Elephants can't hide forever (2 page)

“I think I can picture him.” Danny said sardonically. It was always taken as a given that the public never got involved; when there was violence afoot they just shit themselves and
then boasted about it when they were safe, and for two Joes to wade in, there was more likelihood of the second coming but it had happened, and they had all got banged up for it.

However, if one good thing did come of it, it was that Danny had won the respect of all the lags doing their bird alongside him. When word got round the nick that Danny had sacrificed his
freedom to help his mates, he was soon elevated to celebratory status on the wing and no one bothered him for the duration; even the Rastas gave him slack, and more importantly, the real big fish
like Mouse considered him sound. It would be fair to say that Danny’s act of loyalty eight years ago was why John Illes was now about to offer him a piece of the action. and unknown to both
of them, a piece of history.

Mouse continued, “Well, Danny, Brian’s got this brother-in-law name of Tony Black. He’s a security guard at a bonded warehouse at the back of T4 at Heathrow, somehow he got
talking to Brian about his shit financial state, and one thing led to another, and it turns out he’s got access to all the security systems and even a key for the front door, he knows when
there’s any heavy duty money coming in and not only that, but he’s willing to assist us in getting in and out.”

“OK, that’s fine,” said Danny “But you know what these types are like, when the heat’s on he’s bound to get a tug from the old bill as he works there. And
what’s to say that after ten minutes of questions he won’t crumble and sing like a bird to save his own skin, leaving us in the shit.”

“Fair point Danny”, replied Mouse. “I’ve already thought of that, and that’s why I am here, and as far as the others are concerned no one makes contact with Brian,
so the brother-in-law knows the only person he gets to see and talk to regarding this blag is Brian, so if he fucks up and opens his mouth it’s his sister’s brother he grasses and no
one else. Not only that, but you know if Brian is collared he will keep quiet. Jesus, he owes us, and more particularly, he owes you.”

“So what’s my part?” Danny asked.

“Well” said Mouse, lowering his tone. “There are six of us going into the warehouse and vault, the cash we now know is coming will be delivered in at five am on the
26
^th
November and we go in ten minutes after the shift changes at 6 40am. I anticipate loading the money, securing the guards, and getting out in fifteen minutes. You, Danny, will be the
back up wheels and first change of motors, so I want you in position five minutes away down on Stanwell Moor. We’ll come to you, bung the cash in your motor, you high tail it down to my lock
up in Bexley. I’ll give you the address on the day; you leave the van inside the lock up and make yourself scarce, ideally get yourself booked on the 11am flight back here. We will divvy up a
week before Christmas, how does that sound?”

“Sounds good to me,” said Danny, a bit disappointed that he wasn’t on the front line operation, still, he was in, and knew unless he fucked up big time, he was in for life.
Danny continued, “So who are the other guys, apart from you and Brian?” he asked.

Mouse took a long breath before replying. “Well firstly there’s Eric Logan, he’s going to be the muscle backing me up.”

Fucking hell, thought Danny, he’s a right psycho. Eric Logan, also known as Bones had always had and enjoyed a reputation as a nutter. A couple of years younger than Danny, they had been
at the same school, and, even then, Danny had been canny enough to give him a wide berth. Bones Logan was the silent type who didn’t pick a fight; he just started it, no signs, and no
warnings, just for the hell of it. What elevated Mr. Logan into John’s team was the fact that Bones Logan had dealt with a very bad problem a couple of years back, in a very discreet way, and
only a handful of people ever knew, and of course Mouse was one of them.

The story was that Eric’s sixteen year old daughter Loretta, or Loll to her friends and family, had been out in the Cray on a Saturday night, doing what sixteen year olds do, when two toe
rags from Catford, having nicked a set of wheels, had decided to come over to Sidcup for a bit of action in their newly acquired AMG Merc 600s. Unfortunately for Loll and her mate Ruby, and as it
happened, unfortunately for them. The two car thieves spotted the girls disappearing off the high street and heading down a quiet alley to take a pee. Both lads had jumped out of the Merc and
followed them. Ruby was already squatting down, and the first of the lads commented, “Glad to see you’ve got your knickers off, that’ll save me a job.”

Both girls were startled, but Loll was quick to reply: “Fuck off arseholes.”

One of the toe rags pushed Ruby over as the other approached Loll. Loll, daughter of Bones Logan, was no shrinking violet; neither was she in any doubt what these lads were after, and she had to
act fast. As the boy approached her, she pulled a nail file from her bag and lashed out at him, opening a deep gash from the corner of his eye to just under his nose. She then gave him further
verbal abuse. Both toe rags launched into the girls with a feral ferocity, and very shortly had overcome their initial resistance and beaten them senseless; it wasn’t exactly what they had in
mind when they followed the women down the alley, but they were satisfied with their work, and duly left the scene looking for more sport.

It was 3am in a local gambling den when Bones took the call from his wife Debby.

“Eric, Loll’s in the intensive care unit Sidcup general, she’s been attacked, get here fast,” he was instructed.

Bones, who doted on his daughter, threw what was the winning hand of the poker game over the pot at the speiler he frequented on most Saturdays, and drove like a bat out of hell to his
daughter’s bedside. Half an hour after Eric’s arrival, the duty locum addressed Eric and Debby as he finished examining Loll, “She’s going to be fine, her spleen is bruised
and there are two broken ribs. The cuts on the face won’t leave a scar at her age, so we’ll move her out onto the general ward and she can go home in a couple of days,” he
said.

Eric just managed a nod but his thunderous expression never changed. Debby, who had grown up in a very hard environment and had seen plenty of broken bones in her time, was not about to break
down either.

“Thank you, doctor, and please thank all your staff” she said, as she offered her outstretched hand, leaving the locum under the impression that he should now go and leave the
husband and wife alone, which he duly obliged.

With the room to themselves, Debby spoke to Eric:

“Loll’s going to be fine, leave her with me, go and do what you have to, come home when its over.”

Eric Logan walked over to his daughter’s bedside, ran the palm of his hand through her matted and bloodied hair, and left. There was only one thing on his mind - retribution.

Three weeks later, Colin Winn was sitting across the desk from a pretty assistant in the local Thomas Cook travel agent on Bexley High Street. Colin was booking a surprise holiday for his wife
and four children and he was very pleased with himself; this was not only going to be a holiday totally out of the blue for the family, but wait till he told them it was for two weeks in Lazaretto
and all inclusive. Ok, when Bones Logan, his old school mate, had told him in no uncertain terms what he needed from him, he had initially shit himself, but fuck it, half an hour’s work and
he was sitting here with five large ones booking the holiday of a lifetime.
Wait till I pay for this in readies,
he was thinking,
that will get me respect.

Colin was a truck driver; to be specific, a ready- mix concrete truck driver, and the past four months had been like thirty others, shuttling concrete from the batching plant in Swanley to the
site of the new bridge spanning the Thames, a boring monotonous job that paid well but lacked variation. That was until yesterday, and yesterday there was variation. His last run of the day took
him from the batching plant via a seedy back street garage in Erith where he had been instructed to report by his recent benefactor. As the whoosh of the air brakes signalled the truck was securely
parked, Bones Logan appeared from the side door with two people Colin didn’t know, and looking at them, didn’t want to either.

“Col, were going to be adding some cargo to the concrete, we know your load won’t be tested because Dave here’s had a little word with the checker on pillar thirteen where
you’re tipping, so all you got to do is make sure you get the load down the shaft, and not miss it, there’s going to be two more loads straight behind you and everyone will want to go
home, now give us a hand”.

After the mutilated, charred remains of the two car thieves from Catford had been fed into the revolving drum of Colin Winn’s cement mixer, the big guy with a false eye handed Colin his
five grand with the menacing words, “You’re a lucky man, five grand to spend on those four kids, keep them safe.”

Colin had started his engine, but before he got out of sight pulled over and spewed his stomach out over his passenger seat. He had toughed it out at the garage, but had never seen a dead body
before, let alone the remains of two people who had suffered so horrifically. Eric had said to the man with one eye, “He will keep stum, no fear.” Half an hour later, the two bodies
were tipped out of the mixer to fertilise the ground under the new bridge, undoubtedly not the first and not the last.

Of course, news of the highly secret operation spread like wildfire in the pubs and clubs of South London. Eric Logan had accredited himself well, and so Eric Bones Logan found himself invited
onto the team, and batting with the big boys.

“Who else?” asked Danny.

“Well,” replied Mouse “We’ve got Herbie Sparks on the alarms and cameras.”

Danny knew Herbie, who had a legitimate electrical shop over the water in the borough of Chingford. He fitted security systems all over Essex, and there was no shortage of business on that
manor, both to the great and good and to the not so good; the villains and the hoi-polloi all cherished their security, and Herbie had no qualms who he did business with. Furthermore, over the
years had become a trusted part of several major gangs when a specialist like himself was required. “Good man,” commented Danny.

“Yeah, invaluable” said Mouse, “And the last two are Martin Flint and John Bater.” Both these men were known as Petermen in the trade, another specialist requirement in
the art of bank robbery and the like, once again a trade that, like Herbie’s, was running short of skilled personnel. As far as the general public were aware the Peterman was a safe cracker
and John Illes needed two safe crackers on this job and these two were the best.

Both men had served and learnt their trade in the Royal Army Ordinance Corps. On leaving the Army they were now experts in all major aspects of munitions, including bomb disposal. They had taken
their skills to the highest bidders, starting with legitimate employment in the major oil companies, who always required such men to clear areas of the world such as demilitarised zones, in order
to safely deploy their field experts in the constant search for new oil deposits. As the two mercenaries gradually moved round the world, they soon discovered their unique knowledge commanded huge
rewards for the not so legitimate enterprises that were involved in the business of bombs and really anything that exploded, and that included the criminal fraternity of their home country, the
United Kingdom. Both men had built a common trust with the villains of England and Scotland, and were usually the first to be contacted when the need arose; certainly when Mouse was putting his
team together they were the only two names he wanted.

“Well I don’t know these last two, Mouse” said Danny,” but I guess you wouldn’t employ monkeys.” Mouse grinned, enough said then.

“Do you mind if I ask what my share is?” Danny enquired.

“Fair question” said Mouse. “It’s the six of us that are going in to the warehouse who are taking the most risk, so I reckon that you’re on for five percent, which
if it’s three million, that’s a hundred and fifty large ones. How does that sound?”

“More than fair,” agreed Danny, John Illes stuck his huge hand out to Danny,

“Sorted then. Let’s go downstairs and celebrate,” he grinned. At precisely 6.40am on the morning of November 26
^th
1983, six armed and highly dangerous men led by
John Illes, The Mouse, walked through the front doors of the Brinks Mat warehouse, Heathrow, unaware they were about to become complicit in the crime of the century

President George W Bush sat transfixed, staring at the bank of television monitors in front of him; it was the morning of September 11
^th
2001. He was aboard Air
Force One, the presidential plane that he usually used to visit foreign countries. This morning, however, he had been performing administrative tasks in the oval office which was his sanctum within
the White House, when the bright green hot phone shrilled into action. This was the line known only to six men, all heads of the various security services that jointly ensure the USA remains safe
from hostile forces. This was the first occasion the phone had rung since J F Kennedy had answered it to be told the Russians were heading to Cuba with a batch of nuclear warheads back in the
1960s. The caller was John Robertson, head of National Security. John spoke calmly.

“Sir, I need you to listen carefully and do as I say. As I speak America is under attack from hostile but unknown forces- at 830am we took a scrambled call from a US Marshall aboard
American Airlines flight 11 out of Boston. As you know sir, all US flights have unidentifiable Marshalls, well the Marshall’s call was chilling, he said the plane he was travelling on had
been hijacked by a group of men who seemed very well organised and had taken over the flight deck. He deduced at least one of the hijackers was a pilot. As National Security were deciphering the
Marshall’s call, a further call came in from United Airlines flight 175, also out of Boston. The US Marshall on this flight reported almost identical circumstances.”