“I’m already working on it, big man.”
He moved silently up the steps to the main deck area, keeping close to the shadows. Making his way along the gangway until he came to the hatch that Kurt had appeared from earlier. He glanced quickly around the opening, and saw that there was no one in the brightly lit corridor. Holding the Glock down by his side, he went through the hatch, and was moving towards the port side in a second. As he came up to one of the doors, he stopped instantly, and could hear someone talking very quietly inside the room. The door was almost fully open, giving him a clear view of the person sitting at the large desk. It was Malakoff, talking to one of his helicopter pilots on the phone, the silver chest open in front of him.
Malakoff finished the phone call, picked up the documents that were laid out on the highly polished desk top, and placed them all inside the chest. Closed and locked the lid, yawned and got up, went to the mini bar and poured himself a large brandy. Dillon didn’t hesitate. He moved silently into the study and was standing at the side of the desk with the chest under his arm when Malakoff turned round to see him standing there.
The tumbler fell silently to the floor, smashing into a million tiny fragments, and the look of disbelief crossed his face. “It cannot be, you should be dead? I’ve heard shouting and silenced gunfire.”
“All mine, I’m afraid. Your boys didn’t even get one round off. In fact, they were a complete walkover, can’t believe how easily they all died.” Dillon kept his voice low, and monotone.
“This is a lie. You would not have got the better of my bodyguard, Kurt.” Malakoff looked at the Englishman defiantly.
“Your bodyguard, is now minding the fish at the bottom of the harbour.”
“You will never get off this boat alive.”
His arm outstretched, Dillon kept the Glock trained on Malakoff’s heart as he backed out of the room. At the doorway, he turned and ran up through the corridor towards the hatch. Malakoff, was already coming out through his study door behind him, a Walther PPK in his hand. He fired once, the noise shattering the otherwise silent night air, and the bullet going wide and slamming into the metal structure just above Dillon’s head. Dillon turned and loosed off three silenced rounds at Malakoff, who immediately took cover behind the door to his study.
Dillon went through the hatch and out onto the portside gangway. By now, Captain Armand had armed himself with an AK47, and had come down from the bridge.
He was making his way along the gangway from the forward section, the only sounds that could be heard were his own footsteps on the teak decking. He saw a figure move out of the shadows up ahead of him towards the stern.
“Who is that?” Armand demanded.
“Armand, Stop him. It’s Dillon, he’s got the chest.” Malakoff shouted.
Dillon didn’t hesitate, but kept to the shadows, running as fast as he could, and then jumping over the upper rail into the harbour below. He dived down, swimming a little awkwardly with the silver chest under his arm, went under the hull towards the dive ladder. Surfaced, and was immediately aware of two things, Kurt’s body floating just below the surface like a jellyfish, and Armand standing on the upper sun deck. The captain spotted him at once, and started firing the AK47 on automatic at the water around him. He unhooked his buoyancy jacket from the ladder and let himself sink down to the seabed. He slipped back into it, put on his fins and dive mask, clearing the mask with a quick release of air from the regulator. He placed the chest into the dive bag, all the time aware that Armand was firing at him from above, and he moved away from the illuminated water around the Solitaire towards the safety of darkness as fast as possible. After a minute he surfaced, Chapman was already on the lookout, he spotted him through the night vision goggles, and roared out of the darkness towards him.
Armand instantly heard the outboard engine, but couldn’t see where it was coming from, could only guess the general direction of it. He’d put another full clip into the AK47, was about to start shooting blindly again, when Malakoff appeared outside on the gangway.
“Stop. You idiot, do you want to bring every armed policeman in Jersey to the waterfront?” Malakoff stormed up to the captain, and wrenched the Russian rifle out of his hands. He paced up and down the gangway, furious at having been outwitted by Dillon.
“What are your orders, Monsieur?”
“They’re all dead, Armand. Every last one of them.” Malakoff said, looking out across the harbour. He then instructed the captain to check for any damage and make ready to sail, and then stormed off up to the bridge, leaving Armand standing in the gangway alone.
Chapman circled around Dillon once in the inflatable, and then killed the outboard. The small craft slowed enough to allow the Englishman to grab hold of the line, and reel himself in to the side. He immediately handed Chapman the dive net, before slipping out of the buoyancy jacket, and taking off his fins. Once these were on board, he hauled himself into the inflatable.
Dillon looked back at Malakoff’s luxury power cruiser, and the flashing lights of the security patrol vehicle heading towards its berth. “I think it’s time to get the hell out of here,” he said, looking at the Omega Sea Master on his wrist.
Chapman started the outboard, pushed the throttle as far forward as it would go, and the next moment they were speeding away from the Solitaire, into the darkness of the harbour.
Armand said, “Kurt’s body was in the water just off the stern platform. He’d drowned. I’ve retrieved it, and placed it out of sight in the rear cargo hold. I found Mazzarin with a broken neck, and Pierre was killed by a single 9mm shot between the eyes. Both bodies had been concealed behind a stowage locker. Zola is no where to be found.”
“Never mind all that,” Malakoff told him. “Dillon and Chapman are most definitely not going all the way back to Bonne Nuit in that inflatable. Which means that Dillon’s friends, Levenson-Jones and that computer man, are most likely somewhere close by in their Range Rover.”
“I would agree, Monsieur,” Armand said. “Turn on the radar, Armand. If my intuition is correct, they will head straight for the airport, once they’re ashore.”
Armand pressed the buttons, and a second later the radar screen lit up. He was sitting in front of it, looking for anything travelling at high speed across the harbour. Through the panoramic windscreen, Malakoff could see the security company’s patrol vehicle, coming towards them along the pontoon. As they pulled up alongside the power cruiser, Malakoff went and spoke to them. Returning to the bridge two minutes later.
“Any problems, Monsieur?”
“No, Armand. They were just responding to an anonymous telephone call. Apparently there’s been a report of automatic gun fire coming from the Solitaire.” Malakoff raised his right eyebrow, at the thought of Levenson-Jones making the call. “I simply told them, that it was a mistake. That it was most likely, the sound of one of our engines back firing. And as we were sailing on the early tide, our chief engineer was working through the night in an attempt to repair it. As luck would have it, they were not the brightest of individuals, and believed every word.”
“Monsieur, that blip. It’s almost certainly Dillon and Chapman.” Armand, was pointing to a tiny dot rapidly moving across the screen towards the inner marina on the other side of the harbour.”
“Are you positive?”
“At this time of night. Yes, I’m positive, Monsieur.” Five minutes later, the blip reappeared, but this time it was heading away from the docks at high speed.