‘OK, mister,’ the officer said, as he jerked Michael away from the window and shoved him forward so that his colleague could pat him down. ‘You’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent, but anything that you do say can be taken down and used in evidence against you.’
‘He’s wearing full body armour,’ the other cop said incredulously, as he pulled a hunting knife and a cellphone out of Michael’s trouser pocket. ‘Carrying a firearm, assault with a deadly weapon. You’re looking at five years and you can’t be more than sixteen years old …’
‘Get out to the car,’ the first cop growled, as Michael wondered if Gabrielle would have wanted him to pull the trigger.
46. CASH
Sasha kept low as he sprinted out of the bus with a $260,000 brick under his arm. James was scared of getting shot and wondered if he should fake an injury and leave Sasha’s capture to the police. But Sasha knew the airport well and James didn’t like the idea of him getting away.
James straddled the rubble and followed Sasha down a breeze-block corridor as a recorded female voice repeatedly told them that there was a security alert and to evacuate the terminal by the nearest exit.
After thirty steps the pair found themselves in a stockroom piled with yesterday’s newspapers and boxes of crisps. Sasha put his head around the door at the opposite end and stared into a deserted shop.
‘Looks clear,’ he whispered.
They crouched low as they walked between two racks of magazines and peeked on to the airport concourse. When they’d arrived it had been jammed. Now the open space was dead except for the tannoy announcement and the squeaking boots of an armed officer patrolling the polished floor.
‘Is it safe?’ James asked.
But Sasha had moved away. He reached behind the counter and grabbed a large carrier bag.
‘Open it,’ he said, as he passed the bag to James.
James held the bag, enabling Sasha to drop the brick of cash inside.
‘How do we get out of here?’ James asked, as he eyed the cop’s machine gun.
Sasha pointed out of the open shop front and to the left as he pulled a knife from inside his trousers.
‘Passengers evacuate into the bus terminal, which is fifty metres that way,’ he explained in a whisper. ‘We’ll make sure Robocop’s looking the other way when we step out, but once we get outside there’s going to be a couple of thousand people hanging around waiting to be let back in.’
James felt queasy with fear as Sasha stuck his knife inside the carrier bag and sliced the plastic wrapping away from the money. He briefly considered shooting Sasha in the leg, but before he got a chance Sasha thrust a stack of hundred-dollar bills into his hands.
‘What’s this?’ James asked.
‘Crowd control,’ Sasha said mysteriously.
*
The stolen cash would have easily fitted into a single van, but Sasha’s plan called for two because the police would be stretched thin and two vans would maximise their chances of getting away with at least half of the money.
Bruce had a ten-minute ride in the back of a van, with Tim Kruger, eight hundred thousand dollars and a slow puncture in the left rear. They ended up in an overgrown courtyard on the edge of the Thornton Estate.
Wheels waited in the powerful BMW, with the boot open. Two bricks of cash were loaded inside, while Tim Kruger stuffed the two that belonged to him and his brother into a Samsonite wheelie bag. He pulled it across the pavement and lifted it in the back of a Renault parked across the street.
As Wheels followed the Renault’s exhaust plume, Riggsy – who’d been driving the van – fetched a can of petrol from the cab and began splashing it around.
‘You look like a lost dog, Brucey boy,’ he smiled.
‘Where’s the other van?’ Bruce asked anxiously. ‘Did you see what happened to James and Sasha?’
‘Different meeting point,’ Riggsy explained.
‘But I’m sure they got left behind,’ Bruce said. ‘I ran for the van and jumped in and I saw Tony Kruger jump in the other one—’
Riggsy didn’t like teenagers and sounded annoyed. ‘Keep calm, kid. Get out of those bloody overalls and toss ’em in the van before I burn it.’
Bruce was so worried about James that he’d forgotten he still had LUTON SECURITY written across his back.
‘When things go bad you’ve got to keep your head,’ Riggsy said, as Bruce hurriedly peeled his overall down his arms. ‘Go back to the Zoo, think up a bloody good alibi and keep your head down. Whatever you do, don’t try and contact Sasha before he contacts you. I can drop you at the bus station if you like.’
As Riggsy spoke he pulled a lighter out of his pocket and gave Bruce a hurry up with the overalls look. Bruce looked in the back of the van and realised that it was a goldmine of forensic evidence: fingerprints and DNA from half the Mad Dogs crew, as well as several sets of overalls. The mission was going to be over either way, and it was just him and Riggsy left on the scene.
‘Dammit,’ Bruce moaned. ‘Give us a hand. I can’t get these overalls over my boots.’
‘Stop pissing around,’ Riggsy snapped. ‘Why didn’t you slip your shoes off first?’
Riggsy moved in to give the overalls a tug, but when he bent forward Bruce kicked him in the side of the head with his right boot. As Riggsy slumped flat on his face, Bruce stepped effortlessly out of the overall and crouched down to make sure that he was unconcious.
He took a good look around before pressing the transmitter on his neck.
‘Chloe?’ he said.
‘Loud and clear, Bruce.’
‘Have you heard from James?’
‘I’m listening to the police radio,’ Chloe said. ‘I think he’s inside the airport with Sasha.’
‘Thank god,’ Bruce gasped. ‘I thought he might have been shot.’
‘Well he’s not out of the woods yet.’
‘Listen,’ Bruce said. ‘I’m out on the edge of the Thornton Estate. The street’s called Euphonium. I’ve just taken out one of Sasha’s crew and there’s a van here. It’s full of evidence but it’s been doused in petrol. Can you get some cops out here?’
‘I’ll try.’
‘I’m gonna grab Riggsy’s car keys and get out of here, but when he comes round he’s probably gonna remember that I knocked him out.’
‘Gotcha,’ Chloe said. ‘I’ll call Inspector Rush and tell him that it’s high priority. I’ll make sure Riggsy doesn’t contact any of the other Mad Dogs until you and James are safely out of the picture.’
*
Sasha waited for the cop to turn his back before sprinting out on to the concourse, with James tight behind. They’d reached the fire exit before the armed officer knew what was occurring and Sasha hit the glass door so hard that he knocked an unarmed security guard to the ground. Much to James’ relief, several yellow-bibbed airport staff stood in the doorway, making it too risky for the marksman to fire a shot.
As James broke into fresh air and sunlight he saw that the bus terminal and surrounding car parks were jammed with passengers who’d been evacuated when the truck crashed into the side of the building.
Under normal circumstances a breach of security would have brought out the entire local police force to seal off the airport; but all their spare manpower was on the other side of town dealing with the Runts and Slasher Boys. Sasha knew that he had fewer than a dozen airport police to deal with and reckoned that his escape was only a matter of getting lost in the crowd.
‘Free money,’ Sasha shouted, as he crossed the road outside the terminal.
He grabbed a handful of hundred-dollar bills out of the carrier bag and threw them upwards. They’d been vacuum-packed, so the money spun high into the air before the wind separated it.
Sasha repeated the exercise as they jogged on through the packed bus terminal. By the time the third pile of money began fluttering down people had caught on. There were a few shouts of oh my god and it’s real and people started scratc
hing around the floor. When Sasha threw a fourth, larger pile over his shoulder and towards the airport entrance, a crowd of over a hundred surged forward to pick it up.
Several armed officers had now reached the exit, but they had no chance of catching Sasha and James as more than a hundred people fought over the fluttering dollars.
‘I always wanted to do this,’ Sasha said, as he launched a final volley of money.
Within two minutes James and Sasha were in a giant parking lot several hundred metres clear of the terminal. There was no sign of pursuit and they’d slowed to a brisk walk. The only people nearby were evacuees who’d returned to sit in their parked cars.
‘We need to lose the overalls,’ Sasha said, before pulling his two-way radio out of his pocket. ‘I’m in the east side car park; can someone get a car out here to pick us up?’
As Sasha spoke James noticed a female cop dive out from behind a panel van just ahead of them. It was the same woman who’d shot at them from behind the security booth. She’d made an educated guess that Sasha would try vanishing into the crowd and instead of pursuing him through the terminal she’d run around the outside of the building and sprinted ahead.
‘Hands up,’ she shouted firmly, as she aimed her machine gun at Sasha’s chest. He was wearing body armour, but from this kind of range there was no guarantee it would save him.
James wasn’t in the mood for any more trouble and threw down his gun, but Sasha kept moving towards her.
‘You shoot me and you’ll be under investigation for months,’ Sasha grinned, as he dropped the carrier bag of money. ‘There’s still more than a hundred grand in there. If I left it here for you, nobody would ever know.’
‘Final warning,’ the officer shouted.
By this time Sasha was less than three metres from the female officer. James glanced back and saw another cop and an airport security guard running between the cars towards them.
‘One more step,’ the officer said, but she realised that Sasha had no intention of stopping and pulled the trigger.
‘Christ,’ Sasha said, sounding oddly composed as the bullet knocked him backwards. Although his body armour had been punctured it had taken most of the force out of the shot and the metal case had lodged itself between two ribs.
‘Well isn’t it your lucky day,’ the officer said, as she stood over Sasha with the gun aimed at his face.
47. STATION
The police ended up arresting thirty-six Slasher Boys and eighteen Runts. Fourteen more youths and two police officers had been hospitalised and whilst five had gunshot wounds, serious stab wounds or burns, only one person had died.
While Sasha was taken to hospital under police guard, James found himself stripped to his boxers and locked in a police cell. The surrounding cells were packed with Runts and Slasher Boys, banging on the walls and screaming threats at each another.
Every so often the cops would come and take someone for questioning. With two officers in the hospital and more sent home injured, the ones who remained on duty didn’t stand for nonsense. Anyone who mouthed off got a slap or a baton in the guts and prisoners who stood by the flaps in their doors claiming to be hungry or thirsty were told either to shut up or to drink water out of the toilet.
‘We cleaned ’em just last year,’ a female officer cackled. ‘So lap it up, boys!’
Baiting the cops was the one thing that united the rival gangs. Her words inspired a defiant chorus of get your tits out, which only ended when the loudest Runt’s cell was opened by three officers with riot shields. James heard his screams as they pinned him back against the wall and let the female officer demonstrate inappropriate use of an extendable baton.
After more than ten hours without food and nothing but a teensy carton of orange squash to drink, James jumped up when his cell door came open.
‘Your mum must be shagging the Chief Constable,’ the officer said sarcastically, as he threw a stiff paper overall and a set of flip-flops at James. ‘You’re getting bailed.’
‘What about my clothes?’
‘All personal effects have been taken for forensic examination. As you can imagine there’s a bit of a backlog today; so I wouldn’t bank on seeing any of ’em this side of Christmas.’
James pulled the overall up his limbs and fastened the zipper along the front. The flip-flops slapped against his heels as the officer led him down a hallway to the Charge Sergeant’s office.
‘Sign here and here,’ the officer said, as he slammed a clipboard down on his desk.
James was knackered and came precariously close to writing James Adams instead of James Beckett; not that anyone would ever have noticed.
‘Don’t come back,’ the officer who’d taken him from the cells said, as he shoved James towards a door.
James had no phone, money or even proper outdoor clothes so he was a bit worried until he spotted Chloe at the end of the corridor.
‘You OK?’ she smiled, as she handed him a bottle of water and a large fruit and nut bar.
‘You beauty,’ James grinned, as he tore the bar open and crammed six chunks into his mouth. ‘I’m totally starving.’
‘Come on,’ Chloe said, as James ripped the top off the water and downed half of it in one go. ‘I’ve got Maureen and the others out back in the car park.’
‘Where are we going?’ James asked quietly, as they walked up a flight of steps. ‘Campus?’
‘Straight away,’ Chloe nodded. ‘Bruce knocked out Riggsy to preserve evidence. We’ve doped him up so that he won’t remember much when he comes around, but there’s few Mad Dogs wandering the streets and I’d rather you boys didn’t bump into them.’
Chloe had a Toyota people carrier parked in the darkness amidst police vans and cars. Maureen was in the driver’s seat, Bruce in the middle row and Michael was in the back wearing a disposable overall like James’.
‘Looks like I was the only one smart enough not to get nicked,’ Bruce giggled, as James sat beside him.
James turned around to ask Michael if he was OK.
‘Cops treated me like dirt, but I’ll live.’
‘Michael says the fighting around the warehouse was mental,’ Bruce grinned, as Maureen drove the big Toyota out of the parking space.
‘What happened about Major Dee?’ James asked.
‘Not a thing,’ Chole said. ‘As far as we can tell he pegged it as soon as he saw the Runts coming. The police followed the car he was in and pulled him over, but they got nothing. Not even a Stanley knife or a spliff in the glove box.’
‘That’s a bit crap,’ James tutted. ‘What about the surveillance? Weren’t some of Dee’s lieutenants seen in the warehouse setting up the drug deal?’
Bruce shook his head. ‘You mean the talcum powder deal.’
‘What?’ James gasped.
Chloe nodded, as the Toyota turned a sharp corner. ‘After a good deal of fighting the cops did manage to surround the warehouse,’ she explained. ‘The explosion destroyed a lot of evidence, but the car boot was down when it went off and the bags of drugs were protected from the blast. Only problem was, they’d already been switched.’
‘Do you think Sasha robbed them?’ James asked.
‘We’re pretty certain that Simeon Bentine was behind it, either with or without the Mad Dogs,’ Chloe said. ‘The cops went to Simeon’s office and he’s vanished into thin air.’
James tried to figure all of this out in his head. ‘So we got Sasha. Savvas is in the hospital and Bruce got the van before it was burned out, which should give us enough evidence to nail Riggsy and the rest of the Mad Dogs.’
‘That’s about right,’ Chloe said.
‘No sign of the Kruger brothers or any of the money yet though,’ Bruce noted. ‘Wheels and the others who got away won’t be showing their faces any time soon.’
‘But they’re all either locked up or on the run,’ James said. ‘Which isn’t a bad result.’
‘But it’s a long way shy of our original plan to get all of
the senior Mad Dogs and Slasher Boys in one little warehouse and surround them with cops,’ Michael said.
‘It’s a shame,’ Chloe yawned. ‘We didn’t touch Major Dee and we can’t press drugs charges against anyone because there weren’t any drugs.’
Maureen shook her head. ‘And in that sort of chaos it’s going to be hard to prove which weapon belonged to who. They’ll all claim to have picked up someone else’s weapon to use in self defence because their life was in danger and nobody will testify. The lawyers will have their work cut out getting convictions.’
‘And the gang war rolls on,’ Bruce said dramatically. ‘Only the Slasher Boys are the real psychos and without the Mad Dogs keeping them in check there’s going to be absolute carnage.’
‘The Runts have got a lot of manpower though,’ Michael said. ‘If someone took charge, they’d be a match for the Slasher Boys.’
‘They’re bound to get more organised,’ Bruce said. ‘There must be one Runt with a few brain cells.’
James stared out the window at the passing streetlamps and sounded annoyed. ‘So basically we just spent two months trying to stop a gang war, but all we’ve done is made it worse.’
‘Not necessarily,’ Chloe said, feeling like it was her duty to cheer up the three tired agents. ‘We gathered a lot of intelligence, all of which the anti-gang taskforce will use in their ongoing battle. Just because we’re going back to campus before everyone is in prison doesn’t mean that the mission is a failure.’
‘It’s still crap though,’ Bruce said. ‘We came so close.’
‘Oooh, burgers,’ James said, as they whizzed past a couple of fast-food joints. ‘Can we stop? Apart from that chocolate, I haven’t eaten since breakfast.’
‘I hate that greasy shit,’ Michael complained. ‘It turns my guts.’
‘Right now I’m so hungry I’d settle for a dead rat on a stick,’ James said.
Maureen looked across at her boss. ‘There’s a roundabout up ahead, Chloe. I can turn back if anyone wants something to eat.’