On the Run

"Good, yeah. Jamie is settling back in."

"Yeah, I meant to ask about that. Has he found owt?"

"Nah. That's bugger all jobs out there but he's only came out on Thursday. He's proper screwed but he's got shacked up again with some bird he used to knock about with so he's 'appy at the moment."

Charlotte gave a grin and then recounted her weekend in graphic and worrying detail. She got exceedingly more explicit, watching Oliver squirm with embarrassment as she told him about her three one-night stands and then the lewd activities the big girl had done in the local nightclub and her own flat.

Oliver shifted uncomfortably in the seat and listened; he would give anything to get a date with a girl, especially one as dirty as Charlotte, but never seemed to pluck up the courage to say anything. He was 23 and still a virgin and that depressed him; he wanted to be like his peers, and like his brother. Hearing Charlotte, who was younger than him, happily tell him of her dozens of sexual partners each week, and her ease of getting a date, made him yearn for female companionship even more. He felt unfulfilled.

The phone buzzed and Charlotte picked up her headset while a postman walked into the small reception, decorated in garish white PVC and chrome, and passed a small bundle of letters to the outstretched hand of Oliver.

This gave him a reason to walk around the offices, distributing letters that was normally Charlotte's job, before returning to his seat and she glanced at him. "I need a slash," she muttered and got up. "That tea's gone straight through me." She left Oliver alone in the room and he looked around the empty reception.

He nervously opened "My Computer" and then clicked on the network drives. He had seen that the security on the file system was pretty poor and guessed he was able to access every file stored on it. He clicked on the Search button and entered "plan" into the box.

The hard drive whirred away as it searched on the network drive and entries started appearing. Oliver didn't have time to check what they were and he had to just wait for the search to finish; his USB pen drive in his hand in anticipation. He heard the bathroom door open and then a gasp. "Hello Mr Doszak," Charlotte's voice drifted and a large, well built, scary gentleman entered Reception and nodded towards Oliver who politely copied Charlotte in greeting him.

He looked at his computer, his shaking hands hovering over the "X" button as the search finished; he had well over 100 files and he pushed his USB pen drive into his computer by his knees. His hands were clammy and his stomach tickled with the butterflies inside as he selected all the files and copied them to his pen drive. He wasn't used to doing things against the rules and getting away with it, and he knew Charlotte would be back at her desk any moment.

Charlotte was busy asking Mr Doszak how he was, and her brown-nosing gave Oliver precious seconds with which to complete the file transfer. In the nick of time he had the USB pen drive out of the computer and filed away in his side pocket; Jamie better be grateful.

Charlotte grinned as she sat down. "That Jaroslav Doszak is such a nice man," she muttered and Oliver shook his head.

"He wouldn't go for you," he replied with a smile and Charlotte giggled.

"I know, no guy in this place would," she moaned and looked wistfully at her colleague. "Even if there are some nice guys 'round here."

Oliver kept breaking out in cold sweats throughout the day, he was nervous as he had the USB stick in his pocket and he knew if he was searched they would find all the content. Instead he tried not to think about it but was grateful when 5pm came around and he got to leave the offices.

He wasn't expecting to see Emma waiting for him in her battered Ford Transit; he was used to walking the mile to the bus stop on the main road or scrounging a lift from Charlotte, but Emma waved at him from a car parking space she was squatting in and he walked over.

"I got it," he told her. "Well I got what I think you wanted. Plans." He held up his USB key and Emma threw the van into gear and they left the mock Georgian mansion, heading for her flat.

"Excellent," she said softly and flicked on the radio as she swung the van into the country lane and sped down the narrow road. Emma teased him when she saw the amount of data on the USB drive; he had captured the company plan, some plane landing times, someone's trip to Lapland as well as the floor plans for a refit of the double-glazing offices. The architects had helpfully included the floor plans for the manor house as well and Emma grinned; they were not incredibly detailed but they would enough for her plan her entry and her exit.

"We could really do with some keys," Emma told Oliver as she poured over the plans on the laptop. "Some keys would be pretty awesome."

Jamie looked at his brother and gave him a look. "Well can ya get them?"

"Oh yeah," Oliver muttered. "And I'll also get them to leave the safe unlocked and preferably lend us his Porsche so we can make a quick getaway."

Emma looked up and scowled. "So a 'no' then."

"Hell no. If they know I gave you door access cards they'd chop off me balls."

Jamie shrugged. "Who cares? You dain't use 'em do ya?"

* * * * *

Jaroslav waited as his two henchmen opened up the car boot and pulled out a restrained figure from the car. His eyes widened when he saw Jaroslav and muffled into his gag. The short-haired, brutish henchman, Mikael pushed the victim onto his knees into the mud and Jaroslav nodded towards the prostrate gentleman.

With a yelp, Mikael swung an iron bar and it hit the victim's back and he fell into the mud, hollering in agony. The two men hauled him back to a kneeling position and he looked at Jaroslav with fear etched on his dirty face; Jaroslav had not dragged him to the woods to give him a whack with an crowbar.

"You, you fuck with me," Jaroslav said firmly and glanced around the darkness; it was eerily quiet in the wood where he was dishing out the retribution the man so sorely deserved. "You think you can fuck with me and you not die?"

A gag was torn from the mouth of the man and he held out his hands in front of him, crying. "I didn't do it," he wailed. "It was Paula. She swapped 'em. I didn't know."

Jaroslav snorted and looked at the two suited men either side of him. "He think me stupid. You can't take my drugs and give me shit in return," he told him in a deep Eastern European accent. "You take piss."

"We searched his flat, boss," the younger man said. "We found no drugs, no money, nothing."

Jaroslav turned to face the young Paul and then looked at Mikael. "Did I ask him?"

"No boss," Mikael muttered and scratched the top of his head.

"No. No I fucking did not," he told the young henchman, and started waving his gun towards the 22-year-old Paul who pursed his lips together. "So shut the fuck up."

Paul nodded and Jaroslav turned back to face the crying man in front of him. "So you better tell me, where are my drugs?"

The man sniffed. "We sold them."

Jaroslav took a deep breath and took of the safety catch on his handgun, aiming it at the hapless figure. "So where is my fucking money?" He shouted with his voice echoing around the trees.

"I don't know. I thought you had it," he wailed and Jaroslav looked at him. "I gave you the bag."

"You lie," he called out and pointed towards his two henchman with the gun, making a swirling motion. Mikael and Paul glanced at either and turned to face the car; they knew what was coming.

Jarsolav took aim at the helpless figure. "You mess with me. I give you top class cocaine and you fuck with me. I fuck with you."

The victim shut his eyes, tears streaming down his face. "Please no," he begged. "I have little girl."

Jaroslav glanced over at his henchmen, clenched his fist and smacked the man on the nose as hard as he could with his gloved hand. There was a cry and he felt to his side, blood streaming from his open wound. Jaroslav sneered and walked past him, turning to fire his gun into the ankle of the man.

There was a piercing scream and a loud cry, as Jaroslav clicked his fingers and Paul opened the back door of the car, the smoking gun placed inside the vehicle.

"You got seven days," he told the screaming man before he got in and then waited for Mikael to get into the driver's seat. "Tell Sam to find him in two hours and if I don't get my money, you take child. And you sell her. I get my money some way."

"Yes, boss," Mikael said and started the car, picking a path out of the wood between the trees.

* * * * *

Oliver sat down at his desk and nodded towards Charlotte, the curvaceous receptionist who was on the phone and passing a call through to a senior manager.

She smiled as she put down her headset. "Mr Jones, he's gonna go crazy," she said in a low voice. "They put some windows in this old girl's house last week and one of them fell out last night in the winds."

Oliver gasped and smiled, running his hand up and down his hairy chin. "Betcha it was Howard," he said with a smile and typed his password into the system.

"Can ya do us a favour?" Charlotte asked, squeezing her hands together and then releasing them. "I gotta phone these peeps back and then set up a meeting room for Mr Doszak. Can you create the cards for the contractors coming today?"

Oliver nodded and gave a coy smile. "Sure," he said and took the bank of deactivated spare cards. "How many."

Charlotte passed him a list with an apologetic look. "All sorts coming today. I just got the list. Some room upstairs being refitted."

Oliver almost groaned; there were half-a-dozen names on the list and he started by signing into the door access system with the Administrator account and password. He looked over at Charlotte, twirling her hair with her fingers and scanned the first deactivated card typing out the name "Greg Fields" and assigning them 8am to 6pm access to zones one to eight.

This was fairly standard access and it was not an arduous task, it was just that he had to set each zone up separately on each card and the system was not exceptionally fast or well-designed. He soon created all six cards just as Charlotte was leaving to set up the meeting room. With a glance towards her, he set up a seventh card to have 24 hour access everywhere and then an eighth card likewise with names of "NULL" which took a lot less time when he cloned it from a "Full Access" template.

He glanced up at the system; there were several cards with 24 hour access everywhere but a number were just assigned numbers and not names on the display. He briefly wondered who the other people were, Jaroslav and his family were certainly a few but there were pages of the users.

He closed the system down as he heard Charlotte enter the reception and dropped the two access cards into his bag open underneath the desk; his heart was beating furiously and Charlotte smiled as she came into the pod. "You look as white as sheet," she told him, sitting down. "Just like you've seen a ghost." Oliver stuttered in return and she just giggled. "Yes, I would love a cuppa," she told him and watched him get up to make a drink.

The day dragged for Oliver and although he fastened his bag shut when Charlotte wasn't looking kept glancing down at it. He was sure that someone would ask why there were two extra cards created and why they had unrestricted access to the offices and the manor house but nothing was said and Oliver almost ran out of the building.

Jamie and Emma were waiting for him at Emma's flat and Oliver slumped down on the chair and put the two access cards on the table. "For one week, these will get you anywhere," he promised. "Then, after that, they will automatically disable."

"Fuck," Jamie exclaimed and Emma glanced at him.

"Everywhere."

"Everywhere, zones one to twelve. Everywhere."

Emma looked a printout and then looked at Jamie. "These will get us into the vault if we can get into the house."

"Am I done now?" Oliver asked and Emma gave a kiss and a smile.

"Yeah, maybe," she told him. "And thanks. I'll make sure you get a few quid." Emma promised and Oliver nodded.

"Don't get caught," he warned them. "Or else I will be in the shit."

They shot him a fleer as he left the flat. Oliver was, even more, an accessory to the crime. He was getting in deeper and deeper and he knew that if Jamie didn't do it perfectly, Jaroslav would blame him as Jamie's brother and Oliver did not want to be on the bad side of Jarolsav: it was not a happy place to be.

* * * * *

"Tone," Emma called, holding out her arms and knocking her fist into that of a scruffy looking black man. "How ya doin'?"

"Yeah, cool," a voice said underneath a hooded sweatshirt and Emma smiled at the beady eyes looking at her. "I heard your gang got busted?"

Emma looked around the small park they were in and nodded, her long brown hair and sweet face covered by her own hooded sweatshirt. "They got careless," she muttered. "Real careless." She sneered at the face underneath and he grunted.

"D'as shit," he muttered and Emma rubbed her nose.

"I'm wanting an alarms man," she told him. "Do over a vault in a big house."

Tony rubbed his face and stared at her. "Me?"

"Tone, you are shit hot at alarms, and I know there is a system that I will need to knock off."

"I is straight," the man told her and Emma laughed.

"Ya say that every time."

He scowled at her and she shrugged. "Yeah, well I got a little girl now and so I ain't wanting to ga back inside, ya hear me?"

Emma nodded and looked away from him. "It's worth fifty thousand at least."

"Fifty?"

"At least."

He hesitated and glanced over at the girl stretching her feet. "Ya lying gal?"

Emma rubbed her nose. "I ain't lyin'. Fifty, at least. Maybe seventy five."

"So what's the deal?"

Emma looked at him. "Ya interested now?"

"For fifty G, then yeah?"

Emma opened her hands and then rubbed them. "Three statues. Worth a fortune. Get 'em to Buenos Aires."

"Buenos what?"

"Buenos Aires. It's in Argentina."

"Argentina? That's fuckin' miles away, ain't it?"

Emma shrugged. "That's why the job is worth a few bob. I gotta get past the alarm system, maybe. It's a stately home and I have a way in. It should be fine but I would like to have the bells nobbled."

Tony looked at her. "And dees statues," he spat in his ethnic drawl. "They like, 'ow big?" He waved his arms around and Emma grinned, bringing her hands a few inches apart.

"Solid. Gold," she muttered and Tony stared at her wide-eyed. "And very, very old."

"Sweet," he muttered and then looked her up and down. "But you no messin' with me?"

"I not messin' with you. I show you later," she said and gave him an invite to come to her flat which he declined.

"Jeanine, she give me shit if I go to your flat. She already thinks me is nobbing the girl from the pawn shop."

"Well I gotta go to the gym," she said with a smile, glancing at her bag. "It's empty in the day. You allowed to come?"

Tony grunted. "Yeah. Give me twenty," he told her and she watched as he skulked off to his flat to retrieve some athletic gear. Tony would not have been her first choice but he knew the score and he had worked with her before so she felt she was in safe hands with him, even if he was a little unpredictable.

"Oh, and one more thing. The guy we are doing over is Jaroslav Doszak." Tony's face fell.

Chapter IV

Emma sat on the tree, her binoculars glued to her eyes watching the Manor house. She had four different locations all around the property but all of them were at least a mile away where she could see the property from different viewpoints. After a week of spending hours up trees, she was becoming confident she was understanding the timetable and itinerary of Jaroslav and his employees.

Jaroslav and his four henchmen were the most difficult to predict as they seemed to come and go as they wanted without adhering to a pre-set pattern and she realised there was little she could do to second-guess where they would be at any point in time. The mistresses or "sluts" (as Emma called them) of the Ukrainian were easier to predict as he had two living with him and at least another two who lived off-site, and they had a fairly regular timetable.

The brunette came to see her lover Thursday and then Monday, both times in the late afternoon and stayed all evening, while the blonde girl went out on the Saturday afternoon and then the Tuesday evening. It took Emma a good few hours to figure out that the blue top she was wearing was so she could watch a local football team as a supporter. She had no idea if she went to the stadium or just to a local pub, but when they played, she went out.

Emma built up a very detailed account of everyone's movements, including the gardener whom she had knew would be gone long before she started the raid. She also spied the odd van or car that would stop overlooking the property and stay there for hours but along with the family of squirrels who regularly ran across the garden it was simply not relevant to her spying. She did wonder if a competing gang were also scoping out the property but she made sure she wasn't seen by them and they never stayed for as long as she did.

She brought Tony along a few times to watch so he had an understanding of the property but he seemed more interested in the women, and then got Jamie to come and visit. She began to worry about their temperament when Jamie got bored and was even worried whether they had the ability to do a job as big as what she was planning, but she had little choice. There was not time to get a new "crew" as her window of opportunity was small before the auction house got the art and it disappeared out of sight. The two men were risks, but the rewards were such that it was worth it.

She was plotting to take some art worth over three-quarters of a million pounds from one of the most dangerous men in England and knew that they would need to be at their best to even get in, let alone get away with it.

Emma had stayed out of court because she was always very careful who she worked with: they had to be professional and sound and she would not take any unnecessary risks. This job was a big risk, but the payout would be worth it, and she even thought that it would mean she could take a year out travelling. She might even stay in South America.

* * * * *

Tony took a deep breath and drove up the drive of the Manor in Emma's battered Transit van that she had begrudgingly lent him. Jumping down and dressed in a blue workmen's outfit, he grabbed a clipboard and a toolbox from next to him and walked into the entrance, glancing at Charlotte.

"Hello love," he muttered with an air of inappropriate familiarity and looked at her breasts in the tight material. "Mayflower Plumbers, something about a leaky duct."

Charlotte scowled as he spoke and glanced down at the Visitor's List. "You are not on the list," she muttered and turned to Oliver who shrugged.

"I ain't heard nothing," he added and Tony signed the guestbook and held out a pass. Oliver froze, it was one that he had given to Emma and Charlotte's scowl deepened.

"I already got me-self me key," he told her and Charlotte sighed and looked at Oliver. "I was 'ere last night. Got called out from pub, missed the footy."

"That can't be right," she muttered as Tony held the white credit-card sized plastic to the door and it beeped to let him in. "Visitor's don't keep the passes," she added. "Someone's not done somethin' right."

Oliver puffed. If they checked the pass on the system they would see that it was created by him when he had to do the temporary passes at the beginning of the week and questions would be asked. He panicked and spluttered. "Yeah, but, the, um, it, um ..."