Vincent drove into the service station on the outskirts of the Europoort where Nish was already waiting with a pair of vans, a small eight-man tactical team, and an articulated car transporter loaded with a variety of S.U.V’s and luxury German cars. Vincent and his colleague got out of their car and walked over. ‘You’re late,’ Nish said gruffly looking at his watch sharply to make a point. ‘Bloody Gallic timekeeping.’
‘So what is the plan?’ Vincent asked, nodding at the transporter.
‘Radic knows me so I need you to ride with my driver. We’ve set up a meet. You’re posing as a Marseille car ringer. Radic’s boat is scheduled out at one a.m. You need to keep him talking and distracted for ten minutes so the boys can get into position. If he knows he’s cornered then he’ll try and make a break for it. Have your man wait here.’ Nish wrote down an address on a piece of paper and handed it to Vincent. ‘When we’ve got Radic we’ll drop you off and then you get him back to France sharpish.’
‘What about his men?’
‘We’ll deal with them. Any other questions? No. Good. Let’s go. We need to make up time.’ Nish whistled his men to mount up. They grabbed carbines from the back of one of their vans and climbed onto the trailer, got into the cars loaded on the back, and hid out of view.
‘I have a bad feeling about this,’ Vincent’s colleague said.
‘We’re setting up a known Serbian war criminal with a heavily armed gang, what could possibly go wrong...’ Vincent said with a trace of veiled sarcasm. ‘They seem to know what they are doing.’
‘I hope so, for your sake. Bon chance.’
Vincent got into the cab of the H.G.V with Nish’s driver. The H.G.V pulled out of the services and headed towards the entrance to the Europoort.
It was obvious to Vincent as soon as they pulled up short in front of the black BMW’s blocking the long access road to the docks that the plan was about to go out of the window. The driver brought the H.G.V car transporter to a halt and waited. One of several from the waiting gang of men, a stocky middle-aged man with a shaven head and a tattoo of a cobra wrapped round his neck, walked over to the driver’s side. The driver lowered his window. ‘You have a problem?’
‘Get out of the truck,’ the cobra-tattoo man said sternly in broken English. The driver looked at Vincent.
Vincent nodded reluctantly. ‘Do as he says.’ The driver nodded, opened his door, got out of the truck and was gestured by another man to walk over to the cars.
The cobra tattoo man climbed up into the cab before settling into the driver’s seat. He stared at Vincent. ‘Are you going to make problem?’
‘What are you doing with my driver?’ Vincent asked.
‘You don’t need him. I am driver.’
Vincent watched as they bundled his driver into the back of a waiting BMW before it sped off in the direction they just arrived from. ‘You don’t make problem, maybe you see him again.’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe not. Radic decide everything for you now.’
The BMW’s cleared the road block and the truck continued, escorted by a BMW in front and at the rear. Shortly after they pulled into the haven and towards the loading dock in front of a large container ship. Milling around the ship, a couple of dozen of Radic’s men, all dressed in black leather jackets with barely concealed Kalashnikovs, watched on as the dock crew loaded containers onto the ship. The driver stopped the car transporter in line behind two other trucks. ‘Get out,’ he barked at Vincent.
‘What about our deal?’ Vincent asked.
‘Cars belong to Radic now. Get out.’
Reluctantly, Vincent climbed out of the cab. The driver gestured him to follow him as he walked towards a portable container office unit being guarded by several men. They walked up a set of stairs and Vincent stopped as Radic’s guards frisked him and relieved him of his pistol. Cobra tattoo man pushed him inside and closed the door behind him then shoved Vincent roughly over to the desk where a bearded man sat smoking a cigarette, barely illuminated by a small desk lamp. The bearded man gestured for Vincent to sit down in the chair, before Vincent had a chance to act cobra tattoo man shoved him roughly into the seat. Vincent stared at the bearded man. The bearded man stared back. A few moments later another man entered and handed the bearded man behind the desk a manifest. He read through it lazily and sucked air through his teeth. ‘It is a lot of shit. Do you not have any good cars in Marseille?’
‘If you don’t want them I find another buyer.’
The bearded man smiled and let out a small laugh. ‘They are no longer yours to sell.’
‘We don’t have a deal yet.’
‘And if I take them, who are you going to call, the police? I’m sure they will be very helpful in recovering your stolen cars. No, you are going to do nothing. You are going to fuck off back to your fish-stinking French shithole, that is what you are going to do.’
‘This is not good business.’
‘Pfft. You bring me shit. Why I need people who bring me shit? Even crack-heads in Berlin steal me better cars than this. Go on...’
‘What?’
‘Threaten me. Tell me how there will be consequences; I won’t get away with it. Get all angry and shit.’
‘Is there any point?’
‘You know who I am?’
‘I know something about you.’
‘Then you know there is no point, but if it make you feel better I indulge you in a brief tantrum so you feel less of a spineless coward.’
‘I brought the cars your contact requested. If there is a problem with the consignment I suggest you take it up with him, if you had asked for other cars, I would have brought other cars.’
‘You have no good cars in Marseilles.’
‘You think we steal cars only in Marseilles?’
‘Okay. You can indulge me.’ The bearded man took a pad of paper and a pencil; he pushed it across to Vincent. ‘You give me a list of what you can get and maybe if something is interesting...’
Vincent took the pencil and wrote down a list of cars, then pushed it back to him. He glanced at it briefly and pulled a disdainful face. ‘It is a fantasy. You could not get such things.’ Vincent took the pad back and wrote down a selection of registration plate numbers, and addresses in St. Tropez and Cannes. ‘You can check. I will wait.’
The bearded man’s interest seemed piqued, he tore off the list, handed it to one of his men, and clicked his fingers. The man took the list and went over to a phone on the other side of the office. A few minutes later he returned and whispered in the bearded man’s ear. He nodded as if impressed.
‘They check out. But what about security? How do I know you can get such things?’
‘I have men inside the company who does the security. But I’m going to want to be paid half up front. It seems you are not a man to honour a deal, so if you want these things you will have to show some good faith.’
‘Good faith...fuck. I can just take these things myself. Why pay you?’
‘If you could get them you would already have them, and you wouldn’t be wasting your time selling these German shit boxes to Africans.’
‘And if you could take them you wouldn’t be here selling me these shit boxes. So what the fuck eh?’
‘Then if we have no deal, we’re wasting each other’s time.’ Vincent got up to leave. The cobra tattoo man shoved Vincent back down into his seat.
‘Don’t be so hasty. We just started talking about it, we have a bit of foreplay before we start fucking the ass.’ He stared at Vincent, trying to get his measure of him. ‘I don’t know you. You want do business on this kind of money we need talk more. You know me. I’m Radic. You know what I am, but you, who the fuck are you? Frenchman from Marseilles. Nobody knows you.’
‘Come to Marseilles. See if you and your squad of gorillas can get out alive. Then you know who I am.’
There was an uncomfortable silence. ‘I don’t know if I want to slit your throat or do a deal with you. I don’t like you Frenchman from Marseilles. You give me bad feeling,’ Radic said and drew a deep breath. ‘But we have to make bread. We maybe try something, if it goes good we make money, if it goes bad a lot of people get fucked up, this is how things will be. You will come.’ Radic got up and headed for the door, the cobra tattoo man pushed at Vincent to get up and follow him. They headed downstairs and walked over to the waiting transporter full of cars. Radic walked up and down looking at them. ‘Shit. Shit. Meh. Shit. Okay. What the fuck. I tell you what Radic will do. I take this shit from you, Radic don’t want this shit but Radic take this shit as your goodwill, then you bring me your list. If you don’t bring me this list you and me gonna have a problem. I take this shit as favour so you owe me. Da?’ Radic clicked his fingers. One of his men handed him a black sports holdall, Radic unzipped the bag and showed the contents to Vincent. It was full of bundles of Euros. ‘Okay? Good price for shit. There is your goodwill.’ Radic zipped the bag up and tossed it to Vincent. ‘Now when you will bring Radic the good shit.’
‘Give me a time and location for the drop off, any time after seven days from now.’
‘Seven days...maybe it is too soon. I need to organise boat and customers. You wait while we do this thing then we look at schedule and make some idea.’ Radic clicked his fingers at his men. ‘Load this shit on the boat. Come on. Quick.’ Radic’s men sprung into action, headed over to the transporter and set to work putting down the ramps before getting into the cars, reversing them off the trailer and driving them over ready to load into the containers. They drove them in, but after a few minutes passed Radic frowned when none of them emerged. ‘What the fuck, these guys...’ He barked at his remaining men to go and investigate. ‘Stupid guys always fucking about playing with cars like children. What the fuck...’ Radic ranted. Another minute or two passed then when the men sent to investigate failed to return from the containers, Radic became suspicious. ‘What the fuck is going on here?’ A second later a high pitched crack of a silenced sniper rifle let loose from somewhere high on one of the loading cranes over the dockside, the side of the cobra tattoo man’s head shot through with a spray of blood as the round landed, before the sniper dropped his two colleagues in quick succession. Radic’s face turned white with shock as he looked for the source of the sniper before spotting the eight operators now emerging from the containers busily dropping the remaining members of his gang with suppressed carbines. ‘What the fuck...Who the fuck are you!?!’ He said to Vincent as he went for his pistol. Radic didn’t get chance to draw it before Nish had emerged from his concealed position and put him on the ground with a swift kick around his legs and a push to the centre of his back, dropping his knee onto his spine before pulling his arm round to disarm him. Nish’s men quickly folded into a perimeter as a pair of them backed two Mercedes Benz’s from out of the containers, spun them round and made their way swiftly across to where Nish had Radic detained prostate on the ground.
‘You remember me?’ Nish said grabbing Radic by the scruff of his hair and pulling his face up. ‘You killed a good friend of mine.’
Radic laughed. ‘Fuck you! And fuck your friend! Do what you have to do. You’ll never get out of Rotterdam alive.’
‘Don’t count on it, but whatever happens you’ll be the first to get slotted. Get this cunt in the car. We’re exfil’ing now to the R.P. Move it!’
Nish’s men bundled Radic into the back of a Mercedes, Vincent following and piling in the waiting car’s front passenger seat. The rest of Nish’s team folded into the cars providing cover fire to keep Radic’s remaining sentries on the boat pinned into cover before getting into the cars, the drivers lighting up the rear tyres and speeding between cover of stacked containers.
‘That was your plan?’ Vincent asked shaking his head.’
‘Aye, what was wrong with it? We got him didn’t we?’
Nish patted Vincent on the shoulder, his face plastered with a satisfied smile. He unzipped the bag full of money, pulled out a bundle of notes, checked it then shook his head and slapped Radic across the face with it. ‘Paying with counterfeit notes, ya cheeky bastard ya.’
They reached the rendezvous point twenty-five minutes later. Nish put a black bag over Radic’s head and restrained him whilst Vincent’s colleague put a proper pair of handcuffs on him. ‘Right, four of my boys will make sure you get this piece of shit back to France and locked up where he needs to be. Don’t fucking stop unless you have to. After chasing him this long, if you lose him then I’ll nae be sending you a Christmas card this year.’
‘We’ll take care of him. And our deal?’
‘I’ll be on the next plane to Baku. Nice working with you. See you in hell Radic. Watch out in the showers. Some friends will be waiting for you.’
‘Get fucked you Scottish! Son of a pig whore!’ Radic responded. ‘You’re all dead men. I know who you are! I’ll be out in a week!’
‘I’ll be waiting for you...’ Nish said as he walked back and got in his car. Vincent and his colleague bundled Radic into the back of Vincent’s car and set off with Nish’s team in escort convoy.
‘So how are we going to explain this?’ Vincent’s colleague asked. ‘How we captured this guy. We don’t even have jurisdiction in Holland.’
‘We didn’t capture him in Holland.’
‘We didn’t?’
‘We were never in Holland.’
‘We weren’t?’
‘You have a lot to learn about this business...’
Vincent’s colleague shook his head. ‘After the past couple of days, I’m not sure I want to...’