TURKISH DELIGHT by Barry Faulkner (ebook reader wifi .TXT) 📗

‘Minimum risk, Ben – stay in the background, hands off and charge a good rate of interest. There’s always somebody who needs a loan and if they default, well, there’s always people like you and Grant to persuade them not to.’ He looked up at Rankin. So that’s Rankin’s role: enforcer.

Was that what had happened: Rambart hadn’t made payments to Reynolds that were due, so he took part of his business? I knew from the old gangster days Reynolds never ever let anybody default – never. Another piece of jigsaw fell into place.

Reynolds pulled a pair of latex gloves from his coat pocket, pulled them on and then walked over and reached through the stair rail and picked up my gun. ‘Unfortunately, once in a while somebody doesn’t tell me the truth as to who they are and who they are doing business with. I don’t like that, especially when the promised payment isn’t made on time. But of course you know that Ben, don’t you – you must remember a few payment overdue reminders you gave to people for me in the old days? Of course you do – and also the final chapter if nothing happened, examples had to be made. Just as now, an example has to be made.’

The fear on Nicholas Rambart’s face turned to shock as Reynolds pointed the gun and shot Eve Rambart in the head. He walked over to where she had fallen and made sure she was dead with another shot.

He turned to me. ‘That was your job, Ben. Nicholas offered you a million to do that, same as Eve offered you a million to kill Nicholas. I told you I’d recommended them both to you. I knew what they wanted, of course I did, and you could have done it, just like the old days when you got rid of a couple of people for me – easy money Ben, if you’d done it.’

Another piece fell into place, ‘Leaving you in sole charge of Rambart- Reynolds International.’

He looked surprised. ‘My word Ben, you have done your homework haven’t you. Yes, correct, I would have been the major shareholder and CEO of a company with the sole rights to sell arms, both legal and illegal, to Turkey, one of the biggest arms buyers in the world and my dear friend here, Commander Aydin would see that it stayed that way without the likes of Eve Rambart using it for getting illegal arms to her Iranian masters. But you didn’t do the job, did you Ben, so I have to complete it.’

He raised the gun and shot Nicholas Rambart in the head; Nicholas Rambart slumped to the floor like a rag doll. Reynolds turned back to me. I knew that if he lifted the gun towards me Gold would take him out.

‘Nicholas was a fool Ben, he had no idea what was going on right under his own eyes until I told him. Eve was very good at her job. She fooled me at the beginning as we took over the four biggest ordnance manufacturers one by one, I thought it was just business, no idea she was putting it all together for the IRG. I was a partner with her from the beginning, the plan worked well, she married the bosses and I arranged their accidental deaths once they had changed their wills so that she inherited their major share holdings and control of the companies. She was good, so bloody good even I didn’t realise she was shipping extras destined for Iran. When I found out I played the pair of them against each other and it has worked out just as I thought it would.’ He looked down at Nicholas Rambart’s still body, ‘I do believe I am now the major shareholder and CEO of the company – perhaps I should change its name from Rambart-Reynolds International to just Reynolds International, eh?’ He smiled and pointed at the bodies, ‘Two dead Ben – killed by your gun with your bullets in their heads, professional job. The sort of hit the police know you are capable of; the sort of hit they know you have done in the past and never nailed you for, so a feather in their caps to have you in the frame with such strong evidence on these two killings, eh? Have you guessed the plan yet?’

I hadn’t. But I knew Gold wouldn’t let too much harm come my way.

Reynolds put my gun on the floor between the bodies. ‘I am going now, Ben – so is Serife. Her bosses will be very pleased that the people organising armament supplies to their enemies in the IRG have been eliminated and business can get back to normal. The only thing that remains is what to do with you? Pretty obvious really Ben, Rankin will kill you – your gun will be in your dead hand and the gun that Rankin kills you with will be in Nicholas’s hand. You killed each other. Perhaps you had Eve as prisoner and Nicholas, the dutiful husband, came to rescue her. Who cares? You’re both dead and the fingerprints and guns tell whatever story the police like to settle on. Goodbye, Ben. Pity it didn’t work out – I quite like you.’

He walked to the door and Aydin went out with him. I looked up at Rankin; I knew Gold would have him in her sights and if he pointed his gun at me he was dead.

He didn’t point his gun at me; he came down a few stairs with it held at his side pointing at the floor and slowly and purposely he moved his arm out to the right, pointing the gun towards the wooden crates on the right-hand side of the warehouse. He loosed off a shot waited a few seconds and fired another one then slowly bent and put his gun on the