“I see you know your business. Ever done any spot-recruiting?”
“Some, in London. Maybe we had the same client?”
“If so he wouldn’t want us to discuss it, right?”
“Right. You said a proposition?”
“I need two hundred full-auto long arms, preferably AR-16s, but I’ll take anything close. Only in 5.56 caliber, nothing bigger. A thousand rounds for each piece. And a bunch of other field supplies I could buy right here with no trouble, but I’ll let you handle it all if we can make it a package.”
“Like flak jackets, helmets, standard ordinance?”
“Yeah, and some fragmentation grenades, some plastique-”
“You can’t buy that stuff here.”
“All right, we won’t argue. You’d pay cash?”
“On delivery.”
“To…?”
“London’s okay.”
“Maybe to you it is-not to us. With all the IRA business, you can’t move a bloody thing in London. No good.”
“Two more choices, that’s it. Either Lisbon or Tel Aviv.”
“Lisbon’s okay-the kikes have the right idea on South Africa but I don’t like working with them, can’t trust’em.”
“Lisbon it is. You know the airport setup? The old Biafra runway?”
“I heard about it but I’ve never done it.”
“I’ll get you the papers,” I said, watching his eyes gleam and then quickly go flat again. Greedy bastard.
“What’s the timetable?”
“You get me the men lined up first, and I want the stuff ready to roll within three weeks from then. Okay?”
“The stuff’s no problem. But we’re not set up to do recruiting here. That takes time-”
“Look, I told you I had a proposition. I know a perfect place you can rent, and I can use my connections to get you enough publicity so every merc in the area will be knocking down your doors. You stay open one week, no more. If you don’t have the twenty men by then I’ll pay you so much a head, take the string, and pick up the guns later. Deal?”
“How much a head? And who fronts for the office?”
“A grand a head,” I told him, “plus a five-grand bonus if you find me any of three guys I’m looking for. Specialists.”
“And the office?”
“You pay for everything and I’ll handle the publicity. But I’ll throw two grand up front for the first two guys, and if you don’t get me the full twenty I’ll do the original deal on the guns, hold my string, and call you when I’ve got all the men together.”
“That’s twelve thousand all together-ten for the guns, like we agreed, and another two for the men-”
“That’s
“Agreed,” said James, reaching out his hand for me to shake while Gunther did his best to repress a grin at my stupidity.
The rest of the transaction didn’t take long. I gave them the address of the office building where they could set up, asked them what name they used for their outfit, and promised to have all the printing done by the next day. Before I handed over the two grand we had a nice professional discussion about the specific men I wanted them to recruit for my big operation.
“I need an explosives expert, a night sniper, and a martial arts man,” I told them. “I want real professionals too, not some guys who took a course someplace. We pay the going rate, two grand up front per man sign-up bonus, payable on arrival overseas to any bank they want, or just cash in their hands. Okay?”
“You said you had specific individuals?”
“Yeah, but no square names, just handles, right? The explosives guy calls himself Mr. Kraus. A tall, German- looking dude, wears steel-rimmed glasses, brush-cut, very clean-looking. He’s worked Africa before-he knows the story. If he hears about you, he’ll sign right up. The sniper, all I know about him is the name Blackie. Ex-Marine, did two hitches in ’Nam. I heard he had some trouble with ATF so he may be hard to find, but I think he’d like a vacation for a while. And the karate guy calls himself the Cobra.”
I threw in Wilson’s complete description, but not his right name. I wasn’t worried about paying the five Gs bonus on any of the other guys-they didn’t exist. And if they turned up the Cobra, he’d be worth the two grand I was fronting them.
When I handed over the money, James wanted to shake hands again. Gunther didn’t move, keeping his eye on Max all the time, looking at his back. That’s as close as he’d come.
“I’ll meet you at the new office tomorrow afternoon, say around two, okay? I may have some more info for you by then, and I’ll have all the printing done for sure. We run this thing for one week, maybe two at the most. Then we close the deal with whatever you have by then, okay?”
“Right,” said James. Gunther still wasn’t talking. Under other circumstances I would have been happy to leave them on the pier to find their own way home, but I loaded them back in the Buick and we drove them back to their personal pay phone. Gunther kept on staring at Max like he was going to twist his head off his spinal column. I watched Max’s hands on the steering wheel-they looked like old, cracked leather stuffed full of steel pebbles. They were very still.
On the way back to the warehouse Max made a fist of his right hand, squeezing it tighter and tighter as I watched. Then he looked at the top of his closed fist like something slimy was oozing out, scraped it away with his other hand, and made a throwing-away gesture. Yes. I told him, that was the idea-put enough pressure on the Cobra and he’d ooze out like pus from a wound.
Back at the warehouse I got into the Plymouth and Max and I went off to do our separate work. While I drove over to one of my cold pay phones to keep the pressure on, Max would be meeting with the Blood Shadows and giving them their instructions and equipment.
I got to the phone, set up the machinery to meet with Pablo’s people, caught the second call, and made delivery of the posters. Pablo agreed to handle the distribution. I gave him as many details as I reasonably could about Goldor’s death without mentioning Flood, explaining that it was unavoidable. I told him I’d thought about leaving some sort of UGL calling card in Goldor’s house but decided it was better not to-he said that I’d done right. I knew that-I’d never really thought about doing anything but getting the hell out of there, but I didn’t want him to think I’d been ungrateful for the information and the trust it implied.
I left Pablo and found another phone. From there a previously reliable informant told a certain DEA agent that a man precisely answering the Cobra’s description was going to be moving some major narcotics through either Kennedy or LaGuardia Airport in the next week or two: They’d listen-the last tip from this informant had netted them fifteen kilos of high-grade cocaine on the way in from Peru.
I checked my watch-just enough time to hit Times Square, make the last phone call of the night, and watch the Blood Shadows at work. I found a booth near Ninth Avenue and Forty-second Street, just around the corner from the national headquarters of SAVE (Sisterhood Against Vice and Enslavement).
I told the young lady answering the phone that a very bad thing would happen to each and every member of that organization if they didn’t shut their mouths about all this kiddie-porn nonsense. The young woman gave the phone to their executive director, and I ended up threatening her with hideous mutilation if she didn’t get off my motherfucking case. When she calmly asked, “Who is calling, please?” I told her, “The Cobra, you fuckin’ cunt,” and slammed down the phone.
Still holding down the hook, I unscrewed the mouthpiece and removed the encoder disc the Mole had made for me. It didn’t so much disguise my voice as make it impossible to voice-print. I had a few of the discs, but there was no harm in using the same one for the SAVE people as I used for the DEA-no reason why a drug informant couldn’t be a child molester too.
