Darke Mission (35 page)

The target and his tart were now in Grangewood Street. It was around 10pm and it was dark. Vasily was following behind, one hundred yards, or possibly eighty away. He could have been a lot closer as these two only had eyes for one another. He wore rubber soled shoes and was progressing along the rickety pavements of East London very quietly indeed. As he was tailing his target, Vasily concluded that he would need to take out the girl as well as his intended victim. He had no time to call Babikov to find out if that was OK and he wanted to show his boss that he could use his initiative. If he killed Joel first then the bitch would start screaming her head off, attracting attention; maybe getting help. By the look of her big tits, assessed Vasily, she could probably scream like a banshee. While appropriate in the circumstance a wailing black bean sith was not what was needed for Vasily to make a clean exit once Gordon was in his death throes. Vasily concluded that his most effective plan was to shoot Gordon first, from five or ten yards away, then immediately leap on the black bitch and garrotte her. She'd be history in under thirty seconds. Big tits maybe, but a scrawny neck and one that would crush easily and rapidly. Once she was silenced, Vasily would pop another 9mm round in Gordon's head, then walk calmly away and return to his car. Two down, none to go. Vasily liked his plan.

He was now about twenty-five yards behind Talisha and Joel. The couple were within minutes of turning into Redclyffe Road and they had not spotted the large man in a dark suit, blue and white shirt and red tie, approaching them with malintent. Vasily was ready for action. The street he was on was quiet, indeed all the streets around here seemed quiet tonight. There were no other pedestrians that he could see and the quality of the street lighting was poor. There was some kind of rumble, however, from a concrete underpass just ahead. Vasily couldn't yet see what the cause of this unhelpful commotion was, so he stopped and pretended to check his mobile phone, Ruger back in his pants and garrotte still in his suit jacket pocket. Joel and Talisha however, were in a position to see into the underpass and the unholy vision that met their startled eyes triggered a committed sprint by the pair into Redclyffe Road and inside Talisha's portered block of flats.

Vasily had failed on two counts. First, he was too slow to react. Had he taken off at pace as soon as his targets had then he could have got close enough to shoot them; but he didn't. The second count of failure was more understandable given that he was Russian and had not properly embraced the swing of English football, in particular English football which involved a derby match between two deadly rivals. Of all the football hates in the land, West Ham and Millwall was the most pernicious rivalry. More than Celtic and Rangers in Scotland, worse than either Man United/Liverpool or Arsenal/Tottenham. This was
the
grudge match.

The previous Saturday, West Ham had gone to Millwall for the 5
^th
round of the FA Cup. West Ham were a Premiership team and Millwall one division lower in the Championship. The winner would progress to the quarter finals. It turned out to be a 0-0 draw. Replay was to be at the Boleyn Ground, formerly Upton Park and home of West Ham, the following Wednesday. That Wednesday was tonight and West Ham were hot, odds-on favourites to progress. Kick-off 8pm, finish around 9.50, barring extra time and penalties. They did not win, they lost 0-1 to a freak own goal whereby the West Ham goalkeeper, on punching away the ball from a Millwall corner, smashed it into his own centre-half's head and from there it ricocheted straight into the home team's net. The goal came in the eighty-seventh minute and West Ham had little time to draw level. They didn't. West Ham's fans were furious. The Green Street Elite, the club's most feared hooligan element were cataclysmic in their fury; they wanted blood and there was no better blood to shed than that of Millwall supporters especially that of their hooligan Bushwacker gang.

Vasily Yugenov could not be expected to know any of this. There he was, efficiently going about the devil's work, when an unannounced commotion from an East London underpass had spooked his prey. The first wave of the commotion had now entered the street that Vasily was on, rooted to the spot, not exactly sure what to do. He did not have a plan B. There were about twenty youths, mainly in blue and white tops, some spotty faced, others not and a few beat up visages in the mix. These faces looked fearful and when they exited the underpass they split in all directions, some pulling off their tops and lobbing them into residents' front gardens. Every youth for himself seemed to be the underlying theme. The next wave out of the underpass was not far behind. There were more of these youths, mostly male though some girls too. These youths looked more angry than fearful. They were shouting and screaming. They wore predominantly claret and blue tops. Several of them were carrying and waving about types of makeshift weaponry, including hammers, baseball bats and empty glass bottles. Vasily stayed calm and quiet. He hoped to blend into the darkness of the night. His luck was out.

“Oi fuck features!” yelled one particularly ugly claret and blue dressed youth, clearly aiming his nocturnal cockney greeting at Vasily. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he questioned, now accompanied by several more of the Green Street Elite.

“Nothing,” replied Vasily. “Now go about your business young people,” he added, somewhat unwisely as it turns out.

“Are you a fucking Ruski you big gorilla?” screeched the main protagonist, clearly displaying that all education or at least action movie baddies accents had not been totally lost on him. Vasily said nothing. He was getting a bit annoyed now and surreptitiously was fingering his way towards his Ruger.

“He asked you a question, mother fucker,” said the main man's cohort, who was black and sweating profusely. “Why are you wearing Millwall colours asshole? Are you one of those bastard Russian oilygarks who buys London clubs? Do you own Millwall fuck brain? Speak or I'll fuckin kill you!” The black cohort was becoming seriously agitated now. He couldn't even think in the Queen's English. His antics were winding up the ten or so other posse members now surrounding Vasily. The main man was staring at Vasily and Vasily was eyeballing him back. The Russian thug had very little idea what these agitated and confrontational youths were going on about. Sure, he was wearing a blue and white shirt, Millwall's colours, but he didn't know that until a few seconds ago. For god's sake, he'd never even heard of Millwall and he was certain Vladimir Babikov didn't own a football club. It was time to wrap this up, thought Vasily, pulling his Ruger from his pants.

“Gun!” screamed the main man and his cohort in unison, as they were covering their heads and diving to the ground.

That's more like it, thought Vasily, for a mere split second feeling back in control of his own destiny. He wasn't. Had Vasily been an ex-FSB or SVR officer he may have paid more attention to his six. He wasn't. He was just a murdering, urinating, thug. As soon as the posse members behind Vasily heard ‘gun', two hammers and two large bottles of cheap cider rained down on the back of Vasily's head. He did not crumple to the ground at first, he was a strong, huge, man, but he was down on one knee and his pistol had fallen on the road and was now in the possession of the GSE's main man. The main man did not shoot Vasily. He pointed his gun at him as a few more hammer blows and a couple of baseball bat whacks from the rear finished off what was left of Vasily's large skull.

Vladimir Babikov was man down and his prey had gotten away.

* * *

Back at Bowser's Castle, Neil Robson was in the land of Nod, not the wandering zone east of Eden referred to in the Bible but the land of sleep à la
A
Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation
by Jonathan Swift. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury was exhausted. Not only had he his normal daily responsibilities at the Treasury, he had to contend with a Scottish miscreant that he was unfortunately relying on to dig him out of a cavernous hole and a Jamrock yardie accountant who seemed intent on blowing the gaff on the government's finances. At least Babikov will have got rid of Gordon by now thought Robson as he drifted into his slumber for the night, feeling very content.

The next morning Neil Robson was up bright and early. The King of the Koopas decided he would drive his Bentley Continental into town today. He had an early morning meeting with Jeffrey Walker. Undoubtedly, the Chancellor wanted an update on Korean developments. Robson would need to take the ‘no news is good news' view but simultaneously assure Walker that there would be a more detailed debrief in the next forty-eight hours. That should keep the old fart from a meltdown thought Robson, though he did have a modicum of sympathy for the Chancellor.

If Darke failed in his mission then Jeffrey Walker would be consigned, not only to jail, but to history as the British finance minister who bankrupted Britain and led to the most serious economic crisis and widespread rioting that the country had ever seen. Denis Healey, Labour's Chancellor in the 1970s, and a man who appeared to have only one tie, a dark blue, light blue criss-cross patterned one, had given bankrupting Britain a shot. He put the top rate of income tax at 83% and the top rate of unearned income at 98%. Clearly, Mr Healey, eventually Lord Healey, had not even a passing recognition of the Laffer Curve. The great and good all left or prepared to leave the UK; surgeons, lawyers, scientists, musicians, actors, financial types. Anybody that was on a salary rather than a subsistence wage wanted to leave. Eventually, in 1976, with the help and prompting of the IMF, Healey realised that 60% of something was better than 83% of nothing in the government's coffers and disaster was averted. In reality, from the Labour Party's perspective, disaster was only postponed. Healey's about face led the thinking voters to conclude that he was an economic pygmy shrew. Combined with Labour leader Jim Callaghan's bad singing, poor timing, acquiescence to British streets being strewn with uncollected garbage and unburied bodies, this all led to Margaret Thatcher's first general election win in 1979. Labour have never recovered from that, and probably never will.

Involuntarily, Jeffrey Walker may have the opportunity to finish what Healey started. He didn't want to, he was desperate to avoid it, so desperate that he had sanctioned an illegal incursion into the DPRK to relieve its supreme leader of most of his gold. Walker was smarter than Healey. At a minimum he understood the link between rising marginal income tax rates and the government's revenue yield. There was definitely an inflexion point and he was not going on that disastrous route, not any time and definitely not a few months before a General Election. He was not going to be an economic bumblebee to Healey's pygmy shrew and that was that.

As Neil Robson was driving into Horseguards Road and parking up, he knew full well the bind that Walker and he were in. Apart from Joel Gordon there had been no inkling of a leak regarding the government's £3-4bn black hole, either inside the government or externally in the media. Babikov would have closed that leak risk off, permanently, concluded Robson so his only job on that front now was to keep the issue as tight as a crab's arse. Walker, himself and, unfortunately JJ Darke and team, were the only people alive and in the know. Robson would deal with Darke once the gold had been recovered and he had taken his unauthorised cut of around half a billion pounds.

Happy days thought Robson as he entered his office in the Treasury. He was further buoyed at the bright sight of the candescent Becky, his PA. She was all tight hot pink and stilettoes this morning. He surely was going to jump her one day and give her a good seeing to, preferably from behind and over his leather topped antique desk, but not today. Today, he was going to update Walker, and have as relaxing an afternoon as possible. Tonight he'd probably go to the Nicolas Casino and thank Vladimir Babikov for his assistance. Despite being a murderous mutilator, the dodgy Russian liked his acquaintances to be polite. Robson had forty-five minutes or so before he was scheduled to meet with the Chancellor. Becky had just given him a strong coffee and a plastic smile. Just as he was surveying the contours of her comely bum, there was a knock on his door and in popped a black man.

“Good morning, Sir,” said Joel Gordon. “I was thinking about our conversation yesterday,” he continued, completely oblivious to the jaw-dropped expression on his boss's face. “I feel strongly that I need to update Craig Wilson on this problem with the government's finances and my impending promotion. He has been a good mentor to me and, strictly speaking, it was Mr Wilson who asked me to look into the financial figures in the first place. He's back in a couple of days. Maybe the three of us could meet up as soon as he has caught up. I can ask Becky to put a time and place in your meeting calendar?”

“Sure,” replied Robson, more or less on automatic. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury hadn't really taken anything in after ‘Good morning, Sir'. What the fuck was the Jamrock yardie doing here in my office, alive, speaking, babbling on about Wilson, a meeting? He should be dead, no heart beat, no brain beat no any kind of fucking beat apart from the ultimate dead beat. Robson's mind was racing. That fuckwit Babikov had ballsed things up. Goddamit, he wailed silently to himself. This was not happening. Joel Gordon had said ‘thanks' following Robson's semi-aware ‘sure' and had left the Financial Secretary's office.

The meeting between Robson and Walker would need to go ahead but the former was still recovering from this early morning shock and he seemed less self-assured than usual. There would be no relaxing afternoon now thought Neil Robson. He needed an explanation from Babikov. No £1 million fee was going his way for a botched job. There was only two days or so before Craig Wilson was back at his desk, undoubtedly to ask awkward and penetrating questions of Robson and Walker once he had been briefed by Joel Gordon. No way could that happen. The Jamrock yardie was going down, even if he had to do it himself concluded a very irate Bowser, thwarted in his desperate desire to take control of the Mushroom Kingdom.