James Becker - Echo of the Reich

“Don’t worry,” Bronson growled. “I’m just getting started.”

He pulled himself up onto the side of the large yellow machine and grabbed the handle of the door. It was locked, but he had more or less expected that. He looked round once more, then swung the hammer in a vicious arc that connected solidly with the window set into the door above the handle. The glass shattered with a crash, covering the floor of the cab with a myriad of jewel-like but worthless blue-green glass beads.

Bronson reached through the opening, released the lock and swung the door open. He brushed the glass off the seat and sat down on it. Conscious that Eaton was watching him from the yard below, he knew he had to make it look good. He raised the hammer and smashed it down on the top of the instrument panel, where it left an impressive dent even if it did nothing else. Then he swung the hammer into the center of the group of dials. Glass shattered as he destroyed the instruments, for the first time doing real, serious damage. He hit the instrument panel a couple more times, then climbed down from the cab.

As he had expected, Eaton climbed up just a few moments after Bronson had stepped onto the ground.

He nodded his satisfaction. “Good job, Alex,” he said. “Now smile for the camera.”

“What?”

Eaton pointed toward the metal gates, one of which was now standing slightly open. In the gap stood a man, a camera held in both hands, the lens pointing directly at Bronson.

“Who the hell’s that?” Bronson demanded, taking a step toward the newcomer.

“Relax, Alex. He’s one of our people, just capturing your exploits on celluloid-or rather one of those bloody memory chip things-so that we’ve got a bit of a lever if you ever decided to roll over and try to turn us in to the plods. He’s just filmed you doing about three or four grand’s worth of damage to that dozer-easily enough to put you away for quite a while.”

“Clever bastards,” Bronson said, realizing he’d been set up. “I suppose that was Mike’s idea?”

“Pretty much, yeah. Anyway, you’ve proved you’re on our side-at least you have to me-so let’s get the hell out of here before the pigs turn up. There’s an alarm system here, so they should already be on their way.”

And as if to underline his remark, Bronson heard, faintly but quite distinctly, the sound of an approaching siren.

“I wish you’d bloody well told me that before,” Bronson snapped, dropped the hammer. Then he turned and ran for the gate.

The man with the camera had already disappeared when Bronson wrenched the gate open and headed off along the road, back the way he’d come. But even as he reached the road, a police car turned into it, traveling quickly and heading straight toward him, roof lights flashing but with the siren switched off. Not all patrol officers were obliging enough to give an audible warning of their approach.

Bronson glanced to his right, where Eaton had just appeared, running beside him.

“Split up,” Bronson ordered, and ran across the road ahead of the police car, which was now only about fifty yards away. He ducked down a narrow alley between two of the industrial units, where the car couldn’t follow, and sprinted toward the opposite end.

Behind him, he heard a squeal of brakes as the police car slammed to a halt, then the sound of running feet and shouted commands to stop. He ignored them, concentrating on putting as much distance between himself and the pursuing officers as he could.

He took a quick glance behind him when he’d covered perhaps eighty yards, and then immediately stopped, because the alley was deserted. Obviously the two patrol officers had gone after Eaton, not him.

For a moment he just stood there, then turned round and ran back toward the road. He stopped at the end of the alley and looked out before he showed himself.

What he saw was unexpected.

Eaton was about seventy yards away from him, and over to his right, running back toward him, the two officers a few yards behind him, and apparently gaining on him. He must have doubled back, hoping to shake them off. And it clearly hadn’t worked.

It went against every fiber of Bronson’s being, but he knew what he had to do.

Eaton saw Bronson standing at the end of the alley, changed direction and ran past him down the narrow passageway. As he did so, Bronson shifted position, tucking himself out of sight, waiting for the first of the two patrol officers to follow.

The moment the man appeared, Bronson stepped forward, crouching slightly and bracing himself, his left arm bent at the elbow to act as a ram. The running policeman had no time to react or change direction. He simply ran straight into Bronson’s immovable figure, and more or less bounced off, tumbling backward, gasping for breath.

Almost immediately, the second officer rounded the corner, running hard. Bronson stepped aside, then kicked out with his right foot, catching the policeman’s left leg beside the knee. The man let out a howl of pain and crashed forward onto the ground.

Bronson didn’t hesitate. He knew both men would be on their feet again in a few seconds, and he couldn’t afford to be caught. So he turned tail and ran, ran as hard as he could, retracing his steps down the alley, Eaton about thirty yards in front of him.

At the end, both men slowed down and looked back.

The two police officers were more or less where Bronson had left them, but both were standing and one was clearly speaking into his radio, probably relaying a description of Bronson and Eaton and calling for reinforcements.

“Thanks for that,” Eaton said. “Now let’s get out of here.”

Seconds later, the two men jogged out of the far end of the alley and turned left, away from the construction yard, then slowed to a walk as they made their way down the street. They heard the sounds of a siren from the road they’d just left, but saw no sign of police officers or vehicles anywhere near them.

“There’s no linking road between these two streets,” Eaton pointed out. “The pigs’ll have to go all the way back to the main road to get down here.”

“With a bit of luck they won’t bother,” Bronson said.

“Did you hurt them?”

“Not really. One of them’ll have a sore knee for a few days, but the other was just winded.”

“Well, thanks again. That was a good job,” Eaton said, as they headed back to where they’d left the Transit van. “I think Mike’ll be happy to have you join us now. You might even get to meet Georg.”

“Georg?”

“All in good time,” Eaton replied with a grin, “but between you and me, he’s the one who gives Mike his orders. He’s the money man, if you like.”

Bronson filed away this piece of information: another new name and perhaps a glimpse of the hierarchy. He hoped he’d done enough to gain proper access to the group, so that he could identify the key players and then walk away, get back to doing something that didn’t leave quite such a sour taste in his mouth.

Back at the construction yard, once they’d caught their breath, the two-man crew of the patrol car conducted a rapid search of the premises and found nobody there, which was what they’d expected. When the alarm had been triggered, the principal key-holder had been alerted as well as the police, and only about fifteen minutes after the patrol car had skidded to a stop, a balding, middle-aged man arrived in a Jaguar saloon and introduced himself to the two officers as Jeremy Heaton.

He inspected the damage to the bulldozer and expressed his irritation-he knew it would be a long time before that vehicle would be back in working order-but he was happy that only one piece of equipment had been targeted.

“Thanks for getting here so quickly, lads,” Heaton said as he walked back to talk to the patrol car crew. “You probably scared the bastards away before they could do any real damage.”