FEARLESS FINN'S MURDEROUS ADVENTURE (52 page)

I ordered coffee and Dutch-style sausage and mash, but I’m so nervous I can hardly swallow the food in my mouth, never mind chewing it.
Sweet Holy Divine
.
How did I get in this mess
? I asked myself. First the 14K Triad, then the IRA, and now the bloody UFF! It’ll be a miracle if I make it out of this alive….

If I sit in here staring out the window much longer they’re going to get suspicious. Thank God there’s a bench twenty metres down the road where people can sit and watch the traffic pass by. I can wait there for the evening sailing to Hull, see.

Stretching out on the bench, I fell right off to sleep. I woke at eight p.m. and headed back to the docks in time to board the ferry for the nine o’clock sailing.

I got a kind of reclining sleeper seat right alongside the door that leads out to the deck. With the help of a half bottle of Dutch gin, and a litre of tonic water, I fell asleep.

———

The Sun Yat Sun Three Harmonies Society was first established in the Dutch East Indies – modern day Indonesia – and they are well ensconced in the Netherlands. It is thanks to them that Finn Flynn’s two hundred kilos of heroin arrived in Rotterdam Port, hidden inside the spare tyres of a shipment of Toyota Land Cruisers from Cyprus.

The Three Harmonies Society opened the wall panels of the camper van and helped Eddie Tang load the heroin. Of course, they only loaded one hundred ninety-five kilos. At seventy-five thousand US dollars a kilo, wholesale, our little taste of five kilos comes to three hundred seventy-five thousand dollars. I am sure Finn Flynn does not expect us to work for nothing.

Eddie Tang drove the camper van on to the ferry in Rotterdam, and he will drive it off the ferry in England. But he is not being paid anything…once a lapdog, always a lapdog.

Finn Flynn has been a nuisance, but he is not the terrorist thug I was expecting when I first agreed to offer him refuge. He is not so bad for a yellow-haired
gweilo
…no, not so bad, not so bad at all. The Sun Yat Sun would not have the Russian prostitutes without him. He has had his uses…he has definitely had his uses.

If he settles down with the right woman he will live a good life – no man should be without a family. But I think women will be his downfall. That woman from Sweden, the one who helped him with the Russian child, she might be the one to make his wife. I do not expect to be invited to the wedding, although I would send a wedding gift…a book on Chinese philosophy perhaps.

———

The lorries and cars revving their engines woke me, we’ve docked in Hull, see. Half awake, I staggered out on deck to see the first of the vehicles driving on to the wharf.

I joined the line of disembarking foot passengers just in time to see a silver and white Winnebago camper…Christ! There’s a red Welsh dragon on the roof! I never climbed up that little ladder at the back to check the bloody roof, see. Why would I? Good God! If Finn Flynn’s setting me up to be arrested I couldn’t have made it easier for him!

The camper van’s in the queue of vehicles approaching the HM Customs and Excise checkpoint. Four officers in their bright yellow high-visibility coats are approaching the van….They’re going to stop it for a search. Fuck!

A white Ford van is trying to ease past the Winnebago I left in Rotterdam only yesterday…it seems like it was a lifetime ago…silly, silly man. Thank Christ, they’ve signalled the Ford van to pull in for an inspection and they’re waving the Winnebago on.

Fuck me that was a close one. It’s a good thing I wore gloves while driving the van, see. Otherwise they could have got my fingerprints, couldn’t they? What am I thinking? The van isn’t getting searched. All the same, I’m glad I thought to wear gloves. No one suggested that to me. I’m no man’s fool, see.

———

I took one of Brother Leader Gaddafi’s satellite phones and tramped through the woods, up towards the old silver mine in the hills above Glendalough. Mac will have the IRA-Special Branch code word of the day by the time I reach the mine.

Glendalough has always been one of my favourite places in Ireland. Saint Kevin’s Bed and the two lakes are so peaceful before the tourists arrive. It’s said there are bodies in the upper lake – British Black and Tans weighted down with stones in the pockets of their uniforms. They were drowned in revenge, for evil deeds long forgotten, and dropped in the middle of the lake where the water is deep and sunlight never reaches the corpses.

I wonder if the revenge I’ve planned will be remembered. Or will it be forgotten, like the long dead soldiers of the Crown who were released from prison to wreak bloody havoc on the Irish? Still, if a few more ordinary, decent Unionists see their heroes in jail for a massive drugs seizure, maybe they’ll think again about supporting the evil bastards.

Paul Wills is getting off lightly, but he wouldn’t be if it weren’t for his Mei-Xiu – with her cheeky smile and Minnie Mouse T-shirt. He doesn’t know how lucky he is to have such a treasure. Then again, maybe he does, and that’s why I’m going easy on him.

I’m passing the old miners’ cottages; they’re just piles of stones now. Their owners are long gone away to seek work in Australia, America, or even Africa.

According to my watch, the Rotterdam ferry has docked in Hull. I’ll ring Paul to tell him to collect the camper van in the ferry terminal car park, and to wait for the call from the UFF.

Ten minutes after I talked to Paul the satellite phone rang. It must be Mac.

“Drogheda dogs boss, Drogheda dogs,” was all he said.

A minute after I got the code word from Mac the phone rang again.

“Finn, the UFF told me to drive to a service station and café at Whitecross Road, and they said I better not try any funny stuff.”

“OK Paul, now don’t panic. Just do what they said, but leave the camper van across the road, don’t drive into the car park. Put the ignition key in your pocket and force the fuel tank key into the ignition. Then sneak out the passenger side and ring me.”

In case the Special Branch is slow in arriving, the wrong key jammed in the ignition should delay the UFF’s getaway, a bit anyway….

I answered the satellite phone again; Paul’s at the service station. “Right Paul, go over to the café and keep your eyes on the van.”

I phoned New Scotland Yard and asked to be put through to Commander Smyth Bryson-Jones
immediately
. There was a moment’s delay before a crisp Sandhurst type came on the line.

“Drogheda dogs, commander, is the word for the day. And another wee word from the Army Council…a silver and white Winnebago camper van, registration J7446K, is parked outside the café at the service station at Whitecross Road, where the A165 joins the A1035. If you hurry you’ll find two hundred assault rifles and assorted ammunition, property of those loyal citizens of the Queen, the Ulster Freedom Fighters. Be sharp now commander, they’ll be gone in ten minutes I’d say.”

He didn’t utter a word in reply and the phone went dead. I can just picture the panic in the Anti-Terrorist Branch….

I phoned Paul back and the man can’t control himself. The cool investment manager with the fake Sloan Ranger accent is no more. He’s babbling away thirteen to the dozen in that singsong voice unique to the valleys of Wales.

“Everywhere, see, they’re everywhere. Came in here they did, see, even came in here and bought a screwdriver from the shop and fetched it back to the camper van, see. I suppose they’re going to turn the ignition with the screwdriver, see. Oh God, look! Now they’re trying to tow-start it…it’s spluttering. I’d say they’ll have it running next time….”

“Calm down Paul. Use a public phone to dial nine nine nine and ask for the police. Tell them what’s happening, and say you saw one of the men with a machine gun, then hang up. Right! Do it now!” I yelled over the noise of the wind and the screech of a kestrel swooping above my head.

If the Special Branch doesn’t get there before the feckin’ UFF piss off with the camper van – and all that heroin – I’ll have wasted Ingrid’s legacy. And Paul Wills won’t have learnt feck all…I want him to see the arrests, so I do. Bollocks! Bollocks! Bollocks! Paul’s my only link to the action….I’ll ring him back to see if anything’s happening.

“I c-c-can’t r-really t-t-talk. I j-jumped in front of the c-camper v-v-van. I-it was the only w-way to s-s-stop them, s-s-see. Ah fuck! The window’s just c-c-crashed in! This mad f-f-fucking g-gunman just leapt out of another c-c-car and shot at m-m-me through the w-window….Why me? I suppose b-b-because I t-t-tried to s-s-stop the v-van. Yes…that m-m-must b-be it. Oh my God! He’s hit the two w-w-waitresses standing j-just inside the w-w-window…they were j-just l-looking at what w-w-was occurring ou-outside. The t-two g-g-girls are c-c-covered in b-b-b-blood! I’m hit….Christ that hurts….The g-girls aren’t m-m-moving…I think they’re d-dead! He’s c-c-coming towards me f-f-firing that little m-m-machine gun! Thank God…he’s j-just d-d-dropped to his knees and th-th-thrown his hands a-a-above his h-head. The m-machine gun is sl-sl-sliding across the c-car p-park t-t-towards the sh-sh-shattered window….I can f-feel my shoe f-f-filling up…it’s warm and st-sticky…it’s my b-b-blood! My shoe is f-f-filling up with b-b-blood!”

“Did they get away? Is someone helping you…looking after you?”

“N-no, n-no f-fuckin’ way, s-see. H-h-helicopters, ar-ar-armoured L-Land Rovers, p-p-police c-cars everywhere, see. They d-d-dragged two b-b-blokes from inside the c-camper see, and I s-saw their heads b-b-bouncing off the gr-gr-ground. I b-b-better g-g-go, s-see, there’s a p-policeman in a f-f-flak j-jacket c-c-coming in the d-d-door.”

———

The newspapers, radio and TV are buzzing with the major drugs bust! The arrests of four prominent members of the Ulster Freedom Fighters in the UK – in possession of one hundred ninety-five kilos of pure heroin destined for the streets of Ulster – is all they’re talking about!

Unionist politicians are being interviewed all over the place. They’re condemning the so-called Freedom Fighters that have no mandate to represent the loyal and decent people of Ulster. The strongest condemnation came from the Reverend Ian Paisley. He lambasted them! Damned them to hell! Then he demanded that the British Home Office Minister assure him, and the loyal people of Ulster, ‘that these wretches, bent on bringing such poison into decent Unionist homes, will be locked up for life.’

Reverend Ian, I couldn’t have put it better meself. As Susie would’ve said – game, set and match!

One hundred ninety-five kilos of pure heroin, not two hundred. Uncle Sui wet his beak. That’s allowed…that’s definitely allowed.

Now, where's that kestrel gone?