by Dan Latus
What he suspected was that Bob, or the senior people behind him, had hoped that in the process of looking he would find Fogarty for them. Or, if not that, Fogarty would come out of hiding to get him. So he would be live bait.
He gave a mirthless grin. Alive for now, at least.
‘There is one other thing,’ Bob said finally. ‘I don’t know if you know this, but the haul from that job was never fully recovered.’
‘No?’
‘We got part of it, but a big lump stayed missing. Even more reason for Fogarty to be looking for his former colleagues. He’ll think one of them must have it.’
‘How much is missing?’
‘Twenty million, give or take a million or two.’ Bob grinned at him and added, ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if Fogarty really wants to talk to the van driver about that – if nothing else!’
‘Go on, Bob. Cheer me up.’
Chapter 10
He didn’t blame Bob, Jake decided on the drive back to São Brás. It wasn’t Bob’s fault. The witness protection scheme had been a good option for turncoats, and for agents who had been working long-term undercover, in some cases for several years, and then had had to appear in their true colours in open court. Something had to be done to protect people like that. Now, though? Well, now it seemed like a disaster, a total fuck-up, a reminder that if things can go wrong, they probably will.
Staying out of it hadn’t helped him much, either, he thought grimly. He was in the same boat as the others now anyway. Somehow names and locations, including his, had leaked. No doubt money had changed hands to make that happen. And now Fogarty was out, they were all seriously at risk. Every single one of them. Anyone who had ever stood against Fogarty knew what to expect.
Bob didn’t know the source of the leak, and now he was paddling like hell trying to keep them all afloat. He probably wished he’d taken the retirement package when it was offered a couple of years ago, instead of getting involved in this sorry business. He’d certainly had enough years behind him. Instead, he’d fancied taking one last crack at a Mr Big. And look where it had got him!
Where he did blame Bob, though, was for involving him. That had come about because they had known each other personally, and once had even worked together briefly. So, naturally, Bob had thought of him when he needed an extra man from outside the Northumbria service for a short time. Naturally. And look how well that had worked out!
If only he hadn’t been bored out of his skull at the time, and eager to do anything to get the adrenaline flowing again. If only. He gave a grim smile and shook his head.
The job had been to stop the heist and bring Fogarty down. The cops in the Met, as well as in a few other places, were sick to death of him getting away with things they knew for certain were down to him. He’d been doing it for years. Only clever, mercenary lawyers and intimidated and murdered witnesses had kept him out of prison and in his Essex mansion. So when inside information about the proposed job came along, it had looked like the opportunity the police had been awaiting a long time.
The job had been straightforward enough. A cash heist, the sort of thing Fogarty had specialized in for many years. As so often, Nicci the Greek had set this one up for him. A cash centre in the Team Valley, Gateshead, one of thirty dotted around the country as part of the Bank of England’s Note Circulation Scheme (NCS). The centres stored banknotes and distributed them to, and collected them from, retailers and financial institutions, ATMs and so on, as needed.
They were operated by four or five private companies – retail banks and security firms – that were the members of the NCS at the time. It was a system that had been introduced in 2001 to reduce the burden on the Bank of England, and the risk, of moving banknotes long distances around the country. It was up to the members of the NCS to make sure they were adequately protected by insurance.
Jake had been surprised to learn that despite internet retailing and the seemingly universal use of plastic, cash retained a massive role in the economy. In fact, there were more banknotes in circulation in the UK than ever before: £64 billions’ worth in 2015.
He had also been intrigued to learn that the NCS cash centres were home to eye-watering piles of banknotes at any time, and even more so in the run-up to Christmas, and afterwards for the January sales. The cash mountains reach a peak around February, by which time the shopping has eased off, and an awful lot of banknotes are coming home to rest until they are next needed.
The Team Valley cash centre had banknotes worth £40 million when Fogarty hit it late one dreary February evening. The gang didn’t completely empty the place but it wasn’t for want of trying, and there wasn’t much left when they departed.
Fogarty had well-established systems for laundering the cash take from jobs, systems that had served him well over the years. Nicci again. So cash could be moved quickly and efficiently, and a good price obtained for it. Used banknotes were especially valuable.
Something else that was attractive about Nicci’s proposal, from Fogarty’s point of view, was that it was in an area where they weren’t used to crimes of such magnitude. They had never had one. And it was well away from the territory of the Met, Fogarty’s main adversary for so many years.
All in all, the job should have been safe, easy and lucrative. So it would have been, too, without the undercover team that the Met had worked into the heart of Fogarty’s operation, and if Nicci hadn’t been attracted by the offer of a clean slate in exchange for collaboration.
From the cops’ point of view, the main objective was to catch Fogarty at it. It was no good arresting only the hired help. They wanted the man himself. Otherwise, he would walk away again, and live to fight another day. His lawyers would contend that what his employees did in their spare time was up to them. It was nothing to do with him.
Over the years it had been no good thinking the hired help could be turned. Fogarty rewarded his people handsomely if they took it on the chin when they were caught. They always knew that they, and their families, would be well looked after if they stayed loyal. As for anybody who sold out, well, it was likely to be a short life with a painful and distressing end.
That was how it had always been. But the game changer this time was that Nicci had been turned. Somehow. They had him on toast. He had to cooperate.
Nicci persuaded Fogarty, against his usual practice and better judgement, to be in on the heist personally. He sensed Fogarty wanted to feel the old adrenaline rush once again, before he got too old for it. Mike Hendrik argued against it, but Nicci was persuasive and Fogarty was hooked. Gateshead was safe, Nicci insisted. Nothing was going to happen there. They would be in and out fast, with nobody hurt or left behind. The local cops would all be asleep. The Met were 300 miles away.
Jake came into it late in the day. One of the getaway drivers broke his leg playing Sunday league football for his local pub team. They needed a replacement. Nicci said he would find one. He talked to Bob, his local contact in the Northumbria police, who came up with Jake. Jake, bored to death in premature retirement from the secret service, jumped at the opportunity. So that’s how it was, going into the job.
But confusion reigned that February evening. More than one police service was involved, for a start. So there were communication and liaison problems. Then the inside team had needed to keep their heads down in the final run-up, to avoid suspicion and to make sure the job went ahead. An unfortunate result was that the main police effort was focused on nearby premises where banknotes for governments around the world were printed, rather than the NCS cash centre where sterling banknotes were stored.
Unbelievable. You couldn’t have made it up. But that’s what happened.
So when Jake drove one of the getaway vans around the corner, exactly as planned, his arrival at a police cordon created consternation. The plan had been to stop the raid in its tracks, before the gang got inside the cash centre. The way things actually developed, though, improvisation was needed to stop the raiders escaping with what th
ey had come for.
That went surprisingly well. A Met back-up team hastily re-deployed made the stop, and believed they had caught the whole lot of them, Fogarty included. His lawyers screamed entrapment and provocation at the trial, but for once they were pissing into the wind. They got nowhere. And Fogarty got thirty years.
All the informants and undercover people on the heist, and Nicci especially, were marked for life, of course. They all knew that. They had known from the outset. So arrangements were made for them to build new lives under the witness protection scheme.
That should have been good enough. Seemingly, it hadn’t been.
And this is what it had come to, Jake thought with a sigh. Well, he would just have to deal with it. And the others would have to look after themselves. Every man for himself, whatever Bob wanted. It was all right Bob talking heroically, but it wasn’t his life that was on the line.
As for Nicci? Oh, he’d liked Nicci well enough, as he’d come to know him, but Nicci was a career criminal. He didn’t owe him, or anyone else in the undercover team, one damn thing. He hadn’t even met some of them before the trial.
Besides, realistically, what could he do that the country’s police forces, especially the Met, couldn’t do? Bob was being ridiculously naïve.
None of them needed warning anyway. They knew what danger they were in. They always had known. That’s why they’d fled from witness protection. And, now, they would know soon enough that Fogarty had escaped from prison. It would be all over the papers and the TV screens. Millions of opinions shared on Facebook and Twitter, as well, no doubt.
No way, he thought, shaking his head. Get real, Bob! Thanks for the warning, but I’m out of it – and I’m staying out. If I can’t do that here, in São Brás, I’ll move on. I might even go to see what that cottage Magda was on about looks like. Why not? It’s an option.
Then something else struck him. Somebody, somewhere, must know what had happened to the twenty million pounds, mostly in used banknotes, that was apparently still missing from the heist.
That was an interesting thought.
Chapter 11
They sent people to rummage around Palmers Green, Wood Green, Chelsea, and the other areas in London popular with Greeks, but nothing came of it. The few who recognized the name or the face of Nicci simply shrugged and said they had no idea where he was now. Gone away, probably. They hadn’t seen him for years, months anyway.
It wasn’t a stone wall they were facing; it was more a wall of indifference bred of lack of knowledge. Nobody seemed to know enough even to be curious, let alone to be worried about the questions. Nobody knew anything. It was a dead end.
‘We’re asking in the wrong places,’ Fogarty said, swirling scotch over the ice cubes in his glass.
‘You think?’
Fogarty nodded.
Hendrik weighed it up. ‘Maybe,’ he admitted, ‘but our boys generally know where to go.’
‘Then they’re not asking the right people.’
‘So what do you suggest?’
‘Get your coat, Mike. I fancy a Greek meal. Haven’t had one of them for a long time.’
Hendrik stared at him. ‘All the trouble we’ve gone to, and you want to risk throwing it all away by appearing in public? You’re mad!’
‘Get your coat!’ Fogarty chuckled. ‘Let’s go and have a bit of fun.’
They visited a restaurant where Fogarty had once been well known, and quite a favoured customer. That was before his arrest, and long before he ever saw the inside of Belmarsh. Now it was different. From the moment he set foot inside the place, it was different.
Hendrik was worried by all the eyes that sought them out.
‘Christ, we can’t stay here, Ed!’
Fogarty ignored him and headed straight for the table he had always preferred. He plonked himself down on a chair and turned his head to take in the restaurant. Hendrik hesitated a moment or two before joining him. When one of the waiters noticed them, realized who they were and backed off, he almost got up again.
‘Ed, they’ll be on the phone to the cops.’
Fogarty shook his head. ‘Not if they’ve got any brains.’
Smiling, he beckoned one of the waiters over. ‘Tell the boss I want to see him. And bring us a bottle of good wine – a good one, mind! None of your house rubbish.’
The man smiled nervously and ducked his head before scurrying away.
Hendrik tapped his fingers on the table anxiously, and wondered if he should have the car brought to the front door right now. They couldn’t stay. He knew that. This was crazy.
‘Mr Fogarty!’ Costa, the owner, cried as he came bustling towards them. ‘How are you? Long time since you are here.’
‘Too true, Costa. But it’s not my fault. Circumstances detained me.’
‘And now you are free? Wonderful! Let me bring you our special menu.’
As Costa bustled away, Fogarty winked at Hendrik and said, ‘Relax, Mike.’
‘You stupid sod!’ Hendrik responded, grinning reluctantly. ‘If the Met still had a Flying Squad, they would be here by now.’
Fogarty shrugged. ‘Life is full of “ifs”. You can’t allow yourself to be deflected by them.’
Costa returned, and helped them with a small menu he kept for favoured customers. As they chose, he congratulated them on their choice, and ushered in a wine waiter with a very special bottle.
‘One thing I want to ask you, Costa,’ Fogarty said as they finished ordering. ‘Nicci – that is, Nikos Antonakis. Have you seen him recently, or heard of him?’
‘Nicci?’ Costa screwed up his face as he concentrated and tried to recall if he knew anything. ‘Antonakis? No, I don’t know about him. Not for a long time.’
‘Think, Costa, think!’ Fogarty urged. ‘And when you remember something, let me know, huh?’
‘Of course, Mr Fogarty.’
Fogarty leant back in his chair and looked around. ‘Nice place, you have here.’
‘Thank you,’ Costa said nervously. ‘Yes, it is. Very nice, I think.’
‘I hope you have good insurance for it – fire insurance, for instance?’
Costa nodded slowly, seeing where this was headed.
‘And loss-of-business insurance, of course. That’s important. If anything happened here, you’d need that while the rebuilding took place – or until you could get another place sorted out. You couldn’t afford to be shut for six months, could you? The bills would keep on coming, even if the money didn’t. And meanwhile staff and customers would disappear like spring snow.’
‘Insurance?’ Costa repeated weakly, as if it were a novel idea.
Fogarty shook his head and looked at Hendrik. ‘What do you think, Mike?’
‘Can you get that kind of insurance? Insurance that’s good enough, I mean?’
‘I don’t know. It’s a question.’ Fogarty sighed and looked around speculatively. ‘Mario? What do you think?’
After a long pause, Costa said with resignation, ‘I did hear he’d gone back to the old country.’
‘Who did?’ Fogarty said, looking puzzled.
‘Antonakis.’
‘Ah!’
‘Where’s that?’ Hendrik asked innocently. ‘The old country?’
‘Greece.’
‘Oh? Where, exactly?’
Costa shrugged despondently. ‘One of the islands, possibly. I don’t really know.’
With one finger, Fogarty reached out and tipped the special bottle of wine off the table. It fell with a crash onto the stone floor. A wave of red wine swept around Costa’s feet, making him step back hurriedly.
‘You’ll have to do better than that,’ Fogarty said gently.
Costa glared at him and then spun round to call one of the waiters, who were all looking to see what had caused the commotion. A young man came over. Costa spoke to him fast.
‘In English,’ Fogarty snapped.
‘Attis, these gentlemen wish to know where Nikos Antonakis is from in Gree
ce. You know, I believe?’
The waiter looked at all three of them, seemed to understand the situation and said, ‘Crete. He is from Crete.’
‘Thank you, Attis,’ Fogarty said. He pushed back his chair and stood up.
Hendrik rose with him and said, ‘Sorry about the wine, Costa.’
Costa gave him a thin smile, a little bow and an unspoken message: Go on, get the fuck out of here!
Then the young waiter, inexperienced in such matters, snarled with contempt and said something that didn’t need translation to be understood.
Fogarty paused for a moment. Then he turned and reached out. He grabbed the waiter by a bunch of his shirt front, smashed him in the belly with his fist, and head-butted him savagely. The waiter sagged, broken. Blood spurted from where his nose used to be.
Costa reached out automatically. Hendrik, even quicker, seized his arm and stopped him.
‘Tell him to apologize,’ Fogarty said.
Costa steadied himself and spoke to the waiter, who gasped and mumbled in return.
‘In English,’ Fogarty snapped.
‘I apologize,’ the waiter whispered without further prompt.
Fogarty studied him a moment longer and then let go of his shirt front. ‘You’d better mean it,’ he warned before turning to head for the exit.
Chapter 12
Hendrik followed Fogarty outside, out into the blessedly busy street where no-one took any notice of them. He began to relax.
‘So that’s where Nicci is,’ Fogarty mused as they walked back to the car parked a couple of blocks away. ‘Crete, eh?’
Hendrik nodded. ‘Sounds right.’
‘Yeah. It had to be somewhere like that. It’s a big island, though.’
‘We’ll find him, if he’s there.’
‘He will be.’
‘You think?’
‘Not much doubt about it.’ Fogarty grinned. ‘Twenty million quid on Crete? We’ll soon spot him. He’ll be living like a fucking king!’