Heavy Duty People: The Brethren MC Trilogy book 1 (28 page)

‘
What the fuck are you talking about?’ he seemed genuinely puzzled, ‘The fucking Duckies killed Billy, everyone knows that. And Butcher killed Tiny, and Dazza had him taken out for it.’

Yo
u had to hand it to Dazza. He really knew how to work things sometimes.

‘
No you’re wrong.’

‘
What d’ya mean I’m wrong?’

‘
You’re wrong about just about everything, about Tiny, about Billy, about Butcher and about Dazza. You see, you and the other guys just don’t really know what Dazza has got going on, you just don’t see what he’s doing.’

‘
And you do I suppose?’

‘
Yes I do.’

‘
So what do you know then that I don’t?’

‘
Well, for a start I know that The Rebels didn’t kill Billy. Butcher did.’

‘
Bollocks!’

‘
And he did it on Dazza’s instructions because Dazza was worried that Billy would grass him up. He had Butcher plant a bomb made of plastic explosives Dazza got out of Russia and set it off with a mobile phone call while driving a black BMW that Dazza had hired.’

‘
How the fuck d’you expect me to believe any of that bullshit?’

‘
Take it from me. Believe me or not. I just know that that’s the way it went down.’

‘
And Tiny?’

‘
Tiny was murdered. The cops pulled me in on that one. Tried to pin it on me.’

‘
Yeah I know all that. But Butcher did it, we know that too, he made him o/d. And then Dazza took him out for it.’

‘
Butcher, on his own? Think about it fer Chrissakes, how’s Butcher gonna do that to Tiny on his own? Butcher did it alright I grant you. But only after someone else held him down and some fucker knelt on his chest stuffing barbs and vodka down his throat. And whose crew d’ya think that was? Who could do a thing like that?’

‘
Butcher, like I said.’

‘
Yeah Butcher, OK, but why?’

‘
Like Dazza said, he had a beef.’

‘
Maybe. But quite a convenient beef for Dazza don’cha think? Taking out The Legion’s old P, the one guy that we might all have rallied round if there was going to be any challenge for Dazza’s spot at the top of the tree? The ex Legion guys would have outnumbered the original Brethren charter members don’t forget, so which of the two would have had the most loyal backers?’

Wibble had obviously never thought about any of this.
It always amazed me how people could go round not noticing what was so obviously just in front of their noses. I guess some people just don’t get it, just can’t see things and how they work.

‘
But Dazza sorted Butcher for that!’ Wibble protested.

‘
Yeah sure he did.’ They were all about ready I thought. ‘Listen Wibble, can I tell you a story?’

He just looked at me blankly.

‘OK, have you ever heard of a guy called Cesare Borgia?’

Wibble shook his head but his eyes never left me. He was
probably wondering what the hell I was going on about now?

‘
It’s a good one,’ I said, ‘might remind you of something. So if we’re all sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.’

So I told him
, and the waiting listeners behind me, the story I’d told Sharon the other night. The story of Cesare Borgia and Remirro de Orco. Of doing the dirty and then taking the fall. They weren’t daft guys. They might not have been able to see it before, but by the time I’d finished they sure got the point of the story.

‘But that just can’t be right,’ protested Wibble, ‘
Dazza and Butcher were good mates weren’t they? Dazza wouldn’t set him up like that?’

Even as he spoke I could hear the doubt creeping into his voice.

‘But don’t you see? That’s just it,’ I overrode him, ‘that’s why Dazza could set him up.

‘Butcher thought he and
Dazza were mates, that’s why he was prepared to take chances for him. But this isn’t just friendship anymore is it Wibble? It’s business. And in serious business, at the end of the day friendships are expendable aren’t they?

‘When it got to the point where
Dazza needed a scapegoat, Butcher was perfect. After all, no one’s going to think that Dazza would deliberately sacrifice his closest mate and ally would they?’

‘No one but you.’

‘No one but me and my dirty little mind.’

There was silence in the cellar. I knew I had won.

‘You’re going to stop here now with these guys. They’re gonna keep you here and secure for a few days but otherwise you’ll be OK.’

‘
Why?’

‘
He’s becoming a mad dog, Wibble,’ I said, standing up, ‘he’s taking down good guys, guys who were our brothers, and he’s got to be stopped.’

‘
So what are you going to do?’ he asked, looking up at me.

‘
Simple. I’m going to stop him.’

As I turned to go Gu
t and Popeye were facing me with the two hulking strikers off to one side. ‘These the guys who are gonna be guarding him?’

‘
Yeah.’

‘
They know what to do?’

‘
Yeah, don’t worry about it. We’ll look after him.’

‘
That’s what worries me. They’ll do what we agreed?’

‘
Yeah.’

‘
Well I’m gonna tell ’em anyway.’

Popeye
just shrugged impassively.

‘
OK,’ I said to the two guards directly, who stiffened up as I spoke, ‘look after him, he’s good people. I don’t want him touched, you understand? He’s a full patch Brethren and you’re strikers and you’re gonna treat him with respect, you understand me? If you want to keep your gonads, you keep him here but you keep your hands off him and you keep him fed and watered? Got it?’

They looked at me, and glanced across at
Popeye in confusion as I continued to stare at them.

‘
I said have you got it?’

From be
side me I heard Popeye’s voice. ‘It’s OK lads. Do what he says.’

‘
OK,’ the larger of them said, ‘Whatever you say Boss.’ I just didn’t know which of us he was saying it to.

Back upstairs in the kitchen and with the door to the cellar safely barred I turned to Gut and
Popeye who had followed me up.

‘
So, if he ever speaks to Dazza again he’ll have to tell him about this to save his own skin right?’

‘
Yeah.’

‘
And if he does, I’m a dead man. Agreed?’

‘
Agreed.’

‘
So now do you believe me?’

They looked thoughtful and glanced at each other. And then
Gut said, ‘Well yeah, I guess so.’

‘
Great,’ I said with evident relief, ‘so now can we cut the crap and get on with doing what we need to do?’

‘
OK, so tell us, what’s really going on here and what are you up to?’

So I explained to them
what Dazza was up to.

The first drop had
just been a test drop. Of guns coming out of Eastern Europe to check that the systems would work and to give Dazza the firepower to protect himself it he needed it. But then the main stuff would be starting, of Charlie, in large quantities, coming via Portugal. That was what Dazza was really about. Setting up a route for large scale Charlie imports.

Using
Portugal was clever. Spain with its traditional and long established trading links to the Spanish speaking parts of South and Central America had always been the main entry route into Europe for Charlie. Some came in using mules but the really big stuff, the major shipments came across the seas from Columbia, often off loaded offshore onto smaller boats that could scoot in at speed to land the stuff all up and down the coast or sometimes take it into Morocco where things were even easier, and it could then slip across the Straights.

The only problem was that as a result, Customs were now hot on
Spain, where a load of weed used to come through from Morocco as well.

But
Portugal had never had the same links, so it hadn’t been used as a transit point. But you had to ask yourself, how difficult would shipping stuff from Columbia to say Brazil be? And from there, or even straight from Columbia, to Portugal would be as easy as hitting Spain, so it was a natural when you thought about it, while with its long coastline, it would be easy to land stuff.

‘
What did Billy say the plane look like? asked Popeye. I gave him Billy’s description.

‘
Sounds like an Antonov at a guess,’ he said, ‘that would be Russian.’

‘
That makes sense, I suppose. The gear I found was all Ruski stuff as was Dazza’s contact. He said something about his guys used to drop for the
spetsnaz
.’

‘
Well that’ll be the crew then. They’ll know what they’re doing for sure.’

‘
You see, that’s why he needed us and what we had. It was the space he was after. That it’s empty is an advantage not a drag. He needed somewhere that he could pull this off and he sure as hell couldn’t do it in town so that’s why he made the land grab.

‘
And it’s a great method. The air charter’s all legitimate.’ I knew, I booked and paid for some of the flights through the dummy companies I’d set up for Dazza. ‘Stuff out of Portugal landing at Glasgow, and of course by the time it lands, the plane’s completely clean, there’s nothing for the plod to find on board.’

Popeye
nodded and said ‘LAPES. Came across it when I was in the forces
[13]
. You’d be amazed the sort of shit you can drop with the right kit and have it land safely. It’s an awesome sight to see.’

‘
He really is a clever fucking bastard isn’t he?’

‘
But how’s he going to shift that much product? The local markets couldn’t take it that’s for sure.

But I already knew the answer
s to that.

He
’d already set up his distribution method, he was sending the stuff by post. It was easy, cheap, and difficult for the plod to try and track.

All his customers had to do was rent places,
flats for six months, a house, even a PO Box. Just so long as Dazza had the address he could just post the gear there. All the customer had to do was send someone in every so often when a package was expected and wait for the postie to come by with it, and then disappear again. Simple, but brilliant, like most of Dazza’s ideas. Flats would be favourite I guessed, they were cheap to rent, no one would notice people coming in and out and you could keep a few on the go to ring the changes, never using the same one more than a couple of times max. How were the cops ever going to clock on to the stuff arriving?

And if you broke the bricks up into smaller quantities that could go in ordinary jiffy bags or whatever, t
hey could never monitor every post box in the country to see you sticking the stuff in to send it either.

Cash c
ould come back in to Dazza the same way using the flats we had set up for the banking side if necessary, or Dazza could just have the customer pay it in direct into one of the acceptance accounts.

And that
’s why he’d used Billy to tie up with The Duckies. He had built his machine for getting it in, he’d figured out how to move it about, but what he needed now were customers, and customers on a national basis. He could use other guys in The Brethren across most of England but by establishing connections with The Rebels he’d got Scotland and Wales as well. By using The Brethren’s sworn enemies Dazza had built himself a truly national franchise.

‘
OK,’ said Gut, ‘but I don’t get what you want us to do about it? We can’t go back to how it was before. You can’t leave The Brethren, you know that, not with what you now know, there’s no way Dazza could afford to let you go. And if he ever finds out what you’ve done I don’t give much for your chances.

‘
And if we restarted, how could we hope to fight the whole of The Brethren? We didn’t think we were strong enough to take them on before and that was before we lost half the guys to ’em?

‘
The only way would be to join up with another of the big six, like The Rebels.’

‘
But even that wouldn’t work would it?’ I objected, ‘Dazza and The Rebels are in business together now. D’you think The Rebels would want to rock the boat by taking us on? No chance.’

‘
We could join someone else.’

‘
Like who? Join up with The Hangmen?’ I asked.

‘
Go crawling to those cunts – no fucking way!’ Popeye was vehement.