Nick Oldham - The Last Big Job

Gary snorted. ‘ You don’t half get on your high horse, don’t you, Frank? You’re hyper, man. Touchy, touchy, touchy. Cool down, chill out. I asked a valid question, that’s all.’

Henry took a deep breath. ‘Right — you’re right, Gary. Sorry.’

‘ However, there is a slight change in the down-payment details. It’s ten per cent, not the fifteen per cent we agreed. That’s three and a half now, the rest the day after delivery.’

Henry bridled again. ‘A deal should be a deal.’ His voice was stone.

‘ It will be,’ Gary said reassuringly.

Henry made a show of considering it. ‘OK, to show I trust you, I’ll take it — but don’t mess me around on delivery. That’s when I want the full balance.’

Gary allowed himself a small smile. His eyes flickered across to Drozdov, who shifted, leaned forwards and took a brown package from his jacket. He gave it to Henry who opened it and peered inside at the contents.

‘ I know it’s a corny line — but do I need to count it?’

‘ It’s all there, Frank, three and a half thou.’

Henry slid it into a pocket.

There was a knock on the office door. The four men turned to look.

‘ Yep,’ Gary shouted.

The door opened a few inches. A guy Henry recognised as having been one of Jacky Lee’s gofers — now having changed allegiance and employed in the same capacity for Thompson — poked his head in. ‘Sorry to bother you, boss, but the guy you were expecting is here.’

He opened the door.

Behind him stood Billy Crane.

It had been a summer of rain in Britain. Records had been broken, many towns and villages devastated by flooding. Days of sunshine had been few and far between and no water authority had dared mention the dreaded hose-pipe ban. Most non-rainy days were overcast, dull and cold. The majority of people in Britain — and Danny Furness was no exception — were desperate to get some sunshine on their bodies to warm their creaking bones.

With the way things had gone for her over the last few months, particularly in terms of Jack Sands’s suicide and its aftermath, she had not been able to escape to sunnier climes. A long Caribbean holiday was planned for the New Year with a girlfriend. So, although the Tenerife trip was primarily work-related and short, she intended to take full advantage of it.

The morning after her arrival, Danny was up at eight and in the hotel dining room for the buffet breakfast shortly after. She sat contentedly alone at a table with a view across the pool and beyond that to the sea-front promenade which led to the centre and harbour of Los Cristianos.

Whilst eating she worked out her timetable for the day.

First thing was a pleasant stroll down to the resort centre, grabbing a coffee at one of the cafes to watch life meander by for a while. Then she was going to make her way on foot to Playa de Las Americas where Gillrow lived in his apartment. Danny aimed to be knocking on his door at ten o’clock. The interview would take as long as it took. After that she would return to the hotel, ease herself into her swimming costume, trying not to be too concerned by the bulges — and spend the rest of the day by the pool, with several long cool drinks to hand, chain smoking and reading a paperback.

She folded the last bite of the warm roll into her mouth, washing it down with black coffee, wiping her lips with a napkin. Then she stood up and walked out of the hotel on to the sun terrace surrounding the large free-form pool.

She almost collapsed with bliss from the heat of the sun, even at that time of day. She slipped her sunglasses on and breathed in the warm air deeply.

She felt better already.

Henry Christie and Terry Briggs were at the ‘unit’, the Undercover Operations Headquarters on a Blackburn industrial estate. They were planning the delivery of the whisky whilst waiting for a phone call from Thompson to tell them where and when.

Henry’s mobile rang. It was his own phone and he answered it using his own name. Karl Donaldson’s voice came clearly down the satellite link, speaking from his office in the FBI section of the American Embassy in London.

‘ Gimme a fax number if you can,’ he instructed Henry. ‘Read what I send, then call me back on a landline, not a mobile. You never know who might be listening.’

Henry gave him the secure fax line number of the unit.

A few minutes later the machine fired up and Donaldson’s fax spewed forth.

Henry settled down to read it, Terry peering over his shoulder.

‘ Henry,’ he read, ‘I have been following up the details you gave me since we spoke the other day and have come up with a few interesting and disturbing facts.

‘ Firstly, Nikolai Drozdov. As we’ve already discussed, and you know, the Russian Mafia are very powerful, but as in the Cosa Nostra, they are very divided, fractious and families are often at war with each other. Some families are more powerful than others and one of the top five are the Drozdovs, headed by an old-fashioned patriarch called Alexandr. Their power base is Moscow. They are one of the richest and most pro active of the families, very strategically-minded with long term goals. They are also one of the most extreme in terms of violence — if measured by the number of people they are alleged to have murdered. They specialise in drugs, prostitution and extortion rackets — extorting mainly from multi-national companies, not corner shops, incidentally. Nikolai Drozdov is Alexandr’s grandson. Nikolai’s father was killed in a gang shoot-out four years ago. Nikolai is being groomed to take over the number one spot when the old man (he’s about 90!) either dies or abdicates.

‘ You may (or may not) recall an article in the Sunday Times recently about “crime kings” gathering in Europe to divide up the continent between themselves. One name not mentioned in the article is Drozdov, but they were the main players behind that meeting. Intelligence from French sources filtered through to the FBI about that meeting indicates that the Russians are very interested in wrestling the UK heroin trade from the Turkish gangsters who now control it. There was a lot of friction between the two parties and subsequently a lot of dead bodies have turned up across Europe this year. However, the position is still unclear as to whether the Turks have kept control or whether the Russkies have taken over. Time will tell, no doubt.

‘ The other interesting snippet of intel states that the Russians intend to form a bridgehead into Britain for all types of criminal activity. I think it stands to reason they might choose a city like Manchester and an area like the North-West as starting points for their invasion. Nikolai will be eager to earn his spurs by setting up structures and networks within the already-existing infrastructure to achieve this. Britain is a biggie and carries a lot of kudos for Nikolai if he can achieve this.

‘ Some facts and figures for you to chew on: there are eight thousand organised crime groups in Russia. Two-thirds of the country is controlled by them. Two hundred of these groups have constructive contacts in fifty other countries. They are spreading faster than AIDS ever did — and they are more lethal.

‘ The appearance of Drozdov in the UK tells me this is the British foothold and once they’re in, they are here to stay. Very worrying, H.’

Henry glanced up at Terry. ‘Hm,’ he breathed thoughtfully.

He continued to read the fax. ‘The FBI are investigating a series of killings believed to have been committed by one man across Europe. He is called Yuri Ivankov (no photo, all descriptions poor). Ex-KGB Colonel and hit man, now in private practice, freelancing exclusively for the Drozdovs. Late forties — that’s all I have. Working on a photo and desc as we speak. He has murdered several Turks and some Euro-based American mobsters, operating on the continent, hence our interest, and also the CIA, I’m told, but cannot confirm this.