Brian Freemantle - Charlie Muffin U.S.A.

Temporarily bereft of the constant attention of his aides, Terrilli felt vaguely uncomfortable boarding the open-sided tramway that toured the car parks. He made a note of his parking place on the back of his entry voucher receipt, conscious of how easy it would be to get lost.

The driver had kept the air conditioning running, and now Terrilli climbed gratefully into the cool Rolls that had been driven up in advance to ferry him between Orlando Airport and Disneyworld. It was mid-afternoon and the traffic was moderate, so it did not take them long to drive through the landscaped parks and rejoin Interstate 4. Within an hour, Terrilli was at the private section of Orlando Airport, boarding his helicopter.

He had convened his weekly meeting with Santano and Patridge for five o’clock, and arrived back fifteen minutes early, giving him the opportunity to change from his sports clothes, in which he had become positively uncomfortable, back into a business suit.

The lieutenant and the accountant were on time, as was customary. Terrilli sat at his ocean-view desk and the other men took their usual seats. Patridge fussily fitted his glasses into place, took his accounts from his briefcase and after handing duplicate copies to Terrilli and Santano carefully began taking them through the figures. ‘Three interceptions?’ cut in Terrilli. ‘It was a bad week,’ said Santano.

‘It’s too many,’ insisted Terrilli, not accepting casual dismissal.

Santano shifted uneasily and Patridge remained gazing down at his figures.

‘The boat captains were new,’ Santano attempted to explain. ‘They bunched up, which they’d been told not to do, and didn’t allow sufficient time for the lead boat to make the chicken run.’

‘It’s too many,’ repeated Terrilli, his voice disarmingly soft and conversational. ‘If the captains are inexperienced, we don’t employ them. This puts us down…’ He paused, going back to the papers before him ‘… something like $8,000,000.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Santano.

‘So am I sorry,’ said Terrilli. ‘I’m sorry and other people are going to be sorry and everyone is going to ask why it happened. Maybe even spread the sorrow.’

‘Perhaps I should go down to Colombia, to tighten up the recruitment of ships?’ suggested Santano.

‘If the alternative is to lose $8,000,000 a week, then I think you should,’ said Terrilli.

‘Four vessels did get through,’ said Patridge, trying to smooth the awkwardness. ‘That’s $9,500,000 on what they were carrying.’

Terrilli turned to him, his voice remaining hard.

‘Are you satisfied with just 55 per cent profit?’ he demanded. ‘I’m certainly not.’

‘It’s the first time it’s happened,’ said Santano.

‘It should never have happened at all!’ shouted Terrilli unexpectedly, and both men jumped, startled by the change in the older man’s voice. ‘One ship, we budget for. Two is an occasional but still acceptable risk. Three is ridiculous. There’ll be a demand for explanations… and they’ll want better answers than the problem of employing inexperienced people…’

‘I could go down to Colombia first thing tomorrow,’ offered Santano.

Terrilli’s pause was almost unnoticeable. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I want you here for Thursday. Call the airport and have them put an aircraft on standby for you on Friday morning.’

Terrilli wondered what Santano’s reaction would be to learning that he had put a personal matter above the interests of the organisation. The man looked curiously across the desk at him but said nothing.

Terrilli nodded for Patridge to continue and the man went back to his papers. The accountant had received the estimated crop yield from Colombia’s La Guajira peninsula and from it he predicted a 30 per cent increase over the previous year’s profits. It provided the opportunity for Terrilli to remark that profitability depended upon lack of interception, but he held back from the sarcasm, knowing that Santano was curious at being delayed until Friday and unwilling to alienate the man further than he had already done.

When Patridge had finished, Terrilli turned to Santano and said, ‘Anything?’

The lieutenant shook his head.

‘Thank you both,’ said Terrilli shortly. There were times when he invited them to stay on for a drink and even occasionally for dinner, but from his demeanour it was obvious to both of them that this was not going to be such a night. They were at the door when Terrilli called out.

‘I want to talk to you alone, Tony.’

The man came back into the room and the accountant lingered uncertainly near the door.

‘It’ll take a while,’ said Terrilli.

‘I’ll say goodnight then,’ said Patridge, going out and closing the door carefully behind him.

‘I’m sorry about the interceptions,’ began Santano immediately, imagining that that was the reason for his being held back.

‘It mustn’t happen again,’ said Terrilli, not wanting to talk at once about the robbery.

‘I’ll get positive guarantees about employment in Colombia,’ promised Santano eagerly. ‘We’ve had a good run lately and obviously our people there are getting careless…’

‘If it’s carelessness, then it must be stopped,’ insisted Terrilli. ‘We’ve made examples in the past. It’s time we made some more. If they’ve got to be taught the hard way, it’s really their fault.’

‘I’ll see to it,’ said Santano. ‘Sure you don’t want me to go down tomorrow?’

‘There’s a reason for you to stay,’ said Terrilli. ‘I want you here on Thursday night to organise something.’

‘What?’

‘I want the gates opened, the alarms turned off and the guards warned to expect a group of people, arriving in a hurry, sometime between twelve-fifteen and twelve-forty-five.’

‘What’s happening?’ demanded Santano. Because he had known the man for so long, Terrilli was aware of his changed attitude. Soon it would become resentment.

‘Something is being delivered,’ said Terrilli.

‘By outside people?’

‘It will be safer,’ said Terrilli. ‘If anything goes wrong, there’s no association with us. And I couldn’t risk that, right on our doorstep.’

‘What is it?’

‘The Russian stamp collection.’

‘A personal thing,’ said Santano immediately.

The speed of the man’s reaction showed that his loyalty was first to the organisation and then to him, Terrilli realised. It would be well to get Chambine alongside as soon as possible.

‘Yes,’ agreed Terrilli, ‘a personal thing.’

‘I don’t like the idea of outside people,’ said Santano, coming as near as he dared to criticism.

Again Terrilli judged the man’s concern to be over the danger to their set-up, rather than any possible personal difficulty.

‘I’ve chosen them carefully,’ said Terrilli. ‘They’re good men.’

‘Shouldn’t I run a check, just to make sure? There are still four full days.’

‘I told you,’ Terrilli reminded him. ‘I don’t want anything to be associated with us.’

‘But they must know!’

‘One does, that’s all.’

‘So all he’s got to do is talk, if he gets picked up.’

‘I don’t think he will.’

‘It’s difficult to assess what a man will do, offered the choice between twenty years and a deal.’

‘He knows I’d have him killed, whatever protection was promised.’

‘Let’s hope he remembers,’ said Santano.

‘There are two vehicles,’ said Terrilli. From his wallet he took the numbers of the hire cars that Chambine had given him earlier in Disneyworld. ‘Once they’re in, close the gates. But have people standing by. They’re leaving immediately after the pay-off. No one will remain here longer than fifteen minutes.’