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.
Chapter Seven
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.”