came in from the ramp, the driver’s gold peaked cap
slanting across his eyes. ‘The bloody van’s empty. Only
the two bags.’
So Colum O’More had been wrong for once, but there
was no time to worry about that now. Rogan was already on one knee beside the two mailbags, a pair of pliers in his hand. Each bag was fastened by heavy wire, an official lead seal inscribed with several code words and a number. He snipped the wire and quickly laced it through the metal eyelet holes of one of the dummy bags which Fletcher dragged forward. He joined the broken ends of the wire as neatly as possible, twisting them together, then pushed the join out of sight through one of the eyelet holes in the mouth of the bag.
As he repeated the operation on the other, Morgan dropped to one knee beside him. ‘Let’s hope they don’t check those too carefully.’
‘Why should they?’ Rogan said calmly and got to his feet. ‘Out you go.’
The young guard’s cap was a size too small for Fletcher, but he tilted it forward over his eyes and lifted up a mailbag. Morgan picked up the receipt book and the other bag and moved to the end of the baggage hall. He hesitated, opened the door and moved out. Rogan held his breath and waited.
It was strangely quiet on the platform, the muffled rumble of the diesel engines the only sound. Paddy Gos-tello leaned on his broom by the door, making a great show of examining his watch, and the sliding door of the mail van stood open.
Morgan moved forward and an attendant leaned out and grinned. ‘Aren’t you beggars ever late?’
‘Don’t ask me,’ Morgan said. ‘First time we’ve done this run.’
He heaved his mailbag into the van and Fletcher followed suit. The attendant produced a pen and held out his hand. ‘Let’s have it.’
Morgan opened the receipt book and handed it to him. The attendant signed the top copy, tore it off and handed the book back. ‘That’s it then.’
He started to draw back and Morgan said, ‘Christ, I was forgetting. Do me a favour, mate. I gave the radio a
bit of a bash getting out of the cab and it’s on the blink. Give ’em a ring at headquarters, will you, and tell ’em we’re on our way in?’
‘Anything to oblige.’
It was as simple as that. The sliding door closed and Costello raised a hand to the guard who leaned out of his window at the rear of the train. A whistle sounded faintly and, in a moment, the great diesel engines picked up and the train slid away.
As the rear of the train disappeared into the heavy rain, the three men crowded into the baggage hall excitedly. ‘We made it, by Christ! We made it!’ Fletcher said.
‘A long way to go yet,’ Rogan told him. ‘Get those two mailbags into the van and don’t forget the dummies. Don’t leave them anything they might be able to trace.’ He turned to Morgan. ‘You help me in here.’
The van driver and his guard still lay unconscious by the desk and Rogan examined them. There was a trickle of blood at the back of the driver’s ear and he looked up at Morgan grimly.
‘You don’t pull your punches.’
Morgan shrugged. ‘I could never see the point.’
Rogan produced a couple of lengths of thin cord from his pocket and they quickly tied the wrists of the two unconscious men behind them.
‘Right, into the van and get that engine started,’ Rogan said. ‘I’ll be out in a minute.’
He opened the washroom door and dropped to one knee beside Briggs. The old man was breathing heavily through the nose and Rogan pulled the sticking plaster away from his mouth. Briggs sucked in a lungful of air gratefully and Rogan patted him on the shoulder.
‘You’ll be all right, Dad. That goods train should arrive in exactly twenty-five minutes.’
The old man turned his head blindly towards him. ‘God help you, lad, because you’ll never get away with this.’
‘You take a chance every day of your life.’ Rogan hurried out through the baggage hall. The rear door of the van stood open, Costello peering out. Rogan stepped inside and closed the door and Morgan turned from the small armoured glass window and gunned the motor.