“There should be some paper in the printer,” Ms. Deere said, pointing to the laser printer beside the desk. “Why don’t you—”
She was interrupted by a burst of gunfire from the front of the bank.
Game Boy was chilling on the street in front of the Pennine Bank, idly flattening the oppo in a capture the flag game on his phone, when he got the first intimation that something hinky was going on.
In truth he was bored, though as he was supposed to be running surveillance on the target this should have been a good thing. He had his Bluetooth headset on and dialed in on a live conference call with Rebecca, who was cruising the block in her posh wheels. Doc and Imp were on the inside. His job was to call Del for a pickup, then dive indoors and create a diversion if one of them made the dumb phone in his pocket vibrate, signalling that the job was off. But nothing had gone wrong so far, nothing was going to go wrong, nothing could go wrong—
Right up until a black Ford Transit screeched up onto the curb outside the bank, the rear doors opened, and four guys in Reservoir Dogs cosplay outfits piled out and charged in the front door, bellowing hoarse commands to get on the fucking ground now as they waved their motherfucking AK-47s around.
“What the shitstained wank?” Game Boy gaped, then hit the speed dial on his burner to ping Imp and Doc’s phones.
“Wassat, Boy?” The Deliverator sounded distracted.
“Bad company, gonna need pickup! Fuuuu—” He tried not to swallow his tongue as he vibrated with fear—“this bunch of white guys with assault rifles just ran in—”
“Stop making shit up, Boy, this is London, that kind of thing doesn’t happen here—”
A thunderous hammering like a chorus of road drills from hell made Game Boy wince and drop to the ground. “Shooting,” he gasped. Getting a grip, he rose to a crouch and moved towards the front door. “I’m going hot.”
Rebecca’s voice flattened. “On my way. I hit traffic, expect pickup round the back within two minutes.”
They’d played a closely related scenario in a hacked-for-purpose level of Grand Theft Auto so many times it was almost instinctive: what to do if a Police Armed Response Unit turned up in the middle of a job. Guys in dark suits with AK-47s were not so different—fewer handcuffs, maybe. But it was much scarier in real life than any simulation.
Game Boy pushed through the doors, dodging half a dozen terrified customers scurrying to get out. There was another burst of gunfire, so tooth-rattlingly loud he could feel it in his stomach. A rain of plaster dust fell from the ceiling: “Everybody get on the fucking floor the next motherfucker to move dies this is not a fucking Quentin Tarantino movie—” The boss gunman had lost his porkpie, revealing a pink and shiny dome above his contorted face, eyes concealed behind Ray-Bans. “You fucking eat carpet you fucking carpetshagger—” he screamed at Game Boy, spittle flying as his three thuggish helpers swung round to cover the room.
Game Boy raised his hands, then dived for the carpet, interrupting his descent with a duck-and-roll that somehow spun him behind a desk, tugging a computer cable to send a monitor flying sharp-corner-first into the ankles of one of the armed robbers. The robber stumbled, stitching a neat row of bullet holes across the outside wall of the bank just as the front door opened again to admit a neatly bearded man in a much more expensive suit, terrifyingly accessorized with an AA-12 assault shotgun. “Cease fire!” he bellowed. “Drop your weapons!”
Game Boy scuttled for cover behind the next desk along, heedless of the arms and legs he was crawling across, despite a quiet squawk of protest from one of the bank clerks. He was just in time: moments later the bald-headed robber lit up the newcomer with his Kalashnikov.
CRASH. Plaster and blood sprayed everywhere. CRASH. What the fuck? Game Boy gibbered silently. The rifles left his ears ringing, but he could feel the assault shotgun in his bowels. Automatic fire hammered across the room as the newcomer (and the first wave of gunmen) took cover.
“We’re in an office off the back corridor,” Imp shouted in Game Boy’s earbud, “what’s going on out there?”
Game Boy got to his knees behind the desk, feeling for the zone: an itching in the back of his neck and a tension in his thighs told him time to dance as he sprang forward.
“Hey! Get him—”
Game Boy lunged towards the door to the back offices as one of the AK-toting goons took aim from behind the photocopier. Satan’s drum machine beat a rapid tattoo as the gunman’s heel slid out from under him and he toppled over backwards, bringing down another, more substantial chunk of ceiling. Shotgun Dude joined the bass line with a slammingly percussive gun solo. Game Boy’s leg twisted as he jinked sideways, dodging another robber’s fire—this one was smart enough to squeeze off aimed shots rather than wasting ammo—then he crashed through the open door and slammed it shut with one heel. Bullets punched holes in the wall above his head as he scrambled towards the office at the end of the corridor. “Open up, Imp, I’m coming in,” he gasped. Behind him, the gunmen were kicking at the door: a freak ricochet had jammed the latch in its reinforced strike plate.
The man who Wendy was absolutely certain wasn’t Bernard Harris exchanged a wide-eyed look with his maybe-not husband: “What the ferret-legging hell?” he demanded, ducking instinctively at a second
