Elephants can't hide forever (21 page)

“Firstly” Mike stated “I figure the Island will have all sorts of cameras, vehicle recognition surveillance and the like, therefore we always travel on and off
separately.”

Cathy raised an eyebrow and threw an inquisitive glance at Penny and Sammy. Mike continued:

“When we get the boys out, and the shit hits the fan, every recording, every CCTV image on the Island, will be scanned and double checked, so we have to take every measure we can to ensure
the police and prison authorities cannot tie up any associations. If at any time I’m seen with any of you three, and the police add it all up, I’m fucked for the rest of my life. This
way, at least I’ve half a chance of getting out and resuming my life.”

“That makes sense for you,” said Cathy “but you can’t seriously suggest we let you loose on your own, what’s not to stop you phoning your old mates to go searching
for your girl? Jesus, you could even go to the old bill and do a deal. Sorry, but that’s not happening.”

“What I’m proposing,” Mike continued, “is you find a minder, but neither Sammy nor Penny, someone with no form or association with the police, someone who is as clean as
a whistle, but loyal to you, and not one of your small time petty thugs who draw attention to themselves either. I’d be happy with that.”

Cathy thought for several moments. “I’m not over the moon, however I do know someone who can accompany you, but only whilst you suss out the Island. As soon as the fireworks start,
they’re gone.” she stated.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way” Mike replied.

Cathy took the phone and dialled a private number to a small terraced house in Dulwich. It was answered immediately. “Hi Mum” said Cathy, “How do you fancy a little holiday on
The Isle of Wight?”

“If you think I’m going to visit that no good husband of yours, you’re mistaken” came the curt reply.

“That’s not it, Mum; I want you to look after a guest of ours for a few days, just drive round the Island with him, that’s it.”

“Ok then” Mum said with no more ado, “When do I come?”

“Dave Penny will pick you up in a couple of hours, see you at teatime.” Cathy clicked the off button.

For the first time in a long while, Mike Tobin grinned. He had faced and conquered some of the most fearsome men that walked the planet, and now he was to be escorted, on his next mission by an
octogenarian widow.

Cathy’s mum had arrived the previous evening. It had been agreed that she be told Mike was looking at the possibility of assisting the Mouse, but not of his
circumstances. Mike quickly realised she was the matriarch of the family, a wizened old bird who would not be messed with, but nevertheless an excellent cover for him to get up close to areas he
would need to explore in great depth.

Mike had studied the access routes to the Island the previous day. There were several sea routes across, but Mike was aware if he was going to get the boys off by sea he needed the shortest
routes possible, so he had selected two- one from Lymington, with a crossing time of thirty minutes, and one from Southsea at eighteen minutes. Mike chose the Southsea route, disembarking at Ryde,
although the time saved on the crossing would be outweighed by the longer road trip, so he would return via Newport to Lymington.

It took Mike about forty minutes to get to the prison. After disembarking, he was driving the Ford Mondeo he had selected from the garage at the house; although he had been tempted by the
Bentley it was too flash to be driving your Mum around. He hadn’t spoken to “Mum” on the way down; this was not a time for small talk. Mike drove around the perimeter of the
prison (or prisons, as the previous three prisons on the Island: Albany, Camp Hill and Parkhurst, had been amalgamated in the 1990s). It was as Mike expected, a daunting place with walls soaring
skyward, forty foot or more.

Mike was in the zone, adrenalin surging through his body as he analysed his options- knock out a wall with high explosive and have the guys ready to run for it? Unlikely to succeed, and even if
he did get the boys, the alarm would be immediate and it would be impossible to get off the Island in time before a total shutdown was instigated. An airlift with a small helo dropping down into
the exercise yard would be daring, but it had been tried before. Furthermore, since the 1995 escape, when three prisoners tried to steal a light aircraft from the local airfield, radar had been
installed as part of the prison’s upgraded security, so that any incoming air traffic could be detected at least five minutes before arrival, allowing the authorities to take action which
meant getting all prisoners under lockdown.

Mike was already gyrating towards his preferred plan of action when, after his third tour of the prison’s perimeter, he turned off the main A3020 which runs along and past the prison, into
a small housing estate. The nearest houses to the prison perimeter were located in Sherwood Road, a street of neat semi-detached houses. Their back gardens were within sight of the prison walls,
hardly an ideal spot to raise a family, but no doubt the prices reflected these restrictions. Mike drove down the road and noted two of the properties were up for sale. What luck, he thought to
himself. A plan was hatching already.

Mike called the Real Estate Company and requested an immediate viewing of the one which was nearest the establishment; he explained he was only on the Island today and a cash buyer. Mike was
actually very excited; he had temporarily and unforgivably forgotten about Jane, and his mind was racing with the opportunity he had found in this quiet little street. The estate agent arrived
within the hour, having rushed round to the vendor’s place of work to get the keys, explaining there was a cash buyer who seemed very keen. Mike introduced himself as a business man from
Shropshire who wanted to move his dear old Mum out of London to a more tranquil location; after all London was not the place it was, what with all the immigrants that had swamped the place in
recent years. The estate agent nodded sagely. Mike gave the place a quick once over, perfect, now the most important question:

“What are the neighbours like? It wouldn’t do for Mum to have a disruptive family next door,” he enquired. The estate agent beamed.

“Well Sir, you will be pleased to know, there’s just a little old lady next door, about your mum’s age, no disrespect meant, and she’s totally deaf.”

“I think we have a deal” Mike beamed. “I’ll ring you inside twenty four hours to confirm.”

Hands were heartily shaken, and the estate agent was on his way back to give the vendor the good news.

Mike was buzzing; he was going to build a tunnel, right from the living room of this semi, into the bowls of Parkhurst Prison, to a location within the confines yet to be determined, and take
out three convicts right under the noses of the guards. He had built three tunnels before, all successful, and from where he was standing they had all been longer. The Polish were internationally
recognised as the tunnel men and he knew several Poles who were ex Special Forces that could be recruited for this plan, and indeed had worked with Mike on other occasions. At this point
Mike’s thought turned to Jane and he came down to earth with the velocity of an asteroid.
This tunnels going to take six months
, he thought,
fuck it, how will Jane cope for that
length of time
? Well somehow, he had to get her back before the tunnel was completed.

Mike decided he had as good a plan as possible, and decided no more could be done on the Island today. He was pulling out onto the main road and heading towards the Yarmouth ferry, when he
spotted almost directly opposite the main prison gates, the entrance to St Mary’s Hospital, he had a déjà-vu moment, Something deep inside him caused him to momentarily lose
control of the car; he clipped a curb and steadied it, but the jolt the car gave was nothing to what seemed like the two thousand volts of electricity that were exploding in his brain. He had had a
thought that was so outrageously insane it might work, and could be the answer to getting the three cons out in a matter of weeks not months. Whatever was going to happen, Mike was going to explore
this second option and put it to Cathy who would surely want her man back as speedily as possible.

Cathy, Sammy Gallagher and Dave Penny were seated around the kitchen table exactly where they had been when Mike had left them earlier that day. Penny offered Mike a cold beer,
and Mike accepted. As he sat down barriers were coming down fast, Mike took a long gulp of beer.

“So, how was the Isle of Wight today? Were you able to come up with any thing concrete?” Cathy enquired hopefully.

Mike replied in a very measured tone, he had thought long and hard on the return journey about how he was going to sell them his plan without spooking them.

“I have had a very productive day, in fact it couldn’t have gone better, and I have two options which we need to discuss. As extractions go, option one is the least risky but could
take up to nine months to complete; option two is high risk with the possibility of getting them out in three weeks.”

Cathy and the other two sat transfixed, this was more than they had dared hoped for. After just one day, this soldier was proposing not one, but two possibilities of getting the men out. It sure
was looking like they had picked the right man.

“Go on, briefly explain both ways” Cathy almost whispered.

Mike talked through option one- he described how a tunnel would be constructed, how the spoil would be stashed in each bedroom, and how they would use akro bars throughout the house to support
the additional weight on the ceilings. He spoke of recruiting a team of tunnellers from Poland, and why the Poles were the best at this type of work. He explained how the digging would take up to
six months, but before that started how they would have to get building permission from the local council for an extension to the house, which would act as cover for the increased coming and goings
during the tunnelling period. He spoke of the necessity of Mouse identifying a suitable point where the tunnel could breach the prison.

Cathy raised her hand. “Mike it seems like you’ve thought this through, and done this before, I’m impressed, now tell us about the quicker method.”

Mike helped himself to another beer. This was his preferred way, but he couldn’t tell them the whole truth for fear of the plan being dismissed out of hand. He started: “Option two
involves a snatch.” He waited for this to sink in. “Opposite the prison is a large hospital, my proposal is to get Mouse, Gallagher and the Jock into this facility and then get them out
from there.”

He was hoping this might suffice, but Dave Penny was quick to respond: “How the fuck do you propose to get three long termers into this hospital at the same time?” he enquired.

Mike knew this was the difficult bit. “In my line of business” he responded “There are times when we come into contact with the most unlikely of people. Several years ago, I
made friends with a scientist who worked on contagious diseases; he worked out of the Ministry of Defence establishment at Porton Down. This was a highly secret Government establishment which
explored unethical methods of warfare such as chemical and germ weapons. These people developed all kinds of lethal agents designed for mass killings that were to be used as an alternative to
nuclear weapons. The government felt at the time, that such deadly silent weapons would be more of a deterrent than conventional nukes.”

Mike could see Cathy wasn’t liking this, or where it was going, nevertheless he continued:

“The Porton Down project was shut down and my scientist friend transferred to the Hospital of Tropical Diseases in Tottenham Court Road, where he still works. With a little persuasion, my
proposal is to obtain from him a virus which would be smuggled into the prison for the three guys to take simultaneously; it would have to be one with scary visual effects. The prison doctors would
not risk keeping such people in the prison medical centre, and so would transfer them to a secure quarantine facility within St Marys Hospital. As they were being moved, we would take them then,
and I would have a vaccine to administer, and away we go.”

“Jesus Christ,” was Cathy’s response.

“So, and I may be being stupid here, but should any thing go wrong and you can’t get them the vaccine, they die of some fucking tropical disease?” was Dave Penny’s
incredulous question. Mike knew this was coming. “And Jane dies with them, so I won’t let that happen” was his calculated reply.

“And if all this comes off, there is still the small matter of getting off the Island, after all once you’ve grabbed the men, all hell will let loose, you won’t make it to the
ferry.” Cathy remarked.

“That shouldn’t be too much of a problem” Mike replied “There are lots of quiet coves along the coast, all within ten minutes from the hospital. I can get my hands on a
small inflatable motor torpedo boat, which I can hide the boat in prior to the snatch, and we’ll be across in no time. However, if we go with this option I intend to explore the possibility
of arriving at the hospital in an ambulance and blag our way in under the pretence of transferring the guys straight up to London. This would get us enough time to get across the water before the
shit hit the fan, and maybe we wouldn’t have to use force, but keep the boat at the cove as a fall back.”

“Well, you’ve certainly got balls, I’ll give you that.” Cathy addressed Mike, “However, it’s insane, and you guys might get away with such a scam in the Army
but I’m not prepared to put my man at risk to this degree. Tomorrow I’m due to visit Mouse, so I’m going to tell him of both plans and that I’m instructing you to purchase
the house, we go with the tunnel and that’s final.”

Mike was crestfallen, just when he thought he’d got through Cathy had put her foot down; his only hope was that Mouse would overrule her, but if he had read things correctly that was
unlikely to happen, therefore he knew somehow he now had to concentrate on getting Jane away from her captives. He would have to wait until an opportunity arose where he could make a couple of
calls.