Chopper Unchopped (161 page)

Australian intelligence officers on overseas operations were sent off with five things: a diplomatic passport, a camera, a credit card, a John Le Carre novel and a hearty cheer. If any intelligence officer on overseas operations needed help or a hand gun he could bloody well make his own arrangements, seemed to be the attitude of the bean counters who counter signed the cheques and counted the paper clips.

Australian intelligence was a contradiction in terms. The whole thing was an eccentric bureaucracy with a bit of camouflage but no clear stated aim, and little rhyme or reason in its operations. Agents weren’t sure what to do, and weren’t sure how not to do it. The organisation seemed never to take action, only to pay attention.

Field agents were sent off to report, observe, collaborate, compromise, consort, lie, cheat, and steal. Killing was only to be done in self defence in the face of the most drastic threat, and preferably in the operative’s own time, using his or her own weapon, and without causing a nasty mess that would lead to dry cleaning bills blowing out the monthly expenses.

Australian intelligence had no true allegiance except to itself and to its own budget, and certainly not to the poor fools who worked for it. The James Bond, George Smiley mystique of the spy was a nonsense. They didn’t amount to much more than travelling public servants with a get out of jail passport and an expense account. Boring little men, sticky beaking into the affairs of others at some risk to their own safety, and not the slightest sign of help from good old Waltzing Matilda if it all came undone.

Pratt was getting annoyed and worried in turn. How dare McCord leave him alone and totally exposed out in the bloody street. “Christ!” said Pratt, as something big thumped down on the footpath in front of the bordello. It must have fallen off the roof. A crowd gathered around it and women screamed.

“What the bloody hell is going on?” thought Pratt jumpily. “I can’t see a bloody thing.” Something made him get out of the car and slowly walk across the street to have a look. As he drew closer, a wave of fear went through him, then a chill.

“Holy bloody Jesus,” said Pratt to himself when he saw what was on the ground. “McCord. Sam, you poor stupid bastard, what have you done?”

The answer to that was, he’d got himself killed. His head looked like a busted watermelon as he lay dead on the footpath, blood trickling out his mouth. Pratt turned and went back to the car. The police would find the diplomatic passport. If not, Pratt was on his way back to the El Rancho Hotel on Rio Bravo street to ring Canberra.

Pratt swore. This was turning into a lot more than a run of the mill covert file job on some wayward Department of Foreign Affairs Johnny. What the hell was going on?

NO-ONE saw Pratt enter the hotel. There was some sort of party going on in the bar and he could hear the rising buzz of fifty or so excited voices raised in cocaine and booze-induced laughter and conversation. One voice rang out above the crowd. It was the big Yank, Bob Ford.

“No, no, ya wrong. Yeah, the Queen of England has a Goddam horse named Bess all right, but what I’m telling you is the one she rode for all ceremonial occasions during the 1960s was a London police horse called “Doctor”.

Pratt walked in.

Tony Greek greeted him. “Hi ya, Pratt.”

Bob Ford’s face went pale as if he had just been caught out doing or saying something he shouldn’t.

“Where’s McCord?” asked Tony Greek.

“Oh, he’ll be along later,” said Pratt. “I’ve got to go and make a call. I’ll be down later.”

Bob Ford still had the guilty look on his face but tried to smile as he raised his glass in salute to Pratt. He was right to be worried. Because as the Australian agent went up to his room on the third floor he was wondering about what Ford had been saying when he’d come in. How did a Yank know the name of the Queen of England’s horse? And why did he look so stricken about it when he realised Pratt had probably heard him?

Pratt got busy with the phone. He rang Canberra and gave a short coded message. “Scorpion, two reservations, but only one left for dinner.”

The message came back: “Cancel booking.”

Pratt hung up. To “cancel booking” meant to get the hell out, but what about poor McCord? Pratt felt that he couldn’t just leave his mate in the lurch, even if he was dead. He decided to stick around until the carnival was over, at least. Meanwhile, he would try to find out who’d knocked off his comrade and, if at all possible, take some revenge.

All the time this was going through his head, a nagging thought worried him. Bob Ford and the Queen of England’s horse. It was strange, but there was something vaguely familiar about the horse naming bit. It kept worrying him. After a while, it came to him. When Hargraves had briefed him on Ronnie Reeves, he’d mentioned something to do with horses and their names. That was it. Reeves collected the names of famous horses of history. That was his hobby. Strange that both Reeves and Ford should both have such a deep interest in such an obscure topic.

People’s horses for God’s sake. What sort of nut collected that sort of ludicrous information? But here was Ford, an American, who knew the name of the Queen of England’s horse used for ceremonial purposes during the bloody 1960s. If it was simply a coincidence it was a ripper.

Pratt’s thoughts were interrupted by a noise at the door. He could tell it was a female hand rattling against it. He would have bet it was Carlotta. He was right.

“Oh,” said Pratt, “hello, Carlotta.”

“You have order, Mr George?” said the smiling woman. “You have a request?”

“No,” said Pratt. “No request just now, thanks.”

Carlotta was dressed – or undressed – for the carnival in white stiletto high heels and a high-cut bikini bottom with a string bikini top that did little to restrain a 39 inch D cup set of tits. Her body was covered in baby oil and silver and gold glitter had been sprinkled all over her. She had some sort of wild Indian head dress on and a white eye mask. While it was not the usual attire for domestic staff, it seemed to work.

The housemaid was quite obviously coked off her beautiful head. “Jose take me out tonight,” she said happily. “Mr George, you nice man. You do Carlotta big favour?”

“Why, of course Carlotta. If I can” said Pratt.

“You take Carlotta to church, Gloria Church, Good Friday. Jose no like Church. Tony Greek no take me, Fat Ortiz no take me. Mr Bob no take me, you take me please?”

Church, thought Pratt. How could he say no to escorting a woman to Easter Mass.

“Yes,” said Pratt, “I’ll take you.”

“Oh, you good man, Mr George” she said. And with that the woman shot her head forward and kissed Pratt full on the mouth, darting a hot wet tongue past his surprised lips and a good two inches into his gaping mouth. Then off she went, swinging an almost naked arse, wiggling her way down the hall.

Church indeed, thought Pratt. He suspected Carlotta was a young woman in dire need of confession. He suddenly felt very tired. He closed the door and fell onto his bed, beside the one once used by his friend McCord. Then he closed his eyes and slept. Outside, the whole city went insane.

COCO Joeliene and Ronnie Reeves sat in the bar of Coco’s second whore house on the Rio Branco Avenue.

Pierre Christophe walked into the bar, and the Senoreta Dominguez, a pox-ridden crow, lingered near the doorway, giving Ronnie the eye. Coco spat a mouth full of cruel Spanish, French, Haitian and Creole words at her and she vanished.

“The Aussie got tossed off the roof,” said Pierre. “He told us nothing. Tough hombre, but it was too late. He should not have followed you inside.”

“Oh well,” said Joeliene. “Via con dios compadre.”

“What about the other one?” asked Ronnie.

“Ford will fix him,” said Pierre.

“We may as well do both. That gringo Yankee is costing you mucho dinero, Coco. We should kill him as well.”

Coco thought about this proposition for a moment, as if she was deciding which drink to choose. “No,” she said. “He does his job. He gets paid. If he makes a mistake then, Pierre, you can have him.”

The old psychopath smiled. “Viva,” he said.

Pierre Christophe spoke perfect French and Spanish, but when he spoke English it was in a queer accent.

“How long do we entertain this idiot?” Reeves asked.

“Ronnie, till Mr Royce fixes the immigration for our Chinese friends. He did well for our friends from El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Guatemala, Belize, and Honduras,” Coco answered.

“Shit,” Ronnie muttered under his breath. “More bloody wogs sent to poor old Melbourne. That’s all we bloody well need. More freaking wogs.”

“So,” continued Coco smoothly, “he can fix the problems for our Chinese friends. It will all pay off in the end.”

“Hey, Coco,” asked Ronnie, “do me a favour, when ya done with him. Toss him overboard some place between the Cayman Islands and Jamaica. Ya know, where all the sharks are. I don’t like the bastard.”

“Me neither,” said Pierre.

“Okay, boys” said Coco with a smile.

“Now, Pierre,” she added. “You had better stop screwing Senoreta Dominguez and see a doctor soon.”

“Why?” said Pierre Christophe, then a look of horror crossed his face. “I’ll kill the whore.”

APRIL 7, 1996. George Pratt was woken by a knock on the hotel room door. He staggered out of bed wearing only his boxer shorts. It was Carlotta in her all white housemaid’s uniform. She was still full of cocaine.

“You take me to church, Mr George,” she cooed.

“But,” said Pratt, “Good Friday was on the 5th. It’s the 7th today.”

Carlotta looked shocked. “Oh Mr George, too much cocaine for Carlotta,” she said. Then she burst out laughing. “But you take me to church, anyway.” She pulled at his arm.

“Yes, all right, Carlotta. Let me have a shave and a bath and get dressed and I’ll meet you in the bar in 40 minutes, okay?” said Pratt.

Carlotta shot out another darting wet tongue kiss that caught Pratt off guard. “And you can cut that out,” he yelled at Carlotta’s retreating figure as she ran down the hallway, giggling.

“Cocaine-riddled whore,” he grumbled to himself, grabbing his soap, razor and towel and heading to the bathroom. “And no bloody lock on the bathroom door,” he muttered.

The comic and unorthodox novelty of the El Rancho Hotel was wearing thin on Pratt’s nerves since the blatant murder of his friend McCord. He shut the bathroom door and shaved and cleaned his teeth as his hot bath ran. Then, with the room full of steam, he got into the bath. As he laid back he closed his eyes and thought of McCord. He drifted off into dreamland but awoke with a start as a hand reached into the water and caressed his groin.

“Carlotta wash your back, Mr George?” said the girl.

“That’s not my back,” said Pratt. He had a remarkable grasp of the obvious. They must have taught basic physiology at spy school.

“I bring rum, Mr George. You like rum?”

Pratt took a large swallow on the fiery liquid in the bottle she produced.

Carlotta also took a large gulp. She sat on the edge of the bath in the steamy room. It was obvious to a blind man that she wasn’t wearing a stitch under the thin white cotton maid’s uniform.

“Carlotta’s all sweaty,” complained the woman. “I have bath, too,” and with that she stood up and kicked off her high heels. Ignoring Pratt’s feeble protests she undid her white belt and the dress fell open to reveal the full feminine form George Pratt had never laid eyes on before.

“But I’m a married man,” he protested as Carlotta stepped into the bath with her rum bottle.

She said, “I only have bath, Mr George. You wash me please, I wash you. We no screw.”

But by this time Pratt had developed a raging erection and Carlotta looked at it. She said mockingly, “but Mr George, you a married man.”

BIG Bob Ford lay on the floor in the hallway of the second floor with his pants down around his ankles and an ice pick in the back of his neck. He was as dead as the Model T Ford, and had been for about two hours. Tony Greek checked the body and tried to avoid the large puddle of sticky blood that surrounded it.

“It looks like the old fluff and snuff trick,” said Tony.

Fernando Ortiz stood beside him. Ortiz was a Mexican American employed by the CCS Communication Control Company, the public and electronic retail arm of the CIA.

“What do ya mean?” asked Ortiz.

“You know,” said Tony. “Some whore was on her knees giving Bob a blow job while some rat popped him in the back of the neck with a freaking ice pick. It’s an old trick but a good’un. The Goddam Cubans use it all the time.

“Where’s that slut Carlotta?” yelled Tony.

“Where’s Jose?”

“Gone to church,” said Ortiz. “With Pratt.

“Yeah,” said Tony. “Well, that Aussie can kiss his arse goodbye.”

“I don’t think Jose went to church,” said Ortiz. “But he left about twenty minutes after they did.”

“Yeah, well, we won’t see none of them again. Come on, fat man, help me dump the body,” Tony grunted. “Ya don’t really think Carlotta did this, do ya Tony?” asked Ortiz.

“Why not?” said Tony. “A Cuban whore killed three of our guys in Guantanamo Bay, right in the Goddam naval base itself last year. Same trick, only there were four whores working that shift. That snake Castro has sent whores from Buenos Aires to Bucharest killing Americans. If it smells like CIA and it’s in the wrong place, kill it. That’s what old Fidel reckons.”

“It’s a bit hard to believe,” said Ortiz. By this time the two men were lugging the late Bob Ford downstairs.

“Ever heard of the Divisionala Che Guevara?” asked Tony.

“No,” said Ortiz.

“It’s a unit within the Cuban Army. It was called La Bayamesa but they changed the name seeing as how the freaking Cuban National Anthem is named La Bayamesa. It’s a death squad. Half men, half women. The men are the worst killers in Cuba. The women are all hand picked whores, recruited into the army and taught to kill. They are all Santerian. That’s a spooky voodoo sort of half African, half Catholic religion, pretty well unique to Cuba. They are all Goddam insane.”