Premba drove the Fiat motor car along the Rock Hall main road before making the appropriate right turn and heading up into Coopers Hill. There were two other men in the car, Ardez and an African-American, Karl Rattigan. They went through a maze of roads, finally ending up on one called Reef Close. Premba stopped the car in front of a big iron gate, which guarded a huge mansion. Two Doberman dogs moved silently towards the gate. The occupants of the car had their windows down as they enjoyed the cool mountain air.
Caslyn came to the gate as the men came out of the car. She led the dogs to their kennel and locked it before returning to the visitors.
“What’s happening, Cas? It’s a long time since I’ve seen you,” Premba greeted her.
The other two men greeted her too. They made their usual half-joking comments and offers to party with her while she opened the gate and led them to the porch.
“Let me call the boss.”
She left them on the porch and went into the house.
***
At that moment Gus McCreed was seated in a lounge chair near his swimming pool. A girl barely out of her teens, was lying across his knees and he was tickling her ribs. When the telephone rang, she picked it up and handed it to him. He listened for a few seconds before hanging up. He pushed her off his knees and stood up.
“I have business to do, you go up to the house and lay down until I come up.”
The girl disappeared up the steps.
The three men came down to the swimming pool.
“Hey, Gus, how’s the man?” Rattigan asked.
Gus smiled.
“All of you come and sit down.”
He pointed to the other chairs beside the pool.
“Let me get some drinks for you.”
“I want a beer, I’m really thirsty,” Ardez stated.
“One for me too, ” Premba put in.
“I’ll just drink a coke,” Rattigan requested.
“Hey Cas, come down here.”
Gus looked up as the girl came down to the pool.
“Yes, sir, you called me?”
“Bring some beers, soft drinks, glasses and a bucket of ice.”
“Yes, sir.”
She hurried up to the house.
“Cas seems to be getting fatter.”
Rattigan pointed to her retreating figure.
“You want to try her?” Gus asked.
“Another time.”
“If you keep fooling around these women, Rattigan, you’re going to be a nervous wreck by the time you return to the States,” Ardez warned.
“Show me the one I can’t manage, Ardez.”
“Rattigan, I saw you checking some real sexy girls. You’re going to need lots of strength to manage those girls. If you eat the local food, you’ll be all right, but as you’re not used to the taste you might have to try some seafood,” Premba put in.
“Those real sexy girls will drain you of your strength,” Gus warned.
“It’s the same thing I’ve told him, but he doesn’t believe me, says I’m talking foolishness,” Ardez said. “You can buy some okra too. Let your woman steam it down for you or if she doesn’t know how to do it, you can beg one of those girls.”
Caslyn came with the drinks. She put the tray down on a table and the men took their drinks. Rattigan winked at her, but she gave him a blank stare and made her way back upstairs.
“Gus, we did a little raid last night, nothing big. It’s just to keep the boys active,” Ardez told him.
While he didn’t approve of these off the cuff raids, Mc Creed couldn’t fault Ardez.
“Did everything go as planned? I don’t want any unplanned killings or any unlawful acts.”
All three of his visitors assured him that nothing like that happened.
“Did Butler give trouble again? Why don’t you shoot him one of these days, Premba, or stab him up? If you aren’t careful he will spoil one of these raids for you guys.”
“I had to keep him out of the people’s house this time. He can work, but when he sees liquor and women he goes crazy and most of the times I have to draw my gun on him.”
“He wants a bullet, that’s what he’s working for.”
“Let him go on, he’s going to feel my nine millimeter
one of these days.”
“The new man, Bendoo, acted all right? Who brought him in?”
“Niah told us about him. Said that he used to fire guns for that big politician, Colbert Nevers,’’ Ardez told him.
“Oh, Nevers, he used to work for that dirty fucker.”
Mc Creed remembered how he had helped the man
win his seat, hoping to get some contracts for him to supply various government projects with hardware supplies but it never happened. As a matter of fact he only got two contracts hardly enough to make up for his contribution to the man’s campaign.
“Bendoo’s all right, he’s tough, a good man for us to have,” Premba assured them.
“You’re right, we don’t want any idiots with us, it’s pure bad men we’re dealing with.”
“How do you think the police will react when they find out that it was us?” Rattigan asked.
“K is handling that, he’s going to send me information on what they plan to do.”
K was a highly placed police official, who was in a position to supply the gang with the information they needed. It was he who had informed them about the two impending raids on their hideout.
Mc Creed knew the importance of keeping well paid informants in strategic positions. None of them, except K knew him personally. They were paid out of an account, which he kept for such purposes.
“K should have something interesting to tell us, this being our first raid in a long time,” Rattigan declared.
“He’d better have, that’s what we’re paying him to do.”
“What’s the next move, Gus? See one hundred dollars of the money we took from an American woman we saw up at Simmond’s house,” Ardez said, handing him the money.
“Shame on you, Ardez, take it and buy some drinks for yourself and those guys.”
Rattigan laughed.
Karl Rattigan was an athletic looking man. His father was an African-American while his mother was from the Dominican Republic. A Vietnam veteran, on his return from the war he had done short stints with both the F.B.I and the C.I.A before coming to work for Paolo Colombo, who owned several gambling dens in Miami. He also controlled a huge portion of the city’s drug trafficking.
Rattigan specialized in setting up drug trafficking rings.
When Colombo had been thinking of spreading his tentacles overseas, he had been sent to do the job. So far he had succeeded in setting up drug trafficking rings in several countries. Countless numbers of highly placed government officials had been bribed to turn a blind eye to the Colombo operations.
Jamaica had a lot of drug syndicates, so Colombo wanted to ensure he chose the right one. Some of these syndicates had gunmen just as dangerous as the Columbians or the Mafia. The country produced the best marijuana. It was also strategically placed to be used as a transhipment port for getting hard drugs from South America to the United States.
This was where Junior ‘Ardez’ Marriot had proved useful. Originally a waiter, he had migrated to the United States to join his mother and sister. His first job was as a waiter in a restaurant owned by Colombo.
One night he had wounded an African-American in a fight outside the restaurant. Colombo had been impressed. His Jamaican roots and Puerto Rican features were a distinct advantage. Colombo had easily gotten him off the rap and made him throw a gun for him. When things had gotten too hot for him, he had fled to Jamaica aboard a marijuana plane with twenty-five grand hidden in a secret compartment of his suitcase.
He rented a room in Kingston and banked the loot in several different banks so as not to arouse suspicions. He wanted to buy a minibus and had discussed the matter with several of his friends.
He was still debating the idea when one evening he came home to find his front door half-open. He entered cautiously to find two men sitting in his sofas, smoking marijuana, both had guns pointing at him. His hands had dropped instinctively to his pocket for his own gun. One of the men laughed and reached into his pocket for the gun that Ardez had left in the bottom drawer of his dresser.
“Are you looking for your gun, Ardez?” the man asked. “See it here, we found it in your dresser.”
“How come you just broke into my house like that and ransack the place? What do you want with me? Are you policemen?”
The man, who had his gun, stood up and stretched.
“We’ve been looking for you for a long time, Ardez. Mister Colombo says he wants you to return his money.”
“Wants me to return what? I have no money for him. Look how many millions he has. Why is he bothering me about this little money?”
“He has some business out here he wants you to handle for him. He wants you to come up and see him,” the taller gunman told him.
“Me to go back to the States, you’re mad.”
“Are you disrespecting our boss, Ardez?” the shorter gunman asked. The other man was drawing hard on his marijuana cigarette, but the muzzle of the gun he was holding never wavered from Ardez’s heart.
“What are you going to do, shoot me?”
“Easy, Ardez, the boss is dealing with some big money and you stand to get some of it,” the taller gunman said, trying to calm him down. The two men had talked to him about Paolo’s proposal. After much persuasion and assurances that he wouldn’t be harmed, he had agreed to go up and see Colombo.
The drug baron had given him details of what he wanted to be done. Returning to Jamaica he had contacted Gus McCreed. After much persuasion, the man had accompanied him back to Miami. Colombo wanted all the marijuana he could get plus he wanted to use the island as a transhipment port for hard drugs from South America to the United States. He had agreed to supply Mc Creed with weapons and training for his fighters in order to protect the syndicate. That was where Rattigan with his Vietnam experience had come in.
He also wanted to contact some people on the island, with whom his father previously had dealings. Many of them were former drug smugglers, who were now operating legitimate business concerns. He wanted McCreed’s men to contact these people for him as with their legitimate fronts, they could easily handle the drug smuggling business for him.
“We contact all of these people tomorrow and let them know that we want them to help us.”
“Suppose they refuse?” Premba asked.
Mc Creed looked at him.
“Any one of them who refuses, we’re going to deal with them.”
Premba took out a cigarette and lit it. He inhaled deeply.
“Let’s go up to the house,” Mc Creed said.
The house had two stories and contained twelve rooms and a huge patio which extended down to the swimming pool area. It had out-rooms for the helper and gardener. It was one of those modern designed houses. McCreed had personally overseen its construction. It had cost him a tidy sum, but it was well worth it.
He could entertain guests without feeling cramped for space.
From the balcony of his mansion, he had a panoramic view of Kingston.
The four men sat in the living room. A very expensive looking burgundy rug covered the floor. A big television set sat in the middle of the room.
“You got a palace here, Gus,” Rattigan remarked.
“It took me years to build,” Mc Creed replied. He got up and disappeared into the kitchen. Presently he returned with a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Scotch Whiskey, a bucket of ice and some glasses.
Over the whiskey, Rattigan asked.
“Where’s Cas, Gus?”
“She’s sleeping. It looks like you want her man to cut you up.”
“I could have a knife in him before he blinks, Gus.”
Mc Creed burst out laughing.
Ardez was more interested in Friday’s operations.
“I would like to see these people’s files,” he requested of Mc Creed.
“Okay,” Mc Creed replied. He left and went into another room, returning with the documents.
“These are the reports on the people you’ll be visiting on Friday.”
He passed the files around to the men and they read in silence.
“Boss, these people are so powerful that it seems hard to believe they’ll take those kinds of risks to help us,” Premba opined.
“We have something on all of them. The majority of them are crooks and we can destroy them if we want.”
“Let’s see how they react to our demands,” Rattigan remarked.
“Fred and I have drawn up the plans for Friday. I want you all to read them carefully before briefing the men,” Gus told them before handing Ardez a thick brown file.
Ardez took the file from him. Gus looked at his watch.
“It’s seven o’clock,” he said. “Let’s call it a day. K should have contacted me by now, wonder what’s preventing him? Anyway, I’ll contact you if I hear anything new from him.”
Ardez stood up with the file. His two companions stood up too.
“I’ll be seeing you, Gus,” he said as they marched out of the room.
Mc Creed received K’s report at eight o’clock that evening. He dismissed the report as containing nothing of strategic importance. Nevertheless, he was worried. He wondered if they had made an error in raiding a man like Joe Simmonds house. The man was a multi-millionaire owning several companies. In the future, he would warn Ardez against any such ventures and against such high profile targets. He didn’t anticipate another attack on Wareika. The security forces would have learned their lesson and would therefore resort to other methods to destroy Wareika. He had urged K to find out what those plans were.