The man posing as the Ambassador opened his mouth wide and removed two prosthetic fillers from his cheeks and his Slavic cheekbones disappeared as his face regained its natural gaunt look. Carefully he picked at his sideburns and peeled off a transparent sheet imprinted with pock marking and scarring. When he had removed both sides, his face was smooth and clear. Finally he popped out the brown contact lens, placing all elements of his disguise into the empty banker’s box.
The three intruders in the lobby pulled on ski masks. By now the one dressed as a chauffeur was standing at the iron grillage that separated him from the last security guard and the vault. The man hadn’t noticed him approach, as he was busy listening to live commentary of West Ham versus Chelsea on the radio, which was strictly against company regulations.
The intruder coughed, and the security guard looked up.
“Sorry, sir,” he said, hurrying to the gate. “Can you scan your security card on the panel, please?”
The intruder reached into his jacket and retrieved his weapon, which he pointed through the bars at the guard’s face. The guard seemed so terrified that the intruder thought he would faint.
“If you don’t open the gate in five seconds, I shoot you and we blow it open anyway. You choose.”
The gate was open almost before his last syllable had died away. He hooded and tied the guard, securing him to his chair. The radio was still on, and the crowd cheered as Chelsea scored.
“I hope that you are not a West Ham supporter,” the chauffeur laughed grimly.
***
Dave, the safecracker or box man, was inside the vault placing his prepared charges. Plastic explosives worked to a strict chemical formula which Dave only partially understood; nonetheless, he was brilliant at shaping charges to blow inward or outward for point detonations or flat detonations. Dave was, quite simply, a natural.
Gregory had broken into the control room and found the server and the hard drive that stored the video from the CCTV cameras. He could have dismantled the hard drive and taken it, but this was a quick in and out job, so he placed one of Dave’s charges on the server and closed the door.
Upstairs the fake Ambassador was talking to his captives whilst destroying the CCTV cameras. He lifted the ID card from the man who had been sitting at the desk; he would need it later. He placed it next to the phone.
Downstairs, Dave and Gregor were pushing the giant safe door towards the closed position. Whilst it was heavy it was so beautifully counterbalanced that it moved easily. Leaving a small gap to allow positive air pressure to escape from the vault, Dave pressed the remote control.
A series of detonations filled the area with dust and debris, but the overhead fans soon cleared the air.
Gregor could see that the server was in ruins as the door was hanging open on one hinge. He, the chauffeur and James set about clearing the six largest boxes in the vault. As part of their haul they picked up a holdall and a large titanium case from one of the boxes.
They had been in the vault for two minutes when the reception phone rang. The Ambassador blew a whistle before he picked up the phone. The guys downstairs knew that they now had two minutes to get out.
***
The fake Ambassador picked up the phone.
“Citysafe, how may I help you?”
“Is that Chris?”
“No. It’s Pete Maxwell. Chris is in the men’s room.” The intruder had assumed the identity of one of the lobby guards, Chris being the reception guard.
“You need to get Chris out of the bog right now and get him to the phone.”
“OK, I’ve sent someone to get him. What’s the panic?”
“You’ve gone offline. All your security lines are down. You are unprotected.”
“No we’re not. I’m looking at the screens now. The gate is locked, all personnel are on camera, and the vault cameras are showing green lights on all boxes.”
“It must be the server, then. Is the server flashing red?”
“Hold on, I’ll ask.” the Ambassador said, leaning back in his chair and looking at his watch. “Yes, it is flashing red. Does this mean it’s a false alarm?”
“Not necessarily. I can reboot the security system from here, but security protocol means I need Chris to give his secret data and the eight figure password before I can do anything.”
The three men from downstairs were each laden down with bags when they passed through the lobby, nodding at their colleague at the desk.
“Hello, Chris here,” the Ambassador said, moderating his voice and pitching it slightly higher.
“Chris, before I can reboot I need to ask the security questions,” the technician said, on the verge of panic.
“Fire away,” the intruder said, as he laid the handset on the reception desk and walked out of the building.
“Right, Chris. I have your details on the screen in front of me. The first question is, please provide the second and fourth characters of your mother’s maiden name.”
The technician was still awaiting a reply as the Lexus drove away towards Brompton Road.
“Hello? Chris, are you there? Hello?”
Chapter 60
Citysafe Depository, Cheval Place, London. Saturday 4:30pm.
Inspector Boniface drew his family car up to the police tape and parked, showing his warrant card to a uniformed officer. He was dressed in chinos and a colourful golf shirt which carried the logo of the PGA on the left sleeve. The crime scene was bustling. There were four police cars, an ambulance and a police van inside the cordon.
Boniface had been with his children in the park when the call came. The Superintendent told him he wasn’t needed at the crime scene and that he had been called merely as a courtesy. Nonetheless, he had wanted to see the scene for himself, and so he dropped his two kids off at home, with his long suffering wife, and drove into central London on one of his precious days off.
He looked around to see whether DCI Coombes had made it to the crime scene and he spotted DS Scott, wearing denims, trainers and a brightly coloured Harlequins retro rugby shirt. In truth he was hard to miss, with the heady mix of blue, red and green adorning his torso.
DS Scott spotted him and waved. The young sergeant finished instructing the uniformed officer he was talking to and turned to walk towards Inspector Boniface.
“Inspector, I’m afraid we haven’t tracked down DCI Coombes yet.”
“Sensible fellow probably has his phone off. Well, Sergeant, this is a bit of a mess.”
“Yes, sir, it is. We didn’t see this coming, did we?”
“I’m not sure that we saw any of it coming. It seems to be spiralling out of control. What have we got so far?”
DS Scott flipped open his notebook and proceeded to explain that four or more armed men had gained entry by posing as Kazakh diplomats. They had blown open six boxes, removed the contents, and left the policeman and the guards tied up. The Citysafe central controller initiated the Metropolitan Police RVH Protocol, and the first squad car was on site four minutes later, with the first armed response vehicle arriving seven minutes later. The Robbery with Violence potential Hostage Protocol was initiated by a code word given to a police operator on a dedicated line, hence the quick response.
One of the six boxes hit turned out to be Lord Hickstead’s sealed box, and the police constable in the depository said that the accents of the robbers sounded less Eastern European and more Dutch.
“So,” Boniface responded as Scott fell silent, “Hickstead called in a favour from Van Aart, would you say?”
“Looks like it, sir. We have an enquiry out to Europol, who say they are close to finalising their operation and they don’t want to jeopardise that. However, they confirm that Van Aart is still in Amsterdam.”