Where There's A Will

Chapter Fifty

Jim finished his fourth coffee before Owen Keating reappeared, accompanied once again by DS Burke and the two constables. Keating had been in the bank for longer than he had expected, prompting Jim to wonder what had happened in there; he quickly pushed aside both his curiosity and his concern and focused his attention on the briefcase in Keating's hand.

There was nothing out of the ordinary about the briefcase, it was no different to the sort carried by thousands of businessmen and women every day around the country, if you discounted the metal chain securing it to Keating's wrist. Despite the ordinariness of the case, Jim's eyes bore into it, as if he could see through it to the money he knew was supposed to be inside – three point five million Euros in five hundred Euro notes, roughly three million pounds at the current rate of exchange.

He would have preferred to have the ransom paid in pounds, as would Crash, but the research he had done while planning the kidnapping had made it clear that three million pounds in English notes was far too bulky – something nearly always ignored by films and TV shows, was how bulky money was, it was both heavy and took up a lot of space. It was just as impractical, his research had revealed, to request the untraceable bearer bonds that films liked to feature as an alternative to hard currency; while such bonds were undeniably easier to hide, transport and deposit, without the bearer being tracked by the authorities – hence the name – they weren't easy to come by. Requesting bonds would have delayed everything, and given the police more time to track them down, and time, he knew, was their biggest enemy.

Fortunately, it didn't really matter to Jim how the ransom was paid, as long as it was paid; he wanted his half of the ransom because he could do with the money, but there was a much bigger reward coming his way as a result of Alice's kidnapping. He would have to wait to get his reward, because it was likely to be some time before the final step in the plan he had come up with produced the result he was after, but he could be patient.

He waited until Keating and his escort had disappeared around the corner, only then did he leave his vantage point. The first thing he did was avail himself of the coffee shop's facilities, after that he left, reaching into his pocket for his phone. "Crash, it's Jim," he said when his call was answered.

"What's up?" Crash wanted to know. He hoped the answer was nothing, because he was looking forward to becoming a millionaire - he already had plans in place for quitting Britain for somewhere with a better climate, where the pound would stretch nicely and allow him a comfortable life.

"Nothing," Jim assured his partner. "I just thought you'd like to know the money's been collected; I just watched him walk out of the bank with it in a briefcase. I'll let you know if anything changes during the day, but right now it's all good on my end. Is everything ready on yours?"

"Yeah, no problems here," Crash said confidently, though the moment he was off the phone he turned to Lewis. "Your gadget gonna work?" he demanded of the man who had been brought on board for his technical expertise.

Lewis stifled the sigh of frustration the question provoked in him and nodded. "Yes, it's going to work, as I've already told you several times over the last couple of days." He crossed to his bag, which was in the corner of the room, from it he took out a small black box with a switch and a light on one side. He put the simple device on the coffee table in front of his partner. "Turn it on, and whatever tracking devices the police have in with the money will be blocked. As long as you have that with you, and you're out of sight of the police, they won't have a clue where you are; remember, though, it's only got an effective range of about ten feet, so keep it close."

When he had first been told what Crash and Jim wanted of him, he had been afraid he wouldn't be able to deliver. After being taken into their confidence, he had realised that he couldn't tell them that he was a programmer and didn't know much about electronics; doing so would have put his life in danger – he realised the irony of that now he knew his life had always had an expiration date as far as his partners were concerned.

Fortunately, Google, as it so often did, provided him with the answer he needed after only a quick search; equally fortunate was the fact that he managed to find instructions and diagrams that were easy for him to follow. An evening in his dining room, after a shopping expedition to purchase the required items, and he had a device that blocked all signals: radio, electronic and mobile phone, within a short range.