The Heist
By
Shaun Jeffrey
Published by Deshca Press
Copyright © 2013 by Shaun Jeffrey
Cover by Karri Klawiter
Edited by Stacey Turner
Kindle Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
For Deb and Callum.
Also available
NOVELS
The Kult
Killers
Prosper Snow series
Deadfall
Fangtooth
Evilution
NOVELLAS
Day by Day
Dark Seduction
Dead Man’s Eye
Dead World
SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS
The Mutilation Machination
Voyeurs of Death
CHAPTER 1
“Make a move and you’re dead.”
The woman stared down the twin barrels of Greg Armstrong’s sawn off shotgun. According to the laminated badge on her chest, her name was Helen. She appeared puzzled for a moment, then her eyes went wide in shock and her jaw dropped as she realised the security office was being robbed.
The colour drained from her face and she started to visibly shake. “Please. Please don’t kill me.”
Armstrong stared at Helen through the eyeholes of his ski mask. Unmoved by her whining demand, he guessed she must be in her mid-twenties. Her short brown hair had been cut in a choppy style and coupled with the dimples in her cheeks, made her attractive. He could smell the faint trace of her flowery perfume. Any other time...
His accomplices in crime, Conner, Williams and Rogers, spread out behind him, their faces similarly disguised. They each brandished weapons, two with pistols and one with a shotgun.
There were eight other people in the Woolen Start Theme Park security office, ranging from security personnel to clerks. The room itself was about thirty or so feet square and segmented by tables and chairs. Cameras in opposite corners of the room monitored proceedings.
Someone screamed and Conner fired a single shot from his pistol at the ceiling. The gun’s report echoed around the room and the screaming stopped as plaster dust rained down like ash.
Conner held the pistol grip in both hands and targeted people at random. “Anyone else makes a sound and the next bullet shuts them up for good.”
Williams and Rogers moved around the room, ripping the phone cords out of the wall. “I want all your mobile phones held in the air,” Williams said. As the staff complied, Rogers collected them up, then dropped them on the ground and smashed them underneath the heel of his boot.
“Now, I want you to fill these bags.” Armstrong’s men tossed holdalls towards the staff.
“We ... we don’t have access to the money.” Helen’s voice shook as much as her body and she twisted her gold wedding band around her finger like a rosary bead.
“You’re lying. And do you know how I know?” He pointed his gun at a blonde haired woman sitting behind a desk. “Because Lindsey here told us everything.”
Lindsey’s expression dropped and she looked about to speak, probably to protest her innocence, but before she did, Armstrong pulled the trigger. The shotgun roared, punching Lindsey back out of her chair, her body peppered with buckshot. The woman behind her screamed, the sound muffled as she covered her mouth with her hands. Blood splattered her face and tears streamed down her cheeks, mascara leaving tidemarks of fear.
Despite the hole punched into her chest, Lindsey was still alive. She groaned, her head lolling around. Blood bubbled from her mouth and she stared up at Armstrong as he walked across and stood over her.
“Ar ... ar ...” she mumbled.
“Amen.” Armstrong fired the second cartridge into her face.
The screaming woman started gagging.
“Fuck,” Conner said as he hopped from one foot to another, shaking his head.
Armstrong glared at his accomplice. He found the show of weakness pitiful to watch so he turned away, broke open the gun and reloaded. Although he could have chosen another weapon, he liked the simplicity of a sawn off. Its twin barrels looked more threatening, and the gun was easily recognisable by anyone. “As you can see, Lindsey had a loose tongue, but I’ve taken care of that.”
He snapped the break action shotgun closed with a menacing click, and then turned back to Helen. “Now where were we? Ah yes, fill the fucking bags.” He wasn’t too concerned about anyone hearing the shots. They probably wouldn’t recognise the noise for what it was anyway, and amid the cacophony of the park the sound would be lost.
“Five minutes,” Conner said as he glanced at his watch. He licked his lips and glared at Armstrong.
Armstrong nodded. “And I suggest, Helen, that you and your colleagues fill them fast unless you want to end up like Lindsey. Oh, and if anyone gets any ideas about being a hero, I’d better tell you I’ve planted a bomb underneath the Armageddon ride.” He pulled a remote trigger from his pocket and held the detonator up for inspection. “And I’m sure you can imagine what carnage it would create if I pressed this button. All those little kiddies and their parents.” He chuckled. “So get a move on.”
Helen and her staff scurried to the safe at the back of the room, where they started emptying the bundles of money. Despite many of the transactions being done by credit card, Armstrong was aware the park took hundreds of thousands of pounds in cash from the entrance fees and the various shops dotted around the site.
According to Lindsey, security had become lax, and they didn’t even bother locking the safes. She also told him that on a good day, they easily held a million pounds in takings, but they didn’t collect on a Sunday, and with a Bank Holiday, Monday’s takings would be double the usual amount.
Having composed himself, Conner assisted the other two men in conducting proceedings, their guns the batons that orchestrated the withdrawal. Armstrong couldn’t help grinning as he stared at the money.
“Eight minutes,” Conner said.
Armstrong nodded. “Speed up people. Time’s ticking.” Knowing it would take a good forty-five minutes for an armed response unit to arrive on the scene, he realised they had plenty of time, but he didn’t want to hang around too long.
When the staff finished filling the bags, Armstrong and his men dropped their weapons inside and hoisted them over their shoulders. The bundles of money were heavier than he imagined, but a comforting weight. “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you,” he said as he backed away towards the door. “And remember, I’ve still got the bomb, so don’t do anything stupid.”
Outside the offices, Armstrong and his men removed their balaclavas and made their way through the theme park. Thousands of people filled the area, their screams of pleasure mingling with the cacophony of the rollercoaster’s and other assorted amusements.
Stalls lined the pathway, various vendors trying to tempt them to test their strength with the hammer, or attempt to sink a basketball with one throw to win an enormous stuffed toy. The aroma of candyfloss fries and hotdogs filled the air.
Woolen Start was the biggest theme park in the country and Armageddon was one of the tallest and longest rollercoaster’s in Europe, making this a Mecca for thrill seekers. Armstrong could see the ride towering above the trees, its red serpentine twists and rolls, inversions, and vertical loops playing host to scores of screaming passengers. He smiled to himself.
The men hurriedly made their way to the car park, and towards Armstrong’s Mitsubishi pickup truck, where they deposited the bags in the flat bed and covered them over with the canopy.
“What the fuck was that about?” Conner asked. “Why shoot the girl?”
“Because she would have squealed eventually. She was a squealer in lots of ways.” Armstrong stared at Conner. He was pale, unused to bloodshed.
Conner swallowed. “Doesn’t seem right, but I, erm, guess it was a nice touch about the bomb. Made them think twice about acting like heroes.”
Armstrong took the device out of his pocket. He stared at the horizon. “No, this is a nice touch.” He pressed the button.
The roar of the C4 he had planted around the supports a few days ago sounded like a clap of thunder, and torrents of orange fire topped by black smoke blossomed in the air. Then the screaming really started.
Conner’s jaw dropped and he stared wide-eyed at the horizon. “What the fuck ...”
“Now that’s what I call Armageddon.” Armstrong chuckled.
“You son of a bitch.”
Armstrong shrugged. “Nobody will chase us for the robbery, not when they have to attend to all those dead and dying people. It’s a perfect diversion.”
“Good thinking,” Rogers said, nodding.
Conner shook his head. “It was bad enough when you shot the girl,” he said. “But this ... this is madness. I didn’t sign up for this.”
“So you’re backing out?”
Conner stared at Armstrong for a moment, and then glanced away. “No,” he mumbled.
“Good.” Armstrong relaxed his finger on the trigger of the backup pistol in his jacket pocket before sliding into the driver’s seat.
“But what about the security cameras?” Rogers asked. “Won’t they use the recordings to identify us?”
“Three, two, one,” Armstrong said, and another almighty blast thundered across the park. “Sorted.”
Carried by the breeze, the smoke descended around them like a wave, bringing with it the smell of burned flesh reminiscent of a barbecue. Williams coughed.
As they piled into the vehicle, Armstrong switched the headlights on and drove them sedately out of the park.
Smoke swirled around the vehicle, nebulous tendrils originating beyond the trees.
“We’ll need to lie low for a while.” Armstrong navigated the narrow road.
“How long?” Rogers asked, rubbing his bald head.
“Until I say so. I’ll hide the money as we agreed, that way if one of you gets fingered you can’t divulge its location, otherwise everything’s been for nothing.”
“And what if you get caught?” Williams asked.
“That’s a risk you’ll have to take.”
“Why don’t we just take our cut now and leave it at that?”
Armstrong sighed. “We’ve been through this. If one of you started splashing the cash around this soon after the robbery, before long someone would get suspicious and report it. Then one thing would lead to another and we’d all be arrested. So what we’re going to do is hide the money. Wait long enough for everything to die down. Once that’s happened, I’ll give you directions to the loot.”
“Don’t get any ideas about double-crossing us,” Conner said.
Armstrong smiled. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
He heard a siren screaming towards them and pulled on to the grass verge to let the ambulance past. Then he continued driving until he reached the car park at the beauty spot where the others had left their own vehicles.
Conner, Williams, and Rogers exited.
Armstrong lowered his window. “I’ll be in touch,” he said before he drove away, still smiling as he looked in the rear-view mirror at the tower of smoke blackening the horizon.
CHAPTER 2
Kurt Vaughn watched his nine-year old son, Caleb as he lifted aside some bark and leaves from a tree root system and pulled out a small plastic container.
“I’ve found it,” Caleb said. “I knew I’d find it before you and Mum.”
Kurt switched off his GPS tracker and smiled. “Emma, over here, Caleb’s found the geocache.”
Emma, decked out in a purple raincoat, waved her arm and pointed, indicating a couple of hikers approaching further down the hill.
“Some muggles are coming,” Kurt said, “so we’ll have to be quick. What have you got?”
Caleb opened the small plastic container and fingered through the contents, which consisted of a small bouncy ball, a plastic dinosaur figure, a couple of football stickers and a plastic whistle. There was also a small notebook and a pen he passed to his Dad.
Kurt and his family regularly went geocaching, the treasure hunting game where you used a GPS to find containers people had hidden. He thought the activity better than lazing on the couch and at least it got them out of the house, because if he left Caleb to his own devices, he’d never turn off the Xbox in his bedroom.
A typical cache consisted of a small waterproof container, holding a logbook where the cache finder entered the date they found it and signed with their code name. Larger containers could also include items to swap, usually toys or trinkets of little value. Caleb enjoyed the hunting aspect, while Kurt and Emma enjoyed the walking and discovering so many places they probably wouldn’t have found out about otherwise.
While Caleb swapped the dinosaur with a small magnifying glass he’d found in a Christmas cracker, Kurt signed the logbook with their family code name, KuEmCa.
A cold breeze shook the tree leaves, and the grey sky threatened rain. “Better get a move on,” Kurt said, “otherwise we’re going to get soaked.”
“What’s this?” Caleb asked as he pulled out a slip of laminated paper from the bottom of the cache. He held the note out to his dad.
Kurt took the matchbook sized slip of paper from his son and read:
DW WKH VWDWXHV IHHW
It didn’t take a genius to work out the letters were a puzzle, which was a common device used to help find some caches. He took a scrap of paper and a pen from his pocket and made a quick copy, then returned it to the container and passed the plastic tub across to Caleb.
“Right, put it back. Those people will be here soon.”
“Find anything good?” Emma asked as she walked across.
Caleb buried the container back underneath the bark and foliage. He held up the dinosaur he’d swapped.
“Cool.”
“I copied these letters from a sheet of paper,” Kurt said as he passed across what he had written. Emma stared at the slip, a frown marring her features. Strands of blonde hair protruded from beneath her woolly hat. She ran a couple of fingers through them, tucking them back underneath the hat. She looked back at Kurt, her Arctic blue ice eyes sparkling. He often wondered whether she had Swedish or Norwegian roots in her gene pool from way back as she had that stereotypical pale, fresh faced appearance.
“What do the letters mean?”
“Probably some sort of code.” He gazed down the hill and spotted the hikers getting closer. “Come on, let’s get away from here and see if we can crack it.”
Dark grey clouds crept across the sky and a couple of spots of rain hit Kurt’s cheek as they made their way along the path to a copse of trees at the top of a small hillock. Weeks of rain meant the ground was already waterlogged, so they sat on a low wall protected from the elements by the foliage that draped above them.
Emma shucked off her rucksack. “Sandwich anyone?”
“What’s on them?” Caleb asked.
“There’s ham and some cheese and onion.”
“Ham. Please.”
Kurt took out the piece of paper and read what he had copied.
“Kurt, do you want a sandwich or a drink?” Emma asked.
“Just a drink.”
She passed across a bottle of cola and Kurt opened it and took a swallow before he started working on the puzzle.
He first wrote out all the letters of the alph
abet above the code:
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
DW WKH VWDWXHV IHHW
Then he sat and stared to see if any of it made sense. He noticed the letter H appeared twice in a row, which probably meant a double letter, possibly a vowel. A,E,I,O or U. He first substituted the letter H with A. Counting back from H to A in the alphabet made an offset of 7 places. He started with the first two letters and counted back 7 places from the D and replaced it with a W. Then he went back 7 places from the W and replaced it with a P. That gave him WP which didn’t make any sense unless it was a puzzle within a puzzle.
He tried again with the letter E, an offset of 3 letters, which gave him a T.
After a few minutes he cracked the code: AT THE STATUES FEET
“I’m guessing the smug smile means you’ve worked it out,” Emma said.
Kurt nodded. “Wasn’t too hard.” He held the piece of paper up so she could read it.
“So what’s it mean?”
Kurt shrugged.
“Well you’d better drop the smile if you don’t know.”
Caleb sat munching on his sandwich. He glanced up briefly, his pale blue eyes and blond hair from his mother’s side. “I saw a statue over the trees.”
Kurt frowned. “Over the trees?”
“Yeah, when we were over there.” He pointed across the field. “There was a wood with a statue above it.” He smiled, dimples forming in his cheeks.
“I don’t remember seeing any statue,” Kurt said.
“You were probably too busy looking at the GPS.”
Emma chuckled. “Looks like your son’s cleverer than you.”
“It’s team work, isn’t it Caleb?” He squeezed his son’s shoulder.
“Nah, Mum’s right. I’m cleverer than you.” He bit into his sandwich.
“Why, you ...” Kurt feigned throttling his son and Caleb laughed so hard he almost choked on his sandwich. “So who’s up for following the clue?”
“Do you think we should?” Emma asked. “We’re likely to get soaked if we stay out much longer.”
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