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Authors: Douglas Stewart
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The odds were good. For a thin, gaunt figure, rather frail looking with waxy skin, the assistant commissioner had the balls of a stallion and the courage of a lion
CHAPTER TWELVE
Freeport, Grand Bahama Island
Erlis Bardici’s short hop from Miami to Freeport touched down at gone 10 p.m. local time after delays due to operational difficulties—not words the Albanian enjoyed hearing. He hated flying in small planes and operational difficulties conjured up unwelcome images of drunken pilots screwing the cabin crew in an airport hotel, cracks in the wings, leaking fuel pipes, or faulty avionics. Especially in small planes, he always felt uneasy and his blue shirt showed nervous sweat as he exited, carrying his seersucker jacket over his shoulder and striding toward Immigration. But for the breeze, the night air would have been warm but any sense of a subtropical paradise was lost in the roar of turbo prop engines and the smell of aviation fuel.
He picked up a battered Suzuki Vitara with a dodgy 77,000 on the clock. No point checking for dents in the dimly lit rental zone, as every side had been bumped or scraped on countless occasions. He quite liked that. Nobody could later try to pin a damage claim on him, as had once happened with a rental in Paris.
Though he had learned the direct route to his hotel, on leaving the airport he drove in the other direction. During the flight he had changed his plans. Now he was heading for the Pink Flamingo. According to the map, it was easy. But he quickly found that maps take no account of reality. A road closure from a burst water pipe, for starters. The badly signed diversion threw him completely, so that the twenty-minute journey took him over an hour through parts of Freeport he had no wish ever to see again.
Funny, he thought as at last he rejoined a better road, how environment changes everything. In what he had come to regard as his manor of West London, nothing and nobody scared him. He walked tall, felt good. There was nothing he could not control or fix with a couple of calls. But here, driving through the slums of Freeport, he felt strangely ill at ease, his hands clammy, his eyes watchful at every small junction as he anticipated armed black men, built like oak trees. But nothing happened. Without a rope, gun, or knife at hand, he felt naked but no way could he have risked carrying anything through airport security. Not these days.
The interior light was broken, just like the wing mirror. He could not check the map but he guessed the Pink Flamingo could only be another mile or two along the main highway and then down a track toward the beach. Traffic was moderate, mainly old vans, open 4x4s and Japanese saloons batting around with young people, four to a car, listening to the blast of rock or reggae, heading to bars or clubs for a night of boozy laughter. Moments later, he saw a faded wooden sign with an arrow and an image of a flamingo standing on one leg. He swung the wheel into the turning. The little 4x4 lurched alarmingly through a deep pothole but Bardici grunted with satisfaction at having arrived without having to ask the way.
The unmade track was four hundred meters long before it ended in a bare earth car park with room for perhaps sixty vehicles. He lost count at thirty but still felt confident from the web revues that this was only a late-night dive, one for the night owls and that in the early evening tomorrow the place would be deserted. It would be a good place to bring the CEO, plenty intimidating enough if the guy played it tough. He wound down the window and smelled what might have been chicken being grilled on charcoal in a shack out of sight beyond the pines. Google’s aerial views had not lied. It was a perfect spot for tomorrow’s chat with the American.
For a hungry second or two, he was tempted to sink a local beer and devour chicken and fries to the thump of reggae, the music being carried by the cool breeze. For a lingering moment, his
CHAPTER TWELVE
Freeport, Grand Bahama Island
Erlis Bardici’s short hop from Miami to Freeport touched down at gone 10 p.m. local time after delays due to operational difficulties—not words the Albanian enjoyed hearing. He hated flying in small planes and operational difficulties conjured up unwelcome images of drunken pilots screwing the cabin crew in an airport hotel, cracks in the wings, leaking fuel pipes, or faulty avionics. Especially in small planes, he always felt uneasy and his blue shirt showed nervous sweat as he exited, carrying his seersucker jacket over his shoulder and striding toward Immigration. But for the breeze, the night air would have been warm but any sense of a subtropical paradise was lost in the roar of turbo prop engines and the smell of aviation fuel.
He picked up a battered Suzuki Vitara with a dodgy 77,000 on the clock. No point checking for dents in the dimly lit rental zone, as every side had been bumped or scraped on countless occasions. He quite liked that. Nobody could later try to pin a damage claim on him, as had once happened with a rental in Paris.
Though he had learned the direct route to his hotel, on leaving the airport he drove in the other direction. During the flight he had changed his plans. Now he was heading for the Pink Flamingo. According to the map, it was easy. But he quickly found that maps take no account of reality. A road closure from a burst water pipe, for starters. The badly signed diversion threw him completely, so that the twenty-minute journey took him over an hour through parts of Freeport he had no wish ever to see again.
Funny, he thought as at last he rejoined a better road, how environment changes everything. In what he had come to regard as his manor of West London, nothing and nobody scared him. He walked tall, felt good. There was nothing he could not control or fix with a couple of calls. But here, driving through the slums of Freeport, he felt strangely ill at ease, his hands clammy, his eyes watchful at every small junction as he anticipated armed black men, built like oak trees. But nothing happened. Without a rope, gun, or knife at hand, he felt naked but no way could he have risked carrying anything through airport security. Not these days.
The interior light was broken, just like the wing mirror. He could not check the map but he guessed the Pink Flamingo could only be another mile or two along the main highway and then down a track toward the beach. Traffic was moderate, mainly old vans, open 4x4s and Japanese saloons batting around with young people, four to a car, listening to the blast of rock or reggae, heading to bars or clubs for a night of boozy laughter. Moments later, he saw a faded wooden sign with an arrow and an image of a flamingo standing on one leg. He swung the wheel into the turning. The little 4x4 lurched alarmingly through a deep pothole but Bardici grunted with satisfaction at having arrived without having to ask the way.
The unmade track was four hundred meters long before it ended in a bare earth car park with room for perhaps sixty vehicles. He lost count at thirty but still felt confident from the web revues that this was only a late-night dive, one for the night owls and that in the early evening tomorrow the place would be deserted. It would be a good place to bring the CEO, plenty intimidating enough if the guy played it tough. He wound down the window and smelled what might have been chicken being grilled on charcoal in a shack out of sight beyond the pines. Google’s aerial views had not lied. It was a perfect spot for tomorrow’s chat with the American.
For a hungry second or two, he was tempted to sink a local beer and devour chicken and fries to the thump of reggae, the music being carried by the cool breeze. For a lingering moment, his
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