Conor’s phone buzzed.
“Hello,” he answered, hearing a lot of background noise.
“It’s Kevin, we’ve got a problem,” he announced over the noise of the wind as he rode his motorbike.
“Where are you? You’re supposed to be watching the gate!” he replied angrily recognising the wind noise.
“I know, I was, but they’ve just gone, a minibus with about ten kids in it just left the estate,” he replied.
“Damn, are they in it?” He couldn’t believe it, not a soul had left the estate for two weeks and less than two hours before they were due to go in, they left.
“No idea, the windows are heavily smoked, I can just make out their shapes.”
“Which way are they heading?” asked Conor, his mind racing with what to do.
“South, we’ll be coming past you guys any minute now. I’m right behind them.”
Conor covered the mouthpiece, “Sinead?” he called.
“Yeah,” she replied, rushing to his side.
“Take three guys and follow the minibus. If the kids are on it, take them when you get the chance but don’t do anything until you eyeball them, OK? I don’t want to jump the minibus, find they’re not on it and then ruin our chances later.”
Sinead was already running towards the car, grabbing three crew members on her way. Within a minute, their tyres screeched as they sped off, the car hurtling down the small dirt track towards the main road. Sinead was now on the phone to Kevin, they were only going to be a minute behind him when they got to the main road.
They quickly caught up with Kevin and stayed a car length behind him. Kevin was a car behind the minibus. Sinead considered the options, should they confirm the kids were on board. Ramming the minibus off the road was definitely not an option. Even from three cars back, she could see that the minibus was riding very low. After seeing the Estate, she was fairly certain that the reason the suspension was so low was from the weight of armour plating and bullet proof glass, exacerbated by the two huge bull bars on the front and back. A direct hit from an anti tank missile would struggle to move it, let alone their small car.
They would therefore have no option but to take them when and if they got off the bus. She also couldn’t help think it was strange that Kevin had not mentioned any bodyguards. Ten kids with one small Asian guy didn’t make sense. You don’t spend the money the Kennedys had on security and then walk out into the open, unprotected. She called Kevin back, perhaps he had just not noticed the bodyguards.
Conor was praying the kids were on the bus. If they were, it would avoid a raid on the Estate. He had listened to Sinead’s concerns but he was the only one aware of the timescale and repercussions if it wasn’t met. As far as the rest of the crew were concerned, this was Conor’s operation, he gave the orders. But Conor was under no illusion, the man who had offered him the job had been very clear that failure was not an option if Conor planned to see another birthday.