Page 7 - Sound Rides April 2022

Freo Friday Part 2 by D. Alan Petersen

A big black BMW X5, with tinting as black as the car, drove past and disappeared
around the corner making the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention because even
though I couldn’t see the driver, the stickers on the back window: MUA Here to Stay, and the
map of Australia with F**k Off We’re Full confirmed it to be Shorty’s beast. And I’d heard all
about Shorty, aka Veliki Dragan. He was a man mountain and bad news, a man you didn’t
mess with unless fully prepared.

The gloomy thought that maybe something was going down and I was about to get
mixed up in it had me forgetting the cold. I took a careful sip of tea hoping to distract more
ominous thoughts. But no sooner had I raised the cup to my lips when in strolls Arturo,
smarmy lawyer to the cream of the crime world. Mr Teflon we call him because nothing sticks
to him. He chose a table on the other side diagonally behind me.
My bloody phone started vibrating. I silently cursed twice, for bringing the damned
thing and, for not turning the bastard off. It was Milosh, our man in Novi Sad, Serbia’s second
biggest city and soon to be drug capital of the Balkans. I slipped in my ear pieces and took the
call.
‘Zdravo, I hope you know it’s my day off. And don’t you guys sleep over there, it must
be midnight?’ I replied in Serbian and kept my voice low.

He replied in English. ‘Zdravo to you Petar, now shut up and listen. We’ve broken their
encryption and intercepted a message from Arturo. The deal’s going down now. I’ve called
McKlintock so the team’s on the way but you’re on the spot. Arturo and Shorty will be there
any second, just keep them under observation, maybe try and use your phone to record the
exchange, but don’t try anything stupid, we still don’t know how or where the stuff will be
moved, so be discrete. Don’t stuff it up.’
‘Yeah, right. I’ll let you know what happens. If I call don’t answer straight away and be
in a quiet room, I may try to get my phone close to them, but can’t promise anything.’

“Be careful” were his parting words. I didn’t need reminding. Seconds later I saw the
fluoro shirted bulk of Shorty barrelling around the corner and immediately found my phone
fascinating. I had been out of uniform and in the drug squad for less than a year, I was a
backroom boy, a data digger, but today I was about to find out what it’s like to be
undercover, and alone on the streets.

Want to read more of Alan's efforts you can contact him by email at zlaato@gmail.com or
read his debut novel Tarkine Mist available for loan from our local libraries or for sale
online using this search line: D. Alan Petersen Tarkine Mist.

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