Hard Landing (2 page)

In the rear of the minibus, the men were pulling sports bags from under their seats.

‘Right, final name check,’ said the front-seat passenger. His name was Ted Verity and he’d been planning the robbery for the best part of three months. ‘Archie,’ he said. He opened the glove compartment, took out a portable scanner, switched it on and clipped it to his belt.

‘Bert,’ said the man directly behind him. His real name was Jeff Owen and he’d worked with Verity on more than a dozen robberies. Owen pulled a Fairy Liquid bottle out of his sports bag. He sniffed the top and wrinkled his twice-broken nose.

Verity took a second scanner from the glove compartment, switched it on and placed it on the dashboard.

‘Charlie,’ said the man next to Owen. He was Bob Macdonald, a former squaddie who’d been kicked out of the army for bullying. Verity didn’t know Macdonald well, but Owen had vouched for him and Verity trusted Owen with his life. Macdonald pulled a sawn-off shotgun from his holdall and slotted a red cartridge into the breech.

‘Doug,’ said the man next to Macdonald. He shoved a clip into the butt of a handgun and pulled back the slider. He was the youngest of the West Indians, a career criminal who’d graduated from car theft and protection rackets to armed robbery after a six-month stretch in Brixton prison. That was where Verity had met him and spotted his potential.

The alphabetical roll-call continued. A to H. The young guy with the bad teeth was Eddie. He had a revolver in his right gloved hand and a stun gun in the left. He pressed the trigger of the stun gun and blue sparks crackled between two metal prongs. The high voltage charge was enough to disable a man without causing permanent injury. The tall, lanky West Indian next to Eddie was Fred. He had a twin-barrelled sawn-off shotgun. A thirty-something Glaswegian, with a shaved head and football tattoos hidden under his overall sleeves, was sitting on his own in the back cradling a pump-action shotgun. He was George and he had an annoying habit of cracking his knuckles.

The West Indian driver was Harry. Verity didn’t know Harry’s real name. Over five years he’d worked with him on a dozen jobs but had only ever known him by his initials, PJ. He was one of the best drivers in London and claimed to have been Elton John’s personal chauffeur. Verity nodded at PJ, who brought the minibus to a halt.

‘Anyone uses any name other than the ones you’ve been given and I’ll personally blow their head off,’ said Verity, turning in his seat.

‘Right, Ted,’ called George, then slapped his forehead theatrically. ‘Shit, I forgot already.’

‘Very funny,’ said Verity. He pulled a sawn-off shotgun out of his bag and flicked off the safety. ‘Remember, we go in hard – hearts and minds. Don’t give them time to think. They sound the alarm and we’ve got less than six minutes before the blues and twos arrive and we’re up to our arses in Hecklers. Everybody set?’

The six men in the back nodded.

‘Masks on,’ said Verity.

They took off their baseball caps and pulled on black ski masks with holes for eyes and mouths. Verity nodded at PJ and the West Indian drove forward. Verity’s heart raced. No matter how many jobs he did, no matter how many times he’d piled in with a gun, the fear and excitement always coursed through him like electricity. Nothing compared with the high of an armed robbery. Not even sex. All his senses were intensified as if his whole body had gone into overdrive. Verity pulled on his mask. He connected an earphone to the scanner, then slipped it on under his mask. Just static.

PJ turned sharply to the right and pulled up in front of the warehouse. Verity swung open the door and jumped down, keeping the sawn-off close to his body. His earpiece buzzed. A suspicious passenger in the arrivals terminal. An IC6 male. An Arab. Good, thought Verity. Anything that drew attention away from the commercial area of the airport was a Godsend.

Owen pulled back the side door and jumped out. He had stuck a revolver into the belt of his overalls. The rest of the team piled out and rushed over to the warehouse entrance. There was a large loading area with space for three trucks but the metal shutters were down. To the right of the loading bay there was a metal door. The men stood at either side of it, weapons at the ready.

Verity walked up to the door and put his gloved hand on the handle. It was never locked, even at night: there were men working in the warehouse twenty-four hours a day, but only a skeleton staff at night. Four men at most. Two fork-lift truck drivers, a security guard and a warehouseman. Four unarmed men in charge of a warehouse containing the best part of twenty million pounds’ worth of goods. Verity smiled to himself. Like taking candy from a baby.

Verity pulled open the door and rushed in, holding his shotgun high. To the right of the door he saw a small office containing three desks and wall-to-wall shelving filled with cardboard files. A uniformed security officer was sitting at one of the desks, reading a newspaper. Verity levelled his shotgun and motioned with it for him to stand up. Eddie rushed past and pressed the prongs of the stun gun to the guard’s neck and squeezed the trigger. The man went into spasm and slumped to the floor. Eddie dragged him behind the office door. He took a roll of duct tape from his overall pocket and used it to bind the man’s hands and feet as the rest of the gang fanned out, moving through the warehouse. It was about half the size of a football pitch with cartons of cardboard boxes piled high on wooden pallets. Most were marked ‘Fragile’ and came from the Far East. Japan. Korea. Hong Kong.

An orange fork-lift truck reversed round a stack of boxes. Doug ran up to it and jammed his pistol against the neck of the operator, a middle-aged man in white overalls. He grabbed his collar and pulled him off the vehicle, then clubbed him across the head with the gun.

Verity could hear the second fork-lift whining in the distance and pointed in the direction of the sound. Fred and the Glaswegian ran off, their trainers making dull thuds on the concrete floor.

Doug rolled the fork-lift driver on to his front and wound duct tape round his mouth, then bound his arms.

Verity motioned at Macdonald and Owen to start moving through the stacked pallets. They were looking for the warehouseman, weapons at the ready. Macdonald looked at his watch. ‘Plenty of time,’ whispered Verity. ‘Radio’s quiet.’

The second fork-lift truck stopped, and there was a bump as if something soft had hit the ground hard. Then silence.

The three men stopped and listened. Off to their right they heard a soft whistle. Verity pointed and they headed towards it.

The warehouseman was in his early thirties with receding hair and wire-framed glasses. He was holding a palm computer and making notes with a small stylus as he whistled. He was so engrossed in it that he didn’t see the three masked men until they were almost upon him. His jaw dropped and he took half a step backwards, but Verity jammed his gun into the man’s stomach. ‘Don’t say a word,’ hissed Verity. ‘Do as you’re told and we’ll be out of here in a few minutes.’

He grabbed the man’s collar with his left hand, swung him round so that he was facing in the direction of the office, then frogmarched him towards it with the gun pressed into the base of his spine. ‘There’s no m-m-money here,’ the man stammered.

‘I said, don’t talk,’ said Verity. He rammed the barrel into the man’s back for emphasis.

When they reached the office the two fork-lift drivers were lying on the ground outside the door, gagged and bound. Owen was standing over them, his gun in one hand, the Fairy Liquid bottle in the other.

Verity pushed the warehouseman to the floor next to them. He rolled on to his back and his glasses fell off, clattering on the concrete. Verity pointed his gun at him. ‘The Intel chips,’ he said, through gritted teeth. ‘The ones that came in from the States this morning.’ Voices buzzed in his earpiece. A Police National Computer check on the Arab, name, date of birth, nationality. Iraqi. ‘Bastard ragheads,’ muttered Verity.

‘What?’ said the warehouseman, confused. He groped for his spectacles with his right hand.

Verity nodded at Owen, who sprayed the contents of the Fairy Liquid bottle over the three men. Macdonald frowned as he recognised the smell. Petrol. The fork-lift drivers bucked and kicked, but the warehouseman lay still in shock, clutching his spectacles.

Owen emptied the plastic bottle, then tossed it to the side. He took a gunmetal Zippo from the pocket of his overalls and flicked it open. ‘You heard what the man said, now where are the chips?’ He spun the wheel of the lighter with his thumb and waved a two-inch smoky flame over the three men.

‘Archie, what the hell’s going on?’ shouted Macdonald. He took a step towards Verity. ‘No one said we were going to set fire to anyone.’

‘You’ve got a shotgun in your hands, this is no different.’

‘Have you seen what third-degree burns look like?’

Verity levelled his weapon at Macdonald’s legs. ‘Have you seen what a kneecapping looks like?’

Macdonald raised the barrel of his shotgun skywards. ‘Just wished I’d been fully briefed, that’s all.’ He shrugged. ‘You’re right. In for a penny . . .’

The warehouseman scrabbled on his back, away from Owen. Owen followed him, bending down to wave the flaming Zippo closer to his legs. The warehouseman backed against the wall of the office, his hands in front of his face. ‘I’m not sure how close I can get before you go up in flames,’ said Owen. ‘The Intel chips,’ he hissed. ‘Where are they?’

‘I’ll have to check the computer,’ stammered the warehouseman. A dark stain spread down his left trouser leg.

Owen clicked the Zippo shut, grabbed the man by the scruff of the neck and dragged him to the office door. Verity followed. The earpiece buzzed and crackled. There’d been a car crash outside the departures terminal. Two minicabs had collided and the drivers were fighting. Verity grinned under his mask. The more distractions, the better.

Owen threw the warehouseman into the office. ‘You’ve got ten seconds, then it’s barbecue time,’ he snarled. He pushed him down on to a swivel chair.

The man’s hands trembled over the keyboard. ‘I have to think,’ he said. ‘I’m only the n-n-night man.’

‘Remember this,’ said Owen, lighting the Zippo again and waving the flame close to the man’s face.

The warehouseman shrieked. ‘Okay, okay, wait!’ He stabbed at the keyboard. ‘I’ve got it.’ He wiped his sweating forehead with the arm of his coat. ‘Row G. Section Six. Twelve b-b-boxes.’

Verity turned to the office door. ‘Fred, Doug!’ he called. ‘Row G. Section Six.’ The earpiece buzzed. Despite the clean PNC check, the Arab was being taken into custody.

Owen closed the Zippo and used duct tape to tie the warehouseman to the chair. ‘I d-d-did what you wanted, d-d-didn’t I?’ asked the man fearfully. Owen slapped a piece of tape across his mouth.

Verity pointed at Owen. ‘Tell Harry to get the minibus ready,’ he said, then jogged towards Row G.

‘I’ll do it,’ said Macdonald.

Verity stopped in his tracks. He pointed a gloved finger at Macdonald. ‘I said him. If I’d wanted you to do it I’d have told you.’ He pointed at Owen. ‘Do it!’ he shouted. Then to Macdonald: ‘You stay with me where I can keep my eye on you.’ He jogged down the centre aisle, Macdonald and the Glaswegian following him while Owen ran towards the main door.

Doug was already sitting at the controls of a fork-lift truck. ‘Here they are.’ Fred gestured at a pallet loaded with cardboard boxes.

‘Come on, get them loaded and let’s get out of here!’ yelled Verity. The boxes contained the latest Pentium chips from the States. According to Verity’s man on the west coast, there were twenty-four boxes in the shipment worth almost a million pounds, wholesale.

In the distance, the metal door slammed. They all turned at the sound of running feet. Verity and Macdonald raced into the main aisle and saw Owen hurtling towards them. ‘Cops!’ yelled Owen. ‘There’s cops everywhere!’

Verity whirled round. ‘What?’

‘They’ve got PJ. There’s armed cops all over the place.’

Verity’s hand dropped towards his scanner. He checked the frequency and the volume. Everything was as it should be. ‘They can’t be,’ he said.

‘They must have hit a silent alarm!’ shouted Owen.

Verity ran towards the office, where Eddie was standing with both hands on his pistol. ‘What do we do?’ asked Eddie.

Verity gestured at the metal door. There were bolts top and bottom. ‘Lock it,’ he said. Eddie ran over, slid the bolts, then ducked away. There were no windows in the warehouse, no way of seeing what was going on outside. Owen was panting hard. Verity put a hand on his shoulder. ‘How many?’ he asked.

‘Shit, I don’t know. They were all over the minibus. Three unmarked cars. A dozen, maybe. I didn’t hang around to count.’

Verity rushed into the office, slapped the warehouseman across the face, then ripped the tape off his mouth. ‘Did you trip an alarm?’

The man was shaking. ‘How c-c-could I?’ he stammered. ‘You were w-w-watching me all the time. You know you were.’

‘What are we going to do?’ asked Eddie.

‘Shut the fuck up and let me think,’ said Verity.

‘There’s nothing we can do,’ said Macdonald. ‘If the cops are outside, it’s all over.’

Verity ignored him and turned to Owen. ‘You said they had PJ?’

‘He was bent over the bonnet of one of the cars and a cop was handcuffing him.’

‘Did they see you?’

Owen nodded.

‘The minibus was still there?’

Owen nodded again.

‘Okay,’ said Verity. If the cops knew they’d been seen then he and his men had only seconds. He gestured with his shotgun at the two on the floor. ‘Free their legs,’ he said. ‘And untie the twat in the chair. They’re our ticket out of here.’

Eddie rushed into the office. Fred and the Glaswegian bent down and ripped the tape off the fork-lift drivers’ legs.

Verity cradled his shotgun as he stared at the bolted metal door. If the cops knew they were armed, they wouldn’t come storming in. And if they went out with hostages, the police wouldn’t be able to shoot. Verity tried to visualise the geography around the warehouse. As far as he could recall, there were no vantage-points for snipers. It would all be up close and personal, and that meant the cops wouldn’t be able to fire without risking the hostages. But they had to move quickly. ‘Come on, come on!’ he shouted.