Echo of the Reich

9

20 July 2012

“It’s not far now,” Eaton said, turning the corner and heading down another street principally occupied by light industrial and commercial premises. Like the other roads they’d walked down, this street was virtually deserted, devoid of both cars and pedestrians. They walked on for about a further thirty yards, then Eaton nodded in the direction of a yard on the opposite side of the road.

“That’s it,” he said.

A pair of tall steel gates, painted dark blue but showing the inevitable scrapes and bumps caused by the movement of heavy machinery in and out of the yard, marked the entrance. The gates were supported on steel columns on either side, and heavy-duty steel-mesh fencing was attached to the other side of each post and, as far as Bronson could see, completely enclosed the yard. Parked inside, and clearly visible through the fence, were several pieces of construction equipment, including a low loader, presumably used for transportation, three bulldozers, a number of cranes of various sizes, several machines that looked a bit like tractors but which were fitted with digger attachments, and dozens of cement mixers of various types and sizes.

Bronson was feeling increasingly uncomfortable. He’d broken rules in the past and cut corners when he thought he could get away with it, both during his time in the army and later as a police officer. From a legal point of view, the most dangerous act he’d ever undertaken was probably buying the Llama pistol from Dickie Weeks, because he knew better than anyone that unauthorized possession of a firearm in the United Kingdom attracted a mandatory custodial sentence. But what he was about to do now disturbed him more than that, or any other act he had ever performed. What he and Eaton were planning to do was nothing more than mindless vandalism, impossible to justify on any level.

Except, of course, that the only way he could possibly be accepted as a member of the group was to live the lie that he had created, to do for real the kind of things that he claimed to have been doing already.

But he really didn’t like it.

Eaton glanced both ways, but the street was empty. He checked his watch, nodded, and then led the way across the road, stopped beside the double steel gates and opened the canvas tool bag.

“You’re stronger than I am. You cut the chain,” Eaton ordered, leaving Bronson no choice.

As Eaton had done, he checked that there weren’t any pedestrians anywhere near them, or anyone watching. Then he reached into the tool bag, pulled on the gloves and took out the bolt-croppers. He fitted the jaws around one of the links in the heavy-duty chain and forced the handles together. It was harder than he’d expected, and he changed his grip a couple of times until he felt the steel starting to give. Once the jaws started to bite, the chain began to part, the link finally giving way with a sharp crack that sounded uncomfortably loud in the quiet of the street.

Cutting through the other side of the broken link took less time, now that Bronson knew the level of force he had to exert, and in less than a minute the steel gave way and the chain fell to the ground.

Eaton pushed open the right-hand-side gate and they stepped into the yard, pushing the gate closed behind them to retain the appearance of normality.

“What now?” Bronson asked.

Eaton shrugged. “It’s your show,” he said. “Do what you like.”

Bronson nodded. Essentially on trial, he knew he had to make it look good. But for the sake of his own conscience, he was going to try to do as little damage as possible.

He grabbed the hammer and chisel he’d put in the tool bag and walked over to the closest bulldozer. He rested the blade of the chisel against the pipe leading to one of the diesel injectors on the side of the engine and rapped the end sharply with the hammer. The pipe fractured instantly, a trickle of diesel fuel weeping out of the broken end. Then he repeated the action on the other injector pipes. He wasn’t doing any lasting damage to the bulldozer-to do anything major would require far more powerful tools than just a hammer and chisel-and he knew the construction company would only have to replace the pipes to get the vehicle working again. But he was taking it out of action for a day or two, and he hoped that was the kind of thing Eaton was expecting him to do.

It wasn’t.

“Come on, Alex, that’s just fiddling about. They’ll have that dozer running again in a few hours. You need to think bigger. Get into the cab, smash up the instrument panel. Do something that’ll take it out of commission for a few weeks.”

“Don’t worry,” Bronson growled. “I’m just getting started.”

He pulled himself up onto the side of the large yellow machine and grabbed the handle of the door. It was locked, but he had more or less expected that. He looked round once more, then swung the hammer in a vicious arc that connected solidly with the window set into the door above the handle. The glass shattered with a crash, covering the floor of the cab with a myriad of jewel-like but worthless blue-green glass beads.

Bronson reached through the opening, released the lock and swung the door open. He brushed the glass off the seat and sat down on it. Conscious that Eaton was watching him from the yard below, he knew he had to make it look good. He raised the hammer and smashed it down on the top of the instrument panel, where it left an impressive dent even if it did nothing else. Then he swung the hammer into the center of the group of dials. Glass shattered as he destroyed the instruments, for the first time doing real, serious damage. He hit the instrument panel a couple more times, then climbed down from the cab.

As he had expected, Eaton climbed up just a few moments after Bronson had stepped onto the ground.

He nodded his satisfaction. “Good job, Alex,” he said. “Now smile for the camera.”

“What?”

Eaton pointed toward the metal gates, one of which was now standing slightly open. In the gap stood a man, a camera held in both hands, the lens pointing directly at Bronson.

“Who the hell’s that?” Bronson demanded, taking a step toward the newcomer.

“Relax, Alex. He’s one of our people, just capturing your exploits on celluloid-or rather one of those bloody memory chip things-so that we’ve got a bit of a lever if you ever decided to roll over and try to turn us in to the plods. He’s just filmed you doing about three or four grand’s worth of damage to that dozer-easily enough to put you away for quite a while.”

“Clever bastards,” Bronson said, realizing he’d been set up. “I suppose that was Mike’s idea?”

“Pretty much, yeah. Anyway, you’ve proved you’re on our side-at least you have to me-so let’s get the hell out of here before the pigs turn up. There’s an alarm system here, so they should already be on their way.”

And as if to underline his remark, Bronson heard, faintly but quite distinctly, the sound of an approaching siren.

“I wish you’d bloody well told me that before,” Bronson snapped, dropped the hammer. Then he turned and ran for the gate.

The man with the camera had already disappeared when Bronson wrenched the gate open and headed off along the road, back the way he’d come. But even as he reached the road, a police car turned into it, traveling quickly and heading straight toward him, roof lights flashing but with the siren switched off. Not all patrol officers were obliging enough to give an audible warning of their approach.

Bronson glanced to his right, where Eaton had just appeared, running beside him.

“Split up,” Bronson ordered, and ran across the road ahead of the police car, which was now only about fifty yards away. He ducked down a narrow alley between two of the industrial units, where the car couldn’t follow, and sprinted toward the opposite end.

Behind him, he heard a squeal of brakes as the police car slammed to a halt, then the sound of running feet and shouted commands to stop. He ignored them, concentrating on putting as much distance between himself and the pursuing officers as he could.

He took a quick glance behind him when he’d covered perhaps eighty yards, and then immediately stopped, because the alley was deserted. Obviously the two patrol officers had gone after Eaton, not him.

For a moment he just stood there, then turned round and ran back toward the road. He stopped at the end of the alley and looked out before he showed himself.

What he saw was unexpected.

Eaton was about seventy yards away from him, and over to his right, running back toward him, the two officers a few yards behind him, and apparently gaining on him. He must have doubled back, hoping to shake them off. And it clearly hadn’t worked.

It went against every fiber of Bronson’s being, but he knew what he had to do.

Eaton saw Bronson standing at the end of the alley, changed direction and ran past him down the narrow passageway. As he did so, Bronson shifted position, tucking himself out of sight, waiting for the first of the two patrol officers to follow.

The moment the man appeared, Bronson stepped forward, crouching slightly and bracing himself, his left arm bent at the elbow to act as a ram. The running policeman had no time to react or change direction. He simply ran straight into Bronson’s immovable figure, and more or less bounced off, tumbling backward, gasping for breath.

Almost immediately, the second officer rounded the corner, running hard. Bronson stepped aside, then kicked out with his right foot, catching the policeman’s left leg beside the knee. The man let out a howl of pain and crashed forward onto the ground.

Bronson didn’t hesitate. He knew both men would be on their feet again in a few seconds, and he couldn’t afford to be caught. So he turned tail and ran, ran as hard as he could, retracing his steps down the alley, Eaton about thirty yards in front of him.

At the end, both men slowed down and looked back.

The two police officers were more or less where Bronson had left them, but both were standing and one was clearly speaking into his radio, probably relaying a description of Bronson and Eaton and calling for reinforcements.

“Thanks for that,” Eaton said. “Now let’s get out of here.”

Seconds later, the two men jogged out of the far end of the alley and turned left, away from the construction yard, then slowed to a walk as they made their way down the street. They heard the sounds of a siren from the road they’d just left, but saw no sign of police officers or vehicles anywhere near them.

“There’s no linking road between these two streets,” Eaton pointed out. “The pigs’ll have to go all the way back to the main road to get down here.”

“With a bit of luck they won’t bother,” Bronson said.

“Did you hurt them?”

“Not really. One of them’ll have a sore knee for a few days, but the other was just winded.”

“Well, thanks again. That was a good job,” Eaton said, as they headed back to where they’d left the Transit van. “I think Mike’ll be happy to have you join us now. You might even get to meet Georg.”

“Georg?”

“All in good time,” Eaton replied with a grin, “but between you and me, he’s the one who gives Mike his orders. He’s the money man, if you like.”

Bronson filed away this piece of information: another new name and perhaps a glimpse of the hierarchy. He hoped he’d done enough to gain proper access to the group, so that he could identify the key players and then walk away, get back to doing something that didn’t leave quite such a sour taste in his mouth.

Back at the construction yard, once they’d caught their breath, the two-man crew of the patrol car conducted a rapid search of the premises and found nobody there, which was what they’d expected. When the alarm had been triggered, the principal key-holder had been alerted as well as the police, and only about fifteen minutes after the patrol car had skidded to a stop, a balding, middle-aged man arrived in a Jaguar saloon and introduced himself to the two officers as Jeremy Heaton.

He inspected the damage to the bulldozer and expressed his irritation-he knew it would be a long time before that vehicle would be back in working order-but he was happy that only one piece of equipment had been targeted.

“Thanks for getting here so quickly, lads,” Heaton said as he walked back to talk to the patrol car crew. “You probably scared the bastards away before they could do any real damage.”

“We saw two men here, but we couldn’t catch them,” one of the officers said, declining to explain what had actually happened. “That dozer’s a bit of a mess, though, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but it’s an old one, and it was coming up for a major service anyway, so it’s no great loss. The insurance company won’t be happy, but that’s their problem. I’ve already called one of my people to come out here and sort out that gate,” Heaton added. “Get the place secure again, until the next time some comedian decides to have a little fun in here.”

“Right, sir,” the second officer said. “If you’ve got everything in hand, we’ll be on our way.”

“Thanks again. Oh, we’ve got a new security system here. If it recorded anything useful I’ll leave a copy at the local nick.”

Heaton watched the car reverse out of the open gate and head off down the street. Then he walked across to the locked office at the back of the yard, feeling in his pocket for his keys.

The new security cameras had been installed only a few weeks earlier, and Heaton still wasn’t sure they were in the right places and were working properly. He decided he’d look at the tapes-sorry, the solid-state hard drives, as the installer had emphasized to him several times-on-site before he handed over the pictures, if the system had done its job and taken any, to the police.

The security company had fitted two cameras, both tucked neatly out of sight. One covered the main gates, the obvious place for any intruder to effect an entrance, and was linked to the alarm system, so it would have started recording the moment the gate swung open and broke the contact. The second camera provided a wide-area view of the yard, and would show exactly where any intruders went and what they did. It was, the security company had claimed, state-of-the-art equipment, and would provide the best possible chance of identifying and apprehending anyone who entered the premises illegally.

In his office, Jeremy Heaton sat down at his desk, switched on the LCD screen that hung on the wall opposite his chair and somewhat uncertainly negotiated his way through the various menus that controlled the security system. He finally found what he was looking for and settled back to watch the video sequences.

The pictures were incredibly clear, the faces of the two men in sharp focus. The system actually seemed to be working far better than Heaton had expected, even better than the installer had promised, in fact.

One of the menu options offered Heaton the ability to make copies of the video recordings. He clicked the appropriate key, then followed the on-screen instructions that told him where to insert a blank DVD disk. He’d deliver that to the local police station, as he’d said he would, not that it would help much. Heaton had no illusions about the likelihood of the two criminals being apprehended, unless they already had records and could be identified from the images.

Once the copying process had finished, he extracted the disk and slipped it into a case. Then he opened his drawer again, took out a second blank disk and inserted it in the machine. He’d make another copy, he decided, and this one he wouldn’t hand over to the police.

He had a much better idea what he could do with that recording.