Chopper Unchopped (159 page)

“Fire!” yelled Westlock, and a volley of slugs from eight police specials rained on Hector Van Gogh.

The eight policemen closed in slowly, walking and firing until they had all emptied their revolvers into what was left of The Cannibal. He looked as if a train had hit him. As they stood and reloaded Graeme Westlock began to sing mournfully himself.

“I’m an old cow hand from the Rio Grande.”

Young Frank James spoke up. “That song ya keep singing, Mr Westlock. Who wrote that?”

Graeme Westlock patted his gun back into his Burns and Martin holster and smiled. “Johnny Mercer, son. The great Johnny Mercer.”

“Is he still alive, Mr Westlock?”

Looking down at the mortal remains of Hector Van Gogh as if he’d just noticed them there, making a mess on the footpath, Westlock answered slowly. “I don’t rightly know, son, but I reckon he’s dead too.”

EASTER, 1996. Rio De Janeiro. It was the morning of April 5 and there was a new visitor in Guanabara Bay.

Anybody strolling around taking in the sights would have noticed her immediately. A snow-white luxury super yacht lying at anchor in the sparkling blue water. Not that it didn’t fit right in with the scene, which was straight off a holiday brochure, right down to the dramatic backdrop of the Sugar Loaf Mountain that overlooks the bay.

Semi-naked young bodies sun baked while others played volleyball and cavorted on the white sand. Swimmers dived in and out of the cool surf, and picture-book palm trees rimmed the shore in front of expensive hotels built along Copacabana Beach. Dinner and drinks could be taken on the patterned sidewalks of coloured stone.

There was no soccer at Maracona Stadium this particular day. The national game was overshadowed by the biggest game in town for the next four days and four nights.

Rio De Janeiro would have to be one of the most exciting cities on the face of the earth. And the most violent. It depends where you look.

A huge statue of Christ the Redeemer overlooks the city atop Corcovada Mountain, and some people like to believe that God watches over the city and its people. Others find the Devil there.

It was carnival time. Time for music, dancing, singing, cocaine, rape, and murder. A handful of heaven and a handful of hell clapped together by the hands of God, and the star dust that floats down sends the whole city insane with love, lust, laughter, murder and madness.

For the people aboard the luxury yacht at anchor in the bay, a private carnival was in progress. A wild party raged on deck and a more sedate one in the stateroom. Meanwhile, private parties raged in the luxury cabins, and cocaine was being snorted from solid silver trays in the lounge.

Meanwhile, on shore, two people weren’t joining in the carnival atmosphere. George Pratt and Sam McCord were sitting on the Copacabana Beach. Pratt had a huge pair of binoculars trained on the yacht. Sam McCord was in charge of a Nikon camera with a telephoto lens no bigger than a howitzer, but big enough that he needed a prop to support it.

Officially, Pratt and McCord were simple public servants who worked for the Australian Prime Minister’s Department. At least, that’s what they told everyone. In reality, they worked for the Australian Security Intelligence Service. They belonged to the Criminal Intelligence Unit known in their trade as Section Ten, the covert surveillence unit. Not that there was anything covert about the gear they were pointing at the yacht.

McCord had gone over to ASIS from the office of National Assessments’ internal security section. Pratt was a former serving officer in the Special Air Service, then went on to protective security in the diplomatic corps. From there he moved to the internal security staff of the Department of Foreign Affairs. He now worked for the “shadowmen”, an understandable nickname for the unit because its full title was such a mouthful.

Both men travelled on diplomatic passports, though they carried other identification stating they worked as photographers for “Australian Geographic” magazine.

The personal life of an officer in the Department of Foreign Affairs had raised eyebrows and McCord and Pratt had been duly dispatched to compile a file on the target. This was one Elliot Royce, the son of Rowan Royce, head of the Humphrey Conrad hotel and casino group, and grandson of Sir Lloyd Royce, chairman of the Board of Tri-Conrad International, and once a personal friend and investment adviser to presidents and kings, scallywags and scoundrels.

“Bloody hell, it’s hot,” complained Pratt as he held the big binoculars to his face.

“Check the bloke in the striped shirt with the Miss Universe.”

“Where?” said Sam McCord. “Oh yeah, I see. On the sun deck.”

“Shit,” whistled Pratt appreciatively.

“She’s built. It’s all right for some,” said McCord.

“Who is he? Do ya know him?” asked Pratt. “Snap his picture.”

“I’ve got him,” said McCord as he clicked the shutter on big Nikon with the giant lens.

“I reckon that’s Sanchez Torres,” said Pratt.

“Ya reckon?” said McCord. “Upper middle rung lieutenant in the Medellin cocaine cartel.”

“Nah, he’s with the Mexicans now, isn’t he?” said Pratt.

“Whatever, he is cocaine all the way.”

“Who’s the bloke in the uniform?” asked McCord.

“That’s Lieutenant General Tanto. Zoros Tanto, Brazilian Army. The bloke next to him with the black chick with the long legs is Pierre Christophe. He used to be in the Haitian secret police. Tontons Macoutes. Nice bastards. Got out of Haiti in 1986 after the Jean Claude Duvalier overthrow. He now works for Coco Joeliene Gascon. Good old lady Coco herself,” said Pratt.

“Where is the good lady?” asked McCord.

“Downstairs in her cabin, I guess,” said Pratt. “She never comes out in the midday sun.”

McCord glanced at him. “Why’s that?”

“Voodoo,” said Pratt. “She got right back into it when she got home to Jamaica. They believe that noon time, when people cast no shadow, is a very bad and dangerous time, so Lady Coco has a lie down or asks some one to lie down with her in the dark of her cabin from 11.45 am till about 1.15 pm. She’ll be out soon.”

“Voodoo,” said McCord. “That’s a lot of shit, isn’t it?”

“Who’s to say?” said Pratt. “It’s got as much chance of being the real thing as any other brand of religion, I guess. Anyway, Coco’s right into it. She’s become a voodoo priestess, and she travels with an old Houngan, a high voodoo priest, wherever she goes of late.”

“Who’s the fat pig in the dark glasses?” said McCord.

“That’s an Aussie property developer named Randle Rocca. Irish mother, dago father. Bad cross, if you ask me.”

“Take his photo,” said Pratt.

“Okay,” said McCord.

“Hang on, here comes the bloke we want,” said Pratt. “White board shorts on. He’s coming onto the sun deck now with the blonde. There he is Sam. Have ya got him?”

“Yeah,” said McCord, and the big Nikon went click three times. “Got him easy.”

“Mr Elliot bloody Royce himself,” chuckled Pratt. “Right,” he said. “Let’s get back to the hotel and check in with Uncle Bob and a cold beer as well.”

The rundown El Rancho Hotel on Rio Bravo Street was a cheap dive for newspaper men and whores who kidded themselves that newspaper men, especially overseas reporters, were good husband material. The hotel was owned and run by two colourful Americans, both former reporters with the “New York Times” – via the CIA, some said – and the whores who lingered about all seemed to speak good broken English, albeit with an American accent. The fact that the El Rancho and its small bar and night club was a haunt for overseas spies whose government was sending them to Rio on the cheap was possibly the worst-kept secret in South America. Why else would Brazilian, Colombian and American army generals be seen drunk in the arms of so-called newspaper men, whores and Brazilian secret police and members of the American diplomatic corps at the bar of the El Rancho?

The hotel boasted a minimum of six shootings a year and at least three suicides, with men being hurled from the roof of the El Rancho at 3 am. A female newspaper reporter working for the London “Daily Mail” came to cover the 1987 carnival and was gunned down outside the El Rancho, but there wasn’t a word in the “Daily Mail” about her untimely demise. A supposed Mexican politician fell to his death from the roof top in 1975 turned out to be an Italian mafia boss, and not a word of it was ever reported in any paper in the world.

No-one could find the El Rancho Hotel in the phone book, and no taxi driver in Rio would willingly take anyone there, although they all knew where it was. And, another funny thing, if you bought yourself a street map, the authorities had forgotten to list or label poor old Rio Bravo street.

Sam McCord and George Pratt loved the place.

“I mean,” said McCord. “This is what being a spy is all about.”

The only thing the El Rancho didn’t have was Humphrey Bogart telling a piano player named Sam to play it again.

McCord and Pratt drove a beat-up rented 1974 Citroen CX back to the hotel and made their way to Room 19, on the third floor overlooking the street. The air conditioning was cool but nothing else was. Two big, ugly single beds, a chipped chest of drawers, a rickety wardrobe, a wooden card table with four chairs, a smaller set of drawers between the beds with a telephone on it, a sink with cold water, and a fridge with a TV perched on top of it. The toilet and bathroom was down the hall.

But it was cheap and all in all, fairly neat and clean. Time had stood still for the El Rancho some place between the second world war and the start of the Vietnam war.

There was a knock at the door. It was a Portugese Negro Indian maid that the Australians wanted to know better.

McCord answered. “Oh hello, Carlotta” he said, smiling. Carlotta did that to people. She was tall, voluptuous, and beautiful. She wore a snow-white maid’s uniform with white high heeled shoes and nothing else, according to reports at the bar. No stockings, panties or bra to cramp her style, which was considerable.

The trick, according to those in the know, was to be sitting or standing behind her when she bent to pick something up, or to be sitting or standing in front of her when she bent forward, as the top buttons on that little white dress had been lost and never replaced.

According to the punch-drunk barman, Jose Zores, a former Brazilian middleweight boxing champion, fifty American dollars his way would end all speculation. He said the deal was ten dollars for Jose for his trouble and forty for the lovely Carlotta and she would do it till she died or you did, or your money back. The truth was, said Tony Greek, one of the two shady owners, Carlotta got the ten and Jose kept the forty, so give the bum nothing. This made McCord think if he split the difference and gave her twenty five bucks she’d be making a fifteen dollar profit and he would be saving twenty five. It would be that rare thing, a win-win situation. Except, of course, for the said Jose Zores.

McCord’s daydreams dissolved when Carlotta spoke. “Mr Bob come back at 3 o’clock. He say you fuckin’ wait, okay.” With that she smiled a large smile, the white teeth standing out against her coffee-coloured skin.

The woman had big sexy lips and a mouth that could swallow anything it wanted to, thought McCord. “Well, come on,” said Pratt. “Don’t just stand there.” He grinned at her. “I’m sorry, Carlotta,” he added. “I’m afraid that my friend always gets a bit lost for words around the ladies. Thankyou very much and if you see Mr Bob tell him we are in our room. And could you bring us up a bottle of rum please?”

He handed Carlotta an American $20 note.

“You may keep the change,” he said.

The woman put the note in her pocket and licked her thick sexy lips with a big, wet pink tongue.

“Thank you, Mr George. Anything else you like you ask Carlotta,” she said, looking at him boldly.

“Thank you, Carlotta,” said Pratt. “But that will be all for now.”

She turned her gaze to the staring McCord.

“What’s wrong with him, Mr George?” she asked.

“Think you could be the problem,” said Pratt, chuckling.

Carlotta gave a girlish giggle and walked back down the hall.

“Don’t embarrass me like that,” said McCord.

“You’re embarrassing yourself, Sam,” said Pratt smoothly. “You don’t need me to help.”

BOB Ford was a giant of a man, with the battered facial features of a professional boxer. In his early fifties, he had the physique of a man in his thirties. He spoke with a hard New York accent and claimed to be attached to the internal security section of the American Diplomatic Corps.

Pratt and McCord doubted that particular job description, but Canberra had ordered they contact Bob Ford at the El Rancho Hotel on arrival in Rio and so they had. Orders were orders.

“You two guys get the photos ya wanted?” asked Ford.

“Yes,” said McCord. “But it really proves nothing except that our man was at a somewhat dubious party on board a yacht owned by a somewhat dubious lady.”

“Dubious,” said Ford. “That’s a fancy word for cocaine. Shit, boys, that Coco Joeliene has been putting together multi-million dollar coke deals from one end of the Caribbean to the other. And the DEA calculate she’s the front money behind some giant heroin shipments. She’s invested her husband’s honest dough in drug deals the world over. She spends a million and collects ten million in return. Spends five and collects fifty. She is a one-woman freaking empire. Dubious, I’ll say she’s goddam dubious,” snorted Ford contemptuously.

He wasn’t finished yet. “You two guys are investigating one nickel and dime punk from the Department of Foreign Affairs. Holy shit, we are investigating her links with US senators, mob bosses, cocaine cartels, arms dealers, South American dictators, renegade generals and the triads. That goddam voodoo witch has become the cocaine queen of Latin America and the Caribbean almost overnight. There are DEA agents and FBI men floating dead in the ocean from Rio to Miami Beach with her teeth marks in their arse, all of ’em.

“Dubious,” Ford muttered again, trying to calm down, and not succeeding.

A knock on the door. It was Carlotta with the second bottle of clear white Brazilian Rum. It was $5 a bottle but again Pratt gave her $20.

“Thank you, Mr George,” said Carlotta, licking her lips. “Anything more you like?” she whispered.

Pratt, McCord and Ford all noticed the white dress seemed to be riding higher up her thighs than ever and the cleavage department was coming along very nicely too.

“No, Carlotta,” said George Pratt, with a smile.

“Well,” said the housemaid. “Anything anytime. No matter. You ask Carlotta.” With that she walked back down the hall, swinging a wide and inviting set of hips. “She’d head job a dead body for ten bucks and you give her more than that every time,” said Ford. “Are you goddam mad, Pratt?”

Pratt smiled enigmatically. “If someone set fire to this death trap of a hotel in the dead of night whose door would Carlotta knock on first to warn of fire?” he joked. “And besides, this is taxpayers’ money I’m spending here. Legitimate liaison expenses, you might say.” He laughed.