"FINGERS CURLED AROUND THE WIRE DIAMONDS…"
In 2000 a statistic was published: 175 million people live outside their home country, including some 12 million refugees. The greater number, of course, choose to do so. The rest flee in fear, be it from the outbreak of war or a natural disaster that had ruined homes or any number of other reasons. Sometimes these people slip legally through the tight knot that is immigration law; other times they pay some illegal trafficker or spirit them away. Trafficking routes these days are so widespread and complicated, the number of smugglers always rising, that it is becoming easier and easier for a person to find a way to unofficially leapfrog borders. The business is run by rich men and women who sit atop an empire much as any CEO might straddle a successful legitimate firm, enjoying the rewards without ever seeing what goes on way, way down the ladder. For every Bill Gates or Jack Daniels, there are myriad lowly workers in the company that the big boss doesn't ever deal with. I thought of Coyote as that kind of grunt. He might not know the ins and outs of the operation, and he didn't need to. In this case, all he needed to know was where to pick up his trailer and where to deliver it. He pulled in to Blackpool in his truck in a car park near the sea. Some Chinese guys loaded a trailer onto his truck and told him where to take it. The deal was that he would deliver the trailer, wait while it was unloaded, and return it to the owners. And for that he'd get six thousand pounds. A lot for just half a day's driving, sure, but not much when compared to the money reaped by the planners of such things, who charged almost as much as Coyote's pay packet per head. And when you considered that the truck held almost fifty people, each paying a high figure to be smuggled into England…
I stared into the truck and I knew that there was a sight worse than fifty dead bodies - and that is fifty dead bodies that don't seem to be dead.
Smuggling people is like packing for a holiday. You want to take as much clean clothing and other items as you can carry, but who wants to lug ten suitcases around? So you cram as much stuff as you can into as few cases as possible. Same here. Why have ten trucks out there when you can have just five, and thus halve the risk of capture? So you load as many people as you can into each truck, until you can barely get the door closed.
There was a wire-mesh fence at the back of the truck, used for making sure cargo didn't fall out when the doors were opened. The fence was chest-high to a man. I stared in revulsion. The scene was like something from a zombie rock concert - dozens of gaunt, slack-jawed bodies crammed together so tightly they continued to stand even in death, pressed up hard against the fence so that the top rail gouged deep into chests and arms and heads. Above the rail floated torsos from the young, the old, male, female. Bodies remained upright, but dead necks didn't, and heads hung like wilted flowers, tongues dangling, eyes blank. Below the top rail I saw mostly a jumble of legs, some clothed, some not, the ones not grimed with shit and piss and dried sweat. But hidden amongst this tangle of limbs were a few smaller bodies, obviously belonging to children who had fled with their parents or been kidnapped and sold into slavery or prostitution - big business. I saw faces pressed against the wire-mess so hard it cut into the flesh, fingers curled around the wire diamonds as if death had arrived while they fought for freedom. And each face was frozen in a mask of agony, suffering, lost hope. It seemed to me that death had been a release for these people, and they had paid - in some cases - their life savings for it. Well, they do say that the only thing worse than dying is dying with money in the bank.
"They didn't connect the air-conditioning to the trailer," Coyote said from behind me. "That's foul." So they'd died in a sauna, basically. Unable to move, their screams heard by no one as the truck roared along roads, engine masking all sounds. Had they already been dead by the time Coyote had stopped for chips and peas? Surely he or I would have heard their cries - or low moans, if by that point the end was nigh - in the still night back at the chip shop? Or had the police car's siren covered the noises? It was too much to consider. And it was the past. We had to look forward; we had to plan our next move in relation to these dead people, who, I tried to convince myself, were no longer suffering.
"So we need the vans," Coyote said. "If they have people watching, people who might be there with telescopes -" he pointed towards the light show "-then we can't be seen driving the trailer away without the vans. The deal was I wait here until the vans have gone. That was before they opened the doors and saw the bodies, of course. I swear I had no idea they'd all died."
"Where were the vans taking everyone?"
Coyote looked a bit nervous, as if he didn't want to let me know how much more he really knew. For sure this guy hadn't only been given driving instructions. I even considered that he might be one of those high-up guys who don't mind getting down and dirty, like a boardroom executive who would help in the mailroom if someone was off sick. How deep was this guy involved? Certainly he didn't exhibit the shock you'd imagine from a man who'd just discovered fifty dead people in his truck.
"The Shads split them up afterwards, so I don't know. These aren't well-off people, here, so I imagine they're mostly workers."
"Slaves?"
Coyote laughed. "Not slaves, no. Wrong century, mate. And slaves don't get paid."
"Prostitution, then."
"Some, yeah. But not forced. Why would a fucking doctor need to hide in a truck, eh? It's cash-in-hand labouring for these nobodies or it's other kinds of work. Or it's back to the gulags or whatever. No work permits in any of these pockets."
"Just piss and shit at the minute," I said with distaste.
"Yeah, well, they didn't connect the air conditioning, did they?" He shrugged. Not his fault. "We gonna move these guys or leave them here, or what, Avenger? Help me with this, I tell you what you should do about your missus. Eh?"
It seemed people put a lot of faith into how important I considered this whole voting thing. First they'd thought I would sit back and watch a terrorist attack. Then they believed I'd kill a rare horse. Now they thought I'd dispose of a horde of dead people. What next?
"Who are the Shads?" I asked. I had changed the subject for a good reason: Coyote's offer had sounded pretty good. My girl was in my head again, having appeared at the mention of the word MISSUS, and now she wouldn't leave. My girl became my girl naked, who became my girl naked in bed with the forker the fucking forklift driver, the man who had put a spike in my heart. My eyes were open, but I began to see them both in my vision, superimposed over the grinning behemoth Coyote, so that all three seemed like ghosts. Not good.
"Shadow Wanderers." Coyote hawked and spat on the ground. "Famous underground clubbing unit, aren't they. Set this thing up here."
"Sergeant Vinyl, he one of them?" I asked. I turned my eyes to the night. It didn't erase the image of my girl and the forker fucking, but at least they weren't now having a threesome of sorts with Coyote.
"Nah, that twat just does the odd show. Is it him tonight, then? I like that Deejaysus Christ guy better. He does stand-up comedy, too. Much better."
"So how's this all work? Tell me and I'll help you." There, a deal on my terms.
"This place is just cover in case the cops come or they've been following one of the trucks. They send undercover guys after us. I thought you were one till you ran straight into my door. Scared you, didn't I? Woulda snapped your neck if you had been. Chased by the cops like that, you were either one of them setting something up, or some guy who wouldn't be missed. Scared you, eh?"
"Not any more," I told him coldly. "Night's getting young. Talk."
Coyote wheezed, impatient. "The people in this truck, they're just a slice of life like out of anywhere, Avenger. Same as you'd find in the airports here, trying to fly away from their problems for a week. Some of these guys will go on to live decent lives. Some will suck dick for money, some might get fucked over because they've got no rights here. That's it. Got enough material for your book yet? Can we get to work?
He took my arm and squeezed, hard, and it fu
cking hurt. For a moment I was scared again, then I was free and Coyote was fishing for something in his pocket. He extracted a key, slotted it into a hole in a panel at the back of the truck and pressed a button. A hidden tailgate slid into view from beneath the trailer, quietly, and when it was fully extended it whirred downwards until it touched the ground. Coyote hopped aboard.
"You look like a strong-enough chap. You must be, to have those balls." He gave me a look. I knew he was not scared of me in the slightest, but was enduring my attitude because he needed my help. I should have been scared, but I wasn't. I didn't know why. "This is how we'll play it. I'll unload, lay on the ground. You load up into the van. I bet we can get twenty in a van. We'll load as many vans as we need, then we'll take them one at a time. I don't want anyone to see us leave. If they see two vans leave, they might assume the deal's done and come on over, or follow us. This way, maybe we can swing out of here without being spotted, go dump these bodies, come back, go again, do that a few times, finish the job, go our separate ways."
"What's your way? These guys will be after you."
"You want me to worry about tomorrow when I have problems tonight? What good would that do? Buy myself a Tahiti flight and have the plane leave with an empty seat because I'm dead? You need better planning than that if you hope to kill your missus and get away with it, Avenger. Besides, I am untouchable. Let some idiot try."
"That's not what I'm planning," I said with a pout, like a tough kid who's been accused of doing something girly like knitting.
"Don't matter. This does. Reverse that van on over here. Get it up to the tailgate here so I don't have to discus-toss them in."
He seemed to have it all planned. "Where are they being dumped?" Surely he didn't have that worked out, too -
"Fuck!" Coyote bellowed suddenly. He roared like the bear he resembled. The tailgate rumbled like thunder as he launched himself off it with surprising grace for a big guy. He landed with a heavy thud beside me and before I could turn a shocked head he had my arm again in his thick fingers. I felt him dig deep. I felt the blood flow become restricted. He started ranting in my face, but I looked past his wild eyes to my hand, which waved in the air as he shook my arm. I half-expected the fingers to swell up like the end of a balloon that is being squeezed, to burst and spray blood everywhere.
"Stop the fucking questions, or for Christ's sake you'll go in the van with these pricks. You get me caught, you get me kicked out this country, I'll come back and wipe your family from history. You hear me? I'll eat and shit out that bitch girl of yours. I'll burn every kin you got. I'll wipe my arse on your birth certificate. I'll maim anyone anywhere who's got your fucking picture or signature. I'll knock amnesia into every fucker who ever remembers you or your entire fucking family. You got me?"
He waited for an answer. I just glared at him. I don’t know what emotion was on my face, but it made him smirk. “Let me tell you a little story. You mind?”
I shook my head.
“One day at school we were asked: ‘Who is the most powerful man in the world?’ The answer, as you may know, is the leader of the free world, as his people call him. He is the President of the United States of America. Today, as I write, that man is George W. Bush, and Bush hadn't gotten where he was through dishing out pleasantries.
“Well, that day, I was a fifteen year-old who didn't quite buy that answer. The President? Back then it was Bush's Dad, also a George. But I'd seen that guy. He was elderly, perhaps frail - where did his power come from?
“Well, he’s powerful only because he commands other people with power. But his Joint Chiefs of Staff are old men with no physical power of their own, not any more. But they command generals who command soldiers who wield power only through weapons built by technicians who have no real physical power of their own. Looking at it this way, you might say the most powerful man in the world is the man who can beat any other physically. Or another way is to say it might be the man who has the most ability with weaponry - and in that case, who would win in a one-on-one battle? That’s the part that fascinates me - which single man, which one entity, without help from anyone else, wields the power to defeat any single other? And now think about people you know and their capabilities. Could be your Uncle John is a mammoth man with bear-like arms, capable of crushing anyone. But maybe the guy living down the street is a lion tamer and with his talent with a whip could kill big Uncle John before the mammoth got his bear arms within ten feet of him. Now before you blurt names out, think carefully. Don’t count some cop with a gun, because someone else made that gun and someone else gave it him. Unless he created all the raw materials and constructed that weapon himself, he doesn’t count. I’m talking a theoretical world of every man for himself. A world in which nobody helps anyone else except if they’ve been forced to, in which the only government is one ruled by a man who rewards those he enslaves through fear of harm, and who in turn do the work of the big boss by forcing others into action. I'm talking about a single mind in a single body, wielding enough power to enslave the world.
“If the Secret Service abandoned George Bush, where would that leave him? He'd be an old man with no power. I bet even my frail granny could knock him on his ass. That's not power. Power is a state of being. It can‘t be seen, can‘t be fathomed. I don‘t look like much beyond a typical fat bastard truck driver, but you shouldn‘t underestimate anyone. Never underestimate a calculating mind beneath two legs to carry it and a pair of hands to do its bidding.”
He let go of my arm and the feeling returned, but with it came more pain. My arm tingled from the restriction of blood flow. I shook it. Both tingled. I shook both. I shook them so hard and fast that I watched my whizzing hands with awe, especially when they became whizzing fists. Then I put them by my sides, much as a soldier might let his rifle hang loose after cocking and checking it to make sure it was ready and able to destroy life. I felt the weight of my arms as if they were alien. Shoulders, too. Chest, back, legs, neck, mind. I still buzzed and no pep talk was going to change that. I remember grinning at him then, remembering his words about a calculating mind and hands that would do its bidding.