Echo of the Reich

by James Becker

  It wasn’t much of a plan, and Bronson knew it, but it was the best he could come up with in the circumstances.

  “Good enough,” Georg said, and turned to Mike. “Keys,” he said shortly, and the big man pulled a bunch out of his pocket and handed them over.

  As Georg walked out of the office, to leave the building by the side door, Eaton and Bronson crossed to the roller-shutter door and released the locking bolts. The moment they heard a car engine start outside, Bronson hauled on the chain that operated the door, and with a series of loud protesting creaks the metal shutter slowly began to rise.

  As soon as the door was fully open, Georg backed the car inside the building, and climbed out of the car as the roller-shutter descended again. The vehicle was another Vauxhall saloon, the side windows slightly tinted.

  “Boot or backseat?” Georg asked.

  “I don’t want to get in the boot,” Mike said. “No way of getting out if there’s a problem.”

  “I agree,” Bronson said. “If you are stopped, for any reason, if you both run for it in different directions that’ll split the police pursuit.”

  Mike nodded, opened the back door and climbed in.

  “Crouch down on the floor, and don’t look up as Georg drives past the van,” Bronson instructed, and watched as Mike complied.

  Bronson stepped back into the office and looked out of the window again. The police van still hadn’t moved, and he wondered if they were just observing, or waiting for other vehicles to arrive.

  As he stepped out of the office, he saw that Georg was already back in the driver’s seat and just buckling his seat belt, the engine of the car still running. Bronson stepped over to the chain, gave Georg a thumbs-up, then pulled it down to start the roller-shutter door moving again.

  Georg waved at the two men standing beside the door as he drove out of the building.

  As soon as the car had left, Bronson lowered the door again, slammed the bolt into position, and strode back to the side corridor, Eaton following just behind him. They left the unit by the open door, and jogged down the alleyway at the side of the building, slowing as they approached the end, while they were still effectively invisible to the occupants of the white van, parked some seventy yards in front of them.

  Then Bronson slowed his pace even further. He’d noticed something, something in the alleyway that was only now registering on his conscious mind.

  The adjacent building was essentially a mirror image of the one he and the other men had just left, with a side entrance door. In fact, it was identical in most respects except for one thing. Perhaps because of what was stored in the other building, or the work that went on there, or maybe simply to protect the employees, a fire alarm system had been installed. And right next to the side door was the small red box that contained a manual alarm switch, tucked safely behind a sheet of glass.

  “Let’s see if we can cause a little confusion around here,” Bronson muttered, a bleak smile on his face.

  He strode back down the alleyway, took the Llama out of his pocket, reversed it so that he was holding the weapon by the slide, and smashed the butt into the glass.

  Instantly, an atonic wailing filled the alleyway as the building’s sirens screamed into action. And by the time Bronson had reached the front of the building again, all the doors on the front of the adjacent unit were open and men and women were streaming out, most of them glancing back at the structure, presumably looking for some evidence of what had triggered the alarm.

  In moments, the forecourt was a mass of people milling around, some with their hands over their ears in an attempt to muffle the noise of the sirens. Others were running for their cars, clearly intending to move them away from the building in case the fire really took hold and spread outside the structure.

  Bronson looked at the confusion and nodded in satisfaction.

  “Okay, John,” he said, “I’ll go first. When we get out of here, turn left and keep your eyes open for me. I’ll stop about a mile down the road. When you see me, stop the car because I’ll need a ride.” He checked the scene in front of him again. “Now we can go. And run, don’t walk. You’re worried about the fire, right?”

  15

  22 July 2012

  When the sirens were triggered by the fire alarm, Georg’s car was already approaching the white van, driving along the exit road from the industrial estate. Bronson knew that the men in the cab of the van would be confused by what was going on. They’d be trying to study the car as it drew near them, and at the same time wondering what was happening in the industrial unit in front of them.

  Bronson ran over to his car, unlocked it and started the engine. Then he dropped the driver’s side window and put the Llama pistol on his lap. Despite the activity around him—several of the cars on the adjacent forecourt had already driven off, the drivers parking some distance away—he had a feeling he might have to use more than his natural charm to get past the parked vehicle. If Davidson had ordered the raid, which was the most logical explanation for what had happened, the officers in the van would at the very least know the make, model, color and registration number of the Ford, and they’d certainly stop him as he tried to leave. Or attempt to, anyway.

  Bronson had hoped that some of the vehicles might have been driven out of the industrial estate, but that didn’t seem to be happening, so the attention of the police officers was likely to be on his and Eaton’s cars as they attempted to leave.

  Eaton was just starting the engine of his car as Bronson drove off the industrial unit’s forecourt and headed toward the exit road.

  Ahead, he saw that Georg’s car had already turned left onto the road outside the estate, so obviously the police officers hadn’t spotted Mike in the back of the vehicle.

  He accelerated toward the parked van, but even as he did so, the passenger-side door swung open and a black-clad figure emerged, wearing the kind of combat gear used by police assault teams, the word “POLICE” prominently displayed across his chest. The man strode around to the front of the van and waved his arms to attract Bronson’s attention, then stepped directly in front of the Ford and held up his right hand.

  Stopping wasn’t any part of Bronson’s plan, but clearly he couldn’t drive over the officer. He veered left, away from where the man was standing, then braked hard and came to a standstill. He couldn’t drive past the man—there was simply no room—but he knew he had to get away from the trading estate. If he was arrested, there was no chance of him finding out the group’s hidden agenda.

  So he had to do whatever was necessary to get away. He had to take the risk. And what he had in mind would, he guessed, cement his relationship with Georg and his colleagues.

  The police officer nodded—perhaps he thought the driver had just seen his signal a little late—and started walking over toward Bronson’s Ford. Then he stopped dead.

  Bronson extended his right arm out of the car’s window, took careful aim with the Llama, and pulled the trigger. The pistol jerked in his hand, the spent cartridge case spinning out of the breech and carving a transient golden arc in the afternoon sunshine. The right-hand-side front tire of the Transit blew with a satisfying bang, and the vehicle lurched to the right.

  Bronson didn’t wait. He’d disabled the police vehicle, and that was all he’d intended to do. He tossed the Llama onto the seat beside him and lifted his left foot off the clutch pedal, accelerating the car hard down the road. In his rear-view mirror he saw the rear doors of the Transit swing open and more police officers clamber out. But there was absolutely nothing they could do to catch him now.

  But Bronson had no illusions about the efficiency of the Metropolitan Police. He’d burned his bridges when he waved the pistol, and destroyed them completely when he fired at the Transit van. By now, there’d be an alert out for his car, and because of the GPS tracker fitted to it, they would know exactly where to find it. That was why he’d told Eaton to pick him up. He would need to dump the car as soon as he could, before a couple
of ARV gunships were vectored onto it.

  Just over a mile down the road was a turnout, but there were two cars already parked in it, and Bronson needed an absence of witnesses when he changed vehicles, so he drove on. He kept checking his rearview mirror, hoping for a sign of Eaton, but he couldn’t see the other car. But the road was fairly busy and he guessed Eaton would be some distance back. He hoped he was somewhere behind him, anyway. If the man had been arrested by the police, or had forgotten what Bronson had told him and turned right, it would make everything a lot more difficult. Not impossible, but certainly very difficult.

  Then he spotted another place where he could pull off the road. It wasn’t a proper turnout, just a patch of rough ground on the left, barely large enough to accommodate more than a couple of vehicles. But it was ideal for what he wanted. There were no houses on either side of the road, so the only possible witnesses would be anyone driving past when he climbed into Eaton’s car.

  Bronson pulled off the road, the Ford bouncing over the rough ground, and stopped the car at the far side of the patch of earth. Then took out the mobile he’d been given by the police and removed the battery—he didn’t want Curtis ringing him while he was sitting in the car beside Eaton and that also disabled any tracking chip the Met might have placed in the phone. He pocketed the Llama and his own mobile phone, checked he’d left nothing else in the vehicle, and got out of the car, watching out for John Eaton as he stepped closer to the road.

  Every second car seemed to be a Vauxhall, and after three or four minutes Bronson started to worry that Eaton wouldn’t appear, for whatever reason. But then he saw a car indicating left, and stepped out of the way as Eaton swung the Vauxhall to a stop a few feet away from him.

  Bronson waited a couple of seconds, until no other cars were passing, then walked over, pulled open the passenger-side door and sat down.

  “Go, John,” he instructed.

  Eaton nodded, pulled the Vauxhall back onto the road and drove away.

  “What took you so long?” Bronson asked.

  “The bastards stopped me,” Eaton explained. “They were right pissed off at what you’d done, and as soon as I drove up, they made me stop. I told them I’d been in the other building, the one where the fire alarm went off, and they couldn’t prove that I wasn’t, so they let me go. Checked all the documents, of course, but the car’s straight, and I don’t have a record or nothing, so there wasn’t anything they could do. None of ’em recognized me from the TV, like.” He paused and grinned at Bronson.

  “Never thought you’d blow their tire like that. Bloody good shot.”

  “I didn’t want to,” Bronson replied, “but they were going to stop me as well, so I had no choice. If I’d stopped and they’d got a good look at me, I’d be in the slammer by now.”

  “And you had to dump the car because they’d seen you driving away in it?”

  “Exactly. One of them would have got the number for sure, and there’ll be an APW out for it by now, so I couldn’t take the risk of driving it any longer than I had to.”

  “Your motor, was it?”

  “Yeah,” Bronson replied, “though I hadn’t finished paying for it. I was going to sell it anyway, so it’s not a great loss.”

  “And they’ll know it was you in the car, waving that gun around?”

  Bronson nodded. “The car was registered in my name, and I’d be amazed if one of them didn’t recognize me.”

  “So now they’ll be after you for firing a pistol at them, as well as the other charges?” Eaton indicated left and took the next turn, moving them away from the main road and the industrial estate.

  Bronson nodded again. “You got it. I was aiming for the front tire of the van, obviously, but I’ve no doubt the Crown Prosecution Service could spin that into a charge of attempted murder if they wanted to. Then there’s possession of a firearm, discharging a firearm in a public place, attempting to endanger life, malicious damage, failure to stop, evading arrest, and even littering because the pistol ejected the cartridge case onto the road. About the only charge they won’t be able to stick me with is assaulting a police officer, because the cop who climbed out of the passenger door didn’t come any closer when he saw the pistol. But the book, as they say, will be thrown at me.

  “And all that lot does leave me with a problem,” he continued. “I have to get to Berlin by tomorrow, and because of what’s just happened my face’ll be on a watch list at every port and airport and there’ll be a stop order against my passport.”

  “How would the pigs know you were planning to leave the country?” Eaton asked.

  “They wouldn’t. It’s just standard procedure, part of the All Ports Warning. So I’m going to need a new passport—or rather a different one—and a new set of wheels, preferably today, so you need to talk to Georg as soon as possible. Fill him in on what’s happened and see what he can come up with.”

  “Right. I’ll just put a bit of distance between us and the scene of the crime, so to speak.”

  That suited Bronson, and for the next fifteen minutes he sat in silence in the passenger seat as Eaton steered the Vauxhall down a succession of largely unmarked roads. He knew they were still somewhere in the tangle of suburbs that lay to the northeast of London, but exactly where, he had no idea. He just hoped that Eaton did.

  “You know where we are?” he asked eventually.

  Eaton nodded. “My old stamping ground,” he said, “though it’s changed a bit since I was a kid. We’re on the edge of Epping Forest, near Loughton.”

  A couple of minutes later, Eaton pulled the Vauxhall off the road and into a long and wide turnout, in the middle of which stood a mobile canteen van, painted dark blue and with the legend “Joe’s Lite Bite” written in somewhat shaky and uneven white letters on the side. He took out his phone and dialed.

  Eaton’s call was answered quickly, and he explained what had happened at the industrial estate after Georg and Mike had driven away.

  “You should have seen it,” Eaton said. “He pulled up beside the coppers’ van, stuck his pistol out of the window and shot off their front tire. Bloody marvelous.”

  “It was only one round from a twenty-two caliber pistol,” Bronson pointed out. “Not the bloody Gunfight at the OK Corral.”

  “Anyway,” Eaton continued, getting back to reality, “now he’s got a problem because the pigs know he’s carrying a weapon and he says there’ll be a watch out for him at all the ports. So if you still want him to go to Berlin, we’re going to have to find him a different passport and another car.”

  Eaton listened for a few moments, then spoke again.

  “Yeah, but does he still have to go to Germany? I mean, after what he did today?”

  Another silence, then Eaton glanced across at Bronson and nodded.

  “Okay, I’ll tell him. Where do you want to meet?”

  Eaton ended the call and slipped the phone into the pocket of his leather jacket.

  “Georg still wants you to go to Berlin. He said it’s all set up. He’ll sort out a passport—there are a couple of blokes in the group who look a bit like you, probably close enough for you to get out of the country—and he’ll find you a car as well.”

  “We’ll meet him, then?”

  “Yes. Don’t know where or when yet, but he’ll call me back.”

  Bronson nodded. “So what do we do now?”

  Eaton shrugged. “Georg said you should just keep out of sight.”

  “Right. Then you can do me a favor. My mobile’s given up the bloody ghost, so can we drive to a shop somewhere so you can buy me a new one? Nothing fancy, just a cheap pay-as-you-go.”

  Eaton nodded. “Sure.”

  Twenty minutes later, Eaton walked out of a large newsagent on the outskirts of Epping carrying a plastic bag that bulged around the shape of the box inside it. He passed the bag to Bronson, who opened it and pulled out the box.

  “I got you a car charger as well, just in case,” Eaton said, pointing at the second,
smaller packet that the bag contained.

  “Thanks, John; good thinking.”

  Bronson opened the box and took out the basic Nokia it contained and plugged the car charger into the cigarette lighter socket to make sure the battery had a good charge before he started using it.

  “There’s thirty-five quid on the SIM,” Eaton said. “The phone came with ten, but I asked the bloke in the shop to add on an extra twenty-five. Thought that would do you for a while. I’ve got a note of the number, as well, so we can reach you.”

  “Thanks again.” Bronson reached into his pocket and took three twenty-pound notes out of the envelope Georg had given him. “There you go, John,” he said, handing them over. “Thanks for the phone. And for picking me up. Been a bit poorly placed if you hadn’t.”

  “No need for that,” Eaton said, but Bronson insisted, thrusting the notes at him, and finally he took them.

  “One last favor,” Bronson said. “I’m staying here in Epping. Can you take me about a quarter of a mile down this street and then drop me off? I’ll need to sort out my stuff for this trip to Germany. Then I’ll be ready to go as soon as Georg does his bit.”

  16

  22 July 2012

  They’d followed the dark blue articulated truck ever since it had pulled out of the industrial park on the southern outskirts of Prague. Three cars, two men in each, swapping places at irregular intervals. It hadn’t been a difficult task. The truck was simply too big, and too slow, to miss.

  The complicated bit came after it had crossed the Czech Republic border near Waidhaus and headed west into Germany. The Germans knew they had two options: either they had somehow to divert the truck off the autobahn onto the quieter country roads or they had to wait until the crew stopped for fuel, or a break, or whatever. In the end, it proved to be easier than they’d expected.