Chapter Text
Cullen, unremarkably dressed in a dark burgundy tracksuit and a black knitted cap, is jogging along a city street. His stride is easy, but extended enough for him to keep pace with a gleaming dark gray car moving through the light mid-afternoon traffic.
The car crosses an intersection and Cullen drops to a halt at the corner. He bends over, one hand braced on his thigh and the other bringing his phone from his pocket to his ear.
“Bravo Four to Alpha Four,” he says in an undertone. “Carrier ETA is one minute thirty seconds, over.”
“This is Alpha Four,” Henn answers. “Copy that, out.”
Cullen straightens up, tucking his phone away, turns the corner and picks up into a jog again. He turns off the street into an alleyway where a white van, with the words Poppy Flowers in ornate red letters on the sides, is parked. Blackwood, dressed in brown overalls and canvas work gloves, is sitting in the driver’s seat; he lifts his chin in acknowledgement as Cullen approaches. Cullen swipes his cap off his head and unzips his tracksuit jacket as he walks round to the back of the van.
Henn crumples up the credit card application he’s been filling out at a writing desk that commands a view of the street through the plate-glass doors of the bank lobby. He drops the application form into the bin and slots the tethered pen into its holder. He smoothes his right hand - gloved in thin black leather - down his blue tie and gray waistcoat.
The gray car pulls up outside. The driver gets out and opens the rear door; a man in a dark suit and overcoat gets out.
Henn brushes back one side of his unbuttoned jacket and hooks his fingers into his waistcoat pocket. He steps away from the writing desk and begins walking towards the doors. The man in the overcoat crosses the pavement and pushes one of the doors open. Henn looks away and lengthens his stride.
The man in the overcoat crosses the threshold. Henn veers abruptly and walks right into him.
“Watch out!” the other man snaps.
Henn jerks his hand from his waistcoat pocket to clutch at the other man’s coat sleeve.
“God, I’m - I’m awfully sorry,” Henn says, wide-eyed with dismay as he looks up. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m fine,” the other man says, his scowl softening as Henn brushes apologetically at his unbuttoned coat front and the jacket front beneath it.
“Well, I am sorry,” Henn says, drawing his gloved hand back hesitantly.
The other man’s eyes warm as he glances over the broad planes of Henn’s shoulders and chest speculatively. Henn’s mouth curls slightly; he steps aside, glancing up at the other man from under the pale sweep of his eyelashes before moving past him to push out through the door onto the street.
Henn starts walking purposefully away from the bank. He peels the glove from his right hand, turning it inside out and tucking the fingers into the palm to make a neat ball. Then he strips off his other glove, tucks the first one inside it, and tosses the small bundle into a rubbish bin as he passes. He takes his phone from his coat pocket and raises it to his ear.
“Alpha Four to Bravo Three,” he says. “The marker has been delivered to the carrier, over.”
“This is Bravo Three,” Garrett answers. “I copy that, out.”
He’s standing at a bus stop on the opposite side of the street, wearing dark blue dress pants, black shoes, a voluminous rain jacket and black woolen gloves. He hangs up on Henn and slips his phone into his pocket. He rocks his weight on his heels, staring across the street at the bank.
After about ten minutes, the man in the overcoat emerges. His driver opens the rear passenger door of the car for him and he gets in. The driver closes the door, resumes his own seat, and the car moves off. Garrett brings his phone out and up to his ear again.
“This is Bravo Three to Alpha One,” he says. “The carrier has cleared the target, over.”
“This is Alpha One,” John answers. “I copy the target is cleared, out.”
He’s standing in front of an electronics store, apparently studying the window display. He’s wearing tan driving gloves and a brown leather flight jacket over a blue shirt and pale tan chinos. He lowers his phone, glances at it as he redials, and lifts it again.
“This is Alpha One to Alpha Two,” he says crisply. “The target is cleared, we are green to go.”
“This is Alpha Two,” Blackwood says with great relish. “I copy that, roger and out.”
John turns away from the store window, pocketing his phone, and starts to walk briskly along the street towards the bank. The white van passes him and pulls up in front of the bank. Blackwood jumps out and walks round to the back of the van. He opens up one of the rear doors; a canvas curtain screens most of the van’s interior, but just inside the door there’s a large plumed fern in a tall ceramic pot, roped to an upright metal handcart. Blackwood heaves the cart and its load off the van’s bed onto the ground, and throws the van door closed again. He kicks the cart up onto the pavement and pushes it towards the doors of the bank.
“Let me get that door for you, mate,” John says, stepping past Blackwood, pushing the door open, and then holding it wide.
“Cheers,” Blackwood says as he wheels the cart over the threshold.
He glances at John, a quick, intent look that John meets with a calm, steady gaze. Blackwood trundles the cart towards the information desk; John veers away to a writing desk against one wall. Blackwood stands the cart up at the information desk, smiling warmly at the young woman sitting there as he pulls a couple of pages out of his thigh pocket. John dips both hands into his jacket pockets and extracts a pair of gray metal canisters. He stoops quickly, thumbing the wire clip at the top of each canister up. Pale gray smoke starts to jet from the canisters as John rolls one across the floor toward the cashiers’ counters, and the other into the corner where a narrow hallway leads from the public lobby to the more restricted and secure area of the bank. John straightens again and moves swiftly to where a fire alarm is mounted on the wall. Customers and bank employees start to notice the smoke billowing up from one side of the cashiers’ counters and around the hallway. There’s a little flurry of panic and several exclamations. John slams the point of his elbow through the glass cover of the fire alarm and flips the switch.
At the first peal of the alarm bells, the back doors of the white van burst open and Cullen, Barr, Hinde and McMath jump out. All four are wearing white shirts, navy ties, and dark blue dress pants, black woolen gloves and dark blue jackets with the word Security emblazoned across the backs. Garrett has crossed the street to join them, bundling off his rain jacket to reveal the same outfit.
Cullen and Garrett each push open one of the plate-glass doors and wedge it in place as Barr, Hinde and McMath stride into the bank lobby.
“Everybody outside, please,” McMath says, raising his voice to be heard over the alarm bells. “Do not run, just walk, thank you.”
They shepherd people toward the doors, McMath urging the cashiers to be quick locking their cash drawers and coming out from behind their counters.
“Please keep moving down the street,” Garrett says as people stream out through the doors, “down the street, thank you.”
Blackwood extracts two aerosol paint cans from his thigh pockets and throws one to John. They start moving quickly from one security camera to another, faces averted until they’ve sprayed each lens with black paint.
The customers and bank staff have cleared the lobby. Cullen and Garrett kick out the door wedges and pull the doors closed. Garrett takes a thick plastic zip-tie from his pocket, threads it through the vertical brass door-pulls, and straps it tight. Cullen stays by the doors while Garrett hurries to join the others.
“Forty-five seconds,” John shouts.
McMath has yanked the fern out of its pot, revealing the rootless base embedded in a thin disk of earth, which he throws aside. He draws a heavily laden black canvas backpack out of the pot and undoes the top flap. A uniformed bank guard comes running down the hallway from the back of the bank, his radio in his hand.
“Oi, what’s - wait a minute, you’re not - ” he blurts, confusion turning to sharpening alarm.
“No, we’re not,” McMath says, jerking his hand out of the backpack and swinging the handgun he’s holding up to aim at the guard’s head.
“Jesus fucking - ” the guard blurts as Barr grabs him.
Barr simultaneously hooks a foot around the guard’s shins to drop him to his knees, and wrenches the radio from his grip. Barr drops the radio to the floor and Hinde slams his heel down on it, smashing it open. Barr uses a zip-tie to fasten the guard’s wrists behind his back. McMath is distributing handguns to the others; each man snaps the slide and checks the chamber of his weapon as soon as it’s in his hand.
“Down, face down,” Barr snaps, pushing the guard onto the floor.
He zip-ties the man’s ankles together. Blackwood extracts another heavily filled black canvas bag from the plant pot and slings it onto his shoulder.
“One minute,” John says. “Move.”
The six of them run down the hallway towards the back of the bank. They turn a corner and leap down a couple of steps. Two more uniformed bank guards, together with a man and a woman in business clothes, are hurrying towards them. All four stop in surprise.
“Drop the radios,” John barks, bringing his handgun up, as does Blackwood.
In the time it takes the guards to comprehend his instruction, let alone respond to it, McMath and Barr have them on their knees and Hinde is smashing their radios.
“Oh my God,” the woman bank employee gasps.
“It’s okay, you’re going to be okay,” John says firmly, “but I need you to lie face-down on the floor right now.”
Both bank employees obey, albeit with a fear-fueled mix of alacrity and inefficiency. John keeps his gun trained while the others bind wrists and ankles. The woman bank employee is breathing in sharp, broken gasps as Hinde takes hold of her ankle to wrap the zip-tie around it.
“I know this is scary,” Hinde says, “but I promise, you are in really good hands and you’re going to be absolutely safe.”
She nods vigorously, her breathing shaking into a more sustainable rhythm.
Blackwood has run farther down the hallway to where the way is barred by a steel security gate. On the other side of the gate is a windowless room lined from floor to ceiling with double-locked hutches for safety deposit boxes, punctuated by the thick steel door of the vault.
Blackwood reaches into an outer pocket of his bag and extracts a small block of putty-like material with an assembly of copper and wiring embedded in it. He claps it to the gate, where the lock meets the jamb, and fixes it in place with a couple of winds of plastic tape. He loops two loose ends of the wiring up and twists them together.
“Fire in the hold,” he shouts as he turns and runs back down the hallway.
“There’s going to be a bang,” Hinde says to the captives. “It’s just going to be loud; it’s not going to be dangerous.”
There’s a sharp bang. John, Blackwood, McMath and Barr move down the hallway quickly. The steel-bar gate is swinging open now, greasy black soot streaking the lock plate and the wall next to the door jamb.
“Lights,” John says to McMath as Blackwood pulls a handheld ultraviolet lamp from his bag.
McMath palms the light switch just inside the gate. The blackness is instant and utterly impenetrable in the small, windowless space. There’s a click and then a very faint hum as Blackwood turns on the lamp, and the shapes of things come into visibility again, picked out in the faintly speckled green glow of dust and skin oils. Blackwood sweeps the lamp over the ranks of safety deposit box hatches. Most hutches glow a little brighter around the double locks, but there’s one that’s lit up like neon with iridescent green dust smudged thickly all over it.
“Got it - give me the lights back,” Blackwood says, putting his hand on the hutch to mark its place and turning the lamp off again.
McMath turns the overhead lights on again, all four men blinking in the brightness. Blackwood drops his bag at his feet and takes out three crowbars. John and McMath take one each and go to work wrenching hutch fronts open by ramming the tip of the crowbar into the narrow gap between the hutch front and the surrounding frame, and then levering until the locks simply rip loose. They yank out the steel safety deposit boxes and throw them on the floor. Blackwood breaks open the marked hutch, pulls out the safety deposit box inside, and sets it down with its single interior lock uppermost. The ring of the box striking the floor makes it obvious the contents are quite heavy. Blackwood pulls a power drill and two pairs of safety glasses out of his bag.
Barr takes one pair of glasses, slips them on, and then crouches down to grip the safety deposit box with both hands. Blackwood applies the tip of the drill bit to the lock and turns the drill on. There’s a high whine and then a tearing screech as the drill bit starts to strip through metal. A few sparks are thrown off, and a thread of smoke starts to waft upwards. The drill bit bites right through the depth of the lock; Blackwood pulls it free.
McMath has stopped pulling safety deposit boxes out of their hutches. Now he’s using the crowbar on the double locks of the boxes. The fit between the lid and body of each box is too tight to insert the tip of the crowbar into; he’s just stabbing and gouging at the locks with the broader end of the crowbar. Some boxes he attempts in only the most cursory fashion, just one or two strikes around the lock. Others he beats until they’re misshapen and scored with deep scratches, though the locks still hold. Blackwood shoves the drilled box to John, who flips the lid open. There are several document envelopes inside, together with three long, cylindrical black velvet bags, and two black velvet boxes, one about three inches square, the other about six inches by nine. John pulls an empty backpack from Blackwood’s bag and transfers the bags and the boxes to it.
Blackwood sets another safety deposit box on end. Barr grips it and Blackwood drills the lock out. As soon as he’s done, Barr throws the box aside without even looking into it. Another box; this time Blackwood doesn’t drill all the way through the lock, he just lets the drill tear in a bit and then stops.
John shuffles through the document envelopes until he finds one with four signatures scrawled across the sealed flap. He shoves that envelope into the backpack, stuffs the rest back into the open safety deposit box, and flips the lid shut.
“Four minutes,” he snaps. “We’re done.”
McMath and Barr fling aside the safety deposit boxes in their hands. The crowbars, drill, and ultraviolet lamp go back into Blackwood’s bag. John picks up the backpack, and all four of them run back down the hallway, past Hinde and Garrett, into the lobby area.
“The Fire Brigade’s going to be here in one and a half minutes,” Hinde says to the security guards and bank employees, who are still lying face-down on the floor of the hallway. “You’re perfectly safe, just stay here until they get to you – you did great, thank you.”
He and Garrett run after the others. McMath has snatched up the backpack from on top of the plant pot. Everyone pitches their handguns back into it, then McMath and Blackwood switch bags. Cullen pulls a penknife from his pocket and slices apart the zip-tie on the doors.
“Can everyone move back please,” McMath says as the seven of them stream out of the doors. “It’s a false alarm but we can’t let anyone back in until the Fire Brigade gives the all clear.”
Cullen and Garrett detach themselves from the group and start walking purposefully but unhurriedly away. They loosen their ties and slip them off, then remove their jackets and fold them to conceal the conspicuous Security on the backs.
“Oi, move the shagging van,” McMath says loudly, as John and Blackwood move towards it. “I’ve got to get the Fire Brigade in here.”
Blackwood gets into the driver’s seat and John gets into the passenger’s. Blackwood turns the ignition, shifts the van into gear, and moves off.
“See if they’re all right round the back,” McMath says to Hinde.
Hinde nods. He and Barr set off at a jog round the corner. The fire engine comes up the street, cars pulling over ahead of it. It sweeps to a stop in front of the bank and a fireman swings down out the passenger seat of the cab.
“I’m really sorry,” McMath says with a grimace. “False alarm – someone stuck a Cornish Pasty in the toaster oven and walked off on it.”
“Fucking ‘ell,” the fireman says.
“Yeah, I know,” McMath says, “but you’d better give us the all clear.”
“Yeah, all right,” the fireman says.
“I don’t have a pass key for the lunch room,” McMath says. “I’ll just run round the back and get one from the security supervisor.”
“Cheers, mate,” the fireman says, as a couple of his companions climb unhurriedly down from the fire engine.
“Be right back, then,” McMath says, and he sets off at a easy lope round the corner in the same direction as Hinde and Barr.
Four minutes and several streets later, the white van swings into an alleyway and jerks to a stop beside two dumpsters, one open and the other closed, its lid secured with a zip-tie. The rear doors of the van are thrown open and Cullen, Garrett, Barr, and Hinde, all in street clothes, jump out. Cullen goes to the closed dumpster, stripping his knife from his jacket pocket, and cuts the zip-tie securing the lid. He flings the lid open and turns to catch the bulky black plastic trash bag Garrett tosses at him.
Blackwood jumps out of the driver’s seat. He unzips his overalls and strips them down, revealing street clothes underneath. He bundles the overalls up as he walks to the back of the van. McMath - also in street clothes - is crouched inside the van, shoving more filled trash bags at Garrett, who throws them to Cullen, who throws them up into the dumpster. Hinde holds out an open trash bag and Blackwood adds the overalls to the security guard’s outfit already inside.
Meanwhile, Barr and McMath go to opposite sides of the van. Each of them scrapes a thumbnail against the van’s side panel until they’ve loosened one corner of the transparent printed decal stuck to it. They peel the plastic film off, the red lettering distorting as it folds and collapses, leaving the sides of the van blankly white. Then they strip the opaque plastic decals off the van’s front and back registration plates, revealing the genuine numbers beneath. They crumple the plastic into balls and deposit them in the last of the trash bags.
John gets out of the passenger seat, carrying two fairly compact but obviously heavy black canvas backpacks. Blackwood pulls on a jacket and accepts one of the backpacks.
“We’re done,” Garrett says to John as Cullen flips the dumpster lid closed.
“All right,” John nods. “Ninety minutes – keep moving, text me if you’re okay, call me if you’re not.”
Garrett taps Cullen on the arm, and they turn and stride off down the alleyway together. McMath gets out of the back of the van. He and Hinde both glance at the chronometers on their wrists.
“I’ve got fifteen oh seven,” McMath says.
“Check,” Hinde says. “I’ll pick you guys up in forty-five minutes.”
“Right,” McMath says, clasping Hinde’s arm briefly before moving to the driver’s door of the van.
Hinde glances at John.
“Right,” John says, shrugging his backpack on. “Let me know you picked them up okay, and let me know that you all got back to base.”
“Yes, sir,” Hinde nods, then he lifts a hand in a parting to the others and walks briskly away in the opposite direction from Garrett and Cullen.
“Next stop, Earl’s Court tube station,” McMath says, glancing at John and Blackwood.
John and Blackwood climb into the back of the van and pull the doors closed. McMath gets into the driver’s seat; Barr is already sitting in the passenger’s one. He puts the van in gear, drops the handbrake, and drives sedately out of the alleyway.
Ninety minutes later, John and Blackwood are walking briskly along a laneway between the backs of some houses and a row of garages. They stop; John stoops to thumb the combination wheels of the lock securing one garage’s metal shutter, while Blackwood stands over him and looks up and down the laneway. John straightens, throwing the rattling shutter up on its sliders. They step inside. John closes the shutter again and Blackwood flicks the light switch just inside the doorway. The single unshaded bulb hanging from the ceiling comes on. The bare concrete space is empty except for a badly beaten kitchen table and two lamed chairs in the middle of the floor, and several stacks of plastic crates and cardboard boxes against the walls.
Blackwood drops his backpack onto the table, which tilts slightly under the sudden weight. John swings his backpack off but doesn’t put it down. Blackwood picks up one of the chairs and sets it down again in another spot. John steps up onto it, bracing himself briefly with a hand on Blackwood’s shoulder before reaching up and striking the warped and water-stained ceiling panel with the heel of his hand. The panel jumps up out of its framing and John slides it aside to reveal a dark, dank space under the garage’s metal roof. He swings the backpack up, grunting a little in discomfort as his shoulder flexes, and pushes it aside into the dark. He pulls the ceiling panel back into place and steps down from the chair.
He sits down on the chair that’s still at the table, draws the other backpack to him, and spills out the bags, boxes and envelope taken from the safety deposit box. Blackwood replaces the other chair at the table, and leans his hands on its backrest as he watches John untie the neck of one velvet bag and tip it upside-down. A stream of large gold coins spills out onto the table top.
“One ounce Krugerrands, very nice,” Blackwood says, picking up one gleaming disc.
“Forty-eight in the bag,” John says, raking the coins flat with his hand and then starting to stack them and rebag them. “Assuming the other two bags are the same that’s a hundred and forty-four in all. Gold’s going for eight hundred and seventy pounds an ounce – call it a hundred and twenty grand, give or take.”
Blackwood purses his lips and gives a low, swooping whistle. He drops the coin back onto the table, picks up the small velvet box, and pops the lid open. The interior of the box is lined with ruches of black satin; a dozen diamonds – vivid and clear and coldly glittering – lie among the folds. John glances at them briefly, and then looks down to finish repacking the coins.
“I don’t know anything about gems,” he says. “They could be rubbish.”
“Bet they’re not, though,” Blackwood smirks.
He snaps the box shut again and tosses it down next to the velvet bags.
“Shall we take a look, then?” he asks, eyebrow arched as he jerks his chin to indicate the larger velvet box.
John glances up at him, and then down at the box.
“Sure,” he says.
Blackwood hooks the toe of his boot around the unoccupied chair and draws it to him. As he sits down, John sets the box in the middle of the table. Blackwood hunches forwards, his eyes bright with interest. John lifts the lid.
“Jesus,” Blackwood breathes.
“Oh,” John says softly.
The interior of the box is deeply padded and covered in blue cloth; nestled inside is a rectangle of richly embossed gold set with bright turquoise and deep red stones, shaped to be worn as a mask on the upper part of the face. There’s a prominence to accommodate the bridge of the nose, and two eyeholes with downward-sweeping points at the inner corners and long upward-sweeping tapers at the outer ones. Molded loops on the sides and lower edge of the mask suggest that other pieces may have been attached there at one time.
“Two thousand years old,” Blackwood says softly.
John nods. He leans in, peers closer, and exhales in delight and disbelief as he parses the shapes worked in exquisite detail on the gold’s rich surface.
“They’re dolphins,” he breathes. “How did they even - ”
He shakes his head in rueful wonder and sits up again.
“Good mission,” Blackwood says, his smile vivid in his eyes though it barely touches his mouth.
John nods soberly, but then the corner of his mouth quirks and then he’s grinning and then he’s just laughing.
“Four minutes, like fucking clockwork,” Blackwood whoops. “It was perfect.”
“No, not perfect,” John protests, still beaming, “just – really, really bloody good.”
“Come on. I’ll buy you a drink,” Blackwood grins.