Another technical had parked up a hundred metres beyond them. The Toyota’s headlamps were aimed at a nearby Skyvan. Winner of the Ugliest Plane in the World Award for the last thirty years running, it was basically a train carriage with a tail ramp to freefall out of, a wing and an engine slapped on each side. The twin props had chugged about all over the world since the 1980s, and this must have been one of the originals; the H tail rudders were held together with gaffer tape.
Awaale pointed at the wagon by the Cargomaster. ‘Erasto. He’s here for the money. I do not want to disappoint him, Mr Nick.’
‘Nor do I, mate. Nor do I. But what about Erasto? Will he disappoint me?’
He looked at me from the other side of the flatbed. The 12.7’s barrel cut a line between us. Finally he put his hands up and shrugged. ‘I’m not in his head.’
I pushed the cold steel barrel skywards to clear the obstruction between us and leant across the back of the cab. I wanted Awaale to hear every word of what I was about to say. ‘The other two white guys, the boy and the woman, they’re important. They’re important to someone who can come up with that sort of cash straight away. If this all goes wrong, he’s told me that he will declare war on you, on you all. Now that’s going to fuck up your future, big-time. And you’ve got enough on your plate already. Lucky Justice is not a big fan, and now you’ve got AS on your arse as well. We’ve got to make this run very smoothly, mate. For both our sakes.’
Fuck it. Things had moved on too far to hide the fact there was a lot of cash flying about, and managing Erasto’s expectations had gone completely out of the window. But solving one problem will always present you with another.
‘Mr Nick — there’ll be no problems from me. Trust me.’
‘You’ve got family in the US, right? You’ve got to be careful, mate, because my man can get to them. But all he wants is his family back. He gets what he wants, and you get what you want, and everybody’s happy. Yeah?’
Awaale nodded. ‘I understand, Mr Nick. But you don’t need to tell me these things. You’re my friend.’
‘You’re my friend as well, mate. But let’s not fuck up now that we’re so close to the finish, OK?’
Awaale smiled and leant back. The wind ruffled his hair. I still only trusted him as far as I could throw him. It wasn’t as if we were old schoolmates. We slowed. We were almost at the terminal.
Awaale leant back towards me, hand up at the side of his mouth like we were co-conspirators. ‘Mr Nick, my money … I will need it to pay for loyalty from my crew when I take over the clan.’
‘One thing at a time, mate. Let’s get in the air before you go and conquer Mogadishu.’
He smiled, and thought for a bit. ‘I’ll give it some time. I’ll let Erasto kill those two guys, of course. I’ll give him that satisfaction.’
13
The second technical faced the Cargomaster head on, its 12.7 aimed at the airframe. We pulled up alongside it. The third one drove across from the Skyvan. Bob Marley sang louder and louder the closer it rolled. Its headlights cast shadows around the Cargomaster; with no windows in the hold area, all I could see was Joe sitting in the left seat. I tried to signal that everything was OK. His head turned behind the Perspex. I couldn’t be sure he’d noticed.
The Bob Marley fan jumped out of the driver’s seat with a wad of US dollars. He passed it through the cigarette smoke billowing from the rear window of the other double cab.
‘Come, Mr Nick, come. We’ll go and talk with Erasto.’
We followed the same route as the dollars. Erasto was settled in the centre of the bench seat, his arms up along the rear.
Awaale waffled away and Erasto nodded slowly. But he wasn’t happy. He pointed his cigarette at the Cessna and gobbed off.
Awaale turned back to me. ‘Erasto says that the men in the plane, they will not let him count the money. They say they will burn it if we attack or try to come aboard. The money was in— Wait a minute, please, Mr Nick.’ He asked the boss to clarify something before turning back to me. ‘They told him the money was in “De-Arab” bags?’
‘Deniable bags, mate. They’ll torch everything in them. It’s to stop cash and valuable documents being stolen.’
Awaale looked offended. ‘Erasto wants you to talk to them. Tell them that the money must be counted before he’ll let anyone else come ashore. As soon as he has the money, Mr Nick, no problems — in they come.’
For all I knew, Erasto might have set out with other ideas. As he drove to the airport, he might have been thinking of ways to have his cake and eat it.
I nodded, turned, and headed for the Cessna as Bob sang about being a buffalo soldier. The guy draped around the 12.7 in the back of Erasto’s wagon joined in with the chorus.
Joe leant over and opened the cockpit door. He had his AK on his lap.
I climbed up. In the dim lights, I saw Mr Lover Man — on his mobile — and Genghis in the hold. They were dressed for war in green fatigues and Kevlar body armour. Mr Lover Man had a black set, Genghis a green one. They’d inserted both front and back plates. They clutched M4 assault rifles with telescopic butts, firing handles on the stocks, and the shorter eleven-inch barrel for close-quarter work. No eastern shit for Frank’s lads, only state-of-the-art USA. Most telling of all, the magazine pouches on their armour sets were well worn. They’d done this shit before. They looked like they’d been born into it.
At their feet were two black nylon holdalls. Thick steel wires protruded from them, with ring-pulls at the end. Mr Lover Man and his mate had also come prepared. There were six-packs of two-litre water bottles; a Bergen-sized medical kit; big plastic zip bags holding spare saline drips and field dressings. Other bags held mountains of chapattis and bananas. There was milk in plastic one-litre containers.
Joe was his normal politically correct self. ‘Fucking flip-flops, man. I told you, don’t fucking trust them. They would have had the money — and us — if it wasn’t for these two in the back. They were going to take the fuckers on. All you people are mad, man. You’re fucking mad.’
It looked as if Erasto had had other plans, and these two lads had fucked them up.
Mr Lover Man came forward to study the technicals through the Perspex. He waffled in Russian on his mobile.
Joe eyed me. ‘You look shite, man. Where are your shoes? Did the flip-flops fucking steal them as well? Where’s the other three? We were told you’d got them. Where are they? I want to get out of here, man. It’s a fucking nightmare.’
‘They’re on their way, mate.’ I got eye-to-eye with Mr Lover Man in the dimmed cockpit lights. ‘Tell Frank they want to count the cash before they let Tracy, Stefan and Justin come ashore. Tell him it’s under control. Once you’ve done that, get off the mobile — we’ve got work to do.’
I glanced back into the hold. ‘You speak English?’ Genghis shook his head and slowly stretched out his legs. This lad was so laid back he literally was almost horizontal.
Mr Lover Man closed down and gave me a nod. ‘We’re ready. I don’t trust that old man.’
‘Nor do I, mate. I’m going to bring one of them over. We get him to count the cash, then we hold tight until everyone is delivered. They hold us tight, we hold the money tight. Those bags in the back, they really have deniable devices installed?’
Mr Lover Man waffled to Genghis. He unzipped the bags to reveal the shrink-wrapped bundles of hundred-dollar bills. Two black plastic containers, about twenty centimetres square, sat on top of them. Thick steel wire protruded from the corner of each. There were two in each bag, in case one didn’t kick off.