THERE'S A STORM COMING
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Fate draws two strangers into company in a hotel bar, On a stormy night in central London. One man is haunted by his future, the other by his past. Tonight they plan to execute the perfect crime together.
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MICKEY, an aging American living in London, is a crooked accountant working for some very powerful and dangerous people. Disgruntled by his employers callous treatment and the growing likelihood of being forced into retirement,or worse, Mickey hatches a scheme to steal millions of pounds in diamonds from under the nose of his employers. Mickey likes to think of it as his pension plan; but as he says:
‘To commit the perfect crime, you first need to find the perfect alibi’.
Following a chance encounter in a bar, sheltering from the impending storm, Mickey’s alibi (so he thinks), comes in the form of a stranger known only as TAG. A young formerRoyal Marine haunted by his past experiences of combat in Afghanistan and suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.
Now homeless and destitute, Tag is gradually lured into the American’s generous company, effectively providing Mickey with his perfect alibi. You see! Mickey wants to be shot, at point blank range, not fatally of course but seriously enough to make a fake robbery appear convincing.
He has a Glock .38 pistol in his bedside cabinet and is willing to pay the shooter £100,000 to do the job. After some initial wariness on the part of the former soldier, Tag is eventually coaxed back to Mickey’s luxury apartment; whereupon The American is ready to manipulate or coerce his new found ‘friend’ into providing an alibi for a
diamond theft.
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The denouement comes that same night by way of a raging storm sweeping across London, shutting down power supplies and electricity grids. In the final ‘cliff hanger’ moments following a lightning strike on the apartment building, with the police racing to the scene of the shooting and Mickey bleeding to death on the floor of his own apartment - Tag, the alibi, finds himself hopelessly immobilized.
Trapped in the confines of a stalled elevator with the pistol and a bag full of money at his feet, Tag can hear the distant whine of the police sirens closing in and appears resigned to his fate. Only divine intervention and the quivering hands of the elderly concierge fumbling for the generator switch, deep in the basement below, offers any possibility of salvation