Breaking Point by John Macken Read Free Book Online Page B

Maybe not the businesses, but certainly the bricks and mortar.’
    ‘The ultimate aim of the illegitimate – buying the legitimate.’
    ‘And how.’
    ‘What sort of businesses?’
    ‘Mix of clerical, trade, some accountants, a floor of import and export.’
    Reuben gazed at the building. He was almost jealous of the location. It would have made a great lab , hidden from the world with nothing on the outside to give it away. A commercial back street, a steel-shuttered entrance under a grey office block, an entrance that housed corporate parking for the building. It reminded him of GeneCrime and its utter anonymity, the only access via a ramp into the car park. Control the entrance to a place like that and you were utterly secure. And then, beneath the street, beneath the parking, beneath everything, the windowless void where Maclyn Margulis ran his empire. Reuben tried and failed to picture what it was like inside.
    ‘Here,’ Moray said, nudging him, ‘someone’s rolling.’
    Reuben watched as the shutter retracted like a metal striptease, revealing a vehicle inch by inch. First the wheels, then the registration plate, the bumper and the grille. A jet-black 4×4. Reuben spotted the BMW badge on the bonnet.
    ‘It’s our boy,’ he said quietly.
    ‘That’s him in the front?’ Moray asked. He opened the CID file and scanned the mugshots and surveillance photos again.
    Reuben peered at the passenger side as steel gave way to glass and the X5 emerged from the gloom. And then he saw him. Maclyn Margulis, in the flesh. Jet-black hair, perfectly straight, long on the neck, side-parted on top. Nearly playboy in the sweep of its fringe. A right-angle jaw with muscles that twitched as he chewed some gum. A perfect nose and swimming-pool eyes. A diamond stud in each ear. One cold ruthless motherfucker, Reuben thought. And a good-looking bastard to boot. The car pulled out and cruised past, oblivious.
    ‘Did you see who was driving?’ Moray asked.
    ‘I’m afraid so.’
    ‘Didn’t realize he was working for the other side now.’
    ‘Nor did I. But with his boss dead, what else is he going to do?’ Reuben closed his eyes. Valdek Kosonovski. Twenty stones of steroid abuse built around an extremely short fuse. Reuben had tangled with him once before and was lucky still to be alive. ‘That changes things a bit.’
    ‘You want to follow them?’
    ‘What I really want to do is see what Maclyn’s base looks like down there.’
    Reuben pulled his seatbelt on. Moray’s driving was not for the faint-hearted. He checked his watch. It was 2.36 p.m.
    ‘I’ve got to pick my boy up. You fancy dropping me?’
    ‘If you ask nicely.’
    ‘I need Margulis on his own, not with that psycho Kosonovski.’
    Moray started the powerful old Saab, let a taxi pass, then pulled off smartly, the turbo-charger rasping for air in between brutal gear changes.

12
    AT 3.04 P.M. , Dr James Crannell followed the familiar campus path towards his car. Today, he had checked and double-checked. A smaller turnout for his lecture on oestrogen status and breast cancer. But among the apathetic rabble, no one who resembled the two men who had tailed him to his car the previous evening.
    James lingered at the security desk, just in case, but the two men failed to appear. He carried on. He knew he really should spend some more time in the lab, but he couldn’t face it. The two men had got under his skin. There had been no more emails, but that didn’t help. He was agitated and ill at ease, off kilter, slides of his lecture skipped, conclusions rushed. He had slept badly and felt run down. James had decided to make full use of his academic flexibility and head back to his flat.
    He entered the car park. His ageing Golf was parked in the far corner, an overspill of rough stones and tarmac, a plot used when the closer spaces were taken. He stopped by the car and put down his laptop bag, rummaging in its pockets for his keys. When he stood up they were