Two other countries had earned a reputation of asking few questions about where the presented End User Certificate really came from. One was Spain, traditionally interested in earning foreign currency, and whose CETME factories produced a wide range of weapons, which were then sold by the Spanish Army Ministry to almost all comers. The other, a newcomer, was Yugoslavia.
Yugoslavia had begun manufacturing her own arms only a few years earlier and inevitably had reached a point where her own armed forces were equipped with domestic arms. The next step was overproduction (because factories cannot be abandoned a few years after they have been most expensively started), and hence the desire to export. Being a newcomer to the arms market, with weapons of unknown quality, and eager for foreign currency, Yugoslavia had adopted the “ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies” attitude to applicants for weaponry. She produced a good light company mortar and a useful bazooka, the latter based heavily on the Czech RPG-7.
Because the goods were new, Shannon estimated a dealer could persuade Belgrade to sell a tiny quantity of these arms, consisting of two 60mm. mortar tubes and a hundred bombs, plus two bazooka ,tubes and forty rockets. The excuse could well be that the customer was a new one, wishing to make some tests with the new weaponry and then come back with a far larger order.
For the first of his orders (the 400,000 rounds of 9mm. ammunition), Shannon intended to go to a dealer Kcensed to trade with CETME in Madrid but known also not to be above putting through a phony End User Certificate. For the second, Shannon had heard the name of another man in Hamburg who had skillfully . cultivated the baby Yugoslav arms-makers at an early stage and had established good relationships with them, although he was unlicensed.
Normally there is no point in going to an unlicensed dealer. Unless he can fulfill the order out of illegally held stocks of his own, which means no export license, his only use can be in securing a bent but plausible End User Certificate for those who cannot find their own, and then persuading a licensed dealer to accept this piece of paper. The licensed dealer can then fulfill it, with government approval, from his own legally held stocks and secure an export license—or put the phony certificate to a government, with his name and guarantee backing it up. But occasionally he has one other use which makes him employable: his intimate knowledge of the state of the market and where to go at any given moment with any given requirement to have the best chance of success. It was for this quality that Shannon was visiting the second man on his Hamburg list.
When he arrived in the Hansa city, Shannon stopped by the Landesbank to find his £5000 was there already. He took the whole sum in the form of a banker’s check made out to himself and went on to the Atlantic Hotel, where his room was booked. Deciding to give the Reeperbahn a miss, and being tired, he dined early and went to bed.
Johann Schlinker, whom Shannon confronted in his small and modest office the next morning, was short, round, and jovial. His eyes sparkled with bonhomie and welcome, so much so that it took Shannon ten seconds to realize the man could be trusted as far as the door. The pair of them spoke in English but talked of dollars —the twin languages of the arms marketplace.
Shannon thanked the arms dealer for agreeing to see him and offered his passport in the name of Keith Brown as identification.
The German flicked through it and handed it back. “And what brings you here?” he asked.
“You were recommended to me, Herr Schlinker, as a businessman with a high reputation for reliability in the business of military and police hardware.”
Schlinker smiled and nodded, but the flattery made no impression. “By whom, may I ask?”
Shannon mentioned the name of a man in Paris, closely associated with African affairs on behalf of a certain French governmental but clandestine service. The two had met during one of Shannon’s previous African wars, and a month earlier Shannon had looked him up in Paris for old times’ sake. A week ago Shannon had called the man again, and he had indeed recommended Schlinker to Shannon for the kind of merchandise he wanted. Shannon had told the man he would be using the name Brown.
Schlinker raised his eyebrows. “Would you excuse me a minute?” he asked and left the room. In an adjoining booth Shannon could hear the chatter of a Telex.
It was thirty minutes before Schlinker came back. He was smiling. “I had to call a friend of mine in Paris on a business matter,” he said brightly. “Please go on.”
Shannon knew perfectly well he had Telexed to another arms dealer in Paris, asking the man to contact the French agent and get a confirmation that Keith Brown was all right. Apparently the confirmation had just come back.
“I want to buy a quantity of nine-mm. ammunition,” he said bluntly. “I know it is a small order, but I have been approached by a group of people in Africa who need this ammunition for their own affairs, and I believe if those affairs go well there would be further and much larger shipments in the future.”
“How much would the order be?” asked the German.
“Four hundred thousand rounds.”
Schlinker made a moue. “That is not very much,” he said simply.
“Certainly. For the moment the budget is not large. One is hoping a small investment now might lead to greater things later on.”
The German nodded. It had happened in the past. “The first order is usually a small one. ”Why did they come to you? You are not ’a dealer in arms or ammunition."
“They happened to have retained me as a technical adviser on military matters of all kinds. When the question of seeking a fresh supplier for their needs arose, they asked me to come to Europe for them,” said Shannon.
“And you have no End User Certificate?” the German asked.
“No, I’m afraid not. I hoped that sort of thing could be arranged.”
“Oh, yes, it can,” said Schlinker. “No problem there. It takes longer and costs more. But it can be done. One could supply this order from stocks, but they are held in my Vienna office. That way there would be no requirement for an End User Certificate. Or one could obtain such a document and make the application normally through legal channels.”
“I would prefer the latter,” said Shannon. “The delivery has to be by ship, and to bring that sort of quantity through Austria and into Italy, then on board a ship, would be hazardous. It enters an area I am not familiar with. Moreover, interception could mean long terms in prison for those found in possession. Apart from that, the cargo might be identified as coming from your stocks.”
Schlinker smiled. Privately he knew there would be no danger of that, but Shannon was right about the border controls. The newly emergent menace of the Black September terrorists had made Austria, Germany, and Italy highly nervous about strange cargoes passing through the borders.
Shannon, for his part, did not trust Schlinker not to sell them the ammunition one day and betray them the next. With a phony End User Certificate, the German would have to keep his side of the bargain; it would be he who presented the bent certificate to the authorities.
“I think you are perhaps right,” Schlinker said at last. “Very well. I can offer you nine-mm. standard ball at sixty-five dollars per thousand. There would be a surcharge of ten per cent for the certificate, and another ten per cent free on board.”
Shannon calculated hastily. Free on board meant a cargo complete with export license, cleared through customs and loaded onto the ship, with the ship itself clearing the harbor mouth. The price would be $26,000 for the ammunition, plus $5200 surcharge.
“How would payment be made?” he asked.
“I would need the fifty-two hundred dollars before starting work,” said Schlinker. “That has to cover the certificate, which has to be paid for, plus all personal traveling and administrative costs. The full purchase price would have to be paid here in this office when I am able to show you the certificate, but before purchase. As a licensed dealer I would be buying on behalf of my client, the government named on the certificate. Once the stuff had been bought, the selling government would be extremely unlikely to take it back and repay the money. Therefore I would need total payment in advance. I would also need the name of the exporting vessel, to fill in the application for export permit. The vessel would have to be a scheduled liner or freighter, or a general freighter owned by a registered shipping company.”