The Vault Read online

  “I know who you are,” Mack­in­tosh called back, the butt of his pis­tol sud­denly slip­pery in his sweat-slicked palm.

  “Then you know that the game is up.” Som­mer’s Eng­lish was ex­cel­lent, des­pite a heavy ac­cent. “Tell your sol­diers to throw their weapons out of the win­dow.”

  “I don’t think so,” he called back, try­ing to stall him, try­ing to think of a way out of this mess.

  “No, Herr Mack­in­tosh, they must do this, and then you and Herr Schmidt must come out with your hands above your head. I give you my word that you won’t be harmed.”

  Mack­in­tosh took out the ra­dio and pressed the but­ton to open the chan­nel. “This is SALIS­BURY. Shots fired. ROUEN and PI­CASSO are both in­ca­pa­cit­ated, can’t move.”

  “Herr Schmidt,” Som­mer called out in Ger­man. “Günter. This doesn’t have to end badly for you. I know what you have offered to the Brit­ish. You don’t have to sell it to them. Your ex­per­i­ence is valu­able to me, too. Let’s talk about it.”

  “Ig­nore him,” Mack­in­tosh said to Schmidt.

  The ra­dio squelched. “This is NOR­WICH,” came the reply from one of the two SAS men. “Please con­firm the en­emy is be­hind you.”

  “Con­firmed,” he said. “Two men, maybe more.”

  “Please con­firm PI­CASSO and ROUEN are im­mob­ile.”

  He looked back to Élodie. She was pale, and the blood had pooled around her torso, a splash of col­our on the ice and snow. Schmidt was the same. “Con­firmed.”

  “And you?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Günter,” Som­mer called out again. “I would rather this could be con­cluded on good terms, but you should know that I have sent agents to col­lect your fam­ily. They will be ar­res­ted and taken to Ho­henschön­hausen. I would much rather we could just let them go again, but you need to help me if you want that to hap­pen. Put your hands up and walk out to me. You have my word that you will be well-treated.”

  The ra­dio squelched again. “This is what we’re go­ing to do,” the war­rant of­ficer said. “We’re go­ing to throw smoke. On my mark, you’re go­ing to run for the door. Fix it in your mind—you won’t be able to see it when the smoke spreads. But they won’t see you, either. When you see the gren­ades, count down from ten and then run. Do you un­der­stand?”

  Mack­in­tosh felt sick, but ra­di­oed back that he un­der­stood. He held the ra­dio in his left hand and the gun in his right.

  “I have an in­jured French cit­izen here. She has dip­lo­matic status. You are ob­liged to treat her un­der the Vi­enna Con­ven­tion.”

  “Of course we will treat her,” the voice came back. “Tell your sol­diers to throw out their weapons and put your hands up. You will all be treated well.”

  Mack­in­tosh turned to Schmidt. “I have to go now,” he said.

  Élodie squeezed his wrist. He turned to look down at her.

  She mouthed the words: Je t’aime.

  Two green can­is­ters were tossed out of the broken win­dow, one aimed to the left and the other to the right. They bounced once, twice, and then rolled to a stop. Smoke poured out of them, a grey cloud that bil­lowed up and out and filled the street. It wrapped around them, and Mack­in­tosh could only just see Élodie’s face.

  “I love you too.”

  Ten, nine, eight.

  “What do I do?” Schmidt pleaded.

  “Your leg needs to be treated. Stay here and wait for them to get to you.”

  Seven, six, five.

  “But—”

  Mack­in­tosh in­ter­rup­ted him. “I’m com­ing back for you, Günter. I prom­ise. I’m com­ing back.”

  Four, three, two.

  The smoke was dense now, and Mack­in­tosh could only just see his hand in front of his face.

  One.

  He let go of Élodie, clasped the gun in his other hand and, breath­ing in a lung­ful of the ac­rid air, he ran.

  8

  The smoke was so thick that Mack­in­tosh didn’t see the edge of the kerb. His foot crashed into it and, be­fore he could try to main­tain his bal­ance, he was flat on his face. The air was knocked out of his lungs as he crashed down to the ground and, when he gasped for more, he found that he was breath­ing in the thick, cloy­ing smoke. He coughed, pushed him­self to his hands and knees and then scrambled to his feet. He set off again, dis­or­i­ent­ated and un­sure that he was still head­ing to­ward the door to num­ber 55. He heard the sound of angry voices, shouts in Ger­man for him to stop and warn­ings that he would be shot if he didn’t. He ig­nored them, run­ning harder, reach­ing the wall of the build­ing and fum­bling for the door. He couldn’t find it and, just as he was cer­tain that he had gone too far and that there would be no pro­spect of him find­ing his es­cape be­fore the smoke cleared, he felt strong hands grabbing him by the lapels of his coat and haul­ing him into the build­ing.

  The door closed be­hind him and he heard the key turn­ing in the lock. There was less smoke in­side and he was able to see Cameron and Fisher. Both of them had their sub­ma­chine guns ready and Fisher was clasp­ing an­other gren­ade.

  “Get into the tun­nel,” Cameron said.

  Mack­in­tosh looked around. Foulkes was ly­ing on the floor, face down. “What happened?”

  “Got hit when they re­turned fire. Shot to the head. He’s dead.”

  “Fuck.”

  “Herr Mack­in­tosh,” the voice from out­side called again. “You should have stayed. I would have had your friend treated. But now? I think not.”

  Fisher edged up to the win­dow and looked out­side.

  “No,” he said. “Fuck, no—”

  The words were in­ter­rup­ted by a single gun­shot.

  Mack­in­tosh felt his stom­ach plunge.

  “What happened? What did he do?”

  Fisher’s face was white. “He shot ROUEN, sir. Ex­ecuted. Point blank.”

  Mack­in­tosh went for the door; there was no reason for it, no lo­gic, and it would have been death if he had reached it, but he couldn’t help him­self. Fisher stepped aside and body checked him, send­ing him down to the floor. He heard the chat­ter of a sub­ma­chine gun and the other win­dow ex­ploded, glass and frag­ments of the wooden frame scat­ter­ing around. Tendrils of smoke reached in­side. Mack­in­tosh heard shout­ing and flinched as an­other vol­ley rat-tat-tat­ted against the wooden door.

  Fisher grabbed him by the shoulders, hauled him to his feet and man­handled him to­ward the back of the room. “The tun­nel—now!”

  Mack­in­tosh al­lowed him­self to be shoved out of the room, down the stairs and into the base­ment. The shaft was open and the bot­tom of the tun­nel was still lit by the lan­tern. Mack­in­tosh lowered him­self so that he was sit­ting over the lip of the drop, and then put his feet on the rungs and star­ted to climb down.

  “Quickly,” Fisher said.

  Mack­in­tosh des­cen­ded as fast as he could. The treads of his boots were stuffed with ice from the road out­side and he lost his foot­ing sev­eral times be­fore he man­aged to reach the bot­tom.

  “Go, go, go.”

  He got down onto his hands and knees and scrabbled into the mouth of the tun­nel, half crawl­ing and half slid­ing down the in­cline as the pas­sage headed west. He heard the sound of a muffled ex­plo­sion from be­hind him and knew that Cameron had tossed a frag gren­ade back out into the apart­ment to de­ter pur­suit. They had to hope that the Stasi would be wary of booby-traps; if the Ger­mans pur­sued them it would be a simple enough mat­ter to fire into the tun­nel. There would be little that they would be able to do to de­fend them­selves.

  Mack­in­tosh gasped as he crawled, try­ing to fill his lungs with clean air. His eyes stung from the smoke and tears ran down his face. He thought of Élodie and the way that she had looked at him. He would have stayed with her, and she had known it; she had sent him away to save his life. Som
­mer had murdered her in cold blood.

  He thought of Schmidt, too, and the fu­ture that his fail­ure had bought for him: a tiled base­ment, a stain­less-steel table, a groove down the middle of the sloped floor that led to a drain where blood and vis­cera would be washed away. He could an­ti­cip­ate the tender min­is­tra­tions of the Stasi in­ter­rog­at­ors; prob­ably Schmidt would war­rant the at­ten­tion of Som­mer him­self.

  How did he know?

  Mack­in­tosh sliced open his palm on a sharp piece of rock, ig­nored it, car­ried on. He would find out who had be­trayed him, deal with them, and then deal with Som­mer, too. He swore ven­geance, there and then, un­der the found­a­tions of the Wall.

  Som­mer, and who­ever else was in­volved, was go­ing to pay.

  Part II

  9

  Smiler clicked the trans­mit but­ton twice, and Jimmy’s ra­dio squelched in re­sponse. It was the all-clear sig­nal: time to move. Jimmy ad­jus­ted the balaclava on his head, the wool scratch­ing against the stubble on his chin, and got out of the Vaux­hall Cava­lier. He went around to the back and popped the boot: six dis­pos­able oxy­gen cyl­in­ders; a spe­cially-made fit­ting that en­abled him to feed the gas through a quarter-inch tube; a series of five-eighth-inch hol­low stain­less-steel brake lines; and a ball of steel wool. The oxy­gen cyl­in­ders were de­signed for weld­ing torches, and he had them packed in a black can­vas bag. He put the bag on his shoulder, col­lec­ted the rest of the gear, closed the boot and hur­ried across the empty yard to the ware­house.

  They were on a trad­ing es­tate three miles away from Heath­row Air­port. A series of ware­houses formed from a large brick build­ing that was sur­roun­ded by a gen­er­ous car park. Full-length up-and-over roller doors, painted in ca­nary yel­low, marked the en­trance to each unit, each with a num­ber painted in black. Smiler was out­side num­ber 11 and had opened the smal­ler door that was used by those en­ter­ing and ex­it­ing the build­ing on foot.

  Jimmy hur­ried over to him.

  “Any prob­lems?” he asked.

  “Sweet as a nut.”

  “Alarm off?”

  “It’s all done. You’re good to go.”

  Ed­die Fa­bian had set the job up for them. He had paid off one of the se­cur­ity guards who worked on the es­tate. It was New Year’s Eve and the guard had said that se­cur­ity would be much more lax than would oth­er­wise be the case; the land­lord was tight, and not happy about the pro­spect of pay­ing the usual four-man team triple-time to guard the es­tate. There were only two men on duty to­night, and Fa­bian’s con­tact had laced the com­munal cof­fee pot with the ket­am­ine that Fa­bian had sup­plied. Both the con­tact and his mate would par­take of the cof­fee, and both would be co­matose for hours. Smiler and Jimmy had a gen­er­ous win­dow within which to work.

  They had been given plans and pho­to­graphs of the ware­house. The safe was in the of­fice at the rear. Jimmy switched on his flash­light and made his way across the floor, passing through an aisle of rack­ing that reached halfway to the eaves, six metres above. An of­fice space had been provided in a tem­por­ary cabin, and Smiler had already opened the door. Jimmy put a gloved hand on the handle, pushed the door all the way open and went in­side.

  He swept the torch around the room: a desk, two chairs, and, in the corner at the back, a large safe. Jimmy had seen pic­tures of the safe and knew that it was a good one. It was con­struc­ted with a double-walled three-inch-thick tempered steel body that was, in turn, filled with bar­rier ma­ter­ial to res­ist at­tack. It had a re­locker that would render it in­op­er­able if any­one tampered with the lock, and it was bolted to the floor.

  Smiler fol­lowed Jimmy into the of­fice.

  “What do you think?” he said.

  “Do you mean can I do it? Yes. I can do it.”

  There were lots of ways to crack a safe. Jimmy had con­sidered ma­nip­u­la­tion; you took a steth­o­scope and put it over the lock as if it were a beat­ing heart. You turned the dial, listen­ing for the clicks as the notches lined up on the series of in­ter­lock­ing wheels in­side. Ma­nip­u­la­tion, though, was slow, and the in­form­a­tion that Jimmy had been given sug­ges­ted that this par­tic­u­lar safe would be a chal­lenge to open that way. Jimmy looked at the locks and agreed; he could have done it, but it would have taken a long while. His way was bet­ter.

  “Go and keep watch,” Jimmy said to Smiler. “I’ll ra­dio if I need you.”

  Jimmy wanted to open the safe as quickly as pos­sible, and, with that in mind, he had settled on his homemade thermal lance. In­dus­trial lances were large and ex­pens­ive, and Jimmy had no wish to have a re­cord of him pur­chas­ing one that could eas­ily be traced back to him if a di­li­gent de­tect­ive thought to check. In­stead, he had cre­ated his own ver­sion. He took out an oxy­gen tank and fit­ted the reg­u­lator to the top, mak­ing sure that the brake line was nestled tight within it. He took a hand­ful of steel wool and stuffed it into the other end of the line. He lit the steel wool with his lighter and slowly opened the valve to re­lease the oxy­gen; the wool star­ted to burn, brighter and brighter, and then, when it was a bright white that lit up the room, the wool ig­nited the end of the lance.

  The burn­ing iron was hot enough to cut through al­most any­thing. Jimmy used the flame to cut an aper­ture in the door of the safe, a li­quid slag of iron ox­ides drib­bling and splash­ing from the burn­ing end of the lance and pool­ing on the con­crete floor in front of the safe. He worked slowly and meth­od­ic­ally, feel­ing the heat on his face where it was un­covered by the mask. The red-hot point sliced through the steel door: he star­ted on the top ho­ri­zontal, cre­at­ing an in­cision and then turn­ing off the oxy­gen as the brake line burned down to a quarter of its ori­ginal length.

  Jimmy was sweat­ing into the balaclava. He re­moved the ex­hausted brake line, re­placed it with a fresh one, and re­peated the pro­cess. He worked on the long ver­tical, then the bot­tom ho­ri­zontal. He changed the lance again and then fin­ished the fi­nal right-hand edge. When he was done, he had sliced a neat rect­angle into the door.

  “Still clear?” he said into the ra­dio as he moved the cut­ting gear out of the way.

  “All good. How you do­ing?”

  “Nearly there. I need to ham­mer.”

  “Do it. There’s no one here.”

  Jimmy took a ham­mer and a thick cloth from his bag. He fixed the cloth to the top of the safe to deaden the noise and, with two power­ful strikes, he struck the corners of the cut-out door so that it fell into the body of the safe. He grabbed the ex­posed end with both gloved hands and pulled, drag­ging out the panel that he had cre­ated.

  The safe was open. Jimmy took his flash­light and shone the beam in­side. He saw the neatly stacked metal boxes, took one out, thumbed the clasp that se­cured the lid, and opened it. The box was lined with vel­vet and con­tained a col­lec­tion of un­cut dia­monds. The gems glittered in the light of the torch. Jimmy laid the box on the floor next to the glow­ing slag and took out an­other. He opened it: it con­tained more un­cut stones. There was a wad of notes on a lower shelf. Jimmy took it, thumbed through them—twen­ties and fifties—and put them in his pocket.

  “We’re in,” he ra­di­oed. “Come and help.”

  Smiler made his way to the of­fice and looked down at the open boxes. “Fuck­ing bril­liant,” he said. “I ever tell you I love you?”

  “Not nearly enough.”

  Smiler helped Jimmy take out the other boxes.

  “There you are, you little beauty.”

  Ed­die Fa­bian had been told that the ware­house would be hold­ing the gems. They had been flown over from Am­s­ter­dam the day be­fore and were bound for on­ward dis­tri­bu­tion around the coun­try. Jimmy and Smiler had each been prom­ised fifty large if they could suc­cess­fully hit the ware­house and get the stones. It was go­ing to be a prof­it­able
even­ing’s work. Not a bad way to see in 1989.

  Jimmy checked his watch. It was el­even.

  “Let’s get a move on,” he said. “I’m sup­posed to be home for Big Ben.”

  10

  Smiler drove them away from the in­dus­trial es­tate, tak­ing the Great West Road to Houn­slow. He parked the Cava­lier five minutes away from the gues­t­house. Jimmy opened the door and stepped out­side.

  “Well done,” Jimmy said.

  “Ditto.”

  “See you to­mor­row.”

  “You will.” Jimmy paused and grinned as he shook his head. “Shit. I al­most for­got. Happy New Year.”

  Smiler laughed; the date had evid­ently slipped his mind, too. He reached across the cabin and clasped hands with Jimmy. “Happy New Year, you Ir­ish prick.”

  Jimmy went to the back of the car and opened the boot. Smiler was re­spons­ible for de­liv­er­ing the dia­monds to Fa­bian. Jimmy was okay about that; he trus­ted Smiler, more or less, and Fa­bian was fright­en­ing enough that there was no way that Smiler would think about do­ing any­thing stu­pid. Jimmy took out the bag with his gear, slung it over his shoulder, closed the boot and slapped his hand on the roof of the car. Smiler held up a hand in farewell and pulled out. Jimmy watched him go. He would take the car out into the coun­tryside and torch it be­fore driv­ing back in the second car that they had stashed there. They would meet up with Fa­bian to­mor­row.

  Jimmy walked the rest of the dis­tance on foot. The Civic Guest House was in an un­as­sum­ing ter­race on Lamp­ton Road. He took out his key, opened the front door and made his way up to the room that he had booked on the second floor. It was cheap and not par­tic­u­larly pleas­ant, but he hadn’t chosen it for its lux­ury. In­stead, he had scouted the area for suit­able premises and had settled on this one pre­cisely be­cause it was un­re­mark­able, al­most cer­tainly avail­able and within five minutes of the ware­house. The land­lady lived down­stairs in her base­ment flat and was al­most blind, nav­ig­at­ing her way around the prop­erty with the as­sist­ance of a white stick. That was a bo­nus; it would be dif­fi­cult for her to identify him if the po­lice were ever to put him in a line-up.