Dispensing with pleasantries, Sir Geoffrey said “I need to see you right away!”
“Come right on over,“ said Carlos.
He was there within twenty minutes. He had asked Mike to drive as fast as he could. He got to Carlos’s flat and without so much as a handshake or a greeting he challenged Carlos to explain what was going on.
Carlos looked at him with an innocent stare.
“What do you mean, Geoff?”
“You know damn well what I mean!” yelled Geoff, “That whole deal was a scam and I’m left in the middle of it with shit all over me.”
“Those fucking Italians!” said Carlos trying to look as surprised as he could. “I knew I should never have trusted them.”
“There was supposed to be cocaine in the vases but don’t worry, you didn’t know that. I deliberately kept you in the dark. It’s not your fault,” he said, trying to console Geoff and knowing that what he said wasn’t the way the Russians would see it.
“Try telling that to Petrov,” said Geoff, as if he’d read Carlos’s mind. “You’ve dropped me in the shit, now you’d better get me out of it!”
“What can I do, Geoff? I’ve lost as well. The Italians supplied the cocaine and if they have screwed the Russians do you think they’re going to pay my commission for arranging the deal? Look, the best thing I can do is to try and contact them and see what can be done.”
Geoff knew he was getting nowhere. What he didn’t know was that Petrov had already been in touch with Carlos who had told him that he was convinced that Sir Geoffrey was behind the scam. He had contracted Carlos to “take him out”—in Petrov’s words!
This was just as Carlos had planned it. First he had succeeded in ripping off the Russians for two million and now he was to get another hundred thousand commission for the hit. In addition, it got rid of his problem with Sir Geoffrey whom he had decided knew too much about him to keep around.
He estimated that his expenses for arranging all this, which included having to pay Sir Geoffrey, came to not far short of half a million. He had made a handsome profit, was in the clear himself, and was being paid to do a job which he felt he needed to be done for his own safety.
The “Italians” had never existed, it was one of Carlos’s men who had initially gone to St Petersburg, made contact with Petrov and provided him with the sample of pure cocaine, making out he was part of an Italian syndicate. He had since disappeared leaving the Russians with only one man to blame, namely Sir Geoffrey.