The Last Big Job (40 page)

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 against 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. They 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.