Darke Mission (68 page)

Neil Robson entered. He was content enough to see Archie and shook his hand. The other two were not meant to be there.

“Archie, what are they doing here?” asked Robson calm, but annoyed.

“Sorry Neil,” he whispered. “I tried to dissuade them but I think they're after a bonus, if you catch my drift.”

“OK. Do you have my papers?”

“Yes. Everything's here,” Newman replied, handing Robson an A5 sized envelope, which he folded and put inside his jacket pocket. In turn, he took out an envelope which had £20k in it, the last of the cash he was able to lay his hands on before tonight.

“Here, Archie, take this. You did a fine job,” said Robson.

“Thanks. Anytime. Do you need me for anything else?” asked Archie, apparently keen to get off.

“Hang about for a few minutes, will you. I'll see if I can keep the lads happy,” Robson replied.

Long and Hayworth were standing next to the van, patiently waiting for Robbo and Newman to finish. As Neil Robson approached, Hayworth rested against the side of the van but Long was anxious to make his play for more money.

“Hi lads,” said Robson. “Good job today, the van looks sweet.”

“Glad you think so, Robbo,” said Jason Long. “We stuck to all your instructions, we did you a real solid. Any chance of a bonus?” he asked, never really having been one for small talk.

“Sure,” said Robson. The fugitive Fin Sec put his right hand into the left hand side of his parka and his left hand into the jacket's outside pocket. He didn't pull out two envelopes of cash. Instead, he retrieved his two SIG Sauer P229s, both fully loaded with fifteen round magazines of 9mm .357 SIG bullets. Six pops rang out in an instant. Long took two to the head and one to the chest, Hayworth one to the head, one to the chest and one in his stomach. Archie Newman was rooted to the spot, shocked and bewildered. He was not expecting that.

“Sorry you had to see that Archie,” said Robson, turning to face the pensioner.

“It's OK…” stuttered Archie. He didn't get the chance to say how OK or to ask questions. Robson fired again, twice. Archie took two to the head. He was dead before he hit the ground.

Robson bent over his third victim of the night and retrieved his £20k. Spending money, he muttered to himself. The pools of blood from Hayworth and Long had now joined up to form one big puddle. Robson surveyed the scene. He was satisfied. No witnesses to tonight's crimes and no one alive capable of stitching him up to the authorities. He was in the money and in the clear he told himself as he got into the white transit van and prepared to drive out of Bert's Garage. After he left Bert's, he stopped the van, got out, locked the garage and tossed the keys into a nearby skip. It was 8.30pm so he probably had at least a twelve hour head start before any alarm would be raised.

Robson was heading for Hull. He had rented a lock-up garage there, in an industrial estate, not far from the port and its ferry terminals. Times were tough in England and a cash payment for three months in advance rent, no questions asked, could not be turned down by the garage's owners. Hull was just over 200 miles away. By the time he got there it would be after midnight, too late for a ferry crossing that night. He would sleep in his van, mess around the next morning and afternoon then check in, on foot, close to 7pm for the 8.30pm crossing. He would buy some spare clothes in Hull and use them to cover the cash haul in his kit bag. This time he could buy his own ticket and use his new forged passport. A quality job thought Robson as he inspected the now deceased Archie Newman's work.

There is no proper security on P&O ferries, no baggage X-rays, no checks and no shake downs, only passport control. The crossing would be a piece of cupcake Robson laughed out loud. The ferry crossing would take ten to eleven hours. Once disembarked he would catch a taxi for the journey to Rotterdam's The Hague Airport, about three miles north-northwest of Rotterdam itself. There he would catch the afternoon Avianca flight to San Jose, Costa Rica. The flight would take six hours. Before boarding and checking-in his most valuable kit bag he would pop into a local Hull supermarket and purchase some aluminium foil to cover the currency parcel in his bag. His bag would be x-rayed before entering the hold of the plane. Ideally, lead has the best physical structure to reflect x-rays due to its large number of electrons and dense structure. Lead was an impractical option due to both its weight and availability to purchase at short notice. Aluminium foil was not as efficient in this operation due to its smaller attenuation coefficient i.e. its ability to be penetrated by light particles or other energy or matter. Nevertheless, a few sheets wrapped carefully and tightly around the already covered cash would be sufficient to reflect the limited penetration quality of baggage X-rays at Holland's third largest airport. He would then go to the Post Office in Newland Avenue, Hull to collect his parcel delivered by UPS. Neil Robson was set. He would have £2 million in his kit bag, and £2 million worth of US dollars awaiting his arrival in San Jose, Costa Rica, courtesy of UPS. If his travel plan worked as expected, he could return to his van and top up his cash.

Costa Rica lay between eight and twelve degrees north of the Equator in Central America. Its climate was tropical, you could use US dollars there freely and it was a democracy. On top of all those goodies thought Neil Robson, the piece de resistance was that it had no extradition treaty with the UK. He was not intending to be discovered but if he was then it would be harder, not impossible, but harder to force him back to the UK, to face multiple murder charges and a host of other felonies. With that happy prospect Robert Nilsson, as he now was, embarked on his version of the great escape.

* * *

“Anything?” asked JJ.

“Ziltch… well maybe one avenue of interest,” replied Ethel, qualifying her negative absolute. “Local officers in Camden were called to a grease monkey garage there and found three dead bodies, all shot and all at least one bullet to the head, so probably a professional job. There was no sign of any van or any money. The two interesting things, though, were that the two dead guys apparently in their thirties were ex-military, one SAS the other a paratrooper. They had different splatterings of paint on some of their clothes and there was paint-spraying equipment lying around in the garage. The police interviewed the regular garage mechanics. They said they knew nothing about it and had been well paid to take the day off. They pointed to the dead old guy as the one who had paid them.”

“And the other interesting point?” asked JJ.

“Well, although forensics wouldn't give me a definitive answer they said that the bullets were 9mm rounds and probably fired from a SIG Sauer, P228 or P229. They'll get back to me soon with a clear answer.”

“SIGs are a favourite of the SIS. Are you thinking Robson?” suggested JJ.

“Don't know yet, JJ. I thought it was worthwhile asking for DNA and fingerprint checks though, just in case.”

“Good work Ginger.”

“One more thing,” added Ethel. “The paint residue near the victims was mainly white and brown. I've asked 19's lab boffins to analyse the brown samples to see if they can be a match for UPS brown. If so, we might have a lead.”

“Yes, Ethel, that would be good. If the UPS van did get painted there, however, then the white splatterings probably mean that the culprit is now a classic man in a white van. Needle in a haystack and all that.”

“At least we'd know what kind of needle we'd be looking for,” said Ethel trying to be positive.

“I guess,” replied JJ, knowing that there were nearly three million of them. SCO19's laboratory analyst and Ethel's contacts in the Metropolitan Police got back to her before nightfall. The brown paint around the dead ex-military pair was a very good match for UPS brown, usually called Pullman Brown because one of the original UPS partners decided that the colour of the eponymous railroad carriages would be easier than yellow to keep clean. The DNA search produced a match for Neil Robson from the dead old guy's right hand. Likely then that the fugitive Robson had been present at the scene of this crime and was probably the perpetrator of it as well. Ethel imparted her news to JJ. He acknowledged that she had done really well to get that information so quickly. They also had an up to date description of Neil Robson provided by Cyrus. Ethel shared that knowledge with her police contacts and they with MI5 and Interpol. The police experts on evo-fit technology now had an acceptable image and it was being transmitted on all major news channels.

This was clearly an advance in the hunt for Neil Robson but JJ was still fed up. The source of his frustration was multi-faceted. He wasn't feeling great, niggly muscle and joint aches, greater preponderance of hormonal sweats and an adrenalin downshift after the chaos of Cyrus's kidnap. The biggest downer, however, was that he knew in his soul that Robson was well gone. The gap between the estimated time of the deaths at Bert's garage and the discovery of their bodies was around twelve hours. The answers to the paint and DNA questions, nearly a further twelve hours. The widespread distribution and publication of Robson's evo-fit image another few hours. If a cunning, trained ex-MI5 wetworker could not disappear off the fuckin' planet with such a head start, then I'm John fucking Bull groaned the Scot to himself.

JJ decided that he had had enough of Robson related thinking for the night. He went up the stairs from the small, front room on the ground floor, leaving Ethel and Victor to chat a while longer. On entering the living room he spotted Cyrus first, black Minecraft T-shirt and grey No. 33 track suit bottoms on, thick woolly socks and getting stuck into some Nintendo DS challenge while dangling his long legs over the side of the sumptuous armchair. He was returning to normal, thought JJ, and thank god for that. Becky, meanwhile, was equally casual but somewhat brighter. Hot pink fluffy jumper over black leggings with socks that matched the jumper. A bit more like it thought JJ as he saw Becky on the sofa and surfing on her tablet. JJ got a huge smile and thumbs up from Cyrus. That usually meant good to see you but I'm absorbed in my electronic game so don't bug me! JJ smiled back and then sat next to Becky.

“Is it OK if I sit here?” he asked, polite but not necessary.

“Sure, JJ, of course… it's your sofa.”

“What are you up to?”

“I'm job hunting,” replied Becky. “I don't really want to go back to the Treasury. Neil Robson is still out and about, too many cringeworthy memories of that slime ball and too many sad ones about Joel. I'm getting my degree soon so I'll be qualified to be more than a PA, not that that was a bad job, I just feel that I owe it to myself and to the memory of Joel to be the best I possibly can.”

“Sound thinking, Becky. I know how you feel. I've been totally useless at my so-called day job for the past few weeks. To be honest, the attraction of worrying about the ups and downs of Greek bonds or $/yen or even the price of gold has lost its allure. I haven't told Cyrus yet,” said JJ lowering his voice, “but I'm thinking about resigning from MAM.”

“I heard that,” interrupted the boy. “Don't blame you Dad. Why don't you do something useful? Hire Becky,” Cyrus announced with that complete look of cheek that he often could muster.

“Cyrus!” exclaimed Becky, blushing a bit partly because she quite liked that idea.

“I will think about it Cyrus. Maybe Becky's had enough of us. Firefight in Scotland probably wasn't the best job advertisement,” said JJ. The three of them laughed and for the first time today JJ felt a little less fed up.

* * *

Days passed, then weeks, then months. The coalition lost the general election. Who knows why. Possibly their inability to kickstart the economy into a self-sustaining recovery. Possibly too much corruption surrounding former Chancellor Walker and his murderous acolyte Neil Robson. More likely, thought JJ, that it's one thing being a team player and quite another being a team of clones. They all just looked too alike. No individuality, no personality. In any event Labour were in power, slim majority and probably unstable.

JJ was back in his office at Momentum Asset Management. He wasn't looking at screens or switching assets in the fund's portfolio. He was packing up. Toby knocked on the door and was inside before JJ could say anything. There he was in all his glory, thought JJ, small head, chunky body, wonky glasses and, yes, his sartorial trademark, shirt almost free of pants. This was the real and original Fathead, no clone be he.

“JJ, this is bad news. What's this place going to be like without you? What am I going to do without you? You're my boss, my friend, my bleedin' inspiration. It's not fair, JJ.”

“Come in Toby, take a seat. Let's chat.” They both sat down at JJ's meeting table. “Toby, I just don't have the enthusiasm for this anymore. All that stuff with Robson, North Korea, gold, Cyrus. Horrible as most of it was, it was real. I know this is real too but it doesn't seem so to me anymore. It's like a giant, never ending video game. You're up, you're down. You collect your bonus and press go then it begins all over again. I'm just played out with it all. Please understand.”

“I do understand, JJ. It's just that I'll miss you. Whoever replaces you won't be doing any of that crazy Greek bond stuff or seriously dodgy gold stuff. I mean what about the Christmas quiz and limerick for fuck's sake!” he exclaimed.

“Toby. You and I have sure done some stuff,” said JJ, chuckling. “I'm not sure that it was all above board right enough. However, we can all walk the streets in comparative safety. We can all go straight to a hospital and be cared for if needed and we can all sleep in our beds at night unperturbed by the fear of mass burglaries, looters and hordes of half-wits wanting to do us harm. You did that. You got the government the readies it needed to pay the essential workers of our land. The end may not always justify the means but, in our case, I believe it did.”