Wolf in Shadow-eARC (27 page)

“The only way you get that clamp off of the Jew’s canoe, sunshine, is to cough up a monkey,” said black sunglasses.

Jameson ran a quick translation from London into English. A monkey was five hundred pounds sterling but Jew’s canoe was a new one on him.

“Five hundred quid, you must be having a giraffe,” said Jameson, getting into the vernacular, giraffe being laugh.

“A monkey if we take it off now. If we leave and have to come back, it’ll be another two hundred sovs for the call-out charge.”

“I haven’t got time for this crap,” Jameson said, losing patience.

He opened the car’s boot and rummaged around. He tossed a pair of heavy-duty bolt cutters to Karla, who caught them casually in one hand.

“Fat lot of use that will be on a wheel clamp,” black sunglasses said. “What is she, superwoman or something?”

“Or something,” Jameson replied. “Cut if off, if you please, Karla.”

“You tell him, love. The bastard clamped my son when he came to see me.” An old woman’s head was stuck out of one of the upper windows.

“Piss off, you old bat,” black sunglasses said.

“Don’t you talk to Edna like that,” said an old man sticking his head out of a window further along on the same level. “I fought a war for you.”

The redbrick building might have offices on the lower floors, but there were clearly flats above.

A loud twang drew everyone’s attention back to the Jag. Powered by Karla, the cutters sliced through the clamp like Challenger tanks through an Iraqi firebase. Karla proceeded to use the cutters to bash back a flap of metal so she could get at the rest of the plate.

“Oy!” Black sunglasses came off the van and started forward. Jameson pushed him away.

“That’ll learn you,” Edna said, crowing.

The talkative thug removed his sunglasses with a flourish, tossing them into the van without taking his eyes off Jameson. Unfortunately, the window was still up, so they bounced back into the street. This somewhat spoiled the coolness of the gesture.

“Now you’ve done it,” said the thug with the sneer to Jameson.

“It speaks,” Jameson said, with a show of astonishment. “Does this mean you are due for promotion?”

The thug looked at him open-mouthed. His fag rolled down and lodged in his bare folded arms. He shrieked and brushed himself down. Jameson had the distinct feeling that he was not facing exactly Premiere League opposition. The unarmed instructors at the security services would have wept real tears over these two.

The first thug charged Jameson and launched a massive roundhouse swing. It would have ended the fight there and then had it landed. Jameson had graduated with a poor degree because, apart from partying and rowing, he had secured a boxing blue representing Cambridge in a bout against the old enemy, Oxford. He moved inside the swing and caught the thug with two left jabs to the chin. A step to the right and he landed a solid right on the thug’s ear.

“Lovely, jubberly, keep your guard up and jab,” said the old man, demonstrating so vigorously that he nearly fell out of the window.

“Kill the bastard,” advised Edna.

The thug whirled around for another try.

Arms enfolded Jameson from behind. He had lost track of the sneering thug and the swine had his arms pinned. The two had probably pulled off this maneuver before. Thug number one grinned and swung a massive fist. Jameson rolled his head aside and a fist like a pile driver scraped his cheek. A heavy ring opened up a cut. A loud smack indicated that the fist had found a target, and then Jameson was free.

Thug number one opened his mouth. The world will never know what pearls of wisdom he intended to impart. Jameson jabbed him in the aforesaid mouth with another left before he could get started. The thug took a step back, raising his arms to protect his face. That opened the way for a hard right below the belt. Jameson gave it everything he had and his fist sank into flab.

The thugs doubled over with a wheeze. Like a lot of bullies, he had relied too long on size to intimidate. He had let himself go. He should have spent more time in the gym and less in the boozer.

Jameson was aware that the second thug was still somewhere behind. He needed to end this right now and to hell with the ninth Marquess of Queensberry. He hadn’t done Oscar Wilde any favours. Time to stop fannying around, Jameson decided. He grasped the first thug’s shaven head with both hands and used his whole body weight to push it down. Then he jumped off his right leg and smashed his right knee into the bastard’s face. The thug’s nose broke with a crunch and he went over backwards in a spray of blood.

He didn’t get up.

Jameson whirled around to locate the sneering thug—and relaxed. The man was on one knee holding his chin in both hands. Thug number two tried to rise when Jameson walked over.

“I believe I owe you one,” Jameson said pleasantly.

He kicked the thug in the mouth. The man would need some extensive dental work before he could adopt a good sneer again.

“I hope you are registered with an NHS dentist,” Jameson said solicitously. “Private treatment can be so expensive.”

A Rastaman on the pavement watched with disapproval, shaking his dreadlocks sadly at the brutality and wickedness of old London Town.

“Babylon, man,” he said.

“Yah,” Jameson replied.

Karla started to clap, a theme taken up by Jameson’s elderly audience. There were more of them at the windows, like spectators at a match. There must be a bloody old people’s home up there. Jameson wondered which idiot in the Council’s Planning Department thought it a good plan to house old people in upstairs flats. He inclined his head in appreciation of their appreciation.

Karla sat on the bonnet of the Jaguar. What remained of the yellow clamp was slung up against the building.

“I don’t suppose it occurred to you to give me a hand,” Jameson asked.

“I’ve been reading up on the health of men of a certain age,” Karla said, seriously. “You’ve the life expectancy of mayflies at the best of times. The book stressed the dangers of lack of exercise. I thought you could benefit from a workout.”

Jameson was speechless. He got in the car and started the engine. Karla barely managed to jump inside before he drove off. He noticed the logo on the side of the van, but it rang no bells. London was full of chancers he had never heard of Charlie Parkes Security Services.

Max’s mobile Teutonic status symbol drew up outside the pub not long after the Sun dipped gratefully below the horizon, leaving. The Wicked City slipped into the long north European twilight as a prelude to another night’s carousing and general mayhem. Max would drive a BMW. The initials were rumored to stand for Bloody Minded Wankers in London, that being a fair description of the drivers. Nice cars though, Rhian noticed, as she slipped into the passenger seat. The machine pulled smoothly away, gathering speed quickly.

“Is everything ready?” Max asked.

“Gary did as you said,” she said. “But I don’t understand why you wanted him to warn Parkes that we are coming?”

“He will assume that we will be mob handed and will do likewise, calling in his soldiers.”

“And we want that?” Rhian asked, confused.

Max put his hand on her knee, and she removed it.

“Certainly, that way we get them all together and deal with the matter once and for all.”

“I suppose it does get Gary off the hook from any more retaliation from Parkes’ thugs.”

Max laughed. “Parkes won’t be a problem for your friends after tonight.”

Rhian began to get pangs of doubt. She had summoned Max because she did not see why he should not clear up the mess he had made for Gary. She was bloody angry at the time and not thinking. She hadn’t wanted to start a war. Now she had cooled off a tad, she wondered whether she should have warned off Parkes herself. She mentally shook her head. Warn off Parkes herself? What was she thinking of? Rhian didn’t warn people off, let alone East End gangsters. Something was happening to her.

“I don’t want any deaths,” she said.

“Sure,” Max said easily.

Too easily, Rhian regarded him with deep suspicion. “I mean it.”

“I know,” Max replied, cheerfully.

He appeared to be looking forward to the evening’s entertainment. Rhian dreaded the whole business and just wanted to get it done. Max checked his satnav and turned off the main road.

“We can’t be there yet?” Rhian asked.

“Shortcut,” Max replied. “The traffic will be hellish at the Fairwater Roundabout.”

The traffic was bloody awful anyway. It always was in London. The city was a conglomerate of small towns and cities that had spread out to touch, and the road system had grown organically from tracks designed for local traffic. The local traffic at the time of building consisted primarily of pedestrians and horses. The only routes that could be said to be at all car-friendly were the radial highways to the provinces: the A1 to the north, the A2 to the Channel, the A3 to the south coast, and the A4 to the west.

Max threaded the powerful motor quickly through the crush, making the most of its superb handling and brakes. He was an aggressive driver, other motorists backing down rather than contest a gap.

“Have you ever heard the phrase Bloody Minded Wanker?” Rhian asked.

“Who do you think started it?” Max replied, flashing a grin at her.

They arrived outside a yard surrounded by high walls that failed to hide a hill of piled-up rusting car bodies in one corner. Max parked outside and they looked the place over from the car. A sign announced they were at Charlie Parkes Security Services & Scrap Metal Dealership. Despite the hour, the gates were open.

“It seems we are expected,” Max said.

He laughed and drove straight in.

“It’s good of you to see us so quickly,” Jameson said. “And at this late hour.”

“Not at all, I often work late on operationalization issues. So, you’re a Special Branch Commander,” said Shternberg. “Presumably you want face-time to progress disambiguation of security outcomes?”

Jameson blinked. Karla gazed at Shternberg the way a patent officer looks at the latest design for a perpetual motion machine.

The man was not quite what Jameson had expected. Shternberg was tall and well-built, with the toned body that comes from time in the gym or enthusiastic tennis. He had bright blue eyes, a pale complexion, and a shock of blond hair that was short-cut at the sides but stood up on top. He looked more Nordic than East European.

His grasp of the English language was perfect, in its way, and accentless. This immediately marked him out as overseas. Everybody in the British Isles had an accent that gave away their initial social class and the region within which they grew up. His voice was cold and precise, like a foreign actor that had learned to speak with an all-purpose “English” accent. Unfortunately, someone had also taught Shternberg Master of Business Administration-speak.

He leaned back in an expensive executive chair in front of a modern desk that was all chrome and polished wood. The top looked like a parking lot at an English seaside town in January—large, black and empty. A wireless flat screen and keyboard sat at one edge beside a small metallic arrangement of pipes and leaves in silver and gold. Jameson wondered whether it was an executive toy or a piece of modern art.

The other chairs in the office were low so that Shternberg looked down on his guests. Jameson considered whether this was some cunning ploy to intimidate or simply an expression of the man’s overweening sense of superiority. Jameson suspected the latter, and his suspicion rapidly hardened.

“My knighthood, of course. Presumably you are here to discuss security measures for my safety.”

Shternberg spoke slowly, like a man explaining something to a small and exceptionally retarded child. Jameson had only been in the man’s company for a minute and already he despised him. Special Branch would be more concerned with the safety of Her Majesty than some narcissistic jumped-up money lender. Shternberg’s false assumption did explain why he and Karla had got past the botoxed deceptionist in Shternburg’s outer office so easily. Receptionists existed to receive visitors and usher them into the presence of the Great Man. Deceptionists served the opposite function.

“No, I was not aware that you are on the next honors list. Congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

“For what will you be awarded a knighthood?” Jameson asked, politely.

The real answer to that was a massive “campaign contribution” to a prominent politician or one of the major political parties. “Campaign contribution” was the accepted political speak for a backhander. Under Prime Minister David Lloyd George, the selling of honors by politicians had become such a scandal that the scam was made illegal, not that making something illegal ever changed anything. Politicians just had to find some fig-leaf of respectability to cover up the real reason for the award.

“Services to education,” Shternberg replied, smugly.

Jameson did not reply and let the pause in the conversation drag out. He had interrogated many suspects, from IRA terrorists to magic-using crooks. Silence was the interrogator’s weapon. The subject became more and more stressed until the urge to speak was overwhelming. You could learn so much about how a subject chose to break the silence. It could tell you what they most wanted to hide and what they feared you knew.

Shternberg said nothing, just waited with a half-smile, his hands flat on the desk. This suggested to Jameson that he was a pro. Jameson wondered who had trained the man: the Ukranian SZRU, Estonian KAPO, Latvian SAB, Lithuanian VSD—the list of potential sponsors was endless. Shternberg was so polished that his instructors could even have been the best of the best, the lads from Lubyanka Square. The good ole boys of the Russian FSB evolved out of the KGB. A new name, but customers got the same old friendly service, as the old joke goes.

“I want to ask you about Fethers,” Jameson finally said.

Tactic two for an interrogator was the shock approach. Drop your best factoid to imply that you know more than you do. He watched Shternberg closely and was rewarded with a flicker in his eyes. Only a slight flicker, gone in a microsecond, but it was nevertheless suggestive. Not that it proved Shternberg summoned daemons, of course.