Mr Nice: an autobiography (18 page)

‘Forget it, Jim.’

‘Put it this way, H’ard. You either pay me £50 a pound, or I’ll rip off the fucking lot and become a legend. Give me the fucking phone. What’s the number for international enquiries? I need to get hold of Aer Lingus in Frankfurt. Get me some coins, H’ard.’

I wondered what on earth he could be up to.

‘Aer Lingus, this is yer man Jim McCann of the Provisional IRA. My boys have just put a bomb on your next flight to Shannon. You’ve got twenty minutes.’

Jim put the phone down with a broad beam of self-congratulatory delight.

‘That should slow them down, H’ard, and give time for the nordle to arrive from Kabul and be loaded. You understand me, do you?’

‘It’s from Karachi, not Kabul. But they’ll know it’s a hoax, surely, Jim?’

‘I used the code, H’ard. I’m authorised to use the IRA code. They know it’s not a hoax.’

‘What do you mean, Jim? That a bunch of Provos and British Army Intelligence guys secretly sat down and agreed that if the Provos began a bomb threat with the words “This is yer man”, the Brits would take the threat seriously; otherwise, they wouldn’t?’

‘Don’t be facetious, H’ard. It’s a bad fucking habit.’

Whether or not the Karachi to Frankfurt flight was critically delayed and whether or not McCann’s hijack threat was taken seriously remain unknown. My own belief is that there never was any vital requirement for the load to come into Shannon on a specific flight. This was all part of McCann’s theatre, as indeed was his call to Aer Lingus in Frankfurt. He was probably talking to the speaking clock.

The load arrived, and the Dutchmen’s cars were stashed in Moone. Dutch Nik took the first of several Volvos on the ferry and on to the Winchester stash. Dutch Pete followed. Then other Dutchmen. Then Dutch Nik again. The final load was brought over by Dutch Pete.

James Goldsack and Jarvis were about a third of the way through selling the hashish when Marty called me from Winchester. It was early in the morning, and I was feeding Myfanwy a bottle of milk.

‘Howard, this is going to blow your mind, right?’

‘Go ahead, Marty.’

‘All the nordle has gone. Someone has stolen it.’

I drove to Winchester. Marty was, of course, right. Well over half a ton of dope had disappeared from the garage. Bits of door locks and latches lay on the ground. In my mind there was only one possible explanation. Graham’s Dutchmen had come in the middle of the night and ripped it off. Graham wouldn’t accept this and suspected everyone else. After a few days of stunned inactivity, McCann rang.

‘Where’s my fucking money?’

‘The nordle’s been ripped off, Jim.’

‘By who? Those fucking Dutch hippies?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I told you, man, not to trust those Dutch cunts of Soppy’s. They’re treacherous. In future only your Welsh road-sign painters and academics can come over here. You understand me? But don’t worry, H’ard. No one fucks with the Kid. I’ll get the nordle. I’ve got the registration numbers of all those Dutch cunts’ vehicles, and I’ve got their passport numbers. Gus and a couple of the boys from Belfast will track them down.’

‘Jim, we don’t want anyone getting hurt.’

‘Who said anything about anyone getting hurt? I just want what’s mine. I’m taking it.’

The only accounts I’ve heard of what then transpired have been those of McCann, and each one differs greatly from all preceding ones. It is certainly the case that McCann ended up with significant Dutch assets. It is very likely, of course, that McCann himself had persuaded Dutch Pete to do the Winchester rip-off in the first place, paying him a pittance to do so. He’s that kind of guy.

By the end of 1972, the Shannon scam had turned into an immense money provider. Admittedly, it was erratic and irregular. It was inescapably infested with McCann madness and the accompanying fears, whether real, contrived, or imaginary, of IRA participation. Nevertheless, many had made small and large fortunes as a result and were busily squandering them on fantasy fulfilment. Junior university lecturers could buy expensive cars that worked; those who’d always wanted to run a bar, café, or other small business could at least make a start; and I had boxes of money that I didn’t know what to do with.

It was odd: I would still have recurring dreams of winning the football pools even though I had more than the prize money lying idly under the bed. I had more than enough money to retire for the rest of my life, but I wanted more, lots more. I wanted an inexhaustible supply. My lifestyle was becoming unacceptably flash, and Oxfordshire family country life lost its charm. London clubs took the place of Oxford pubs. I determined to expand my legitimate business activities as well as my dope-smuggling antics, and envisioned an AnnaBelinda boutique in each of the world’s major cities.

At this point I was recruited to work for the British Secret Service. Hamilton McMillan (Mac), whom I had not seen since my postgraduate days, appeared one day at AnnaBelinda. We had a few drinks and a chat about old times. He had changed very little, still sporting his lamb-chop sideboards and blustering with mischievous arrogance. The Foreign Office were his current employers. For a while we kept up the charade of two Oxford chums, a junior diplomat and a small businessman, nostalgically mulling over the good old days. Then he admitted he actually worked as a spy for MI6, the security department of the Foreign Office. I admitted, without divulging any detail, that some of my money resulted from hashish smuggling. A general discussion of cannabis took place. Yes, of course it should be legalised. I pointed out that cannabis tended to be cultivated in countries particularly susceptible to political turmoil: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon, Colombia, and Morocco, to name but a few, and that those able to export it were invariably powerful individuals within their societies. He was fascinated with the amount of European travel I had done and with my plans for AnnaBelinda expansion.

‘Howard, I’ll come straight to the point. I haven’t just turned up on your doorstep without doing my research. Will you help us?’

‘You want me to be a spy, Mac?’ I asked, clearly very surprised.

‘It’s not a word we use. But there are a number of areas where someone like you can be of immeasurable assistance to us. I still remember your extraordinary ability to pick up girls. You will always meet interesting people. Your legendary charm has not diminished.’

I liked what I was hearing. Was he going to throw me into bed with beautiful spies? The idea of screwing some voluptuous Mata Hari behind the Iron Curtain had its attractions.

‘Keep talking, Mac.’

‘At first, we just want to use some of your business establishments.’

‘As what, Mac?’

‘Letter drops, safe houses, that kind of thing. We would encourage you to open businesses in Romania and Czechoslovakia. Then, more interesting work would be unavoidable. I know you, Howard. You’ll love it.’

‘Sign me up, Mac. Just tell me what you want me to do.’

‘At the moment, just carry on expanding, and keep your eyes and ears wide open.’

Mac left me with his home phone number, and with his office number, which I’ll never forget – 928-5600.

‘It’s listed in the London telephone book under Her Majesty’s Foreign Office, Parliamentary under-secretary. Ask for me by name, if you come across anything you think I should know. In any event, I’ll contact you within the next few months.’

Mac’s overtures had really got me going. What a front! A secret-service agent. James Bond. Not a licence to kill. I didn’t want or need anything like that. But could it be a licence to smuggle hashish? Now, that I could definitely use. I’d better not tell McCann. The British Secret Service weren’t too popular in Belfast. I’d better not tell anyone.

In early 1973, I decided to invest some of the cardboard boxes of money in dope deals that didn’t involve McCann. An old Oxford acquaintance had a friend, Eric, who claimed he could smuggle suitcases from Beirut to Geneva through a personal connection in Middle East Airlines. Eric needed to be supplied with the hashish in Beirut. Furthermore, if given a boatload of hashish on a Lebanese beach, Eric was prepared to sail it to Italy. I discussed these possibilities with Graham, and we agreed to begin work on them. We gave Eric a couple of hundred grand and told him to get on with it.

Graham also mentioned an idea he had been presented with. A friend of his, James Morris, was responsible for
manufacturing and arranging the transport of pop group equipment to and from the United States. In those days, British pop was at its peak of excellence, and groups such as Pink Floyd, Genesis, and Emerson, Lake and Palmer would frequently tour America with container trucks full of enormous speakers and amplifiers. The equipment, because it was only temporarily imported into America, underwent minimal examination by United States Customs. If the paperwork was in order, the equipment went straight through. Although source countries like Pakistan and Lebanon were not hosting British pop concerts, European countries were. Hashish was three times more expensive in America than in Europe. The scam was obvious. Fill the speakers with hash in a European country. Air-freight them across the Atlantic. Take the hashish out in America. Put bricks back in the speakers to avoid the possibility of weight discrepancies appearing on air waybills. Bring the speakers back across the Atlantic, and wait to get paid. Let’s do it.

Mohammed Durrani was still coming up with Pakistani and Afghani diplomats who were moving several hundred kilos of hashish with their personal effects as they took up their positions in various Middle Eastern embassies throughout Europe. Lebanese Sam was doing the same thing with Lebanese diplomats, and, of course, he was only too glad to supply Eric with any of his needs in Lebanon. One of Sam’s contacts had just smuggled a few hundred kilos into Paris, and in March 1973 the first transatlantic rock-group scam took place. None of James Morris’s rock groups were actually due to tour America at the time, so four out-of-work musicians were hurriedly banded together to form a group called Laughing Grass and behave as if they had an engagement in California. Rock bands were continually splitting up and reforming with slight personnel modifications: there should be no grounds for suspicion.

The speakers were loaded with hashish in the remote French countryside and air-freighted from Paris to Los
Angeles, via New York. It worked like a dream. Graham’s Brotherhood of Eternal Love contact, Ernie Combs, sold the hashish in California. I occasionally talked to him over the telephone when Graham was unable to. Ernie was invariably happy, witty, and extremely sharp. We developed an excellent telephonic rapport with each other.

A few weeks later, Mohammed Durrani came up with some Pakistani hashish in Vienna. This time we didn’t even take the precaution of finding or creating a suitable touring British rock group. A name was written in the appropriate place on the customs form; that was all. The hashish was again sent to Philadelphia. No problems.

Eric was as good as his word and turned up at Geneva airport with a hundred kilos of Lebanese hashish that Sam had provided outside Beirut airport. It wasn’t enough to justify a rock-group scam, so I asked Anthony Woodhead to drive it from Switzerland to England. He did so without a hitch. I paid everybody off and asked them to do the same again. This they did several times, until Eric had to concentrate on his Mediterranean boat scam. He was now in a position to pick up hashish off Lebanese Sam at the port of Juni, Lebanon.

During Eric’s air-freight scams, I occasionally monitored his passage through Geneva airport. I noticed that some international flights had stopped in Zurich before the last leg to Geneva, and further noticed that suitcases checked in at Zurich emerged on arrival at Geneva on the same carousel as suitcases checked in at airports outside of Switzerland. This was worthy of focused investigation, and I was delighted to discover the existence of a Swissair flight whose itinerary was Karachi–Zurich–Geneva. I flew the flight’s Zurich–Geneva leg. At Geneva airport the immigration police asked to see my ticket. They gave a cursory glance and let me through to pick up my luggage. There was no customs check after baggage pick-up.

Graham and I sent Anthony Woodhead to Karachi and
asked him to catch this potential goldmine of a Swissair flight just to see what would happen. I waited at Geneva airport. When Woodhead showed his ticket, they took him to the luggage carousel to identify his suitcase, which they then thoroughly searched. We sent Woodhead back out to Karachi and arranged with Durrani and Raoul to fill Woodhead’s suitcase with hashish. Woodhead got on the Zurich–Geneva flight. In Zurich, I got on the same plane with another suitcase, which had previously been filled with Woodhead’s effects. I got off the plane first and showed my ticket to the Geneva immigration police, who waved me through. I picked up Woodhead’s suitcase of hashish from the luggage carousel and carried it out. Woodhead showed his ticket. Swiss Customs wanted to see his suitcase. He showed them mine and displayed its innocent contents. Later on, I gave him back his suitcase, and he drove the hashish to London. We repeated this a few times until the Swiss changed their customs procedures, rendering the scam impossible.