1958 - The World in My Pocket (12 page)

Ginny rested her hips on the fender of the caravan; her eyes suddenly alert.

‘Today’s Tuesday. That gives us three clear days to make the final preparations,’ Morgan said. ‘Anyone see any reason why we don’t take the truck on Friday?’

Kitson felt a sudden constriction in his throat. For the past eleven days he had been absorbed in working on the caravan, and he had put from his mind just why he was working on it. It had been a job that had interested him, the first job of construction he had ever done. But now he was sharply jolted back to earth and he felt frightened.

Bleck felt a creepy sensation crawl up his spine, but it wasn’t fear. If he had any luck, in a couple of weeks, he would be a rich man. He would be worth two hundred thousand dollars! The thought quickened his heartbeat.

Gypo was very uneasy. He didn’t like this veiled hint that he might have to open the truck fast. He wasn’t scared of taking the truck because he knew he wasn’t going to play an active part in the operation, but he didn’t want Frank to imagine he could open the truck quickly. He didn’t want Frank to be under any false impression.

‘Let’s make it Friday,’ Bleck said, anxious that Morgan should know how keen he was.

‘Yes,’ Ginny said.

Morgan looked at Kitson and Gypo.

Both of them hesitated, then aware that Ginny was staring at him, Kitson said huskily, ‘Sure, why not?’

Gypo lifted his fat shoulders.

‘That’s okay with me,’ he said.

CHAPTER FIVE

I

M
organ walked over to the workbench and sat on it.

‘If that’s the unanimous verdict,’ he said, looking around at the other four, ‘then let’s fix the rest of the things still to be done.’

The others found seats on the assortment of cases that cluttered up Gypo’s workshop, the atmosphere suddenly becoming tense.

‘We’ve got to get a car for Ginny,’ Morgan said. ‘We need a two-seater open sports job. Ed and Kitson will handle that.’ He looked over at the two men. ‘When you’ve found one, bring it here and Gypo will spray it and change the number plates. It’ll have to be overturned at the bottleneck. On this side of the bottleneck there’s a ditch running along the road. We’ll want two ten-foot crowbars for the job. With them we can easily tip the car over into the ditch. You get those crowbars, Gypo.’

‘Sure,’ Gypo said. ‘And I’ve got those road signs ready.’

‘Let’s have a look at them.’

Gypo produced two signs mounted on poles. Morgan nodded his approval.

‘Right; now let’s run through the whole plan,’ he said. ‘How would it be for someone to make notes? I want everyone to be absolutely clear about what he has to do. Ginny, will you take notes?’

‘Yes,’ the girl said. ‘If you’ll get me paper and a pencil.’

There was a delay while Gypo went over to his hut to get a writing pad and a pencil.

As soon as he had left the shed, Bleck said, ‘He seems jumpy, Frank. He worries me.’

Morgan’s face hardened.

‘We’ll handle him. We’ve got to jolly him along until we have the truck. Then if he starts flipping his lid, we’ll get tough with him. He’ll be all right.’

‘I hope you’re right,’ Bleck said.

Morgan looked over at Kitson.

‘Well, kid, how are you feeling? Have you started to plan how you’re going to spend that dough?’

‘I haven’t got it yet,’ Kitson said, his voice sullen. ‘Time enough to make plans when I have got it.’

Morgan regarded him thoughtfully, then he glanced at Ginny.

‘Okay, Ginny?’

Her sea-green eyes were expressionless as she said, ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’

Gypo returned with a pad and pencil which he gave her.

‘I’ll run through the whole plan,’ Morgan said. ‘If any of you don’t follow what you’ve got to do, stop me. This is important. Everyone has got to know what his job is, so don’t be scared to ask questions.’ Morgan paused to light a cigarette, then went on, ‘We meet here at eight o’clock a.m. on Friday. Ginny and Kitson will wear the kind of clothes you’d expect anyone to wear on a vacation. Kitson drives the Buick. Ginny drives the sports car. The rest of us travel in the caravan out of sight. Ginny drives to the trucking agency and parks there and waits for the truck to come out. Kitson drives the Buick, hauling the caravan to the start of the dirt road. Here we let Gypo out with one of the signs.’ He pointed his finger at Ginny. ‘Make a note we’ll need two club hammers to drive the signs into place.’ He looked over at Gypo. ‘We leave you at the bottom of the road. There’s plenty of cover for you, and you can keep out of sight without trouble. Your job is to wait for the truck to pass. As soon as it has passed, you put up the sign, diverting all traffic to the other road, then you start walking back so we can pick you up. Get that?’

His eyes round, his expression tense, Gypo nodded.

‘Kitson drives to the bottleneck and stops. Here, Ed and me leave the car and get under cover by the side of the road. Kitson drives on.’ Looking at Kitson, Morgan went on, ‘You’ll leave the caravan in the wood and uncouple it. You’ll drive fast to the end of the road and put up the second diversion sign. Then you’ll come back, couple up the caravan and turn the car to face back the way you’ve come. The ground each side of the road is hard enough for you to make a circular sweep, and you have the same kind of ground when you get back to the bottleneck so you can again turn the car and the caravan so the back of the caravan will be facing the front of the truck. What you have to remember is when you get the signal, you have to move fast - and when I say fast, I damn well mean fast!’

Kitson said, ‘What’s the signal to be? How do I know when you’ll be ready for me?’

Morgan took his cigarette from between his lips and stared at the glowing end, frowning.

‘Well, I guess you’ll hear some shooting, but if there isn’t any, I’ll have a whistle with me. Act on the whistle. One long blast and you come fast.’

Kitson’s face tightened.

‘You think there’ll be shooting?’

Morgan shrugged.

‘I don’t know. I don’t think so, but there could be.’

He looked over at Bleck and then back to Kitson. ‘Anyway, come when I whistle.’ He turned to Gypo. ‘You’ve got it soft, but your end could be the toughest before we’re through: remember that.’

Gypo nodded uneasily. It gave him a feeling of relief to know that he wasn’t going to be mixed up in any violence. He was a technical man. His job was to bust into the truck. He felt it was only fair and right that he shouldn’t be expected to have anything to do with the capturing of the truck.

‘You understand what you’ve got to do now?’ Morgan asked, turning his attention to Kitson.

‘Yes,’ Kitson said.

He, too, was relieved that he had this end of the job to do. At least he wouldn’t be mixed up in the shooting if there was to be any shooting.

‘You, Ginny,’ Morgan said, swinging around to look at the girl who was listening, her face expressionless. ‘You wait in the sports car outside the Agency until the truck comes out. You follow it, keeping well behind it. The driver mustn’t see you. In the little car you’ll be driving, it shouldn’t be hard to keep out of sight. When the truck gets on to the secondary road, crowd up behind it. Start blasting with your horn. The driver will pull to one side to let you through. You’ve got to attract his attention: make him remember you. So blast with the horn while you are passing him, and pass him as fast as you can. We want him to think you’re in a hurry and you’re taking chances. Wave as you go by, and then drive flat out. If you time it right, you’ll have a mile stretch of straight road. The car we’ll get you will be capable of doing over a hundred, and I want you to push it so these two will tell each other driving that fast is asking to get killed. At the bend, they’ll lose sight of you, but keep coming as fast as you can without getting into trouble. You needn’t worry about any oncoming traffic. Kitson will have fixed the sign and have diverted the traffic, so you can risk driving fast, but for Pete’s sake, don’t have a smash. We’ll be waiting for you at the bottleneck with the crowbars. Ed and I will turn the car over into the ditch. We should have about a quarter of an hour to set the scene before the truck arrives, depending on how fast you drive. To make it look convincing, we’ll set fire to the car. We’ll need a long strip of rag to touch off the gas tank. Make a note of that.’ He looked at Kitson. ‘You go to the slaughter house at Dukas and get a couple of pints of pigs’ blood. Tell them you want it to use in your garden. You’ll have to have another dress with you, Ginny. The one you’ll be wearing will be messed up with blood. We’ve got to startle these guys into thinking you’re bleeding to death when they see you lying in the road.’ He paused to ask, ‘Any questions?’

Ginny shook her head,

‘It’s all right so far.’

‘Okay; you’re lying in the road in a pool of blood; the car’s burning in the ditch. Ed and me are under cover. Ed has the automatic rifle. The trucks turns up and stops.’ Morgan crushed out his cigarette. ‘Here we have to start guessing and we may have to improvise as we go along. It’s impossible to forecast exactly what the driver and the guard will do when they see Ginny lying in the road. One thing we can count on: they won’t run over her, so they will stop. Maybe both the driver and the guard will get out, but I don’t think so. I reckon the guard will go to Ginny, leaving the driver in the truck. When he is within a few feet of Ginny, I’ll come out behind the truck. Ed will be covering the guard with his rifle. As the guard bends over Ginny, I’ll step up to the truck window on the driver’s side and stick my gun in his face. Ginny sticks her gun into the guard’s face.’

There was a pause while the four looked at Morgan.

‘Your guess is as good as mine what will happen next,’ Morgan went on. ‘They may quit or they may start something. We’ve got to be ready for trouble. If the guard starts something,

Ed will wing him. I’ll do the same with the driver. This is something that’ll have to work itself out. We can’t make a forecast. Whatever happens I’ve got to stop the driver from pressing his buttons. It shouldn’t be difficult if everyone keeps his head.’ He looked at Bleck. ‘You’ll be shooting at twenty feet, if you have to shoot. You’ll have a rifle, and this guy is as big as a house. Make sure to shoot fast and straight.’

‘I’ll do that,’ Bleck said, but he looked anywhere but at Morgan.

‘Okay,’ Morgan said. ‘The guard and the driver out of action, I’ll blow the whistle for Kitson. You’ll be about five hundred yards down the road.’ He turned his head to look at Kitson.

‘Listen hard for the whistle, and when you hear it, come fast.’

Kitson nodded. He was beginning to breathe hard, snorting a little through his broken nose.

‘From then on, we’ll have to work fast,’ Morgan said. ‘The Buick arrives and turns, so the back of the caravan faces the front of the truck. I’ll drive the truck up the ramp and into the caravan. You, Ginny, will have to change your dress. Ed will collect the crowbars and the rifle and put them in the caravan, then he joins me in the truck. Ginny and Kitson get into the Buick; Kitson turns the car and the caravan and we go down the road fast for Gypo, who has started to walk back to meet us. He gets into the truck too. So we have Ginny and Kitson in the Buick, and the truck inside the caravan with we three in the cab of the truck, out of sight. We have to get to the highway as fast as we can, but that doesn’t mean Kitson takes any risks. If we’re in luck, we should get on to the highway in around fifteen minutes. By that time the Agency will have realized the truck has gone off the air. Maybe they will think the radio has broken down and they’ll check with the Research Station. I reckon we have half an hour before the nickel drops and the balloon goes up. Once on the highway, Kitson is not to drive faster than thirty miles an hour. By then there’ll be a lot of traffic on the road and no one will think anything of a caravan being hauled by two young people obviously on vacation. Any questions so far?’

Kitson screwed his fist into the palm of his hand as he said, ‘How about the driver and the guard? Do we leave them at the bottleneck or what do we do with them?’

Irritably, Morgan ran his fingers through his hair.

‘Don’t worry your brains about them. Ed and me will take care of them.’

Kitson began to sweat. He was sure now the guard and the driver were going to be murdered.

‘They’ll see the caravan,’ he said huskily. ‘They’ll be able to describe it and us as well.’

‘That’s okay,’ Morgan said, his voice suddenly bored. ‘That’s something we’ll have to take care of, won’t we? You don’t have to work yourself into a lather about it. Ed and me will fix it.’

Kitson looked over at Ginny. Her wooden expression gave him no comfort. Something inside him began to urge him to quit. This was going to be a murder rap. A blind man could see it. They wouldn’t dare leave the driver and the guard alive.

Morgan was saying, ‘Well, if there’re no more questions, I’ll get on.’

Gypo said nervously, ‘Look, Frank, this worries me. I want to get it straight. How are you going to fix the guard and the driver? How are you going to make sure they don’t give a description of us to the cops?’

Morgan’s eyes turned suddenly bleak and his face hardened.

‘Do you want me to draw you a goddamn map?’ he snarled. ‘How do you imagine we’re going to fix them? Now listen: you two voted on the job. I warned you if we slip up we’ll find ourselves on the hot squat. I told you to think it over before you voted. Well, you both voted. Don’t give me this crap about how are we going to stop them shooting their mouths off! You know as well as I do how we’ll do it! I’m not asking you to do it. Ed and me will handle it, but if you think you can back out now, you’ve made a mistake! We’re all in this together. I’m not going to have the skids put on this setup because you two are suddenly feeling righteous! Do you understand?’

Gypo gulped. The ruthless light in Morgan’s eyes chilled him. Right then he had an idea that Morgan wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet in him if he protested further.

‘Okay,’ Gypo said in a small voice. ‘You’re the boss, Frank.’