Echo of the Reich

50

27 July 2012

“Hang on,” Weeks snapped.

He swung the wheel of the Range Rover hard over to the left, shifted the transmission into reverse and backed up a few feet, until the rear of the four-by-four slammed into the front bumper of the car immediately behind them. The driver sounded his horn in a loud, continuous and clearly angry blare, which Weeks completely ignored. He spun the wheel to the right, engaged drive and floored the accelerator pedal.

The two-ton car hit the left-hand rear of the Volvo just as the two front doors were opening. The impact turned the Volvo violently on its axis. The passenger door instantly slammed shut while the other gaped wide, the black-clad figure of the police driver visible in the opening, struggling to stay in his seat.

Weeks kept the power on, forcing the police car out of his way. Metal ripped and tore, tires howled as the tarmac road surface ripped rubber from them, and pedestrians on the sidewalks watched the unequal contest in open-mouthed amazement. He shunted the Volvo over to the left, keeping the wheel of the Range Rover hard over, all four tires smoking and leaving black streaks on the road, forcing the other car back against the curb. There was a sudden explosion as the right-side rear tire of the police car blew, forced off the rim by contact with the curbstone. People scattered in all directions.

“That’ll do,” Weeks said, straightened up his car and accelerated rapidly down the street.

“That’s probably buggered up your no-claims bonus,” Bronson observed. “Did you damage this car?”

Weeks shook his head. “Unlikely,” he replied shortly. “I’ve got bull bars on the front, and the chassis and suspension have both been uprated and strengthened. I like this car. In fact, I need to do something about that, right now.”

He punched buttons on the center console and a ringing tone sounded in the car’s stereo audio system. Then a disembodied voice announced: “Police.”

Weeks grinned at Bronson and immediately launched into an urgent description of having left his car outside a newsagent’s while he went inside to buy a paper, and of seeing two men jumping into the vehicle and driving off.

“Then,” he continued, “these two bastards rammed one of your jam sandwiches and then buggered off down the street. You need to stop them, mate. That bloke who nicked my motor is bloody mad.”

He finished off with the registration number of the Range Rover and his personal details, then rang off.

“You think that’ll work?” Bronson asked.

“I dunno. I thought it was worth a try. Muddies the waters a bit, anyhow.”

As soon as they got out of sight of the damaged Volvo, Bronson directed Weeks down side roads to get them away from the area as quickly as possible, and they neither saw nor heard a police car for several minutes.

“I reckon we’ve lost them, but they’ll have a chopper up any time now, so we need to lose this motor pretty soon,” Weeks said.

“Best place is a multi-story,” Bronson said. “You’re invisible as soon as you drive inside, and there’s always some car there that you can jack. I should know-I’ve investigated dozens of car thefts from places like that.”

Five minutes later, Weeks drove the Range Rover into a car park on the edge of a shopping center, and headed for the up-ramp. Bronson crouched down in the front seat so that he would be invisible to the unwinking eye of the security camera covering the entrance, and Weeks made sure he kept his left hand over his face as he took the parking ticket.

He drove the Range Rover up to the fifth floor, where there were far fewer cars, most shoppers obviously preferring to find a parking place on one of the lower levels. He stopped just as he reached the floor and then maneuvered the car until it was directly underneath the camera that covered that parking level, felt in the door pocket and pulled out a pair of insulated pliers, which he handed to Bronson.

“Snip the coax on that camera,” he said, gesturing upward.

Bronson climbed onto the hood, stood up and cut the lead in two where it entered the camera.

Weeks parked the car on one side of the level, then they both checked the other vehicles there. The obvious choice was an oldish Ford, the newer cars having far more sophisticated antitheft systems, and in under ten minutes Weeks had the door open and the engine running. They transferred all their possessions to the new vehicle, then drove off down the ramp. They stopped beside a payment machine on the second floor, and Bronson got out to pay the charge on the ticket Weeks had taken about a quarter of an hour earlier.

“That’s a deal,” he said, when he got back into the car. “The first half hour is free.”

As they exited, Bronson again ducked down out of view of the camera, and Weeks hid his face as he fed the ticket into the slot.

Weeks drove the car with care, not out of respect for the vehicle, or for the person they’d deprived of it, but simply so as not to attract any attention. The car didn’t have a satnav, and so they had to rely on the road signs to find their way. But that wasn’t difficult.

Just under an hour after Weeks had started the engine on the Ford in the car park in northeast London, he and Bronson were stepping inside Angela’s apartment, having dumped the Ford a few streets away.

“I’ve been watching the news,” she said, as the two men walked in. “A pair of thugs driving a Range Rover rammed a police car near the Olympic stadium, then got away. Know anything about that?”

“It was just a bit of a fender-bender,” Weeks replied. “Nobody got hurt. You’re looking well,” he added.

A smile flitted across Angela’s face for a period best measured in milliseconds.

“Thanks,” she said, “and so are you. So what’s going on, Chris?”

Bronson provided her with a highly edited account of what had happened in London that morning, avoiding any reference to the killing of Georg and his anonymous companion.

“Based on what we’ve found out,” he finished, “it looks like the device will be arriving this morning, but we still don’t know how it’s being transported or where it will be positioned. But it is definitely coming.”

Angela shook her head.

“I really hoped we’d got it wrong. So what can you do now? Is there any point in calling the police again?”

“Probably not,” Bronson replied. “I still don’t know what it is that they could do, even if they took me seriously. The area was swarming with police even before we had our little traffic accident, and my guess is that there are probably about double that number around Stratford by now. Granted, they’re not looking out for some kind of a nuclear device shaped like a bell, but they will have their eyes open.”

“And I suppose you two are going back?”

It was actually less a question than a simple statement, and the two men nodded in reply.

“Yes,” Bronson said, “but we need to change our clothes, so that we look different.”

“And what can you hope to achieve, just the two of you, if hundreds of police officers and the troops and everyone else can’t stop this weapon being positioned?”

“I don’t know,” Bronson replied, “but we have to try. We might see something, or hear something, that makes sense to us but which would mean nothing to anyone else.”

Angela nodded. “You have to do what you can, I know. Right, Dickie, the bathroom’s through there if you want to clean up, and if you go into the bedroom you’ll find a bunch of Chris’s clothes in the small wardrobe. You look as if you’re about the same size, so help yourself.”

“Wear smart casual, with a jacket,” Bronson instructed.

Weeks nodded, but didn’t respond. While he was out of the room, Angela made coffee for the three of them.

“Is there anything I can do?” she asked.

“Not really,” Bronson replied, “unless you can work out how Marcus is planning on getting the Bell into the heart of the Olympic site. I told you I saw Georg today-”

“You told me less than half the story, but I really don’t want to learn any more,” she interrupted.

“Yes, point taken. The thing is, he was in no doubt at all that they’d manage to deliver the device. He was certain they’d have no trouble getting it into position. In fact, he talked about having something like a ‘reserved space,’ as if he had a ticket to the opening ceremony.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Angela said. “All access is going to be strictly controlled, for obvious reasons. The last thing London wants is a repeat of the Munich Olympics, only a hundred or a thousand times worse. Every spectator is going to be checked, and probably have to walk through a metal detector or body scanner, and the amount of vehicular traffic allowed anywhere near the stadium is going to be incredibly limited, and checked just as thoroughly. Are you sure he didn’t mean they’d already got it into position? Into a reserved space, or whatever?”

Bronson shook his head.

“That’s not what he said, and I’m certain that’s not what he meant. There’s something we’re missing here, some loophole Marcus has obviously identified and is going to exploit. I was even wondering if he had some plan to get the device onto an underground train or into a sewer somehow, but I just don’t see either of those options working, for a host of basic logistical reasons.”

Angela nodded, then leaned forward as another thought struck her.

“There’s another factor. If he’s been planning this for years, he can’t have worked out a way to beat the security system London’s put in place to safeguard the Olympics all that time ago, because it probably wasn’t even finalized until quite recently. So it must be something else, something fundamental, that we’re just not seeing.”

The door opened and Weeks appeared, wearing blue jeans and a white open-necked shirt, both garments fitting him reasonably well. He had a light jacket slung over his shoulder.

“Bathroom’s free,” he announced, then sat down and picked up his mug of coffee.

Twenty minutes later, Bronson emerged similarly dressed, his growth of stubble removed, his hair combed.

“Right,” he said, “we need to go. We’ll have a bag each, because we need somewhere to store the hardware, and a couple of sets of vests and caps I borrowed a while ago.”

“Vests?” Weeks asked.

“Yes. If we find something, we’re going to need to be able to move fast. I’ve got two sets of police baseball caps and overvests in my bag. Undercover officers use them when they need to identify themselves to the public. You just pull them on over your shirt. They aren’t Kevlar, just nylon, but those, and the caps, might help us pass for real coppers if we have to.”

“You are a real copper,” Angela pointed out.

“I was when I started this caper,” Bronson replied, “but I have no idea what I am right now. I don’t even know if they’re still paying me.”

He picked up the keys for the car Angela had hired, a nicely anonymous means of transport that wouldn’t ring the alarm bells in any police car they passed, and turned to leave.

“If you have any brain waves, give me a call on the mobile,” Bronson said. “Otherwise, I’ll see you later.”