Counterpoint (37 page)

There were only 27 guests at dinner,
all the young families with children and older people had left. The
youngest there was a 19-year-old girl in a frumpy dress and rather
thick-rimmed glasses. Carla sat opposite her at the dining table
and managed to have a sort of conversation with her. Surprisingly
the girl, Anna, knew everyone there. Her mother and father were in
the process of buying a large warehouse type building from Gregor.
Somehow, they had worked a shrewd deal, a deal that for some
reason, Gregor could not refuse. Had they got something on the
cunning Russian?

Although small fry by Gregor’s business
standards her parents were extremely well known and even
influential. Their large circle of friends included everyone at the
table.

Several seats away a single middle-aged
man in a white dinner jacket and blue cummerbund endured a boring
conversation with the man and woman sat on either side of him. No
one seemed to know him except the host and hostess.

At the end of the splendid meal,
everyone split up into small groups and chatted. Max thought he had
the makings of an escape plan and mentioned it to Carla. She agreed
it was the best plan so far, being the only one.

Shadowed by one of the security girls,
Carla walked with Anna to her bedroom, stopping to collect her own
clothes first. The girl and her parents were going to leave
shortly. Carla had to get her part of the plan completed before the
parents appeared in Anna’s room, to collect their things.

Max managed to bore the man in the blue
cummerbund to the point of leaving the party, and followed the old
man to see which room he was in. Max was also shadowed by another
security girl, so he made a drunken pass at her and invited her
into his room. The girl declined and watched him go into his room
and close the door. The girl then remained on the landing
outside.

Somehow Max had to get into the
cummerbund man’s room, three rooms away. Opening the window, Max
peered out. Above the window was a thin-gauge pressed metal gutter.
He tried hanging from it to see if would take his weight. It would,
but the blackness of the night and the hard paving below, killed
that idea. He could not bring himself to dangle in space from it.
Looking around the room for inspiration, he decided to remove all
his clothes, picked up his wine glass and filled it with Cologne.
He listened at the door for a moment, there were no voices, and
then he lurched out onto the landing wearing nothing but a big
smile, a rapidly stiffening penis, and his wine glass. The security
girl had seen many things in her young life, but she was surprised
and angry at this sudden and flagrant exhibition. Max feigned a
lurch towards her from the stability of the doorframe swinging his
glass in her direction. Before she could push him away, he threw
the Cologne in her face, lowered his head and charged at her belly.
The force of his charge smacked her body and head hard against the
stone wall. Blinded by the alcohol based Cologne, dazed and winded
she uttered a short yelping grunt, unheard over the background
music and voices from downstairs. In spite of her injuries, she
rammed her knee hard into Max’s bent over body with a force that
lifted his feet off the stone floor. Her elbow, aimed at his spine
to displace vertebrae and sever his spinal cord, missed by 100 mm
to one side jamming viciously into the back of his ribs, causing
him to yelp with pain. With all his strength, he straightened up,
smashing the back of his head under her chin. The whiplash blow
threw her head hard against the stone wall again, and she slumped
forward, unconscious. Hoisting her over his shoulder, he went back
into his room, grabbed his clothes and bag, and still carrying her,
he strode along the landing to the cummerbund man’s room. Max
barged in, threw the girl on the bed, and kicked the door closed
behind him.

The man beamed with delight at Max’s
firm naked body. Max was shocked at the unexpected reaction and
stood gaping for several seconds. “Don’t you want the girl then?”
Max blurted, for want of something better to say.

“Well, she’s not my first choice,”
replied the man, and he moved to grab Max. A single right hook sent
the old man sprawling on top of the girl. He went out like a
light.

Max pulled the outer clothes off the
man and dressed in them, using torn linen carefully folded as
padding to match the man’s bulk.

Fully dressed, Max looked in the
mirror. To his dismay, he realised, no one would be fooled by the
disguise. The height, body bulk, and clothes were ideal, just his
head was wrong. Max had a shaved head; the man had a reasonable
head of brown hair.

Max checked the man’s small suitcase
and found some small scissors and a tube of glue like substance. If
he cut the man’s hair and glued it on, perhaps it would be OK. Max
teased out the man’s hair and went to cut it. “Christ! The old
bugger is wearing a wig!” He exclaimed in delight. The wig was
stuck on the man’s bald head with the glue substance. Max tugged
the wig off and fitted it to his own head. With a quick comb out it
looked OK.

Next Max ripped the flex off the small
table lamp plugged into the wall socket and separated the live and
neutral wires, then joined them as one long wire. One end he
connected to the metal shower hose.

Then he wrenched a nearby wall light
off its fixings to reveal its wiring. The shower hose and separated
flex was only just long enough to reach the exposed lamp wiring.
Max hoped the 110 volts electrical system was fitted with circuit
breakers rather than fuses, or he was likely to get badly burned.
He flashed his flex wire onto the lamp wire. There was a small arc
of electricity and the remaining wall light and main room lights
went out. He made a proper connection to the wires and left the
room with the man’s suitcase. He paused for a moment. The landing,
hall, and reception rooms where only lit from small lamps plugged
into wall sockets, obviously a different circuit. People were
clamouring in the gloom and staff rushed about trying to calm
everyone and restore the main lighting. The gentle background music
still played on. Several doors opened as occupants of their
bedrooms stepped out to see what was going on. Anna emerged from
one of the rooms and said as she passed them, “I am going home now
anyway, but hope to see you again soon.”

Security personnel were rushing up
stairs, as Max made his way down. “Time I was going anyway. Had a
fabulous time, Thanks,” and went out to the cars. He heard Anna
call to her parents in the hall, see you in the car!

As soon as she was outside away from
everyone she ran to catch up with Max. He turned as he heard her
approach and waited for her to catch up. He kissed her passionately
in plain view of the Gate’s security men. By pressing the unlock
button on the car key, he identified the old man’s car. They both
got into the car and drove slowly through the opening gate.

Max accelerated rapidly away and down
the long winding mountain road towards safety and the lock-up. As
he expected, it was only a matter of minutes before several cars
poured out of the gateway behind them, their pursuers hot on their
trail. The slight lead though, was all they needed to escape.

“You looked pretty convincing as Anna,”
said Max.

“You made quite a good old queer
yourself,” replied Carla.

“What! You knew he was queer,”
exclaimed Max.

“Why, yes of course, it stood out a
mile, ” she said grinning. “I bet he thought he was in for a good
time when you told him to take his clothes off.”

“Ah! Well, no, it wasn’t quite like
that really.” Then he told her all about what had happened. She
laughed uncontrollably at the thought of Max prancing about naked
with the girl and the man.

“We were lucky they didn’t just replace
the fuse and turn the lights back on,” said Carla. “They probably
did, but until they removed my wiring, it would just short out
again. Must have had them running up all over the place trying to
find out where the fault was.”

Back at the lockup, they dumped the car
a few streets away, wiped down the interior to remove prints and
changed into the water utility uniforms. All the special equipment
they needed was checked off as it was loaded, and the cocaine
transferred into the Lexus. Fake number plates were clipped onto
the vehicles, to cover the originals. The last thing they needed
was to be stopped by the police. The journey to the Yeltsin’s house
was relatively quick so early in the morning. There was hardly any
traffic about.

The water supply to the Yeltsin’s house
was pumped up from the valley below and as usual for an isolated
supply, the pipe ran in an open duct or in some places, it was
fixed to the rock face overlooking the road. The pump was a small
capacity type, designed to slowly top up the large water tanks in
the roof of the house. Max had noticed a saddle type repair joint
to the pipe near the house and this suited his plan perfectly.

The van pulled up at the gate of
Gregor’s house. Carla got out and spoke in a perfect American
accent to the security man there. “We are flushing out the water
supply because some bacteria have got into the system. Can you
drain off your water storage tanks as well please? By the time
everyone wakes up, the tanks will be full enough to use so don’t
worry. We will be done in an hour,” she added. “By the way, if
there is a slight taste to the water, it will be the chemical to
kill the bugs, it won’t hurt you so again, don’t worry it will soon
clear.”

The man grunted and phoned the
house.

The two of them started working on the
pipe. First, they applied Freon freezing packs to the pipe either
side of the joint, to temporarily block all water flow while they
worked on the pipe. The utility truck had all the tools they
needed, and it was quite straightforward unbolting the metal
saddle. The damage to the pipe under the saddle was only minor,
just a small leak, too small for Max’s requirements, so he drilled
a large hole in the pipe.

Water in the pipe above the frozen
section was drained out, and 8 kilograms of cocaine and lime
solution poured in. The lime was added to neutralise stomach acid
ensuring full absorption of the cocaine. Max then resealed the pipe
with the saddle, leaving the pipe to thaw on its own, eventually
refilling the water tanks in the house with drugged water, then
they drove back to the lock-up.

By using the photographs touched by the
Mr and Mrs Yeltsin, Max had painstakingly embossed the thick,
double sided photo paper with a modified scalpel blade. The complex
ridges and swirls of their fingerprints were indented to varying
degrees, depending on the width of the print. Later a release agent
followed by a particular latex compound was thinly poured over the
indentations and bonded to surgical rubber gloves. The result was a
perfect set of fingerprints.

Selected packets of cocaine were wiped
free of dust, and any other prints they might have on them. A thin
film of skin moisturising oil on the glass table top was used to
coat the raised elements of the rubber prints, a bit like inking a
stamp pad. Handling the polythene packets of cocaine transferred
all the prints of thumb and index fingers to them, naturally. The
cocaine was replaced in the boot of the Lexus.

The following night at about 2 am in
the morning Max and Carla set off for the Yeltsin’s house again.
Max drove the utility van, Carla drove the Lexus. Carla used both
sets of fingerprint gloves coated with cocaine dust, to transfer
fingerprints to parts of the Lexus, in a natural way.

From a phone box near the road up to
Gregor’s House, Max placed a call to Jacko. He told him that the
girl who ripped him off was at a party at a big house. He then gave
Yeltsin’s address. He also added the girl was telling everyone what
a loser Jacko was and that she had outwitted him. Max claimed she
said, his gang must know by now what a complete tosser he was, and
he should do something about it. Judging by Jacko’s reply, he was
so wound up with the desire to take revenge, that he didn’t realise
he was being conned again. Next Max phoned the two gangs the money
and drugs were snatched from, to say where their stuff was, and
that Jacko was on his way there now. He gave Yeltsin’s address
again.

It was now a case of so little, said to
so few, causing trouble for so many.

Max told Carla what had happened and
she began chuckling uncontrollably, it was all good fun to her.

After driving up the mountain road to a
good vantage spot, overlooking the road below, they waited for a
fast moving string of cars to show. Half-an-hour later they
appeared. There was no doubt about it; any vehicle on this road at
that time of the morning would be rare, now there were seven
driving fast in a tight formation. Time to go said Max, heart
pounding loudly in his chest, pumping fear and adrenaline in
overdose quantities, to his brain. This was a one-way journey, the
only way back was down towards the approaching cars, bristling with
revenge seeking, drugged up, gun toting killers. Ahead lay a
well-armed Russian Mafia Security Force, also feeling a bit strange
from unknowingly drinking cocaine in their water supply. Emotions
were high in the House, moods were swinging, and everyone was on
edge and paranoid.

Max and Carla had succeeded in putting
themselves inescapably, between a rock and a hard place; was there
actually any way out?

Max was in the lead, pushing the van as
hard as he could. His rubber gloved hands, wet with sweat. He had
to time things within seconds if the plan was to work.

Max drove hard at the security gates,
blasting them open, whilst Carla drove through straight to the
terrace overhanging the cliff face, and parked the Lexus. Gunfire
in Max’s direction started at once. He stopped, and shielded to
some extent by the van, threw out a large plastic container filled
with petrol. The container split and petrol gushed out over the
paving, inside the gated entrance. The guards stopped firing and
ran towards him, but Max drove off again down the right hand side
of the house. Lights came on all over the house as everyone in it
prepared for action. Out flew another petrol container, followed by
a Molotov cocktail to set it alight, blocking of this route with a
wall of flame. Driving off again around the back of the house, and
along the other side, Max burst his last container on the road
behind him. Cars were now pouring in the gateway and heading
straight for him. He drove at them, causing them to swerve and
scatter. With petrol on their tyres, the cars all skidded wildly,
missing the bullet-riddled van. Wrestling with the steering wheel
with one hand and lighting the second Molotov, Max drove towards
the gate and tossed the flaming bomb out onto the petrol-soaked
ground. No one could get out of the grounds through those flames he
thought.