Authors: Scott Caladon
They hauled the semi-conscious Robson out of the back of the jeep. Gil unlocked the rear door of the warehouse with the key she had lifted from the realtors and all three of them got into the lift and headed for the top level. It was spacious, nearly six hundred square metres, with a robust wooden floor, high ceiling and a wonderful vista over the city of San Jose.
JJ and Gil placed Robson on his back in the middle of the floor. Gil cut the speedcuffs and held Robson's left arm outstretched, palm open and facing upwards. JJ loosed an arrow into it, securing Robson's hand to the floor. The pair then did the same with his right arm and hand. Robson squirmed and winced in acute pain. JJ had no intention of honouring Neil Robson with a crucifixion so the murderous fugitive's legs, while splayed, were restrained by ropes, fixed to the wooden floor with large eye lug screws. Once secure, Gil extracted the two arrows in each of Robson's legs, tidied up his wounds, stopped the bleeding, bandaged them and finally removed the duct tape from his mouth. Though in much pain, Robson was now conscious and he laughed.
“You couple of fuckin' arseholes. So you found me. Well done. Let's see you try to get me on a plane back to Britain. No fuckin' chance. I'm resident here, got business here, got money here and there's no extradition agreement here you wanker, fuckin' useless jockstrap and his Asian gimp! How's your boy Darke, still got a sore face? And your fat friend still fuckin' dead?” yelled Robson, amazingly still full of vitriol considering his position of weakness and vulnerability.
Neither JJ nor Gil replied immediately. Gil was standing but hovered over the supine Robson with her SIG Sauer pointed directly at his head. JJ went into his backpack and extracted a small plastic case. He hunched down beside Neil Robson, put on some protective gloves and said stoically, “You misunderstand our intention Robson. This is not an extraction. It's a termination.”
Robson's expression immediately transformed from one of anger and defiance to one of concern, acute concern, indeed fear.
“You see Robson,” said JJ, “you've always underestimated me. You think I'm some soft provincial heathen, a mere secret service analyst who went on to be a financial pariah. As with many things, you are wrong. I saw active service in Bosnia, had to kill people, had to save people. The difference between you and me is that my moral compass as to who to kill and who to save is well set. I may have made a lot of money but I've given most of it away, to those less fortunate, to those more deserving. You tried to steal a shed load of money, managed to get some of it, but it was all for you, your lowlife pastimes and your endless appetite for vice.
“In life, Robson, you occasionally get presented with opportunities to be the bigger man. You had those opportunities with Joel Gordon, Toby Naismith and my son. You spurned them. I like to think, more often than not, that I know when to back-off, when to be the bigger man. Today, though, is not one of those occasions.”
JJ looked Robson straight in the eye. He could see the developing fear but it was not registering in JJ's neurals of mercy. JJ opened the small, plastic case. It contained two hypodermic syringes, both with fluid inside.
“Do you recognise these little bleeders, Robson?” asked JJ without emotion. Robson said nothing. “No? Well, one of them is a gift from your old friend Vladimir Babikov. He's down for thirty years in Belmarsh, but he won't see it out. He's poorly. He didn't send you his regards but he did send you this⦔ JJ tailed off and injected Robson with one of the needles. It contained polonium-210, supplied by Babikov in exchange for the redundant reduction in his gaol term.
“So that we're clear Robson, this stuff will kill you, just as it killed Joel Gordon. That poor unfortunate man at least had the benefit of high strength pain killing drugs to ease his final few days. You are here, in this empty warehouse in Costa Rica, with no such panacea on offer.” Neil Robson had gone ashen faced. He did not know for sure whether Darke was telling the truth or just trying to scare the holy crap out of him, but the grim countenance of the Scot did not display any hint of jest, bad taste or otherwise.
“So,” resumed JJ. “To show you that I've not gone totally black-hearted, I'll leave you this other syringe, just here, inches out of reach of your right arm. The only way you'll get to it is by ripping apart your hand. Those wee arrows are really stuck in this wood. Now this stuff is not so much an antidote for the polonium-210, there isn't really one of those yet, it's more of an accelerant. Oil of Mirbane. Remember that?” asked JJ, not expecting or caring about any answer. “That's the stuff you killed my best friend with, Robson. It'll finish you off faster than the polonium so you can save yourself a few days of agonising pain, a leniency that you did not afford Joel Gordon or Toby Naismith.” JJ stood up, put the plastic case, syringes and then his gloves in an industrial strength waste bag, held by Gil. He looked down at Robson. The doomed fugitive was unusually quiet. He grimaced at JJ as the realisation was setting in that the Scot was serious.
“You once told me, Robson,” said JJ as he was preparing to leave, “that I wouldn't know an end-game if it bit me on the arse in broad daylight. Well, I guess I would know and this is it. This is Karpov over Kasparov 1984, Robson, good knight defeats bad bishop. The end. No comeback. Finito Benito. Sayonara. Goodbye.”
JJ and Gil packed up their stuff and left. Robson was wailing and shouting for help. It didn't matter. No one would hear him and even if they did, they would not be able to save him no matter how speedily they moved or got medical help. JJ and Gil descended to the ground floor in the lift. JJ just about managed to get out before he chucked up all his breakfast. He was in a hot and cold sweat, felt weak, and looked even paler than normal.
“Are you alright?” asked Gil, worried about JJ and concerned that he may have been exposed to some radiation. He had not been.
“I'm OK, Gil, thanks,” replied JJ, straightening up from his bent posture. “There is not one part of me, not one strand or molecule that thinks Robson has been hard done by, but I still feel sick about it.” Gil put her arm around JJ and helped him to the jeep.
“Look, JJ, it's a rough way to go, but it was only what he had done to two innocent people. It was for the greater good. If he ran out of money he would have returned to Britain and sought revenge on you, maybe me, Cyrus, your parents. We could not live our lives with that daily fear hanging over us. Imagine you had let him go or that he had been taken back to England for trial. Every day you would have wondered and worried about Cyrus. Robson killed your best friend for nothing. Cyrus only got away because the boy is smart and because of Neil Robson's pathological greed for money. Robson was a blight on society. We're well rid. If you hadn't injected him I'd have popped a couple in his head and one in his balls. No problem.”
Gil was in the driver's seat as JJ continued to regain his internal balance. He looked at her and realised that she would have done as she said. JJ was beginning to feel a little ashamed of the way he had ended Robson, but ended he would have been one way or the other. JJ and Gil collected their gear from the back of the jeep, they returned the car to the Hotel Balmoral's car park, gave the keys to the concierge and checked out. They were keen to get out of San Jose and went to the airport hoping to get an evening BA flight back to London. Their luck was in. JJ's mind and stomach had regained composure. He dozed off watching a movie. Gil was seated beside him and forced herself to stay awake until she was sure that JJ was peaceful.
On arrival at Heathrow, JJ and Gil went straight for the taxi rank and took a black cab to Chelsea. It came to around £75, so it was a fair whack. With the time difference between Costa Rica and the UK, they had returned home very late at night. The Gurkha bodyguard was still sharp and on duty. JJ told him he could go home and thanked him for his efforts.
Cyrus heard his dad and Gil come in. He got up from bed and rushed down the stairs to hug JJ first, then Gil. The commotion woke Becky and she came down in her bright pink onesie to partake in the hugging frenzy. They all chatted a while though the precise nature of JJ and Gil's overseas trip was not revealed. Cyrus was exhausted and needed his sleep. JJ went up to his bedroom, and though the boy was a bit old to be tucked in, JJ did it anyway, and sat on the edge of Cyrus's bed as his son got comfortable. He looked at him with deep love and immense pride.
“Cyrus,” said JJ softly. “That promise I made to you⦔
“Yes, Dad?”
“It's been fulfilled,” said JJ. Cyrus got up from his repose and gave his dad an extra hard squashing hug.
“That's good,” said the boy, and then he lay back down, head on pillow, eyes shut. JJ stayed on the bed's edge for a few minutes, just to look at Cyrus, listen to his breathing and to thank god that he was alright.
The next day, JJ would let Becky, Ethel and Victor know the end result, if not the details, of his trip to Costa Rica. Becky was very relieved, now she could flat hunt and not be concerned about her safety. Ethel and Victor were glad it was over, mainly for JJ's sake. Gil, Becky, JJ and Cyrus, who was still on school summer break, all went to Project LFD's offices the next day. They had breakfast together first in the Lanesborough Hotel, just around the corner, super posh, very expensive but fabulous food. Now that the grizzly part of JJ's life was in the past, he vowed to put all his efforts into Project LFD.
He was in his top floor office, it had fantastic outward views over the trees to Buckingham Palace, and nice internal ones. He could see Becky and Gil, laughing, working away together with Cyrus, who was looking relaxed and happy. JJ's landline rang. He answered. It was Gurkha No. 1. A few seconds later Gurkha No. 2 appeared in JJ's office doorway with a professionally dressed woman.
It was Sandra Hillington. JJ had forgotten that he had given Sandra's shadow man the slip but definitely remembered that she had wanted Neil Robson to face British courtroom justice. This was going to be awkward.
“Hi Sandra. Hope you're well,” said JJ, phlegmatically.
“I am JJ. Certainly a lot better than one Robert Nilsson or should I say Neil Robson, fugitive ex-pat, and found dead in the most gruesome circumstances in San Jose, Costa Rica.”
“Is there any point in me appearing to be shocked?”
“No, there isn't,” replied Sandra firmly. “Still, what's done is done. I'm not happy about it JJ and the Home Secretary is livid. Fortunately for you, I don't really see the point in seeking out the perpetrators. The guy was a snake and I'm not expecting the killer or killers to be going after anyone else. Am I, JJ?”
“I guess not, Sandra. Likely it was a one-off,” replied JJ, quietly.
“Good, make sure it was.”
“Thanks, Sandra,” said JJ, immensely relieved.
“JJ, there's something else,” said the DG, actually sounding even more grave than before.
“OK. What is it?”
“You know we extracted a whole bunch of stuff from Neil Robson's house in St. George's Hill, files, discs, USBs, hard drives etc.”
“Yes, you already told me that.”
Sandra Hillington resumed. “Most of it wasn't that interesting but there was one memory stick, skilfully hidden in the heel of one of Robson's unworn shoes. It related to the time that Robson had been accused of murdering the wife and daughters of a senior bomb maker in an Iranian sponsored terror cell in Birmingham, back in the 1990s.”
JJ was listening but, so far, he didn't really see what this had to do with him. He was still absorbing the fact that MI5 and the police would have no further interest in his role in Robson's demise.
“On the stick, JJ, there are private email exchanges covering Birmingham, London and Tehran. There are photographs, diary dates, personnel and personal information. It's quite revealing.”
“How does this affect me, Sandra?” asked JJ, keen to get on with Project LFD work, now that he knew he was off the Robson hook.
“It affects you, JJ, because⦔ Sandra paused ever so briefly but, no matter her wordcraft, there was no other way to say it.
“Your wife is still alive.”
***
JJ Darke will return
IN SCOTT CALADON'S