second
?’

He
nodded
, ‘Of course
. Like you said,
you don’t think the
Yank
s are going to just roll over and let it happen after one punch up do you? Nah, they’ll be back, or at least someone will
on their behalf
.’

‘So w
hat’ll happen?
’
I asked.

‘
It’ll be
substitutes
,’ he said.
‘
They’ll know what we’ve done and that they can’t come over to get at us themselves. So if it was me, I guess I’d sub it out. S
ome striker club’ll be given the job so that they can
get
into the country. It’ll be
“
go get their patches to get yours
”
, t
hat’ll be the deal.
’

‘
So are you worried? You won’t know where
it’s
coming from or when surely?
’

‘
We’ll be
all right
.
All w
e have to
do is just to
stay strong and keep united and
we
can
take
anyone who shows up.
Don’t forget, t
his
is
our home turf
,
where we
also
have our support clubs. You ser
iously think some bunch of blow-
ins can slink over here and tak
e
us on without
some major
local backup? Dream on.
’

‘So you’re n
ot worried then?
’

‘No.
They’ll try it, but without a local
end,
someone
with
their
own
powerbase over here
, they
won’t
have a hope in hell.
’

‘So what about the Brethren World? The club outside the UK?
Apart from the
Yank
s I mean.
’

‘What about them?’

‘What
reaction are you expecting from them?
What do
you think they
are
all
going to think about it? Or do about it more to the point?
It affects them too doesn’t it?
They
a
ren’t
all
just going to sit back and let it happen
are
they?’

‘Well, we knew
that a load of them
woul
d be pissed off big time for sure. But at the end of the day it’s business isn’t it? I mean that’s mainly what this is all about
these days for a lot of the clubs
,
because that’s
the way they’ve made it
,
all just business.

‘
And if it is all just business to them, then sooner or later they’ll calm down enough to realise that if they want something here, then they’ll have to do business wi
th us, whatever.

‘We’re the new reality here, and we will do business with them. But it’ll be bu
siness on new terms, our terms
.’

‘So what are your terms?
’

‘Well first off, that it’s us, on our own, independent, and second that it’s not all
just
about business.’

This was interesting
,
I thought.

‘So what, it’s about going back to being a club again, is that it?’

‘Fucking right it is. Just
cos
some
Yank
s want to run around playing gangster why the fuck should we all have to dance to their tune?’

It really would be
interesting
to see what the rest of The Brethren world made of that I thought, but Wibble seemed way
ahead
of me. Well, I
guess
he’d been thinking about it for a long time
.

‘Besides which, once we’ve done it who knows what will happen? Don’t forget the Brethren
w
orld is more than just the
Yank
s and the mother chapter. I bet we haven’t been the only national clubs who’ve been feeling this way. The
Yank
s could have more on their hands than us.
’

‘So it’s winds of change time is it?
’ I asked,
‘
The end of the
Yank
s
’
empire? Or the start of
the end
anyway?’

‘Something like that
,
’ he agreed.

‘And
don’t forget,
us hacking off the
Yank
s isn’t necessarily any skin off the noses of the guys in the rest of Europe that we deal with on a day to day basis. So long as we’re still here, still in business and still good for our end of any deal, why should they care? We’re the same guys that they’ve dealt with safely all this time. Why would they want to change?’

‘So it’s going to be business as normal?’

‘Well with some changes sure, but generally, yes, that’s the plan.’

‘Christ.’

‘Union Jack,’ he nodded with a satisfied grin on his face. ‘That was the plan, says it all mate.’

‘Yes
,
I see that now, it’s just I didn’t realize before what was going…’

‘What we were going to do? Nah, don’t worry about that, not many people did. But you know, it always made sense to consolidate the clubs into a bigger outfit. The bigger the club, the bigger the clout, so long as you’ve got the right guys on board in the first place.’

‘Set yourselves up as a monopoly?’

‘Near enough.’

It was my turn to nod, ‘Clever, very clever.’

‘Thanks,’ he said, ‘I like to think I’m not just a pretty face.’

‘Oh I never thought you got to be top dog in The Brethren just based on your fists, it took brains as well.’

He looked thoughtful at that.
‘
I guess you need a bit of both really. Can’t see the lads wanting a wimp as P
,
however smart they were.
’

He had a point there, neither could I.

‘
You know,
’ he continued,
‘
Damage always used to say you needed to be both a lion and a fox to do this job.
A lion to defeat any problem…’

‘…and a fox to avoid the traps
,
’ I completed it for him.

‘Yeah.’

‘You do know he nicked that don’t you?’ I asked carefully.

He shrugged. ‘Yeah I know. But to be fair, he never said it was his.’

‘It wasn’t
,
’
I agreed.

‘I know. But it struck a chord y
ou
k
n
ow? It got me thinking that there was something in what he was saying. So it’s what got me intrigued enough to read
it
for the first time.’

This was interesting. Wibble had never talked about this before, or at least not to me he hadn’t.

‘
So what did you think?’ I asked, ‘Damage used to swear by it.’

‘Yeah he did. And there’s a lot of good stuff in it for sure. But then you go on to read other stuff as well and you realize there are other ideas, other ways.’

Christ, it sounded as though Wibble had got himself hooked on the CEO
self-
help reading list.
I wondered what Harvard Business R
eview would make of the issues in his job. It would make a hell of a leadership case study for someone.

*

‘OK, but I’ve got one question.’

‘Just the one?’ he mocked, ‘I’m disappointed, you’re losing your touch
,
mate.’

‘Just the one,’ I nodded.

‘Well then mate, fire away, let
’
s have it.’

‘So what does this have to do with me
,
Wibble? What do you want me for?’

He just sat back and smiling that wolfish smile of his he
folded his hands behind his head and stared at me
.

‘Now that mate,’ he said at last, ‘is a fucking good question.’

The car was
parked over
in the far corner. Bung was
stood near
it smoking a fag and gave me
,
what looked on the face of it
,
a
cheery wave as he saw me emerge from the prison gate.
But as I got closer I could sense there was something wrong. From where he was standing next to a tree on the edge of the
car park
it was obvious that he was watching the entrance for any sign of movement, while Scroat at the wheel of the car was covering the pedestrian entrance in the other corner.

‘No problems?’ asked Bung as
I reached him
, his eyes never leaving the scene behind me
. ‘See him OK?’

‘No, it was fine,’ I said
, stopping beside him and turning to scan the
car park
myself. It all seemed normal enough to me.

‘So how about it, are you going to tell me what’s going on?’ I asked quietly.

He flicked a glance at me and then dropped the butt of his fag on the floor, grinding it into the tarmac with the toe of his boot.

‘It’s
the
Troll
s.
They’ve landed.’

The
name was
a new one on me.

‘
Trolls
?’

‘From Oslo. Norwegian striker club
called Loki MC
.
They’ve b
een
told to come over to
get us
so as
to prove themselves.’
Bung really hadn’t got much more talkative when he didn’t need to be.

Loki, the deceitful trickster
of
Norse
mythology
, the disgrace of all gods and men
as I remembered
. Sounded about right as a name.

‘So that’s why we need a safe house?’

‘Un huh,’ he grunted
,
as we both slid back into our seats.

‘See, told you it’d be a piece of cake,’ he grinned at me as Scroat turned the engine.

*

‘
So have we decided w
here we
’re
going to take him?’
Bung said casually to Scroat.

‘It’s got to be Scampi’s place. It’s the only
thing
I can think of
round here
.’