Ballots, Blasts & Betrayal, page 18
Alan and Josie were Sherwood rebels who knew Flash and Agnes, so the tough sentences gave them chills.
‘In other news, fire crews from as far as Capital City have been drafted into the Locksley area to try and contain a trash dump fire that has been burning for three days. And Maddy the marmoset, who escaped from Capital City Zoo yesterday, has been safely returned to her enclosure. Now it’s time for more festive tracks, here on Mellow Gold Radio . . .
‘Poor Flash,’ Josie whispered, as she set her coffee mug down. ‘Judge absolutely smashed them.’
‘They’ll only serve half, with good behaviour,’ Alan noted, giving Josie’s hand a reassuring squeeze.
‘Only sixteen years,’ Josie joked, waving a dismissive hand. ‘No bother at all . . .’
Their gloomy thoughts were interrupted by Robin Hood’s voice, crackling through the earpiece microphones they both wore. ‘Our targets are parking up outside. Little electric Fiat. Custard yellow. Registration K—’
Alan glanced around to make sure nobody was close by before replying. ‘Robin, you broke up after K. What’s all that noise?’
‘Rain,’ Robin moaned. ‘I’m on the roof and soaked through. Forget the registration. It’s the little yellow car, right out front in the disabled bay.’
‘Enjoy the rain, pal,’ Alan told Robin, then looked up at Josie. ‘It’s on.’
It was hammering rain and the café windows had filthy net curtains, but Alan glanced casually sideways and viewed a comical scene as two obese goons squeezed out of the little car and charged through rain to the café entrance.
At the same time, Josie pulled a vape pod from the front pocket of her jeans and stood up.
‘Need a quick puff,’ she said, for the benefit of anyone nearby.
Josie swept by the two goons coming the other way. They were stereotypical thugs. Big necks, bigger guts, crude prison tattoos and bulky coats that hinted at weapons tucked beneath.
‘Tell the boss we’re here,’ the taller of the two told a waitress, then leaned over a metal countertop next to the dumbwaiter that delivered plates from the basement kitchen.
Alan shifted in his seat, enough to see the goons without making it obvious that he was watching them. A sweat-glazed woman in a stained chef’s apron came up from the basement kitchen and looked worried when she saw the goons at her service counter.
The canteen was too noisy for Alan to hear every word, but he caught the gist of what the goon snarled to the chef: ‘Think you don’t have to pay us now Mr Gisborne is dead?’
Extortion rackets had been the backbone of Guy Gisborne’s criminal empire. Whenever a new business started in the area, the owner would be approached by a couple of Gisborne’s thugs and asked to pay a weekly fee for protection.
If the owner didn’t cough up, staff got beaten, families threatened and premises were robbed, vandalised or burnt. And business owners who went to the cops soon learned that their complaints would be ignored, because most Locksley police officers were on Gisborne’s payroll too.
‘I already paid,’ Alan heard the chef say desperately. ‘There’s no more. I can’t even pay my meat supplier.’
Alan was witnessing a problem that now faced hundreds of Locksley businesses. When Guy Gisborne was Locksley’s crime boss, everyone paid his thugs. Now Gisborne was dead, his organisation had split into rival factions, each claiming they had the right to rip off business owners.
While Alan watched the counter, Josie was out in the puddled parking lot. She didn’t normally vape and felt self-conscious as she took a couple of puffs of peach-flavoured nicotine-free juice.
After glancing behind to make sure the two goons weren’t coming out, she unzipped her little backpack, stepped up to the tiny yellow car and tapped her earpiece microphone to speak to Alan.
‘There’s no one around. Tell me the instant those guys head out.’
Alan kept one eye on the scared-looking chef as he answered. ‘Boss lady is opening the till to give the goons some cash. You’re safe, but hurry.’
‘Roger that,’ Josie said.
A big raindrop hit the back of Josie’s neck, making her shudder as she took a small tracking device out of her pocket. Then she reached under the little Fiat’s wheel arch and felt it snap on to the metal with a magnetic thump.
After looking around to make sure nobody was watching, Josie pulled out a second smaller device. It was dome-shaped and just 12 millimetres in diameter, but it contained a 360-degree camera and a microphone sensitive enough to let them hear what was being said inside the car.
Robin watched from the café roof and his voice bloomed in Josie’s earpiece. ‘Stick it on the tinted part at the bottom of the windscreen so they can’t see it. But not where the wiper blade will catch it.’
Josie peeled off a strip of clear film to expose a sticky patch on the device’s base, then tapped her earpiece.
‘I know what I’m doing,’ she answered irritably, simultaneously cleaning a corner of the windscreen with a napkin so the device would stick. ‘It’s on – test it.’
‘Connected to my phone,’ Robin confirmed. ‘Only getting sound though. Wait . . . Now picture too.’
Josie took another puff on her vape as she backed away from the little Fiat. As she headed back inside, the chef had opened the cash register drawer and was handing cash to the goons.
Simultaneously, Alan had his nylon wallet out and trapped a twenty-pound note under his coffee mug to cover their bill.
‘Wassup, beautiful?’ the smaller of the two goons said, showing Josie a mouthful of yellow teeth and blatantly eyeing her up as she swept past.
Josie shuddered as she reached Alan. ‘That bloke’s breath smells like rotten fish.’
‘Let’s head out,’ Alan told her. ‘Got all your stuff?’
He caught Lottie the waitress’s eye and pointed to the money he’d left on the table.
‘I’ll get your change,’ Lottie said.
‘Keep it,’ Alan replied.
The titchy yellow Fiat reversed out of the disabled bay with the giant goons inside. As they drove off the lot, Josie led Alan back out into the rain. The pair jogged to the rear of the café building, where Robin had dropped from the café’s flat roof, using the lid of a giant wheeled trash can as a step.
‘You’re a drowned rat!’ Alan grinned, watching the rain trickle out of Robin’s flattened hair.
Robin didn’t see the funny side. ‘Forty-five minutes squatting in a puddle.’
‘And you missed our yummy breakfast,’ Alan teased.
As Robin gave Alan the finger, Josie was already marching towards a trio of dirt bikes parked between the café and a hair salon.
‘You two, stop winding each other up and get on your bikes,’ she ordered. ‘We’ll lose connection to the spy cam if they get out of range.’
Robert Muchamore’s
ROBIN HOOD series
1. Hacking, Heists & Flaming Arrows
2. Piracy, Paintballs & Zebras
3. Jet Skis, Swamps & Smugglers
4. Drones, Dams & Destruction
5. Ransoms, Raids & Revenge
6. Bandits, Dirt Bikes & Trash
7. Prisons, Parties & Powerboats
8. Ballots, Blasts & Betrayal
More ROBIN HOOD adventures to come!
Robert Muchamore’s books have sold 15 million copies in over 30 countries, been translated into 24 languages and been number-one bestsellers in eight countries including the UK, France, Germany, Australia and New Zealand.
Find out more at
muchamore.com
Follow Robert
on Facebook and Twitter
@RobertMuchamore
Thank you for choosing a Hot Key book.
For all the latest bookish news, freebies and exclusive content, sign up to the Hot Key newsletter – scan the QR code or visit lnk.to/HotKeyBooks.
Follow us on social media:
bonnierbooks.co.uk/HotKeyBooks
First published in Great Britain in 2024 by
HOT KEY BOOKS
4th Floor, Victoria House, Bloomsbury Square, London WC1B 4DA
Owned by Bonnier Books
Sveavägen 56, Stockholm, Sweden
bonnierbooks.co.uk/HotKeyBooks
Text copyright © Robert Muchamore, 2024
Cover illustration copyright © Jeff Nentrup, 2024
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
The right of Robert Muchamore and Jeff Nentrup to be identified as author and illustrator of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-4714-1344-5
Also available in audio
Hot Key Books is an imprint of Bonnier Books UK
bonnierbooks.co.uk
Robert Muchamore, Ballots, Blasts & Betrayal
