for. I don’t know all the details, but we’re robbing cash from a flight that left Holland about forty minutes ago … Oh, and Wheels mentioned Major Dee and sticks of gelignite in the same breath. I reckon they’re planning to blow up the warehouse. You’d better get Michael out of there.’
James stopped talking, partly because he was short of breath, and partly because he had to scramble backwards as a gust of wind blew his pee towards his trouser leg.
‘Shit,’ he gasped, as he shook himself off and looked at a big wet streak down his tracksuit. It was embarrassing, but it wasn’t the most important thing in his life at that moment. He kept his thumb pressed down on the plaster, but Chloe didn’t respond.
‘Chloe,’ he hissed. ‘Chloe, did you hear any of what I just said?’
There was no response. A second later Wheels came around the corner.
‘It’s time, James,’ he yelled. ‘I’ve got to drive you to the airport.’
44. RIPPLE
The container truck reversed into the warehouse at 9:37 a.m. The driver was alone and didn’t appear to be armed, which was no surprise because Simeon had said that the handover was routine.
Michael peered through the roof into the bare concrete space as the container doors swung open. The driver worked alongside three of the Slasher Boys, climbing into the container and rolling each heavy drum of cooking oil down a plywood sheet on to an old mattress at the bottom.
Each drum was slowed by one of the Slasher Boys and manhandled on to a mechanical scale. The smugglers had mixed drums containing cocaine amongst drums full of oil and the only way to tell them apart was by a slight difference in weight.
Once a drum with cocaine inside was identified, the final pair of men worked to extract it from the oil. One peeled back the aluminium lid, while another – wearing an elbow-length surgical glove – plunged his hand deep into the gluey liquid and retrieved a vacuum-packed brick of cocaine.
He then cut away an outer layer of plastic which dribbled with strings of yellow oil, before throwing the clean brick beneath into the boot of an Alfa Romeo. Once the twelfth packet of cocaine had been recovered, the men began rolling the hefty drums back up the ramp. They also replaced the ones that had been opened, so that the end customer would be greeted by a full container and have no idea that his weekly shipment of cooking oil formed part of a cocaine smuggling route.
Michael thought the operation uncharacteristically slick considering that it was run by someone as disorganised as Major Dee. His stomach was turning somersaults as the container banged shut and he took his head out of the vent and looked around, expecting to see Mad Dogs at any second.
But he was startled to see youths cutting through overgrown weeds on an adjacent patch of land. Most of them were teenagers holding bats and guns, and although he didn’t have time to count, Michael guessed there were at least fifty of them.
He grabbed his phone out of his top and wondered whether to call Maureen or Major Dee first; but his calls were being monitored in the mission control room on campus, so he went for Major Dee.
‘How does it look from up there?’ Dee asked, sounding full of himself.
‘Big problem,’ Michael gasped. ‘There’s a massive gang of boys coming towards the warehouse. Fifty at least.’
Major Dee sounded disbelieving. ‘The Mad Dogs don’t have fifty men.’
‘It’s not the Mad Dogs,’ Michael said. ‘They look like Runts. Sasha must have tipped them off.’
‘Fifty,’ Dee shouted anxiously. ‘Hang it up, I’ve gotta get the boys moving.’
Michael rolled on to his stomach as the phone went dead. He crawled to the edge of the gently sloping roof and watched the Runts closing in. Then he noticed a change in the light behind him. At first it seemed like a glint from the sun, but within a second there was a blast of heat and the building started to tremble.
*
Wheels was a beautiful driver. Effortlessly fast and totally confident, he weaved through cabs and baffled tourists to reach the drop-off area at the front of Luton airport’s main terminal.
‘Sorry I couldn’t let you boys know about this sooner,’ Sasha said, as he led James and Bruce through a set of automatic doors and into the terminal. ‘We’ve waited years for a chance to rob this airport and I had to keep my cards close. We