Terminal (Major Crimes Unit Book 4) Read online

  Terminal

  Sarah Stone Book 4

  Iain Rob Wright

  Contents

  Quotes

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  One month later…

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  Also by Iain Rob Wright

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  To Sarah’s patient fans –

  Thanks for waiting.

  “Should we fear hackers? Intention is at the heart of this discussion.”

  – Kevin Mitnick

  “What atonement is there for blood spilt upon the earth?”

  – Aeschylus

  “Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.”

  – Steve, Airplane! (1980, Paramount Pictures)

  Chapter One

  The drizzly day reminded Maxim of the tiny hamlet of Serov where he had grown up. Next to the Kakva river, it had often been raining there, but it was something he had enjoyed as an impoverished child. The rain sent people running from the streets, but not him. He would take strolls during the bad weather, convincing himself that the entire empty world belonged to him. He did not run from the rain like everybody else. God himself would not make him.

  Man who walks in rain travels further than one who takes shelter.

  Maxim often missed his homeland of Russia, the wide-open spaces and implacable spirit of its people, but he did not miss Putin or his cronies, who had made home such a dangerous place for men like Maxim – ambitious men unwilling to have their destinies dictated to them. The United Kingdom was now his homeland, a country ruled by a weak administration and pitiful laws. Here, a man could get away with murder if he knew the right people to threaten or bribe. This was an island of cowards with big mouths and weaklings with high chins, both crumbling at the sight of a clenched fist.

  Or the barrel of a well-oiled Makarov.

  With a grim, tight-lipped smile, Maxim stepped out of the drizzle and into the stale-smelling waiting room of the garage he owned – one of several in London and the South East. If anybody stuck their nose in, they would find a perfectly legitimate business. Only the most bothersome would discover the delightful sins buried within.

  Today, the garage was acting as a meeting place and a refuge from the wintery drizzle.

  Maxim wiped the rain from his shoulders and removed his grey woollen overcoat. He draped it across the back of a worn leather sofa that stood beneath the garage’s single lead-lined front window. Opposite the large leather sofa was a smaller two-seater, and it was here that a middle-aged man sat cross-legged, impatiently waiting for Maxim’s arrival.

  “Councillor Hutchinson. It is good to see you.”

  The man stood to greet Maxim, peering at him from behind a pair of Versace spectacles. Counterfeit eyewear was one of Maxim’s many income streams, so he knew most brands at a glance.

  Councillor Hutchinson offered a limp handshake that Maxim ignored. “My good friend, Maxim. You’re a little late, and I’m very busy, so can we move this right along to why you asked to meet with me… here.” He looked around, gaze settling on a dog-eared poster of a topless tennis player. He couldn’t keep himself from sniffing disdainfully.

  Maxim moved over to the coffee machine at the room’s edge. Picking up a chipped mug from the table, he poured himself a dose of heady Colombian blend that he had sourced for himself specially. Coffee was his one vice. Vodka, the nectar of his people, he could take or leave. Drugs and tobacco left him feeling polluted. Oh, but piping hot coffee put fire in his veins and a spring in his step.

  He kept his back turned to the other man as he sipped the scalding brew, and when he eventually deigned to speak, he did so indifferently, and with a purposefully thickened accent. “I believe you know why you are here, Councillor. You are yet to accept bid for town maintenance contract.”

  Councillor Hutchinson chuckled, but Maxim sensed the man’s nervousness, the anxious flicker behind his expensive spectacles.

  “Maxim – my friend – you don’t have the means to fulfil such a contract. The town’s maintenance requirements are vast. The contract requires a long-established company with experience of meeting such obligations. My constituents are expecting me to—”

  Maxim spun around and thrust out an arm. He seized the councillor by the throat and caused the man to yelp. Iron bars inside of Maxim twisted, and a violent beast dwelling in the pit of his stomach – the furious chort bred through a lifetime of adversity – broke free. “It is you who does not understand, Councillor. You give contract to me or your blood oils engines in my garage. Do you forget how many of your dirty little secrets I keep? The women? The drugs? And what else? It is time for you to repay my loyalty, my friend.”

  The councillor’s face reddened. Maxim continued squeezing his larynx until his eyes bulged like little frogs baking in the sun. “It… It’s not possible. The contract is too b-big. It would… expose us both. You… You can’t—”

  Maxim squeezed harder and cut off the councillor’s words. “You leave everything to me. I will fulfil contract – you have my word – so do not let it be concern, okay? Sign off on bid. I will not ask again.” He loosened his grip and offered a handshake. “Let us be partners.”

  “I… I can’t. It would need approval. More than just mine.”

  While Maxim had been squeezing the councillor’s windpipe with one hand, he had continued clutching his piping hot coffee in the other. Now he brought the chipped mug up and tossed the contents in the councillor’s face, causing him to scream like a little girl. He grabbed at his face and staggered around the room.

  He is lucky I do not peel his face off with wood plane as I did Vassili Bokov back in Orsk. Now that was a good time.

  After a few moments, Maxim grabbed the councillor again. This time, he hurled the man down on the old leather sofa beneath the window and punched him in the stomach, turning his girlish screams into a low, guttural moan. Then he grabbed the councillor by the back of the head and brought their faces close together. “You have three days, Councillor. Three days, before wife find out man she marry. Three days, before voters learn truth about weasel they put in power. Three days, before two large men visit your daughter in night and make a woman. You think you are powerful man? You are damselfly buried in shit on boot heel.”

  The terrified councillor struggled to catch his breath. He was crying like a child and trembling. His maroon cheeks were blistering. At some point, his Versace glasses had fallen from his face. “I-I-I understand. Y-You’ll have the contract, I promise. I promise. Just don’t involve my family.”

  Maxim grabbed the councillor by the hand and pulled him to his feet, initiating a handshake that finally made contact. The dance was over. “Then we are partners, yes? We should celebrate. You want coffee?”

  The councillor attempted to straighten himself up, but it was little more than a pathetic charade with his bright red, scalded face and dismayed expression. “Um, no, thank you. I think I’ve had enough.”

  Maxim smiled amiably and patted the councillor hard on the back. “You be good to Maxim, and Maxim be good to you. Always shall it be. Now go, my friend. Fly out of here like shit-covered damselfly.”

  The councillor fled into the drizzling rain. Maxim chuckled at the sight of a grown man running in terror. It was something he himself would never do.

  Better to face wolf than run like rabbit.

  Maxim knelt to grab something that glinted beneath the sofa – the councillor’s Versace spectacles. Maxim tried t
hem on, but sneered when he found a prescription strong enough to allow a naked mole rat to see. He tossed the spectacles back onto the floor and trod on them, enjoying the minor act of destruction and the symbolic gesture of crushing another human being’s ego and self-worth.

  The councillor had, of course, been correct in his concerns. There was no way Maxim’s current businesses could handle the town’s vast maintenance needs, but that was beside the point. He would hire the cheapest firm capable of meeting the contract and pocket the difference for himself. It was another guaranteed income stream – and another hook Maxim had planted in local government. Once again, his influence grew.

  This game is too easy.

  From filthy gutters to a throne of my own making, that is my destiny.

  One day, even Putin will fear me.

  Maxim poured himself another coffee, this time with milk.

  Chapter Two

  “Okay, I’m getting a little nauseated staring at your faces for so long, so I’ll wrap this up.” Sarah allowed a smirk to bother the edges of her mouth, but she kept her expression stern. The seven men and women standing shoulder to shoulder in front of her were fine agents, but they were also her underlings, which meant she had the right to abuse them a little bit. “To summarise” – she whacked her pointer against the ninety-inch projection screen on the wall behind her, displaying a blown-up image of the United Kingdom’s South East – “this Russian Mafia offshoot goes by the name Novaya Sila – new power – and we should focus our efforts on its leader, Maxim Ivanov. He’s been in the country for two years, and in that time, he has set up or purchased approximately thirty-five businesses. He owns garages, shops, taxi firms, and more. All fronts for what he’s really into, of course, which is everything. Illegal imports, firearms, drugs, extortion, blackmail, murder for hire, and probably failing to wipe his hands after taking a shit. He is bad news, which is why we want him locked up or sent somewhere else.” She glanced at her scuffed Sekonda and folded away her pointer. “Okay, it’s afternoon, so to summarise further: Russian crime syndicate bad. Let’s not allow it to get any worse. All right, children, get back to work.”

  The agents broke away, shuffling out of the briefing room and heading for their workspaces. The briefing room was one of four inside the earthworm’s middle section, each filled with rows of chairs and a large projector screen. The MCU was high tech, but sometimes all you needed was PowerPoint and a tappy stick.

  Thomas and Jessica leant against the wall at the back of the room, arms folded. The director and deputy director of the MCU regularly sat in on Sarah’s briefings, and she hated it. She loathed being questioned or appraised in any way. It was something she had been working on for several years now, but bad habits were hard to break.

  I’ll always be a work in progress.

  Or a finished Picasso. I have the face for it.

  Thomas attempted to speak, but Sarah cut him off. “I can already see you have a problem, so what is it?”

  With a smirk on his clean-shaven face, showing he was combative but not angry, Thomas said, “You already know how I view this operation. Let the uniforms deal with petty crime. We need to keep our eye on the bigger picture. This is a waste of resources.”

  Sarah pouted and stamped her feet. “Aw, shucks, but I’m so bored with terrorism, Pa. Once you seen one idiot with a bomb, you seen ’em all.”

  “You know I’m from Florida, right?”

  She stopped play-acting. “This isn’t just petty crime we’re talking about, Thomas. Maxim Ivanov is a player, and if we don’t deal with him now, he’ll be a thorn in our sides later. He’s got his grubby fingers in way too many pies, and I’m taking it personally.”

  Jessica chuckled. She was wearing her lab coat as usual but had her silky brown hair down for a change. “You take everything personally, sweetheart, but I happen to agree with you. Terrorism will always be our chief priority, and we have two-thirds of the MCU dedicated to stopping it, so let’s branch out a little. Evil is evil, after all. And like my sweet Aunt May used to say, ‘better to pull the root than the weed.’ Let’s stop Ivan Maximov before he has a chance to cause us bigger problems later.”

  Sarah cleared her throat. “Maxim Ivanov.”

  “That’s what I said, sweetheart.”

  Sarah gave Jessica an appreciative nod. While they didn’t always see eye to eye, the good doctor was a close friend of hers and someone she trusted. Her relationship with Thomas, however, was far more complex. Working alongside her ex-husband, once presumed dead, was more stressful than any terrorist plot could be.

  Thomas put his hands up to placate Sarah. “You know I would never tell you what to do – I wouldn’t dare – so I’ll just warn you to be mindful of using up too many resources on this, okay? The Russian Mafia is someone else’s fish to catch.” Sarah went to argue, and possibly insult Thomas for good measure, but he didn’t allow her to speak. “Let me be your boss for one minute, okay? Nod and show me you at least heard what I said.”

  Sarah nodded.

  Thomas clapped his hands together. “Fantastic! Now, do you fancy getting some lunch? I’ve been on duty for sixteen hours. I’m gonna grab some lunch and hit the hay. Company would be nice though.”

  “Thought you wanted to be my boss. Now you’re asking me on a date?”

  “Okay, fine. We can invite Jessica, too, if it makes my presence more palatable.”

  Jessica waved a hand. “Not for me, thanks. I had a mighty breakfast. Y’all go grab something together. I’ll hold the fort.”

  Sarah allowed her shoulders to sag. Like Thomas, she’d been on duty for way too many hours, and her body was pleading with her to collapse inside one of the earthworm’s many dorm rooms. She wanted to sleep the day away, but it might be a good idea to eat something first. “All right, but I’m choosing where we eat.”

  Thomas smiled as if he had just won a great battle, but the reality was far from it. Sarah might be willing to talk to him these days, but the past was still a jagged fingernail stuck between her teeth. Try as she might, she couldn’t dislodge it.

  My anger is fading, though.

  When did I stop hating him?

  “I’ll meet you up top in ten minutes,” he said. Then he and Jessica left the briefing room. Sarah waited a moment before exiting herself, wanting to be alone with her thoughts for a moment. There was a lot going on right now, and all of it was complicated. Last year had seen her fortieth birthday and she suddenly felt old. While her body had once been a tool at her complete command, it now refused to do everything it was told. Everything she did was a few microseconds slower, just a little bit stiffer.

  How much longer can I keep this up?

  There was nothing urgent to take care of, so Sarah grabbed her grey denim jacket and pulled it on over her white button-down shirt. She exited her office and headed for the lifts. Usually she took the stairs – the healthier option – but she was too weary right now. The doors opened directly onto the tarmac, where a small landing strip housed a pair of Cessna 210s and the old Griffin helicopter that had first brought Sarah to the MCU a lifetime ago. A covered carpool contained more than seventy-five vehicles. The earthworm’s facilities had expanded greatly over the last decade, at the cost of half a billion pounds.

  We started at the bottom, now we are here.

  As usual, the MCU’s senior driver, Mandy, was pottering around inside the carpool, running a chamois leather over the bonnet of a creamy white, newly registered Alfa Romeo Giulia. While Jaguars and Range Rovers made up a majority of the fleet – symbols of British prowess – various other models had been added in recent years.

  “Hey, Mandy,” she said, waving a hand. “How’s it going?”

  Mandy looked at Sarah glumly and failed to smile. “Do we have a mission?”

  She perched on the sleek bonnet of a nearby Jaguar XJ saloon. “Nope. Just gunna grab some lunch. You want me to bring you back anything?”

  He went back to his polishing. “Not much of an appeti
te lately.”

  “I understand.”

  The tragedy had occurred nearly two months ago now, but Mandy was taking it hard. He’d stopped coming down into the earthworm and spent most of his time alone in the carpool. The expensive vehicles were apparently better company than people. “We all miss Howard,” she said. “It sucks that he’s gone.”

  Mandy kept his back turned, buffing the Giulia’s bonnet. “I can’t accept it. I keep trying to make peace with it, to let it bed in, but it doesn’t feel real. How haven’t we caught the person who did it? All the resources at our disposal, Sarah, and we can’t even—”

  “You’ll get your answers, Mandy, I promise. Just be patient.” She hated having to placate him with empty assurances, but she didn’t know what else to say. Law enforcement was seeking the driver of an old SUV, possibly a Mitsubishi, but had so far come up empty-handed. The vehicle had reportedly mowed down senior MCU agent Howard Hopkins as he crossed a road in Camden. He hadn’t even been on duty. He’d been Christmas shopping.

  “We need to work harder,” said Mandy. “I won’t rest while his murderer walks around free. He deserves better.”

  “I miss him too, Mandy. Howard’s the whole reason I’m even here. He gave my life meaning when I thought it was over.”

  “Then you shouldn’t be okay.”

  “I’m not okay. Believe me.”

  Mandy didn’t look at her, but he nodded silently.

  “I’m here if you need to talk, okay?”

  Mandy sighed and finally turned back to face her. He looked ready to shed a tear, which would be obscene on a face as large as his. The giant of a man had a soft heart but behaved as though he considered it a weakness. “Sure, I’ll be driving you somewhere soon,” he said. “Maybe we’ll talk then.”