Was he really responding spontaneously, I wondered? It seemed like he’d been thinking about this for weeks. He went on:
“You’ll need to do several of them in quick succession. Once word gets around they may start installing counter-measures. The police may put more people on standby so they can mount a quicker response to alarms; there could be extra police patrols, maybe even security guards. You need to do a number of hits in three or four days at most. That means you can’t do all of them before nine in the morning. And that in turn means you’ll have to do some when not just counter clerks are around but members of the public could be as well. So you’ll need to disguise yourself.”
“What, you mean stocking over the face, or black balaclava with two eye-holes?” I asked.
He smiled wryly. “Something like that. The balaclava is good: no mouth, no hair colour or hair line visible. Only I’m not sure if I know a handy terrorist outfitters in this part of London.”
We chuckled.
“What do you suggest then?”
“You know the expedition place where I got the GPS? They have everything. People who go to the South Pole or up high mountains wear a form of balaclava—covers the head and mouth, just leaves a gap for the eyes. Usually in high visibility colours rather than black but that’s okay. It’ll work fine. We can always dye it black if we want to.”
“All right. What else?”
“Well, the counter clerk could be male or female, and either way they’re not going to take kindly to a polite request to empty the till into your bag. They’ve probably been told not to resist a robbery but they could send the alarm to the police without you seeing the move. And the top drawer doesn’t contain all that much money. If you want a better haul you’re going to need something to persuade them to unlock the bottom drawer.”
I hadn’t even realized there was a bottom drawer. Persuade them? What was he talking about?
“Do you mean a gun?”
“Yep, a handgun would be fine. The trouble is, this is England. You can’t just go into a shop and buy one over the counter. In fact you can’t buy one at all.”
“Criminals get them.”
“Yeah, but we don’t have those kind of connections. It doesn’t matter. You don’t need a real gun: you’re not going to shoot anyone, you’re only going to threaten them. You just need something that looks like a real gun.”
“There are plastic kits. I could make one.”
“Wouldn’t have the weight. No, we can do better than that. I think at least one company makes air pistols that are replicas of the real thing. They use CO2 capsules. Hang on a bit. I’ll look them up on the Internet. You can clear up the tea things while I’m doing it.”
Mike normally kept his laptop on the end of a counter in the kitchen, connected to the mains and broadband. That way it was always charged and ready for use. He booted it up and ten minutes later he beckoned me over. The last web page was still on the screen.
“I was right,” he said. “See, if you were going for a real gun I’d say you needed an automatic—Colt, Browning, Walther, something like that. But for a gun that really looks like a gun I don’t think you can beat a revolver. Like this one.” He pointed to the screen. “It’s a replica Smith and Wesson. We can get one with a six-inch barrel. Looks the business, eh? But it’s actually an air pistol.”
It certainly looked convincing.
“How are we going to get one?”
“Easy. This site lists the stockists. There’s one in Knightsbridge. I’ll get one for you tomorrow. All you have to do is get used to cocking it and handling it as if it was the real thing.”
“How much is it going to cost?”
Mike shrugged.
“Doesn’t matter, does it? We’ll get that back and more in the first job.”
I nodded. “Of course. Okay. Sounds good. What else?”
“Coordinates. I understand what you’re saying. You want to take a reading right at the counter and then add a bit so that you land on the other side. That’s okay. We can do that with the GPS.”
“How?”
“Just a minute.”
He went into the kitchen and I heard a drawer opening. He came back with a steel tape measure and stretched it across the kitchen counter top. “Allow a bit for the wall and partition…” he stripped some more tape out “…bit more for the chair… two metres should do it.” He let the tape retract. “We’ll set up your destination as a way point. All you do is add the two metres and direction to the reading you’ve got and it will give you the coordinates you want.”
“That’s good. I hadn’t realized we could do that.”
“Yeah, the guy showed me in the shop. Seems like that built-in compass is going to be useful after all; you can take a bearing at the same time as you’re recording the coordinates. Mmm, I just had another thought!”
“What’s that?”
“Well if we’ve got the compass bearing we can work out which way you should be facing in the cage when I project you. Then you’ll land pointing in exactly the right direction.”
“Oh, nice touch, Mike! Otherwise it would take me a few moments to get orientated. One thing, though. When I’m taking all these readings, is there some way I could avoid having to go right up to the counter? I know I’ll be wearing a balaclava when I’m doing the actual job but I’m still a bit worried they might recognize me or my voice.”
“It’s very unlikely. They’re dealing with hundreds of people every day. And you won’t be measuring all the locations; we’ll be sharing them out between us.”
“I didn’t say it was rational, Mike. It’s just that I don’t feel all that comfortable about it.”
“Well I’ll tell you what. While I’m out I’ll find a good hardware store and buy an ultrasonic tape measure. Contractors and surveyors and estate agents use them for measuring up rooms. It’s only a small plastic box with a button and an LCD readout. If you just stand there with it people will think you’re texting or something. You don’t even have to join a queue. You can stand back as far as you like and bounce the beam off the counter or the glass. Use it to get the exact distance from where you’re standing to the counter; we’ll add two metres afterwards to get to the point on the other side. Then you quietly swap it for the GPS receiver and you take the coordinates and compass bearing. Put it up to your ear and walk out of the place talking. Nobody will turn a hair.”
“That’s a good idea. Are they expensive, these ultrasonic gadgets?”
“No. Thirty or forty quid. Don’t worry. We’ll get that back too.”
We sat talking and planning for another hour and a half, breaking the project down into subtasks, assigning responsibilities and drawing up a schedule. It was amazing how easy it was to switch from planning an experiment to planning a crime. I found it gave me the same buzz, the same sense of excitement and anticipation, as embarking on a new piece of research. The skills, too, transferred readily from one sphere to the other. In both cases it was a matter of preparing and organizing, of predicting all the possible outcomes and modifying the design to take account of them. We got as far as we could and then called it a day. I would start work on it in the morning and Mike would make that important trip to the shops after his class in the afternoon.
*
The business of setting up the robberies was uppermost in my mind, of course, but whenever I stopped thinking about that I’d get depressed all over again. My research project had been a huge intellectual and technical challenge. For more than two years I’d done virtually nothing else, and working on it had got me deep into debt. The one thing that had kept me going was the prospect of showing all those blinkered idiots out there that there was another way of looking at matter, and proving it with a technology that would transform people’s lives and make me a household name. And now that I’d finally succeeded—succeeded beyond my wildest dreams—where were the rewards? Mike had opened my eyes all right. The world wasn’t ready for my discovery; society wasn’t mature e
nough to handle it in a civilized way. I couldn’t even publish my findings. It was enough to make anyone feel bitter.
Well, all right. I would commit myself totally to the new activity. If I couldn’t profit from my research scientifically, I would make damned sure I’d enjoy the benefit of it in every possible way.
And I do mean every possible way.
23
We hit the first post office the following Tuesday, at a quarter to nine in the morning. There was a skinny, elderly woman behind the counter and I materialized right behind her. I was in luck; she was just transferring money from the bottom drawer to the top drawer. I put a hand quickly over her mouth and pulled her back from the counter to keep her away from alarm buttons and kick plates. It gave her the hell of a fright. I gestured with the gun that I wanted the drawers emptied into my duffel bag. She didn’t need any persuasion but her hands were shaking so much I thought she was going to empty the money all over the floor. Somehow she managed to get the contents of both drawers into the bag.
“Lie down,” I said to her.
That seemed hard for her. She got as far as her hands and knees. I decided that was good enough.
I took a couple of steps back, transferred my awareness to the cage and lifted my arm, the signal for Mike to quench the resonance. And then I was back. It was as simple as that.
Mike helped me transfer about four thousand pounds in used notes from the duffel bag into a sports bag he’d brought along for the purpose. It wasn’t a huge amount but we were only just beginning.
I said, “Okay, what’s next on the list?”
Mike and I had spent the last few days visiting post offices. We had the coordinates for more than twenty suitable targets now and we’d drawn up a schedule. We would simply work down the list.
“Target Number Two is Shepherds Bush,” Mike said. He was already putting in the settings.
The clerk had just brought in the till for the day’s transactions. She didn’t see me land behind her. I sized her up. She was slightly overweight, dyed blonde, looked to be in her late thirties. Could be the owner or the wife of the owner. I went through the same moves as before, putting a hand over her mouth, pulling her away from the counter, and then pointing the gun at the drawers and at my duffel bag. She emptied the top drawer into the bag and then hesitated. I pointed the gun at the bottom drawer and then held it to her head. She fumbled out a key and turned it in the lock. It didn’t open. I started to get agitated. She was making an attempt to say something so I let the pressure off her mouth a little.
“There’s a time delay on the lock,” she gasped.
“’ow long?”
“About two minutes.”
I hadn’t anticipated that. I was tempted to call it a day. Then I thought, stay cool, it doesn’t make any difference. I was pretty sure she hadn’t been able to raise the alarm so there was still time. We were in line with the door, but it had posters on it, so we couldn’t easily be seen from the street. The street door was still locked, of course, and it would stay that way if she wasn’t there to open it. Even if someone else came in I’d still be able to disappear with what I had.
“Well, we’ll just have to wait then, won’t we?” I said keeping my voice very rough.
There was a chair at the back of the counter area. I reached out and hooked it with one foot, brought it closer, and dropped her into it.
“Put your hands on your head and keep ’em there,” I said. I was standing behind the chair and keeping the gun where she could see it. She was breathing very rapidly, her chest rising and falling. I reached my free left hand into her blouse, slipped it under her bra, and gave her right breast a good palping, just while we were waiting. She was starting to shake all over. I was thinking about dipping my hand under the waistband of her skirt when I heard a click from the lock. I let go of her and motioned with the gun for her to empty the contents into my bag.
I watched her dropping the money into the bag.
“All of it,” I snarled.
She licked her lips and said huskily, “That’s all of it.”
I snatched the bag from her, closed the flap over the money, and drew the string tight.
“Face down on the floor,” I commanded.
She did as she was told. I put a foot on one plump buttock and she shivered. It gave me some more ideas but there wasn’t time.
“Don’t look round.”
I signalled Mike and I was back in the lab emptying the bag for the second time.
I was starting to enjoy myself.
Target Number Three was in Notting Hill. By the time I arrived it was nearly nine o’clock. It looked as if they were running late because there was no one on the counter, although the door to the counter area was ajar. I peeked around it, just in time to see a man walking unhurriedly away down a short corridor. I followed him to a room at the back. He was grey-haired, probably in his fifties, but he had a wiry build. He’d just opened a safe, which was built into the wall at about head height, and he was withdrawing a box. I stepped up behind him, put a hand over his mouth, and jabbed the gun into his cheek so that he could see and feel what it was. I had decided that it would be fun if the accounts the police got from these different raids varied, so I put on a rough south London accent. It wasn’t that good, but with everything else that was going on I thought he might overlook that.
“Don’ make a sound and do wha’ I tell ya,” I barked, “unless you’d like to see yer brains decoratin’ that wall. Know wha’ I mean? Just nod yer ’ead if ya do.”
He’d gone rigid with the shock and surprise. I jabbed again with the barrel of the gun and he nodded his head rapidly.
Looking over his shoulder I could see that the inside of the safe was divided into two. On the left hand side were three compartments, arranged one above the other, each occupied by a lockable box. He’d been withdrawing the topmost box. I recognized it as a till, basically the bottom drawer that I’d emptied on the previous two raids. The right hand side of the safe was undivided; there were a few documents and boxes towards the back, but no money so far as I could see.
“Take art that till and open it up,” I said.
He withdrew the box and placed it in the right-hand section of the safe. He reached into his pocket, presumably for the key, but I wasn’t taking chances and I reacted quickly, pressing the gun harder against his cheek.
“Nice an’ easy, now,” I said.
His hand came out slowly with a bunch of keys on the end of a long chain. He fitted a key into the lock and turned it. My duffel bag was still hoisted over my left shoulder. I shrugged it down to my left hand and passed it in front of him.
“Now open this bag up and frow the money in,” I said, gesturing with the gun in my right hand. It seemed this was the opportunity he was looking for. He grabbed my right wrist with his left hand, jerking it forward and at the same time stabbing his right elbow back into my ribs. It caught me by surprise and it hurt, but I managed to keep hold of the gun. Then he tried to pull me over his extended right leg in a judo throw. Unfortunately for him he was standing close to the safe and he didn’t have enough room. I slammed my cupped left hand into the back of his head, driving it forward into the frame of the safe. He gave a shout of pain and I felt him go a bit slack. I was mad as hell, so I did it again, even harder, and his knees started to buckle. I didn’t let him drop, though. I plunged my left hand into the back of his shirt collar and twisted it as I held him up. He was spluttering.
“D’ye really want t’be a dead ’ero?” I asked him grimly. “If y’do, then just try somep’n stoopid like that again.”
I was quite pleased at being able to keep the accent up. I added slowly, with special menace:
“Now do wha’ I told yer and stop fuckin’ about.”
I eased the pressure on the collar and he put a hand to his throat, still gasping. I prodded him with the gun and he quickly wiped his eyes, shook his head, and reached for the box. When he’d emptied the money into the duffel bag I s
aid:
“Now do the same wiv the next till.”
“I haven’t got the key,” he said.
His voice was shaky but still defiant. There was no way he hadn’t got the key. I was pretty sure he was the owner, but even if he wasn’t he would know where spare keys were kept. I put the barrel firmly under his chin.
“Don’ fuck with me, mate, I swear I’ll blow your fuckin’ ’ead off.”
“All right, all right.”
He fumbled with the keys on that long chain and opened the next box. When he’d emptied that one I got him to empty the third.
“Now get on the floor,” I commanded.
He got onto his hands and knees, too slowly. I kicked him as hard as I could in the ribs, and he howled with pain. I was murderously angry with this little man who had the temerity to interfere with my plans. I stamped on the seat of his pants to push him to the floor.
“Go on, flat on the floor. Arms above yer ’ead. Spread yer legs,” I shouted at him, while I pulled the drawstring tight on the duffel bag. Spreading his legs was just a little finesse on my part. It enabled me to put a good kick between them, leaving him writhing in agony, as I gave Mike the signal to kill the resonance.
Things swam and I was back in the cage. I was still breathing hard but my improvisation had paid off handsomely. The haul was a lot better than a counter raid alone. Mike wanted to set the coordinates for another target but he didn’t know what had just happened and I gestured to him to call a halt. The adrenaline was still flowing and I wasn’t ready to start again. I left him sorting out the money and went over to the bench to make some coffee.
That little sod was probably ex-army or something. He was insured for the money so why did he have to have a go at me? Thinking about it, what I found interesting was my own reaction. When we’d started this caper it wouldn’t have entered into my head that I would actually want to shoot anyone. Yet if that chap had tried his luck again I have no doubt whatever that I’d have used the gun on him, I was that mad. I’d even forgotten for the moment that the gun wasn’t real.
The Man in Two Bodies (British crime novel): A Dark Science Crime Caper Page 12