Mr Nice_ An Autobiography Part 9

'I certainly do. I was going to call him anyway. His work was so shoddily done.'

Rosie gave the policemen the name and number. They shot off to hara.s.s some poor damp-course man. I excused myself on the pretext of having to attend to important matters at AnnaBelinda, sped off down the M40 to London, and checked into Blake's Hotel, Roland Gardens, under the name of Stephen McCarthy.

I was sure the police would return to Yarnton and was haunted by images of Rosie in a police cell and two little girls crying in intense fear and sadness. Rosie was easily persuaded to leave the country, and in my BMW, she, the two little girls, and a wonderful nanny named Vicky drove to Ibiza and rented a house in Santa Eulalia. I stayed at Blake's.

I had to find out what was going on and thought maybe Mac would help. I called the Foreign Office and arranged to meet him. I told him what had happened at Yarnton. Later on the same day, we met again.

'Did you find anything out, Mac?'

'I certainly did. You can rest a.s.sured that the police are not minded to arrest you. Feel free to go home. But I want you to meet one of my superiors, tomorrow, if possible. He has some questions for you.'

'What kind of questions?'

'He mentioned Ireland.'

'Mac, I can't talk about that. It involves my dope-dealing business.'

'Howard, I a.s.sure you we are not interested in your smuggling of cannabis. That is of no concern to us. Other matters in Ireland may be.'

'Like what?'

'Donald will explain to you tomorrow.'

Donald, a stern-faced, well-dressed spy, Mac, and I met for lunch at the Pillars of Hercules, just off Soho Square. Donald came to the point.

'We know you have been meeting a member of the Provisional IRA who supplies them with arms and know why you have been meeting him. We would like you to carry on meeting him to get some information from him.'

'Well, I have no plans to see him again right now.'

'That's fine. But when you do, let McMillan here know.'

'Sure.'

Mac and I went to his home in Putney. We had a whisky each in his sitting room.

'Howard, this might clear up any uncertainties,' said Mac, producing a photograph. I looked at it. It was a picture of McCann with his name underneath. Mac took it back from me and went into his study to make a phone call.

There was no doubt in my mind that I had to let McCann know MI6 were on his case. If MI6 knew he was dopedealing, the IRA would soon get to know, and McCann might get executed. No more Shannon deals. They had to stop. It was just too dangerous, too heavy. Where had all that peace and love stuff gone? Arms smuggling, b.l.o.o.d.y Sunday, executions, and knee-cappings. Ernie's Brotherhood of Eternal Love came far closer to traditional dope-dealing values of s.e.x, drugs, and rock 'n' roll; and they could make far more money. No more McCann. I would warn him of the danger, then get out of his life. I wanted that photograph of him so he would know I wasn't playing games.

Mac returned. I asked if I could telephone AnnaBelinda. He motioned me towards his study, and I made my phone call, letting my eyes roam over Mac's bookshelves. A book named The Unconscious Mind The Unconscious Mind s.n.a.t.c.hed my attention. I picked it up, opened it, and the photograph of McCann fell out. I put it into my pocket. That has remained the most inexplicable event in my life. s.n.a.t.c.hed my attention. I picked it up, opened it, and the photograph of McCann fell out. I put it into my pocket. That has remained the most inexplicable event in my life.

Feeling n.o.ble and resolute, I left Blake's and went back to Yarnton. I cabled Rosie to call me and told her it was safe for her to come back. She said she didn't want to come back. Life in Ibiza was far more meaningful: sun, stars, beaches, and lots of dope to smoke. She suggested that before I turn into a money-making megalomaniac and lose all my friends, I should join her in Ibiza. But I should promise not to bring with me any of my f.u.c.ked-up lifestyle. She'd made some wonderful friends who wouldn't appreciate it. I could tell I was losing her. I went to visit f.a.n.n.y Hill and began a very clandestine affair with her. At the same time, she was having a less clandestine affair with Raymond Carr, the Master of St Anthony's College, Oxford's CIA annexe.

I went to Ibiza and thought it would make a good neutral venue to meet McCann.

'Why the f.u.c.k have you dragged me here, H'ard, in the middle of all this hippie s.h.i.+t? You know I'm busy. Why couldn't you have come to Ireland? This had better be important.'

'It is, Jim. MI6 are on to you.'

'Who the f.u.c.k cares? There's a war going on. And what the f.u.c.k's MI6 got to do with you, you Welsh c.u.n.t?'

'An old Oxford friend of mine works for them. They know you and I have been dope-dealing. If they know, other people know, like maybe the IRA.'

Jim went white.

'f.u.c.k off! f.u.c.k off, will you! You're playing f.u.c.king games.'

I showed him the photograph.

'You and Soppy b.o.l.l.o.c.ks, I knew you were f.u.c.king Brit agents. I knew it. How can I know you haven't been setting the Kid up all along?'

'Try thinking, Jim.'

'f.u.c.k you!'

'This is it, Jim. No more deals for a while.'

'Okay, H'ard. But I'm staying here in Ibiza for a while for a holiday. My new Dutch girlfriend, Sylvia, and my old Irish girlfriend, Anne, are coming over. We'll stop with you.'

'I thought you were busy, Jim.'

In a couple of days, Rosie's Santa Eulalia holiday house had turned into a madhouse. McCann was playing musical beds with Sylvia and Anne, unsuccessfully encouraging Rosie and Vicky to do the same, and forever filling the house with various odd characters he picked up in the bars in Ibiza. He was making me laugh, so I didn't mind. I called AnnaBelinda in Oxford. There was a message to phone Eric in Athens. I knew Eric had picked up the has.h.i.+sh from Lebanon. He must have already landed it in Italy, where Johnny Martin had rented a villa in preparation to receive both the dope and Transatlantic Sounds rock-group equipment. Great!

It wasn't great. Eric said that there'd been a slight problem. I should come to Athens now. I packed my bags, and Rosie exploded.

'That's right. Leave me in the middle of all this chaos you've brought to ruin my holiday. I told you not to do this. Where are you going?'

'Athens. Fancy coming? Vicky can look after the children.'

The 'slight problem' was that Eric had temporarily stashed 700 pounds of Lebanese has.h.i.+sh on a remote Greek island. A herd of goats had unearthed the dope, which was spotted by some Greek sponge fishermen. The sponge fishermen had taken the has.h.i.+sh to Crete and were selling it at absurdly cheap prices. I knew Eric was telling me the truth. Eric's solution was to launch a commando-style attack in Crete and recover the has.h.i.+sh. I told him to forget it, but if he ever did get it back, I'd like some. After a quick tour of the Acropolis, Rosie and I flew back to Ibiza.

Graham favoured a commando solution and wanted to proposition McCann. I persuaded him not to. With no other means at his disposal, he sent Patrick Lane to Heraklion. A week later, Patrick returned with a sun-tan, lots of tall stories, and no dope, but I'm sure he did his best.

Graham told Ernie that the Italian speaker s.h.i.+pment was off. Ernie said it wasn't: some friends of his were soon to arrive in Italy having driven from Kabul in a camper stashed with Afghani hash. One of his friends was a draft-dodging Californian scientologist named James Gater. James Morris and I met Gater at Johnny Martin's rented villa in Cupra Maritima, near Ancona, on the Adriatic coast. We destashed the camper that had come from Afghanistan, put the has.h.i.+sh into Transatlantic Sounds speakers, and air-freighted it to Los Angeles from Rome. James Morris and I caught a flight from Rome to Zurich, where he introduced me to his Swiss banker. I opened up an account at the Swiss Bank Corporation. The banker a.s.sured me there would be no problem in my depositing large amounts of cash. Ernie gave me $100,000 for my a.s.sistance. Graham said I could keep it all. He wouldn't interfere with any deal I made with Ernie as long as I did not interfere with deals he intended doing with McCann. We would remain partners on all other deals and could invest in each other's individual deals without partic.i.p.ation. I agreed but couldn't help worrying about Graham. He was changing from a bourgeois, middle-cla.s.s monarchist buccaneer to the exact opposite. That was okay, but he was doing it too quickly and doing it under the influence of McCann. G.o.d knows what McCann had in mind, but it wouldn't have been Graham's political development.

In Ibiza, Rosie had given up the Santa Eulalia holiday house and rented a finca finca in the middle of nowhere. She was going back to nature. There wasn't even a bathroom or toilet, and it was several miles from a telephone. I put up with it for a while. Rosie and I were getting on well again. We had confessed our infidelities and were pretending they didn't matter. She introduced me to one of many Dutchmen who had places on the island. His name was Arend, and he was a heavy-drinking, fun-loving dope dealer from Amsterdam. I asked him what sort of prices and quant.i.ties normally prevailed in Amsterdam. I reported them to Ernie. He sent over Gater and another friend of his, Gary Lickert, to Amsterdam with several hundred thousand dollars, and Arend and I invested some money of our own. Gater rented a flat in Maastricht, near Utrecht. A hired truck full of Transatlantic Sounds speakers was parked outside. Arend and I purchased 700 pounds of Lebanese has.h.i.+sh from an Amsterdam wholesaler friend of his. Gater and I stashed the speakers, and one of James Morris's people drove the truck to Schiphol Airport and air-freighted them to Las Vegas via New York. in the middle of nowhere. She was going back to nature. There wasn't even a bathroom or toilet, and it was several miles from a telephone. I put up with it for a while. Rosie and I were getting on well again. We had confessed our infidelities and were pretending they didn't matter. She introduced me to one of many Dutchmen who had places on the island. His name was Arend, and he was a heavy-drinking, fun-loving dope dealer from Amsterdam. I asked him what sort of prices and quant.i.ties normally prevailed in Amsterdam. I reported them to Ernie. He sent over Gater and another friend of his, Gary Lickert, to Amsterdam with several hundred thousand dollars, and Arend and I invested some money of our own. Gater rented a flat in Maastricht, near Utrecht. A hired truck full of Transatlantic Sounds speakers was parked outside. Arend and I purchased 700 pounds of Lebanese has.h.i.+sh from an Amsterdam wholesaler friend of his. Gater and I stashed the speakers, and one of James Morris's people drove the truck to Schiphol Airport and air-freighted them to Las Vegas via New York.

It was early September 1973, and Ernie had invited me to come over to California once the Dutch load had been sent. I could pick up my own profit and maybe spend some of it. I was in Los Angeles before the speakers arrived at Las Vegas. Ernie and James Morris met me at the airport. Ernie was tall, thin, bearded, bespectacled, long-haired, and suntanned. He was Californian.

'Hi. How you doing? Have a good flight?'

'Yeah. It was long, though.'

Ernie thought for a second, then machine-gunned a few sentences.

's.h.i.+t! I used to do that son-of-a-b.i.t.c.h once a week when I was working with Graham in the early days. What's his beef, these days? He's been really kinda rude to me. I get p.i.s.sed with that. Well, we should pick up our load from Las Vegas airport tonight. You're booked into the Newporter Inn, an old Richard Nixon hangout. Nixon cracks me up. What you like to do for fun? There's real good surf here. I got a shed full of surfboards.'

'I've never tried surfing, Ernie.'

'How about sailing?'

'Never tried that either.'

'Not an ocean lover, huh? Okay. You want to go motorcycle riding in the desert? I got a bunch of real nice bikes.'

'That's another thing I've never done. I've been a pa.s.senger, but I've not ridden one. Not even a pushbike.'

Ernie started laughing uncontrollably. I joined in.

'I guess it seems strange to you, Ernie, yeah?'

'You got that right. So what do you do when you ain't working, watch television?'

'Sometimes. But usually I just get stoned, read books, and listen to music.'

'You'll like California,' said Ernie.

I did, or what I saw of it, which was mainly the inside of a hotel room in Newport Beach. I wandered around the hotel complex, the bars, swimming pools, and other public areas, and realised that American movies weren't about fantasy: they were doc.u.mentaries about Hollywood. There were hundreds of radio stations and dozens of TV channels. In Britain we had only three. The radio stations were fantastic. I listened to a few hours of doo-wop and golden oldies before the commercials drove me mad. All the TV channels were showing sport, cop shoot-outs, sit-coms, game shows, or news. I watched the news. A reporter said, 'Hey, one of you guys out there has just lost $5,000,000. Today, law enforcement officers seized Nevada's biggest ever haul of illegal drugs. Has.h.i.+sh, highly concentrated cannabis from the Middle East, almost half a ton of it, was discovered hidden in speaker cabinets. Over to Las Vegas ...' On the screen came pictures of the Lebanese has.h.i.+sh and the speakers Gater and I had stashed in Holland.

In the movies, the crook, usually a fugitive, always immediately switches off the radio or television when the relevant news bulletin finishes. I didn't. I stared at it blankly for at least an hour. Was this really happening? I was very jetlagged from my first-ever long flight, and Ernie had given me the most varied collection of has.h.i.+sh and marijuana imaginable. I was as stoned as I'd ever been. This was Hollywood. It probably wasn't happening.

There was a knock on the door. It was Ernie, and it was happening.

'Well, we lost that one. The cops ...'

'I know, Ernie. I just saw it on TV.'

'No kidding. That was quick. What you figure on doing next?'

'I think I ought to leave.'

'That's smart. Here's $10,000. I guessed you didn't bring a bunch of money over with you. It'd be kinda dumb if you were coming to pick some up. Here's my new phone number. Call me.'

'Thanks, Ernie. How did the load get busted? Do you know?'

'Sure I do. Didn't it say on TV? The load transited in John F. Kennedy Airport, New York. When the airport loaders put it on the plane to Vegas, they f.u.c.ked up and left one speaker behind, which they stuck in some shed in Kennedy overnight, and a dog sniffed it. The DEA took the dope out of the speakers once they were in Vegas and let my guy, Gary Lickert, the kid you met in Amsterdam, pick it up so they could see where he was taking it to. I had that covered. I was watching Gary from a distance. I saw him being followed, overtook him, gave him the signal, and haula.r.s.ed outa there.'

'What did Gary do?'

'Drove in circles around the airport until the cops stopped him.'

'Will he tell the cops about you and me?'

'No. He did a tough stint in Vietnam. He won't crack. But we should play it cool for a while, like a few days. I got friends in the FBI. I'll find out what they got on us. Take a limo from here to LA airport. When you get there, buy a ticket in some dumb English name like Smith for a flight to the East Coast, somewhere like Philadelphia, then fly in your own name to anywhere you want.'

I flew to New York and stayed at the Hilton overnight, visiting Greenwich Village, Times Square, and the Statue of Liberty. Then I flew to London. Mac wanted to see me. We met at Dillons bookshop and took a cab ride to nowhere in particular.

'Howard, you know that recently we have had to suffer some embarra.s.sment over the Littlejohn affair.'

'Yes.'

Kenneth and Keith Littlejohn were bank robbers who had claimed to be infiltrating the IRA at the behest of MI6. The claims had been substantiated, and the British public expressed outrage at their Secret Service's employing of notorious criminals for undercover work in the independent Republic of Ireland.

'For that reason, and that reason alone, you and I have to terminate our relations.h.i.+p. We can no longer liaise with criminals.'

'Dope smuggling is hardly a crime, Mac.'

'Of course it is, Howard. Don't talk rot. It's illegal.'

'I thought you agreed has.h.i.+sh shouldn't be illegal. It's the law that's wrong, not the activity.'

'I do. But until the law changes, you're a criminal.'

'Don't you think, Mac, there's a duty to change laws which are wrong, evil, harmful, and dangerous?'

'Yes, but by legal means.'

'You would use the law to change the law.'

'Of course.'

'I suppose you would recommend saving a drowning man by telling him to drink his way out of it.'

'That's sophistry, Howard, and you know it. This end to our relations.h.i.+p is not my decision. I've been ordered to tell you this.'

I felt curiously cheated. My career as a spy was over without my having derived any benefit from it.

'Mac, if by abiding by my own decisions and beliefs, rather than those of others, I come across something which affects the security of this country, do I take it that I should now no longer bring it to your attention?'

Mac smiled. I've not seen him since.

After the Greek sponge fishermen fiasco, Eric was determined to make amends; he went to Beirut. He found his own source of supply who was prepared to give him 100 kilos of has.h.i.+sh on credit. Eric offered to extend this credit to us and bring another suitcase to Geneva. The deal went ahead smoothly. Anthony Woodhead drove the has.h.i.+sh from Geneva to England.

One of Mohammed Durrani's diplomats turned up in Hamburg with 250 kilos of Pakistani has.h.i.+sh. Graham and I sent out one of the Tafia, who rented a car and a lock-up garage in the outskirts of Hamburg to store the dope.

James Morris rang from Los Angeles. Three of his workers had been arrested in London. He didn't know why. Neither did Graham or I. We knew American law had been broken, but we couldn't see how anyone involved had been guilty of breaking British law. Graham didn't want to bother to find out. He'd been to prison once; that was enough. He wanted to go to Ireland under a false ident.i.ty to join McCann and supervise matters from there. It was safer. McCann had got him a false Irish driving licence. He left London that night.

Graham was right. Whatever reason was used to bust James Morris's workers could be used to bust us. I didn't want to rejoin McCann so soon after breaking from him, but Ireland was the only foreign country one could travel to from England without showing a pa.s.sport. If there really was a danger of being arrested, I clearly shouldn't travel around under my own name. I had no choice but to seek refuge with McCann. I borrowed Denys Irving's driving licence, hired a car, stashed my pa.s.sport, some dope, money, and bits and pieces in the back panels, and drove to Fishguard. On the ferry I drank several pints of Guinness at the bar before it docked at Rosslare. Once I reached open country, I stopped and rolled a very stiff joint of Afghani. As night fell, I drove towards Drogheda, where McCann was now based. Cruising along at 50 mph, I totally missed a right-angled bend and crashed through a hedge into a field. I lost consciousness.

'Will he be needing a doctor or a priest?'

Two carloads of people surrounded the steaming, dripping vehicle. Although I was lying awkwardly, I felt no pain and could move all my muscles.

'I'm all right,' I said.

'Don't you be moving now. We'll have an ambulance and tow-truck here in no time. No time at all.'

I thought of the dope and my inconsistent ident.i.ty doc.u.ments.