It was time. A distant church clock struck 9.00pm, and each tuneless clang of the bell jarred Max’s nerves, adding to his sense of dread at what was to come. His whole plan hung on Malenkov’s greed and desire for revenge so it was a bit late to wonder if he had overplayed his hand. His adversary was a trained and experienced expert at dealing with and overcoming deceit and skullduggery. Certainly he would plan to claw back the cash, recover his $10 million, then kill Max, slowly and painfully. But how would he do this? Max knew the simple solution to blackmail was killing the blackmailer. If he was Malenkov, he would do just that, take all his money and vanish before the police could swoop. Greed was such an unpredictable character flaw to rely on with normal people, but this man was not normal, he was driven by greed, it was an addiction like any other, irresistible. Recent years of unchallenged supremacy should have made Malenkov over confident, to think on his feet, but that would be tempered with paranoia, so he would be prepared for anything. A wild card in this stacked deck.
As any blackmailer knows, the final handover is always their most vulnerable moment, getting away after the other side has what they want, is the challenge. He would be there in person, when Malenkov got everything he wanted. Max hated pain, so he knew he would fold under torture.
The notebook screen cast a pale glow on Max’s tense face. He checked his bank balance again, as people milled around him on the pavement, doing their evening shopping. Two shiny black Lexus saloon cars glided along the curb side, both packed with men. Max stepped forward and the second car stopped in front of him. The front passenger window hummed as it was lowered.
A voice with a thick Russian accent, spoke harshly from inside. “Are you Marsh?”
“Yes, that’s me. Are you Yaakov Malenkov?”
As Max approached, the window hummed shut and the rear door opened. “Get in!” The voice commanded.
“As soon as I see good news, on my balance sheet!” retorted Max.
A man in the back seat opened his computer and after several minutes, proclaimed. “There, you have it now! Get in!”
Max saw his account balance change to £10 million. A thrill of success shot through him and made his head spin, replaced in an instant with utter dread and a desire to run for his life. He focused, promptly smashed up the notebook and threw it in a rubbish bin. It was no longer needed and it could prove an asset to Malenkov if things went wrong later. He climbed into the car.
There was now a pistol pointing at him, but because there was nothing he could do or say to change that fact, Max ignored it. His heart felt like a heavyweight boxer was pounding through his ribs. He panted like an asthmatic in a marathon, with a mouth and throat as dry as a desert.
His voice squeaked pathetically, like he had inhaled helium, “you need to go to the building up that side street, over there. Drive to the rear, no one will see us and I will get the cash as agreed.”
Malenkov gestured and the two cars glided away. Obviously there was clear radio communication between them. They drove a short distance up a wide road between buildings. Ahead, there was a pair of wire mesh covered gates.
“Stop here and I will open the gates. We have a short way to go yet and need to get to the back of the building.” Max and the man with the gun got out. “No chance to do a runner,” thought Max. The cars drove through to a large but almost empty yard surrounded by a high wire fence and dim security lighting.
“Get out and I will take you to the money.” Max suggested. He could feel the tension rising. This was the end of the line for him, and everyone knew it.
Everyone got out and guns pointed at him as he motioned to the large lockable steel waste container, called a skip, near the middle of the yard. He held up a small key and motioned that he was going to open skip. No one could see any risk; there was nowhere to run, the skip would offer no means of escape and there was no one about who could save him.
Max unlocked the padlock on the skip’s front lid and lifted it, so he could reach in. His legs dangled down the front of the skip, the lid resting on his back.
Out came the first bag which Max threw towards Malenkov. Max reached in again and did the same with the second bag. By this time, the men had opened the first bag and pawed through the bundles of money. Lastly the third bag came out and as Max threw it, he dived back into the skip, the lid shutting behind him. By using the padlock, he locked the lid shut from the inside.
A fusillade of silenced shots hit the steel sides, deafening Max as he grabbed a torch, held by a magnet to the side of the skip, and dropped down into the main storm sewer. Max had prepared the skip with the inner hasp for locking, and a large circular hole he had flame cut through the floor, over the lifted manhole cover.
The sewer pipe was easily large enough to crawl along, and with no recent rainfall, it was effectively dry. The exit was 500 yards ahead and his hands and knees were bruised and bleeding by the time he reached the ladder. Star was waiting for him in the dark, on the deserted road above. As he popped his head up, he kissed her and stated the bloody obvious. “Let’s get out of here!”
The moment the shooting started, the yard was lit up brighter than day as the Armed Response Unit moved in. Malenkov and his men opened fire at the fleeting shadows approaching from behind the blinding searchlights. Although in the center of the ARU crossfire, the skip and two cars provided cover on three sides, as Malenkov’s men huddled between them. Now grenades were being thrown at the police by Malenkov’s men and the shooting stopped on both sides.
The police moved back in the certain knowledge the criminals were trapped, they were going nowhere. Current thinking was that it is best to wait it out and save lives. The press always made a big thing of it even when criminals and terrorists got killed.
Malenkov and his men wore bullet proof jackets, but these offered no protection from deadly head shots and wounded limbs.
Using a large bag of money as a shield to his head and back, Malenkov ran to his car. Police marksmen struck their target repeatedly; the sledge hammer impact of the bullets on the bag was testimony to that. Once inside the car, he was reasonably safe because of the Kevlar armor lining and bulletproof glass. The engine was still running and in an instant, Malenkov was accelerating hard in reverse.
The two tone car, powered by its highly tuned engine had been designed for this sort of attack and Malenkov had trained to use it. As a senior officer in the KGB, before he left to pursue his current profession, he believed his survival depended on the best equipment and well-honed skills.
Although he could easily have spun the car to drive forward down the access road and into the main street, he reasoned there might be police vehicles blocking his escape. The rear of the car made a better battering ram to sweep them aside, than the vulnerable engine and steering. The front and side windows were hard to see through, white from bullet damage, like driving through a blizzard. The rear window was hardly marked, because the marksmen had concentrated on killing the driver. This made driving backwards much easier.
The sturdy wire mesh covered entrance gates were still closed and a single police car blocked the road. Malenkov decided to aim for the rear end of the car, because it would be lighter in weight. The two tone car burst through the gates at 30 mph like they were paper, a loud CRUMPPP instantly followed and the police car spun away.
Braking hard, Malenkov turned the steering to swing the front round and changed into first gear, all in one fluid movement. As he accelerated hard up the main road, he lowered the driver side window so he could see ahead. He had no working headlights, but that did not matter, the street lights were adequate for now.
As he drove out of the industrial area away from London, using side streets, he phoned a friend and arranged to be picked up. Gleaming black paintwork pocked with silver dents and the white glass, made the Lexus conspicuous, even in the dark. It was time to abandon it.
The best Malenkov could do was park in the shadows at the curb side, between other cars. It did not matter to Malenkov that his fingerprints were all over the car. Most law enforcement agencies had records on him, but that is all they had and he had always remained a free man.
Taking the bullet riddled money bag, Malenkov made his way to the meeting point to wait for his friend. As he walked, he phoned the man guarding Brander’s daughter, with the intention of ordering him to kill them all and get to safety. However, there was no reply. This was not unexpected as Marsh had outwitted him at every turn. Malenkov was prepared to wait as long as it took to exact revenge on Brander and Marsh.
Malenkov realized Brander must have employed a specialist to deal with the man guarding his child, so everything, even DNA would be cleaned by now. In a way, Malenkov had been too efficient with his finances; it would be virtually impossible to link Brander to money laundering, so even that would be a wasted effort.
Malenkov had thoroughly stripped all his laundered money out of Brander’s businesses, directing it into other companies that he controlled in Russia. The river of money had stopped, but he still had every penny. The bag of cash would be useful though, for greasing palms and getting out of the country.
Malenkov wondered how ‘Marsh’, trapped inside the skip, would get away from the police. ‘Marsh’ would have difficulty justifying his actions, agent provocateur, false fire alarm at the restaurant, and so on. Yes, ‘Marsh’ had exposed an illegal enterprise, the £700k of cash pointed to that, but it was all the evidence he had. Shooting at the police was also criminal activity, no crime boss had been taken down, no large haul of drugs seized, and certainly there was no justification for the loss of life that must have occurred during the fighting.
He knew his men would fight to the death, so he would be surprised if the police made a live capture and got anyone to talk. Malenkov smirked at the thought of ‘Marsh’ trying to worm his way out of this mess.