Ch (2) Arrest on a Crowded Street

With relief.. I saw the smiling faces of the men who were waiting at the tyre repair shop as my car came around the corner into the bustling street. 
I stopped my car and went over to meet and greet the strangers led by a rather heavyset chap in a white polo t-shirt.. who still smiling,  pressed a white package into my hand and then snatched it back... as I shook his hand in greeting.

I piled the tools off the back of my pickup into the wheelbarrow while he and a partner took hold of the old spare tyre on its rim , as four more of them came running up to me from various concealed locations close by.
In the bright full sunshine, in the middle of the public street.. they pinned me roughly to the front of my car and slapped a pair of handcuffs onto my wrists behind my back so quickly,  I barely realised what was happening.
The white sandwich pack slapped into my hand earlier was intended to be the documented exchange of money I was to learn later.. though I never learnt what it actually contained.

There were about eight or nine of these excited CID policemen who had just achieved the first part of a text book case..drug dealing arrest.

I had driven past the same area earlier that morning on my way out to my office and I had seen these same men all piled into a big white landcruiser speeding past the holiday inn hotel diagonally across the street from said tyre shop.

I had guessed they were company delegates late for a conference or a meeting at the hotel, judging by the urgency of their actions, but never gave it any thought as I drove on past and received the call from my collegue in Iraq.. to drive out to collect some urgently required tools before going to my office as I had first intended.
Here I was now,  being literally dragged and frogmarched with great gusto by these plainclothed strangers, and then stuffed into the tiniest  hot compartment in the back of the landcruiser,  as others of them climbed into my company van,  and revved  the engine and squealed the tyres in a wild display of  more bravado as the gathering crowds watched in amazement and disbelief.

The drive to the police station took less than five minutes and the other police in my little company van.. followed close behind  revving, jeering and hooting in delight  all the way into the parking area behind the main CID offices.

An enterage of excited officers and police detectives collected around the vehicles now parked in the centre of the driveway. ..all dying to see the face of the big deal drugdealer now so humiliated and effectively subdued.

A few  others were zealously unloading the boxes of whiskey from my van and all the contents of my briefcase ... minus the cash,  was all poured out onto the ground. My keys .. my calculator.. pens and wedding ring.. all the little important cards contacts and items normally packed neatly in my personal carrier case ready for my intended office presentation.

I averted my eyes.. it was sickening and I was really scared as the situation gradually became clearer.

The tyre was nowhere to be seen,  and I was made to carry two of the cases of beer which had been in black dustbin bags packed behind the drivers seat of my van.

I staggered with the heavy load as my tightly cuffed wrists and shackled ankles impeded my movements painfully. 
The burly guy who first handed me the "lunchpack" ?, came up to me and put his finger over his lips and said to me.." no money! "..." it will be better for you".. though I had not much clue of what he meant by that.
... but I never saw him again.

I struggled up the stairs and along the passages to an office of the senior drug offences detective who was apparently the mastermind behind the whole well orchestrated sting operation.

He had a yellow solid cast on his left forearm and sat at a wide desk in the centre of his large office.

Black vinyl couches and chairs lined the far walls and I was dumped into one of them and was  ignored by them as he went over the details of the events of the day with all his fine officers.

I was dressed neatly in  a new blue polo shirt and a pair of new jeans and waited anxiously as these men all prattled away excitedly in arabic.

Meanwhile the rest of the whiskey and the tyre with its contents of hashish had been brought on up the stairs as well,  and was being carefully all layed out in neat rows so that that it looked like a lot more than it really was.
Someone had cut the tyre open to remove the contents and brought the tyre up to be displayed as evidence.
I did not see them do this and will never know for sure if it was the same tyre.
Well actually by my own aknowlegement.. it was a hefty haul and it looked really bad.

I had never actually seen hashish right close up before this, and was surprised  to see it was dark like chocholate and so neatly packed in kilo blocks in printed plastic covers saying Raga... baby food.

The newspaper photographer had been called in to record the whole display,  with me in all my glory at its head..and backed by the drug enforcement police department logo painted on the wall.

The photographer was sickly sweet as he cajoled me into a most uncompromising position still cuffed and now beyond humiliation.
I knew where all this was going now,  and my fears were confirmed as I was taken down the passage and thrown into a small dark empty room next door to another room where they were repeatedly hitting and tasering a little asian chap who sounded like a puppy when you stand on its tail.
It was scary and I thought my turn would be next and I am sure this was all just  what they intended.
During this time of possibly an hour.. calls were being made near and far announcing the success of the operation to the senior police and government ministers and invitations to attend a viewing were issued.
I was fetched by a little snake eyed chap who I learnt had monitored all the mobile discussions between me and the Iraqi back in Basrah. 
I was not at all concerned by this as I knew there was nothing incriminating there and also that the location settings would substantiate my testimony.

They asked me a few basic questions to determine how I got hold of the tyre.. and who gave it to me and where exactly the transfer took place. 
I told them everything that happened.. because I was still convinced that if I just told them everything exactly as it had happened.. they would see that all my actions were within reasonable bounds, and with no intended involvement with druglords and hoped they would send me off with a reprimand.
I had no way of knowing about the extent of the manipulations that they had been busy with.

Manipulations that were now being seamlessly merged into the blindly naieve testimonony spewing so honestly from my mouth.

They knew they had to get as much information from me as possible before they informed my embassy... or before my free flowing mouth would be discretely slammed shut. by the obligatory legal council.
A lawyer three days late... that should have been my only mouthpiece.
A detailed account of the most devious sequence of misdemeanours was noted down in a statement using my terrified and unguarded testimony as its background noted  all in arabic.

The interrogation went on for hours and I offered to take them to my hotel to show them that there was nothing in my possession to connect me with any drugs or drug dealers in Kuwait.
I was so confident that all my activities and posessions would convince them that they had been mistaken in their allegations of my complicity.

There was more whiskey which I told them about before and they git there but they replied saying they were not in the least concerned by it.. they were looking for evidence of drugs alone.

I had cash for my leave holiday packed into my travel bag for my flight home the next day which they removed as evidence of illicit dealings.
  Airfares for my family who were to meet up with me in Dubai and then to go on to Turkey and Paris for my leave break.
Sixteen thousand dollars was the anticipated cost for three weeks travel and accommodation and I had saved up that amount  over many months as base payment and had that with me.

It was too late now.. I realised very soon that it had been a very big mistake to to have played such open cards and to trust these guys.I should not have brought them here to my hotel room.
I was quickly realising these guys did not have any interest in my honest intentions and lack of incriminating  evidence.

However I had intended to demonstrate my integrity to them only gave them more of what they were looking for.

I had played all my cards as honestly and openly as possible as they had turned it all around to effect maximum damage.

They trashed my room and sealed it but found nothing more.
We went back to the CID offices and  they continued with updating all the latest evidence now piled ever higher up against me.

There was still no suggestion of any legal advice as i was compelled to sign more garbled arabic statements  which steadily tightened the noose around my neck.

An acid-faced government minister stood in the doorway as I liased comfortably with the interrogators who by now, had from me all they needed.
The guy in the door was  dressed in a long robe of national dress glared evilly at me and ran his finger across his neck and skulked off.

One of the interrogators mentioned to me his son had died of a drug overdose a few years back and that he now had a serious vendetta against all drug dealers as a result.

As the dawn crept in,  I was marched back downstairs still in chains to the police cells.
Eight by eight metre rooms with a front facing clear vertical grill wall.
Cement floors and arabic hole-in-the-ground toilet with low shield wall and a small leaking tap.

The floor was covered with asians like sardines all spread over dirty foul smelling blankets.
All shapes and sizes watched me as my cuffs were removed and I was shoved into the open grill door.

Immediately a couple of smiling  Sri Lankans shifted up and beckoned to me to slot in next to them. Michael Bonny from Candy .. and another who i dont remember well.

It was the beginning of the month of Ramadan and activites at the police station were  tardy at best,  and it was Friday and weekend.
Nobody knew where I was and I was not permitted to call.
Possibly hotel staff may have  contacted my office, but I never found out.
I had been booked to fly home that night and though I am sure my bosses must have guessed by now that there was something amiss... I was not able to phone anyone and I knew I would not be going home any time soon.

I thought of my wife waiting for my call and her waiting for me at the airport as the last passengers left the empty terminal.

What of the plans for Dubai and Turkey.?  How I agonised as I lay on that concrete floor in that cell amongst all those doomed little people..
Food was very rudimentary but I was exhausted and slept fitfully.

A wealthy fat kuwaiti was tossed in with us and he yelled and objected all night banging on the bars for attention. 
Finally someone brought for him a bag full of hamburgers which he gave out liberally.
I just slept.. and then woke feeling like all hell.
My clothes were sticky with grime and I washed my underpants and socks which helped a bit. 
So many smoking and the stinking blankets stiff with grime.
Shit it was awful.
Finally I was fetched as Sunday arrived and was taken up to the top office where Consular Representatives from the British Embassy and my Boss from the Kuwait office were seated together.

No lawyer at this stage still.
It was such a relief to finally be amongst friends.. and though I might have smelt a bit strongly, they never mentioned it ..and I was too distracted and upset to notice anyway.
David Curtis the Consular representative and his interpreter, Jihan Roshdi along with my boss Mike.
None of them knew yet that I had already shot my mouth off for hours into the  hands of the guarded enemy... and had as well as,  hung myself with all the incriminating confusion and foolhardy assumptions that I had made under heavy coersion and  their sweet promises of swift release.

My support group had no idea of the extent of trouble I had caused by trying too hard to figure out for the police exactly what they already knew.

The police had made their own story out of all of this months before my arrest.
But that we will get to later.

The consul had a mobile phone which he allowed me to use to phone my dear little wife at home.
 
She and my young son were so terribly distraught and completely bewildered by this turn of events and the fact that it had taken so long for the news of this disaster to have  reached  them.

My boss had not  phoned her and my wife had also not phoned my office.. so no one had been sure what was going on.

Slowly and with great difficulty I  explained what had happened.. but the awful truth of it all was that I had been front page news and was being beamed all across the world as the big king-pin drug trafficker working for British contractors in Iraq.

It was awful as I tried to explain and the more I talked.. the more bloody stupid I looked, and the clearer it became that there was to be no quick or easy escape from all of this.

The services of a competent lawyer would have to be brought in immediately. Enter the clown.!

My dear little boss knew from this early stage that the allegations made against me were not just improbable.. but because of my transport restrictions.. were not possible.
We all flew by military charters and the claims by the CiD that I had driven from Iraq with this tyre were  clearly indicative of a case lacking evidence and full of holes.