The Ninth Step - John Milton #8 (John Milton Thrillers) (22 page)

“Then?”

“Once you’re down there, you’ll be out of the way. Underground, too. It won’t matter if you make a lot of noise. There’s a shutter and a barred door. You force the shutter and cut through the bars. Neither should give you much of a problem. Then you get to the vault. That’s different. It’s a serious door. Eighteen inches of steel. There’s no point trying to force it. You’ll drill through the wall.”

“Just like that?”

“It won’t be easy, but you’ll have the equipment you’ll need and the time to do it.”

“What equipment?”

“Industrial drill, angle grinders, everything. It’s all taken care of. You bring it with you to the job and leave it behind when you’re done.”

Vladimir had been quiet, but now he raised his hand and pointed at the plans. “This is not simple. It will take time.” He spoke with a harsh Eastern European accent. Russian, perhaps, to match his name. Milton wondered who he could be. Someone they had brought in for the job, perhaps?

“But?” Fabian asked.

“I agree. It can be done.”

“You’re going to go in this weekend,” Fabian said. “The building will be empty Saturday and Sunday.”

Frankie Fabian stood away from the wall, folded his arms across his chest and looked at the five of them. “Any questions?”

“What about the alarm?” Milton asked.

“We’ll disable that remotely.”

“How?”

“Don’t worry, Smith. It’ll be disabled. Anything else?”

No one spoke.

“Smith? Anything else on your mind?”

“No,” Milton said.

“Good. Get an early night tonight. You’ll be working through the night tomorrow; you’ll need to be fresh.”

“What time do we meet?”

“Back here tomorrow at six. We’ll start at seven.”

MILTON WAITED for someone to indicate that he was to follow them so that he could be driven away again. Marcus and Spencer said nothing to him, and Milton soon got the impression that he was going to have to find his own way home. He was doing up his jacket when Frankie Fabian walked across to him.

“Don’t mess up,” Fabian said.

“I’ll do what I’m told.”

“You want to be in the vault yourself?”

“Yes,” Milton said.

“Why? If it’s money you want, why don’t you just ask me for money? I have plenty.”

“I doubt you have as much as is sitting in that vault.”

“No, Smith, there’s something else. There’s something in the vault you want. More than the money. What is it?”

Milton concentrated on presenting as blank an expression as he could. “It doesn’t really matter, does it? You know my price. I don’t care what else you do when you’re in there, what else you take. That’s not important to me.”

“You’re very trusting. What’s going to stop me having one of my boys put a bullet in your head?”

“Because that wouldn’t be good for you.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. I have a backup. If I don’t come out again, the confession is sent to the police.”

Fabian allowed himself a thin, humourless chuckle. He put his arm around Milton’s shoulders and started toward the door with him. “I can’t decide whether you’re a genius or a fool.”

Milton allowed his arm to stay there for a moment and then stepped away from him. “We’re about to find out,” he said.

Fabian opened the door for him and Milton stepped outside into the night. The rain had started to fall again. Fabian closed the door without another word.

Milton shrugged.

Hounslow.

That was a good distance from his flat.

He agreed with Fabian on at least one thing: he needed to get a good night’s sleep. He set off across the car park, passed through the gates and onto the quiet road beyond. He took out his phone and checked his location. The last train would have left the station an hour ago. He would have to try to find a taxi. He aimed for the main road and started to walk.

IT HAD TAKEN MILTON an hour to find a taxi driver who was willing to drive him across the city. He had returned to his flat at two and had gone straight to bed. His mind had been buzzing and it had taken him longer than he would have liked before he had been able to settle. Once he did, he had managed a solid seven hours’ sleep. He woke at ten and considered whether he might be able to get another couple of hours in before he needed to rise. He decided against it. Seven hours would have to be enough. He had a lot of work to do today before the events of the evening could begin, and there was no time to waste.

Milton decided that he didn’t have time for his morning run. He showered, dressed in his suit and prepared his usual smoothie. He called Cathy and said that he was sick. He hated lying to her, but there was nothing else for it. She asked how long he thought he would need to recover and he said he didn’t know—maybe two or three nights. She told him not to worry and to call her when he was better. Milton ended the call feeling much worse than before he had spoken to her.

He took a screwdriver and used it to remove one of the floorboards beneath his bed. There was a small void beneath it, and Milton had used the space to store his go-bag. He took out his extensive selection of fake passports and chose one that he hadn’t used for some time. He also had a fake electricity bill that listed his address as an apartment in Kensington. He put both items, plus two hundred pounds in cash, into his pocket, went outside, locked the door to his flat and made the short walk to a local hardware store. He purchased a bunch of ten double-loop cable ties and then stopped at the newsagents next door. He bought two copies of the
Mail
and a pack of A4 envelopes. Satisfied, he paid for the items and took a bus into the centre of the city.

MILTON GOT off the bus at Holborn and stopped in a branch of Phones 4U. He bought a pay-as-you-go handset with a cheap plan and then walked to Hatton Garden, heading north until he reached the entrance to the London Vault. There was a luggage store halfway along the road, and he stopped to buy a small leather satchel into which he placed the items that he had purchased.

He thanked the proprietor and went back outside again, continuing to the north until he passed the vault, then proceeded farther up the street. He checked that the premises were not being surveilled. He didn’t know how thorough Fabian would be, and it wasn’t impossible that he had stationed someone to keep an eye on the building. Milton observed the street. The pavement was busy with pedestrians. A man leaned against a metal bollard, gazing down the street as if waiting for someone—his fiancée, perhaps, for an appointment to look at rings in one of the jeweller’s. An old woman stood beneath an awning that was stencilled with PARIS JEWELS, clutching a handbag. Two Hasidic Jews, dressed all in black with long grey beards, were conversing. Milton didn’t recognise any of the people he could see, and none of them looked as if they were watching the building.

He walked on. The rain had held off, although the sky was the same dark grey as it had been for days. He passed a branch of Costa Coffee, the Ace of Diamonds store, and a branch of EAT. He turned into St Cross Street and then Leather Lane, the road that ran in parallel to Hatton Garden. He had scouted the block in his car, but he took more time about it this time. He fixed as much of it in his mind as he could.

He looped all the way around until he was outside the building again, opened the main door and stepped inside. There was a corridor and, at the end, what looked like a reception area. Milton looked up. There was a smoke alarm fitted to the ceiling and a series of nozzles for a fire-suppression system. He went forward, following the corridor for three paces and then passing through a pair of impressive security doors that were held open on magnetic stays. They were stainless steel and perhaps two inches thick. Frankie Fabian had been right: he could see that when they were closed and locked they would present a serious impediment to forward progress. He continued for another eight paces and reached the reception area. There was a smart desk, a table and two comfortable chairs. There was another security door in the opposite wall, but this one was locked.

The clerk smiled at him as he approached the desk.

“Hello, sir. How can I help you?”

“I’d like to rent a safe deposit box.”

“Certainly, sir. You’re in the right place for that. Have you rented a box from us before?”

“I’m afraid not. I’ve never had one before, actually.”

“It’s very simple. It’ll take twenty minutes. Would you like to do it now?”

“Yes, please.” Milton nodded down to his bag. “I’ve actually got the items I’d like to store with me.”

“In that case, let me get the paperwork sorted out for you.”

It was indeed a simple process. The man, who introduced himself as Michael, took him through the procedure. Milton took out the passport and electricity bill and handed them to Michael to be scanned. There was a simple lease agreement to be filled out and the first month’s key deposit to be paid. It was a hundred pounds; Milton paid it in cash.

“There, Mr. Knight,” Michael said when they were done. “Simple. Would you like to come downstairs to the vault with me? I’ll get you your box.”

Michael took an RFID card and swiped it through a reader next to the security door. There was a buzzing noise as the locks opened, and the door clicked ajar. Michael pushed it back and led the way inside. The decor immediately became less opulent. The corridor walls were bare concrete and there was no decoration. Back here, Milton saw, it was all about security.

“It’s very safe,” Michael said as he turned a corner and descended a flight of stairs. “The only way in is through the front, and there are two security doors between there and the vault.”

They reached the bottom of the stairs and a pair of elevator doors. “Does the lift come down here?” Milton asked.

The man shook his head. “No. It serves the rest of the building, but it stops on the ground floor.” He turned and pointed out a metal roller door and then, beyond that, a barred security door. “These are closed at night. Anyone who tried to get in through here would have to go through the two doors upstairs, then the roller door, then this one. There’s a state-of-the-art alarm, too, of course. I don’t like to tempt fate, but we’ve been here since 1912 and we’ve never lost any of our clients’ belongings to fire or theft. We’re as confident as we can be that there’s no way inside when we’ve got everything locked up tight.”

“It’s very impressive.”

They reached the vault. The door was formidable: stainless steel and secured by two locks that were opened with dials. There was a viewing room at the end of the corridor, and Michael ushered Milton toward it. He knocked on the door to ensure that the room was empty and, when there was no response, unlocked the door with a key that was clipped to his belt.

“If you’d wait in here, please, Mr. Knight. I’ll get your box for you. I’ll just be a minute.”

Milton went inside. It was a small room with a table and no other pieces of furniture. The man came back after a minute with a reasonably large metal box. It was around four inches by twelve inches by six inches and, judging by the noise that it made as it was set down on the inspection table, it was heavy.

“When you want to open your box, you just need to come in and visit us. We’ll check you in upstairs and then bring you down here to a viewing room and bring you your box. It has two locks.” He turned the box around so that Milton could see the fascia at the front. There were two keyholes. The man inserted a key into one and turned it. “This one is for us, but you need to unlock both to open the box, and you are the only person who has the other key.” He laid a key on the table next to the box. “When you’re ready, open the box and leave your belongings inside. When you’re finished, just ring this bell and I’ll come and get you.”

“Thank you,” Milton said.

Michael left the room, closed the door behind him and locked it.

Milton examined the box. A small plastic plaque above the twin keyholes denoted that it was box 221. He committed that to memory. He unlocked the box with the key that the clerk had left him and opened it. He removed the empty tray from the box. He reached into the satchel and took out the things that he had purchased. He took out the pay-as-you-go phone, switched it on, and checked that there was a signal. There was: three out of five bars. He had been unsure whether it would operate in the basement, and it was a relief to find that it did. He entered a number into the phone’s memory and then switched it off again. He tore open the cellophane sheath that held the envelopes together and collected the two copies of the
Mail
. He tore the newspapers into ten separate sections, folded them and slid them into the envelopes. He put the cable ties into the envelopes at the bottom of the stack. Finally, he dropped the phone into another and made sure to leave that one on top of the others. He sealed them all, replaced the tray in the box, closed the box and turned the key in the lock.

There was a button on the wall next to the door; he pushed it, a bell sounded in the corridor outside, and Michael unlocked and opened the door.

“All done, Mr. Knight?”

“Yes, all done. Thank you very much.”

Michael smiled his satisfaction and told Milton to wait as he went back into the vault to store the box. He collected him, led him past the locked vault door, back up the stairs and into the reception area again.

“Is there anything else you need to know?” he asked him.

“No,” Milton replied. “That’s all I need.”

MILTON WENT home to change into dark clothes and then took the underground out to Hounslow and walked the rest of the way to the warehouse. The car park was quiet once again, and he recognised the Audi in which he had been collected the previous night. It was parked next to a white transit van. He could see a line of light shining through the narrow gap between the roller door and the concrete sill, and, when he tapped on the side door that they had used yesterday, he had to wait only a few moments until Spencer Fabian appeared to let him inside.