Darke Mission (52 page)

* * *

The following evening, JJ decided that he had had enough of some crap too. The particular piece of doo that was dragging him closer to the edge was the return of the black Mercedes. Cyrus was having an early evening social with a couple of his friends from school as well as Lucy and one of her classmates. Although it was still a little cool in the evening, it was quite a pleasant spring day. The group of friends were sitting outside a busy café cum patisserie on the corner of Markham Square and the King's Road, laughing, joking, generally getting on with the fun life of privileged young teenagers in the coolest part of town. JJ and Gil were happy that Cyrus was enjoying himself. He knew nothing about the Mercedes tail and he was more relaxed, eating and sleeping better, now that his dad had returned from overseas.

While JJ was catching up with some sports viewing in his house, Gil had popped out to pick up some vitamins and fruit bars from the health shop close to Marks & Spencer. She never made it there. As she was strolling down the east side of the Square she noticed the black Mercedes, again, in Smith Street. This time the car was parked in the third spot back from the King's Road, but with a clear view of Cyrus and his friends.

“JJ,” said Gil on re-entering the house.

“That was quick,” replied JJ.

“JJ, the black Mercedes is back. It's on Smith Street. Cyrus and his pals are having a snack and chat at that little café on the corner. He's definitely stalking Cyrus.”

JJ looked at Gil, put the TV remote on the coffee table and got up. “I've had the fuck enough of this Gil. I'm going to get a couple of things. I need a word with black Merc man. I'll go down Radnor Walk, cut through Smith Terrace and approach him from behind. You hang about near the top of the Square. When you see me, casually come across Cyrus and his mates. Make sure the boy is not looking in the direction of Smith Street no matter what happens.”

“Will do,” replied Gil. “Be careful.”

JJ nodded, got his items, left the house, went down the west side of the Square, crossed the King's Road and proceeded at a brisk pace on his planned route. As he was walking, he was figuring out his plan. It was 6.30pm and the sun was setting but it was not properly dark. Gil had described the offending Merc in some detail. Once inside, the passing Chelsea public would not have a clear view of any activity within. Another aspect of a one man surveillance op was that if he was asked to shadow a target then his full attention would be on that target, not really people-watching or checking his six often enough. JJ exited Smith Terrace, walked up the west side of Smith Street, crossed the road and opened the front passenger side door of the Merc. That was another aspect of bad guys' tendencies when they thought that they were tough and invisible. They didn't lock their car doors.

“Aaargh!” screamed Boris Akulov, as JJ plunged his commando knife into the left thigh of the ex-FSB thug with his left hand. Simultaneously, he smashed the Russian's face into the steering wheel. JJ had taken that knife all the way to Korea and back and it had remained unused in its sheath. Now, only a couple of hundred yards from his house, out it had come and into a scumbag's leg it went. Boris tried to elbow JJ in the face but the Scot had his defence ready. He blocked the Russian's shot and again plunged his knife into the same leg.

“OK, OK, stop, stop!” wailed Babikov's man, clutching his leg. JJ stopped, checked the Russian's suit jacket and removed his gun from its holster. He kept Boris's head pressed against the steering wheel and now had his knife positioned right on the stalker's throat.

“Why are you watching my son?” asked JJ, firmly while giving Boris's exposed throat a poke with the point of the knife's blade. Boris did not, of course, know that the curly-topped kid he had been ordered to tail had a dad, and certainly not one who was likely to invade his car and damage his person.

“I don't know what you fuckin' talking about you maniac,” replied Boris, obviously in the forlorn hope that his assailant would just say, oops, sorry, mistaken identity and leave. Boris was bleeding profusely from his wounded leg so, on hearing the Russian's reply JJ felt generous, not wishing the slime to pass out, so he just smashed his face into the steering wheel one more time. It hurt.

“Look you fucking Russian peasant, I will let you bleed out right here if you do not answer me truthfully. I've got all night and no one can see into this car from the outside. Even your miserable moaning and groaning has not attracted one glance. They build these cars well, don't they asshole. Speak up!” said JJ, in a low decibel level but with menace.

Although Boris was a murdering, asshole deviant he was not a complete fool. This guy with the odd accent had him cold. He was bleeding away, probably had a broken nose, could hardly move and had a very pointy blade nestling in his neck. He was going to need to tell him something.

“I work for Vladimir Babikov,” said Boris.

“Who the fuck is Vladimir Babikov and what does he want with my son?” asked JJ, adding another wee mini-poke with his knife just to ensure that the Russian stayed on point.

“He owns the Nicolas Casino in Mayfair. He will kill you for this.”

JJ assimilated Boris's information. This Babikov donkey was clearly the one in charge. The pokee here was just a foot soldier, a thug, carrying out a job that he had been instructed to do but not asking or questioning why. A dodgy Russian running a casino had all the hallmarks of the Russian Mafia, thought JJ, not the best people to get on the wrong side of. It was probably a tad late worrying about that now. It still didn't make sense to JJ. Why would a Russian mobster have any interest in Cyrus or even JJ himself. He was going to need to find out more. Bleedin' Boris here, however, was not likely to have any further insight.

“Have you got a phone?” asked JJ.

“Yes, why?” replied Boris, visibly weakening.

“Hand it over and be quick about it,” said JJ. Boris pointed to the glove compartment. JJ opened it, took out the mobile and switched it on. He scrolled through the contacts. It was tricky doing it with his right hand. There was no Babikov but there was ‘Boss' and given the state of Boris's crumpled suit he assumed it wasn't a direct line to the upmarket retailer. JJ hit the number.

“Babikov,” said the voice at the other end.

“This is William fuckin' Wallace, you dickhead. One of your thugs is bleeding to death in Smith Street, SW3. If you want to save him better get another thug here pronto with more than a plaster. If your dark shadow every crosses my path again or that of my family, you'll get the same. Now fuck off back to Putinland like a good mobster,” he added and hung up.

In retrospect, JJ wasn't sure that that was the best way to handle things, but he was fuming inside. When it came to Cyrus's health and welfare his emotions sometimes got the better of his normal cool rationality. Maybe this Babikov would be more sensible and it would end here, tonight. Or maybe not. JJ would need to be prepared for any comeback. By now, Boris had nearly passed out, but if his boss cared enough and sent help then he'd live. JJ got out of the Merc, commando knife concealed in his cargo pants and Boris's phone in his pocket. Checking that he wasn't covered in Russian blood, there were a few spots but nothing obvious, JJ casually strolled up Smith Street, caught Gil's attention and waved. She waved back, pointed out to Cyrus that his dad was near, and the three of them walked home, once Cyrus had said his cheerios to his pals.

“Alright?” asked Gil, once they were inside and Cyrus decided to go for a shower.

“Yes, sort of,” replied JJ. “I don't think the black Merc man will be on Cyrus's tail any more. He was just a goon working for some guy called Vladimir Babikov. Ever heard of him?”

“No,” replied Gil.

“Apparently he runs a casino in the west end, the Nicolas, I think. It's obviously a cover for some dodgy venture or other. I still don't know why any Russian would have an interest in Cyrus, Merc man was just the point guy, he had no details.”

“This might get messy?” ventured Gil, half statement and half question.

“Yes, Gil, it might. I'm going upstairs to get changed, can you stay here tonight? We should probably figure out our plan once Cyrus is asleep.”

“Sure.”

JJ went up to his bedroom. He put his polo shirt and cargo pants in the wash basket, tomorrow was dry cleaning day so that was good. He retrieved the knife and phone before lobbing his dirty clothes. JJ carefully cleaned his knife, put it back in its sheath and hid it in the kit bag that he had taken to Korea. He then put the kit bag in the lockable chest in the attic and placed the key in his wall safe. As he was doing this, he could hear Cyrus singing away in the shower. The kid had regularly been selected for the school choir when he was younger. Initially, JJ had no idea why, he thought the boy sounded like a cat being sat on by a St. Bernard. Then one night Cyrus sang the main theme from
Super Smash Brothers Brawl.
The song had been composed by Nobuo Uematsu and the lyrics were in Latin. Cyrus was singing it in Latin with the orchestral soundtrack in the background. He sounded like an angel.

* * *

When Cyrus and his dad played
SSBB
, the boy liked to be the Pokemon Trainer most of the time and JJ preferred Meta Knight. The mach tornado that was Meta Knight's signature move may be coming out of game world and into real life thought JJ. The critical issue, though, was to ensure Cyrus's safety, to make certain that he had family and friends by his side, to shine bright in his defence, if needed.

JJ returned to the living room all freshened up. Gil was there and had made JJ a Macallans, the way he liked. She didn't drink whisky so had poured herself a small glass of Chardonnay. They sat together, on the sofa.

“What're you doing?” asked Gil.

“This is Merc man's phone. I'm scrolling through the contacts to see if I recognise any names.”

“Any joy?”

“Not yet, there's a lot of names, I'm only up to F.”

“We're going to need to beef up the security and defence of this house, JJ,” said Gil.

“Yes, we should. We'll need to do it subtly. The less Cyrus knows about this the better,” he added, still checking Boris's contacts.

“Sure, I'll get on it in the morning. I know a guy who can install CCTV, perimeter alarms, better locks, that kind of stuff. Do you want me to stay here, indefinitely, until we know the score?” asked Gil.

“Good and yes,” responded JJ, now a lot calmer after a drink of quality malt. He had passed R in the contact list, so no Neil Robson acknowledged JJ. At least that was something. Gil noticed that JJ had stopped sliding his thumb up the smartphone's screen and was just staring at one entry, in contemplation.

“What's up JJ, have you found something?”

“Maybe,” replied JJ, still thinking. “There's an entry here under St. George. The number's familiar though.”

“Who's that?” asked Gil.

“If I'm not mistaken that's a number in St. George's Hill, Weybridge specifically belonging to this country's Financial Secretary to the Treasury.”

“Neil Robson?”

“The very same, Gil, the very same.” JJ's internal temperature was on the boil again, but he knew that cool thinking was called for. It was going to get messy alright and JJ needed to be certain that Cyrus was safe before the mess erupted.

“When's Cyrus's spring break?” asked JJ.

“Next Tuesday, for two weeks,” responded Gil, who knew by heart every last detail of the boy's school schedule, his clubs and his term breaks.

“Good. Convince him that it would be nice for him to see his grandparents. I'll let Mum and Dad know. Take the Porsche and be alert for tails. If things work out here next week I'll join you for week two.”

“What about you, JJ?” asked Gil. “If a bunch of Russian gangsters come calling, you're not going to see them off on your own.”

“I'll be fine,” replied JJ, not knowing for certain that he would be, but not putting himself at the top of the priority list just yet.

As JJ and Gil continued to discuss the planned trip to Scotland and the ‘home improvements' to be carried out, JJ's cell phone vibrated on the coffee table in front of them. He picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Hi JJ, it's Jim,” said the voice at the other end. There was no need to add Bradbury. While JJ knew one hell of a lot of Jims when he was growing up in Glasgow, none of them had the unmistakeable drawl of his American friend, the KLO.

“Jesus, Jim, what time is it in Seoul, it's nearly ten at night here. Is everything OK?”

“It's six in the morning JJ and no everything is not OK. They've got Kwon,” said Bradbury, voice shaking and audibly upset.

On the surface there was no link between Annie Chapman, second victim of Jack the Ripper, and Joel Gordon, numberless victim of Neil Robson, poisoned and now dead. Six feet under the surface, however, they share the same cemetery, at Manor Park in Forest Gate, London E7. As cemeteries go it was pleasant and well kept. The friends and family of the late Treasury accountant were gathered round his burial plot, just off Basset Road and within sight of the Columbarium, not that the murdered ground dweller knew anything about it. It was a fresh and sunny spring day and the small group of mourners listened attentively as the priest said a few last words of blessing.

“Talisha, isn't it?” enquired Becky Martin as the group dispersed and headed for the cars that would take them back to Joel's apartment for a few drinks and subdued chat about the deceased.

“Yes, you're Becky, Joel's friend at work?” Talisha replied, not certain but she had been feeling poorly and had a lot on her plate.

“That's right,” replied Becky, dressed respectfully in black with no sign of her trademark candescence. “This is such a tragedy, Talisha. Joel was so smart, so nice. He encouraged me to do a night course in Accounting and Finance at City University. I'll be getting my degree in a couple of months. Nothing would have happened if it hadn't been for his help. I'll miss him.”

“Yes, me too Becky. I just don't understand it…” sobbed Talisha, standing next to her chauffeur-driven rented black sedan. “One minute he was full of life, energy and hope for the future, the next minute dead and agonisingly at that. The medical report said it was radiation poisoning. Nobody has a blind clue as to how he could have been exposed to radiation.”

“That's awful!” exclaimed Becky, hearing for the first time the cause of her friend's demise. “Was he not able to tell you anything before he… well, the end?” asked Becky, keen to know but unable to phrase her question without deepening already painful memories for Talisha.

“Not really, the speed and intensity of his illness, his death were so rapid, his ability to function so swiftly taken from him, nothing made sense. He told me he loved me. Those were about the last intelligible words he uttered. After that, nothing much. He mumbled something like ‘cupcake' a few times but it didn't mean anything to me, it was not a love nickname or pet term he ever used.”

Becky realised that Talisha was wilting so she gave her a warm, friendly hug and wished her well. Becky would not join the funeral wake at Joel's apartment, though Talisha did invite her. It was a family gathering and though Becky and Joel were good friends she did not want to impose. Becky had driven to Manor Park in her not so new VW Golf, bright red, of course. She returned to her car, sat in the driver's seat and prepared to head back to her one bedroom apartment in Pimlico. She would not see Talisha again. Joel's girlfriend returned to the United States, never fully regained her health and died several years later, at the age of thirty-eight.

Before driving out of the cemetery gates, Becky's mind kept iterating back to Talisha's mention of ‘cupcake'. It meant nothing to her either. Somewhere in the deep recesses of her mind, though, she recalled the last time that she saw Joel alive was when he left Neil Robson's office. As he sped out of the door, he smiled at Becky and said, ‘Thank your Mum for the cupcake, it was fantastic!' Joel had left the office before Becky had time to ask ‘what cupcake?' Her mum's baking was royally atrocious! She couldn't bake a cake to save her life. She would never have attempted cupcakes and she would certainly not have sent any to Joel or her boss. The culinary embarrassment would have been too great. A few years ago, Becky would have just let this puzzle pass. It was probably nothing. Talisha had told her that the police had investigated. They thought Joel's death was suspicious but they could find no evidence of foul play by a third party. They were still investigating but had no leads. Joel, however, had encouraged Becky to be thorough in her studies, not to accept the obvious. If something seemed funny peculiar then it probably was funny peculiar, he used to say. The cupcake thing was indeed funny peculiar Becky concluded as she drove out of east London. She owed it to her friend to do a modicum of research at least and that research was going to begin with a phone call to her mum.

* * *

While Becky was on the phone to her mum, Toby Naismith was in JJ's office at MAM in Mayfair. It was mid-afternoon and Fathead had already put in a few calls to the main gold depositaries in the United States. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) is one of the biggest financial exchanges in the world. It has nearly 3,000 employees and assets of over US $40 billion. The exchange's core businesses involve exchange traded derivatives including futures and options in the world's key commodities and currencies. Fathead's interest in the CME today, however, was in its five approved New York based Commodities Exchange (COMEX) precious metal storage facilities. These are JP Morgan, HSBC, Brink's, Scotia Mocatta and Manfra, Tordella & Brookes (MTB). In total, these five had an estimated 12 million troy ounces of gold stored in their secure facilities in New York, though only the CME authorities know the precise aggregate amount on any given day. One bar of Kim Jong-un's gold weighed nearly 12.5kg or around 402 troy ounces. The Sprinter van's haul of gold, therefore, was the equivalent of one-fifth of the COMEX warehouse's total stock of gold.

How nice it would have been for Toby, JJ, Neil Robson and the British government if Fathead could have just rung up and said, ‘Do you fancy a few bars of gold?' Unfortunately for all concerned the process of getting refined gold into the legitimate financial system was not that simple. For any particular refinery to deliver gold onto the commodities exchange it must be from a registered approved brand, the main ones being Heraeus, Johnson Matthey and Metalor Technologies. Fortunately for Toby et al these three approved brands are also on the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) Good Delivery List. This list contains the names of refiners authorised to produce bullion bars used by central banks and the IMF in their reserves. Each bar has a serial number, the refiner's hallmark, its degree of fineness (purity) and its year of manufacture. To be ‘good delivery gold', the bullion bar must have a fineness of at least 995 parts per thousand. All the bars in the Sprinter van complied.

Toby was in a good place. He could try to sell part of the gold to the refiners, as they often bought their own gold immediately after it was refined or in the after-market if they were confident that the price of gold was going to rise or if their stocks were low. These refinery groups are huge conglomerates; the Heraeus Group's precious metals trading desk in Hanau, Germany, for example, is like the bridge of the Star Ship Enterprise. He could also sell part of the gold to the refiner's customers, via the depositaries or directly if they had a commodities managed account with MAM. As each of the bars has a hallmark, a serial number and a year of manufacture, it is probable that they could be traced back to their original owner if anyone wanted to know that piece of information. In the case of the Sprinter van's gold that could be North Korea, China, Russia or elsewhere. In essence it did not matter. Gold bars can be bought and sold anonymously between customers like central banks, private banks, more or less anyone. Provided a specific set of serial numbers etc. had not been noted as stolen, the original ownership or even subsequent ownership usually was not of interest. For whatever reason, maybe to do with saving face, maybe to not alerting its enemies, maybe even with the forlorn hope of recovery, the DPRK's authorities had not yet reported any stolen gold.

“Hey Kai, it's Toby, got a minute?” Fathead was through to his broker-dealer buddy at JP Morgan in London.

“Toby, my man!” replied Kai cheerily. “Of course, for you, maybe two.”

“Great. I need an introduction. We've done a massive deal here at MAM, and I've been left with some physical gold to sell. You guys are one of the biggest gold depositaries in the USA, right? I want to talk with the guy or gal who's the decision maker regarding good delivery gold.”

“Sure. That would be Enrique Velasquez. He's Senior VP in charge of precious metals. I'll try to get him to ring you in the next fifteen minutes, OK?” responded Kai.

“That would be just fine Kai. Thanks. Let's go to Nobu soon, it's been a while,” said Toby. Kai agreed.

While Toby was waiting for that one call from New York he thought he'd get in touch with the chief trader at Metalor Technologies, Tomas Hartmann, whom he had known for several years. Tomas was about the same age as Toby and was based in Neuchatel, Switzerland. He was responsible for the buying and selling of precious metals, physical and electronic. Toby and Tomas had a good chat and a better haggle. Metalor was indeed in the market to buy back some gold and if Toby could offer them a decent discount to market price for a bulk purchase they could do a deal.

“Tomas, there's no way I can give you 10% off, not even 8%,” said Toby. “I know you want to buy a big chunk, but it's too much. Gold closed at $1,820 per ounce yesterday and is still rising. In a few months you'll probably have made a whopping profit. C'mon old friend, let's do it. 4% off today's closing price. What do you say?”

“Do any of the bars have our stamp on them?”

“Yes, not all of them but a decent percentage,” replied Toby, who had studied the bars in the van very closely indeed.

“Our new stamp or our historic one?” asked Tomas.

“Your historic one with Meteaux Precieux SA, Metalor on them.”

“Fine. We'll pay US $1,742 per ounce for one million troy ounces. You need to have it transported by one of the CME approved couriers like Brink's and have it delivered to our secure vaults in Zurich. You can pay for the courier. Deal?” asked Tomas.

“Deal,” said Toby. They would exchange emails to confirm. Toby had directed Tomas to a new email account that he and JJ had set up specifically for the gold transactions. It would be no problem. Tomas would have his gold in three days and Toby had just unloaded around 2,500 of his 6,000 bullion bar target. It was a mega result.

Enrique Velasquez of JP Morgan got back to Toby as well. Fathead enquired about the state of the gold vaults at 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza. There had been a reported fire there in July 2013, in the secure warehouse one hundred feet below ground level. There was much speculation that this was either deliberate or faked in order to avoid a COMEX delivery notice for 12,000 ounces of eligible gold by declaring force majeure. These speculations were unfounded but it did seem that ever since, JP Morgan would not allow their gold stocks to dwindle too much. After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, Toby managed to get Enrique to commit to buying a half million ounces of gold. This was just over 15,550kg, or nearly 1,250 bars. Toby was over half way to his bullion sales target and, so far, it had taken less than half a day to do it.

There was still plenty of work for Toby to do. He involved Yves-Jacques in arranging the transportation, Brink's Inc. for Metalor and IBI Armoured Inc. for JP Morgan, the paperwork and the transport of the bullion bars from the van in JJ's lock-up to a registered bullion vault in London. It would not pass unnoticed if the approved carriers turned up to a Chelsea lock-up to collect several thousand gold bars from the back of a van. Yves-Jacques was on it and it was underway.

Toby was feeling well chuffed with himself. That miscreant Iksil may have been dubbed the London Whale because of the size of his Credit Default Swap trades back in 2012/2013, but they were ill advised, broke JP Morgan's risk rules, led to regulatory fines and were beyond speculative. In the here and now, Toby felt like the golden whale. Big trades, totally legit, no rules to break. In his unconsumed joy at his day's work he totally skimmed over the fact that the subject matter of his trades was most definitely not legit! Nevertheless, Fathead was so happy he decided to phone JJ right away.

“Hey JJ,” said Toby on hearing his boss answer his personal mobile phone. “We have had an awesome day, chief. I've unloaded over 3,000 bullion bars today and I feel good, do-do-do-do-do-do and ya know that I should,” announced Toby, more or less springing into song, albeit tuneless and pitch imperfect.

“That's great Toby, well done,” said JJ, not in a singing mood. “Did you get a good price and is the cable rate in our favour?”

“The average net selling price was under our desired level of US $1,800/oz. boss, but it was quite close and the GBP/USD rate moved a little in our favour. We're on track for our cash target,” replied Toby with more confidence than perhaps was wholly justified.

“Great. Keep it up. I'll be in the office tomorrow. The both of us and Yves-Jacques should have a breakfast or coffee meeting to catch up, OK?”

“OK JJ. How's Cyrus?” asked Toby.

“He's good, Toby. In Scotland with his grandparents. I may try to get up there next week so let's see if we can seal the deal on this gold before the weekend. Have a good evening and well done again. I'll see you tomorrow.”

“Beezer Ebeneezer, JJ, see you tomorrow.”

“Keep your druggy references to yourself Fathead!” exclaimed JJ.

“Sure,” replied Toby, having no idea what JJ was talking about. Clearly, the urban meaning of early 1990s' Scottish electronic pop lyrics had not registered in the Englishman's head.

JJ had a good night's sleep. As yet there had been no sign of any payback attempt by dodgy Russians and Cyrus seemed happy to be with Gil and his grandparents in Scotland. Still, he needed to get this gold sale finished and that wanker Robson off his back and those of the other two amigos.

* * *

Toby had opted for an 8am breakfast meeting, there's a shocker, and had organised the Pret closest to the MAM office to deliver coffee, juice, warm croissants and a variety of breakfast baguettes. Toby and Yves-Jacques were already tucking in when JJ entered his office, with most of the tucking being done by Toby.