The Solitary Man (4 page)

'Sure, we'll play the game, the Press always does. They'll use the picture and they'll use a few sentences from me as a caption, but this is all shit, Tim. The bulk of the stuff is coming from across the border, and the heroin kingpins there aren't going to stop growing poppies just because you throw a few hundred dollars at them. The market's worth billions and they're not going to give it up to grow cabbages.'

The two soldiers began to walk across the poppy field, away from the photographers. Janis shouted for the journalists to keep back. Middlehurst's recorder clicked off as it came to the end of his tape. He took it away from Carver's face and went over to join the photographers.

Carver and Kay watched the pack jostle for position to get the best shot. A sheet of fire exploded from the barrel of one of the flamethrowers. The soldier raked the flame across the field and the poppy plants burst into flames. The motor drives went crazy, whirring like angry bees. The second flamethrower burst into life.

'What's the drugs problem like back in Britain?' asked Carver.

'It's getting pretty bad,' said Kay. 'It's like cable TV, fast food, and American humour: eventually we get everything you get.'

Carver nodded. 'Yeah, well, I hope this time it's different,' he said. He took a packet of Marlboro from his shirt pocket and offered one to the journalist. Kay took one and Carver lit it for him.

The two men stood in silence and watched the poppies crackle and burn under the onslaught of the flamethrowers. Kay exhaled deeply, blowing plumes of smoke through his nostrils. ' “The Walrus and the Carpenter,” ' he said.

.'#

'Huh?' said Carver, confused.

'Cabbages and kings. That's where the phrase comes from. Lewis Carroll, I think. It's time to talk of many things, of something, something, something something, and cabbages and kings. It's a bit of nonsense.'

Carver stared out across the burning field. 'Yeah,' he said. 'You're right. It is.'

THE SMALL HELICOPTER BUZZED overhead, then hovered like a hawk preparing to sweep on its prey. The mourners standing around the grave tried to ignore the intrusion and to concentrate on the elderly priest and his words of comfort for a family stricken with grief. There were two dozen men and women and a scattering of children, all dressed in black, all with their heads bowed. Some distance away, parked on a ribbon of tarmac, was a line of black limousines, their engines running.

One of the mourners, a tall, thin man in a cashmere overcoat, lifted his head and glared at the helicopter. 'Vultures,' John Mallen muttered under his breath. Under normal circumstances Mallen was good looking, handsome even, with a squarish face and blond hair that was greying only slightly over his temples, but there were deep lines etched around his eyes and either side of his mouth, and the whites of his eyes were bloodshot as if it had been some time since he'd had a good night's sleep.

His wife, her blonde hair tucked under a wide-brimmed black hat and her face hidden by a veil, squeezed his arm gently and he grimaced.

'Sorry,' he whispered. She smiled and slipped her hand into his.

Between the parked limousines and the funeral party stood two men, broad shouldered, with impassive faces. They wore dark suits but despite the cold they had no overcoats or gloves. One of the men put his hand up to his ear and lightly fingered an earpiece. He nodded as he listened and looked up at the helicopter. A few seconds later the helicopter banked and flew away, a man with a THE SOLITARY MAN 23 television camera on his shoulder leaning out of its open doorway, his feet on the skids.

The funeral service came to an end and the mourners began to drift over to the limousines. A pretty young brunette with tear-stained eyes walked hesitantly over to Mallen. She carried a small black handbag which she clutched to her stomach like a field dressing. He saw her coming and put his arm around his wife's shoulders, steering her away from the brunette and towards the limousine parked on the road that wound through the cemetery. The driver already had the door open.

'You should have spoken to her, John,' Mallen's wife said, her voice little more than a whisper.

'Not yet,' said Mallen, putting a hand on her shoulder. 'I can't. Not yet.'

'It wasn't her fault.'

'I know that. I don't blame her.'

The woman nodded slowly. 'Yes, you do, John. You think you don't, but you do.' She stood up on tiptoe, raised her veil and kissed him softly on the cheek, close to his lips. 'She loved him, too, you know.'

'She had a strange way of showing it,' said Mallen bitterly.

'They'd have worked things out, if . . .' She left the sentence unfinished.

'Yes,' said her husband. 'If.'

The two men in dark suits came up behind Mallen, their eyes watchful. One got into the front passenger seat, the other stood slightly behind the couple.

'Aren't you coming?' she asked.

Mallen shook his head. 'Duty calls.'

'Today of all days?'

Mallen shrugged. His wife shook her head sadly and climbed into the back of the limousine. Mallen turned and walked away as the limousine drove off.

Further down the road a short, stocky man in an overcoat a size too small for his massive shoulders stood waiting by another limousine.

'Thanks for coming, Jake,' said Mallen. They shook hands. Both 24 STEPHEN LEATHER men had firm grips but the handshake was no trial of strength; they knew each other too well to play games.

'He was a good boy. He'll be missed.'

'There's no need to patronise me, Jake. He was an arsehole,' said Mallen, as he slid into the back of the limousine.

Jake Gregory followed him into the car and pulled the door shut. The soundproofed panel separating the passengers from the driver was closed and they were cocooned in silence. The car pulled smoothly away from the kerb. A dark blue saloon with three men in suits followed them.

Mallen looked around. 'How come you don't have babysitters?' he asked. 'I'd have thought the number two man in the Drug Enforcement Administration would be guarded like Fort Knox.'

Gregory shrugged his wrestler's shoulders. 'Low profile. When was the last time you saw me on the cover of Time magazine?'

Mallen smiled tightly as he settled back in his seat and unbuttoned his overcoat. 'So, I'm listening.'

'The heroin that killed Mark was part of a batch that came from an area of the Golden Triangle close to the border between Burma and Thailand under the control of a Chinese warlord called Zhou Yuanyi. He's relatively new, up and coming you might say. He's moved into the areas that Khun Sa used to control, and he's trying to grab a bigger share of the market. He's brought in a team of chemists from Russia and has started purifying his own opium before shipping it across the border into Thailand. As a result there's been something of a price war, both out in the Far East and here at home. We've been aware of this for some time; on the streets heroin is now almost sixty-six per cent pure compared with six per cent in 1979. But as the quality has improved, the price has dropped, to about a third of its cost in the late seventies. In real terms, heroin is now about one-thirtieth of the cost it used to be, which is why it's starting to become the drug of choice again.'

Mallen folded his arms across his chest and studied Gregory with unblinking eyes.

'Your son isn't the only one to have died,' Gregory continued. 'The stuffs getting so pure now that it's practically lethal. The pusher has to really know what he's doing. If he doesn't tell his customers what the purity is . . .'

'I get the point, Jake,' said Mallen. 'Tell me about Zhou.'

'Zhou was one of the warlords in the Golden Triangle we targeted in Operation Tiger Trap, but so far we've had no notable success,' Gregory continued. 'In fact we lost two Hong Kong Chinese agents just last month.'

'Lost?' Mallen repeated disdainfully. 'Lost in what way, Jake?'

'They were tortured and killed. Impaled on stakes at the entrance to Zhou's camp as a warning to others. It's a jungle out there. Literally and figuratively.'

Mallen tutted impatiently. 'We spend fifteen billion dollars a year on the war against drugs and the best we can do is to send in two Chinese?' he said.

'The undercover operations are a small part of Operation Tiger Trap. The bulk goes on satellite and plane surveillance, intelligence gathering, Customs inspections, border controls.'

'Maybe it's about time we tried something else.'

'These things take time,' said Gregory. 'We need the cooperation of the Thai and Burmese authorities, and they're not the easiest people to deal with. It's not just the politics involved, either. The big problem is that we have no way of knowing who we can trust and who's on the take. For instance, it's practically impossible for Zhou to be getting his stuff across the border without the assistance of the Thai army, so we know he has contacts there. That means mounting any sort of military operation is next to impossible. Sure, they've raided a few of his camps, closed down a refinery or two, but Zhou has always been long gone. He invariably knows exactly when and where we're going to strike.'

'So ignore the Thais.'

'Difficult,' said Gregory. 'We pretty much do that already as regards intelligence gathering. We share with the Brits and the Australians, and a dozen or so other agencies through the Foreign Anti-Narcotic Community, meetings which take place in Bangkok every month, and the Thais are excluded from that, but we don't have the authority to make arrests. For that we have to go through the Thai police.'

Mallen took a quick look at his slim gold wristwatch. He leaned forward, his eyes suddenly intense. 'I'm not talking about arrests, Jake.' Mallen's voice dropped to a whisper. 'I want him dead. I 26 STEPHEN LEATHER want the head of the man who killed my son. It doesn't have to be on a plate, I don't have to see the body, I just have to know that the bastard's dead.'

Gregory swallowed. He wiped the palms of his hands on his trousers. 'You know I can't--'

Mallen didn't even give him time to finish the sentence. 'Look, I can't very well ask the CIA, can I? They're trying to be whiter than white after the Guatemala fiasco and they'll just throw Executive Order 11905 in my face. Thou shalt not kill.'

'That applies to my agency, too,' said Gregory. 'We're not in the business of executing--'

'You do as I tell you, Jake,' interrupted Mallen. 'You owe me, remember. You owe me big time.'

Gregory's cheeks reddened as if he'd been slapped. 'I'm just pointing out the jurisdictional--'

Mallen held up a hand to silence him. 'Fuck jurisdiction. We didn't worry about jurisdiction when we wanted Noriega. We just sent twenty-four thousand troops into Panama and brought him out. And Grenada wasn't actually our turf, was it? This monster's poisoning our streets, he's crippling our economy, he's killing our children, for God's sake. He's a cancer, and I want you to operate, Jake. I've made the diagnosis, now I want you to be the surgeon.'

'But you can't . . .'

Mallen snorted angrily. 'I'm the Vice President of the United States. I can do pretty much anything I want. Within reason.'

Gregory wiped his hands again. 'But that's the point, isn't it? What constitutes reasonable?'

'I'm not asking for a discussion about morality, Jake. I don't give a shit about the rights and wrongs of this, I just want the fucker dead. Do I have to spell it out for you? D-E-A-D. Don't make me call in my markers, we go back too far for that.'

Gregory held up his hands in surrender. 'I'm not arguing, I'm not saying no. I'm just pointing out the downside, that's all.'

Mallen sighed impatiently. 'There is no downside. You'll be doing the world a favour.'

The two men rode in silence for a while. A small vein pulsed in Gregory's temple. He massaged the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes.

Mallen's voice became softer and he patted Gregory gently on the knee. 'Look, Jake, I didn't mean to snap at you. You know how rough it's been, the last few days. Keeping the real cause of his death under wraps, dealing with the media. With Angela. Look, don't think of this as taking out the man, think of it as hitting his operation, his headquarters. And if he happens to get caught in the crossfire, well, that'll just be a bonus.'

Gregory's eyes remained closed. He could feel the Vice President's will enveloping him like a cloud, seeping through his pores, into his very soul. It was persistent. Insidious. Gregory could feel sweat beading on his forehead. The hand tightened on his knee.

'I have the President's approval on this, Jake,' Mallen continued. 'Nothing in writing, no medals for those involved, but he's given me a green light. Whatever resources you need, whatever you feel is necessary. He wants this as much as I do. He wants to show the world that we're doing something. A retaliatory strike. A lesson for the others.'

Gregory nodded. He opened his eyes. All resistance had gone. There was no point in protesting any more. 'Financing?' he asked.

'Lose it in your budget. It's big enough.'

'And I have carte blancheV 'You and Frank Sinatra, Jake. Do it your way. Just get it done.' The Vice President took his hand off Gregory's knee. 'I won't forget this, Jake.' He smiled at the DEA executive, a gleaming white smile that had no warmth in it. His eyes sparkled like ice freezing on the surface of a lake.

THE ONE THOUGHT THAT Billy Winter clung to as he rattled around in the boot of the big car was that they'd been wearing ski masks. If they'd felt it necessary to conceal their identities then they probably didn't mean to kill him. Probably. Winter wasn't sure just how much store he could put by his theory, but he clung to it nevertheless. Just then it was all he had.

He'd been sitting in his white bathrobe, drawing on a big cigar and watching two highly paid hookers do their stuff, when they'd 28 STEPHEN LEATHER come for him. Three men - not particularly big, but then size wasn't important when sawn-off shotguns and semi-automatic pistols were involved - wearing leather bomber jackets, blue jeans and training shoes. And black ski masks. They hadn't said anything, the men. They hadn't needed to.

The two hookers, one blonde, one brunette, hadn't been to Ireland before -- Winter had flown them in from London on the recommendation of an old pal -- but they knew what men in ski masks meant and they hadn't said a word as Winter had been hustled out of the house. The girls were probably already at the airport. Money for old rope. They'd barely started on their lesbian show - guaranteed to get an erection from the dead, Winter's pal had promised - before the men had burst in.

Winter had asked the men if they'd give him time to get dressed, and one of them had pistol-whipped him, hard enough to stun but not hard enough to knock him out. Winter could feel blood trickling down his cheek as he lay in the car boot, his knees up tight against his chin, his hands tied behind his back. If they were going to kill him, he thought, they'd have done it back at the house. His nearest neighbour lived half a mile away and it was farming country; no one would think twice about a shotgun blast, even late at night.

The car bucked and lurched and Winter's head banged against the floor. They'd been driving for thirty minutes or so but Winter was finding it difficult to keep track of time. Besides, it made no difference where they were taking him, the only thing that mattered was what they planned to do with him.

The car braked and they came to a sudden halt. Winter heard the car doors open and close and then the boot was thrown open and hands dragged him roughly out. A bag was pulled down over his head and he was frogmarched away from the car. He stumbled and his bare feet scraped across rough concrete. They still hadn't said a word, but the bag reassured him; it was another sign that they didn't want to be recognised, which suggested that they were probably going to let him live. Probably.

The bathrobe flapped open but despite the cold night air Winter was sweating. He splashed through a puddle then he heard a metal door rattle. As he stumbled over a step the hands holding his arms gripped even tighter. They forced him to his knees and he felt the THE SOLITARY MAN 29 barrel of a gun press against the back of his neck. He took a deep breath and fought to stop himself shaking. It wasn't the first time that Billy Winter had been at the wrong end of a loaded gun, but that didn't make the experience any easier to handle.

'Whatever they're paying you, I'll treble it,' he said. There was no reply and Winter wondered if they'd heard him through the bag. 'Whatever they're paying . . .' he began but the gun barrel clipped the side of his head and he realised it was pointless to continue. He heard muffled voices, and footsteps, and then the metal door clanged shut. The gun barrel was taken away and the hood was pulled off his head. A single light shone into his eyes and he squinted. There was a strong acrid smell that he realised was pig manure, and something sweeter. Straw, maybe. He was in a barn, or a shed, somewhere pigs were kept.

Tears pricked his eyes and he blinked them away. He didn't want his captors to think that he was crying; it was the bright light that was making his eyes water. It had been a long, long time since Billy Winter had cried.

'Who are you?' he asked. 'What do you want?'

He could just about make out a figure holding the torch. Blue jeans and white trainers, now flecked with mud. A second figure walked from behind Winter and stood next to the man with the torch. He was holding a sawn-off shotgun, a gloved finger hooked around the trigger. It was a pump-action Remington, Winter realised, five shells. Winter stared at the finger on the trigger.

'If it's money, I can give you all the money you want,' said Winter quietly.

The finger tightened.

'What is it, then? Political? Is this political? I've got friends . . .'

Winter flinched as the finger pulled back the trigger. He screamed with rage and turned his head away. There was no explosion, no hail of shot, just a hammer clicking down on an empty chamber. Winter's bowels turned liquid and he felt urine stream down his leg. He began to gag and he retched but nothing came up, just a bitter taste at the back of his mouth. 'You bastards,' he mumbled.

Gloved hands grabbed his hair and forced him to look straight ahead, into the torch beam. A third figure appeared, a man wearing 30 STEPHEN LEATHER a long coat. Winter squinted up at the new arrival. He wasn't wearing a ski mask and Winter recognised him.

'Thomas?' he said.

'Hello, Billy,' said Thomas McCormack. His hands were thrust deep into the pockets of his coat and he wore a" red woollen scarf wrapped tightly around his neck as if he feared catching a chill.

'What's this about, Thomas?'

'Ray Harrigan,' said McCormack.

'Harrigan? What about him?'

'We want him back.'

Winter cleared his throat and swallowed. 'So why didn't you use the blower? Why the heavies?'

McCormack peered over the top of his spectacles. 'I wanted you to know how serious this was, Billy. I wanted you to be in no doubt what will happen if you don't bring the Harrigan boy home.'

'I thought we were friends, Thomas. I thought we had an understanding.'

McCormack shrugged. 'An understanding, perhaps, but not a friendship, Billy.'

'It's not my fault Harrigan got caught.'

'So whose fault would it be? They were your contacts, you put the meeting together.'

'Maybe someone talked.'

'Not Ray Harrigan,' insisted McCormack. 'The boy went through the trial without saying a word. If anyone talked it was one of your people. That makes it your responsibility.'

Winter nodded slowly. 'Okay. I'll do what I can, Thomas.'

McCormack shook his head. 'That's not good enough, Billy. You bring him back, or next time the shotgun won't be empty.'

As if to emphasise McCormack's words, the man with the shotgun waved it menacingly in front of Winter's face. McCormack turned and walked away. The bag was pulled down over Winter's head and he was dragged to his feet.

Winter felt his confidence return. 'Any chance of me riding in the front this time, lads?' he said, and he laughed dryly. He was still chuckling when something hard slammed against his left temple and everything went red, then black.

THE CANADIAN HELD THE metal spoon over the candle flame and watched the colourless liquid sizzle on the hot metal. He coughed, a dry hacking sound that echoed around the cell. Ray Harrigan watched as the Canadian put the spoon on to the concrete floor and wiped the syringe needle on his sleeve. He dipped the end of the needle into the liquid and drew it up into the barrel of the syringe, holding his breath as it filled. He looked up and saw Harrigan watching him.

'You want some?' the Canadian asked.

Harrigan shook his head.

'Fifty baht and you can have a hit.' The Canadian used a shoelace as a tourniquet around his upper arm to raise a vein.

'No,' said Harrigan.

'Suit yourself,' he said, carefully inserting the needle into the vein. He withdrew blood into the syringe and allowed it to mix with the heroin. Harrigan watched, fascinated, as the Canadian injected the blood and heroin mixture back into the vein, then loosened the tourniquet and slumped back against the wall, a look of rapture on his face. 'You've never taken drugs?' he asked Harrigan.

'No. I can't stand needles.'

The Canadian smiled lazily. A dribble of blood ran down his arm like a tear. 'It's the only way out of this place,' he said, and tapped the side of his forehead. 'They can't imprison your mind, man. They can fuck with your body, but they can't keep my mind in here.'

Harrigan looked at the syringe lying on the floor. 'Do you share your needle?' he asked.

The Canadian's eyes went wide. 'Fuck, no. No one even touches my works. Do you think I'm stupid?'

A large cockroach scuttled past Harrigan's feet. He pulled them back involuntarily. He'd never get used to the size of the insects, or the speed with which they moved. They didn't bite or sting but he couldn't bear being near them. Harrigan closed his eyes and ran his hands through his hair. It was greasy and he could 32 STEPHEN LEATHER feel that his scalp was covered in small scabs. His mattress was infected with fleas and mites and his whole body itched.