Tickener’s Holden was standing around the corner from the clinic and half a block back along the street. Across from it were two unmarked cars carrying four men who could only have been cops. I pulled up behind Tickener. Grant Evans got out of his car and walked across to the Holden. He got on the front seat and I got in the back. I sat down next to a small, relaxed looking guy who wore a Zapata moustache and an intelligent expression. Evans spoke first.
“You didn’t tell me that the press were in on it, Cliff, I could get my arse kicked for this.”
“You won’t,” I assured him. “The fish are too big and too many people are going to be scared shitless to worry about you. You’ll do yourself a lot of good. Oh, by the way, Harry Tickener, Inspector Grant Evans.” They shook hands warily. Tickener half-turned and nodded at the photographer sitting next to me who was fiddling with what looked like twenty different camera attachments. “Colin Jones,” he said. Evans stuck out his hand and Colin gave it a quick shake and went back to his cameras. He’d been a man of few words when I’d met him as a reconnaissance cameraman in Malaya, and he hadn’t changed a bit.
“This should be right up your street, Colin,” I said. “Here’s how it stands. I think Rory Costello’s in there getting a face job. There are legitimate patients in there too which poses a bit of a problem and there’s plenty of muscle. A boy named Bruno who can handle himself and at least two others who can dish it out. And Costello of course, but I imagine he’s out of action. He was bandaged up like a mummy when I saw him, if it was him.”
“It better be,” Evans growled. “Weapons?”
“Didn’t see any but sure to be some. The guy on the gate is almost certainly armed and he’s our first problem.”
“That booth looks like a fortress,” said Tickener.
“It’s pretty formidable,” I agreed, “but the problem is that it relays pictures and alarms to the main building. The fence is electrified and there are TV cameras about.”
“So it’s no go to divert the guard and go over the fence?” Evans leered at me. “What are we going to do, parachute in?”
Jones spoke up. “Have you been inside the fence and the building, Cliff?”
I said I had. “Did you hear any constant background noise of any kind?” All I’d heard was a lot of talk and a lot of ringing inside my head after I’d been hit. I tried to remember the feeling of being inside the place, lobby, corridors and rooms. “No,” I said, “No background noise.” “Any flickering in the lights?” Jones asked. I thought about it. “No.”
“Then it’s no problem.” He slung a camera around his neck. “No generator, they’re working off the mains supply — amateurs. You knock out the supply lines temporarily or permanently and in you go.”
“Is it hard to do?” I asked.
“No, a cinch, I can do it.”
“Can you now?” said Evans thoughtfully.
The cameraman smiled at him. “I was trained in Her Majesty’s armed service, Inspector. It’s easy if you know how, I’d need a hammer and a couple of big nails and a screwdriver.”
“I’d have them over the back,” said Tickener. “I’m building a shack up the Hawkesbury.”
“All right for some,” Evans muttered as the reporter got out of the car, went round the back, dropped the hatch and started a few seconds of noisy rummaging. My nerves screamed at the clanking of metal on metal and I was anxious to be moving. Evans sat there shaking his head gently and looking resignedly out into the night. Tickener came up with the nails and tools and put them on the bonnet of the car.
“Assuming we get in OK,” Evans said, “how do you read it from there, Cliff? No warrant, no nothing.”
“They’ll react. They’ll shoot, I think. That lets you in.”
“True, true. Shooting’s illegal.” Evans began to enjoy himself. “Right, I’ll leave two men in a car outside to mop up or follow us in if need be. The rest of us will go in — you, me, Varson, Tickener and Jones. The objective is Costello, right?”
“Right,” I said, “and Brave if he’s there. I think he will be.”
I had my own thoughts about others who might be there and it probably wasn’t fair not to tell Grant about them, but I had plans about what to do if Bryn and his mate got within pistol distance and I didn’t want any interference.
Jones spoke again. “Do you want the blackout permanent or temporary?”
“Temporary,” said Evans, “I want to see who I’m arresting.”
“OK.” The photographer deposited his equipment carefully on the seat and got out of the car. “Let’s find the power line. Oh, I forgot to tell you, if it’s right outside the front gate we’re stuffed.”
Evans, Tickener and I got out of the car and followed Colin. Evans beckoned to the car behind, a man got out and jogged to catch up with us. He had a quick confab with Evans, ran back to the car to fill his colleagues in, and was out of breath when he caught up with us again. We set off to pick up the perimeter of the clinic at the north end. Evans’ offsider was a big, bald-headed man with a bald man’s look of hostility at the world. From the bulge under his coat I guessed he was carrying a fair sized gun and I was glad that he was on my side. I assumed that Grant was adequately armed, I had my. 38, fully loaded, in my jacket pocket.
We walked around the fence with Jones looking up and down every few yards. After walking the full length of one side of the block and half of the next, Jones stopped and clicked his tongue softly.
“This is it, a cinch.”
He pulled his belt from his pants, took off his jacket, put the nails and screwdriver in his pants pocket and shoved the hammer inside his waistband. He buckled the belt on the first hole and looped it over his shoulder. The lamp post stood about twelve feet back from the fence and it was a good twenty feet up to the cross beam. Jones whistled to himself as he shimmied up the post using hands, knees and feet like a south sea islander after coconuts. He reached the cross beam and slung the belt over it. He steadied himself by hanging onto the strap and began to hammer and probe the electrical equipment. Two minutes later he slid down the pole. He was carefully holding a piece of wire in his hand when he hit the ground.
“Always plenty of spare wire up there,” he said cheerfully. “This is all set up. One pull and the lights go out all over Europe, another tug and they go on again. You trip a switch and untrip it, see?”
“I believe him,” I said to Evans who grunted. The other cop spoke for the first time since he’d joined us. “How do we handle it? Do we go through the fence or the gate?” It was a pretty good question. Evans looked at Jones. “You’re the one with all the ideas at the moment, what d’you think?” Jones paused, he was probably thinking of his compound-storming in Malaya and he’d been in on some tough ones.
“The gate’s the easiest. The guard’s going to be as blind as a bat when the lights blow. Should be easy to grab him and keep him quiet. We can get the gates open and drive in. Of course, someone’ll have to stay here and do the pulling.”
“That’ll be you, Ron,” Evans said to the cop, then he waved a hand at us. “Sorry, Hardy, Jones, Tickener — Ron Varson, rough as guts.”
We nodded at him. Varson didn’t look happy with his second fiddle job but he took Evans’ description of him as a compliment and looked grimly determined. Evans was in control of it now. He issued his instructions briskly and authoritatively. We checked our watches and agreed on lights-out time and three of us headed back towards the gate. Varson stood holding the wire and looking up to where it connected with the switches. He still looked a bit unhappy with the job, as though he was about to flush himself down a giant lavatory.
We proceeded in a huddle as close as we could to the main gate without being noticed. We decided to take Tickener’s car because that meant the reporter and photographer could go in with a maximum of cover. Maybe Evans was hedging his bet a little, but no one argued. Jones huddled down in the back of the FB, Tickener hunched over the wheel. We waited. The clinic grounds and the reception booth were almost floodlit, very bright. Evans eased a black automatic out of his holster and checked it. I patted my gun. There was no traffic within earshot and the quiet of Longueville at that moment was just the sort of quiet the residents had paid all that money for.
The clinic blacked out suddenly as if it had been covered by an old-time photographer’s cloth. Evans and I sprinted for the reception booth. By the little moonlight and the street light we could see the guard flailing around pushing buttons. Evans fronted the glass cage and pointed his automatic at the guard’s nose. He reached for a sawn-off shotgun which rested against the wall of the booth but he was too slow. I had the side door open and my gun in his earhole before he could grab the weapon.
“Easy does it friend, you don’t want to die for five hundred a month.”
He saw the wisdom of it and let go the shotgun. Evans came into the booth and prodded the guard out. The guard walked towards the car, moonlight glinted on the barrel of a pistol which one of the detectives held out of the car window trained on his chest.
The light came on again and Grant pushed a couple of buttons on the instrument panel in the box. The wide gates swung open. I grabbed the shotgun and went out and through the gates at a run. Evans took a swipe at the control panel and followed me. Tickener came burning up to the gate and we ran along beside him as the FB roared up to the clinic. He wavered on and off the brick path and the wheels churned furrows up in the smooth green grass on either side. There were three cars parked near the main entrance and I was shouting at Tickener to block them when a red and blue flash came from a window in the main block. Glass shattered in the car and I heard a yelp from Jones. Tickener stalled the motor and we crouched down behind the car. Another flash and a bullet whined off the Holden’s bonnet. I peeked around and snapped two shots at the window. Evans crouched double and ran for the porch. He went up the steps, fired twice into the glass doors and jumped aside. A bullet from inside splintered a panel on the door and I made it to the other side of the porch in six heart-in-the-mouth strides. Footsteps pounded up the path and the gun behind the window opened up and Varson dropped like a stone. I couldn’t tell if he’d been hit or not. Evans kicked the shattered door in and we both went into the lobby, almost on our bellies. It was empty. Then the door at the end of the room opened and Bruno fired a quick shot at Evans before ducking back. He missed and Grant took a chance. He rushed through the door and flattened himself against the wall. I went through and pasted myself against the other side. Bruno was half way down the corridor and his next shot whistled between us. Evans dropped to one knee, sighted quickly and fired. Bruno screeched and went down like the last pin in the lane and his gun skittered crazily along the polished floor.
Two men came out of a door on the right. One of them snapped a shot at me and they jumped over Bruno and rounded the bend at the end of the passage. I was vaguely conscious of movement and sound behind me and took a quick look. Tickener was crouched down near Evans and slightly hampering his attempt to take a shot, his face white and his eyes wide and scared. Jones was standing up behind Evans, snapping and flashing. A man lumbered out of the door the other two had come from. He was big, dark hair spilled through the unbuttoned top of his pyjamas coat and he was groping at the tie of the pants. His face was heavily bandaged and the pistol he carried was pointed nowhere in particular.
Evans shook Tickener away and bellowed. “Costello, police, let go the gun.”
The blind-looking bandaged face turned slowly towards the sound of the voice. Jones stepped forward and snapped. The bulb went off and Grant threw up his hand to ward off the glare. Costello lined him up like an Olympic shooter with 20/20 vision. I swung the shotgun on him and fired. The charge hit him in the chest, lifted him up and slammed him against the white wall. He slid slowly down it, leaving a bloody trail behind him like a wolf shot high up in the snow country coming down the slope to die. Jones walked up and took a careful picture. His hands were as still and steady as Costello’s corpse.
I put the shotgun down. Evans was leaning against the wall. His gun was pointing at the floor and his lips were moving silently. He knew how close he’d come.
“There’s more of them, Grant,” I said quietly.
As I spoke the door behind us opened and Varson came through it sideways, propping it open with his back. He waved a man through with a quick gesture of his enormous, gun-filled right hand. Dr Ian Brave strolled into the passage.
“I got him outside,” said Varson, “he was leaving.”
“He stays,” Evans said.
Brave looked at the crumpled, bloody ruin on the floor. His face had a vacant, other-worldly look — for my money he was floating high and free somewhere a long way off. Along the corridor Bruno groaned and tried to pull himself up against the wall; everyone had forgotten him.