Terra Little - Where theres smoke 2 : when the smoke clears

Where There is Smoke 2

Arthur Pendragon

Dedication

I dedicate this book to my Loves.

Thank you

Where do you start thanking people for their input, their advice, their support, its a tough one. With a non related discussion comes a thought that turns into an octopuss tentacle added to the plot makes the story so much more interesting and Ive had many of those during the writing of this story. I hope you the reader enjoy the story as much as I did the discussions and the writing hereof.

But thank you to the hours spent by Anne Taylor panel beating a story into something worth putting into your hands, worth you spending your money on.

Thank you to my wife Leila for the encouragement to continue writing and telling stories.

Thank you to the tobacco industry that gave me thirty years of experience that I could use this knowledge as the string that holds the story together.

About the Author

Contact details:

P.O. Box 1044, Gordons Bay, Western Cape. 7151. Republic of South Africa

Tel: +27 (0) 72 524 4459

Arthur Pendragon (by-line), born in South Africa in 1959, educated at Kearsney College. Arthur served his National Service (conscription) at the State Presidents Guard in South West Africa (Namibia) and Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). National service completed, he worked for several companies before joining the tobacco industry, working in Johannesburg before transferring to the Southern African head office in Stellenbosch. Transferred to London as Global Relationship Development Manager from where he travelled extensively in Europe, the Indian sub-continent and Asia-Pacific for the company. He left the tobacco company to join Bates Worldwide Advertising Agency in New York as Director Consumer Relations and travelled throughout North America. Two years later, resigned and backpacked through South America en-route to his beloved homeland South Africa. Married to Leila, has two daughters and two Siberian huskys and now lives in Cape Town, South Africa.

Prologue

Moves were adrift to combine Europe into a single currency state to counter act the domination of the United States of America and the US Dollar. With the motivation of the European Union coming from France and Germany, two countries that had not been on good footing for many generations, and backed up by weak minnows looking to gain on the backs of the two strong contenders opportunities where rife and ready for the plucking.

The Free Trade Zones were set up to encourage tobacco product resellers in European countries to buy for local consumption and not to export out of the fledgling union. This would negate the payment of taxes for every border crossed from point of purchase to point of sale.

For every good move there are always those that want to take advantage of loop holes in the system for their own benefit and this is a fictitious story about how something potentially small, the smuggling of cigarettes, can escalate into something far more dangerous that can endanger and influence many more lives ... How about I let you read the story and decide for yourself.

I used tobacco as the string for my story as it is something that I know extremely well however tobacco could be replaced by any other commodity that is easily transported, has a high turnover and markup and the potential to enrich traffickers.

Chapter 1

Bruce sauntered down Regent Street in the spring sunshine, noting the latest fashions in Austin Reeds window. Perhaps he should get a white trench coat. Hed look quite dashing, closer to the image he had of himself as an adventurer. He didnt have his hands in his pockets, but he had the smug expression that went with that gesture. Instead he swung his briefcase jauntily. He had put in ten years with Cosmopolitan Tobacco and he was about to reap the rewards. He had moved up the ladder fairly swiftly, apart from one dramatic blot on his copybook, which had set him back for a while. But he had never stopped looking for a faster buck than steady salary increments. And now he had a plan. His research had found a window of opportunity how he loved that phrase, it gave him a vision of looking out onto a sunlit landscape. Bruce was going to make money!

Behind the door with the hard-won plate identifying him as B Gibbons, European Marketing Manager, Bruce smirked at the image in the coat-cupboard mirror. The grey temples gave him gravitas to go with the title and drew women to him in bars and at office parties. Marketing meant plenty of entertainment given and received, plenty of opportunity to use his charms. It was almost worth going grey prematurely, though not worth the stressful experience that had started the elegant silvering.

His mood was dampened by the note he found in his in-tray. Judith, his ex-wife, had declined his request for a loan even though he had offered her shares when he opened his own marketing company. She had gone to her familys lawyer, who had written the letter for her to sign. It smacked of the advocates arrogance and disdain for Bruce. The pompous git, he thought. Bet you have a few skeletons in your oak-panelled closet. He was ever so slightly effeminate. The trouble was that Judith remembered, and the lawyer probably knew about, his Caribbean fiasco of years earlier. Judith had left him as a result of it and with her the possibility of buying a house in the country and becoming a gentleman. Only Judith had benefited from her inheritance.

On to Plan B, he thought.

Plan A had been an embarrassing failure. An attempt to export cigarettes into the Caribbean and South America in defiance of the industrys rules had nearly scuppered his career. Only being able to shift the blame almost entirely onto another, a lowly salesman who had shown more initiative than expected, had saved his skin. This time he would do it all himself. Bruce was moving higher up the ladder, which meant more risk, but with more risk came more success. With more success came the opportunity of rubbing every naysayers nose in the mud and he looked forward to doing just that. After so many years of sitting in limbo he had been promoted again, back to the position hed been bumped from. But the anger at that demotion still reverberated through him. Few of his current colleagues knew anything about his involvement in the racketeering. There had nobody watching over his shoulder for years. His planning for revenge had been in the pipeline for years. He could feel the change in his bones show them, he said to the walls of his office. This time Ill be the man in the shadows, Ill be the facilitator, not the investor, not the front man. Therell be nothing they can pin on me and if everything goes smoothly, nothing will go wrong. Ill just cream off the cash.

Bruce was now in a position where it would be difficult to analyze his moves or catch him moving the chess pieces, as he set this money-spinner into action. Besides, hed watched the company set in place all the processes for risk management. Bruce Gibbons was cleverer than anything they set up to keep him out. The best part for him was that Cosmopolitan Tobacco Company had untied his hands and allowed him to travel again. He could, without too much explanation, implement his plans without answering questions.