From outside the sound of the helicopter engine intensified.
‘I’ll be in touch,’ Tremain said to Curtis and Boyd, and then to Claire, ‘Let’s go.’
From outside came the clatter of gunfire.
Shelley was getting closer.
CHAPTER 27
IN THE REAR-VIEW mirror of the Land Rover he’d commandeered, Shelley saw chaos spilling from the treeline and onto the lawn, as security men and players came tumbling out of the wood, wide-eyed and terrified. He saw at least one pair of men carrying a body, and security guards screaming into walkie-talkies and comms devices. A Motorola unit he’d taken from one of the guards was alive with shrieks, screams for help and appeals for calm.
But now he saw activity at the house. The rotors of the helicopter were in full spin and people were leaving in their droves. He saw men in butlers’ uniforms piling into a people carrier. Frantic techs were packing up the operations van. Land Rovers spat gravel as they hightailed it away from the parking area and hurtled down the approach road, as employees abandoned ship.
Amid the commotion, Shelley saw Tremain. The MI5 man and Claire were joining the evacuation, dashing across to a parked Land Rover. Shelley was about to alter course and stop them, when he saw the figures of Curtis and Boyd appear on the steps to the front door of the home. Curtis held a sidearm, Boyd held his suitcase. They were making their way to the chopper.
And with them was Lucy. All thoughts of taking Tremain evaporated as Shelley wrenched the wheel to the left, steering the Land Rover onto the lawn and aiming it towards the waiting helicopter.
Curtis and Boyd saw him. They looked from the helicopter to the Land Rover and Shelley saw them frozen in time. Curtis decided not to make the dash and hauled Lucy back; Boyd decided to chance it and increased his speed; the helicopter pilot was desperately unbuckling as the black Land Rover hurtled towards him.
Shelley threw up his hands to protect his face as the Land Rover ploughed into Boyd, then crunched into the chopper. The banker screamed in pain, crushed between the car and the helicopter. Feeling blood ooze down his forehead, Shelley emptied half a magazine into the instrumentation in the cockpit and then finished off Boyd. The screaming stopped and the rotors were slowing as Shelley rolled out of the shattered Land Rover and landed on the lawn.
There was no time to recover. His shoulder and head shrieked with pain, but he was already under attack. A bullet slapped into the metal shell of the helicopter, and Shelley turned to see Curtis firing wildly. Using the buckled door of the Land Rover for cover, Shelley trained his sights on Curtis, about to take him down and finish the job.
But Curtis saw the danger. He scuttled behind Lucy, using her as a shield, the pistol at her temple.
The helicopter wound down, finally becoming silent. From the woods came the occasional rattle of gunfire and shouts of confusion. Otherwise, a curious silence had descended on the lawn.
‘Throw down your weapon, Shelley, or I’ll put a bullet in her,’ commanded Curtis.
‘You’d probably miss,’ Shelley said calmly. He could just make out the tiniest sliver of Curtis behind Lucy. Couldn’t risk a shot.
‘It’s all over,’ called Curtis. ‘We’re going to make our way to a Land Rover, and if you love your wife, you won’t try to stop us.’
Shelley didn’t blink. ‘Didn’t she tell you about us?’ he called.
‘We haven’t had time to become acquainted,’ sneered Curtis.
‘It might have been a good idea. She could have told you what she did before marrying me.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’m talking about the three-man team in Afghanistan. It was me, Cookie and a third operative. Only thing is, there weren’t three men in our team. One of them was a woman.’
It was the cue for Lucy to make her move. She sidestepped and elbowed Curtis at the same time, a move so fast it was almost blurred.
And it gave Shelley all the time he needed.
He fired once. Curtis grew a third eye in the centre of his forehead and dropped.
CHAPTER 28
Four months later
TREMAIN ESCAPED THE midday Spanish heat and came inside from the pool area, and the first thing he saw was Claire lying face down on the floor tiles.
She wore her bikini, but she was breathing, and in his final moments Tremain was grateful for the fact that she wasn’t dead; that the revenge wasn’t to be merciless and indiscriminate.
Because what Tremain knew at once was that Shelley had found him.
Sure enough, the next thing he saw was Shelley, sitting on his sofa with a silenced pistol trained on him.
‘Shelley,’ said Tremain, and Shelley shot him in the foot.
He hit the floor hard, and the random thought that he wished he wouldn’t have to die wearing swimming trunks occurred to him.
Shelley stood up and walked over.
‘Hello, Tremain,’ he said.
Tremain stared up at him, his mouth working, no words coming out.
‘You didn’t honestly think I’d let you get away with it, did you?’ asked Shelley. He crouched. ‘I mean, I can accept that the Establishment managed to convince everyone that it was a terrorist attack at the estate; that the world at large believes Kenneth Farmer and Cowie and Kiehl and Curtis and Boyd all died heroes trying to stop it. And I might not even have minded that you and Claire escaped, because after all, there will always be more men like you, whose services are available to the highest bidder; and there will always be more women like Claire, who view other people as playthings for their own pleasure. What I do mind about, however, is my dog.’
He straightened, looking down the barrel of his Glock at Tremain writhing on the blood-soaked tiles.
‘This,’ he said, ‘this is for Frankie.’
On the road they said their goodbyes: Claridge going to his car, Lucy and Shelley going to theirs, all three satisfied that justice had been served.
‘I heard about the City of London vault robbery,’ said Shelley. ‘Was that anything to do with you?’
‘The one in which a safety deposit box belonging to Messrs Curtis and Boyd was stolen?’ smiled Claridge. ‘No, nothing to do with me at all.’
‘So what happens to all that incriminating information?’ asked Lucy, sparkling and beautiful in the hot sun.
‘It stays under lock and key,’ said Claridge.
‘Until such time as it’s needed?’ asked Shelley wryly. ‘Quite some insurance policy you’ve amassed there.’
‘I didn’t ask for it, Shelley,’ said Claridge.
Shelley nodded. Claridge was one of the good guys.
Claridge had asked before they left, ‘What will you do now?’ At the time they’d given him non-committal answers, but now, sitting in the car, Shelley and Lucy considered their options for real.
The plan had been to stage their own deaths. On the other side of a metal barrier was a cliff face, the sea below: Couple Killed in Death Crash was the plan. Bodies lost at sea.
But on the other hand, they wanted to live their lives, restart their company, be a normal couple.
They sat for more than two hours talking it over, until at last they reached a decision.
‘Ready?’ he said.
‘Ready,’ she replied.
He threw the car into gear and floored the accelerator.
THE THIEF’S GLOVED fingers beat against the steering wheel, a rhythm as hectic as the young man’s darting eyes.
‘You’re doing it again,’ the woman beside him accused, rubbing at her face to drive home her irritation.
The thief turned in his seat, his wild eyes quickly shifting to an angry focus.
She wouldn’t meet the stare, he knew. She never did, despite the fact that she was five years his senior, and tried to order him about as if she had the rank and privilege of family.
‘Doing what?’ He smiled, his handsome face made ugly by resentment.
The woman didn’t answer. Instead, she rubbed aga
in at her tired eyes. Her name was Charlotte Taylor, and anticipation had robbed her of any sleep the previous night. Instead she had lain awake, thinking of this day. Thinking of how failure would condemn the man she loved.
Charlotte tried again to hold the gaze of the man beside her, but she couldn’t meet his eyes – she saw the past in them.
And what did he see when he looked at her? That a once pretty girl was now cracked from stress and sorrow? That her shoulders stooped like a woman of sixty, not thirty? Charlotte did not want to feel that scrutiny. That obnoxious charity she had suffered from family and strangers for nine years.
‘It’s OK if you’re scared,’ she baited the thief, knowing that aggression would be one way to distract her from her niggling thoughts.
‘Me? I’m excited,’ the younger man shot back.
And he was.
Today was the day. Today was the day when years of talking, months of planning and weeks of practice would pay off.
Lives were going to change, and it would all start here.
‘I’m excited,’ the thief said again, but this time with a smile.
His name was Alex Scowcroft, an unemployed twenty-five-year-old from north-west England’s impoverished coast. Today the thief was far from home, his white panelled rental van parked up beneath a blue October sky on Hatton Garden, the street that was the heart of London’s diamond trade.
Charlotte was not excited. In truth, she was sick to her stomach. She had never broken the law – not in any meaningful way, anyway – and the thought of being caught and convicted turned her guts into knots. And yet, the thought of failure was infinitely worse.
As she always did when she needed comfort, Charlotte pulled a blue envelope from the inside pocket of her worn leather jacket. The letter was grimy from oily fingers, and teardrops had smudged the ink. The blue paper was the mark of military correspondence, given to soldiers at war so they could write to their loved ones.
Hoping to take strength from the words, Charlotte looked over the faded letter.
Catching sight of the ‘bluey’, Scowcroft stopped his fidgeting. ‘Was that –’
‘His last one.’
‘He never wrote me any letters.’ Scowcroft smiled. ‘Knew I couldn’t write one back.’
Charlotte folded the letter away, replacing it into the pocket that would keep it closest to her heart.
‘You’re his brother, Alex. You two don’t need to put words on paper to know how you feel about each other.’
Uncomfortable at the sincerity in her words, Scowcroft could only manage a violent nod before turning his gaze back out of the window, his chest sagging with relief as he saw a man approaching.
‘Baz is back.’
Gaunt-faced and stick thin, Matthew Barrett entered the van through its sliding door and pushed his bony skull into the space between Charlotte and Scowcroft.
‘Same as it’s been every day,’ he told them in a voice made harsh by smoking only the cheapest cigarettes. ‘The shops are opening. No sign of any extra security. If he sticks to the same pattern again today, our man should be here in ten.’
Scowcroft exhaled hard with anticipation. ‘Get your gear on.’
Behind him, Barrett changed from the street clothes of his reconnaissance into a similar style of assault boot and biker jacket worn by his two accomplices. Finally, he pulled a baseball cap tight onto his head, and brought up the thin black mask that would obscure his features. Eyeing himself in the mirror, Barrett thought aloud: ‘Assume that we’ve been spotted as soon as we pull off. Don’t try to be stealthy. Maximum violence. We get out. We shock. We grab. We extract.’
‘I know the plan,’ Scowcroft grunted.
‘I know you do, mate,’ Barrett told him with the patience of a mentor. ‘But there’s no such thing as going over it too many times. Five minutes,’ he concluded, looking at the van’s dashboard clock.
Scowcroft turned the ignition, and four minutes passed with nothing but the throb of the van’s diesel engine for distraction. It was Charlotte who broke the silence.
‘If they get me, but you two pull this off, I don’t want Tony to see me in prison. I don’t want him to see me like that.’
Barrett reached out and placed a gloved hand on her shoulder. ‘Since when does anyone tell Tony what to do? He loves you, Char, and when he’s back to us, he’d be seeing you on Mars if that’s what it took.’
Charlotte eased at the words and rolled down her balaclava, her piercing blue eyes afire with righteous determination.
‘For Tony, then.’
‘For Tony,’ the two men echoed, voices thick with grit and love.
Barrett looked again at the van’s dashboard. ‘Five minutes is up.’
In the driver’s seat, Scowcroft’s fingers began to beat against the steering wheel once more.
‘He’s here,’ he told them, and put the van into gear, pulling out into the lazy traffic of a Friday mid-morning.
A few pedestrians, mostly window-shoppers, ambled along the pavements, but Scowcroft’s eyes were focused solely on a burly skinhead who looked as if he’d been plucked from a prison cell and clad in Armani. More precisely, Scowcroft focused on what was in the man’s hand – a leather holdall. A leather holdall that would change their lives.
The big man’s stride was slow and deliberate. Scowcroft reduced the van’s speed to a running pace and glided close to the kerb.
The moment had come.
‘Go!’ he shouted, overcome by excitement.
Then, as they had practised dozens of times, Charlotte threw open the heavy passenger door so that the metal slammed into the big man’s back, the leather holdall flying free as he collapsed onto the pavement.
‘He’s dropped it, Baz! Go!’ Scowcroft shouted again as he stood on the brakes. Barrett threw himself from the van’s sliding door, his eyes scanning for the bag and finding it beneath a parked car.
‘I see it!’ Barrett announced from outside, but Scowcroft’s eyes were elsewhere. And widening in alarm.
‘Shit,’ he cursed.
He’d expected to see pedestrians flee the scene. He’d expected to see a brave one try to interfere. But what Scowcroft had not expected to see was two motorcycles coming at them along the pavement, the riders hidden ominously behind black visors. With gut instinct, Scowcroft knew that the bikers were coming for the contents of the bag.
‘Shit!’ he repeated, then spat, because years of talking, months of planning and weeks of practice were about to come undone.
So Alex Scowcroft formulated a new plan. One which any Scowcroft would have made.
He reached beneath his seat and pulled his older brother’s commando dagger from its sheath. Charlotte saw the blade the moment before she saw the incoming bikers, and grasped the implications. She looked to Scowcroft for leadership.
‘Would you die for my brother?’ he asked her.
She nodded, swallowing the fear in her throat.
‘Would you kill for him?’
Her eyes told him that she would.
‘Then get out and fight.’
SCOWCROFT AND CHARLOTTE flew from the van’s doors like fury, adrenaline coursing through their veins.
‘Baz!’ Scowcroft shouted. ‘Leave the bag where it is and get over here! We’ve got a problem!’
‘Leave the bag?’ Charlotte questioned aghast, a ball hammer in her shaking hands.
‘They’ll snatch it and go. We need them off those bikes.’
With no sign of the holdall, the black-helmeted riders slowed their pace. Scowcroft could feel their gaze now falling on him and his two accomplices from behind the tinted visors.
Barrett came running up beside the others.
‘The bag’s by the front-left wheel arch. I can grab it quick, but what about them?’ he asked, then took in the sight of Scowcroft’s commando dagger. For a moment, Scowcroft thought Barrett would tell him to put the weapon away. Instead, Barrett drew an identical blade from a sheath on his lower leg.
&
nbsp; ‘Just remember, drive the blade, don’t slice,’ Barrett encouraged the younger man, brandishing his own dagger in an attempt to scare off the riders and avoid bloodshed.
It didn’t work.
The bikers had their own weapons – five hundred pounds of metal, and that metal could reach sixty miles per hour in the time it took to close the gap to Scowcroft and his companions.
The bikes revved hard, leaving rubber on the pavement. Side by side, they came forward in a cavalry charge of steel.
Barrett and Charlotte darted left and pressed themselves into the cover of a shallow doorway, but Scowcroft dived for the holdall beneath the wheel arch, the bikers aiming for the easy target of his exposed body. They saw the chance to cripple the man as he grasped for his prize, and engines roared louder as throttles were held open.
Then, as his accomplices waited for the dreadful moment of impact, Scowcroft pressed his body down into the tarmac, squeezing himself beneath the car, and flung the holdall into the face of the closest rider.
The bikers had taken the bait, and now they paid the price. Travelling at sixty miles per hour, the rider was hit by the light leather bag as if by a baseball bat, whipping his neck and sending both bike and rider skidding across the pavement. With great skill, the fallen rider’s partner was able to avoid entanglement, but it brought him to a stop.
‘On him!’ Scowcroft shouted, rushing to collect the bag.
Charlotte and Barrett broke from the refuge of the doorway and sprinted towards the second biker. The rider tried to twist on his seat, reaching down for a blade concealed in his boot, but Barrett was quicker and hit the rider with a rugby tackle, his own dagger flying free in the collision. The two men and the bike crashed to the floor, Barrett crying out in pain as his leg became pinned beneath the hot metal of the engine, and grunting in agony again as the rider headbutted him with his helmet. As the pouring blood soaked his balaclava, Barrett was forced to remove his mask.
‘Charlotte!’ he gasped. ‘My dagger!’