Free Elephants can't hide forever by Peter Plenge Page A

replied Mike, “but mark my words, when we next meet, the first ones on me.”
    Little did he know there would be a next time, and little did he know the circumstances under which that beer would be drunk.
    From that day on Mike Tobin became known amongst the elite cadre of Special Forces, the SAS, as Nine Fingers, quickly abbreviated to Nine. He had won his spurs.

Chapter 13
Brinks Mat- the aftermath
    Danny Gallagher sat in the living room of his modest but comfortable home in the village of Goudhurst, Kent. He had a lot on his mind and sleep was not going to come easy that
night. Tomorrow morning he was going to drive to the affluent Hertfordshire town of Harpenden, where he was to rendezvous with three other conspirators, and at precisely 11.45am they intended to
relieve the St. Albans branch of Barclays Bank of what he had calculated to be several hundred thousand pounds. By 4pm he was due on the Eurostar from Folkestone to Paris, and then booked on the
9pm flight out of Charles de Gaulle bound for Marrakesh, where he intended to stay for three months until the heat of the blag had died down. This was never going to be a payday to match the Brinks
Mat but even so it would yield enough for Danny to escape forever. The morning’s raid had been planned with meticulous precision and his accomplices chosen with the utmost caution.
Danny’s brother Sammy was already ensconced in the Glen Eagles Hotel, Harpenden High Street, booked in under an assumed name. He looked every part the travelling businessman and this was his
first blag since Danny had visited his pub on the Costa Del Sol all those years ago. Sammy’s business on the Costa del crime had nosedived in recent years as the criminal fraternity had
become bored with Spain and sought more glamorous hidey holes in the Caribbean and South America. Like Danny, Sammy was committed to one last blag and then wanted to disappear for good.
    This was, however, not what Danny was contemplating as he sat alone staring into space. His thoughts were focused on the years since the incarceration of John Illes and Brian Robinson. He had
evaded capture following their arrest, but never a day had passed without him looking over his shoulder, either for the old bill to come calling, or worse, an assassin’s bullet in the back of
the neck. Immediately after the robbery, it became clear that the bullion was not going to be as easy to move as Mouse had first thought. No-one within the immediate circle of the robber’s
acquaintances had any experience of dealing with gold, indeed up until then armed robbery had been a strictly cash only business, and so the call had gone out far and wide for help. The call that
the Mouse had made all those years ago had been to a shadowy figure in London’s underworld, to a man known as The Fox. For thirty years The Fox had been one of the senior figures in British
organised crime and Mouse figured if anybody could help it would be The Fox. Mouse was right, The Fox was able to contact two of London’s most notorious gangs, to help move the gold. One
accepted, and one wisely declined, figuring anyone touching the bars would get seriously burned. Thus the gold found itself being distributed through a network of villains, some of which were known
to Mouse, and some not, but as long as Mouse kept a stranglehold of the situation it was the best he could do.
    Following the arrest of Mouse and Brian Robinson, things changed. The initial divvy up of the bullion had occurred ten days before the arrest of Mouse, that is to say, the gold which was handed
out was for safekeeping rather than personal usage. With Bones Logan and Herbie Sparks being entrusted with a thousand bars each, Danny also got a thousand bars and the two Petermen a thousand
between them. The remainder was split between Mouse, Danny, and Brian Robinson. When news of the arrests broke, panic set in amongst the initial team. Would Mouse sing to save his arse? No-one
could say, but