In town one day, I saw w Securicor van parked outside Barclays Bank. As the delivery personnel were carrying the parcels containing money into the bank, they left the van open and the keys of the van inside.
A few yards away four distinctive men, whom I was part of, hovered around suspiciously. The sun shone and the calm air felt rich as a smell of freshly baked bread from the nearby bakery lingered in the air. We all moved to our positions. James, a 7ft tall, broad shouldered man stood in a quiet alleyway behind Barclays Bank.
He was wearing a black cap and a long black coat with black shoes. Across the road inside the phone box stood Chris. He had been standing in the phone box for the past ten minutes, regularly looking over his shoulder. I sat opposite the banks entrance waiting for the Securicor personnel to exit. I sat pretending to read a four-day-old newspaper.
Attached to my jacket I had a microphone and along with that, I had an earpiece inside my ear. I spoke into it whilst pretending to be interested by an article in the newspaper. The Securicor personnel came out of the bank. They walked towards their van whilst cheerfully chatting amongst each other.
I warned James. He stood ready. Chris put the phone down and stepped out of the phone box as he saw the men coming. Scott then yelled, “ Over here lads, can you give us a hand! ” the delivery personnel looked around as they carried on walking forward. Scott then called out again, “ Can you help me? I can’t get my car started! ” Again, the delivery men looked around not knowing James and Chris were stalking them like tigers ready to pounce at their prey. James took a step forward and grabbed both men from behind, covering their mouths with his enormous hands.
Chris quickly darted over and suffocated the two men using plastic bags. Scott then calmly stepped in to the van and reversed it slowly in to the back alley. I then grabbed the keys from one of the men’s pockets and frantically went through the bunch trying to get the back door open. Once I had the back door open I gave Chris and James a hand getting the two men in to the back of the van. Scott had the Securicor helmet on so he would look professional driving the van. Chris and James stayed in the back and I sat in the passenger seat at the front of the van.
In the back, I could hear Chris and James rummaging through the priceless possessions of the filthy rich people of London. I spoke to them through the microphone, “ How much is back there? ” I asked curiously. “ There must be over ten millions worth back here. There’s diamonds, rubies, cash, you name it. We got the lot! ” He replied cheerfully. I smiled joyously and felt a tingling feeling in my stomach, thinking about the jackpot we had just got.
We had been driving for about a half hour when I asked Scott. “ How much longer is it going to take? ” “ We’ll be there! ” he replied bluntly. I kept looking at my watch, watching each minute slowly tick by. Then we came to a dead end in a dark alley. On the left were two garages and on the right were the remains of three burnt cars.
We all got out of the van. I walked over to the garages and opened them trying to keep the screeching, of the rusty old garage doors, to an absolute minimum. Inside one of the garages there was a car that we would be using for the rest of the journey. Inside the other was the skeleton of a dead cat.
It looked like it had been trapped in there and was left to rot. The smell was excruciating. I slammed the garage door shut and walked over to the others. Scott took out the car from the other garage and we unloaded all the items from the van in to the car. I set fire to the van and rushed off.
We got in to the car and Scott recklessly sped off leaving a cloud of dust behind. I felt ecstatic after running my hand over the money and jewels but I knew it wasn’t over yet. We still had to make it back to Alberto’s villa. Alberto was an old man around the age of 65 years but he was well respected and feared by everyone.
He moved to England over 40 years ago and was known for his great robberies. He was the mastermind behind this robbery. He had planned it to perfection. He had been a thief all his life yet had never been arrested. Back in his days, he was out stealing himself unlike today where he hires us to do his dirty work. He was known by most as the ‘ Sly Snake’ because he got away with everything.
His biggest ever robbery was for 82 million pounds and even then he got away with it. He had set an all time world record. We were working for him so we knew if we did not succeed; we would be in either prison or would end up dead. It was an all or nothing situation. We had to succeed.
Yet sitting in the car we were all getting aggravated and panicky. I kept tapping my hands on the armrest trying to get my mind off what would happen if we were caught. That was not the only reason for being jumpy and uneasy. I had also set up a plan to double cross Alberto.
I still couldn’t believe I was actually going to do it. This was going to be the most daring stunt of my life and I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. If this went horribly wrong even life imprisonment would be better then what Alberto would do to me. I had not bothered to tell Chris because he was Alberto’s nephew and I did not tell James because he was really close to him. Whilst we were driving along, I could feel the tension by the pin drop silence in the car. I winded down the window to let the cool air in and to release the unwanted tension from the car.
I turned on the radio to try to normalise things in the car. A few seconds later James shrieked, “ Turn the damn thing off! ” I turned it off. The pin drop silence returned and it was like that for quite some time until we heard sirens. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
My eyes were wide open as a layer of water rushed on to my eyeballs. My ears pointed like a wild cats. I could feel my clothes getting heavier as they were gradually getting drenched in sweat. I felt like I was sitting in a sauna. “ Is it after us? ” asked Chris.
I could hear his voice tremble. “ I don’t know I can’t see it. ” Replied Scott nervously. A few seconds later, all I could see was blue lights flashing; the whole of the inside of the car was lit up.
My heart was racing. Scott was driving like a maniac trying to get them off his tail, swerving from side to side losing sense of direction. I glanced back hoping it was Bradley, who was my inside police officer. He was going to help me double cross Alberto.
It was. I took a breath of relief and tapped Scott on the hand giving him the thumbs up sign. He calmed down understanding it was part of the plan. I took out the tranquillizer gun that I planted under my seat when we changed cars. I slowly removed it from its leather casing and loaded it.
I looked back fearfully looking for the perfect opportunity to shoot. I asked, “ Are we losing them? ” Chris and James both looked back as I shot two precise darts from under my headrest at point blank range. I got Chris on the neck and James on the shoulder. I leant over my seat and held them both back so they were not able to remove the darts and within thirty seconds, they were both out cold. I didn’t want to kill them but I couldn’t let them in on the plan because there would be more chance of something going wrong and then Alberto would hunt us down and kill us.
I waved at Officer Bradley who then turned his sirens off. He then followed us to a quiet woodland area. There we parked the car and took the money and jewelry out and placed it in to the police car. I left a suitcase with about two million pounds in the car and I left the car keys in James’ pocket. It was hard leaving them but it had to be done.
“ Shall we? ” asked Bradley eager to leave. “ Ye… yeh lets.
” I replied reluctantly walking backwards to the police car, not taking my eyes off Chris and James. The first part of the mission was successfully complete. Now it was the difficult part. I had to frame Alberto so he wasn’t able to come after us. I had to ring him and tell him that I had stolen his money and somehow I had to make him say something that could prove he was the mastermind and thief behind the major robberies. I wanted him to get life imprisonment so I had to make it good.
Scott was going to record the whole conversation. Bradley had hired us a private plane that would take us to Germany and from there we would go to Morocco using other means of transport. Bradley’s job was to take the tape and to arrest Alberto. He was more then happy to do it because he was getting one million pounds and a good reputation for locking up the biggest thief of all time.
He would also become a higher ranked police officer, which he always wanted. “ Call him now. Tell him you’re leaving the country with his money! ” insisted Bradley. I took out my mobile phone with my left hand. I tried to dial his number but my hands were too unstable.
I supported my left hand with my right hand and dialed his number. I turned on the loud speaker and put the phone in my lap. Scott pressed record on the tape recorder. The phone rang. There was no answer.
I was glad in a way because speaking to him made me feel like he had a knife to my neck. Then all of a sudden, someone answered. “ Yes. Who is this and what ya want? ” It was Alberto.
His deep voice and foreign accent could be recognized by anyone. Every limb in my body froze. I was as still as a statue. I looked down staring at the phone.
