Lone Wolf - Robert Muchamore Page 0,1

the thought sat uncomfortably as he dumped his jacket on the couch.

Jake shouted from the kitchen. ‘There’s a City match on Sky in a bit. I did a run to Sainsbury’s earlier. What do you fancy? There’s microwave curry, hot dogs, or I could do bacon, egg and chips.’

Craig made a grunting sound before speaking. ‘I’ll look in the fridge in a second. I’ve gotta go upstairs for a shit.’

‘I could start cooking,’ Jake said.

Craig tutted. ‘We’re on guard for the next twelve hours, kid. What difference will waiting for me to take a crap make?’

Craig grabbed a copy of the Sun off a coffee table before heading to the bathroom on the top floor. The toilet was rank and the only cleaning product was an empty bottle of Toilet Duck which he lobbed into the bathtub in frustration.

‘I’m sick of dirty scumbags never cleaning up after themselves around here,’ Craig roared, as he pulled down his tracksuit bottoms and settled on to the toilet.

‘You say something, boss?’ Jake shouted up.

‘Never bloody mind,’ Craig said. Then, to himself as he shook his head, ‘Twelve hours stuck here with that dumbass . . .’

It was a regular bathroom, apart from the LCD screen which flicked between images from eight different CCTV cameras. They showed everything from the count room and stairs, to the unoccupied lower floors, the back garden and the street out front. There was also a controller which enabled you to pan and zoom each camera.

As Craig aimed a huge fart into the toilet bowl, he was disturbed by a rustling sound behind his head. Thinking it was a mouse or cockroach, he rolled up his newspaper to take a swipe. But instead of an insect he saw that a gloved hand had punched through the plaster wall behind him.

Before Craig could do any more than turn his head, a needle stabbed the flab between his shoulder blades and the hand injected a syringe filled with a fast-acting sedative. As he slumped forwards on the toilet with jeans around his ankles, a woman in a hockey mask began quickly but quietly knocking out chunks of plaster.

Within a minute, the fist-sized hole was big enough for the woman to clamber through. To make it she had to shove Craig’s chubby, unconscious body off the toilet. As the woman – who was named Kirsten – knelt down and placed two fingers on his neck to check for a pulse, her thirteen-year-old niece Fay stepped through the hole.

‘Is he OK?’ Fay asked.

Kirsten and her niece were of similar height and dressed identically in hockey masks, black jeans, hooded fleeces and black Converse All Stars. All of their gear was covered in plaster dust.

‘He’ll come around in a few hours with a nasty headache and a lot of explaining to do,’ Kirsten said. ‘Don’t forget the bags.’

As Fay knelt on the toilet lid and reached through the hole into the house next door, Kirsten pulled out the handgun holstered around her waist and took the bolt off the door.

‘If anything goes wrong, you run like mad,’ Kirsten said. ‘Although I can’t see Jake giving us too many problems.’

Fay nodded as her aunt opened the door and began creeping downstairs. The teenager watched from the landing above as Kirsten surprised Jake in the kitchen.

‘On your knees or I’ll blow your head off,’ Kirsten yelled.

Fay grabbed the backpacks and hurried downstairs, by which time Jake had been marched through to the count room, and made to kneel with his hands on his head.

‘Get the brace,’ Kirsten ordered, as she kept her gun aimed at Jake’s head.

Then Kirsten looked at Jake. ‘You know how to open the safes?’

‘They’re on a time lock,’ Jake said, shaking his head frantically. ‘Can’t open ’em before ten in the morning now.’

Kirsten laughed. ‘That’s funny, ’cos we patched a link into your CCTV cables. I’ve been watching this count room for two weeks and I’ve seen you opening that safe up at all times. Day and night.’

As Kirsten said this, Jake’s posture deflated and Fay pulled a bizarre set of rubber underwear out of her backpack.

‘You ever been to Texas, Jake?’ Kirsten asked.

‘No,’ Jake said warily.

‘Folks grow big out there,’ Kirsten began. ‘My girl over there is holding genuine Texas Department of Corrections-issue electrified underwear. When they get some real big-assed, hundred and fifty-kilo guy and need to keep him under control, they make him wear one of those. You switch it on for a couple of ticks and it blasts