Echo of the Reich

by James Becker

  “I need to know,” Bronson said. “It is here? Is it ready to be triggered?”

  Georg glanced up and down the alley, making sure that they were still unobserved, then nodded again.

  “It’s not here yet,” he said, moving his pistol until it pointed at Bronson, “but it will be arriving later this morning as the final part of the operation, far too late for the authorities to do anything about it.”

  “Somebody might spot it,” Bronson said. “It might never reach London.”

  Georg smiled bleakly.

  “That’s not going to happen. Nobody will be able to stop it, and we already know exactly where it will be positioned. We have a reserved spot, as it were, because we’ve been planning this for five years, ever since the city was chosen to host these Games, in fact. And the best bit is that we won’t be blamed for what’s going to happen. In fact, when it’s all over, people will see that we were right all along. And because of the timing, it will literally be a broadcast that the whole world will see. And now it’s time for me to do you a favor. I’m sure your leg is hurting quite badly, so I’m going to relieve your pain, permanently.”

  Timing, Bronson knew, was everything. He lifted his left hand slightly, and moved his right hand until he was touching the butt of the Walther.

  “Actually, it’s not really hurting at all,” he said. “And thanks for the information.”

  He twisted slightly sideways, and instantly brought up the Walther to point straight at Georg.

  Shock flared across the German’s face at Bronson’s totally unexpected action, but he was committed, and both men knew it. Georg squeezed the trigger of his weapon, but even as he did so, Bronson fired.

  The nine-millimeter bullet from the Walther slammed into the German’s chest, knocking him backward as his pistol discharged harmlessly, the bullet ricocheting off the wall several feet away from Bronson. The reports made by the two silenced pistols would have been barely audible outside the alley.

  Instantly, Bronson shifted his point of aim to the other man, who was quickly recovering from his surprise at the turn of events, and was already bringing up his own weapon to fire at Bronson. Again, there was no option. Bronson pulled the trigger a second time, the flat slap of the detonation echoing from the alley walls, but probably not audible in the street outside.

  The second man tumbled backward and crashed onto his back on the stone floor of the alley.

  Bronson climbed to his feet and stepped forward, but one look was all he needed to tell him that both men were dead, which absolutely wasn’t the result he’d been hoping for. If he could have taken Georg alive, he might have found out enough about the plot to take to the authorities. But obviously that wasn’t going to happen now.

  Weeks stepped up beside him and looked down at the two bodies.

  “Shame,” he said. “I heard him say something, but I guess it wasn’t enough.”

  “Not really. All I know is that the device isn’t here yet, but it’s due to arrive this morning. I suppose that’s some help, just not very much.”

  Weeks nodded back toward the yard where he’d been concealed.

  “We can put them in there,” he said. “Somebody’ll find them today, I guess, but at least that’ll get them out of sight for a while.”

  Bronson picked up Georg’s pistol, slipped it into his bag, and then searched the body, removing his wallet and everything else the man was carrying, while Weeks did the same thing to the other corpse.

  A few minutes later, the bodies hidden out of sight in the yard, Bronson and Weeks walked out of the alley and headed toward the main road.

  49

  27 July 2012

  The moment they stepped out of the alleyway, Bronson saw a distinctive white car approaching, the lights on the roof bar flashing blue and red as it carved its way through the traffic. Unusually, the officers hadn’t turned on their siren; for most villains engaged in the perpetration of a crime, the noise simply acted as a two-minute warning and allowed them to make good their getaway before the police arrived. And on this occasion, Bronson would have appreciated that warning as well.

  “Someone must have heard something, or even seen something,” Weeks said. “We can’t afford to get caught with these weapons on us.”

  “You got that right. Just keep going. They might not be looking for us.”

  “Yeah, and I still believe in Father Christmas.”

  The police car powered past them, the driver giving the traffic his full attention. But his companion, sitting in the front passenger seat, was scanning the faces of the people on the sidewalk. For the briefest of instants, he locked eyes with Bronson, and almost immediately the brake lights of the vehicle flared into life as the driver dragged the car to a stop.

  “He’s made us,” Bronson said, breaking into a run.

  “Only you, actually,” Weeks said, matching Bronson’s stride.

  “You’re guilty by association. Welcome to the club.”

  The sidewalks were quite busy, shoppers wandering to and fro with their usual scant regard for anyone or anything around them. Bronson and Weeks were forced to dodge and weave their way through the crowds, angry shouts and spilled shopping lying in their wake.

  Bronson risked a quick glance behind them. The two police officers were pounding along in pursuit, people moving quickly out of their way. One of them had his hand to his collar and was speaking into his microphone, obviously calling for backup. Somehow, they had to stop the two officers, or at the very least slow them down.

  Weeks clearly had the same idea, and pulled the Colt 1911 from its holster. Without breaking stride, he swung his right arm around to point behind him, glanced quickly backward and then pulled the trigger.

  The bang of the forty-five-caliber cartridge firing was shockingly loud, the report echoing from the buildings on either side of the street. Instantly, screams and shouts of alarm followed, and all around them people either dropped to the ground or ran for cover.

  “You didn’t hit anyone, I hope,” Bronson said, panting from the exertion.

  “Just scared them. Well above their heads.”

  Bronson glanced back again. The two police officers were a lot further back, Weeks’s use of his pistol obviously having shocked them.

  “They’ll keep coming, you know,” he said. “And by now they’ll have a couple of ARVs heading this way as well.”

  “I know. But my motor’s parked a couple of streets away. Once we get to that, we’re out of here.”

  Weeks led the way down a side street, then took the first junction on the left. The moment he reached the building that stood on that corner, he stopped, took out his pistol and waited. Within a few seconds, the two police officers appeared, still running, albeit slightly more slowly than before. Weeks waited until they’d covered a few yards, then stepped into plain view, lifted the pistol and fired another shot. The bullet slammed into the wall of the house a few feet above their heads, and both men instantly dropped to the ground.

  “Breathing space,” Weeks said. “And now they know I’m not firing blanks either.”

  At the end of the next street, Weeks took out his remote control and pressed two buttons in sequence. Fifty yards ahead, the hazard lights flashed on his Range Rover, followed almost immediately by the welcome sound of the engine starting. The two men reached the car, pulled open the doors and jumped inside. Weeks released the handbrake, pulled the automatic transmission lever into drive, and powered the heavy car away from the parking space.

  As the Range Rover accelerated down the road, the police officers appeared again, their approach clearly much more cautious. But they were still following.

  “Do you think they got the number?” Weeks asked, punching buttons on the built-in satnav.

  Bronson pulled on his seat belt, then turned round in his seat and looked back at the two men.

  “I don’t know. But they’ll have a good description of the vehicle, and that might be enough.”

  As soon as he
could, Weeks turned off the road, Bronson now using the satnav to pick a route that would take them away from the area as quickly as possible.

  “We’ll need to lose the car and these clothes as soon as possible,” he said.

  “Not a problem. We’ll head out into Essex, find somewhere there.”

  “I’ve got a better idea. Keep heading down this road. At the end, take a left turn and then follow the signs for the M25. At the junction, go west. We’ll go to Angela’s flat in Ealing and sort ourselves out there.” He paused for a moment, then chuckled. “I suppose one good thing is that Stratford will now be swarming with armed police looking out for anything suspicious, which is pretty much the result I’d hoped to achieve when I told the Met what I thought was happening.”

  But when Weeks braked the Range Rover to a stop at the T-junction, both men knew that getting out of the area wasn’t going to be anything like as easy as they’d hoped.

  Weeks spotted the flashing blue and red lights in his rearview mirrors. At almost the same moment Bronson saw a Volvo estate car approaching the junction from the right, traveling very fast.

  “I think that’s an ARV,” he said, gesturing toward the Volvo.

  “Then let’s hope they don’t spot us,” Weeks said.

  Seconds later, before Weeks could pull the Range Rover out onto the main road, a siren on the Volvo began sounding, to move traffic out of the way, and then it slewed across the road, stopping right in front of Weeks’s car, blocking the way.

  50

  27 July 2012

  “Hang on,” Weeks snapped.

  He swung the wheel of the Range Rover hard over to the left, shifted the transmission into reverse and backed up a few feet, until the rear of the four-by-four slammed into the front bumper of the car immediately behind them. The driver sounded his horn in a loud, continuous and clearly angry blare, which Weeks completely ignored. He spun the wheel to the right, engaged drive and floored the accelerator pedal.

  The two-ton car hit the left-hand rear of the Volvo just as the two front doors were opening. The impact turned the Volvo violently on its axis. The passenger door instantly slammed shut while the other gaped wide, the black-clad figure of the police driver visible in the opening, struggling to stay in his seat.

  Weeks kept the power on, forcing the police car out of his way. Metal ripped and tore, tires howled as the tarmac road surface ripped rubber from them, and pedestrians on the sidewalks watched the unequal contest in open-mouthed amazement. He shunted the Volvo over to the left, keeping the wheel of the Range Rover hard over, all four tires smoking and leaving black streaks on the road, forcing the other car back against the curb. There was a sudden explosion as the right-side rear tire of the police car blew, forced off the rim by contact with the curbstone. People scattered in all directions.

  “That’ll do,” Weeks said, straightened up his car and accelerated rapidly down the street.

  “That’s probably buggered up your no-claims bonus,” Bronson observed. “Did you damage this car?”

  Weeks shook his head. “Unlikely,” he replied shortly. “I’ve got bull bars on the front, and the chassis and suspension have both been uprated and strengthened. I like this car. In fact, I need to do something about that, right now.”

  He punched buttons on the center console and a ringing tone sounded in the car’s stereo audio system. Then a disembodied voice announced: “Police.”

  Weeks grinned at Bronson and immediately launched into an urgent description of having left his car outside a newsagent’s while he went inside to buy a paper, and of seeing two men jumping into the vehicle and driving off.

  “Then,” he continued, “these two bastards rammed one of your jam sandwiches and then buggered off down the street. You need to stop them, mate. That bloke who nicked my motor is bloody mad.”

  He finished off with the registration number of the Range Rover and his personal details, then rang off.

  “You think that’ll work?” Bronson asked.

  “I dunno. I thought it was worth a try. Muddies the waters a bit, anyhow.”

  As soon as they got out of sight of the damaged Volvo, Bronson directed Weeks down side roads to get them away from the area as quickly as possible, and they neither saw nor heard a police car for several minutes.

  “I reckon we’ve lost them, but they’ll have a chopper up any time now, so we need to lose this motor pretty soon,” Weeks said.

  “Best place is a multi-story,” Bronson said. “You’re invisible as soon as you drive inside, and there’s always some car there that you can jack. I should know—I’ve investigated dozens of car thefts from places like that.”

  Five minutes later, Weeks drove the Range Rover into a car park on the edge of a shopping center, and headed for the up-ramp. Bronson crouched down in the front seat so that he would be invisible to the unwinking eye of the security camera covering the entrance, and Weeks made sure he kept his left hand over his face as he took the parking ticket.

  He drove the Range Rover up to the fifth floor, where there were far fewer cars, most shoppers obviously preferring to find a parking place on one of the lower levels. He stopped just as he reached the floor and then maneuvered the car until it was directly underneath the camera that covered that parking level, felt in the door pocket and pulled out a pair of insulated pliers, which he handed to Bronson.

  “Snip the coax on that camera,” he said, gesturing upward.

  Bronson climbed onto the hood, stood up and cut the lead in two where it entered the camera.

  Weeks parked the car on one side of the level, then they both checked the other vehicles there. The obvious choice was an oldish Ford, the newer cars having far more sophisticated antitheft systems, and in under ten minutes Weeks had the door open and the engine running. They transferred all their possessions to the new vehicle, then drove off down the ramp. They stopped beside a payment machine on the second floor, and Bronson got out to pay the charge on the ticket Weeks had taken about a quarter of an hour earlier.

  “That’s a deal,” he said, when he got back into the car. “The first half hour is free.”

  As they exited, Bronson again ducked down out of view of the camera, and Weeks hid his face as he fed the ticket into the slot.

  Weeks drove the car with care, not out of respect for the vehicle, or for the person they’d deprived of it, but simply so as not to attract any attention. The car didn’t have a satnav, and so they had to rely on the road signs to find their way. But that wasn’t difficult.

  Just under an hour after Weeks had started the engine on the Ford in the car park in northeast London, he and Bronson were stepping inside Angela’s apartment, having dumped the Ford a few streets away.

  “I’ve been watching the news,” she said, as the two men walked in. “A pair of thugs driving a Range Rover rammed a police car near the Olympic stadium, then got away. Know anything about that?”

  “It was just a bit of a fender-bender,” Weeks replied. “Nobody got hurt. You’re looking well,” he added.

  A smile flitted across Angela’s face for a period best measured in milliseconds.

  “Thanks,” she said, “and so are you. So what’s going on, Chris?”

  Bronson provided her with a highly edited account of what had happened in London that morning, avoiding any reference to the killing of Georg and his anonymous companion.

  “Based on what we’ve found out,” he finished, “it looks like the device will be arriving this morning, but we still don’t know how it’s being transported or where it will be positioned. But it is definitely coming.”

  Angela shook her head.

  “I really hoped we’d got it wrong. So what can you do now? Is there any point in calling the police again?”

  “Probably not,” Bronson replied. “I still don’t know what it is that they could do, even if they took me seriously. The area was swarming with police even before we had our little traffic accident, and my guess is that there are probably about double
that number around Stratford by now. Granted, they’re not looking out for some kind of a nuclear device shaped like a bell, but they will have their eyes open.”

  “And I suppose you two are going back?”

  It was actually less a question than a simple statement, and the two men nodded in reply.

  “Yes,” Bronson said, “but we need to change our clothes, so that we look different.”

  “And what can you hope to achieve, just the two of you, if hundreds of police officers and the troops and everyone else can’t stop this weapon being positioned?”

  “I don’t know,” Bronson replied, “but we have to try. We might see something, or hear something, that makes sense to us but which would mean nothing to anyone else.”

  Angela nodded. “You have to do what you can, I know. Right, Dickie, the bathroom’s through there if you want to clean up, and if you go into the bedroom you’ll find a bunch of Chris’s clothes in the small wardrobe. You look as if you’re about the same size, so help yourself.”

  “Wear smart casual, with a jacket,” Bronson instructed.

  Weeks nodded, but didn’t respond. While he was out of the room, Angela made coffee for the three of them.

  “Is there anything I can do?” she asked.

  “Not really,” Bronson replied, “unless you can work out how Marcus is planning on getting the Bell into the heart of the Olympic site. I told you I saw Georg today—”

  “You told me less than half the story, but I really don’t want to learn any more,” she interrupted.

  “Yes, point taken. The thing is, he was in no doubt at all that they’d manage to deliver the device. He was certain they’d have no trouble getting it into position. In fact, he talked about having something like a ‘reserved space,’ as if he had a ticket to the opening ceremony.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Angela said. “All access is going to be strictly controlled, for obvious reasons. The last thing London wants is a repeat of the Munich Olympics, only a hundred or a thousand times worse. Every spectator is going to be checked, and probably have to walk through a metal detector or body scanner, and the amount of vehicular traffic allowed anywhere near the stadium is going to be incredibly limited, and checked just as thoroughly. Are you sure he didn’t mean they’d already got it into position? Into a reserved space, or whatever?”