‘No idea, James. Sasha’s giving us all different jobs and keeping everything under his hat. Right now I’m heading over to pick up a fast motor. You’d better get the first train back to Luton. Both of you get your pictures taken in the photo booth and I’ll send someone over to pick them up. You should be able to get a train from Kings Cross and be there by half two.’
‘Sounds OK. What—’ But the other end of his call had gone dead. James pocketed his phone and turned to Chloe. ‘You’ll have to drop us at a station somewhere, so it looks like we’re coming back from London.’
Bruce tutted. ‘We’re only a few miles out of town, you knob. Why did you say London?’
‘Because he put me on the spot,’ James said irritably. ‘And he wants our photos taken. How weird is that?’
Chloe rolled out her bottom lip. ‘Sounds odd. You must be going in under disguise, wearing ID badges or something.’
‘And Wheels mentioned a name I haven’t heard before: the Kruger brothers. Does it mean anything to you? Oh, and he said Savvas was preparing three vans and Wheels was picking up a fast motor. In my book, that means he’s going to be sending in more men than we were expecting.’
‘That’s good,’ Bruce said. ‘More crooks to catch.’
Chloe nodded. ‘Headache for Inspector Rush though. We’d better tell him he needs more manpower.’
43. POPS
The Zoo was never lively at 7:30 in the morning. James, Bruce and Michael were heading to the same place at the same time, so it was hardly surprising that they ended up at adjacent tables in the dining-room. They couldn’t act too close in public, but they exchanged a few taut words before Michael headed upstairs to don his protective clothing.
James was tense and only managed half of his Cocoa Pops and a small banana. On the other hand, Bruce had wolfed down scrambled egg, kippers and three slices of bread.
‘You never get nervous,’ James said, as the two boys headed through the lounge and out of the front door.
‘I’ve trained myself to focus,’ Bruce replied. ‘Breathing, concentration and the fact that nothing gets me going like the prospect of a monumental punch-up.’
James managed to smile, but as they headed down the street he couldn’t help wondering if Bruce’s love of violence didn’t indicate something not quite right in his head.
The weather had turned warm and Sasha told the boys they’d have an opportunity to change before the raid, so they carried their body armour and guns inside backpacks.
‘Nice motor,’ Bruce grinned, when he saw Wheels waiting for them in the driver’s seat of a BMW M5. ‘Bit fancier than the Astra.’
The front passenger seat was taken up by a man with a face like thousand-year-old limestone. James and Bruce squeezed into the back alongside his equally fearsome-looking mate.
‘James, Bruce, these are the Kruger brothers,’ Wheels said. ‘Tony and Tim, this is James and Bruce.’
‘Morning,’ James said, as he slammed the car door.
Chloe had run the Krugers on the police computer and pulled up a long list of suspected armed robberies, but no convictions apart from a couple of stretches in youth custody back in the 1980s. It seemed strange that two brothers whose careers had been based around carefully planned robberies were coming to help Sasha take down Major Dee, but James reckoned it made sense when he saw them up close: out of all the hard men he’d ever met, these two were the ones James would have wanted on his side in a rumble.
‘Sasha speaks highly of you boys,’ Tim Kruger said, as he reached across the back seat to shake hands.
His voice was gravel and he clamped James’ hand so tight that it felt like he was going to crush bone, but Bruce took his turn as a challenge and squeezed back. James was in the middle with the two arms stretched across his lap and Bruce’s bony wrist apparently being crushed by a fist the size of a ham. After ten tense seconds the handshake broke and Tim Kruger exploded in a volcanic laugh which sent shockwaves through James’ body.
‘Tough little bugger this one,’ Tim roared approvingly. ‘Not much meat but there’s a grip like a vice on him.’
They drove on for fifteen minutes, passing through the Thornton Estate where James had lived on his first mission in the area. He felt a slight kick of nostalgia as they skimmed past shabby houses and football pitches that evoked memories of long forgotten kickabouts, but they drove on through the back of the estate into an area of industrial units that bordered on to the high-fenced compound around Luton airport.
A 737 passed over seconds after leaving the runway, making a roar that shook the entire car. After a few more seconds, Wheels turned off the road into the car park surrounding a branch of Sofa World. It still had Closing Down and Last Day 75% Off Everything banners draped on the exterior.
He slowed to a crawl as he cut across the empty parking bays and under a half opened metal shutter, which was immediately pulled down by two members of Sasha’s crew dressed in yellow overalls.
James and Bruce were baffled as they entered the cavernous space, which still had a scattering of tatty shop fittings and was marked out with aisles and carpeted areas for displaying soft furniture.
Half a dozen Mad Dogs sat on stained and broken sofas that even the final day’s Discount Madness hadn’t shifted, drinking tea and waiting for something to kick off. Two black Mercedes vans and the cab of an articulated truck were parked on the carpet. The vans were freshly painted with the logo of an airport catering company stencilled on the side, while the truck looked like something out of a sci-fi movie, with a thick sheet of Plexiglas bolted over the windscreen and a battering ram made from two huge H-bar girders welded to the front.
James was last out of the car and he couldn’t help thinking that something was wrong. The Krugers, the passport photographs and the fact that the airport was miles from where Major Dee was doing his drug deal had already made James wonder if things were going according to plan, but the set-up inside Sofa World sent him into a full-on panic.
‘You’ve all made it,’ Sasha said happily, as he ran out of an office and – clearly knowing better than to try a handshake – gave Tim and Tony Kruger friendly thumps on the shoulder. ‘It’s all come together so well, the gods must be smiling on us.’
‘Is Savvas back from the other place?’ Wheels asked.
Sasha nodded. ‘He’s wired up enough sticks of gelignite to blow the joint sky high,’ he grinned. ‘Major Dee isn’t gonna have a clue.’
‘What about the money?’
‘I just got the call,’ Sasha said. ‘The money’s on board and the plane should be taking off from Schipol any minute now.’
‘Ahem,’ Bruce said, clearing his throat. ‘Me and James are putting our butts on the line the same as everyone else. Is anyone gonna tell us what’s going on?’
*
Over the other side of town, Major Dee had a spring in his step and the scent of Sasha Thompson’s blood. He had six men inside the small warehouse to do the drug deal. Thirty more were discreetely parked in the surrounding streets, along with specially invited guests from a London-based crew Sasha had ripped off the previous year and some men from Salford, whose wounds were fresher.
Doubting that the Mad Dogs could muster more than twenty men, Major Dee had adopted a simple strategy. After securing his supply of drugs from the smugglers, he’d let the Mad Dogs enter the warehouse and try to steal them. But when they tried to leave, they’d find the building surrounded by an armed posse outnumbering them by at least three to one. It would be a slaughter.
Michael arrived at a meeting point in a side street ten minutes from the industrial estate where the deal would take place, then walked to the warehouse and moved quickly up a fifteen-metre access ladder built on to the back. The roof was made from corrugated metal that clanked underfoot. It felt warm on his hands as he laid in front of a ventilation shaft.
He pulled a Philips screwdriver out of his pocket and used it to undo a holding bracket at one end of a moss-covered slat. Once i
t grated free, he pushed his head through the gap and stared at the warehouse below. Major Dee didn’t use walkie-talkies, so his final step was to sit up and make sure his mobile had a signal.
Michael called Major Dee to say he was in place, then sent Gabrielle an I LOVE U text as he looked up at the bright morning sun. It only took her a few seconds to text back:
KEEP SAFE LUV U2
*
James had all of his protective gear under a tracksuit Sasha had brought for him. They’d taken everyone’s mobiles because cops can use them to trace your location, but he still had the transceiver disguised as a sticking plaster stuck on his neck.
‘Are you gonna be in there all day?’ James yelled, as he thumped on the door of the staff toilet near the entrance to Sofa World.
‘Takes as long as it takes,’ Savvas said. ‘And you’re not gonna want to come in here after I’ve finished.’
‘But I’m busting,’ James moaned.
‘Go out around the back and pee against the wall.’
‘Are we allowed out?’
‘Just tell Riggsy that I said it was an emergency.’
Riggsy was one of the older Mad Dogs. He was a serious poker player who hated it when the youngsters got rowdy in Sasha’s basement.
‘Where’d you think you’re going?’ he asked, cutting James off has he headed for a fire door.
‘Savvas said it was OK,’ James said. ‘He’s been in the bog for about twenty minutes.’
Riggsy found this hilarious and he yelled at the men sitting on the sofas: ‘Here, the boy says Savvas is back on the shitter again!’
Everyone cracked up, but James was baffled and Riggsy had to explain.
‘Savvas always gets the squirts when he’s nervous about a big operation. Now go out and have your piss, but make it quick because we’re on the move the second Sasha gives the word.’
James headed through the fire door and out on to a narrow section of concrete. There was only a wire fence between himself and the busy car park of the DIY store next door, so he jogged to the rear of the building and stood facing the wall.
‘Chloe,’ he whispered, as he pressed a thumb on the transceiver.
The receiver was designed so that it never blurted out a message at an inappropriate moment. The tiny speaker only worked when he pressed the plaster down with his thumb.
‘Chloe,’ James repeated, as he pulled down the front of his tracksuit bottoms and tried to extract his penis from inside his body armour. He didn’t really need to go, but he had to make a puddle or the others might get suspicious.
‘James? James, I can barely hear,’ Chloe answered, before the signal disintegrated into a mass of digital noise. ‘Where are you? I got stuck in traffic and then we lost both of your mobile signals.’
‘Sofa World, out near the airport,’ he whispered. ‘Listen, I’ve only got a few seconds. We’re in deep doo-doo. Sasha’s flipped this whole thing on its head. Apparently untold valuable cargo goes through Luton airport every day and the Krugers have been after robbing it for years. Sasha knows all about the warehouse and we’re going into the airport while the cops have their hands full on the other side of town.
‘He’s got some massive battering ram and I’ve been given plane tickets and a false passport. That’s what the photos were for. I don’t know all the details, but we’re robbing cash from a flight that left Holland about forty minutes ago … Oh, and Wheels mentioned Major Dee and sticks of gelignite in the same breath. I reckon they’re planning to blow up the warehouse. You’d better get Michael out of there.’
James stopped talking, partly because he was short of breath, and partly because he had to scramble backwards as a gust of wind blew his pee towards his trouser leg.
‘Shit,’ he gasped, as he shook himself off and looked at a big wet streak down his tracksuit. It was embarrassing, but it wasn’t the most important thing in his life at that moment. He kept his thumb pressed down on the plaster, but Chloe didn’t respond.
‘Chloe,’ he hissed. ‘Chloe, did you hear any of what I just said?’
There was no response. A second later Wheels came around the corner.
‘It’s time, James,’ he yelled. ‘I’ve got to drive you to the airport.’
44. RIPPLE
The container truck reversed into the warehouse at 9:37 a.m. The driver was alone and didn’t appear to be armed, which was no surprise because Simeon had said that the handover was routine.
Michael peered through the roof into the bare concrete space as the container doors swung open. The driver worked alongside three of the Slasher Boys, climbing into the container and rolling each heavy drum of cooking oil down a plywood sheet on to an old mattress at the bottom.
Each drum was slowed by one of the Slasher Boys and manhandled on to a mechanical scale. The smugglers had mixed drums containing cocaine amongst drums full of oil and the only way to tell them apart was by a slight difference in weight.
Once a drum with cocaine inside was identified, the final pair of men worked to extract it from the oil. One peeled back the aluminium lid, while another – wearing an elbow-length surgical glove – plunged his hand deep into the gluey liquid and retrieved a vacuum-packed brick of cocaine.
He then cut away an outer layer of plastic which dribbled with strings of yellow oil, before throwing the clean brick beneath into the boot of an Alfa Romeo. Once the twelfth packet of cocaine had been recovered, the men began rolling the hefty drums back up the ramp. They also replaced the ones that had been opened, so that the end customer would be greeted by a full container and have no idea that his weekly shipment of cooking oil formed part of a cocaine smuggling route.
Michael thought the operation uncharacteristically slick considering that it was run by someone as disorganised as Major Dee. His stomach was turning somersaults as the container banged shut and he took his head out of the vent and looked around, expecting to see Mad Dogs at any second.
But he was startled to see youths cutting through overgrown weeds on an adjacent patch of land. Most of them were teenagers holding bats and guns, and although he didn’t have time to count, Michael guessed there were at least fifty of them.
He grabbed his phone out of his top and wondered whether to call Maureen or Major Dee first; but his calls were being monitored in the mission control room on campus, so he went for Major Dee.
‘How does it look from up there?’ Dee asked, sounding full of himself.
‘Big problem,’ Michael gasped. ‘There’s a massive gang of boys coming towards the warehouse. Fifty at least.’
Major Dee sounded disbelieving. ‘The Mad Dogs don’t have fifty men.’
‘It’s not the Mad Dogs,’ Michael said. ‘They look like Runts. Sasha must have tipped them off.’
‘Fifty,’ Dee shouted anxiously. ‘Hang it up, I’ve gotta get the boys moving.’
Michael rolled on to his stomach as the phone went dead. He crawled to the edge of the gently sloping roof and watched the Runts closing in. Then he noticed a change in the light behind him. At first it seemed like a glint from the sun, but within a second there was a blast of heat and the building started to tremble.
*
Wheels was a beautiful driver. Effortlessly fast and totally confident, he weaved through cabs and baffled tourists to reach the drop-off area at the front of Luton airport’s main terminal.
‘Sorry I couldn’t let you boys know about this sooner,’ Sasha said, as he led James and Bruce through a set of automatic doors and into the terminal. ‘We’ve waited years for a chance to rob this airport and I had to keep my cards close. We almost did it a couple of years back when the Queen opened the new hospital, but there wasn’t a flight with the right sort of cargo.’
‘You’ve got people inside the airport?’ James asked.
‘Loads,’ Sasha nodded. ‘It’s the biggest employer in town. Half of my crew has friends or relatives who work here. You don’t even need to worry about getting your face on the security cameras, ’cos w
e’ve had some leads pulled.’
They had reached the security desk for domestic flights. Their boarding passes had been downloaded and printed out before Sasha left home and there were only a dozen people ahead in the queue to get coats and bags X-rayed.
As they crept forward, James worried that his body armour would set off the electronic barrier, even though Savvas had checked him over with a handheld metal detector back at Sofa World. But James could never stand in a security line without worrying about something. He began inspecting his fake passport.
The picture taken at Luton station the previous afternoon was goofy, but he was impressed by the standard of the printing and watermarking and decided that the passport was probably a blank stolen out of a passport office or consulate.
The security officer merely scanned the barcodes on their boarding passes and didn’t even look at the passports before pointing them towards the walk-through metal detector. James had seen that the flight listed on his boarding pass was leaving from Gate Eleven and was confused when Sasha started in the other direction.
‘The tickets are just to get us through security,’ Sasha explained. ‘We’re heading for the cargo terminal.’
They had to walk past seven gates, ending up at a doorway adjacent to the first-class lounge marked Private Aviation Only.
The counter in front of it was unmanned. Sasha produced a security pass and slotted it into a lock. After a green light and a buzz, the door came open and the trio jogged down a short ramp towards a staircase and a set of automatic doors where passengers would usually board a bus to reach an aeroplane parked away from the terminal.
Up to this point Sasha had appeared to be on top of things, but panic came into his eyes as he looked around.
‘What’s up?’ James asked.
‘There’s supposed to be some stuff waiting for us.’
‘Got it,’ Bruce said, as he wheeled a catering trolly out from under the staircase.
Sasha pulled up the shutter on the trolley’s side and smiled with relief as he saw a duffle bag and three sets of overalls.
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