David Baldacci - The Whole Truth

They weren’t that far from Edinburgh but the land had quickly turned open and isolated. Far to the north was the Firth of Forth. As one of the Tajiks rolled down his window to blow out smoke from his cigarette, Shaw thought he could smell the heavy sea air. Thirty minutes later they turned onto a gravel road and were quickly swallowed by dense trees on either side.

The driver of the truck waiting at the end of the road nodded at his colleague in the sedan as it slowed to a stop next to the truck.

Shaw and the four men climbed out of the car.

“Soccer balls?” Shaw asked, pointing to the cargo in the truck.

The man to his left grunted, which Shaw took as a “yes” in Tajik.

The only reason Shaw was still alive was because these men thought he would be a good future customer on the other side of the pond. South American cartels ruled the U.S. illegal drug market, the world’s biggest, but the Tajiks had long had their eye on it. If they had to fly to Colombia and rip the throats out of a few thousand Spanish speakers they would be more than willing.

Shaw slit open one of the soccer balls using a knife handed to him by one of the Tajiks. Inside were plastic baggies filled with a white powder. He didn’t slice open a baggie and taste the stuff like they did on TV since he didn’t want the crap in his system. The only thing worse than heroin on that score was meth. It seemed if you even sniffed the stuff from a hundred yards you were a candidate for detox.

“And what, I only have your word that it’s heroin and all the other balls are filled with it right up to a thousand kilos?”

The four men stared back at him; none seemed inclined to answer. The passenger side of the truck opened and a small, slender man sprang down, landing lightly on the soft ground. He had thinning blond hair, wore an expensive suit and a perpetual smile showing a new set of implants.

“We’ve been doing this a long time,” he said, any accent he might have had barely discernible. He extended his hand to Shaw.

“All new clients have the same question. But they are never disappointed.” He pointed to the split soccer ball. “That is the best heroin in the world. Guaranteed seventy percent pure even with all the shit you’ll put in it before it hits the streets in the U.S. Most heroin, you need ten kilos to get a little over two salable kilos. That’s a forty percent purity rate. That’s for shit. That costs you money, my friend. With our product you’ll make double that.”

Shaw imagined himself standing in a product demo line listening to the pitch.

The man continued, “And I threw in ten kilos at no extra charge. That’s a million-two U.S. on the street. It’s for new customers only, to show our good faith. One time only,” he added firmly, but still smiling. “We sell it to you for five million euros and you get twelve to fifteen U.S. for it in New York, L.A., and Miami. Not a bad markup. And we can do this every other week. Easy money.”

“It’s a big risk pushing drugs in America,” Shaw pointed out.

The man chuckled. “That’s not what I heard. Candy from babies because all Americans are addicted. Fat, greedy, and sex maniacs. And now that you’ve seen our product, I’d like to see your money.”

“How do I get the balls to the port?” Shaw asked, buying time. If Frank screwed me? The Tajiks will feed me to the squirrels one finger, toe, and critical organ at a time .

“We put it right on the ship for you. Nobody the wiser. Now, your money?” The man looked in the Mercedes. “I see no briefcase. Five million euros take up a lot of space even in large notes.” He looked at Shaw inquiringly. “We don’t accept checks or credit cards,” he added with a flicker of a smile, and then his mouth tightened. “Where the hell is the cash?”

“My people are bringing it,” Shaw said casually.

“Your people? What people?” The small man looked around at the emptiness that surrounded them.

“You have your people, I have my people.”

“We were not told about this.”

“Come on. You think I’m getting into a car alone with four T-Rexes I don’t know from Adam with millions of euros burning a hole in my pocket? If I were that stupid, I wouldn’t have lasted one week in this business.”

The little man motioned to his men and four MP5 submachine guns emerged from the trunk of the Mercedes. A metallic sound Shaw heard from the truck indicated that the driver was also armed.

Where the hell are you, Frank?

KATIE JAMES ADJUSTED HER SMALL BINOCULARS at the same time she placed a hand on her chest to try and stop her heart from beating quite so violently. She’d followed the Mercedes from the Balmoral. Having heard the destination earlier on the Britannia , she’d even been able to pass the car a couple of times to avoid suspicion before falling back. When they’d turned onto the gravel road she’d driven on, then doubled back, counting on the fact that they would not have gone far. She’d parked her car behind a bend in the road, set out on foot, topped a knoll, slunk through some trees, and settled herself down behind a berm to watch.

She was close enough to catch snatches of what the men were saying. The tall man from the Balmoral was a drug buyer, that much was clear. This surprised her because of the man she had seen with him at the chapel. The fellow had sported a tattoo Katie had only known Delta Special Forces to have carved on their skin. Yet even such men can go bad, she thought. The other men were selling. The drugs were in the soccer balls and they had been discussing money when the machine guns came out.

Katie had contemplated using her cell phone to call the police, but now she’d decided to change her tactics. With the sudden appearance of the guns she was instead going to run. She’d started to back away when a sound froze her.

To her extreme far right it was like a wave of black moving through the forest. She dropped to the dirt and tried to burrow in. When the guns started firing she tried to dig in even deeper. Yet something, perhaps her journalistic instincts, made her look through her binoculars in time to see two of the dealers riddled with machine-gun fire, their bodies literally opening up with holes awash in blood. They dropped to the ground dead without having uttered a sound.

As she continued to watch, the tall man managed to wrestle the submachine gun from one of the giants and then, with a nimbleness that belied his size, he landed a kick to the gut and then the head of the larger man, felling him. He turned and held the gun up, as though in surrender, but as machine-gun fire hit all around him he seemed to think better of this.

The other drug dealers had taken up cover behind the truck. They were shooting at whatever was coming their way, while the wave that had passed Katie was laying down walls of intense fire. And the tall man was caught right in the middle.

“He’s dead,” Katie whispered fearfully to herself.

Shaw dodged behind the Mercedes as another blast of fire missed him by centimeters. The Tajiks were shooting at him from his rear flank and his own men were doing the same from the front. What, had Frank failed to mention to the strike team that they were supposed to leave at least one man standing? Him .

He got off a burst of submachine fire at the Tajiks and then slid into the front seat of the Benz. He cranked the engine and slammed it in gear. Another bullet blast from the rear took out his back window.

He crushed the accelerator and the S600 leaped forward, gravel firing off the tires and spraying the truck. Holding the MP5 out the window, he emptied his clip at the truck, catching one of the Tajiks flush in the face and ending his career in international drug dealing.