Danny Dempsey and the Unlikely Alliance by Denis Byrne Read Free Book Online Page B

still playing submarines when I came looking for you.’

C HAPTER S IX
    D anny found what he was being told difficult to believe. They were back on the river bank, the Superintendent sitting on the rock, Danny sitting on the grass beside it, taking in everything in silence. Their last cooperation together had been straightforward and uncomplicated in relation to what he was now being told about.
    *
    It had been a dangerous enough assignment, involving two ruthless twin brothers who used jet-propelled wheelchairs to carry out bank robberies all over the country. They’d already outfoxed numerous security guards and Garda officers before the Superintendent decided to take matters into his own hands. He’d called Danny to where they were now sitting to a private meeting, gave him the facts, then asked him if he’d be prepared to join him in putting a stop to the wheelchair raiders once and for all.
    The brothers had up to then eluded all efforts of the police to apprehend them. They were clever, and didn’t stick to any set pattern which might give away the fact where they were going to strike next. When all rural banks had been forewarned about their method of operating, which was by easing themselves into the buildings in their wheelchairs so as to allay suspicion, they altered their tactics. They parked the chairs in a convenient spot not far away, then hobbled in on aluminium crutches, evoking sympathetic glances from customers and tellers alike. Should a security guard be on duty, he’d invariably act the Good Samaritan, asking them politely if they required any assistance as they went about their business.
    As soon as the unsuspecting guard came close enough, one of them would continue the pretence of disability, divert the guard’s attention, while the second twin made a miraculous recovery, leaped across, then promptly squirted a jet of Mace from the end of one of the crutches into the guard’s face, rendering him temporarily blind and breathless for the length of time it took the twins to conduct their real business.
    One of them kept watch over the customers with a sawn-off shotgun which materialised from under his coat, whilst his brother ordered the terrified tellers to fill the neatly folded canvas sacks he’d thoughtfully brought along for the occasion. The sack-stuffing, he emphasised menacingly, must be done with speed and efficiently, otherwise, his nervous twin could possibly develop an itchy trigger finger.
    They were aware, he continued, that the alarm had most probably already been raised, some naughty member of the staff having more than likely pressed a panic button while they’d been dealing with the guard. It always happened, he told anyone who might be interested, and hoped they’d appreciate why he was urging the tellers to get the blankedy-blank loot into the blankedy - blank sacks quickly, unless, of course, they wanted their blankedy - blank heads blown off.
    As soon as they heard the police sirens wailing in the distance, the twins made their exit laden down with their haul, nipped out to where they’d parked their wheelchairs, stashing the loot in the special compartments built under them, then rocketed away past the oncoming squad cars like a couple of shooting stars. Laughing, as one of them always said to the other after they’d made their getaway, all the way from the bank.
    As they counted the takings and had a celebratory drink in their palatial penthouse after each successful robbery, they smugly told each other that they’d never be caught. They were far too smart for the stupid forces of law and order, with their idiotic police officers and ponderously slow squad cars. Snails, they’d snigger sarcastically, would have a better chance of catching them. Then they’d toast each other with the finest champagne other people’s money could buy. But, after another few months, they’d become restless, then get down to planning