The Final Deadline explores the London underworld of money laundering, extreme wealth and equally extreme violence through the eyes of investigative journalist Ed Cobain. When the oligarchs decide they can no longer entertain his threats to expose them, Cobain is forced to run if he wants to survive.

The Final Deadline

By Paul Skipp

Staring at the photo in the polished antique silver frame, Alexander Johnson imagined clambering inside it and escaping to the more innocent life he once led.

Slumped at his desk, he slowly closed his eyes and rubbed his face with trembling hands, feeling the spikey stubble and the deep furrows that ran like battle trenches across his brow.

He yearned to be the happy family man in the image, one arm around the waist of his young wife, the other clutching a giggling toddler against his hip, like a picture from a website selling exotic holidays.

All suntans, sunshine and smiles. They were happy then, he thought.

He cursed the uncontrollable greed that had given him euphoric highs and crashing lows of such depths that at times he had feared he would never recover.

Once he had been a confident businessman, drunk on the power derived from defeating rivals, striking multi-million-pound deals, making massive profits and enjoying the bountiful fruits of his success.

Look at me now, thought Johnson. He opened his eyes slowly and saw his reflection in the blackened, lifeless computer screen. Staring back at him was a broken shell of a man who had accepted his grim fate long ago. 

Constantly looking over his shoulder nervously for the ruthless assassins that would inevitably pay him a visit had taken a very heavy toll. Paranoid, and often on the brink of a breakdown, his mind had been in a constant state of turmoil for months. 

And now the day of judgment had arrived. Despite the grim and final violent act he knew was to come, he greeted his visitors’ arrival almost with relief. 

Like a cow at a slaughterhouse, awaiting a bolt to the head, he sensed this was the end.

There was no escape. The time had come to pay the price, albeit a heavy one. He knew that. 

The sound of scuffed footsteps on the stone stairs leading from the hallway to his office three storeys above broke the silence.

Johnson stood and leaned on his desk for support as his body went into shutdown. Thoughts scrambled, heart racing, bowels loosening, he was about to come face-to-face with his killers. 

He was alone. No-one to help. No-one to care.

The two assassins looked like evil extras from a Bond movie, built like the proverbial brick shithouse, both over 6ft tall with shoulders that seemed almost as wide. Dressed in trademark black army fatigues, just as he had imagined in his darkest moments, their presence now filled him with terror.

Cool and calm, it was obvious to him immediately that they were totally in control. No doubt this was not their first assignment. He knew his enemy was in the habit of hiring highly trained thugs to deliver retribution. 

They had honed their dubious skills on the Bosnian Serb battlefields and at secret training camps staged by one of the most ruthless and bloodthirsty organisations in the world. Both enjoyed killing, driven on by a £100,000 blood money pay day.

An overweight, unfit 41-year-old property developer with no experience of armed combat would be no match for them. 

With efficient ease, completely undetected, they had entered his home, bypassing the ageing, low-tech security system after disabling CCTV cameras at the rear of the property. 

Why hadn’t he spent some of his vast fortune upgrading it? Why hadn’t he had a panic room installed? Stupid. It was too late now. 

The taller thug had come impressively armed for the occasion. Johnson could see a gun – a Soviet semi-automatic Makarov pistol – in his shoulder holster. Strapped to his right thigh was a Storm knife, a deadly weapon loved by Russian marines.

Fear gripped Johnson like a cobra coiled around his chest, so tight he now struggled to inhale. His face crumpled as self-pitying tears ran down his face.  

Backing away, he took two faltering steps. Without saying a word, his executioners lunged forward in synchro and grabbed him violently by the shoulders and ankles, immediately tipping him into a horizontal position. Facing downwards, he could see their polished, military-style black boots on the Italian marble-tiled floor, but little else. 

Pain ran through his arms and legs as their iron grip dug into his flesh like bear traps. The smell of stale alcohol on their breath suggested that even experienced killers needed a drop of Dutch courage. 

He made no attempt to fight back. He felt paralysed and unable to struggle. What was the point, anyway? He knew resistance was futile. The grim reaper had arrived in the form of two muscle-bound heavies and there was only one way this was going to end. 

The gym monkeys were clumsy, though. A pair of delicately decorated blue Ming dynasty vases crashed on to the marble floor, shattering into dozens of pieces, as the shorter man’s hip caught the corner of an antique French console table. 

Johnson could feel the cool night air, on the chilly side even for this time of year, as the ornate timber French doors swung open. He caught a brief glimpse of the exclusive square he called home. 

Several of the neighbouring properties belonged to what could best be described as very unsavoury characters. They, like him, had made their fortunes in ways that would, by any standard, be considered highly dubious.

His mansion, located a stone’s throw from Park Lane and Grosvenor Square, in one of London’s most sought-after postcodes, had been owned by a variety of high-profile politicians and celebrities. Its latest resident really wasn’t worthy of the building’s rich history. 

He could hear the familiar sounds of the city. A city he had helped to shape through a series of high-profile property developments that had delivered him and his business partners huge profits. With money had come access to a glittering world of temptation in many forms. He had succumbed too many times for his own good.

It was his city, he had often thought. There was a time when he felt he owned it. This was partially true. He and his paymasters owned huge chunks of real estate in one of the world’s property investment honeypots.

It was a city he would never see again.