The Vengeance Man (27 page)

I tried to see it through his eyes. But he really was making a awful song and dance about it. Drug dealers and major crooks who murder are just like terrorists in my book.

He poured again, then lifted the Armagnac to the standard lamp and shrugged ruefully at the ebbing tide in the bottle. "We've got a contract to ..." he hesitated, then was firm, having rejected all the euphemisms. "...
to
kill
a known criminal organiser. Not just eliminate, or neutralize. Kill him as an example. A big public example."

I shrugged. “You want me to kill a target? Right?”

Mallalieu shook his head. “God
, you’re a cold hearted sod sometimes. They warned me about you.”

“I’m not psycho, if that’s what you mean. I’m well adjusted. I even have a medical certificate to prove it. You should have seen some of the others in 22. They really were barking. Remember Lefty? B squadron?”

Mallalieu laughed. “Yes. I remember Lefty Wright, Bloody maniac.”

“Only man to make his own explosives…
mad as a hatter. Now, he really did lose it in the end. Blowing up other people’s bogs. Mad as a box of frogs. He had to go.”

“Well, according to your chum Hepworth, you were nearly as bad. What on earth did you say to upset him?

“That
creep.
Venomous
little
…” I shook my head. “Why is it wrong to blow someone away if the Queen tells you to and not feel guilty about it. I didn’t. He just didn’t understand we were just doing the job. Eh?”

“Don’t ask me. I always left the really hard stuff to chaps like you. That’s why I’m asking you if you’re happy to do this one.”

“Malletting
some big international crook?
Pour encourager les autres
?"

"Precisely. And send a warning.  It must be public, spectacular and make a lot of people sit up."

A thought struck me. "For revenge?"

He brightened. "Yes, if you like."

I laughed. "Christ! You're no better than me!"

"What?  How do you mean, better than you?" I reali
s
ed
that
Mallalieu didn't know of my own private act
ivity.  He went on, puzzled.  "
Listen, this is serious. You realise that no Minister is going to sign this order. There's no signature on a piece of paper, so no bureaucrat, no politician, no commanding officer is going to risk his career by passing this order on.  So no
"order"
will never be executed."  He grimaced at the word.  "Bad choice,
that. This is something that can't be done by the public sector. So I've had a very oblique
  ah - invitation to tender if you like."

I warmed to the idea; "OK. No problem. What are we talking about here? Taking
someone
’s
piece
off
the board for good. That's not such a big deal.  But I'll need to know all sorts of details first. Things like who, why, when, what and where? And, why us and not the MOD?"

"Steady. Don't be impatient. You've not heard it all. This is going to be a UK Limited job.  But it's not for the MOD."  I must have looked alarmed, because he continued hastily. "This is a very particular job and
has be done in a
very particular way. Obviously it’s deniable. But it's not the sort of thing we can sub-contract out to the Bull Pen, or one of the South London firms.  This isn't a shotgun job backstairs in a Lewisham pub, two grand for expenses, no questions asked, and two column inches moaning on about gangland killings in the Daily Mirror.  This one's different, and it's not overseas."

"Is that why you're asking me?"

"Yes. I think that you're the right man. I know your record and I don't think you'll have any - ah - misgivings about this particular target, when I tell you about it. But it'll need a special gun and they can't trust some Stratford East  mob or a heavy from Catford to do it the right way. And stay quiet."

"I'm happy to do it." I said, and I was.  I noted the reference to 'a gun.' The firm didn't get involved with this sort of thing, but we had acted as go between for some odd incidents in the past -- but never in UK.

"You will be." He smiled grimly.  "Do you know Isaac Roberts?"

"Of course." Roberts was the owner of a major international group of banks, newspapers, TV stations and God knows what.  He was never off TV. He wasn't at all the sort of master criminal I'd had in mind. Roberts was huge. Global.  "What's he got to do with all this?"

Mallalieu savoured the moment.  "Because he's your mark." 

My jaw must have sagged.

"Yes, that surprises you, doesn't it? Lord Isaac Roberts;
the great international businessmen." Mallalieu sat back enjoying my astonishment. "Yes.
Lord Roberts.   International Financier. Newspaper magnate. Media baron. Runs Global Holdings Inc.   One of the biggest companies in the World. One thousand and seventy six known subsidiaries.   Employs nearly one million people -- in one form or another.  Contributor to political parties worldwide. Three wives, seven children. Friend of US presidents.    Passionate  advocate of the single European
currency.
The Euro, the dodgiest currency on this planet.
Hardly surprising, considering  that  he ow
ns half the European banks, one way or another,"  he added almost as an aside.

I was still in some kind of shock.

Mallalieu pressed on. "Friend of worldwide Presidents and Prime Ministers alike.    Made more money than Soros when the ERM crashed, but keeps quiet about that. But he's never out of the newspapers. Owns half of them too. Plus all those TV stations.  Isaac bloody Roberts." Mallalieu swilled his glass and drank. "Yes: the great Lord Roberts, British peer, American citizen, mastermind and organizer of the biggest criminal conspiracy in the World. Paymaster too."

I was stunned.  "You want me to blow away Isaac Roberts?
The
Lord Roberts? You’re mad.”

"I'm afraid so."   He looked hard at me, almost sympathetically.  "It's hard to believe, isn't it?"

For once that evening, we were in total agreement. I was silent. It was hard to believe.  Isaac Roberts was no ordinary criminal or IRA
terrorist.
  He was one of the most important men in the world: and one of the most visible too. The Roberts Group and his Global Holdings or whatever it was called owned several newspapers and that’s how he’d got his peerage in UK.  If he'd been Italian he'd probably have been Prime Minister by now - several times...  I desperately searched my memory banks; the last I'd heard of him was addressing the European Parliament about the need for a new banking system.  It hadn't gone his way, I recalled, and he'd gone off in a huff in a private jet to his
château
in Switzerland. Or his island in the West Indies.  Roberts was different; Christ, he had a huge house in Los Angeles and owned the biggest chunk of foreign companies in America.  He'd tried to do a deal with Microsoft.  He was supposed to have some links with the Russian Mafia, I’d read somewhere. But Roberts? The man was huge. He wasn't at all what I had been expecting.  Lord Roberts was
major
.

Mallalieu looked at me, pityingly.  "Now I've told you who it is, does it make any difference to you?"

I considered.  "No. Not if you can convince me he's what you say he is."

"Oh, I can provide you with all the evidence you need. Global Holding Corporation Incorporated Is one of the biggest providers of money laundering for the Colombian and Mexican drug cartels.   GHi is the controller of all pretty well all organized crime in the U.S.
  All of it
mind you: if you start up peddling dope on your own, once you get above a certain level, then you're either busted, join the team or get killed.  This is fact, not fiction, remember I'm telling you now; facts."

I sat silent.  Mallalieu pressed on looking grim.   "GHi effectively runs the Russian Mafia by cleaning its money for it and providing markets for most of its goods. Mainly through Iceland.
Now it’s
Cyprus. Lots of little companies. All with mysterious sources of finance.  A lot of it comes through EC offshore phony companies.”

“No wonder the EU never publish their accounts.”

Mallali
eu nodded
and smiled before going on:  “Every train load of copper or oil coming out of Russia is taxed by the Mafia and paid off to GHi. Great chunks of it go to the Kremlin – personally. GHi organized all the arms sales to Iran, the IRA and any other half baked terrorist organization ready to cause trouble. It was GHi blew up the Railway Station in Algeria last year. At least, their local associates did. It was Roberts’ gang that bankrolled Saddam for years and backed Al Qa’ida long before anyone had even heard of it. Through bent Pakistanis and crooked banks. The CIA even helped him at one point. GHi organizes and runs pretty well all the illegal immigrant networks from North Africa into Italy, Greece, France and Spain. And Dover. It’s GHi that effectively owns half the congressmen in the USA and about one third of the European members of Parliament. Almost every drug sold in the world is done only with the permission and consent of GHi. Once a week two Colombians get off an aeroplane in Luxembourg and go to the International Banque with suitcases of
high denomination
dollar bills. This is fact, now, remember - not supposition. Hard fact – believe me." 

He stared at me with a kind of grim satisfaction.

"The bank has a special team of tellers stood by, Tuesday morning and Friday morning. They even identify the duds and forgeries and politely hand them back.  They hand back the duff dollars to the Colombian drug dealers!  And who owns this famous bank?" He paused for breath.  "Need I go on?"

This I had not been expecting. "OK. OK. Assuming everything you say is true.  How come he’s this great mastermind?"

Mallalieu pressed his advantage. "But he is. He had a Board meeting of the key directors of his international group on a private little island in the Dutch Antilles last month.  Every single one of the National Representatives of his organization was present. They didn't come as members of GHi, of course: they had their meeting the day before and others the day after.  But, I promise you, Roberts chaired the meeting of his organization. "

"I'll need proof."

"It was in the bloody papers; Christ they even invited the Prime Minister to go and talk to them. The US Vice President went.   Don't you read the newspapers?"

"Of course I do: that's not what I meant. I meant proof that he's a crook, a ..." I petered out.  I couldn't take it in.

"Proof?  Of course. I'll give it to you in the morning.
Y
ou can look at it, but you can't take it away.   I'll make you a deal: if you still believe me after you seen the evidence, can I take it he's yours?  You'll sort him out?"

I looked at him hard.  "If he really is what you say he is, then I'd regard it as a public service. "

"I thought you'd see it that way."  Mallalieu smiled grimly; "Think of all those little voters in Romford..."

A thought occurred to me; "Why the sudden rush to take him out now?"

Mallalieu smiled again, but this time it was more of a grimace.  "Because the bastard's a traitor too. A real full blooded double agent. Triple even; who knows?" Suddenly he looked haunted. "In fact, Roberts is a real..." and to my surprise he swore fluently and angrily in the language if the gutter.

The evening was full of surprises. What had Roberts done to get Tom Mallalieu so worked up?

Mallalieu continued. “This is all very delicate, you understand. Well, 'Six' tried to run Roberts, up to ten years ago." He was reminiscent. "They’d run high image commercial agents very successfully in the war. Practically invented t
he Hong Kong economy back in
1945. Well,
that
was SOE, really. The only gang to make a profit out of the war. So they put quite a lot of time and money into backing Roberts. Helped control international markets – economic intelligence. That kind of thing. Anyway, all he did was take their money and set up a string of offices as drug fronts. Then SIS discovered that he was offering himself as the CIA's chief source in London. They paid him, too. A lot more than SIS, of course, but it hurt, I can tell you.  He had a lot of access to Westminster and the City, and he was the Chairman of one of the Independent Commissions reporting on the peace process in Northern Ireland.  He had unbelievable access.
Through him the Americans were getting a top level feed on UK and could use him and his companies to get indirect control  of nearly all the terrorist movements in Ireland and then a good lead into the Balkans. Roberts
’
companies indirectly supported a lot of the terrorist attacks, too. Worldwide. They got all the inside gossip from Westminster as well. The Yanks even had some daft idea of grooming him as a future Prime Minister at one time. Silly buggers.”

"My God. You can't be serious. The Americans? Roberts? For PM?"

"Oh, yes." Mallalieu looked even grimmer.

"Even so," I said weakly, "That's not really a reason for topping him. What does that achieve? They're bound to retaliate."