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might be a piece of cake.
    There was always pyrotechnics. Take five men in hard hats and overalls, four to stand around a hole in the ground, a fifth to direct the van into a side street. Then block both ends with traffic barriers, jam the radio signals, blow the doors, grab the cash, hop onto a helicopter piloted by a sixth man. Or stash motorbikes nearby.
    Too many men, too much equipment, start-up costs too high.
    Or place explosives in the road, hope the detonation would flip the van. Hope the impact would jar the doors open.
    You’d need an explosives guy. And a lot of hope.
    Or dress as a security guard at the target location, get the drop on the SecureCor crew. But meanwhile where would you stash the real guard?
    Okay: passer-by dressed as a woman pulls a shotgun on the bank or store employee whose job it is to coordinate the handover with the armoured-car guards. Second gang member driving a stolen car blocks the front of the van; a third, ditto, blocks the rear of the van. A fourth gets the drop on the guard exiting the passenger seat, a fifth gets the drop on the guard in the rear before he can close the doors.
    Always five guys, and split-second timing, and a heap of preparation. Guns, disguises, reliable stolen car, somewhere to stash everything.
    So what did the Pepper brothers know that Vidovic didn’t?
    Shireen Ijaz was pretty certain her son was using ice again. The fidgety behaviour, rubbing and scratching at the crawling under his skin. Teeth a mess. Stealing from her purse: not handfuls, just the odd ten or twenty and, once, the hundred-dollar note she’d folded into a tiny liner flap for emergencies. She’d almost forgotten it was there until an emergency did arrive, a few days ago—an unexpected taxi trip to see her brother in hospital. Never pay by credit card when you take a taxi, they could clone it or something, so she’d reached for the concealed hundred and it was gone.
    She’d paid by credit card after all, watching the driver like a hawk.
    Syed. What was she going to do with him? Filching money, staying out all night, making secretive phone calls. He was up to something.
    He was her youngest, born in Australia. Shireen and her husband already had two boys when they emigrated from Pakistan in 1990. They’d struggled for many years. Their community was small, and Anglo-Australians were guarded, often racist. But adversity makes you strong. You face the challenges. Shireen and her husband ran three Mobil stations now, two motels; the older boys had university degrees.
    But Syed…
    He had less to prove, less to strive for. Didn’t sound Pakistani when he spoke. Was spoilt, being the baby.
    Was he a homosexual? Shireen believed so. But mainly he was a drug user. He needed money to pay for his habit. It started with eBay fraud, selling non-existent iPhones, but soon graduated to armed theft. Menacing women at ATMs with a blood-filled syringe. He was arrested for that. No jail time but a conviction recorded, and an order to pay compensation. Ten thousand dollars. Shireen might have paid that; her husband said no. A hard man, Ali. Unforgiving. Pray to Allah that he didn’t learn of Syed’s boyfriends.
    And now Syed was giving off the troubling signals again. Shireen had seen it before, in the weeks leading up to the cash machine hold-ups.
    Four days later, one thing was explained to Stefan Vidovic’s satisfaction: Jack Pepper knew a SecureCor guard.
    Vidovic tailed Pepper for four days. Early on the Wednesday evening he entered a gym near Alma Road. Smoked glass all around and, in daylight, a forbidding blank face. But when darkness settled, light blazed inside and Vidovic watched Pepper climb onto a treadmill. After fifteen minutes a man wearing a SecureCor uniform and carrying a gym bag entered the building, pausing to greet Pepper before moving out of sight. Then he was back, wearing an Everlast singlet and spotting Pepper on the bench press.
    Vidovic already knew where Pepper lived, so it