Exit wound

‘Kinda when Saddam got captured and interrogated.’ He slapped my back with a smile. ‘But that’s history now. Today we start making the future the way we want it to be.’

‘So how does that happen? Where does the gold go? You got the plane – that means there’s others involved. Why don’t we know about them?’

Once we lifted the gold we were taking it to an airstrip equidistant between Dubai and Abu Dhabi, used by both cities’ VIPs. Aircraft could come and go without their famous or infamous passengers getting noticed, which wouldn’t have been the case at the two cities’ main airports.

There were others involved, of course, and he wouldn’t tell Red Ken and Dex about them. It worried me that they didn’t seem to care.

Spag looked at me through his gigs; no expression and no answers.

‘Who’s buying the gold?’

He displayed a set of nicotine-stained teeth. ‘Know what? Red said you weren’t that happy about the deal. But you’re asking a lot of questions you don’t need to know the answers to. That kinda gives me the shakes, Nick.’

‘I like to know what I’m getting involved with, that’s all.’

‘If you need to know anything, go ask Red.’ He nodded over towards the tee. ‘It’s waiting.’

17

Dex laughed at me as I sort of lined up my shot. The only time I’d hit a golf ball before, it had involved getting it through a windmill and into a clown’s mouth. It flew way off to the left into a patch of wasteground. It made even Red Ken’s look good.

Dex was loving it. ‘Maybe your handicap should be thirty balls, not thirty strokes.’

Spag put his club into his bag and manoeuvred his fat frame into the buggy. ‘Fuck it, who cares? It gets us moving and out of earshot. I’ve got plenty of balls, we’ll just throw one out for him.’

We rattled over the immaculate lawns towards their balls. In the middle distance, yachts sailed past on their way down the Creek. Shiny steel-and-glass monoliths lined the drags like rows of giant dominoes.

Red Ken’s had landed on a decent bit of grass. We parked in the shade of a clump of palm trees and he shaped up to it.

Spag was straight down to business. ‘Red, you got anything new to tell me?’

‘No. Today is about getting Nick up to speed. Same as we would have with Tenny. We then keep our cover going tomorrow morning. Prep in the afternoon, and lift tomorrow night. Make the RV and then back for one more round before flying back to UK.’

Spag pointed a porky finger. ‘Enough with the bullet points – I need to know the plan, in detail.’

Red Ken selected another club. ‘All you’ve got to know is that we’ll be at the RV and we’ll have the doors.’

The plane would be at the airstrip at 0130 hours Friday morning, and would stay on the ground for thirty minutes. Spag said air-traffic control had it logged in as a normal private flight, carrying out a drop-off.

I put my hand up. ‘I have a question.’

Dex was out of his buggy and peering up the fairway like an explorer, throwing up bits of grass in the non-existent wind.

Red Ken and Spag said it together: ‘What?’

‘How do I get my money?’

Dex turned back, swinging a club from the bottom end. ‘It’s all sorted, chappie. Spag has given us all half a bar USD as a down-payment. Tenny wasn’t too keen on having his share in advance, while he was still serving our noble Queen.’

Red Ken motioned him on. ‘Oi, shit for brains. Get on with it.’

Dex enjoyed insults, but only from friends. ‘So I’ve been holding his money, and that’s yours now, of course.’

‘Sounds good – but how and when do we get the rest?’

‘Everything’s organized.’ Dex went to high-five Spag as he sat in his buggy but got nothing in return. ‘This chap is going to transfer the cash into an EBT – employees’ beneficial trust – within three days. It’s the same vehicle those naughty bankers use to move their multi-million-dollar bonuses out of harm’s way. Everything’s good, everything’s legal. And that’s why we love you, isn’t it?’

Red Ken had taken his second shot and it wasn’t much better than his first. He hurled the club back into his bag. ‘Dex is right. It’s all legit, son. You’ll have no funny money to deal with. If you take it into the UK, they’re going to want to tax you – that’s how legal it is. How do you think I got my Merc? The system works.’

‘But where’s that money come from? Like the sirloin here just said, he’s a facilitator. He makes things happen. So who’s the Kobe beef – you know, the banker – coughing up a shed-load of cash just for us to be on the job? Haven’t you bothered to ask? Lads, what the fuck’s going on?’

Dex put his arm round Spag. ‘Our chubby little friend won’t tell us, and I, for one, do not care who our banker is. But this chap here, he knows that if our money isn’t in the EBTs within three days bad things will happen. Don’t you, old chap?’

Red Ken had recovered from his disappointment. ‘He knows we’ll find him.’

I was sure they would, but that didn’t help me know what I wanted to know.