Graham couldn’t make it; he was too tied up with his property and carpet businesses. I flew alone to Dublin and checked in at the Intercontinental Hotel. It overlooked the Lansdowne Road rugby ground, where just the year before the Irish had cruelly robbed the Welsh of the Triple Crown. There was a package waiting for me at the reception desk. An attached note said: ‘Read this. Seamus.’
I opened the package. Inside was a mass of detail about an airport I had never heard of. It was called Shannon and was situated on the Atlantic coast just outside Limerick.
The airport boasted a number of unique characteristics. It was the closest European airport to North America, and, as such, was a connection and refuelling point for European and Asian airlines on long hauls across the Atlantic. In 1952, Irish government and individual entrepreneurs, doing their utmost to exploit Shannon’s position as an airways cross-roads, invented the first ever duty-free shop where transit passengers could purchase alcohol, cigarettes, perfumes, and watches at bargain prices. The area surrounding Shannon airport had been declared a freeport, to which raw materials and other bonded goods could be shipped for use for manufacturing purposes provided the finished products were exported from Ireland and not offered for sale within the country. A massive trading estate housing numerous businesses anxious to take advantage of this incentive spread around the airport. Every day, several hundred cars and trucks drove in conveying factory employees and locally built machinery. I began to see the point. Gear could be sent into Shannon Trading Estate from abroad without going through customs checks and would, somehow or other, be taken out of the trading estate camouflaged by the exodus of factory workers leaving at the end of their shift. There were maps of every inch of the estate and airport and a variety of air-freighting/importation forms. I was very, very impressed.
The hotel room door opened, and Jim walked in accompanied by a hotel employee carrying a bottle of Paddy Irish whiskey and a bucket of melted ice.
‘You’re a good man, Damien,’ said Jim. ‘Sign the bill, H’ard, and give your man here a twenty-pound tip. He deserves it.’
I gave the whiskey-bearer his money.
Jim put his arms around me and squeezed tightly. I was very startled.
‘What do you think of the Kid, then? I’ve done it. I’ve cracked it. Send all the fucking dope you want.’
‘How did you do it, Jim?’
‘I pretended I worked for Fortune magazine and rang up the airport manager to ask for an interview. I went from him down, you understand me, till I got the man I wanted. Anything can be taken out of that trading estate there. Any fucking thing. As long as you got one of these.’
Jim grabbed hold of the pile of papers I’d been reading and displayed one entitled ‘Out of Charge Note’.
‘You can get these copied, can’t you?’
‘I should think so, Jim. Charlie Radcliffe worked in the printing and publishing business for years. He’ll know how to get it done.’
‘Don’t you tell Charlie Radcliffe what they’re for. You hear me.’
‘Well … Okay. Maybe I’ll use someone else. Who examines them?’
‘You wired up, H’ard? I just fucking told you I got the man I wanted. He fucking examines them. And, if he values his fucking Guinness, he’ll pass them. His name’s Eamonn. He’s a true Republican.’
‘Does he know we’re going to bring in dope?’
‘Of course he fucking doesn’t, you Welsh arsehole. He thinks he’s bringing in guns for the cause. He’s against dope.’
‘Where’s Alan, Jim?’
‘I’ve just sacked the no-good fucker. Him and Radcliffe had better watch out for their lives. And that fucking John Lennon. You ought to get rid of Soppy Bollocks, too.’
‘Who is Soppy Bollocks?’
‘That fucking Brit that was with you last week.’
‘Jim, we need Graham. I don’t know anyone else who can send stuff from Pakistan and Afghanistan.’
‘Well, fucking find someone, you hear me. You and me can go to Kabul. Did you bring those pornographic movies you promised?’
I had forgotten.
‘I didn’t want to bring them on the plane, Jim. I’ll get them brought over on the ferry very soon. This plan of yours seems brilliant. When do you want to start?’
‘Fucking now. I’m ready. I got it all together.’
‘How much shall we send?’
‘I’ll let you know, H’ard.’
‘What address shall we send the stuff to?’
‘I’ll let you know, H’ard.’
‘What goods shall we pretend to be shipping?’
‘I’ll let you know, H’ard.’
Jim clearly didn’t have it all together, but it did sound most promising. I wanted to see Shannon for myself. We rented a car and drove via Limerick to Shannon airport. The countryside was spectacular, a large and beautiful estuary surrounded by gentle rolling hills. In the middle of this idyllic setting lay a large industrial estate and airport. Jim was driving. He parked right outside the passenger airport terminal in an obvious no-parking area.
‘You can’t be parking there,’ said a quietly spoken Irish airport official.
‘It’s a fucking emergency. I’m picking up my boss’s luggage,’ said Jim in his loudest and most aggressive Belfast accent.
‘That’ll be grand. I’ll keep an eye on it for you.’
Jim then took me on a guided tour of the airport, including the Aer Lingus cargo terminal. Various employees nodded to him. He escorted me as if he owned the place. Then he got an Aer Lingus van driver to take us to the industrial estate. There appeared to be no check on anyone or anything. Jim asked a supervisor to tell me how the freeport worked.
‘This is like its own country,’ explained the supervisor. ‘No goods are allowed to leave this estate unless, of course, they’ve been specifically cleared to do so.’
‘What if someone tried to take them out?’ asked Jim, playing a bit close to the bone.
‘They can’t without one of these,’ said the supervisor, displaying an ‘Out of Charge’ note.
‘See what I mean, H’ard,’ said Jim as we were dropped off back at the terminal, where the obliging official was still keeping an eye on our car. ‘This place is wide fucking open.’
It was.
‘You’ll have to give me some more money, H’ard, to rent an office in Limerick and a small workshop in Shannon Trading Estate. How will you take the hash to London and Brighton? You want our Brendan to take it over for you? He needs to work and make some money, that’s for fucking sure.’
‘I’ll get friends to drive it over the ferry to Wales, Jim. We have a lot of experience driving across the European borders.’
‘Do you just put the gear in the boot and pray?’
‘No. We hide it in the door panels and under and behind the back seat. You’d be surprised how much you can get in. I’ll need a place, a cottage or something, or a garage, where I can stash the car before putting it on the ferry.’
‘I’ll get you one. Just give me