Dead Men Don't Bite (Jake Dillon Adventure Thriller Series) (17 page)

The driver of the powerful recovery truck also
accelerated up to a steady eighty-five miles an hour along
the middle lane on a virtually deserted stretch of motorway.

Glancing up into the rear view mirror, the tiny rain
soaked rear window simply blurred the headlights of the
cars behind. His preoccupation with not wanting to miss
the next junction meant that he took no notice of the one
car that came up fast, and drew up close behind him in the
outside lane. It didn’t try to overtake, simply shadowed the
Ferrari for a quarter of a mile along the motorway.

Slater looked across and said to Black, “Put your
foot down, mate. I think it might be a good idea to put
some tarmac between us and that Beemer.”

The powerful saloon car had squeezed alongside
them. Slater knew exactly what was going down, and the
next moment it happened.

The side window of the seven series BMW slid down,
and Black responded by swerving towards it, in an attempt
to make it swerve into the central barrier. But the other
driver responded by braking hard, and falling in behind the
red sports car. The Ferrari slewed precariously across the
wet road as the tyres fought desperately to find grip on the
tarmac. The BMW immediately accelerated back out into
the outside lane again, and was once again alongside. Black
changed down into third gear, and accelerated over onto
the hard shoulder and then without hesitation back across
to the outside lane in an attempt to shake off the BMW. The
other driver played a game of cat and mouse, and with his
sharp reactions was able to mimic every move that Black
made.

This in turn enabled the shooter to fire the machine
pistol to deadly effect into the side window of the Ferrari
which instantaneously disintegrated into a million tiny
pieces.

The tiny flashes of light coming from the interior of
the other car, would have been the last thing that Slater
and Black saw. The next second they were both dead, killed
instantly under the hail of bullets.

Next the tyres were shot out, and the low sports car
swerved violently across the motorway towards the hard
shoulder; rolling over and over until it smashed through a
safety barrier on its roof, and down the steep embankment
on the other side.

A small herd of cows that were stood sheltering from
the foul weather in the corner of a nearby field, scattered
as the rolling wreckage of the Ferrari ploughed down the
grassy slope, and ended up in a waterlogged ditch.

Afterwards the only sound that could be heard was
the rain hitting the hot engine block, hissing as it quickly
turned to steam, and then seemingly hovered over the
macabre scene.

The BMW slowed down, and moved across into the
inside lane before driving on. Seconds later the big red and
white recovery vehicle that had barred Black from getting
off the motorway, arrived at the place where the Ferrari
had gone over. It reversed up and three men got out. Two
of them went straight down the slope dragging thick wires
behind them to attach to the wreckage of the crumpled
sports car. The other, much older man, stood as big as a
house at the top, and barked out orders in a gravely Irish
accent while operating the winch that hauled what was left
of the car and its two occupants back up the embankment.
All three men worked methodically to strap it down on to
the flat bed of the recovery truck and then to quickly cover
the wreckage with a large green tarpaulin.

A police motorway patrol car pulled up behind the
recovery truck just as the tarpaulin was being strapped
down, and two young traffic cops got out. O’Rourke went
up and spoke briefly to one of them; before discreetly pulling
a plain brown envelope from his inside jacket pocket, and
handing it over to one of them. After taking a cursory look
at the contents, the two officers got back into their vehicle,
and drove off. O’Rourke climbed back into the warmth of
his truck, smiled, and a moment later pulled back out onto
the motorway.

Edward Levenson-Jones was in his office sitting at
the head of the large conference table sifting through a pile
of old photographs. Guy Roberts was standing by the coffee
machine when the door opened, and Vince Sharp walked in
closely followed by Jake Dillon. “Roberts, you must be a
mind reader; I’ll take mine black, and very strong, thank
you.”

LJ glanced up coldly. “May I remind you Mr Dillon,
that Roberts is not one of your skivvies. He has a degree in
psychology with honours, and is with us on a secondment
from MI5 to specifically assist me, not you. Do I make
myself perfectly clear?”

“Well, I hadn’t expected a lecture at six-thirty in the
morning but yes, you make yourself crystal clear. Thank
you.” Dillon then sauntered over to the coffee machine
unperturbed by the tetchiness of his boss, and poured
himself a cup, before returning to where the others were
standing.

LJ continued to arrange an assortment of old black
and white photographs in lines across the polished table,
then looked up, and said to everyone, “So gentlemen, here
we are. You may be wondering, why I’ve asked you all to
come in at this early hour? Well let me enlighten you as to
what we have here.” He swept his arm expansively over the
photos. “We’re looking at the extent of what we know so far
about the mystery surrounding U-683. We obviously know
that Nathan Cunningham discovered it while exploring an
underwater tunnel and cave system somewhere along the
northern coast of Jersey. That there may be this religious
artefact known as the Spear of Destiny on board, and that
it’s supposed to give unthinkable powers to anyone who has
it in their possession. Personally, I’m not convinced about
this theory, and feel that it’s a little too fanciful, but I’ll
keep an open mind for the time being. Obviously, the wider
issues are criminal and terrorist interest, not only because
of the spear, but also the possibility of gold bullion.”

“Professor Asquith, has suggested that there might be
a large amount of Nazi gold; either on board the submarine,
or hidden in any one of a number of ante-chambers that
will almost certainly spur off from the main hall of the
cavern. I’m inclined towards this theory, given the fact that
the U-boat was running under the protection of Heinrich
Himmler himself. And, it’s for this very reason that we now
find ourselves involved on a quest to solve this mystery.
Furthermore, Sir Lucius has informed the Partners of this
firm, that he is quite prepared to fund the entire assignment
out of his own pocket.”

“Unfortunately, and most frustratingly, we are
working against the clock on this one, and are still no nearer
to ascertaining the exact location of this cavern. Since the
only man who does know remains in a coma. However,
Commander Cunningham does appear to be holding his
own. By the way, Jake how is Annabelle bearing up after
the ordeal with those two thugs?”

“She appears to be okay. And, although shaken up
by the attack, she is in good spirits.”
“That’s good then. Now where was I, oh yes, on
a more sinister note there was the break-in at Belgrave
Mews, and the subsequent discovery by Vince of the three
electronic bugs. Then there was this dreadful incident at
the hospital where the police officer was murdered in cold
blood. This quite frankly demonstrates the seriousness
of the person behind all of this, and let me just add, the
ruthlessness of the man, to stop at nothing to get at this
U-boat. I think the incident outside of our own building last
evening demonstrates this, and the audacity of the attack
is beyond belief. Annabelle was extremely lucky that you
came along when you did Jake, or perhaps she would have
become murder victim number two.”
“This Frenchman, Malakoff? We now know that he
is pulling the strings of those two thugs. But, it also tells me
that he must have a pretty good reason for wanting that
U-boat either found or permanently hidden.”
LJ got up and walked around the table once before
taking out a cigar and lighting it. He pulled hard on the
strong tobacco, and as he exhaled the smoke danced and
swirled above his head as the air conditioning cut in and
dragged it up through the vents in the ceiling.
“Roberts, tell them what you’ve found out.”
“Hugo Malakoff is the driving force behind an
international group of companies, which import and
export just about everything and anything. He owns one
of the largest, and certainly the most architecturally prized
châteaus in the whole of France, and his estate covers well
over one hundred and fifty thousand acres. This includes
some of the finest hunting to be found anywhere in Europe,
and which the Malakoff estate generates a healthy income
from. They host exclusive weekend hunting parties for
the rich and famous, which will relieve anyone wishing to
partake, a little over fifty thousand pounds per head.”
“However, one of my contacts in Paris told me that
there are rumours in certain quarters of Interpol, that some
of these weekends are never advertised, and cost in excess of
two hundred and fifty thousand pounds. For this amount,
you apparently get the opportunity to hunt down men,
these are usually former foreign legionnaires, who have
been hand picked off the streets of Paris. They’ve normally
not been able to adjust to life outside of the service, and
live on the streets as vagrants. They’re lured by the offer of
making a lot of money, and apparently, all they’ve got to do
is outrun the shooters over a set distance. This only came
to light, after one of the men actually managed to outrun
them, and wasn’t paid. He escaped, and went straight to the
police. Nothing was ever followed up, because it was Hugo
Malakoff. And the complaint filed, because the officer
thought he was just another nutter with a grudge.”
“Is that a fact?” Dillon said.
“Yes, that is a fact, Mr Dillon. He appears on the
surface to be a legitimate businessman, and is currently
ranked within the top one hundred of the world’s superrich people. I’ve searched databases at MI5 and 6, the FBI,
and Interpol. Every search on this man has come up with
the same result, absolutely nothing. However, I had a lucky
break late last evening when I received an email from one
of my old university chums who is now working in the
monitoring centre within Thames House. He’d spotted me
snooping around in their system. The note had three words
written on it. Interpol, Malakoff and encrypted. Finding the
file was a little tricky because it had been layered under
many other documents, but once I’d found it then there was
only the encrypted code to break. It took me two hours to
crack it, and the contents make very good reading. Basically
it contains a list of very interesting names of people thought
to be linked with organised crime, terror organisations and
far right political parties. Hugo Malakoff is on that list.”
“Why would, Malakoff’s name be on there?” Vince
Sharp asked.
“Because his import and export companies are
suspected of having links with organised crime syndicates
throughout Europe and America. The legitimate sides of
these businesses are almost certainly being used to front the
illegal trafficking of class-A drugs, and most recently illegal
immigrants around the world. Malakoff is also suspected of
supporting a far-right wing political group in Germany, and
is thought to be the party’s main benefactor. Although this
has never been proven.”
“Why is it, that all of a sudden, I’ve got a really bad
feeling about Hugo Malakoff and this assignment.” Dillon
said.
“I’m afraid it gets worse. I ran a search on all
businesses owned by the Malakoff family past and present
and discovered that there was one, and it’s registered in
Jersey. The interesting thing about it is, that it’s long been
a dormant shell company with no trading record for many
years. It was registered on June the fourth, nineteen thirtynine by Hugo Malakoff’s father in the name of, AngloFrench Exploration.”
“Anglo-French Exploration?” Dillon sat down
on the arm of the leather Chesterfield sofa. “Now that’s
interesting, but why use the word Anglo? Especially for a
supposedly French business?”
Roberts said, “Malakoff’s sixty-two, and comes
from a long line of aristocrats. He was born in Paris, and
his father attended Oxford university, after graduation he
returned to France. The family fled shortly after the war
started to England where the father immediately joined
the ranks of high society, and then started to purchase a
number of expensive prime location properties throughout
London. As for young Hugo, he was packed off to a private
preparatory school somewhere in the country. According
to the Interpol file, they arrived with virtually nothing,
and were immediately given the red carpet treatment by
certain members of the House of Lords. At the same time
a substantial amount of money was deposited into a Swiss
bank account by parties unknown, and the sender bank was
never placed on record.”
“So what. That doesn’t prove anything. Those were
uncertain times, and all sorts of strange things were going
on. As a matter of fact, as French Aristocrats, they would
have had contacts all over the place.” Dillon said with a
little rancour.
“Quite so, Mr Dillon, but according to those who
went through a similar ordeal, and are still alive today. If
you were lucky enough to flee from the Nazis with your life
and the clothing that you stood up in. You would almost
certainly have been robbed of all your worldly possessions,
land, houses and any bank accounts that they could easily
get their hands on. These would have been immediately
stripped of all funds.”
“I see, and your point is, Mr Roberts?” Dillon said.
“My point is simply this. That there are far too many
anomalies with the information relating to Malakoff’s
family past.”
“So the real question should be, how did dear old
Hugo make his millions? The distribution of drugs, well
granted it’s a lucrative business, but he’s no fool, and it’s far
too recent to have helped him create the enormous wealth
that he’s now amassed.” Dillon said.
“Let’s face it, nobody really knows do they?” Vince
said as he uprooted himself from the low chair that he was
wedged in, and added. “Anyone else for another coffee?”
LJ had been sitting listening to everything that was
being said with interest. “Roberts, thank you for that
informative little talk. But, what are we actually learning
from all of this, gentlemen? What is the connection to
U-683, the northern coast of Jersey, and all the stuff
that Nathan Cunningham retrieved out of the sub about
Heinrich Himmler being involved?”
“Well, there is one last thing, sir. The Interpol File
had an attachment to it,” Roberts said.
“This was also heavily encrypted, but for a very
different reason. I’d guess that it was only ever intended for
those with the highest level of security clearance, because
the encryption code was much more sophisticated and took
me twice as long as the original file to open. Apparently,
Malakoff’s father was a pre-war friend of Adolf Hitler, and
an absolutely rabid fascist.”
“Which could just be the link between all of this.”
Dillon said.
“That is a distinct possibility,” LJ nodded.
“More to the point gentlemen, what if Malakoff, his
son Hugo and wife, on reaching good old Blighty, had spun
the authorities a yarn about how they had only just managed
to get out by the skin of their teeth. We already know that as
a French aristocrat he would have very quickly established
himself within the elite of British social and political society.
That this enabled him to move around the corridors of
power completely unhindered and able to pick up all sorts
of information to feed back to his Nazi friends. Who must
have had a good laugh at that one? But more importantly,
this would explain the large sums of money that he was
receiving. Also, as a friend of Adolf Hitler, he would almost
certainly have been an acquaintance of Heinrich Himmler,
at the very least. And, was the ironically named AngloFrench Exploration company genuine, or simply a conduit
for channelling money, and information back to them, via
Geneva. But something still doesn’t feel right with it. I want
you to keep digging, Roberts, and try to find out who were
the other people involved at the time it was set up. We know
that the Nazi Party salted away millions all over the world
to enable their work to continue should things go wrong.
Or was Heinrich Himmler feathering his own personal
nest?” He shrugged. “Of course this is all conjecture, but
we might just be onto something.”
“There’s nothing wrong with a little conjecture, but
one thing that still remains a mystery to me?” Dillon said.
“What’s that, old son?”
“Nathan Cunningham. What I mean is, if the hit
and run incident was as the police now think a deliberate
attempt to permanently shut him up. I’d say that it was far
more likely to be because he knew something, that would
open up a can of worms. Like the exact whereabouts of
U-683? In which case, and in light of what Roberts has
just told us, Hugo Malakoff has to be considered a prime
suspect with a strong motive for wanting that submarine
location kept a secret. The question is why is Anglo-French
Exploration still on record? After all, it has no current value
whatsoever, and was set up all those years ago by his father
for no apparent reason? Find out why, and I’d say that this
mystery would become a little clearer. But he would still
have had to be exceptionally well informed to know that
Nathan was here in London, and for what reason.”
“Umm, you have a point Jake, and I’ll certainly
look into it, I’ve no doubt that we’ll find out in due course,
though. But For the moment, we’ll just have to get on with
the job at hand. Phil Allerton will be waiting for you on the
heli-pad at precisely eleven o’clock this morning, gentlemen.
So let’s press on, I don’t want you to be late getting there.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Dillon said, as he gave a
mock salute to LJ.
“Good. You should be in Jersey by midday.”
Dillon said, “I wonder what odds the bookmakers
would give of Hugo Malakoff turning up there shortly after
we arrive?”
“I’d say odds on favourite, old son. But we’ll just
have to see, won’t we?”
“As I mentioned before,” Roberts interrupted, “His
château is approximately thirty miles outside of Paris and
he runs one of those big fancy million pound plus Sunseeker
power cruisers out of an exclusive marina in Nice on the
south coast of France. The latest report is that it set sail
last night and is now heading for St Malo, and that’s very
convenient for the Channel Islands.” He looked at his file,
“The yacht is called the Solitaire. Captain and a full time
crew of four.”
“Listen Jake, if Malakoff does turn up, you’ll simply
have to do the best you can,” LJ said. “After all, you’re
more than qualified for that sort of thing, aren’t you?”
Dillon kept quiet, but shot him a look from the other side
of the room that told him exactly what he thought.
“Your cover is quite simple. You’re a wealthy
businessman, and Vince is your personal assistant. You
own a company in London, computer software and the like.
While you’re there you’ll have the use of a brand new Range
Rover. Please don’t damage it. I’ve also managed to charter
a suitable powerboat, and this will be waiting for you at
the marina in St. Helier. Naturally it will be fully equipped
with the latest electronics, and will have all of your diving
equipment already stowed on board. Of course, you’ll be
required to sign for all of this when you arrive in Jersey.”
“You think of everything,” Dillon said.
LJ passed him a folder. “Our forgery chap really
has done you both proud this time. He’s produced new
passports and driving licences along with a few other
documents that may come in handy. As Phil Allerton will be
flying you down to a private airfield on the island you won’t
require the passports. However, better to have them on you
just in case. You’ll find ten thousand pounds in cash in the
envelope, which should be sufficient for any emergency
disbursements, and will of course, require a signature. Now
then, finally the property that has been leased is situated
on top of the cliffs at Bonne Nuit Bay. This should enable
you to keep an eye on the harbour when you’re in residence
there. The keys are with,” LJ looked down at his notes,
“Kate Jackson who manages Annabelle’s café.”
“One thing,” Roberts said. “The property has no
telephone, so you’ll have to make sure that your mobile
phone batteries are kept fully charged at all times.”
Dillon nodded. “So when we get there. Then what?”
“Well, that rather depends on you, old son,” LJ said.
“We had rather hoped that Nathan would have
regained consciousness by now, and could tell us where the
sub is located. But that hasn’t happened I’m afraid, which
means that you and Vince are on your own for the time
being. However there is this diver chap Rob Chapman, who
may be able to help. He lives in a small-renovated castle
not far from Bonne Nuit, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to
find him. Apparently he knows the island and especially
the coastlines like the back of his hand. But be careful what
you tell him; he’s got a very colourful background has Mr
Chapman. Tell him, Roberts.”