Live Fire (3 page)

McMullen and Edwards went through to the safe-deposit room. Edwards dropped his sports bag on the metal table in the middle of the room and took out two electric drills. He handed one to McMullen, then pulled a folded sheet of paper from the inside pocket of his coat. He scanned the list. ‘You do two-five-eight and two-five-nine to start,’ he said.

McMullen ran his gloved hand down the bank of boxes until he found two-five-eight. He pulled the trigger on the drill and pressed the whirring bit against the lock. As he drilled out the lock mechanism, Edwards started on another box.

Brewerton and Franklin watched the robbers leave the bank on one of the monitors on the wall behind the manager’s desk. On another Sandra Ford was comforting the customers. One of the pensioners was crying and she put an arm around her.

‘See, Owen, that wasn’t too hard, was it?’ said Brewerton.

‘What happens now?’ asked Crompton, looking anxiously at the gun in Brewerton’s shoulder holster.

‘Now we’ll be on our merry way,’ said Franklin, standing up.

‘What about my wife and son?’

‘They’ll be fine, Owen,’ said Franklin. ‘You did everything we asked – you did us proud. Your wife and daughter will be released in one hour. All you have to do is wait one hour and she’ll call you. As soon as she does you can call the cops.’

‘My career’s over, you know that?’ said Crompton. ‘They’ll think I helped you. They’ll think I was your inside man.’

‘What do you want, Owen?’ asked Brewerton. ‘Do you want I put a bullet in your leg or we beat the crap out of you?’

‘I’m just saying, the police always think there’s an inside man.’

‘We kidnapped your wife and your boy. They’ll understand you had to co-operate.’

Crompton folded his arms and shook his head emphatically. ‘You don’t get it, do you? Even if the cops don’t blame me, my bosses will never trust me again. My career’s over.’

‘Owen, if you keep whining like this we will shoot you,’ said Brewerton. He pointed at the bank manager. ‘Count your bloody blessings. Your family are okay, nobody died, we got our money.’

‘All’s well that end’s well,’ said Franklin. ‘And much as we’d love to keep on chatting, we’ve got to go. Remember, you wait here until your wife calls, then you phone the police.’ Crompton nodded. Franklin grinned. ‘Be lucky,’ he said, as he and Brewerton headed for the door.

Don Parkinson pulled hard on the steering-wheel and drove through the narrow alley, the dented wings of the Transit only inches away from the weathered bricks on either side. At the end he swung the wheel to the right and accelerated under a railway arch, then made a hard left turn down a road that led to a disused factory. It had once made fireproof safes but had closed in the face of cut-throat competition from China and South Korea. A sign at the entrance to the yard announced that a property-development firm had acquired the premises and would soon be turning them into upmarket apartments. The chain that had kept the gates locked had been cut and they were pulled opened by a man in a blue tracksuit and gleaming white trainers. Parkinson drove through. The man flashed Edwards a thumbs-up and began to close the gates as Parkinson drove to the delivery area at the side of the main building.

The metal roll-shutter door was already opening but Parkinson revved the engine impatiently. ‘Easy, DP,’ said Edwards.

‘They should’ve had it open,’ said Parkinson. ‘Bloody amateurs.’

As soon as the shutter was high enough, he stamped on the accelerator and drove inside. The factory was half the size of a football field with lines of square concrete pillars running up to a metal framework supporting the roof. Fluorescent lights festooned with cobwebs hung from the beams. The machinery that had once been manned by hundreds of workers had been stripped out and the only sign that it had been a thriving business was a line of offices at the far end. Rats scurried in the corners and pigeons cooed from the safety of the nests they had built in the joints of the beams high in the ceiling.

Another man, wearing a tracksuit and training shoes, was standing between two black BMW saloons, the boot lids open. He was the father of the man who had opened the gates for them. Dean and Roger Barrett had worked together even before Dean had been old enough for a driving licence and they were two of the best drivers in London. Knight, McMullen and Marker piled out of the rear of the van with the nylon bags.

‘Right, get the money in the motors and torch the van,’ shouted Edwards. He looked at his watch. ‘I want us out of here in three minutes flat.’

Roger Barrett climbed into one of the BMWs and started the engine. His face was professionally impassive. ‘Guns in that motor,’ shouted Edwards, pointing at Barrett’s BMW. ‘Two bags in each.’

Knight, McMullen and Marker threw the bags into the boots and put their weapons into the boot of Barrett’s ear. They slammed the doors, then ran back to the van and stripped off their gloves and coats. Parkinson was sloshing petrol from a red can over the bonnet.

Edwards tossed his gloves and coat into the back. Knight, McMullen and Marker did the same. Edwards gave the inside a final check, then nodded at Parkinson, who threw petrol into the back, then tossed the can inside. He took out a box of matches, lit one and flicked it at the can. There was a whoosh of flame and the van was ablaze.

Dean Barrett ran into the factory, climbed into the second BMW and fired the engine. He looked at his father and nodded. Roger Barrett nodded back, his hands caressing the steering-wheel as he gunned the engine.

Edwards looked at his watch again. ‘Come on, guys, in the cars and let’s roll.’ He hurried over to the BMWs and climbed in next to Roger Barrett. Knight got into the back. ‘You okay, Ricky?’ he asked.

‘No worries,’ said Knight. ‘Your jobs always as sweet as this?’

‘Always,’ said Edwards. ‘Once you’ve got the manager on side, the rest is easy.’

McMullen and Marker walked quickly to the second BMW, Parkinson following. The van was now engulfed in flames and thick black smoke was billowing up to the rafters.

The two BMWs drove out of the factory and Roger Barrett slammed on the brakes. Knight leaped out of the car, ran to the gates and pulled them open. He froze, then swore and slammed them shut again. ‘Cops!’ he yelled. ‘There’s cops everywhere!’

He raced back to the cars. A split second later the gates burst open and a police Land Rover with a reinforced wire cage over its bonnet roared through, then two Range Rovers and two armed-response vehicles. The Range Rovers and ARVs fanned out across the yard, tyres squealing.

Roger Barrett cursed as the Land Rover pulled up just inches from the front bumper. He glanced into his rearview mirror. His son’s car was jammed up behind him. ‘I’m sorry, boss,’ he said, his professionalism dented. He slowly took his hands off the steering-wheel and turned off the engine.

Men in bullet-proof vests piled out of the ARVs and Range Rovers, their MP5 assault rifles at the ready. ‘Armed police, drop your weapons!’ one screamed.

Edwards smiled thinly. They didn’t have any weapons. All the guns were in the boot of the BMW. But even if they hadn’t been, his team wouldn’t be looking for a shoot-out against professionals. There were a dozen armed police and every one of them had been trained to kill.

‘Not your fault, Roger,’ he said. In the wing mirror he glimpsed Knight’s fast-retreating figure. ‘Where the hell does that dopey bastard think he’s going?’ He raised his hands. ‘Oh, well, some you win, some you lose.’

Knight’s feet pounded on the cement and his arms powered back and forth like pistons. He glanced over his shoulder. Only one man was giving chase, an officer in his forties, MP5 cradled in his arms. The rest of the CO19 unit were standing around the BMWs, their weapons pointed at Edwards and his team.

Knight’s chest was burning but he ignored the pain and ran faster. He hurtled into the factory, eyes watering from the smoke billowing around the burning van. He gave it a wide berth, bent double to keep his head low and ran towards the offices. ‘Armed police, stay where you are!’ shouted the officer behind him.

Knight ran to the nearest office and hit the door with his shoulder. The wood around the lock splintered and he barrelled into the room. There was a window overlooking a rear yard but there were bars on it. There was a connecting door to the left and he grabbed the handle and pulled. It opened and he ran through into what had probably been a meeting room. There was a large whiteboard on one wall and a worn carpet with the impressions made by a table and a dozen or so chairs, but no window, just a glass door leading to a corridor. He heard the armed cop run into the office behind him and pulled open the door. He looked up and down the corridor. To the left was the factory floor, to the right were more offices, and at the end, a fire exit, some thirty paces from where he was standing. He headed for it but had only taken a few steps before the police officer was behind him. ‘Armed police! Stay where you are and keep your hands where I can see them!’

Knight stopped and leaned against the wall, his chest on fire, panting like a horse that had been raced too hard. ‘You got me,’ he said.

The officer grinned. ‘Thought you were a runner,’ he said.

‘I’m a runner, not a sprinter,’ Knight gasped. ‘There’s a difference.’

‘You okay?’ The officer’s concern was genuine.

Knight put his hands on his hips and took deep breaths. ‘I’m all right,’ he said.

‘Let’s get this over with, then,’ said the officer. He raised his MP5 and fired a short burst over Knight’s head. Three bullets thudded into the ceiling and bits of polystyrene fluttered to the ground. ‘Oops,’ he said. He spoke into his radio mic. ‘Everything secure?’

‘All accounted for, sir,’ replied a tinny voice. ‘You okay in there?’

‘Mine got away. I’m on my way back,’ he said. ‘That’s it then,’ he added, to Knight. ‘Job well done.’

Knight went to the emergency exit, kicked it open and gave the CO19 officer a thumbs-up. No alarm sounded: it had been disconnected by a SOCA technician the previous evening. ‘Thanks,’ he said.

‘All part of the service, Spider. You take care now.’

Dan ‘Spider’ Shepherd, undercover agent with the Serious Organised Crime Agency, took his Ray-Ban sunglasses from his pocket, put them on and walked out into the sunshine.

Three men were sitting on the bench, the morning’s newspapers spread out on the floor in front of them. Two were in their twenties, the third in his early thirties, and they all had dark brown skin, jet black hair and were casually dressed in sweatshirts, jeans and brand-name white trainers. The bench was in the Rose Garden, a quiet area of the Paddington Recreation Ground in Maida Vale, north-west London. The park had once been a place where elderly ladies walked their dogs and mothers watched their toddlers take unsteady steps, but now it was a meeting place for the various immigrant groups crammed into the damp flats of nearby Kilburn. On any one day there would be clusters of young men from Kosovo, from Bosnia, from Iraq, from Afghanistan, from West Africa, a veritable United Nations of refugees who had fled to Britain for a better life. They had quickly discovered they were not welcomed by the majority of the population. They were hated because they were a different colour, because they spoke a different language and wore different clothes, but mostly they were hated because they refused to integrate. They stayed in their tight groups and spoke English only when it was absolutely necessary. Several times a day the council security guards who prowled the park made a half-hearted attempt to move them on, but they simply returned a few minutes later. There was nowhere else for them to go.

The three men on the bench weren’t refugees, or asylum-seekers, and they spoke with northern English accents. They were all British-born, they supported English football teams and they were studying at British colleges or universities. If they had been asked for their nationality they would have said unhesitatingly that they were British, because that was what it said on their passports. But the three men didn’t feel British. They felt as alien as the recently arrived refugees dotted around the park. They had no love for the country that had educated them, no empathy with its people. In fact, when there was no one to hear what they were saying, they would proclaim their hatred for the British and everything they stood for.

A fourth man joined them. He had unkempt blond hair and blue eyes, and was wearing brown cargoes and a Levi’s T-shirt. ‘Greetings, brothers,’ he said. His name was Paul Bradshaw. It was two days after his twenty-fifth birthday, two years and three months since he had converted to Islam.

‘We did it,’ said the youngest of the group, punching the air with a clenched fist. Rafee Talwar had been born in Leeds but his parents were from Pakistani Kashmir. He wore a sweatshirt with the logo of the South Bank University, where he was studying economics. But it had been more than six months since Talwar had read anything other than the Koran. He was short-sighted and wore large, black-framed spectacles that gave him the look of an Asian Buddy Holly.

‘We did nothing,’ said Bradshaw, sitting next to him. He looked at his watch, a cheap plastic Casio. ‘Where is Kafele?’

‘He is coming,’ said Talwar, and gestured to the entrance to the Rose Garden. A young man wearing a Gap sweatshirt was approaching the gate.

‘He’s always late,’ said Bradshaw. ‘It shows disrespect to us all.’

No one spoke until Kafele al-Sayed had walked over and sat down on the bench. Like Bradshaw, he wasn’t of Pakistani descent. His father was an Egyptian engineer, his mother a Scottish primary-school teacher. He had inherited his mother’s pale skin and curly brown hair, his father’s hooked nose and dark eyes.

‘I said ten o’clock,’ said Bradshaw.

‘The Tube was delayed,’ said al-Sayed. ‘Someone threw themselves under a train at Queen’s Park. We had to wait until the line was clear.’ He scratched a patch of red-raw skin on his neck, just above his collar.

Bradshaw’s jaw clenched. Al-Sayed always had an excuse for his tardiness. It was a character flaw. It showed a lack of commitment, it showed a lack of planning, but above all it showed a lack of respect. Bradshaw’s three years in the army had taught him the value of self-discipline, but he knew there was nothing to be gained from criticising al-Sayed in front of the others, so he bit his tongue. The rash on the man’s neck was a sign of his nerves, and Bradshaw had no wish to stress the man even more than he already was.