Remote control, p.29
Remote Control, page 29
He was now out of the spreadsheets and looking at more file names.
I said, ‘This is another lot of files I was having problems with. Can you decrypt them?’
‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Which files are you having trouble with?’
‘Well, they’re in code, or something – just a lot of random letters and numbers. Any chance of you sorting it out?’ He made me feel like a ten-year-old child having to ask for his shoelaces to be tied.
He scrolled down the file names. ‘You mean these GIFs?’ he said. ‘They’re graphics files, that’s all. You just need a graphics program to read them.’
He tapped a few keys, found what he was looking for and selected one of the files. ‘They’re scans of photographs,’ he said.
He leaned over and pulled open the tub of ice cream, got one of the plastic spoons and started to tuck in. He threw a spoon to Kelly and said, ‘You’d better get in here before Uncle Al finishes it all.’
The first picture was now on the screen. It was a grainy black-and-white of two people standing at the top of a flight of steps that led to a grand old building. I knew both men very well. Seamus Macauley and Liam Fernahan were ‘businessmen’ who fronted a lot of fund-raising and other operations for PIRA. They were good at the game, once even getting a scheme backed by the British government to finance regeneration in Northern Ireland cities. The whole scheme was designed to provide local employment. It was sold to the government that, if a community was responsible for its own rebuilding, there would be less chance of them then wanting to go and blow it up. But what the government didn’t know was that the contractors could only employ people that PIRA wanted to work; those people were still claiming unemployment and social benefits, and PIRA were getting a kickback for letting them work on the sites illegally, so it was costing the government twice over – and, of course, the businessmen got their cut as well. And, if the government were paying, why not blow more up and rebuild?
Without a doubt, PIRA had come a long way from the days of rattling collecting tins in west Belfast, Kilburn and Boston. So much so that the Northern Ireland Office had established a Terrorist Finance Unit as a counter-measure in 1988, staffed by specialists in accountancy, law, tax and computing. Euan and I had done a lot of work with them.
Big Al now opened and viewed a series of shots of Macauley and Fernahan shaking hands with two other men, then walking down the steps and getting into a Merc. One of them was the late Mr Morgan McGear, looking very smart in a suit I recognized. I quickly looked at Kelly, but it was clear his face meant nothing to her. The fourth man I had no idea about. That didn’t matter too much at the moment.
The photography was covert: I could see the darkness around the edge of the frames where they hadn’t got the aperture right, but it was good enough for me to tell, by the cars parked in the background, that they were in Europe.
I said, ‘Let’s see the next one.’
De Sabatino knew that I’d recognized something or someone; he was looking at me, gagging to know what it was, wanting to get in on the act. He’d had five years on the back burner and now was the chance for a comeback.
I was going to tell him jack shit. ‘Let’s push on.’
There was another group of pictures that he opened and viewed, but these ones meant nothing at all to me.
Big Al looked at them. The big half-watermelon was back on his face. ‘I know what all those spreadsheets refer to now.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Está es la coca, señor! Hey, I know this guy. He works for the cartels.’
I was looking at an early-forties, really smart-looking Latino getting out of a car. I could tell by the background it was in the United States. ‘That’s Raoul Martinez,’ he said. ‘He’s part of the Colombian trade delegation.’
This was getting more interesting by the minute. PIRA always claimed no association with drug trafficking, but the profits were too great for them to ignore. What I had in front of me now was close to submissible evidence of their direct involvement with the cartels. But that still didn’t help me with my problem.
He looked through the pictures. ‘You’ll see Raoul with somebody else in a minute, I guarantee it.’ He flicked through a couple more. ‘There you are – big bad Sal.’
This other character was about the same age but much taller; he’d probably been a weightlifter at some stage, then ballooned out to maybe sixteen or seventeen stones. Sal was a big old boy, and very bald.
De Sabatino said, ‘Martinez is never without him. We used to do a lot of business with them in the old days. A nice man, a family man. We used to run cocaine up the east coast, all the way to the Canadian border. Basically we needed things sorted out to ease the route; these boys did the necessary and everybody was making money. Yeah, these boys, they’re all right.’
As we went through viewing more picture files, I saw both men eating in a restaurant with another guy, a caucasian.
Big Al said, ‘I haven’t got a clue who he is.’
I was looking over de Sabatino’s shoulder, concentrating hard on the screen.
Kelly sparked up. ‘Nick?’
‘In a minute.’ I turned my head to Big Al. ‘Absolutely no idea?’
‘Not a clue.’
‘Nick?’
I cut in. ‘Not now, Kelly.’
Kelly butted in again. ‘Nick, Nick!’
‘Go back to the—’
‘Nick, Nick! I know who that man is.’
I looked at her. ‘Which man?’
‘The man in the photograph.’ She grinned. ‘You said you don’t know who he is, but I do.’
‘This one?’ I pointed at Martinez.
‘No, the one before.’
Big Al closed a few more windows, scrolling back. ‘Him! That one there!’
It was the white guy who was sitting with Raoul and big bad Sal.
I said, ‘You’re sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who is he?’ After our experience with the video I expected her to nominate anyone from Clint Eastwood to Brad Pitt.
‘It’s Daddy’s boss.’
There was a long, palpable silence as I let it sink in. Big Al was sucking air through his teeth. I said, ‘What do you mean, Daddy’s boss?’
‘He came to our house with a lady once for supper.’
‘Do you remember his name?’
‘No, I came down for some water and they were eating with Mommy and Daddy. Daddy let me say hello and he said, “Big smile, Kelly, this is my boss!”’ It was a good imitation of Kev, and I saw a flicker of sadness in her eyes.
Big Al joined the conversation in nerd mode. ‘Whoa! There you go! Who’s your daddy, then?’
I swung around. ‘Shut up!’ And so she couldn’t hear it, I muttered angrily, ‘I turned up at her parents’ house a week ago. Everybody was dead. He was in the DEA, killed by people he knew.’
I pushed him off his seat and sat down, with Kelly on my knee so she had a better view of the screen. ‘Are you definitely sure he’s Daddy’s boss?’
‘Yes, I know it’s his boss; Daddy told me. The next day Mommy and me, we made jokes about his moustache because he looked like a cowboy.’
He did, he looked as if he belonged in a Marlboro ad. As she pointed, her finger touched the screen and Daddy’s boss was distorted. Having Kelly in my arms and seeing someone who might have been responsible for her father’s death made me want to do the same to him in person.
I looked at Big Al. ‘Let’s go back through all the photos.’
The party along the landing was in full swing. Big Al sat down and scrolled back through the files to the pictures of Macauley and Fernahan with McGear. ‘Do you know these people?’ Kelly answered my question with a ‘No’, but I wasn’t really listening to her now. I was in my own world. I’d noticed two other cars parked up on the other side of the road. I looked hard at the number plates and then I knew where the pictures had been taken.
‘Gibraltar.’ I couldn’t help mouthing it aloud.
Big Al pointed to Macauley and co. ‘Are these terrorists from Ireland?’
‘Sort of.’
There was a gap while I tried to work this one out.
Big Al sparked up. ‘It’s obvious to me what’s going on.’
‘What’s that?’
‘I knew the Irish terrorist boys were buying cocaine from the Colombians. It came by the normal route to the Florida Keys, then the Caribbean and North Africa. They then used Gibraltar as the jump-off point for the rest of Europe. They made fortunes, and at the same time we took our cut for letting them move it through South Florida. All of a sudden, though, at the end of ’87, it stopped going through Gibraltar.’
‘Why was that?’ I was finding it hard to stay calm.
Big Al shrugged. ‘Some big drama with the locals. I think they now run it from South Africa instead, into the west coast of Spain, something like that. They’re linked in with some other terrorists up there.’
‘ETA?’
‘Search me. Some bunch of terrorists or freedom fighters. Call them what you like, to me they’re all just dealers. Anyway, they help the Irish now. No doubt old Raoul sorted things out Stateside with Daddy’s boss to ensure that the route to Florida stayed open for the Irish, because otherwise the Colombians would have given it to someone else.’
‘You make it sound like allocating air routes or something.’
Big Al shrugged again. ‘Of course. It’s business.’ He spoke as if all this stuff was common knowledge. It was news to me.
So who the fuck were PIRA talking to in Gibraltar? Were they there in an attempt to keep the drug trafficking going? It came back to me that, in September 1988, Sir Peter Terry, who’d been instrumental in pressing for a crackdown on drug smuggling, and who’d been governor of Gibraltar until earlier that year, had narrowly survived an assassination attempt at his home in Staffordshire. A gunman, who’d never been caught, had given him the good news with twenty rounds from an AK47 – something, as it happened, that Mr McGear was not unaccustomed to doing. Maybe the fourth man in the photograph was getting a similar warning? And was there some sort of connection between the ending of the drug runs and the shooting of PIRA players there just a few months later?
Whatever, it confirmed that there were some strange things going on with some members of the DEA, including Kev’s boss. Maybe they were getting a cut of the action from PIRA and Kev found out?
Big Al sucked through his teeth once more. ‘You’ve got a brilliant package here, my man. So which one are you going to blackmail?’
‘Blackmail?’
‘Nicky – you’ve got a senior figure in the DEA, talking with big-cheese cartel members, your terrorist boys and Gibraltar government, law enforcement, whatever. You’re not trying to tell me these pictures aren’t for the purposes of blackmail? Get real. If you’re not going to use them, then whoever took these photographs certainly is.’
33
WE WENT THROUGH all the pictures one more time. Kelly didn’t recognize any more of the people.
I asked de Sabatino if there was any way we could enhance the photography.
‘What’s the point? You seem to know everybody.’ He was right. I just wanted Kelly to look at ‘Daddy’s boss’ more closely.
There was silence for about three minutes as we just kept on flicking through.
‘What else do you know about Gibraltar?’ I asked.
‘Not much. What more do you want?’ His second cigar was well on its way, and Kelly was waving away the smoke. ‘It’s common sense – if you’ve got enough money, do a deal with the Colombians and get the stuff into Europe. Every other bunch of badasses is doing it, so why not your Irish boys?’
Big Al was looking at me as if what we’d stumbled across was very mundane. And I had to admit it didn’t seem enough for Kev and his family to have been murdered for.
There was too much silence; Big Al had to inject something. ‘Whatever, someone is definitely in the blackmail biz.’
I wasn’t so sure. Maybe it was some kind of insurance for PIRA. If Kev’s boss or the Gibraltarians decided not to play any more, maybe this was what would keep them in the game.
I looked at Kelly. ‘Can you do us a favour? Will you go and get some cans of drink?’
She looked happy to get out of the smoke. I followed her to the door and pulled the curtain so I could see the machines. The landing was clear; the boys’ door was closed, but the music still hammered through the thin plaster walls; inside, no doubt, the cheerleaders were running through a few routines. I watched Kelly until she reached the machines, then sat down on the bed. Big Al was still playing with the laptop.
I pointed at the screen. ‘First Kev is killed. Now we’ve got Daddy’s boss mixing with the cartels. It’s reasonable to assume that what we’ve got here is corruption within the DEA, involving drug movements via Florida to Irish terrorists, who’ve been getting it into Europe via Gibraltar. Only now it seems there were some problems for them in late ’87.’
Big Al wasn’t really listening. The thought of a corrupt DEA officer had taken him to another planet. ‘Way to go! You gonna stitch the bastard?’
‘I don’t know what I’m going to do.’
‘Fucking stitch him, Nicky! I hate cops! I hate the DEA! I hate every fucker who’s ruined my life. I have to live like a fucking hermit. Federal Witness Programme, kiss my ass!’
I was worried that 5 years of frustration were about to explode out of him. I had no time for that. ‘Frankie, I need a car.’
He wasn’t listening. ‘They used me, then they just fucked me over …’
‘I need a car.’
He slowly came back to earth. ‘Sure, OK, for how long?’
‘Two days, maybe three. And I need some money.’
‘When do you want it by?’
‘Now.’
Big Al was weird and a sad fuck, too soft and stupid to be in this sort of world, but I felt sorry for him. Me turning up must have been the best thing that had happened to him in years. Life must be shit with no friends, and always worrying about being hit. But that was how mine was going to be if I didn’t get this stuff back to Simmonds.
Big Al used the room phone to call a car hire company. It would take about an hour to deliver a vehicle, so the three of us strolled to an ATM. He drew out $1,200 from four different accounts. ‘You never know when you’re going to need mucho dinero in a hurry!’ he grinned. Maybe he wasn’t so stupid after all.
Back in the room, waiting for the car, I could sense there was more to come from him. He’d definitely been brooding on something for the last half-hour.
‘Would you like to make some money, Nicky – real money?’
I was checking my bag to make sure I hadn’t left anything.
‘Why’s that? Are you going to give me some?’
‘Sort of.’ He came and stood by me as I zipped the bag closed. ‘On those files there are some account numbers stuffed with lovely narco-dollars. Give me two minutes to access the stuff I need and then I can hack in. I can do that shit in my sleep.’ He put an arm around me. ‘Nick, two minutes on my laptop and we could be talking serious enrichment. What do you think?’ His head was nodding at 1000 r.p.m., his eyes never leaving mine.
I let him sweat a bit. ‘How do I know that you’ll pay me my half?’ I thought I’d let him know how much I wanted.
‘I can transfer it anywhere you want. And don’t worry, once I’ve moved it, they’ll never know where it’s gone.’
I had to smile. The one thing Frank de Sabatino was good at was hiding money. ‘C’mon, Nicky Two, what do you say!’ He had his arms wide open and was looking at me like a child who’d done wrong.
I gave him the time he needed with the laptop and wrote down the account number for him to transfer my share to. Fuck it, Kelly was going to need money for school and stuff, and I wanted a payback for working against these people for so many years. It felt good and, anyway, it was just business.
He finished. There was a serious, down-to-work look on his face. ‘Where are you going now?’ he asked.
‘I’m not going to tell you; you know the score. People that I’ve been in contact with are now dead and I don’t want that to happen to you.’
‘Bullshit!’ He looked at Kelly and shrugged his shoulders. ‘You just don’t want me to know in case I go blurting off to somebody.’
‘That’s not the case,’ I said, though in fact it was. ‘If you did that, or didn’t send the money, you know what I’d do.’
He raised an eyebrow.
I looked at him and smiled. ‘I’d make sure the right people know where you are.’
The colour drained from his face for a while, then back came the watermelon. He shook his head. ‘I may have been out of the loop for a while, but I see nothing has changed.’
The telephone rang. The blue Nissan was waiting outside reception. Big Al signed for it and gave me the customer copy of the agreement for when I dropped it off. Kelly and I got in, Big Al stayed on the sidewalk with his briefcase. I pressed the switch to open the windows. The bass rap still played in the background.
‘Listen, Al, I’ll e-mail you to make sure you know where the car’s been dropped off, OK?’
He nodded slowly. It was sinking in that he was about to lose us.
‘Do you want a lift anywhere?’
‘No, I’ve got work to do. By the morning we could be rich, big time.’
We shook hands through the open window. Al smiled at Kelly and said, ‘Make sure you come and visit Uncle Al in about ten years’ time, little lady. I’ll buy the ice cream!’
We set off slowly down the strip. It was still packed. There was so much neon the street lighting was superfluous.
Kelly was in the back, staring out of the window, then gazing into space, lost in her own little world. I didn’t tell her that ahead of us lay a 700-mile drive.
Soon Daytona was behind us and we were back on the long, open road. As I drove, I mulled over Kev’s words again: ‘You won’t believe the stuff I’ve got here. Your friends over the water are busy.’ And he’d also said, ‘I’ve just started the ball rolling on something, but I’d be interested to know what you think.’ Did that mean he’d spoken to his boss? Had his boss then got him zapped? But there was no way Kev would have been talking to anyone in the DEA if he suspected corruption. So who the fuck did he call?
