Thompson squeezed in through a small door positioned next to a pair of double gates that occupied almost the entire front of the slaughterhouse. He expected the inside to have been sectioned off, but the building was just a large storage space with meat carcasses hanging all over the place to dry and age. It was not exceptionally clean and there were traces of blood on the floor. The air wasn't the cleanest, but Thompson was surprised to find that the smell wasn't putrid.
In a dark corner of the slaughterhouse, a large man wearing a dirty torn shirt chopped meat with a large cleaver. Seeing Thompson, the large man stopped and intimidatingly walked toward him, speaking with an accent he did not understand. The man pointed at Thompson with the cleaver and said something that sounded like a question.
Thompson knew more people had appeared behind him, even before he heard the slam of the door. He did not react in any way, as he knew that any sign of weakness might be deadly.
"Argyle sent for me" Thompson loudly said, without hiding his foreign accent, looking directly into the eyes of the big man in front of him.
"Argyle is a sneaky bastard," said someone behind Thompson with a deep voice. "You must be Thompson?"
"That's me." Thompson kept looking at the big man, though he was more cautious of the man behind him. Did he want to know who he was dealing with? He was here for business, not to make friends.
"We have what you're looking for. Do you have our money?" the deep voice asked.
Thompson waved his wallet in the air "£3,000, as we agreed with Argyle."
"Give the wallet to Mr Timms," said the voice.
The big man took a step closer, his smile revealed an incomplete set of rotten teeth, which made him look even more like an ogre. Thompson assumed the big man was Mr Timms and handed him the whole wallet.
"I'm not only paying you for the package but to move it around when I need you to. Deliver the package to the West India Docks, Argyle's warehouse, and I'll give you further instructions later."
"Very well. Enjoy your trip on the way back Mr Thompson" said the deep voice as it slid out the front door. Mr Timms went back to chopping meat as if nothing had happened.
Thompson slowly exited the building, giving the deep-voiced man time to disappear. He felt relieved and smirked. It was funny to him how the answer to this global diplomacy riddle of such an enormous scale could be found in such a place.
YOU ARE READING
Forty-Ninth
Historical FictionA novel about one of the largest land deals in history, the Alaska purchase. In 1866, an assassination attempt against Alexander II unfolds a series of events that coerce him into selling Alaska to the United States an year later. Meanwhile, Native...
