پول خطر

CHAPTER SEVEN

Danger Money

Shauna and Vanessa were in the back of the car. Their hands were tied. They were very frightened as they tried to listen to the conversation of the two men in front of them.

‘What are you going to do with your ten per cent of the money, Steve?’

‘I’d like to go on a nice holiday, somewhere hot. What about you?’

Vanessa looked at the two men. She had to concentrate, she had to think of a plan. And she needed to think quickly. But she could only think of one thing: Colin O’Flaherty’s three-year-old son.

While they were waiting for Harminda outside the hospital, these two men came up to them. They were smiling and seemed nice when they asked for directions to King’s Cross station. But when Shauna was pointing the best way to them, the two men pushed them both into their car.

They wanted the briefcase.

‘Did you see that crash between the lorry and the car with the plain-clothes police?’ laughed Steve.

He saw the way Vanessa and Shauna looked at each other, suddenly realising the truth.

‘Did you think that was us?’ laughed the driver. ‘They thought that was us in that accident!’ and they laughed even louder.

Just then their telephone rang. The driver answered the call, ‘Yes, boss. OK. the old building in East London. of course we’ve got the money; we’re not stupid. and the two ladies. no there were only two. what do you mean, there’s another one? You’ll have to go and get her!’

Vanessa knew then what she had to do.

Carefully, she pulled her mobile phone from her coat pocket and started to write a text message: U R IN DANGER. MEN TAKING US 2 BUILDING IN EAST LONDON. BE CAREFUL. MAN COMING 4 U. GO 2 POLICE. S&V It seemed to take forever to write the short message. She took out the piece of paper with Harminda’s number on it and typed: 354 781 2330.

Now, she only needed to press ‘SEND’ and then Harminda could get help.

‘Hey! What are you doing! Give me that.!’ Steve turned around and tried to grab the phone.

Vanessa tried to press ‘SEND’, but he was pulling the phone out of her hand.

‘Leave her alone’ shouted Shauna, pulling on his arm, trying to free Vanessa.

The driver was looking at them, and couldn’t control the car any more.

Steve got out his gun but Shauna pushed him and he dropped it.

‘You stupid woman’ he shouted as he looked desperately around his feet for it.

Just then, a police siren sounded in the distance. Steve looked up and saw that a police car was blocking the road in front of them. Its blue light was bright in the dark evening. The driver pushed his foot down hard on the brake. Shauna realised with horror that they were going straight for it. too fast!

The car began to move from side to side, dangerously out of control.

Vanessa screamed.

Shauna held her breath, ready for the crash. She closed her eyes, waiting. Her body went quickly forwards, and then back. But there was no crash.

When she was sure that the car wasn’t moving any more, she slowly opened her eyes.

The car was just a few centimetres from a police car. Suddenly, a lot of policemen were all around the car and Shauna could finally breathe. Their nightmare was over.