Quick (40 page)

‘You’re running
into
the burning building?’

‘Gotta see if I can help.’

‘Just be careful.’

‘Aren’t I always?’

‘No. I don’t think you are. At all.
Ever.’

Billy shoots him a wink, pushes through the door and disappears inside.

Dumbstruck, Claude watches him go then puts an arm around an old lady and helps her away from the building.

~ * ~

The silver AMG Mercedes SUV is parked on the far side of the square.

Behind the wheel Vandelay watches Billy enter the building. He triggers his walkie-talkie and speaks: ‘You have company. The cop, Hotchkiss, just entered the building. His partner is outside the front door.’

A burst of static and the voice replies: ‘Thanks for the update. We have it covered.’

~ * ~

Still cuffed to the SUV’s door handle, Franka hears the interaction. She’s relieved that Billy’s okay but is now worried about what’s going to happen to him in the casino.

~ * ~

Kurt pushes the walkie-talkie into his pocket and turns to Thorne. ‘We need to be quick. We’re about to have company.’

Thorne nods and they continue to pull thick stacks of five hundred euro notes from large metal cabinets and jam them into long black duffel bags. Two other bags have already been packed full and lie on the floor, next to a pair of gagged security guards whose wrists have been zip-locked together.

~ * ~

Thick black smoke hangs in the air as the Australian waves his hands, shouts out: ‘Over here! The exit is over here!’ Three older gentlemen see where Billy is pointing and head towards the door. ‘There. Just go straight on.’ He searches for anyone else who may need help and sees a young blonde woman stagger through the fog, doubled over in a coughing fit. ‘This way.’ He takes her arm and guides her towards the exit.

He makes sure she’s headed out the front door, then doubles back, searches for anyone else who needs assistance.

~ * ~

The explosion meant this was their easiest heist so far. The only resistance Kurt and Thorne encountered were the two guards who threw up their hands to surrender the moment they saw the rude end of the Uzi. Getting into the vault room was simpler still. Though the giant metal door was locked shut, the wall beside it had been demolished by the explosion so entry was just a matter of stepping over some rubble.

Kurt loads the last stack of euros into the fourth bag and zips it shut. ‘Done.’

Thorne nods. ‘Let’s move.’ He looks down at the security guards. ‘Count to twenty then leave.’ The guards frantically nod in happy agreement.

Thorne and Kurt turn, navigate the rubble again, then exit the vault, each carrying two bags over his shoulders. They take a sharp left, move along a narrow hallway then enter the main gaming room, cut through the heavy smoke cloud and quickly move towards the rear exit —

‘Freeze!’

~ * ~

Billy points his pistol at the helmeted figures on the far side of the room and moves towards them quickly. It’s Senna and Hunt. The Australian can only guess the bags they’re carrying are full of the casino’s money.

Was the explosion just a diversion so they could rob the place?

‘Hands in the air!’ But these guys just don’t care. They do not comply with Billy’s directive. Instead they dive behind a blackjack table and take cover as Hunt aims his Uzi.

‘Oh shit.’ Billy is not happy to see that sub-machine again. He tips over a roulette table and drops behind it —

Bam bam bam thud thud thud.
Bullets strafe the playing surface in a blizzard of splintered wood and green felt. Billy peeks around the side of the table but can’t see where they are —

Boom.
The explosion is huge, deafening. The roulette table shudders and Billy is hit with a blast of debris. His ears ring as a cloud of dust and smoke billow towards the ceiling.

Man, these guys just love their bloody grenades.

The Australian pokes his head around the side of the table, and searches the room. To the far left someone sprints up a wide staircase. It’s Hunt. Billy swings his gun towards him but he disappears from view.

Why the hell is he going up there?

A flash to the far right. Senna runs hard. Billy swings his gun towards him but he slips through a door and is gone.

Which one do I follow?

Billy moves fast, hot-foots it up the staircase three steps at a time. He reaches the second level, scans the giant gaming room. It too is filled with smoke —

Clank.
He hears a noise, turns left and sees a fire door shut. He runs to it, shoulders it open and swings inside the stairwell with his weapon raised. He can see no one, but he can hear footsteps on the stairs above. Billy follows, pushes open the door at the top of the stairwell and bursts onto the roof.

Thump thump thump.
The Mosquito’s rotor blades throb as the tiny chopper lifts into the sky and swoops away, carrying the two duffel bags as cargo. ‘Oh come on!’ Billy aims his pistol at it, squeezes the trigger—but it banks hard right and disappears behind a tree.

‘Shit.’ He turns and searches the ground for Senna, sees Claude help an older man away from the building, then—
there.
From the side of the casino, Senna sprints across the square towards a silver Mercedes SUV parked twenty metres away. The SUV pulls out, its passengerside door swings open and Senna dives inside with the duffel bags in hand.

The SUV thunders away and Billy sees Franka in the backseat. She looks up at him and they lock eyes. Clearly distressed, she raises a hand and he sees she’s been cuffed to the door handle.

Did that happen because they found out she helped me?

Billy turns and shouts at the Frenchman. ‘Claude! Claude!’ Unfortunately the old bastard can’t hear anything over the sirens of the Monaco Fire Department trucks which have finally decided to make an appearance. Frustrated, Billy turns and sprints for the fire door.

~ * ~

‘We gotta go!’

Claude turns to Billy as he bursts through the casino’s front doors. ‘What?’

‘They just robbed the place!’

‘They what?!

‘While you were helping the people. I shouted from the roof. You didn’t hear.’

‘Merde.’

‘Don’t worry about it. You were helping the people, but come on.’ Billy sprints onwards. ‘They’re in a silver Merc SUV, and one of those helicopter things I told you about. And I’m pretty sure Franka is a hostage.’

Claude follows, surprised. ‘Really?’

The Australian nods. ‘She was handcuffed.’

The Frenchman sees they’re heading towards the Iron Rhino car, which now has a fine tendril of smoke rising from the engine compartment as it overheats. ‘I can’t ride on that again.

‘But you
can
ride on
that.’
Billy points at a grey Monaco police motorcycle parked near the Iron Rhino.

Claude takes it in, concerned. ‘I haven’t ridden since Bridgette the second.’

‘How long ago was that?’

‘Eight years.’

‘You’ll remember. It’s like riding a bike because, well, it actually
is
riding a bike.’

Claude takes a moment then nods stoically. ‘Okay.’

They sprint to their respective vehicles.

~ * ~

Vandelay drops the hammer and the Mercedes thunders along a narrow roadway that snakes up the side of the mountain. ‘Is anyone following?’

Thorne pulls off the Hunt helmet and looks back through the rear windshield, scans the roadway for a long moment. It’s clear. ‘We’re okay.’

Vandelay nods at the two duffel bags in the backseat beside Franka. ‘How much do you think?’

‘With the other two bags, at least seventy-five. Not bad for fifteen minutes’ work.’ There’s a measure of delight in Thorne’s voice.

‘And how many people’s lives did you destroy during those fifteen minutes?’

Thorne glances back at Franka. He’s not angry, just weary. ‘He chose to ignore us. It’s on him. And anyway, this money doesn’t come close to making up for how we’ve been treated.’

Vandelay takes this in and nods, clasps Thorne’s forearm in steadfast allegiance.

Franka watches the interaction with unconcealed contempt. ‘Christ, who the fuck are you people?’

Thorne turns to her. ‘We’re the only ones who’ll ever care about you, no matter what bullshit you pull.’

Vandelay stares at her in the rear-view mirror, confused. ‘I don’t understand you. You used to be with us one hundred per cent.’

‘Sure, until I worked out you’ll happily destroy innocent lives to get what you want.’ She looks out the window in frustration. ‘It’s fucking evil.’

‘Ignore her.’ Thorne turns to Vandelay and nods at the SUV’s closed sunroof. ‘We should see if he’s close.’ He presses a button and the full-length sunroof slides open. Thorne rises up, pushes his head out and scans the blue sky above.

‘Anything?

‘Not yet.’ Thorne turns and looks down the road, sees a dot in the far distance. It grows larger as the whine of a turbocharged V6 reverberates across the soundscape. His expression hardens. ‘The Australian.’

‘What about him?’

‘He’s on the way.’

Vandelay’s not happy to hear this. ‘Shit.’ He accelerates instinctively, overtakes a small hatchback.

Thorne is not as worried. ‘No, it’s good. It means we can finish him once and for all.’

Concerned, Franka turns and looks back through the rear window at Billy’s car.

~ * ~

The Australian works the steering wheel and sweeps around a large bump in the roadway. This car was never designed to travel on public roads so he’s sure that if he hit even a small pothole at this speed he’d shatter a push rod or a crack a wishbone and the pursuit would be over, so he keeps an eagle eye on the tarmac ahead, not that easy when you’re doing one eighty in the shade.

Whoever’s driving the Mercedes is absolutely thrashing it to stay ahead of him. Billy will need to get close enough to pump a couple of bullets into one of its tyres, or the engine block, to stop it. Unfortunately, how to get that close without them throwing a grenade, or pumping a bullet into one of
his
tyres or
his
engine block, or his good self, is a problem he has not yet solved. He also needs to do it before he runs out of fuel. Sure, he has plenty of gas in the tank now, roughly three hundred kilometres worth, but the Merc will have double that range and if Billy needs to pull over and fill up at a petrol station, if he can find one, he’s not sure if he could get fuel
into
the Iron Rhino’s tank, even though he knows it will work perfectly in this engine.

Billy passes a hatchback and a stunned middle-aged man looks out at the Formula One car like he’s just seen Elvis—driving a Formula One car. Billy smiles and waves, then turns back to the road as it begins a steep, serpentine climb. The big Merc quickly draws closer, now less than half a kilometre away. Billy glances at the Iron Rhino’s tiny wing mirror and sees Claude about a hundred metres behind him on the police bike.

The houses and buildings that edge the bitumen ribbon quickly give way to a lush tree line. Billy glances right and takes in the glistening Mediterranean for a moment. If you’re going to be chasing bad guys this is definitely the place to do it. The view is magnificent.

Billy’s eyes flick back to the Mercedes. It’s much closer now, maybe a hundred and fifty metres away, the weight of the vehicle affecting the speed it can climb the mountain. Billy accelerates again and the gap shrinks once more.

How am I going to do this
?

The road curves and he stares at the dark, gaping mouth of a tunnel. The Mercedes plunges inside—then the Mosquito helicopter quickly descends and swoops in after it.

‘Jesus!’ The appearance of the little chopper has completely taken him by surprise. He didn’t hear it approach, but then he can’t hear that much over the rasp of the engine behind him.

The Iron Rhino races into the tunnel. Billy can’t see the end so he guesses it’s one of the really long ones he saw a documentary about on Discovery Channel a few years back. The tunnel is a wide oval shape, its curved roof and sides covered in grey tiles that meet the roadway at a soft gutter. A line of lights running along the centre of the ceiling provides muted illumination.

The Mercedes is just fifteen car-lengths ahead now, the little chopper between them, two metres off the road. It increases its pace, sweeps over the top of the SUV and takes up a position one foot above the open sunroof.

What are they doing?

Someone, he thinks it’s Thorne, pokes his head and shoulders out of the sunroof, reaches up and grabs the little chopper’s landing skids, pulls the aircraft down onto the roof, holds it there with one hand and drags the duffel bags off the cargo trays with the other. The pilot unbuckles, slides out of the seat, slips through the hatch and drops into the vehicle.

So that’s what they’re doing.

It takes a split second for Billy to work out what they’re going to do
next
and it’s not good. With an almighty heave Thorne pushes the chopper off the back of the SUV. Rotor blades turning, it floats away like it’s taking off, but of course it’s not doing that, because it doesn’t have a pilot on board, so after a couple of seconds it loses altitude, tips onto its side and drops towards the roadway.