Mr Nice_ An Autobiography Part 30

I got back to Palma to find that Roger Reaves had been leaving a series of frantic messages for me. We met in a cafe at Santa Ponsa, a small coastal resort midway between La Vileta and Roger's home in Andraitx.

'Howard, boy, that pa.s.sport you got me was a dud.'

'What do you mean, a dud? That pa.s.sport came straight from the Pa.s.sport Office.'

'Well, wherever the son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h came from, it's a dud. Last week I flew into Amsterdam. The Dutch Immigration took one look at the pa.s.sport and asked me to come into a room for questioning. It's gotta be a dud.'

'But Roger, there could be any number of other explanations. You could have picked up some heat moving around.'

'h.e.l.l, boy, all I've been doing is buying me a boat or two. That don't pick up no heat.'

'Well, it could, Roger. What did the Dutch cops ask you?'

'I didn't stay to find out. No siree. I just prayed to the Good Lord and ran my a.s.s off.'

'What! Did they chase you?'

'Did they chase me! Boy, did they chase me! I had to run across a runway and jump over two real high barbed-wire fences on the airport perimeter. I was cut to shreds. I mean, maybe it ain't the pa.s.sport, but can you guarantee me it's clean?'

'I can't guarantee it, Roger, no.'

'Okay. Get me another one.'

A few hours later, Roger rang me at home.

'Howard, you're either as hot as the Devil's h.e.l.l, or you're a cop.'

'What?'

'As soon as you drove off from that cafe in Santa Ponsa, four plainclothes got out of a car and tried to arrest me. They gave me some bulls.h.i.+t about my car and having to see my doc.u.ments. I pushed them away and escaped through a bakery. If it wasn't for the Lord's help, I'd be in the can. They're on to you, boy.'

'Then why haven't they arrested me, Roger?'

'To tell you the truth, Howard, that's exactly what I was wondering. I probably won't be in touch for a while.'

'Roger, you don't really think I'm a cop, do you?'

'No, I don't. d.a.m.ned right I don't. But I feel danger. I feel danger real strong.'

Tom Sunde rang the same day. He wanted more protection money. I told him I was still straight, and therefore skint. I also told him that I thought if I was going to be arrested by the DEA, I would have been by now. He said that a Grand Jury, whatever that might be, was in the process of indicting me. If I paid him $250,000, he would give me all the transcripts. I didn't believe him. He said he would continue whenever he was able, on a purely friends.h.i.+p basis, to let me know if I was in danger of imminent arrest.

The next afternoon, Marie, Roger's wife, came to our house. Shortly after Roger's last conversation with me, he and Marie had gone to pick up their son from his school at the edge of Palma. Several armed police surrounded Roger's car and arrested him. After spending the night in Palma police station, he was taken to the Palacio de Justicia to see the Magistrado, whose rooms were on the second floor. Wearing handcuffs, Roger jumped over the Magistrado's desk, out of the window, and onto the roof of a parked car, severely denting it. He ran down the main street pursued by a horde of policemen. They apprehended him. He was now in Palma prison. His extradition had been sought, not by the Americans but by the Germans.

I had to question Marie for a long time before anything made sense. It appeared that McCann had supplied Roger with a pile of Moroccan. Roger had hired a German cargo boat and German crew to take the hash to England. The German crew were busted when the boat later landed, empty of cargo, at a German port. Very quickly, they told the authorities everything they knew, which included details of Roger. German law prohibits anyone from using a German boat to transport dope anywhere. Roger was indicted in Lubeck, West Germany. Roger thought the Germans would also indict me.

I took the next flight out of Palma. It was clearly no place to be. With me was a travelling bag full of papers and doc.u.ments relating to immigrating Taiwanese to Palma, information-technology seminars, and setting up factories in South Wales. Once in Taipei I checked into the Fortuna Hotel. Although I had my William Tetley false pa.s.sport with me (hidden in the cover of a hardback book), I used my real one. I was not hiding. I did not regard myself as being on the run. I felt safe in Taiwan. There wasn't even an American Emba.s.sy there.

While I had been in Europe, Roy Richards had been back to New Zealand for a few weeks. He had talked about me to various of his friends in Wellington. One of them had read David Leigh's High Time High Time. Roy had brought the book with him. He wanted me to sign it.

With Roy's help, I obtained China Metal's tentative agreement to open a factory in South Wales and a long list of Taiwanese millionaires wis.h.i.+ng to live and invest in Mallorca. A number of industrial managers expressed interest in attending seminars in Oxford. To keep things alive with Malik, I also made arrangements to purchase some empty toothpaste tubes. Everything was working wonderfully well.

Gerry Wills found out my hotel phone number in Taiwan from Balendo. I hadn't spoken to Gerry for almost a year. He said that he had a lawyer with connections in the DEA. This lawyer had told him that a Grand Jury indictment had been returned against him, me, and others in Miami. I was apparently the ringleader. The Americans were about to request my extradition.

It was night-time. I went for a stroll around the campus of the University of Taiwan. Should I go on the run again and use my Tetley pa.s.sport? Could I possibly survive seeing my wife, parents, and children only in hurried and clandestine meetings? Should I stay in Taiwan? It was, after all, one of the very few countries in the world without an extradition treaty with the United States, and I seemed to survive quite well in the place. My family could at least visit me for extended periods.

I went into Nesty's bar and had a drink with him. The place was unusually empty.

'Where's Maria?' I asked, noticing the absence of Nesty's wife.

'Oh, she's gone to the Dog Temple with her uncle.'

'What the h.e.l.l is a dog temple?'

'There's only one Dog Temple, Howard. It's on the beach near Tanshui, about one or two hours' drive away. Thirty years ago, a fishermen's sampan was wrecked in a storm, causing the deaths of all thirty-three people aboard. They were all buried in the same grave. One of the fishermen's dogs jumped in the grave and would not come out. It was buried too. The dog has now become a G.o.d of loyalty and lies in a temple built on the beach. Loyalty is very important to a criminal. All criminals now wors.h.i.+p there for solutions to their problems.'

I asked Nesty for the directions to the Dog Temple and took a cab there. It arrived in the early hours of the morning. The temple had a car park. Vehicles of every conceivable description, from scooters to Mercedes, ploughed in and out. A thousand beggars, gangsters, and hookers milled between the car park and the temple. Inside the temple was an eight-foot statue carved out of black rock. People were on their knees praying to the dog. Others were plastering it with small rations of gold leaf. I made a simple prayer: 'Let me be with my wife and children.' Just thinking of my children made me cry. Myfanwy was coming to spend the summer with us. It was so rare for me to be with all four of my children. In a few days it would be my wedding anniversary. I wanted to be with the woman I loved.

Michael Katz flew from Los Angeles to see me in Taipei. He had a stack of papers on extradition and a file of doc.u.ments relating to Ernie Combs, which confirmed that there had been telephone taps on my home in Spain. In Katz's opinion, there was no indictment against me; my extradition had not been asked for. Without questioning I took Katz's words as an answer to my prayer to the dog. It was safe for me to go back to Palma, and that's where I should be.

After finalising as much as I could, I flew from Taipei to Vienna and Zurich. At the PTT at Zurich airport, I called Tom Sunde. He advised me not to stay in Palma more than forty-eight hours. I telephoned Rafael, and he met me at Palma airport. We bypa.s.sed Immigration and Customs. He drove me home. I showered my children with Taiwanese presents before taking Judy out for a Friday night wedding-anniversary dinner at Tristan's in Puerto Portals, followed by some drinks with Geoffrey Kenion at Wellies. The weekend was spent in the bosom of my adorable family.

Thirteen.

DENNIS HOOWARD MARKS.

Amber cried from the back seat, 'Daddy, Daddy, don't drive fast. Please, Daddy, don't drive so fast. I'm scared.'

It was almost 1 a.m. on Monday morning, and the five of us were returning from extended eating and drinking sessions at the Taj Mahal and Taffy's Bar in Magaluf. I wasn't driving fast. Amber usually enjoyed the sensation of speed, so I was doubly puzzled by her words of caution. I looked back and saw terror in her lovely blue eyes. What was frightening her? What did her subconscious know that I didn't? Was she foreseeing some disaster that only a child's mind, cluttered with neither prejudice nor preconception, could apprehend? I slowed right down and changed the compact disc from Simply Red to Modern Talking. No other sounds were made during the remainder of the fifteen-minute journey home. The children went quietly to bed. Amber still looked terrified.

I was almost out of hash. Judy's sister Masha and her boyfriend, Nigel, had been staying with us for a few days. They had gone out to buy some hash in Plaza Gomila, but had not yet returned. A small bedtime joint would have to suffice. Judy and I made gentle love and slept peacefully in each other's arms.

At 8.30 a.m. the phone rang. David Embley wanted to play tennis. He said he'd come round in an hour or so. I got out of bed. Francesca was already up, so I made both of us a light breakfast. I checked my dope box. It was no longer empty. Well done, Masha. She'd left a note. She and Nigel had just gone to the Club de Mar to look for work on the boats anch.o.r.ed there.

The phone rang again. It was McCann.

'Get my f.u.c.king dope and get my f.u.c.king money. My wife and kids have been threatened. It's heavy, man, and it's your f.u.c.king fault bringing the heat on everybody.'

'It's not my fault you and Roger carried on without me and it's not my fault Roger's in the nick,' I protested.

'Well, find out from him where everything is. Send someone to Palma nick. It's on your f.u.c.king doorstep. You a.r.s.ehole!'

Coincidentally, or perhaps not, Roger's wife, Marie, was the next to ring. She wanted to come round. She had just seen Roger and had some important news.

As soon as I'd finished talking to Marie, the phone rang again. A long-distance call by the sound of the hiss. No one spoke, and the line went dead. It rang again. This time it was Tom Sunde. He talked about some trivial matters for a minute or so and hung up.

Tom and I had devised a code. If he began his telephone conversation with the words 'how things are', then I should infer that extreme danger was imminent. I went over his conversation in my mind. I couldn't remember how he'd started. Never mind. The authorities never busted anyone halfway through a Monday morning. They preferred Friday evenings, when no lawyers would be available for sixty hours, or dawn on any day, when the victims were suffering from hangovers and unprepared.

I decided to take a quick swim. I looked at the chain of three Thai Buddhas hanging around my neck. Sompop's words rang through my mind: 'Wear in sea but not in bath.'

What was our swimming pool? Was it a small sea or a large bath? It was outside like the sea but enclosed like a bath. I never could work it out. Sometimes I wore the Buddhas when swimming in an outside swimming pool; sometimes I didn't. On this occasion I took them off.

I emerged from the pool to the sound of the entryphone at the front gate. I rarely asked callers to identify themselves. I released the gate lock. It was Marie. She drank some coffee and talked with Francesca while I put on some shorts and a tee-s.h.i.+rt.

The entryphone buzzed again, and I let in David Embley, suitably dressed for tennis. Ten minutes later, he left. He promised he'd be back within the hour.

Yet again the entryphone buzzed. I presumed David had forgotten something and was coming back to retrieve it. Instead three overweight and casually dressed middle-aged men ambled into the courtyard and gazed at the tops of the five palm trees. The night before, Judy had mentioned something about some locals agreeing to trim and tidy up our palm trees. I guessed these were they. I began walking into the yard to greet them.

Suddenly, one of them pulled out a revolver and stuck it into my stomach. His lips were quivering, his gla.s.ses were steamed up, his hands were shaking, and his breath stank of peppermint. Twenty years in prison ran through my mind. Francesca let out a scream which I still hear every day. These guys were going to kill her daddy. Instinctively, I put up my hands and said, 'Tranquilo! Tranquilo!'

My hands were handcuffed behind my back, and I was shoved on to the kitchen sofa. Francesca, trembling violently with fear, ran to me and began kissing and hugging me. One of the intruders pulled her off. In a panic she ran upstairs to where Judy was sleeping. A few more men barged into the kitchen and tore after her as if pursuing an escaped lunatic. Marie turned to stone as one of the cops grabbed her handbag and poured its contents on to the table. One of the three fat intruders made himself at home on a kitchen stool. His eyes were s.a.d.i.s.tic, and his smile indicated he was having a quiet o.r.g.a.s.m. With his open white s.h.i.+rt and Zapata moustache he looked Spanish enough, but he had the unmistakable aura of the DEA. Was this Craig Lovato?

'Es Policia Nacional?' I asked.

'Si,' he replied, unconvincingly.

Then David Embley was escorted from outside the gate into the kitchen by two more cops. He, too, was handcuffed. His eyes refused to meet mine. The cops indicated we were leaving. I asked if I could change into more suitable clothes. They refused. I asked if I could say goodbye to my wife and children. They refused. Embley and I were both led out into waiting police cars. I looked up at the bedroom window as I went out of the gate. Maybe I would never see this house again. I heard Judy shrieking as the car door slammed. She'd be all right in a few days, I thought. She'd visit me as often as she could with the children. We still had a fair bit of money. I might be gone a couple of years, but then we'd survived similar problems in the past. And I knew they had no evidence. Spain wouldn't give me up to the Yanks, anyway. They were far too independent to align themselves with America in its phoney drug war. Here they let people smoke has.h.i.+sh in the streets. I'd have a 'lie-down' in a Spanish jail. It would be manageable. I could brush up my Spanish.

At Palma police station I was told I'd been arrested on a drugs charge.

This didn't come as a surprise. I asked for further details. None could be given now. I was given a piece of paper to fill out. Did I want anyone informed of my arrest? I put down Rafael's name. He might be upset to find out I was a convicted drug smuggler, but we'd got on well enough, and he'd be surely able to ease my plight. After all, he was a Chief Inspector of Police. Did I have a lawyer? I put down Julio Morell, Rafael's lawyer. Did I want the British Consul to be informed? Yes, I did.

With a decided lack of ceremony, Embley and I were relieved of all our personal possessions and put into separate subterranean holding cells. Mine already had two occupants: a comatose drunkard and a young Peruvian, who claimed to be a member of Sendero Luminoso. He was awaiting deportation and had been there for thirty days. It was rough, but he a.s.sured me that I'd be in the Centro Penitenciario de Palma tomorrow after the obligatory court appearance. He'd seen what had happened to prisoners over the last month. He said I'd like Palma prison: plenty of free time, lots of dope, and conjugal visits. I lay down on the concrete floor. There was no furniture, no water, no cigarettes.

I thought of what the police might find at home: the has.h.i.+sh Masha had scored, half a million pesetas, and my electronic notebook containing the telephone numbers I didn't know off by heart. There wasn't too much to worry about. Even if the British authorities had also raided our Chelsea flat, there were no dope-dealing accounts or other incriminating doc.u.ments lying around.

I wondered if there was any possibility that I had been arrested as the result of my marginal involvement in Roger and McCann's chaotic Moroccan scam. I reasoned that the Germans would have busted me the same time as they did Roger if they had thought I was involved. On the other hand, Roger might have suddenly decided to blame me for the whole thing in the hope of getting himself out of trouble. I also entertained the possibility that I had been arrested in connection with the Vancouver bust of Thai gra.s.s, but the Canadians were not known for wasting resources relentlessly pursuing cannabis offenders. It had to be the Yanks. I drifted off into a mixture of apprehension, sleep, and dream.

Suddenly, a disgusting sandwich was thrust into my hand, and I was asked by a jailer if I wanted to use the bathroom. I was taken to a filthy shower-c.u.m-s.h.i.+thouse. On the way back I stared through the barred windows of the cell doors, wondering which one was Embley's. A face came to one of the windows. This must be Embley's. I hoped he wasn't freaking out too much. The face looked tortured and pained. Tears streamed from eyes full of terrified sadness. The face turned into Judy's. It was Judy's. I wanted it to turn into another face. It wouldn't.

'Oh G.o.d! Why have they got you here, love? Where are the children?'

'They're extraditing me to America,' Judy sobbed. 'They're taking me away from my children. Stop them, Howard, please. Stop them, for G.o.d's sake.'

'Silencio! Silencio!' yelled the jailer. 'No hable!'

'Pero es mi esposa,' I pleaded.

'Mas tarde, mas tarde,' insisted the jailer as he grabbed my arm and led me back to my cell.

This was incredible. How could they possibly extradite Judy? Since my release from prison in 1982, she'd broken no law anywhere, let alone in America. She hadn't stopped nagging me to quit smuggling. No one had even asked her to break the law. What was going on? Where were the children? I lay down and tried to keep calm.

The jailer's watch showed 6 p.m. as the cell opened again. I was handcuffed and taken to an upstairs room. Judy, surrounded by four or five men and stunned by disbelief and sadness, sat crumpled in a chair.

'Look what they're doing to me,' she said, handing me a piece of paper, which indicated that her extradition to the United States was being sought because of her involvement in a series of cannabis importations totalling several hundred tons and dating back to 1970.

'I was only fifteen then, Howard. I didn't meet you until years later, and even since then I've done nothing wrong. I never did anything. What are they doing? I can't leave my children.'

'Where are they, love?'

'Masha's got them. Thank G.o.d. Oh! Stop them, Howard. You must stop them. They can't do this to me.'

'They're nuts, Judy. Absolutely nuts. Don't worry, Rafael and his lawyer should be on their way.'

Judy's sobbing became uncontrollable. Some uniformed cops took her away. I was shown a piece of paper similar to Judy's. It stated that my extradition to the United States was being sought because I was the head of the organisation that, since 1970, had smuggled hundreds of tons of has.h.i.+sh to the United States. My Spanish was not good enough to understand the rest.

In the room were two plainclothes policemen who couldn't speak English, a state lawyer who couldn't speak English, and an interpreter who spoke very little English. They all talked to me at the same time. I understood very little of what they were saying but gathered that, because it was a fiesta, Julio Morell's offices were closed. Furthermore, they were not prepared to call Rafael. I would have to make do with this state lawyer, who kept asking me if I wanted to go to the United States voluntarily and make a declaration to that effect. He gave me a stack of papers to sign. I stared at him with disbelief.

'Puedo fumar, por favor?' I asked, reaching out for the lawyer's packet of cigarettes. One of the plainclothes policemen was obviously very senior. He looked at me, smiled, and lit my cigarette. In pedestrian Spanish he joked about the book that had been written about me. He said that a number of my friends had also just been arrested. As if to prove his point, the door opened, and Geoffrey Kenion was brought in. The Americans wanted him, too. We were prevented from talking, and I was taken back to the holding cell.

Two hours later, I was taken to the same room and greeted by the policeman who had stuck a gun into my stomach. He motioned me to sit down at a desk.

'Were you really going to shoot me?' I asked.

'I'm sorry, Howard. I'm sorry. Solo para la seguridad. Lo siento Solo para la seguridad. Lo siento, Howard.'

A casually dressed man came to sit opposite me.

'Tiene cigarrillos, por favor?' I asked, very politely.

'Sorry, I don't smoke,' he replied in an English middle-cla.s.s accent.

'Who are you?' I asked.

'Just part of the organisation.'

'Which organisation?'

'You'll see soon enough.'

'Where's Lovato?' I asked.

He jumped out of his seat and tore out of the room. Minutes later, the door opened and in walked the overweight man who'd earlier masqueraded as a member of the Policia Nacional. So this was, indeed, Craig Lovato of the DEA.

'h.e.l.lo, Howard,' he said with a broad grin.

He then turned his back on me, and his large a.r.s.e was inches away from my face. He wasn't being rude. He was squeezing himself between a desk and a chair. It wasn't easy.

'I'm Craig Lovato, DEA.'

He held out his hand. I shook it.

'How are you, Mr Lovato? Do you have any cigarettes, please?'