Mr Nice: an autobiography (48 page)

George and Assumpta had made a number of friends in Karachi. One of them was Eddie, an American who was a medical consultant at the Aga Khan Hospital. He was away for a week and had garaged his car for safe-keeping at George’s house. The afternoon after Balendo’s arrival, I dressed up in my Afridi costume and drove Eddie’s car to the airport. Gerry and Ron were arriving from London. They had flown via Amsterdam. I hung about in a crowd of Pakistanis waiting for their friends and families to arrive. Bowe and Stephenson, each wearing dark glasses, drove up in the same white car I’d seen previously and ran into the airport. They quickly returned, got into another car, a dark blue one, and drove off.

Gerry and Ron came through Customs and Immigration. They laughed at my outfit as we climbed into Eddie’s car. I gave each of us a ready-rolled joint of our freshly made hashish. Blue fumes filled the car. I drove off in the direction of the city centre.

It wasn’t long before the dark blue car appeared in the rear mirror. As a pedestrian I have no difficulty losing a tail. As a driver I do, particularly when I’m stoned. I couldn’t think where to go. Bowe and Stephenson did not know I was driving this car. They were following Gerry and Ron, not me. There was no pressing reason to think they knew we
were fellow scammers. I shouldn’t go anywhere where I was known. But I only knew how to get to places where I was known. God, I was stoned.

I mustn’t let Bowe and Stephenson get any information they don’t already know. That’s the key. I drove Eddie’s car to the Aga Khan Hospital and parked in the car park. Ron turned down the radio.

‘Whaw, this is some hash you got us, buddy. What do you think of it, Ron? You gotta sell it,’ said Gerry.

‘I’m stoned all right, guys, but I’d like to smoke some without tobacco, and without that fucking music. Man, is this place primitive. It’s like Mexico. Howard, why are we parked in this hospital? You got an appointment or a sudden medical problem? Don’t tell me this is where the dope’s stashed.’

‘Hey, that’s real cool,’ said Gerry, ‘stashing it in a hospital. I told you, Ron, this Howard is something else. Do you have another joint, buddy? This one’s kinda had it. Man, this is good gear.’

‘The DEA were waiting for you at the airport here.’

‘So fucking what?’ said Ron. ‘Those bastards wait for us everywhere. They were always on our backs in Mexico. They don’t know what we’re doing here. They don’t even know where we are right this minute.’

‘Yeah, it would be a drag if they knew where our stash was,’ commented Gerry.

‘They followed us here from the airport. They’re probably parked outside waiting for us to leave. The stash is nowhere near here.’

‘Then why the fuck are we here?’ asked Ron. ‘Let’s drive off, lose the tail, and go to the stash.’

‘This car belongs to someone who works at this hospital. That’s why we’re here.’

‘Oh, you’re returning his car,’ deduced Gerry.

‘No, he’s away for the week.’

‘Then why the fuck are we here?’ asked Ron, again. ‘Gerry, turn that fucking music off.’

‘Hey, man, some of it’s really far out. They can get it on. What’s the night-life scene like here, Howard? As good as Hong Kong? I thought Amsterdam was kinda neat with them hookers in the windows and cafés selling joints. I bet there’s loads of them here.’

‘Gerry, there’s nothing here: no bars, no hookers, no night-spots, nowhere you can smoke hash in public. Everything is illegal.’

‘You’re kidding. I thought this was where it all happened. Don’t you have a massage parlour here or something?’

‘That’s in Bangkok. We could go there if you like.’

‘Bangkok. That’s it. That’s full of hookers, right? Yeah, let’s go there when Ron’s seen the load. What kind of girls are they in Bangkok?’

‘Quit it, you guys, let’s get on with what we’re meant to be doing. Howard, you still haven’t told me why the fuck we’re parked at this hospital. Can we please get out of here?’

My security precautions were clearly lost on Ron. Luckily, it was getting dark. I passed out a few more joints, started the car, and drove like the clappers. I definitely wasn’t being followed.

We arrived at George’s house. Gerry and Ron were offered a drink. Gerry requested Jack Daniels on the rocks; Ron asked for a Heineken. They made do with home-made vodka and a bottle of London Lager, brewed and bottled in Murray Hill Station, Pakistan.

Malik turned up and took Gerry, Ron, and me to his warehouse, which now contained the entire load of twenty thousand kilos. Ron was happy. We went to Bangkok and checked into the Hyatt. The Panache body-massage parlour was in full swing. Phil came round. He quickly realised Gerry and Ron were smugglers and displayed his most hospitable side. They were given the best Thai weed available and shagged themselves stupid. They wanted to live in Bangkok. Once this Pakistan load had landed safely, they’d turn right around and pick up a load of Thai, a really big one. They were deadly serious.

Hobbs was still in Bangkok. He’d found about a dozen European gays prepared, for a small consideration, to make lifetime marital commitments to unknown Hong Kong hookers. He had their passport photographs. I explained to him that I needed to set up more telephone-switching stations as we were going to be very busy doing a load from Pakistan. I still favoured switching stations, but resolved to use each one only for a few specific calls. He would set one up in Hong Kong with his new wife’s assistance. He also had a friend in the Philippines, Ronnie Robb, who would be prepared to set one up in his house.

Gerry wanted to know if there was anywhere else like Bangkok in the Far East. Leaving Ron in a Bangkok massage parlour with the newly found love of his life, we flew to Manila on separate flights and checked into the Manila Mandarin. Gerry tramped around the brothels and fell in love with a Filipina hooker. For a small fee, she was delighted to make her telephone available. I saw Ronnie Robb and made an arrangement with him for the use of his phone. I had a couple of dinners with Moynihan and apologised for not having enough time to fly down to Davao and eat a tuna’s jawbone. Joe Smith and Jack the Fibber were both away in Australia. Gerry and I ran out of the personal dope we’d smuggled from Bangkok, found it impossible to score in Manila, and flew to Hong Kong.

April got us some dope, agreed to set up a phone station, and supplied Gerry with a stream of hookers. More of Gerry’s couriers arrived with bags of money, which I passed on to Malik’s man in BCCI. The total had reached $2 million.

Another phone station was set up in Singapore by Daniel and another of Gerry’s crew, and two more in London by Jarvis and John Denbigh. Flash had set up a few more, masquerading as AIDS hot lines, in the United States.

By mid-December 1985, Gerry’s boat was in the Arabian Sea ready to be loaded. To Malik’s never-ceasing amazement,
Gerry and a friend of his, Brian, stayed in the garden of George’s house and maintained continual contact with the boat via the modified ghetto-blaster. The time came to load. At a quiet little dock near the main port of Karachi, a wellcrewed dhow lay laden with our hash. Brian got on board. The dhow disappeared into the cool night. Two Pakistani Customs motor launches escorted it for a while, then silently returned. Gerry maintained radio silence. After what seemed like forever, but was probably about eight hours, the Customs motor launches set off again into the Arabian Sea. As dawn broke they returned escorting the dhow. A dour-looking Pakistani got out, carrying a crate of champagne as if it was filthy offal. He gave it to Gerry. Gerry gave it to me.

‘Ernie told me “champagne” was your code for success. We did it, buddy.’

Gerry and I flew to Bangkok for a quick celebration. Gerry stayed there. I went on to Hong Kong, bought a couple of suitcases full of Christmas presents and flew back to London.

‘So you’ve decided to be home for Christmas, have you? We are honoured.’

‘Sorry, love, it got complicated out there for a while, but it’s all okay now. I can take it easy for a few months.’

Christmas 1985 was fairly free from major business interruptions. I picked up a couple of false passports from Jimmy Newton to facilitate Hobbs’s bigamy and mailed them to Hong Kong. I ordered several more with the passport photographs of Hobbs’s Bangkok cronies.

The house in Mallorca was now eminently habitable, with swimming pool and various other luxuries/necessities such as three telephone lines, a radio-telephone, satellite television. Early in the New Year, we flew out to begin making it our main residence. We settled down into expatriate life and enrolled the children into Queen’s College, a nearby English-speaking school. Through parents’ meetings and other school functions we made friends with a few other
English residents, in particular David Embley, a retired Birmingham businessman, and Geoffrey Kenion, a retired film and theatre actor who had starred in Agatha Christie’s
The Mousetrap
.

I attended classes to learn Spanish. I played tennis. I drove the children to school every morning. I pottered around the house fiddling with electricity, hi-fi, and video. I took advantage of the exploding CD phenomenon and began a long-overdue study of classical music. There was very little about my behaviour to occasion comment. I was a straight Brit who’d made enough money to live in the sun. I patronised the local bars.

Judy became pregnant again. Would we have a son this time?

The Marcos government in the Philippines was overthrown in a bloodless coup. Marcos fled to Hawaii. Cory Aquino was in charge. She vowed to clean the place up. Moynihan rang a couple of times to assure me that he was still able to operate under the Aquino regime. He said that Joe Smith had resurfaced. He had successfully grown some more excellent-quality marijuana from Thai seeds and was anxious to do some business.

‘Champagne in Mozambique.’

It was Ernie. Our hash was in Mexico. Rather than take the load directly from Pakistan to California, it had been decided to unload in Mexico, where Ron Allen had excellent connections. Mozambique had been our code for Mexico since my Old Bailey trial. From Mexico, manageable amounts of about a ton or so would be taken as needed by private planes over the border to Texas. Road transport would then deliver the hash to Ernie’s stashes in California, from where it would be sold to wholesalers. There was still a while to go, but an important phase, the Pacific crossing, had been safely accomplished. The Philippine telephone station, which had only had to take one call, was shut down.

After marrying a couple more Hong Kong hookers, Jim
Hobbs moved to Portugal to set up a new telephone station. Before it became operational, he was busted in a Lisbon back street with his arms around a young homosexual prostitute. A few Hong Kong harlots now had grounds for divorce. I gave some money to a friend of Hobbs to get him a lawyer and help him through.

‘Champagne in my room.’

The hash had hit Los Angeles. Ernie was going to take his time selling it to get a good price. I should carry on my life as normal. It would still take some time before I’d be paid. Traditionally, the boat crew are the first to get paid. After that it’s a bit of a mad scramble, but Ernie had always ensured that I’d got my share pretty quickly.

Weeks of normality fused with expectation drifted enjoyably by. Ernie called once a week with a progress report. I maintained a life of blissful domesticity. Then one day Gerry Wills called with the appalling news that Ernie and his girlfriend Patty had been arrested at their room in Los Angeles. They were registered under a false name. Gerry didn’t know how serious the bust was, but there was talk of dope and money being found in the room. Ernie had violated his conditions of probation, but as the majority of the load was still safely in Mexico, there couldn’t be any serious financial loss. It would be best to let things cool down a little and not try to sell any more hash until we knew the facts.

That was fine with me. I had plenty of money. I had more time to enjoy my family life. Ernie’s bust sounded minor. He’d get out soon. He did last time.

It wasn’t, however, fine with everybody. Daniel, who had now taken the boat to Australia, was under pressure to pay the crew. Malik claimed to have most of the
mujaheddin
pestering him every day, demanding their share. People wanted paying.

Patty was released on bail. According to her, the DEA did not seem to know of the existence of a ten-ton load. They
were busting her and Ernie for a pound of hash, boldly displaying Gerry’s logo, and $50,000 found in their hotel room. Nothing else. Nevertheless, Ernie had strenuously suggested that there should be no more sales carried out until he was free.

The dealers to whom Ernie had advanced the hash before his arrest began to take advantage of Patty. Hundreds of thousands of dollars disappeared in various rip-offs. Gerry couldn’t hold off his creditors any longer. I agreed to his taking control of the sales that were left. Gerry explained that, unlike Ernie, he was unable to transfer large amounts of money out of the United States via banks. His workers were too tied up with sales to courier money over. I would have to take the responsibility for transferring the money due to me and Malik.

I rang up Patrick Lane, who had now moved to Miami, to get him to renew his connections with the New York money launderers he’d used during the 1980 Colombian marijuana scam. He would also ask Bruce Aitken in Hong Kong. He’d be happy to be back in business.

John Denbigh agreed to go over to the United States, physically collect all the money due from Gerry, look after it, and give suitable amounts to Patrick for transfer to my account in Crédit Suisse, Hong Kong.