Gangsters Wives by Lee Martin Page B

slowly, absorbing all the details.
    The plan was simple: Every month, regular as clockwork, an armoured truck left the headquarters of one of the major banks stuffed with worn out bank notes due to be incinerated at a furnace in Kent. Well, not quite clockwork. More as irregular as a Rolex manufactured in Taiwan. The cargo went on different days of the month. Different times. Different routes. Even different amounts of money. Sometimes as much as thirty-million quid, sometimes as little as ten. But one thing was certain. The notes had to be destroyed as they simply took up too much room at the bank. And nothing else but burning would do. That was the Treasury rules. No shredding, no pulping. The money, and more importantly, the special paper it was printed on, had to be destroyed. The first problem for anyone wanting to have a pop at this prize was finding out how much was going to be on board. If an attempt at a hijack was going to be made, it had better be a bumper bundle. Next, when exactly that particular truck was going to be on the move. They were all identical. Based on the chassis of a long wheel base Ford Transit, the bodies were steel lined, and the driver and his mate had no way of opening the rear doors. The third problem was the crew. That was vital, because Eddie needed someone on board who could be forced, by hook or by crook to work with the gang. Someone with a family, which Eddie intended to take hostage on the day of the robbery. Very risky. But it had been done before. The fourth was the actual route. And finally, what to do with a truckload of filthy dirty cash once you’d got hold of it. Even though the notes were thin and worn, that much cash wouldn’t go into a suitcase.
    Eddie had the answers to all of these dilemmas. Somehow, he’d got an inside man. He called him Deep Throat, after the Watergate whistle blower. Sadie had no idea Eddie had such a sense of humour. No actual name for the inside man was mentioned. Sadie guessed that by coercion, bribery, threat, or possibly all three, Eddie could find out the details of the drop. Next, a friend of a friend as Eddie called him, once again nameless, would take the cash at fifty pence to the pound no questions asked, with transport to be supplied by the purchaser.
    There were just a few other snags. All the bank’s trucks were fitted with the latest state-of-the-art satellite tracking system, and of course sophisticated communication between the vehicle and base. So anyone on the rob had to get inside the thing and disable all comms. That was why Eddie needed an unwilling accomplice on board.
    Blimey, thought Sadie, not easy. But quite a coup if someone could get away with it.
    The actual rip off was simplicity itself. When the route was known, which would be the day before, two JCB heavy-duty mobile earth moving shovels would trap the money truck front and back, the crew would be removed from the vehicle and one JCB would smash open the rear doors. The money that had been counted and bagged up at the bank, then put into cages would be removed and transferred to the gang’s truck, the JCBs would be torched on site, and everyone would be a great deal richer.
    End of story.
    It was an audacious plan. If it worked it would net a lot of money, and if it failed… Well, nothing was perfect.
    Sadie put down the book that Eddie had so carefully prepared. It was a four man job, and Sadie knew exactly who would be involved. But who would be the fourth man, now Eddie was banged up tight?
    Right chaps, she thought. Time for a meet I think.
    The next day she got in touch with Connie and told him they needed to get together, but gave no details.
    He grudgingly agreed, as if Sadie was on the borrow, which in a way she was. She wanted the robbery to go ahead, succeed, and get Eddie’s cut as the architect.
    But first she wanted to test out the gun she’d taken from the safety deposit at the bank. She didn’t know when she might need