Dangerous Dollars

Copyright © 2012 by Trevor L. White.

ISBN:          Ebook                                      978-1-4797-3883-0

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Contents

Dangerous Dollars

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter twenty-one

Dangerous Dollars

By Trevor L. White

The first Euro dollar crime occurred during the changeover period. Interpol security forces tried to keep this hushed up. But the illicit activities of London’s gang of notorious villains, the Croad brothers made this impossible.

Scotland Yard Detective Sergeant Warren Dalton was appointed to Interpol to investigate the theft from a Spanish mint of Euro banknote paper that could be printed into one hundred dollar notes illegally. If they were distributed at the time of the new Euro currency who would ever know?

Dalton acquires a piece of insider information from the attractive former professional Australian tennis player Oriel Burford who unlocks a piece of the puzzle of how the Italian distribution for the new currency is to be made. Dalton and Oriel form a lovers relationship.

Interpol agent Karl Hausmann, is in charge of the hunt for the recovery of the stolen banknote paper but has he one eye on the main prize—two-hundred-million—Euro dollars?

Can Dalton trust him?

Scotland Yard thrillers by a best selling author . . .

Trevor L. White:

—Dangerous Dollars:—Two hundred million of new Euro currency paper has been stolen. Interpol agents are investigating. London’s notorious Croad brothers gang have set the deal up. But what has gone wrong? How close is Detective Dalton to being killed?

—Death at the Post:—a story of horse doping and murder set in a racing scene. Scotland Yard Detective Dalton is investigating but he is out of his territory and is against a Police Officer intent on outsmarting him.

—Kill Maker:—Detective Dalton is after two killers. One killed his parents and the other his girlfriend. Watch out for terrorism, the London Tube bombing, an Irish bank robbery and mayhem. With al Qaeda and IRA terrorists all the dirty tricks are rolled into a fast moving story line.

A ‘wild west Western:

—Cowboy to Freedom:—Texas 1860’s Sheriff Dan Lyons of Sabilene is the lawman and with deputies Deighton and Travis they try to keep the lid on a reap-roaring cattle town. In come thousands of longhorn cattle and hundreds of gun toting virile cowboys. A gunfighter comes to town not looking for trouble, yet it finds him and later he becomes the sheriff?

Four good reads if you like swift action by an expert story teller! Who is Trevor L White.

Acknowledgements

Dr Susan Sayer for professional advice and appraisal

Joe McAleese, Warren Shaw & Tom Lewis for their assistance

Lesley Marshall for fantastic editing

The Internet Services of:

—Bank of England

—Interpol Press Releases

—European Central Bank

—BBC News

—Bank Van De Nederlandse Antillen

Chapter One

It was him or me. But sure as hell it wasn’t going to be me. I owed him one—big time. My kick hit him hard between the eyes, peeling skin, leaving a bloody red mess. Wait! Hell! Where was his mate? From the corner of my eye I saw the shadow. Someone was about to hit me. Desperately I lunged sideways. Too late! Whack! The ankle buckled. Down I went staggering,backwards. Then lost balance. Tripped over the wharf’s edging, dropped six metres and headfirst splashed into the murky brown waters of the Thames.

The water was as cold as misery. Under water I shook my head to fathom my predicament. With water up the nose it didn’t take long. The bullet wound in my left shoulder stung. I opened my eyes and the cold salty water bit into them. First I needed air! I clawed my way to the surface. The tide was sweeping me past barnacled laden piers. Sodden clothes were trying to drag me under again. I desperately looked around for something to clutch onto. An eddy swung me into a wharf cross-member. It was embraced like a hot lover. I rested, then pulled up on to it. I stretched out on the wide rough timber, like a cold mackerel on a fish merchant’s slab. Safe! At last?

Like hell! The bullet hit the wood, ricocheted off, then sliced along my skull, cutting a narrow furrow above the left eye to past my ear. I didn’t even know I had been hit. My brain dropped the curtain and turned off the lights.

*     *     *

‘Watcha doing down there mister?’

I tried to surface from a deep black hole somewhere inside my brain where red flashes and jolts of white lightning painted in quick brush strokes, before darkness descended.

‘He’s coming round now, doctor.’

Someone lifted an eyelid and a piercing bright light flooded one eye then the other eye.

‘Welcome back to the world, Detective Dalton.’

I dimly made out a face with spectacles and hair cropped looking down at me. I tried to sit up. A hand on my chest forced me back.

‘Take it easy. There’s no hurry. You’re not going anywhere.’

Someone straightened out my arm. I felt the jab of a needle and a warm sensation crept over me.

It was dark when I came to. My mouth was dry. I pulled my right arm out from under the bed sheet and felt my head. A thick wad of sticking plaster covered one side . It didn’t stop the throbbing. My left shoulder felt as though a train had hit it. I wriggled my toes, no problem. One ankle had seized. Otherwise legs seemed okay. I tried to focus. A hospital room. Which hospital? There was an empty bed across from mine. Nobody else in the room. What time was it? What day was it? I spotted a glass of water on the bedside cabinet. It tasted good.

I thought about the last few days. I remembered the Frenchman, Director Rosseur standing in the Lyon briefing room, addressing fraud detectives from all over Europe and Britain. He was heading Interpol’s security team for the currency changeover to the Euro. He was slapping the side of his trousers, with a riding whip, his dusky grey eyes eyeing us all. His face and hair were dark. A pointed sharp nose, narrow lips and pencil-thin eyebrows gave him an alert look.

Europe was about to change from independent country currencies to a universal Euro currency. Our mission was to see that the implementation of the Euro dollar went as smoothly as possible. All known present and former counterfeiters and bullion robbers, were being closely watched.

Our Special Interpol Unit was being briefed on the recent activities of

London’s notorious Croad gang. Brothers Errol and Allan Croad had leased

a large ocean-going cabin cruiser and shady characters were regularly visiting. Interpol and Scotland Yard wanted to uncover their plans.

That was my mission on returning to London with the Interpol assignment of gathering further information. The Croad brothers had made several recent visits to Paris, but no one knew precise details. They had given the Paris Unit the slip each time. However, it was unlikely that the Croad brothers would let an event like the Euro changeover pass by without an attempt to get their hands on some of the money that had to be moved from the mint to the participating countries.

Scotland Yard believed the brothers had recently organised a supermarket hold-up in Birmingham and later arranged for the swap of a large number of forged notes for good ones at race meetings. So they had the money to finance an attempt of some sort. But what was it?

They had a cabin cruiser berthed at an East London marina.. The marina was a tourist attraction with nearby shops and restaurants. It created a lot of public movement.

On my first early morning walking reconnaissance I spotted an upstairs restaurant that overlooked the marina. Over breakfast I occasionally trained my binoculars on the cabin cruiser. By my second cup of coffee, I felt it was time to move on. I needed to get a closer look at the boat’s visitors who were all coming from up river in smaller boats and tying alongside.

At right angles to the wharf, corridors of walkways on flexible pontoons made up the marina area. The walkways were more than two hundred and fifty metres long with boats tied up on both sides. The Croads’ cabin cruiser was berthed closest to the Thames River proper, at the end of a walkway. I was walking past some orange painted wharf sheds containing marina-servicing equipment when I sensed someone behind me. I began walking closer to the sheds and quickly slipped right round one to watch the man who had been following me. He was a slim bloke. He hesitated at the shed corner I had rounded, pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose.

There was a noise behind me. I whirled around, and a blow to the stomach winded me, I fell back against the shed and saw a thickset, ugly man about to smash my face in. Ducking the blow I gave him a thumping punch to his right kidney followed by a slicing kick to his right knee. He winced in pain and went down. The slim man appeared, with a gun in his hand. I ran behind the shed, as though fleeing, but crouched down and waited.

As the thug rounded the corner, I karate-chopped his wrist, he cursed through his buckteeth and dropped his gun. Another karate chop to Adam’s apple and he fell to the ground gasping. A searing pain burnt into the flesh of my left shoulder. Blood spurted out of a jagged wound, quickly staining my jacket a dark red.

The gun, fitted with a silencer, was now in the hands of the ugly pugilist. He was bringing it into line to shoot me between the eyes. It was him or me.

*     *     *

Some kid who saw me on the cross-member called for help. I’d like to thank that kid. Now, I wondered why I’d been so easily attacked. Had I drawn attention to myself in the restaurant? Had I been too obvious? That’s what my boss, Inspector Baldwin, said when he visited me in hospital that day.

‘You’ve been in the news too much,’ he said, standing at the end of the bed trying to decipher my medical records. ‘Your photo is always in the newspapers. Perhaps you were recognised and given a ‘friendly’ warning.’ A smirk crossed his face.

‘If that was a ‘friendly’ warning, I’d hate to have an unfriendly one,’ I replied.

‘You should know the Croad brothers, reputation for such warnings. They don’t like nosey people.’

Baldwin was still holding the clipboard intently reading the medical report. I lay there feeling affronted.

‘You know, its Department policy to give officers who have suffered head injuries, two weeks’ compulsory sick leave,’ he declared.

‘But I was only knocked out,’ I protested. I wondered what he’d read in my medical report. ‘Is there something in there I should know about?’

‘No,’ he said, hastily, replacing the medical clipboard at the end of the bed. ‘Knocked out, my foot. You’re lucky to be alive, Dalton. Anyway, it’ll be Friday before they even consider letting you leave, according to your doctor, enjoy your sick leave—have a holiday. Go away somewhere.’

He was a cop of the old school was Baldwin. Standard height, thick set, grey hair, hard face, penetrating brown eyes and a firm square jaw. He wore a crumpled dark blue suit that could have been an Al Capone cast-off. Baldwin was due to retire soon and gave the impression he didn’t care a tinker’s cuss about me or anyone else.

After he left, a thought occurred. I damn well will go on holiday. I’ll go to Italy. Maybe L’Aquila. During the Euro briefing Rosseur, had warned us to be aware of places that offer advantages to the dishonest. ‘Take a bank in Italy, for example—at say, the small town of L’Aquila in the Appeninnino Ranges.’ He placed the tip of his whip high up on a map of Italy fixed to the wall. ‘Rome is one side and Pescara on the other,’ he flicked the whip end to hold our attention, ‘both with international sea and air ports. Bank security systems, in that sort of location need to be the best.’

Director Rosseur had looked up at me and added, ‘You have many such locations occurring in England, Detective Dalton.’ There was a concern about private banks, as they did not have the security systems afforded by the multinationals and were, more vulnerable to foul play.

I daydreamed for awhile of sunny Italy before remembering the need to file a report. My portable recorder was in my apartment so I wrote out my report longhand for Madge to type and distribute and asked a nurse to post it off to New Scotland Yard. The rest of the day dragged by. Friday I decided to discharge myself from hospital. I couldn’t bear hanging around any longer.

The doctor was astonished to see me at reception signing discharge papers. ‘I really think you should stay a full week and go home on Monday.’

‘No. I’m okay. You’ve patched me up fine, doctor. All I have to do is lift off the plaster and undo the bandage.’

‘It’s not the wounds I am worried about, it’s your concussion. Another blow on the same spot may do some serious damage. It could crack your skull.’

‘It’s not dented is it Doc?’ I joked.

‘You’re lucky the bullet splintered and only part grazed your skull. A direct hit and you would have been buried yesterday,’ he said flapping his hands. ‘You are not Superman, Detective Dalton. Just you remember that.’

I shook the old fellow’s hand; thanked him and left. Apart from an occasional dizziness, I felt fine.

Mrs Matson, my apartment cleaner and general minder had been informed of my ‘accident’ and had provisioned my larder for the weekend. I planned to leave for L’Aquila on Wednesday morning. Despite Baldwin’s words, I was still determined to carry out my assignment to check out the cabin cruiser before departing for Italy. But by the time I reached my apartment, I was stuffed. I put the electric jug on and lay down on the bed for a moment. I must have flaked out, as it was seven next morning before I came to my senses. Looking in the bathroom mirror, I slowly peeled off the strip of plaster and unwound the shoulder bandage. There didn’t appear to be too much scarring. Just a few red scabs on my shoulder. I assured myself I was ready for the assignment even though feeling a bit wobbly.

It was cold, wet and pitch black on Monday at three in the morning, when I stealthily approached the cabin cruiser dressed all in black, wearing soft rubber-soled shoes. I paused, took out my infrared camera and began photographing the cruiser. I heard a voice coming from the cruiser and stepped back into the darkness between two sheds.

The barrel of a gun prodded hard into my back. ‘Don’t turn around, pig!’

Chapter Two

‘Walk slowly forward, up dem steps onto the deck with your `ands in the hair.’

Glancing down at the water, I considered diving off the marina walkway into the water.

‘Don’t even tink of it, `cause when they fish youse out your spine will be in two pieces, pig,’ he said, giving the gun an added twist into my spine. He took the camera away from me and threw it in the water. ‘No pictures for the pig!’ He laughed seeing it rapidly sink below the surface.

We climbed the galvanised iron steps onto the boat I could see a cigarette glow ahead of me, revealing a distorted face. A match flared on another cigarette and I discerned, Errol and Allan Croad staring back at us.

‘Told ya `ed be back. Slosh `im over the `ead and pitch `im overboard, I say Errol.’

‘Na, Allan, ya do as I say. Put `im below. `E’s our `ostage.’

‘Watcha gonna do with `im then?’ asked Allan.

‘We’re gonna torcha the nark cos `e’s got somethun we want. `Ave you searched `im, Dusty?’

‘Just abart to do it, Errol.’ Harsh Voice’s hands slipped over me, searching, while I thought about Errol’s remarks. Torcha the nark! Why would he say that? The thug handed my operations wallet up to Allan, then claimed hold of my right wrist and examined my wristwatch, exclaiming in a loud voice. ‘The dick has a Mickey Mouse watch! Can you believe it?’ Harsh Voice thought it so funny he left the watch on my wrist. Funny ha, ha, I thought. Did he think I’d be wearing a Rolex!

‘Is that all? Damn thin wallet too,’ Allan said disgustedly. ‘Ain’t we paying these bloody cops enough?’

‘Must `ave known we’d be too smart for the pig,’ said Errol, taking the wallet from Allan, and ripping it to pieces after pocketing the fifty quid that had been in there.

Allan then came forward and slammed his fist into my stomach. As I doubled over, sucking in air, he lifted up his knee and crashed it into my face. I