Bronson stopped in the doorway and looked back.
“How much?”
“That depends. First, we need to be sure about you, be certain that you won’t betray us.”
“Yeah? And how do you do that?”
Georg shook his head. “I won’t. It’s not my decision. Did you bring your passport?”
Bronson nodded and produced the document from his trouser pocket.
“Good. I don’t need to see it, but you’ll need it later today.” Georg stood up and reached into his jacket.
Bronson tensed instantly, his right hand closing around the butt of the Llama. But Georg simply pulled out a thick buff envelope and tossed it across the room to him. Bronson caught it with his left hand, flicked up the flap with his thumb and glanced at the contents. Banknotes.
“There’s one hundred pounds in twenty-pound notes in that envelope, plus five hundred euros. There’s also a piece of paper with an address on it. It’s in Berlin. They’re expecting you by tomorrow evening. That should be enough for the ferry crossing, petrol, autobahn tolls and so on. If there’s any change you can keep it.”
“Hang on a minute,” Bronson said. “Why the hell am I driving halfway across Europe? And who am I meeting in Berlin?”
Georg shook his head. “Berlin is hardly ‘halfway across Europe,’ Bronson. It’s about a day and a half’s drive from the French Channel ports, about twelve hundred kilometers or seven hundred and fifty miles, that’s all.”
“And I’m meeting who, exactly?” Bronson asked again.
“My colleagues. They want to see you, and then they’ll decide if we want to involve you in what we’re doing.” Georg leaned forward, to emphasize what he was about to say. “Let me be frank, Bronson.” He flicked a glance toward Mike. “Hiring muscle is easy. We pay them well, and they do as they’re told. You’re different. You’ve got brains as well as brawn, and your background and the knowledge you have would make you invaluable to our cause, and especially at the end.”
“What do you mean, ‘at the end’?” Bronson asked.
“That doesn’t matter. All you need to know is that what we’re doing now is just a prelude to the main event. A distraction, if you like. You’ll be told exactly what we’re doing once we’re certain where your loyalties lie.”
“And how are your colleagues going to establish that?” Bronson asked again.
Georg smiled for the first time since Bronson had walked into the disused office.
“I’m sure they’ll find a way,” he replied.
14
22 July 2012
As he followed Eaton out of the office and walked down the short corridor, Bronson realized just how little he really knew about this group. They had already caused tens of thousands of pounds’ worth of damage, killing a man in the process, and that, according to Georg, was simply a “distraction.” Whatever the group’s final aim, it could be catastrophic for London, something that could rival, maybe even surpass, the carnage caused by the suicide bombers who’d struck the city on “7/7.”
And the only way he could find out what they intended was to do exactly what Georg had told him. He had to travel to Berlin and hope he’d be able to worm his way inside the group there. Handing Georg, Mike and Eaton to the police would achieve nothing useful. He had to wait until he knew far more before he could order an attack on them.
But as he reached the end of the alley between the two adjacent buildings and was about to head across the forecourt toward his parked car, he saw something he really didn’t like.
He watched an unmarked white Transit van turn into the entrance road to the industrial estate and then stop, the front of the vehicle pointing toward him. That wasn’t unusual-vehicles of that sort were ten a penny throughout the area during the working day-but the wire mesh that covered the windscreen was unusual. The only group of people who routinely operated vehicles protected in that way, Bronson knew, were the police.
Something had gone wrong. Perhaps Curtis had misunderstood what he’d said, or maybe a more senior officer had decided to take the opportunity to make an early arrest, despite what Bronson had told them. He didn’t know, and it didn’t matter. What was important was trying to retrieve the situation, because he had to get to Berlin, had to find out what the group was planning.
“John,” Bronson said urgently, just as Eaton reached the end of the alley. “Back inside.”
“What?”
“That’s a police van. It’s a raid.”
Eaton followed Bronson’s glance and nodded, then turned on his heels and swiftly retraced his steps.
“What is it?” Georg asked, as Eaton and Bronson stepped back into the office.
“There’s a van-load of coppers outside,” Eaton said urgently. “Chris spotted them.”
“You mean he bloody brought them here,” Mike shouted. “He’s a plant-I told you that.”
“If I brought them here, why the hell would I warn you?” Bronson responded. “I don’t know how they found the place. Maybe somebody in the unit next door recognized me or John and called the cops-our faces have been splashed all over the news. The how doesn’t matter. What we have to do is get out of here.”
“What will they do?” Georg asked, standing up. “How will they approach us?”
“That depends on what information they have. If they know we’re in this building, they’ll cover the exits, then use an enforcer-a battering ram-on one of the doors. Then they’ll swarm inside. If they just followed my car or John’s, then they won’t have our precise location, and they may wait where they are until they spot one of us.”
“So what do we do?”
“First we watch,” Bronson replied, and stepped out of the inner door of the office into the open central area of the building. The floor was littered with debris, mainly small items but interspersed with a few empty cardboard boxes, while fluorescent light fittings were suspended from the ceiling, most of them missing their tubes.
Bronson strode over to the front office, beside the roller-shutter door. When he tried the handle, he found that the access door was locked.
“I don’t have a key for that,” Georg said from behind him.
“No problem.”
Bronson took a step back, then kicked out hard with the sole of his right shoe. The blow connected with the internal door directly alongside the lock. The wood creaked, but didn’t give, but on the second kick, the jamb splintered with a crack, and the door crashed open. He walked straight across to the window and peered out cautiously, keeping his body out of sight behind the wall that ran between the window and the outside door.
The white van didn’t appear to have moved, and was still parked in the road, two shadowy figures faintly visible in the cab, but Bronson had no doubt there were at least half a dozen other officers sitting in the back of the vehicle waiting for the signal to disembark.
“What do we do?” Georg asked, for the second time. He sounded only mildly concerned. Mike, in contrast, was clearly very agitated.
“Come on, Mr. Ex-copper. Sort this out.”
“I can’t ‘sort this out,’ you idiot,” Bronson snapped. “All I can do is try to work out how the hell we get out of here.”
He turned away from the window.
“Yeah, well do that, then,” Mike snarled.
Bronson ignored the remark and looked at Georg.
“Are you known to the police?” he asked. “I mean, if you stepped out of here and walked past that van, would anyone inside it recognize you?”
Georg shook his head. “No. As far as I know, I’ve never come to the attention of the authorities here.”
“Good. That’s something.”
“They might know my face,” Mike interrupted. “There’ve been cameras at some of the places we’ve hit.”
“Brilliant,” Bronson said, irritation lacing every syllable of the word. “So there’s a good chance the three of us would be recognized.” He paused for a moment, then glanced at his three companions. “The bad news is that there are probably eight officers in that van, maybe more,” he said, “so there’s no chance of us being able to fight our
