Their story was cast-iron. The only diamonds to be seen lined the tips of their drills and they were mostly worn and in need of replacement. They were tired and heading home for a much-needed spell of rest and recuperation. They worked long hours, but the money was good. It was almost believable, the dream that they had worked towards.
The jewels lay beneath the false floor away from prying eyes, bagged and ready to distribute. For Jackdaw these were the glistening icing on the cake, the annual bonus for all his hard work, and yet he was prepared to give them all away, throw them overboard if he had to. He’d had diamonds before, some legitimate, some with a tainted past, but they were just carbon at the end of the day, like him and every other being.
He’d once personally mounted one in the belly-button of an Australian girl who only ever provided him with afternoon entertainment whilst his other whores rested. Unlike the others he grew to like her and even gave her a pet name based upon the colour of her hair.
She did anything he asked and some things he didn’t. Cocaine was her fuel and of that particular commodity he had a trans-national pipeline as long as the Alaskan and Russian ones combined.
A pretty girl, eighteen going on forty, a sun-bleached-blonde and stereotypical surf chick, she had tanned and honed legs and a raucous appetite for Class A. She was once a refined, public school success, popular, in a much-admired girl next door way – but although her body was still in remarkably good shape her mind was shattered, a legacy of her misspent and sybaritic time in Bali.
The jewel, a conflict diamond sourced out of Angola only added to her raw beauty. He endeavoured to provide them to the females in his life that he loved or on one precise occasion had worshiped – but that carefully selected jewel had been of a shade normally reserved for jealousy.
It would transpire that one of his junior workers also found the allure of the diamond hard to resist and over the course of a few weeks he had discreetly visited the surfer in her room, marvelling at how, even in the discreet light he could see his face in the myriad facets as he made his way across her stomach, licking the downy blonde hairs before navigating lower, between her legs.
Lust and the reckless effects of cocaine made her worth the risk.
Some say he wanted the diamond more than the girl.
‘Trust no one. Not even me.’ These were the limited words that formed Alex Stefanescu’s initial briefing to any new member of his team.
‘Let me down and I will personally cut off parts of your body and feed them to you. Piece by piece.’
It was a reputation that had served him well since his days and nights in Eastern Europe’s most notorious prisons. In a convenient analogy the authorities had considered that they had taken him as a rough diamond and polished him to a fine and often admired stone, and an even finer mentor to the other inmates. They had also created a far more impressive criminal. He had become so resistant to punishment that even the most hardened of guards enjoyed the challenge of ruining his day. It was almost as if he was no longer able to detect pain.
Confined to his cell he would often talk to himself, for he was almost always alone, condemned to a thankfully solitary confinement. To alleviate the boredom, he would invent ways to brutalise people and importantly how to leave no trace of his mastery.
Years later he was able to call on these skills when the couple were brought to him, having been deliberately caught mid-act. They were paraded before him, naked and in the male’s case, afraid.
Alex skilfully peeled a pear with a razor-sharp vegetable knife as he spoke in a rational almost friendly tone.
“I recall our conversation about trust. Do you?”
He slid a slice of the white fruit from the blade and into his mouth.
The male nodded, closing his eyes as he did so. It was a fortunate act as the first punch was unseen. The second was delivered swiftly, up and under his ribcage punishing him and forcing the air from his lungs. It was one of his favourite strikes. Remarkably, the male remained standing. A mistake, brave though it was.
The black-haired, tanned and powerful fist that drove down onto his right shoulder caught him off-guard, the deft tap onto the back of his right knee caused him to buckle further and in a second the most trusted member of Alex’s team had the male in a carotid hold. His intention was not to choke him to death; that would follow. He simply needed to suppress his ability to fight, and this happened in no more than fifteen seconds.
The surfer was speechless, her mind a swirling fairground ride, colours, sounds, smells, childhood memories, nightmares. She needed more of that pure white ash, more than she needed to see the male survive. It was a drug that created its own egotistic demons.
She tried to cover herself but another of the boss’s team slapped her hands away, again and again until she stood, deflated, isolated and cognizant of one fact – that her brief but gaudy life was probably about to end.
He paced around in front of her.
“Was he worth it? So much better than me? Am I not attractive too?” He found a space in his soliloquy to laugh. “Do not answer that!”
As the sentence finished, he punched her in the throat and then stepped to one side and kicked her in the stomach dropping her to the ground. He plunged his fingers into her belly-button and ripped the diamond from her stomach, pulling the stud clean out of her skin, causing it to pour with blood.
“This was for you. Worth more than you would ever earn. More than you could ever dream of owning. More than your entire shitty family could ever wish for!”
She was sobbing now, interpreting the situation as best as she could.
“Open your mouth.”
She did as she was instructed. He forced the bloodied gemstone into her mouth, pushing it past her teeth and holding her jaw tightly until she got the message.
“Keep it in that vile hole until I tell you. Now, bring him here.”
The larger of the two employees dragged the naked male across the wooden floor and left him prone before their boss.
“Open his mouth.” He turned to the girl. “Now you, kiss him. Go on. Kiss him. I want to see how you did it. But don’t lose that diamond. Do you hear me? This is a game!” He clapped his hands together gleefully – apparently enjoying things enormously.
She fought the urge to swallow it as her mouth was arid, it now felt so vast, so valuable, so disagreeable and so obstructive that she retched.
“I said…kiss him!”
She lowered her mouth onto the semi-conscious male’s lips until they formed a seal, desperately hooking the stone with her tongue.
“Open your eyes – like you did with me the other day. Enjoy yourself, relax and let your lips taste him. Good? Yes? Don’t stop Honey.” He laughed as he stepped out of her line of sight.
It was enough to relax her for a split second. He chose the moment with precision, slamming his foot down onto the back of her head and in turn driving her face, her nose and her mouth onto his. Her front teeth, weakened from drug abuse shattered and in turn caused his own to break.
Not content with hearing the hideous collision he did it again. And again. She lost consciousness soon after the fourth blow as her lover began to regain consciousness and immediately began to choke.
“Hold him down!”
The male panicked, alive with pain as his brain fought off the signals that rushed around his frenzied mind. His fight-or-flight mechanisms were in overdrive, no longer caring about his naked state or the girl, he knew he had seconds. The large hand that covered his mouth only shortened that timeline.
“Keep it there.”
Alex glared at the male. “Swallow it all. Her teeth, her blood and my diamond. Choke you bastard and go to hell regretting how you betrayed me.”
Stefanescu was wide-eyed now and beginning to enjoy himself. Aroused.
“Swallow!”
The male relented and began to choke on the metallic cocktail of blood-washed ivory and crystalline carbon. And he choked some more, but still they
held him down, now a thumb and a forefinger closed his last air supply, gently squeezing his nostrils together.
Alex kneeled at his side and whispered into his ear, knowing that this primary sense would remain until the end.
He kissed him deftly on the cheek and watched the life seep from his eyes.
“Goodnight. I do hope you spread the word in hell that I am not to be trusted.”
He had further gained, among a sphere of people with whom morals counted for little, a reputation as a calculated, clinical, creative and cruel man.
On a much broader platform what Alex Stefanescu expected to gain from his team in London was worth so much more than any currency. Intangible to many, it provided him with potentially greater wealth than a hastily snatched collection of hackneyed, felt-lined bags of glistening gems ever could.
It provided him with what he craved. More than a simple article, a headline in a newspaper, or show of grotesque overt wealth, more than any prize, or any girl for that matter. It provided him with a reputation and a chance to hold one, or possibly two ace cards; signed and sealed many days before by a clueless audience, and in this case, the audience was a government and the rewards were potentially immense.
It now sat in a secure Pelican tactical case, along with a few of the finer diamonds, safe from harm. The only problem being he didn’t have it in his hands. And one thing he despised was a lack of control.
Nevertheless, when he finally got to reverentially receive it, to run his eyes and hands over it, then he could relax. Then they would listen to him.
What would count, would make all the difference, was not if he revealed his hand, but when.
The southern van was rapidly approaching Chatham and minutes away from a rendezvous with the team domiciled at the industrial estate.
The rest of the operators could take the spoils of war and spend them as they wished, at their own risk. The cash from the ATMs was being counted at various locations around the south and west of London. Set out in piles, fresh, virgin notes stacked ready to sweep into holdalls.
“Tell them, they can use it as they wish; cars, clothes, drink, whores, but not drugs. If they buy drugs, I will have them impaled upon something sharp, jagged and rusty – and from a great height. If they are caught and they so much as even suggest that they are part of something larger, the punishment will be a lot worse; a long, drawn out, pitiful existence. Death would be a pleasure in comparison.”
Stefanescu recalled his brother’s words clearly. He had witnessed his appetite for cruelty first-hand and shuddered at past memories.
“As you say brother, as you say.”
The southern van pulled into the yard and was soon behind chain-assisted, corrugated shutters.
The driver left the vehicle first, shook hands with Stefanescu and handed over the black tactical case, then embraced Constantin.
“At last we meet brother. Your advice worked perfectly, the flare set fire to the car in seconds. And the safe…it was like melting butter with a hot knife.”
His analogy was slightly flawed but the older male knew exactly what he meant. He grimaced at the thought of the night he had spent in prison and how he had been offered the safe code for the return of a favour or two, both of which had left a vile taste in his mouth. At the time, he hated himself, but now, with the offer of freedom, both financial and physical he deemed it worthwhile. He would soon be home and could start his long journey to redemption.
Hewett was asleep – to the viewing public. But inside his mind he plotted, planned and ran the whole process again and again until he was exhausted. If he managed to drop off for a second he would wake with a start. His every waking second was filled with questions, images, what ifs? And maybes. He could just get up and walk out, what was the worst thing that they could do? Kill him?
‘It might actually be a blessing.’
Cade and Daniel sat in the car for a moment, the engine and brakes cooling beneath them.
“Nice view.”
The storm had failed to materialise, and now sat on the seafront at Dover they could see through the outer harbour breakwater and across the busiest shipping lane on the planet, to France, which announced its presence with a series of emerging white and amber glistening lights.
“Now what?”
“Fish and chips?”
Cade ignored his boss’s flippant remarks but Daniel had planted a culinary seed. Cade picked up the UHF radio, dialled in channel 30 and called up for the local Special Branch officer.
“Hello Oscar this is Zero Two Mike Papa – Golf Tango are you receiving?”
Gary Marshall the on-call SB officer slid his own newspaper-wrapped meal to one side, swallowed an already lukewarm chip and responded.
“Good evening Golf Tango. Go ahead.”
“Thank you Oscar – can we ring you?”
Marshall passed the number over the encrypted radio and waited for the call, forcing a bit more of his meal down his throat before the tell-tale Ride of the Valkyries ring tone interrupted him.
“Sir! Welcome to the patch. What do you need?”
“A local set of eyes and ears please Gary. You’ve got all the info?”
“I have and I’ve briefed both my local colleagues from Kent Police and the Harbour Board Police too. If a desperate group of criminals arrive at the port, I’ll have their balls in a baguette before you can sing a Vera Lynn song boss.”
“Lovely woman. I met her once. Anyway, moving on. There is a chance that the group will be arriving at separate ports. We need to be super-vigilant. As it stands we have one image to share with your colleagues – and sadly he’s one of our own. You have my permission to shoot him before you place his flaccid wedding tackle onto your crusty bread.”
Daniel had driven further along the seafront and turned into a side street, he left the car and walked across the road to a row of shops.
Marshall continued to chat and when Cade was happy that he was dealing with an experienced operator he cleared down and allowed the phone to rest for a while.
Cade considered his recent life-changing events as he gazed across the marina and out towards the sea. Despite the chaos, the losses and the heartache – the physical pain of losing staff and the deep-seated frustration over O’Shea and an unmapped future he nodded when he said to himself that he wouldn’t change a thing. Penny, for all her faults, had done him a huge favour.
Daniel arrived back at the car, got in and passed his colleague a package wrapped in white paper.
“Enjoy!”
He did. It had been the first substantial meal he could remember, let alone enjoyed in days.
“Can you believe the events of the last few weeks John?”
“Not at all. What concerns me is that we are sat here having, what can only be described as a rather romantic meal and talking about what we have got up to; chasing people, pursuing cars, impressing bosses, infuriating bosses, attempting to drown folk, recovering bodies, shooting at people, trying to create bodies…”
They laughed before he continued. “Battling with our enemies and a notable few of our managers, and above all the criminal syndicate that is causing us to go grey, or rather greyer. Jesus Jack you’ve certainly got the Midas touch when it comes to pandemonium, disarray, turmoil and bloody heartache. Who did you piss off in a former life?”
A gull had landed outside the car, its plumage was pristine, gleaming white with deep black wings and a strong, yellow and red beak. It paced up and down, conscious that any moment Cade would lower the window and drop the remains of his meal onto the pavement. They all did. It stared at him with its impassive yellow eyes, rimmed in bright red.
Cade couldn’t help feeling that they perfectly resembled his.
In pity he lowered the window and tossed a couple of the smallest chips into the air. The gull had caught them before they hit the floor and had soon flown up into the night sky, its cacophonous cry shattering the peace, causing more of its kin to join in.
“Incredible
bird really the seagull Jack.”
“No such breed JD, they are gulls that sometimes live on the sea.”
“Bloody hell, when did you become an ornithologist?”
“I’ve always loved birds. Just not the one that liked to spread its wings and legs for all and sundry.”
“Ex-wife?”
“Current, I think, I’ve probably signed something but God only knows what my marital status is at the moment.”
“Would Carrie not mind – you know, being the new chapter in your life, all the while knowing that you have an Albatross around your neck?”
“What?”
“Samuel Taylor Coleridge Jack. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”
“I know what the bloody poem is, just not sure what you mean about Carrie.”
“Well, I suspect if she survives, and knowing the girl as I do, in the short time I’ve known her, she will.” He’d lost his way, mid-sentence. “Well, I strongly suspect that she will want you all to herself. So you need to do some serious thinking, in years to come there will be lengthy application processes as the administrators take over. The European job has been offered on a plate. If you take it your career and reputation will be in the ascendency, but you will need to say farewell to her. Or, should you decide to stay then…”
Cade’s phone vibrated before ringing, cutting off Daniel’s theory.
“Cade. Yes. Understood. Thank you.”
Daniel threw the remaining meal out of his own window and caused what could best be described as an airborne riot. He put the window up quickly and waited to be briefed.
“I have absolutely nothing to tell you. Zip. Diddly squat. Bugger all. There’s a hint of chaos back at the ranch, some robbery at Hatton Garden but other than that…”
“So he was right then?”
“Valentin? Yes, spot on. He’s better placed than we are John. His source must be one of the group. We will have to isolate him as soon as possible, put him through the system but provide him with complete support.”
Seven Degress (The Seventh Wave Trilogy Book 2) Page 42