In the distance, the metal door slammed. They all turned at the sound of running feet. Verity and Macdonald raced into the main aisle and saw Owen hurtling towards them. ‘Cops!’ yelled Owen. ‘There’s cops everywhere!’

Verity whirled round. ‘What?’

‘They’ve got PJ. There’s armed cops all over the place.’

Verity’s hand dropped towards his scanner. He checked the frequency and the volume. Everything was as it should be. ‘They can’t be,’ he said.

‘They must have hit a silent alarm!’ shouted Owen.

Verity ran towards the office, where Eddie was standing with both hands on his pistol. ‘What do we do?’ asked Eddie.

Verity gestured at the metal door. There were bolts top and bottom. ‘Lock it,’ he said. Eddie ran over, slid the bolts, then ducked away. There were no windows in the warehouse, no way of seeing what was going on outside. Owen was panting hard. Verity put a hand on his shoulder. ‘How many?’ he asked.

‘Shit, I don’t know. They were all over the minibus. Three unmarked cars. A dozen, maybe. I didn’t hang around to count.’

Verity rushed into the office, slapped the warehouseman across the face, then ripped the tape off his mouth. ‘Did you trip an alarm?’

The man was shaking. ‘How c-c-could I?’ he stammered. ‘You were w-w-watching me all the time. You know you were.’

‘What are we going to do?’ asked Eddie.

‘Shut the fuck up and let me think,’ said Verity.

‘There’s nothing we can do,’ said Macdonald. ‘If the cops are outside, it’s all over.’

Verity ignored him and turned to Owen. ‘You said they had PJ?’

‘He was bent over the bonnet of one of the cars and a cop was handcuffing him.’

‘Did they see you?’

Owen nodded.

‘The minibus was still there?’

Owen nodded again.

‘Okay,’ said Verity. If the cops knew they’d been seen then he and his men had only seconds. He gestured with his shotgun at the two on the floor. ‘Free their legs,’ he said. ‘And untie the twat in the chair. They’re our ticket out of here.’

Eddie rushed into the office. Fred and the Glaswegian bent down and ripped the tape off the fork-lift drivers’ legs.

Verity cradled his shotgun as he stared at the bolted metal door. If the cops knew they were armed, they wouldn’t come storming in. And if they went out with hostages, the police wouldn’t be able to shoot. Verity tried to visualise the geography around the warehouse. As far as he could recall, there were no vantage-points for snipers. It would all be up close and personal, and that meant the cops wouldn’t be able to fire without risking the hostages. But they had to move quickly. ‘Come on, come on!’ he shouted.

Eddie pushed the warehouseman out of the office. ‘The security guard’s still out cold,’ he said.

‘Three’s enough,’ said Verity.