The northern European asked the Nigerian, ‘Where do you live?’ His accent was strong South Welsh. I had never met a Welshman in an American prison, nor heard of one. I’d met very few Americans who’d heard of Wales.
‘Are you Welsh?’ I interrupted.
‘Aye,’ he said, looking at me with deep suspicion.
‘So am I.’
‘Oh yeah!’ Deeper suspicion.
‘Which part are ’ew from?’ I asked, laying on the accent a bit.
‘Swansea,’ he said, ‘and ’ew?’
‘Twenty-five miles away from ’ew in Kenfig Hill,’ I answered.
He started laughing.
‘You’re not him, are you? God Almighty! Jesus wept! Howard bloody Marks. Marco fucking Polo. They’re letting you go, are they? That’s bloody great. Good to meet you, boy. I’m Scoogsie.’
We had a chat, a long one. Scoogsie explained how he, too, had just finished a drug sentence, and he told me of his early days in the business.
‘My wife has worked for a long time in a drug rehabilitation centre in Swansea. Not a bad partnership, really. I get them hooked; she gets them off. We keep each other going, like.’
Memories of South Welsh humour had often helped me through the bad times in prison. Now I was hearing it for real. I was heading back towards my roots, and they were reaching out for me.
Looking confused, the Nigerian belatedly replied to Scoogsie’s original question.
‘I live in London. I am being deported there. I am never coming back here. They took away my money, my property, and my business. Just because someone I didn’t know swore in court that I sold him some drugs.’
An all too familiar story.
The number of deportees in the converted aeroplane hangar was dwindling. ‘Anyone else going to London?’ Scoogsie asked.
No one.
Soon, there were just the three of us left. We’d found out that the Continental Airlines flight to London should be leaving in an hour. An Immigration Officer came in holding a gun.
‘This way, you three.’
A small van took us to the gangway. With his gun, the Immigration Officer indicated we should climb the steps. The Nigerian led the way. Scoogsie followed and spat dramatically on American soil.
‘None of that!’ ordered the immigration man, waving his gun.
‘Don’t mess it up now, Scoogsie. You know what they’re like.’
‘I know what the fuckers are like, all right,’ said Scoogsie. ‘I hate them. I wouldn’t piss in their mouths if their throats were on fire. I’m never going to eat another McDonalds. No more cornflakes for breakfast. And pity help any Yank who asks me the way anywhere. Let anyone dare try to pay me in dollars. God help him.’
‘Take it easy, Scoogsie. Let’s get on board.’
Walking into the aeroplane was like entering the starship Enterprise. Passengers with spacey haircuts and clown clothes took out computers of all shapes and sizes. Had things really changed that much, or had I forgotten what it was like? Lights flickered on and off. Glamorous and smiling women, the like of whom had existed only as photos on a prison cell wall, walked the aisles. One actually talked to me.
‘Mr Marks, your seat number is 34H. It’s in the aisle. We shall hold your passport until London. Then we’ll give it to the British authorities.’
I didn’t like the sound of that, but I was too mesmerised to pay much attention. Scoogsie and the Nigerian were placed out of sight. I sat down, gloated over magazines and newspapers and played with knobs adjusting seat position and volume of canned entertainment, like a child on his first flight. I had flown on commercial airlines thousands of times before, but I remembered none of them. Take-off was magic. I saw Texas disappearing. Then, all of America vanished. There is a God.
‘Would you like a cocktail before your meal, Mr Marks?’
I had drunk no alcohol and smoked nothing for three years. I was proud of my self-discipline. Perhaps I should carry on as a teetotaller.
‘Just an orange juice, please.’
A tray of food was placed in front of me. In the old days, I would rarely eat while flying: apart from the caviare and foie gras given to first-class passengers on long-haul flights, it was all fairly disgusting and well below the cordon bleu standard to which I had become accustomed. Prison fare had cured me of that bit of pompous pseudery. This meal was the best I could remember, and I loved fiddling around with the little packets of condiments. There was a very small bottle of red wine on the tray. Surely, I could drink that. It was exquisite. I ordered six more.
I began worrying about the remark made by the air hostess. Which British authorities? There were so many I’d upset and so much they could still do me for. While I was spending the last six years in prison, the British authorities had obtained evidence that I had been involved in countless other marijuana and hashish importations to England, ones that I hadn’t been charged with. They’d also found more of my false passports. There are no statutes of limitation in British law. They could bust me if they wanted to.
Two books had been written about me, each making it clear that I was an incorrigible rogue with nothing but contempt for the forces of law enforcement. Fourteen years earlier, at the end of a high-profile, colourful, nine-week trial, I had been acquitted of being the ringleader for the largest-ever importation of marijuana into Europe – fifteen tons of Colombia’s best. The charges had been brought by Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise. It had been their biggest-ever bust. They would never forget me.
A chief inspector of police had committed suicide after being blamed for leaking my involvement with the British Secret Service to the press. Scotland Yard had lost a good man because of me. There wouldn’t be many friends there.
MI6 weren’t too happy with me either, smuggling dope with the IRA when I was supposed to be spying on them.
Ten years ago, after assessing me as having earned two million pounds from cannabis smuggling, the Inland Revenue reluctantly settled for a total tax liability of sixty thousand pounds. As a result of public proclamations by the most senior of DEA staff, it was now accepted as a matter of fact that I had well over two hundred million pounds in Eastern bloc bank accounts. The tax man would want some, no doubt.
Even if the British felt I’d been punished enough, Special Agent Craig Lovato was bully enough to change their minds. During the mid-1980s, he’d almost single-handedly mobilised the law enforcement agencies of fourteen different countries (United States, Great Britain, Spain, Philippines, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, Pakistan, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, Switzerland, Austria, and Australia) to band together in unprecedented international co-operation to get me locked up for ever. He would be bound to take my premature release as a personal failure and suffer extreme loss of face. He’d get the British to arrest me on arrival. He’d get tough with them and promise them helicopter rides, computers, and days shopping in
