by Ted Tayler
“Our guest provided us with the information we required,” said Henry, “he carried out duties for Tyrone O’Riordan as we suspected. Gonzalez handled the drones and the cyber- attack. He traced the van that returned from London after the moped gang incident. The most worrying aspect of his work related to magazine photos from the Dorchester event the Olympians attended. Tyrone O’Riordan knows you represented the Olympus Project that evening and now knows Larcombe Manor is the cover for more than a charitable organisation.”
“Where is Gonzalez now?” asked Athena.
“En route to the pet cemetery,” said Henry, “we couldn’t allow him to return to his employer.”
“Understood, Henry,” said Athena.
Giles and Artemis updated the agents on the ongoing hunt for the jewellery gang. Alastor and Minos told Athena they would have complete background checks on Byron Paterson, Raymond Ferreira, and Lily Chan by mid-November.
*****
In the stable block, Orion watched the clock tick around to noon. It was time for lunch. He wondered what delights Erica had given him today? As he tucked into his tuna salad sandwiches, his mobile phone rang; it was Erica. Incoming calls were frowned on by Hayden Vincent. It must be urgent.
“What’s the matter, love,” he asked, “are the kids all right?”
“I’m watching the lunchtime news, Phil,” she said. “There was a fire last night, in London. A café on Kilburn High Road was fire-bombed. Wasn’t that where your friend Wayne lived?”
Orion ended the call and went into the corridor; Hugh Fraser was in his quarters. He knocked.
“What can I do for you, Orion?” asked Hugh.
“Can you switch the TV on, please, Hugh? My wife thinks a friend of mine may be hurt.”
“No problem,” said Hugh, and soon they were watching the report together.
“This was the Wishing Well,” said the reporter. “the scene of a tragic fire that ravaged the café and adjoining units. Fire appliances arrived at two this morning to find the café ablaze and tried to gain entry. The heat of the flames drove them back. When they reached the flat, they found the body of a female, believed to be the proprietor, Bridie Carragher, and that of an unidentified male. Neighbours say Bridie was popular and friendly, without an enemy in the world. She was in a relationship and happier than she had ever been.”
“Oh, no, Wayne,” said Orion, “I warned you not to get involved.”
“The man was your friend?” asked Hugh.
Orion explained how they met at Glastonbury and then worked together before he came to Larcombe.
“Wayne called me yesterday lunchtime,” said Orion. “He spotted something fishy, thought it was related to the jewel robbery. He asked if Olympus was interested. I told him to be wary.”
“Did he tell you what made him suspicious?” asked Hugh.
“Nothing,” said Orion, “I want to help, but he told me nothing.”
“I’ll pass it on,” said Hugh, “there may be clues we can follow with the right surveillance.”
“Thanks, Hugh,” said Orion. “Wayne was a good friend, and Bridie was his soul mate.”
*****
Aleks Bogdani had left to call Tyrone O’Riordan. He wanted to know when the first stage of the robbery began. The Halloween disguises they would use tonight had been shop-bought. JK was out of the country, destination unknown. Zamir and Januz waited in the van while Aleks rang the boss.
“Did you do as I said, Januz?” asked Zamir.
“Yes, I threw the necklace into the Thames from Chiswick Bridge,” he replied.
“Pray it never surfaces again,” said Zamir.
Aleks returned to the van; they drove to Maida Vale. Stan Kenworth owned the house they were visiting. Stan was at work tonight, but his wife and daughter were at home.
“Trick or treat?” asked Aleks as the daughter answered the door. She was fourteen.
“Don’t care,” she replied, closing the door.
Aleks, Zamir, and Januz barged inside the house. Zamir clamped a big hand over the daughter’s mouth as she tried to scream. In the lounge, Stan’s wife was watching TV with a glass of wine in her hand. Aleks and Januz had grabbed her and made her secure before she could get out of the chair.
With the security officer’s family in the back of the van, Aleks drove to the compound where Kenworth worked.
“You each have the photo,” said Aleks, “when you see him doing his rounds, shout.”
Five minutes later, Zamir spotted him. He was strolling from gate to gate, checking the locks were secure.
Aleks drove the van towards the fence at speed. Kenworth stopped and shone his torch on the van. Aleks turned at the last second, and Januz threw open the side door.
Stan Kenworth saw his wife and daughter in the doorway, bound and gagged. A man held a gun to his daughter’s head.
“Do as we say, and they live,” said Aleks.
“Don’t hurt them,” said Kenworth, opening the nearest gate. Januz jumped from the van and zip-tied Kenworth’s hands.
Aleks used the security officer’s keys to gain admittance to the next compound.
“What’s the sequence on the security cameras?” asked Aleks.
He knew the security officer set the timings. Once they had the sequence, they could watch and work out how to avoid being caught on camera by the guards inside the vault.
Kenworth was unwilling to co-operate at first, but Aleks pointed to the van. Zamir struck the wife across the face with the back of his hand. He learned the sequence straight away.
With help from Zamir, Kenworth told Aleks that on Friday nights the vault was open due to the vast sums of money destined for thousands of ATM’s in the capital.
“How many guards inside the vault?” asked Aleks, “and if you lie, your daughter dies.”
“Four,” Kenworth had told him.
Zamir then took Stan Kenworth to the van and locked him inside with his wife and daughter. He rejoined Aleks and Januz. The keys gave them access to an office building. Kenworth’s three security guards stopped for thirty-minute breaks at one, one-thirty, and two o’clock. As each man came to the office block for the only coffee machine on-site, Zamir overpowered them. They could move on to the second stage now.
Aleks lowered the bag slung over his shoulder onto the ground. He opened it to reveal a Skorpion machine pistol, two handguns, smoke canisters and stun grenades.
“No mercy,” he said, “orders from the boss.”
The three men reached the vault doors undetected and scattered the grenades inside. Each man entered the vault with their gun raised. The guards were quick to react but got hit by sustained bursts from Aleks’s Skorpion. Zamir and Januz finished off anyone still breathing after the initial assault.
Aleks backed the van into the vault. They dumped the Kenworth’s on the floor next to the dead guards. For the next ninety minutes, the three men loaded cash boxes into the van. There was nothing left to steal. Aleks was ready to go.
“What do we do with these three?” asked Zamir.
“I can help you get away if you let us live,” begged Kenworth.
“What do you know that’s so valuable?” asked Aleks.
“I can tell you where they keep the security camera recordings in the office building. You may have missed a sequence. Take tonight’s with you, and you’ll be home and dry.”
“Take them to the office building, put them with the others. Fetch the right recordings, and we can leave.”
Five minutes later the van left the compound. Four men died, but the two hostages and the four security guards escaped with their lives.
As the van pulled into a lock-up garage in Walthamstow, Aleks sent a text message to Tyrone.
‘Message delivered. All good.’
EPILOGUE
News of the robbery broke at six o’clock on Saturday morning with the shift changeover at the compound. The streets soon filled with police officers and reporters. The news was a further nail in the co
ffin for the authorities. No matter how much money they stole. Four men died.
When the first TV broadcasts beamed into homes around the UK, the ambulances had parked in the external compound. The crime scene investigators had much to do before they could leave. One vehicle had arrived for each body. The scale of the enterprise was apparent to the waiting media.
Reporters covered the basic details given by the first police officers on the scene. When extra ambulances arrived under blue lights, it emerged that six people had been discovered alive in a separate building. The public joined the first responders on the streets around the compound. When the security guards and the Kenworth family came out on stretchers, the crowds surged forward.
“How much more do we have to take?” one man yelled at a camera.
“Where’s the Mayor of London, and the Home Secretary? Enough is enough,” shouted another.
“The situation here is volatile,” said the besieged reporter. “People are angry. These crimes continue to happen, and yet there are no arrests. Representatives from the company operating this site have arrived in the past five minutes. They drove into the compound under police escort. We hope to learn later this morning how much was taken. For now, it’s back to the studio.”
Athena and Phoenix were asleep when the first reports aired. As they began what they hoped to be a quiet family Saturday morning, events in London caught their attention.
“Here we go again,” said Phoenix, “here’s the big crime I forecast.”
“What is this company responsible for?” asked Athena, “how much could they have stolen?”
“They’re the major firm topping up cash in ATM’s across London and the Home Counties. When the public learns that, there will be mass panic. Every machine will be empty by lunchtime, and those at work, or had a lie-in will be out of luck. I dread to think how much they hold in one of those places. Do they empty them every Friday and replenish stocks before the next delivery? I’m not sure. If this vault has been swept clean, the sum could be huge.”
As the days of the month flicked over on the calendar, one by one, the full scale of the robbery and its impact on the country was clarified. At Larcombe Manor, they monitored events, considered possible retaliation, and the scheduled celebrations went ahead as planned.
In the week beginning the third of November, the amount stolen in the robbery was confirmed at a record sixty-five million pounds. Stan Kenworth told the police he had feared for the lives of his wife and daughter. That was why he not only opened the gate to let the gang inside the compound but also told them how to avoid leaving behind any incriminating filmed evidence.
The three men wore masks throughout the kidnapping and the robbery. None of the six survivors could identify their attackers due to the Halloween masks they wore. Each witness said the men spoke with an Eastern European accent but could not tell from which country they may have come.
The cash stolen had been in standard denomination notes of twenty, ten, and five pounds. It was untraceable. Experts estimated the gang’s van was carrying boxes weighing over two tonnes in total. CCTV film from streets surrounding the compound was studied, and the van traced to the outskirts of Walthamstow.
They never found the van, but a lock-up garage burnt down late on Saturday afternoon. Kids got the blame for what seemed another incidence of anti-social behaviour. The police now believed the gang had used that garage.
Pressure on the authorities increased day by day.
*****
At the Glencairn Bank, Tyrone O’Riordan had transactions to handle throughout the first fortnight in November. Once he received the message from Aleks Bogdani, he sent teams to Walthamstow. The boxes were collected and distributed to Grid leaders across the south-east. Cash deposits were banked in Gresham Street from Monday the third onwards. The operation was slick. It raised no suspicions.
Aleks Bogdani kept nothing back on this occasion. He and his accomplices had gained enough from the jewellery raid to return to Tirana as millionaires. Tyrone spirited them out of the country on his private jet on Wednesday, the fifth.
Aleks thought it was poetic that the boss had chosen Bonfire Night. Parliament had been the target for Guy Fawkes. History was repeating itself as those in power stood on the precipice. His colleagues Zamir Tanush and Januz Goga were relieved at not having to worry about the police investigation into the fatal fire at the Wishing Well café.
*****
On the eighth, Maria Elena Urbano and her fiancée Giles Burke flew to Malaga. An hour later they arrived in Estepona. Henry Case and Giles’s family flew out on Friday in time for the wedding on the fifteenth.
Maria Elena’s grandmother was well enough for the church ceremony but too tired to stay long at the lavish reception that followed. As the bells pealed at Our Lady of the Remedies, the happy couple already thought of their return flight to Bristol. There was only a week before Giles was to return the favour and be best man at Henry’s wedding.
In several cities across the UK, demonstrations took place where tens of thousands assembled to protest at the apparent collapse of law and order. Colleen O’Riordan decided a tiny push was required to fuel the fire. She sent Grid members on looting sprees in shopping centres from Glasgow to Portsmouth.
*****
On Monday, the seventeenth Minos and Alastor delivered their report on the three candidates for the Olympus top table. Each one received a clean bill of health. It was in the lap of the Gods to decide which two they wished to select in January.
Phoenix and Rusty urged Athena to sanction direct actions against the Grid. She continued to be cautious. Athena wanted to wait until she believed Olympus could attack with impunity. The hacker had revealed Tyrone O’Riordan’s interest in the organisation. However, the Grid’s resources were massive. She had to be sure Olympus didn’t face exposure to another threat.
*****
Henry Case and Sarah Gough were married in Larcombe Manor’s St Michael’s church on Saturday the twenty-second. Giles Burke was best man. Athena and Hope were maid of honour and flower girl respectively. Phoenix sat in the congregation with most of the estate’s staff.
The bell-ringers from Sarah’s new parish set the tone for the coming days as the six bells rang out at an estate wedding for the first time in decades. The rest of the weekend passed in celebration of the happy event.
*****
Geoffrey Fox moved into his Burnham bungalow on Monday, the twenty-fourth. The first thing he saw on TV when he sat in his lounge for the first time was a news flash.
“Following recent unrest in the country, and the failure of the government to produce any meaningful response, a group of MP’s have tabled a motion of no-confidence. It has cross-party support and reads ‘that this House has no confidence in Her Majesty’s Government’. The vote will take place next Monday, the first of December. It will be the first such vote in thirty-five years.”
Geoffrey switched channels. He wanted entertainment; he’d spent enough of the past weeks being miserable. It was as if everyone in the country held their breath. Both sides of the House of Commons rallied their supporters. Different factions within the main parties were hard at work. New faces were emerging; either to sound a note of caution or to herald the opportunity for radical change. The result was on a knife-edge.
The Grid’s leaders looked on and smiled. Was this the time to strike?
The final Saturday of November was a busy one. Across the country, demonstrations occurred again, and there were riots in Leeds and Liverpool. Politicians pleaded for calm and reason, to no avail.
*****
At Larcombe, Giles Burke and his new wife attended St Michael’s for their marriage to be blessed. The Reverend Sarah Case officiated. A gathering of the great and the good at Larcombe left the tiny church as the bells pealed in the bell tower overhead.
Later that day, Rusty Scott and the former Zara Wheeler were married. Her elderly parents were ecstatic to see their little girl look so radiant. The
‘Mouse’ had gone; the ‘Hunter’ Artemis they saw standing next to her husband was a tower of strength.
As the happy couple stood in the church porch for photographs, the bells pealed for the third time in eight days. Miguel Fernando, the young motorcycle rider who photographed Phoenix and Rusty last month was in the lane outside the Manor’s walls. Tyrone had rewarded him for his initiative. Miguel was unaware of the fate that befell Simon Gonzalez, but Tyrone was keen to maintain the surveillance on the Olympus Project.
Miguel waited until darkness fell before he moved from his hiding place. The people on the estate would be inside the main building soon, and the wedding party could begin.
He sent Tyrone a simple text.
“No activity here; only a frequent peal of bells.”
You have just finished reading ‘A Frequent Peal Of Bells’
The eleventh book in the series featuring ‘The Phoenix’.
‘Larcombe Manor’ the final book in the series will follow.
• Which way will the vote of confidence go? Will the government fall and allow the Grid a chance to take power?
• How can Olympus continue to combat the all-powerful Grid? Will the authorities uncover it at last?
• Which scandal or injustice will be the next challenge Olympus face?
• Will the new Larcombe families survive the troubled waters that lay ahead in 2015?
These are a few of the unanswered questions. Many dangers face the Olympus agents before we reach the climactic conclusion of ‘Larcombe Manor’.
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Book Twelve
Larcombe Manor
