by Nick Oldham
The van drove past Junction 34 and the road began to rise. On the right was the fencing which surrounded Lancaster Farms, the Young Offenders’ Institute. Beyond that was the monstrosity that was Lancaster Moor Hospital. Then there was the wonderful monument in Williamson Park which rose up like a mini Taj Mahal.
Hodge groaned, flinched and leaned forwards, wrapping an arm around his stomach.
‘Guts again?’ he was asked.
‘Yeah,’ he rasped, feigning pain. ‘I feel another shit coming on - and soon.’
‘There’s some services not far off. Pull in there.’
‘Either that or I’m going to have to drop my keks on the hard shoulder.’
Five miles south, they were waiting for him.
Each man was growing more and more tense and nervous. Chewing gum rapidly. No talking. Waiting. Shallow breathing. Nostrils flaring. Eyes flickering across the service area, checking for unwanted visitors. Feet tapping. Fingers flexing. Sweat dribbling.
Hawker and Price were in the cab of the Leyland Sherpa which was squeezed between two very long, high-sided heavy goods vehicles parked on the outer rim of the HGV parking area. The vehicle on their right was a 1993 Leyland-DAF Curtainside, over 55 feet in length; on the other side was an ERF Curtainside of similar proportions. Both dwarfed the Sherpa between them, like two big brothers protecting the baby. They were stolen vehicles, on false plates, and had been positioned and left there earlier on the instructions of Don Smith.
Billy Crane was sitting in the cab of the ERF, constantly looking round, glancing in the big side mirrors, mouth dry, palms wet inside the disposable gloves he was wearing.
Smith and Gunk Elphick were in one of the Audi sports cars, parked in such a position that they could see every vehicle coming off the motorway on to the service area. They did not speak to each other.
Drozdov and Thompson were in the other Audi, parked close by to the HGVs.
Crane checked his watch. ‘Any sign yet?’ he asked shortly over the radio.
‘Nothing yet,’ Smith responded.
Crane sat back, tried to relax. A tight smile came to his lips. He was aware that the police in Lancashire were going to be somewhat diverted over the next few minutes.
‘You see, you’re fantastic,’ Danny said brightly. She and Henry were walking by the rugby pitch outside the Headquarters building, back to their cars. The Force helicopter was still on the grass, unattended, looking slightly lost and forlorn with its drooping rotor-blades.
Danny glanced sideways at Henry. He seemed to have drifted away again, back to that distant world in which he seemed to be spending his time. She hadn’t yet broached the subject of why he had really been visiting the Occupational Health Unit.
‘Just a few minutes with you and there’s already two extra names in the hat. If you are interested,’ she hesitated here slightly, ‘Fanshaw-Bayley is willing for you to join the Murder Squad.’
They had reached the tennis courts; Danny’s car was parked a few yards down the track next to them. Henry turned to her.
‘How do you know that?’ He stopped walking.
‘Because I already suggested it to him.’
Henry’s jawline hardened. A glaze of anger crossed his face. ‘Oh? And did you check with me before you started meddling with my career?’
Danny’s mouth popped open. Nothing came out of it.
‘I think it might have been prudent, don’t you?’ he said with hostility.
She closed her mouth. It became a tight, thin line. Her eyes criss-crossed his face. ‘I thought you’d be pleased. We need someone like you on the investigation.’
‘You thought wrong. In future leave well alone, you interfering cow!’
‘I bloody will.’ She pushed past him furiously, strode the few paces to her car, halted abruptly and spun round, shaking her head. ‘You’ve gone really odd, Henry. I don’t know what’s got into you.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘you don’t know, do you?’
‘Fuck you,’ she rasped and continued to her car, fumbling for her keys, tears having formed in her eyes.
‘Your pitiful security has been breached,’ the husky voice on the telephone informed the switchboard operator at Headquarters Control Room. ‘There is a bomb in your building and it will explode within fifteen minutes. This is not a hoax call.’
Speechless for the briefest of moments, the telephonist said, ‘Can you be more specific, please?’
‘Sure - you’ve got a bomb under your arse, bitch.’ Click. Phone dead.
The woman swivelled in her chair and called urgently across to the Duty Inspector. He went a whiter shade of pale at the news.
This was one of those ‘Do we, don’t we?’ dilemmas. It played itself out in his mind only momentarily. Although he was certain the security procedures of getting into the Control Room building were tight, he equally knew that no security system was perfect. Anyone determined enough could breach any system - and even if there was the faintest possibility of losing lives, there could only be one course of action.
‘Right - let’s get out of here,’ he announced smartly, acutely mindful that the whole network of communication across the county would be severely compromised. He prayed nothing big was about to happen.
Two hundred and fifty yards away from the Control Room, on the other side of the rugby pitch by the tennis courts, Danny Furness slammed the door of her car and sat there shaking, about to erupt in a torrent of tears.
Henry sagged against the outer fence of the tennis courts, curling his fingers tightly around the wire, his head bowed between his arms as he endeavoured to get a grip on himself, mentally thrashing himself for having spoken to Danny like that. He ground his teeth and lifted his chin to look across at Headquarters.
His vision was blurred with tears of self-pity, shame, anger, fear ... a bitter brew of all these things, bubbling and boiling from within like he was being eaten away by acid. He saw a lone figure cross the rugby pitch and trot confidently towards the helicopter. It meant nothing to him at that moment. His mind was elsewhere, in turmoil, in disarray.
Danny’s car started up. She put it in gear.
Henry drew himself up to his full height and stumbled towards her, waving with his hands, hoping to prevent her leaving.
Danny flicked the gear lever back into neutral and yanked on the handbrake.
Henry fell against the car, leaning against the edge of the roof with both hands. He squatted down on to his haunches and looked at Danny through the window, which she slowly opened.
The face she saw was one wrecked by grief, torn apart by something dreadful inside. She was deeply shocked.
‘Henry!’ she cried. ‘What’s wrong? What’s going on?’
‘Get ready, get ready,’ Smith uttered into his radio. ‘He’s here, he’s here. Security van just pulling on to the slip road. He’ll be with you very shortly. Get ready.’
‘Crane received.’
‘Hawker and Price received.’
‘Drozdov and Thompson received.’
At that exact moment a bomb threat was received in the Communications Room at Lancaster police station, the Divisional Headquarters for Northern Division in which Lancaster motorway services was situated.
Once again the call was taken seriously.
Evacuation procedures were put immediately into place.
‘Danny, I’m sorry,’ Henry babbled through his tears, but before he could say anything further, everything was cut short by a huge blast less than seventy yards away when the Force helicopter exploded in a massive fireball of blue and orange flame and black smoke.
Henry was battered flat on to his back by the shockwaves. A huge, dangerous slab of rotor-blade sliced through the air with a whistling sound and skidded across the bonnet of Danny’s car, thudding into the ground like a red-hot sabre only a matter of inches from Henry’s head. Other pieces of sharp, deadly flying metal smacked into the ground like strafe from a fighter plane, sizzling and burning. One crashed agains
t the windscreen of Danny’s car, making her cower in abject terror. The windows of buildings nearby were smashed by the mini-hurricane effect of the explosion, sending shards of glass scything into offices.
Henry rolled up on to his hands and knees, shaking his head incomprehensibly, but with one wary eye on the axe-shaped piece of rotor-blade in the ground which had nearly decapitated him. His whole word imploded and then came rushing back in a tidal wave of consciousness.
Danny threw her door open, leapt out of the car, went to Henry’s side, placing an arm around his shoulders. They stood up together, both unsteady, and turned.
The flames were now only a flicker, but plumes of thick black smoke circled up from the helicopter wreckage - a tangled, charred array of metal and glass.
People swarmed out of buildings to look.
For a moment, Henry was too stunned to say anything coherent. Then his mind cleared of all debris and the instinct of a cop came back into gear. He said urgently, ‘Get into the car, quick, Danny - let me drive.’
He jumped in through the open driver’s door and Danny, without question, ran around and got into the passenger seat.
‘I saw someone cross to the helicopter only seconds before it blew,’ Henry said hurriedly. ‘Could’ve been one of ours, I suppose, but he didn’t really seem to fit in. Unless he blew himself up, my commonsense tells me he’ll be running away from the place, not towards it.’
Henry accelerated away, the surge of engine power equal to the rush of adrenaline in his body. ‘Gotcha,’ she said.
On reaching the service area south of Lancaster, Colin Hodge slowed right down and scanned for the parking space he had been instructed to pull into. He had argued that it didn’t actually matter a toss where he put the van - after all, this was just a quick RV, a situation report - and then he would be on his way within minutes. But Smith had insisted he park specifically between the two HGVs. It would mean that fewer people would see and remember the security van on the service area; it was also an indication to the team that all was going well. If he didn’t park there, it would mean that the job would have to be put off. Hodge accepted the reasoning.
He spotted the two HGVs, having been told there would be a Sherpa van already parked between them, flashing hazard warning lights. As he lined up to park between the HGVs, the Sherpa drew away. Hodge drove into the tight vacant slot and stopped.
‘Fucking long way to the bogs from here,’ one of his mates observed, ‘especially if you’ve got the shits.’
‘I know. It’ll be all right. Just don’t like leaving the van out in the open - don’t want to become a target for a passing opportunist, do we? Out of sight, out of mind.’
It was sound logic, easily accepted by his two rather dim mates upfront with him and the one in the armoured hold behind, the one surrounded by millions of pounds.
‘Won’t be a minute.’ Hodge opened his door, briefly catching the reflection of the Sherpa in his wing mirror, reversing up behind. The reason why it might be doing so escaped him. He dropped to the ground only to meet the masked figure of Billy Crane appearing from underneath the rear wheels of the ERF Curtainside. He was holding a big black pistol in his hand.
Crane stepped smartly up to Hodge before he could react and rammed the muzzle of the gun under the chin strap of his helmet and pulled the trigger twice in quick succession. The soft-nosed bullets destroyed Hodge’s brain and he died instantly. Crane hurled him to one side before he fell, into the waiting arms of Hawker and Price who immediately began to haul him up on to the ERF trailer, behind the side curtain.
Crane climbed swiftly up the van steps and pointed his gun at the man in the passenger seat who was already reaching for the red emergency button on the dashboard radio.
‘Don’t,’ Crane warned him with a snarl, ‘or I’ll kill you where you sit.’
The man froze, his finger an inch away from the button. He eyed Crane’s weapon and the hooded figure.
Crane saw the man’s dilemma. ‘The choice is yours,’ Crane said slowly, ‘but if you do, I promise you’ll be dead before you pull your finger off the button.’
The guard’s mouth twisted. He made his decision and lurched for the button.
‘Wanker!’ screamed Crane and shot him three times on the side. One slug slammed into his neck, the second his biceps and third spiralled between two ribs and tumbled through the lungs, the force of the rounds smashing him up against the door.
Unfazed, still supremely confident, Crane turned his attention to the third terrified guard sitting behind. ‘You too?’
The man shook his head. Definitely not.
Crane beckoned him. ‘Get out this side. Slowly. Don’t try any crap, or I’ll fucking do you.’ Crane backed off, giving him space to climb down.
The guard held up his hands and slithered across the bench seat, contorting his way out of the cab. He was just in time to see Hodge’s feet disappearing under the curtain flap of the vehicle trailer. ‘Oh shit, I’m next, aren’t I?’
‘Not necessarily,’ Crane said.
Hawker and Price reappeared from underneath the curtain and dropped to the ground. Crane pushed the security guard towards them. ‘Look after him.’ He himself climbed back into the cab, reached across and unlocked the opposite door against which the wounded security guard was slumped. He was not yet dead and watched Crane through glassy, half-closed eyes, bubbles of blood on his lips as he laboured to breathe with severely damaged lungs. Crane winked at him through the eye-hole in his mask.
Drozdov and Thompson had drawn their car across the front of the security van and they were now standing at the nearside door of the van. ‘Get this fucker out of here,’ Crane yelled to them. Drozdov reached up and opened the door, stepping back as the guard flopped backwards and dropped out, smashing heavily down to the ground. He squirmed and groaned for a few moments, then died.
Drozdov picked up his feet, Thompson his arms and they dragged him around the rear of the van.
‘Can you hear me back there?’ Crane called to the last remaining guard, the one in the back of the van. Crane’s voice was very calm, very assured. He was feeling good, alive and kicking, his senses switched on, buzzing. He had missed this since coming out of jail and was blissfully conscious that he had a semi hard-on and that his cock was still growing, beginning to throb. Coordinating a highly successful drugs operation was good, but nothing compared to the rush of this. He did realise, however, even while the adrenaline pumped through him there and then, that this was it now, the last big job he would ever contemplate pulling - probably the biggest ever cash-only heist on the British mainland. One for the history books. He was going to enjoy it to the full.
‘Yeah,’ came a quivering response through the speaker.
‘Two of your mates are down already,’ Crane said. ‘Don’t know if they’re dead or not. Don’t give a shit,’ he shrugged. ‘But now the choice is yours. You can go the same way or you can open up nice and easy, get out, keep cool, be tied up for a while and live. See your family and friends again.’
‘You can’t get in here,’ the guard said defiantly.
‘In order to kill you, I don’t need to. I’ve got two canisters of gas here, one of which will kill you in seconds if I push it through the vent. The other is CS which will make you want to get out anyway - but I warn you, if I have to use the CS, I’ll kill you as soon as you open the door.’
There was silence.
Drozdov opened the driver’s door. Crane ‘shushed’ him with a gesture before he could speak.
‘I’m coming out,’ the guard said weakly.
Both Crane and Drozdov raced round to the back of the van as the door opened a quarter of an inch.
The guard peered out through the crack. Crane motioned him out.
Hesitantly he stepped down. Hawker grabbed him and flung him against the ERF trailer on to which the body of the security guard had been dumped alongside Colin Hodge. He stood next to his mate. They exchanged glances of abject terror. The
y were ordered to put their hands on their helmets and face the trailer.
‘What do we do with these two?’ Drozdov hissed to Crane.
Crane eyed him. ‘I’ve shown my balls - now it’s down to you.’
Drozdov walked up behind the guards. Quickly, without any degree of remorse, he shot them in the back of their necks with clinical precision, angling the muzzle of his pistol upwards, killing them instantly.
He spun and bowed graciously to Crane.
Henry Christie was thinking hard as he powered Danny’s MX-5 down Hutton Hall Avenue towards the exit. Yes, he had seen a guy walking towards the helicopter, but his mind and emotions had been elsewhere. Now he was trying desperately to recall some facts. What was he wearing? What did he look like?
He put his foot down and screamed the engine in first out of the gate, over the speed ramps - and up to the junction with the dual carriageway, the A59, which ran by Police Headquarters, left to Liverpool, right to Preston. He could not actually cross the carriageway at this point because the gap in the central reservation had long since been sealed to traffic: too many accidents caused by too many drunken cops was the reason Henry had been given.
That meant he had to turn left, no matter what.
Which was a problem because as his sharp eyes skimmed the immediate vicinity he spotted a man on the other side of the road running down a narrow path which led on to a quiet lane backing on to the A59.
It was only a fleeting glimpse, but enough for Henry, from years of culminated experience, to say, ‘That’s him - shit!’ He struck the steering wheel in frustration.
Then he peered at the gap in the central reservation which had been closed to cars and other motor vehicles by use of concrete bollards. It was still possible to get across on a push bike or on foot.
Henry’s mouth sagged open as he examined the width of the gap between the posts. Surely a car as petite as a Mazda MX-5 could fit through?