Retribution Book 4 - Steps to Revenge: Retribution, #4

By David Harvey

Benito Alfieri expands his cocaine empire with a new market in Central Asia.

His abalone market keeps growing, and other than the regular Hout Bay irritations, the world from his office is looking good.

Or so he thinks.

Until one of his trucks catches fire, destroying the contents, while a second one is hijacked and later torched, also destroying the contents.

Were they accidents, random events or something else? His Central Asian market feels the pinch of no delivery and they want payback.

When problems arise, the Alfieri family resolve them their way using kidnappings, torture, murder, and corruption.

Benito Alfieri is a very dangerous man, but the loss of the trucks with their loads of cocaine and the pushback from Central Asia are pushing him to the edge.

The real Dimitri Alfieri, Benito's nephew, emerges and proves that he has no boundaries when it comes to barbaric violence and revenge.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dave
• Release date: Nov 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393430230

Book preview

Chapter 1

Dimitri got out of bed, walked through the gloomy house in his pyjamas, unlocked the patio door and walked across the warm tiles until he stood next to the largest balcony window and stared out over Camps Bay.

It was still dark, partly because the late winter sun was not yet near the horizon due to the early hour, but mostly exacerbated by the cold damp mist which covered everything. The patio though was warm – thanks to being enclosed but mainly due to the underfloor heating switched on at the start of winter and off at the start of summer.

Standing there staring over the suburb made ghostly by the mist, he thought about what Greyton Johannes had told him. It half fitted with what he and Benito had always thought, but he wasn’t entirely sure how much he trusted the man.

For fifty thousand rands, he’d offered to show Dimitri, as soon as he was out of hospital and mobile, the trawler that brought the drugs collected every month by the Hout Bay car people. For another hundred thousand, he’d arrange for them to be ambushed and give the drugs to Dimitri.

‘You'd have to be smoking some serious shit to think I’d give you that amount of money.’

‘I need to find who did this to me,’ he gestured at his knees encased in plaster and then his elbow. ‘I also need help to get the drugs away from those people and that costs. You want to take these people down, I’m giving you the chance. Besides, what are you going to do? Ambush them with that friend of yours and his knife? Me and my people will ambush them and get the drugs. Then I’m going to kill that big fucker. But to set that up costs money. Besides, those drugs are worth fifty times what I’m asking you for, easy.'

Dimitri stared at him for several long seconds. Sometimes Johannes almost seemed cleverer than he looked. ‘When are they due to collect next?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t sat there every month and kept a diary. I only know the boat they collect it from and when it’s gone.’

‘So why didn’t you ever tell me before I hired you?’

‘It didn’t seem important then. I didn’t know they interested you.’

That had been the gist of the conversation and now, staring over the balcony, Dimitri wondered if he was being set up but he needed something. Something big to give Benito and take him out of the shit he was heading into.

Dimitri was feeling a different heat to the underfloor heating. Nearly two months had gone by since his ambush and Benito would soon have an uncomfortable conversation with him around the money taken in the ambush from the boot of his car.

It was unfortunate, but Dimitri was responsible for it and he needed to find it or replace it. There wasn’t any middle ground which included the words, ‘Yes but, it was not my fault.’

But if Greyton Johannes was telling the truth and hadn’t been lobotomised by the severity of his injuries, and if they could ambush the Hout Bay people when the drugs were collected and steal the load, he could replace the missing millions with interest.

Because after all, it wasn’t as if the Hout Bay people were going to lay a complaint with the police.

It would mean he’d kill at least two birds with one stone because he’d not only have their drugs but he’d be able to prove they’d been involved in his ambush and the cars were simply a cover and that he’d been right all along.

Which would give him the respect he so desperately craved. He knew they all thought of him as that short psychopath but he knew he was way more than that and if it was true and he could pull it off, he’d be the new hero. These were accolades that right now seemed to be reserved for Cesar on account of the dramatic growth in the abalone deliveries and Oscar for saving Ivanna’s life, and it rankled.

Of all the things he craved, respect from Benito was at the top of the list.

Going back to bed, he lay there and thought about his options. The first thing he would do was talk to Cesar, who despite having given Dimitri a mouthful for putting him up near the top of a list of people who could’ve been behind the ambush, was still his best – actually only proper friend. He’d do his best to persuade Cesar to come to the hospital with him and see if he could get a sense of whether Johannes was telling the truth.

‘Where are you?’ Dimitri asked later that morning when he called Cesar.

‘In my office.’

‘I’m coming through. I need to ask you something.’

Walking into Cesar’s office, he sat down and waited while Cesar finished a call and chucked his phone on the desk. ‘What’s up?’

‘I need you to come to the hospital with me. I want you to speak to someone.’

‘Who?’

‘Remember the guy I paid to get hold of the Lightfoot person and put him in hospital?’

‘The one who got my knife in his nostril or his bum chum?’

‘The nostril one.’

Cesar eased his chair back and put his feet on his desk. ‘Yeah?’

‘He’s back in hospital. I saw him the other day and he told me something interesting. It’s about those people in Hout Bay. I want you to listen and tell me if he’s lying or telling the truth.’

‘Why’s he back in hospital?’

‘Someone smashed his knees and one of his elbows.’

Cesar looked at Dimitri with raised eyebrows, grimaced, and then laughed. ‘Seriously?’

‘Yes.’

‘Couldn’t have happened to a nicer person. But seriously, what makes you think I’d be able to tell if he’s lying or not?’

‘Because if he’s not, there is an opportunity for all of us. And it will make Benito very happy.’

‘What’s the dickwad saying?’

‘That the Hout Bay people are bringing more drugs in through that harbour than we do.’

‘And you think I could tell because...?’

‘Because for all your faults, you don’t lie about anything. I figure if anyone knew a lie it would be you.’

‘Fuck you, man. What do you mean for all my faults?’

‘Just winding you up.’

Cesar put his hands behind his head and clasped them together, looked hard at Dimitri for several seconds and then stared at the office ceiling. Finally, he looked back at Dimitri and said. ‘What about Ivanna? She’ll tell you immediately.’

‘I don’t trust that bitch.’

‘Give her a break, Dimitri. She knows her shit. She gives you a hard time because unlike me, as you’ve just pointed out, you do lie.’

‘Bend the truth a little. Not lie.’

‘Semantics.’

‘My other worry is that she seems to like those people too much. As far as she’s concerned, they’re all squeaky clean and you and I both know that’s not the case.’

Cesar sighed. ‘When do you want to go?’

‘This afternoon. He can get visitors from three o’clock.’

‘Okay. Collect me when you’re ready and let me hear what he has to say.’

At the hospital, the first ten minutes of the discussion between Dimitri and Johannes went about as well as two pit bulls meeting in a narrow alley. Cesar had started it when he walked in, took one of the visitor’s chairs, sat down, stared at Johannes and asked. ‘So how is the nose doing?’

‘You and I still have unfinished business asshole,’ was the response.

‘Looks to me like you also had unfinished business with someone else. How well did that work for you?’

‘Fuck you, asshole. When I’m fixed, you and me ... we’ll settle this thing.’

‘I hope you’re alive to carry out that promise. The way you’re going, that’s not looking so good from where I’m sitting.’

‘Enough you two,’ Dimitri said. ‘It’s not a contest. When all this is over, you two can go at each other. Johannes, I need you to tell Cesar what you told me.’

Over the next ten minutes or so, Johannes repeated what he’d told Dimitri, which wasn’t a lot to begin with because he’d been making shit up as he went along and in his semi-drugged state he was having difficulty remembering exactly what he’d said.

Cesar listened as Johannes told his story, trying to keep to the basics. He’d have time once he was out of hospital and mobile again to flesh it out, make it more plausible, get the money from Dimitri and disappear. With a hundred and fifty thousand rands, he could start a fresh life somewhere out of Hout Bay and never see Dimitri again.

There were a lot of places along the West Coast he could look at getting back into diving for abalone or something. He’d cut his teeth on it years ago and it was like riding a bicycle – once learned it was hard to unlearn and with the money he’d buy a boat, some fancy diving gear and possibly one or two other divers and start again. The price of abalone was skyrocketing and he would be safer in the future doing that than being on the constant lookout for a vengeful drug dealer.

‘So what do you think?’ Dimitri prompted Cesar as they walked back to the car park.

‘I don’t know. It would be good if he is telling the truth, but what worries me is there’s not enough detail in what he said to tell you absolutely.’

‘But it could be true?’

‘Possibly. It would explain where their money comes from. What it doesn’t explain is if they ambushed us to take the money you were carrying, why not use it for more drugs instead of dumping it in that park?’

‘Whoever ambushed me took nearly five million from me. They found only three million in the park. Even if the police took some when they first arrived, they couldn’t steal nearly two million. I reckon they used two million to make a new buy and dumped the three to make it look like something else.’

‘Bring Ivanna in. She’ll tell you in two minutes.’

‘I don’t want her involved. She’s too close to both the Hout Bay people and Oscar. She says something to Oscar, he says something to those people and they stop. I want your gut feel.’

‘And for me to give you that, I want more information.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like when it comes in? Who unloads it? It’s fine to say one of the fishing boats like you use. But which one? What is its name? Stuff we can use! He was long on a story but short on detail.’

‘But you will help me?’

Cesar sighed. ‘Dimitri – you’re my friend and I will always help you. But I have enough shit going on in my life without all of this.’

‘It’s that Melissa woman isn’t it? She’s why you are losing your edge. Does Benito know how close you are?’

‘I’m not losing any edge. I’ve had to kill six people in the last few months, so trust me, my edge is sharp enough. And if you say anything to Benito I promise you Dimitri, friend or not, we’ll have a problem.’

‘I wouldn’t say anything to him. I’m asking for your help. Look at it as a small favour in return for doing you a favour.’

‘You know you can be a real prick, don’t you?’

‘Deep inside Cesar – you want to hurt them as much as I do, so if it means I have to be a prick to keep your head in the right place then yes I’m a prick. But remember how badly that asshole hurt you when he broke your nose and then your fingers and use this as payback.’

‘So what’s your plan?’

‘Right now he’s useless to us in hospital, but he’ll be out in a few weeks and then he can camp in the harbour until he’s got the information we need.’

‘And the money?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Pay him when he’s got more information. Only then. Otherwise, he won’t be that hungry. I’m not saying I trust him, but I’m happy to help you. If it goes tits up, it’s on your head.’

‘I can manage him.’

‘If he’s telling the truth, how would they get the drugs away from those people? We can’t have a wild west shoot-out happening in the harbour.’

‘He says he’ll get a bunch of his gang together, ambush them when they leave and get the drugs. Then he’ll sort out that Lightfoot character and bring the drugs to me.’

‘I don’t know man. It was a lot easier back in Bogota days, wasn’t it?’

‘We had a lot of fun in those days,’ Dimitri laughed. ‘Something like this would’ve been ignored. Now if the police hear any gunfire, they’ll be all over the place. We need to speak to my gun guy. See if he can get a few Uzi’s with suppressors for those guys?’

‘Don’t be nuts. That idiot will end up leaving at least one behind and the police would get all over it.’

‘If we’ve got the drugs, then Benito will stop it. I can repay the money stolen from me and give him interest on top of it.’

‘When he can move around again, he needs to watch the harbour and tell us when they do it. It sounds a bit iffy because it can’t work to a timetable. Yours doesn’t. You have a regular monthly shipment, but it is not the same night in the same week every month.’

‘But it is roughly the same.’

‘Dimitri, come on. Roughly the same is not the same as exactly the same. The thing is, you’re in contact with the boat as it heads into the harbour. You know when it docks, so you get there and meet it. That’s not what would happen here. Johannes would rely on being in the right place, on the right night, except by the time it’s going down and his gang gets there, the drugs will have disappeared.’

‘So what do you suggest?’

‘Don’t give him all the money until we meet him with the drugs. How he gets it is his problem. You don’t want to get involved, Dimitri. The guy is an asshole and he’ll drop you in the shit. And if they get into some kind of ambush with those people who are trained soldiers, remember, and get the drugs away from them, why the hell would they then give it to us? If it was me I’d keep it. Tell you to fuck off. They’re taking all the risks.’

Cesar was silent as he thought about what Dimitri said. It made sense. There was no way Johannes and his friends would snatch a huge drug shipment away from a couple of trained soldiers and then just give it away to Dimitri. It would make its way to Hangberg, and that’s where it would stay.

‘You’re right. We need information which Johannes will have to supply. Once he’s watched them a few times and we know what happens we can come up with a better plan. It will still come down to the money then. He’s going to need money to pay his guys to watch and see what they do when the ship arrives. That will cost me.’

‘Either you want to do this or you don’t. Give him some to start watching and get his team working. When he’s covered at least two shipments and given you everything you need, then give him some more. But we will need to figure out how to stop him disappearing with the drugs. I’ll talk to Marvin. See what he suggests.’

‘Marvin?’

‘The abalone guy. He was there that night we got hit at the warehouse. He lives in Hangberg, so he’ll be able to help.’

‘So already we have the makings of a plan.’

Cesar scoffed. ‘Dream on Dimitri. The most important step is you want the drugs. When you have them in your car, then we had a plan.’

Chapter 2

On Monday, the unexpected happened. Carol-Anne answered a knock on the office door to two coloured men standing outside, looking like a combination between sheepish and embarrassed. ‘We’ve come to see the owner,’ said one of them. ‘We think it is Mr Lightfoot? The large man.’

‘Can I tell him what it’s about?’ she asked.

The men looked at each other, then at the ground, and eventually the one who had asked said. ‘It’s personal. But he will want to hear from us.’ There was some murmuring between them and then the other said. ‘Tell him it is about Greyton Johannes, and then he will want to see us.’

Carol-Anne looked at them undecided, then moved outside. ‘Come with me to his workshop. He’s there.’

She walked around the side of the building followed by the two and led them into the workshop where Ajax, Andre, and Jannie Swart were concentrating on lowering an engine into the chassis of a car that neither of the arrivals had ever seen before.

‘Ajax,’ Carol-Anne said. ‘I have some visitors to see you.’

Ajax looked up at the sound of her voice, took in the two men with her and stood upright. ‘Thanks, Carol-Anne.’ Then he looked at Andre and Jannie, excused himself, walked to the counter, and wiped his hands clean with a roll of paper towel before walking back to the men who were being closely watched by Andre.

‘Can I help you?’

‘Is there somewhere we can speak privately?’

Ajax looked at them, frowned as some measure of recognition flitted through his head and turned to Andre. ‘I’m going across to TA DA! quickly.’

‘Should I come with you?’

‘Thanks but I think we’re good. I won’t be long.’

‘After you,’ Ajax gestured to them. 'I’m sure you know where to go.’

Walking across in silence, Ajax selected an outside table, sat down and when the waiter arrived, said. ‘Cappuccino for me please Albert and whatever these guys are having.’ Ordering plain coffee, they watched him walk away and Ajax said. ‘I know who you are now. I’m not going to pretend I’m happy to see you because I’m not, so what do you want?’

‘To talk about what happened at Dunes that night.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘Greyton Johannes and his friend forced us to come with him. He told us he would only mess with you and there would be some money for us if we backed him up and acted tough.’

‘From where I was, it looked as though you two were as happy as he was to try to hurt us. Even though it didn’t end up well for any of you.’

‘Because he made us do that. There is something not right about that man and we want to say sorry.’

‘Where is he?’

‘He’s been in hospital for some time now. Some people beat him up badly, so he can’t walk properly.’

‘Who beat him up?’

The two men looked at each other and shrugged. ‘No-one knows.’

‘So you came to say you are sorry and he’s got something wrong in his head?’

‘And something else. He works with a man from Camps Bay. A terrible man who brings in drugs through the harbour, using Johannes to help him.’

‘Why tell me? Better that you tell the police about them.’

‘We know he’s been telling this man that you also bring in drugs. But we know the harbour. No-one else brings drugs in there. Only the man from Camps Bay. He wants us to help him catch you with the drugs.’

‘Which we don’t do, so who does he think he’s going to catch with drugs?’

‘We know there is no-one else who does it, but he’s wanting money from the Camps Bay man and that’s why he’s telling him this stuff.’

Ajax shrugged. ‘Thank you for telling me, but what do you want from me?’

‘We want nothing. We only want to make this thing right. That’s all, but we thought you need to know this. That man is trouble.’

Albert arrived with the coffees and cappuccino, and when he’d left, Ajax looked at them carefully and said. ‘Why should I believe you? You looked very happy to help him that night, but because someone beat him up, now you come to me to say you are sorry?’

‘Mr Lightfoot, I need to tell you something,’ the one who’d done the most talking so far, said. ‘My name is Reginald and this is my brother. His name is Earl. Do you have any idea what it is like to live in Hangberg? Do you know how much power one man can have in our community up there? I can tell you that you have no idea. When you can understand that, then you will understand how we fear for our families. We are fishermen, not gangsters. Greyton Johannes is a gangster. His friend’s name is Omar Matthews. Both of them like to hurt people. We have wives and small children. He told us to come with him that night or else. You speak to Andre. He’ll tell you that we are not part of his gang.’

‘Let me try to get something straight. He’s telling the man from Camps Bay, who is an idiot by the way, that we’re bringing drugs in through the harbour, presumably on one of the fishing trawlers?’

‘That’s correct.’

‘So who is he going to ambush if no-one else is bringing any drugs in? I mean, where is he going with this? If you’re fishermen and not gangsters, you’re not going to be any help to him at all, and neither is anyone else he gets to help him.’

‘There are no drugs, Mr Lightfoot. He’s wanting money from that man. What he’s telling him is not true.’

‘So how does he think he’s going to get the man from Camps Bay to pay him money for something which is simply not going to happen?’

‘By pretending there is and lying. But the problem for us is that we live in the same place as he does. So if we don’t help him, he hurts us.’

‘What hospital is Johannes in?’

Reginald stared at Ajax, not speaking. Then he said. ‘No Mr Lightfoot, I can’t tell you that. If you go and see him, he’ll know it was us what spoke to you.’

‘Okay, I’ll speak to Andre. He can ask around, because I can find out, anyway. The fact you spoke to me will be between Andre and myself and my family. But I promise you one thing. Johannes will not touch you, your family, or anyone remotely close to you. Neither will this Omar Matthews person or anyone else.’

‘You can’t make that promise.’

‘I can. Believe me. I will talk to Andre and see what he can find out. I thank you for coming to see me but I don’t know how I can help you right now.’

‘It’s okay,’ Roland said. ‘We wanted to make peace with you. That was all.’

Ajax finished his drink and stood. ‘Don’t worry about the bill, it’s covered. If I can help, Andre will be in touch with you. Thank you for the information and I appreciate you coming to see me.’

Back in the workshop, Ajax called Ethan and Andre into his office and told them about the discussion. ‘I know of them,’ Andre confirmed, ‘and it surprises me they were with Johannes that night at the restaurant, but the fishing business is hard these days. A lot of the people who used to get quotas have had them cut or taken away. I don’t know where Reginald and his brother fall, but I don’t think they’re making the same money they used to. If Johannes offered them money to help him start a bit of trouble, they probably didn’t push back too hard. But Omar Matthews is a bad news addict and he’ll do anything Johannes tells him to.’

‘But they apologised and told you what Johannes has told Dimitri,’ Ethan said, ‘so presumably they saw the light?’

‘As scared as they are of Johannes, they’re also scared of Dimitri and us.’ Ajax said. ‘But their apology is a step in the right direction.’

‘Except this Dimitri person has now painted some kind of target on your backs, so where do you want to go with this?’

‘Can you ask around and find out which hospital Johannes is in?’

‘I can, Andre replied. ‘What will you do then?’

‘I think we need to run him through the blender and rattle his shit around a bit,’ Ethan said.

Ajax looked at Ethan and laughed. ‘I completely agree with you. As soon as you know,