When Arnold and the others arrived the following morning, demolition gangs were already emptying the contents of the first and second floors, and removing all non-load-bearing partitions and walls. There was surprisingly little noise.
Instead of waiting for the female clients to arrive, Arnold telephoned or emailed each, explaining the takeover by JECHIS and promising to send their refunds by the end of the week. Most replied with commiserations and good wishes. One woman from the previous night’s class came in person to tell him about the rapes and warn him to be on his guard. Like the rest, she was deeply disappointed, but more concerned for the trainers than herself.
An hour later, Susie Skeldrake was falling in love with Hylas, holding his unresisting hand while reading the Tarot cards and prophesying an exciting future with lots of love and companionship.
Retirement had sharpened Jeff’s appetite for activity, so after he’d dragged Robert to his inner sanctum and learned his reasons for requiring five new passports, driver and gun licences, he was impatient to start work. He couldn’t manage a tax file number, but as the young men didn’t intend to work legally, that didn’t matter. Everything would be ready within a couple of weeks.
After consuming several gargantuan slices of a five-layered chocolate and cream cake guaranteed to give a week’s indigestion to stomachs used to raw vegetables, lentils, tofu and yoghurt, the two young men returned to the gym.
Fidel’s discussion with Miguel was even more productive than he’d hoped. Together they wandered around the basement pretending to pick up rubbish and sweep the corners, while working out the best place to plant explosives. The place was too bare—only smooth concrete floors and pillars. Nowhere to conceal enough explosives to do more than gently shake the place.
‘You say there’ll be a grand opening with all the bigwigs in three weeks’ time.’
‘Yes, in the first floor lounge/coffee room whatever they're going to call it.’
‘And Arnold and Hylas are going to dance and strip for them?’
‘It seems so. And also get fucked if they're unlucky.’
‘Rather them than me! The best solution would be to pack Arnold’s car with explosives and park it directly beneath the main function room. It’ll blow a hole in the roof of the car park, which is the floor they’ll all be sitting on, and take out at least five pillars. That will cause the building to collapse in the middle…sort of fold in on itself, doing the least damage to surrounding buildings. There's only one problem.’
‘And that is?’
‘When do the guys do their dance? Will they be able to get out of the place while everyone else is still partying on, or will they be getting fucked in a back room while everyone goes home? How will whoever is going to detonate the bomb, know if they're safe or not? If they're naked they can’t conceal a telephone or do it themselves.’
‘We’ll discuss it with them. I'm sure there’ll be a way.’
‘I’m not. I subscribe to Murphy’s Law—everything that can go wrong, will go wrong.’ He thought for a minute then wandered to the door leading to the emergency stairs, from which there were two ground level exits, one into the car park the other onto the street. The stairs zigzagged up the narrow space between two fire-proof load-bearing walls to the roof, with exits on each floor.
‘Ideally, they’d just run down here and out to the street, but we have to assume high security, and guards everywhere down here. Let’s check the roof.’
They ran up the four flights to the roof, where Fidel’s cute little cottage was no more. The only thing left being the solar array on one side. They wandered around the periphery and stopped on the east side.
‘Look down.’
Four metres below was the flat roof of the neighbouring ex-warehouse, now luxury apartments. Several skylights and a sort of sentry box protecting the entrance to the apartments below, were the only visible objects.
‘If they can get up here, and jump down there, and escape down those stairs, they’ll be safe.’
‘And locked up for running around naked.’
‘Not when the building next door is collapsing in a heap. No one will notice.’
Fidel shook his head. ‘They’ll break their ankles or their necks.’
‘I noticed one other alternative.’ He led Fidel to the south side and leaned over. Five metres below was the landing of the iron staircase serving Bart’s 3V clubrooms.
‘That's an even longer drop than the other side, and exposed to the street.’
‘Nothing’s perfect.’ Miguel pointed to several rusty iron bolts protruding from the bricks. ‘I’d say the stairs originally continued to the roof; it shouldn’t be too difficult to use the bolts to climb down.’
‘You're right. It’s a shame there’s no access to Bart’s place from the gym.’
‘Probably a good thing, it means there'll be no one guarding those stairs.’
‘Right. We’ll leave it to Arnold and Hylas to decide. And this remains a secret between us, Miguel. The other guys mustn't know.’
‘Of course. Our secret’s safe with me. I certainly don’t want anyone else to know I’m a part-time bomber.’
With only the one working gym, the clients received more attention than usual, which pleased them. They all wanted to remain until the JECHIS guys took over. The six junior trainers appreciated being kept on at their usual rates, but didn’t want to stay after the takeover, especially when they learned what had happened during the inspection.
Bart bought an unremarkable, second-hand Toyota minivan from a private seller, using his new identification papers, and had the engine and everything else apart from the exterior refurbished and/or replaced.
Miguel took Arnold’s car home and removed the airbags and seat stuffing, replacing them with enough explosive to convert a thousand tons of solid rock to fine rubble in a few seconds. The seats were very firm to sit on, but looked normal. From then on, Arnold drove his car to work every day and parked it in the exact spot Miguel had indicated, occasionally leaving it there overnight so it wouldn’t attract suspicion later.
Robert set up the transfer of money to offshore accounts where it would be split into eleven bits and moved on several times until a quarter of a million landed in each of the six trainers’ accounts, and equal portions of the remainder in five other offshore accounts, ready to be accessed and deposited in new accounts they would set up when convenient under their new names.
They practiced their new signatures and tried not to panic.
During their last visit to Monique and Sanjay they told them they were selling up and moving north because of difficulties with JECHIS. The parents were sorry to see them go, but understood and somewhat tearfully wished them well.
In the interests of security, ANTaR was not informed of the impending donation of an up-market apartment. They hoped it would be a pleasant surprise.
It was decided that everyone ought to learn to use the emergency exit from the roof, in case Tom demanded they all attend the opening. So after individual reconnaissance expeditions during the day, taking care not to be observed, for three nights in a row they assisted each other to practise climbing down to the stair-head in the dark, using the bolts as supports.
Tom, Dick and Harry’s lawyers arrived and Arnold signed over his gymnasium without shedding a tear. In exchange he was given a promissory note post-dated to the day after the opening.
Four days later, Tom arrived in the office waving an edict from someone of influence in the planning department, which stated that the Café could now conscript men as well as boys to perform for the greater Glory of god. He could also have adult as well as child prostitutes. He was going to make a mint, especially now he’d managed to source half a dozen homeless boys who’d do very nicely, but they weren't stage-ready yet, so he wanted Hylas and Arnold to choreograph and perform a tasteful dance in which Arnold would seduce a youthful Hylas, perform a naked erotic dance, then fuck him on stage.
The two men feigned indifference, having been expecting something of the sort from the arrogant bastard who knew they didn’t want to, but counted on their preferring to live rather than refuse. They spent the rest of the afternoon worrying they'd not be able to get erections, wondering how to fake it, and hoping they'd be able to blow the place up before they had to dance… but if they couldn’t…