by D A Walmsley
“Now, slowly move forward,” the voice shouts.
Then Simon feels an arm grab him and he is dragged down the corridor. Still in complete darkness he can hear Flatpack struggling with someone behind him, then a thud.
“Bastards,” Flatpack shouts.
As they near the exit, the red and blue flashing lights from the police cars begin to penetrate into the long corridor. When they finally reach the door Simon is released from the man’s grip and is pushed out by the point of a rifle forced into his back. Now for the first time he can see his captors. With their black uniforms, body armour and helmets they look a fearsome sight. He looks around, desperate to escape but the police appear to be everywhere. They certainly have taken this meeting very seriously.
“Over there,” his captor says, jabbing the gun once more into his back and ushering him towards a cordoned off area surrounded by more police, all holding rifles.
“You can’t do this to me, I know my rights, this is assault,” Flatpack yells.
Simon looks round to see his friend has blood running down his face and is still in the grip of an officer.
They are both herded into the cordon with all the others. A voice comes over a megaphone.
“Stay calm, if anyone tries to escape they will be shot.”
More and more people are being led out of the venue and the cordon starts to grow. Everyone looks scared, some are visibly shaking. Simon stands on tiptoe to see what’s happening, “it looks like they are being taken to a tent and I bet they are being searched.”
From the tent comes shouting and officers rush over. The voices are muffled but from the reaction of the police they’ve found a weapon.
“You still packing?” Flatpack asks Simon.
“Shit yeah Steve, you?”
“Still got both, we can not get searched.”
“Tell me something I don’t know!”
“We could plant them on someone else,” Flatpack whispers.
“Yeah, or drop them on the ground,” Simon replies.
Another group goes, and everyone moves forwards a few feet. A young man stares at Flatpack and glances across at Simon. He nods at them. The last thing they want to happen is that they get recognised, and the lad won’t stop looking.
“Will you stop staring.”
The lad is surprised and answers.
“What, me?”
“Yes, you!”
Simon whispers ” You okay Steve? it’s only a kid.”
Flatpack, getting more and more agitated and fidgeting, ignores Simon, instead turns round and shouts at a woman behind him.
“Stop, shoving, bitch.”
The woman, starts to shake and her eyes fill up with tears.
Simon grabs Flatpack, by the arm, “mate, calm down.”
Flatpack pulls away, “get off me. Will everyone stop pushing!”
An officer tells him to be quiet, and someone in the crowd near to Simon shouts to the officer “he’s claustrophobic.”
Simon asks “are you really?”
Flatpack doesn’t hear the question, he’s starting to panic. He pushes and shoves everybody and anyone around him, including Simon. All this has caught the attention of a senior officer, who allows the cordon to be extended giving everybody more room. Simon fears if Flatpack doesn’t calm down they’ll take him out to one side and they will be sure to search him. If they find his guns when he’s this unstable anything could happen, what should he do? Help him hide in the crowd, maybe push a bit further back to buy some more time. Should he attempt to go with him and risk getting searched? If he drops them, will someone pick them up, stress can make people do stupid things. All the questions race around his head, each one has the same outcome, they’re in the shit! Oh, why did they have to come to this meeting? Caleb has this reputation for threatening violence, why get dragged into it. Better to operate in secret, in the relative safety of Capernaum.
Suddenly a single gunshot is heard from inside the venue followed by a volley of return fire. At once all the police radios come to life, “Man down, man down.”
Simon watches as half the officers run back into the venue. When word gets back that an officer has been shot dead by someone hiding inside, a few people cheer. This gives others the confidence to join in.
“Israel, Israel,” they shout.
When an officer strikes one of those chanting with his rifle, others try to fight back. Officers guarding the cordon rush over. The distraction couldn’t have been planned any better. Simon, Flatpack and half a dozen others all take the opportunity to duck under the cordon and make a run for it.
“Behind that,” points Flatpack to a police car.
The car is twenty feet away. They run as fast as they can, diving behind it. Flatpack gets his gun out ready to return any fire.
“Steve, what the?… put that away, they’ll kill us for sure if they see that.”
Flatpack nods and puts it back inside his belt. “Now where?”
“The wall.”
With the car park surrounded by a five foot high stone wall and police moving about, they are not safe yet, but they are away from the lights; the night has come to their advantage. Simon, keeping as low as he can, runs over to the wall. He knows that if they get spotted they will be shot at. This makes him run as fast as he can, praying they won’t be seen. He scrambles over the wall, landing on his backside. It hurts, but it’s nothing to the relief he’s feeling. A second later Flatpack follows him over, landing on his feet. Shots ring out - others may not have been so lucky.
“Let’s get out of here.”
When they’d arrived there was nowhere to park so Flatpack had to leave the car down a side street, and he’d moaned about it all evening, but he’s not complaining now!
“The car is on the other side of the theatre. Let’s take a long way round to it, and get away from this place.”
They run as fast as they can, until neither can run any further.
“Wow, that hurts,” says Flatpack, holding his chest and breathing heavily.
They rest awhile, the sounds of sirens are distant now. After half an hour they walk back towards the car, constantly checking for police. Neither says a word. Simon thinks how lucky they just were. One wrong move and he could have easily ended up…he tries to put it out of his mind, no, today just wasn’t our day to die. He then thinks about Flatpack, all the years he’s known him, he never knew he was claustrophobic, I guess it never came up. They carry on walking in silence, until Simon can’t keep it in any longer.
“What happened to you back there?”
Flatpack doesn’t speak.
“Shit, you really freaked out, I seriously thought you’d lost it.”
There is silence for several seconds before Flatpack answers, “I don’t know what happened, I’ve never felt like that before, must have been the lights or something.”
When they finally get back to Flatpack’s black Jaguar all is quiet. They get in and head back to Capernaum. What had started out as a gig, albeit an independence rally, had turned into a whole lot more. What has happened to their country, their Israel?
Simon finally fell asleep at around four am. The whole night kept replaying in his head, over and over; he couldn’t let it go. He realised he needed some help and a bottle of his favourite drink. Hennessey Cognac finally sent him into unconsciousness.
He was woken at quarter past seven by what sounded like a fire alarm. Actually it was only his phone. Oh shut up, please shut up. It keeps ringing. He reaches across to the bedside table and answers.
“Go away!” He shouts at the caller, and throws the phone across the room.
A few minutes later it starts ringing again. Simon puts his pillow over his throbbing head in the vain hope of blocking out the sound.
The longer he lies awake, the stronger the urge to pee, and that means he will have to get up. He feels so rough that it crosses his mind just to do it there and then and let his cleaning lady sort out the mess, but that would mean lyi
ng in it, not such a good idea. He goes to his en-suite bathroom and while he’s there he takes some painkillers. He’s just crawling back into bed when once again the phone starts to ring. “Damn it.” With his half open eyes he goes to the corner of the room where he threw it. He bends down and picks it up.
“This better be important.”
“I think it is,” Flatpack answers.
“Oh, it’s you Steve, what’s up?”
“Yesterday, that’s what up, look I’ve had some ideas, I’ll be round in about an hour.”
“Eh, No.”
“You okay?”
“I had a bit to drink when I got back, I finished off a bottle of Hennessey.”
Flatpack laughs, “I’ll let you sleep it off, I’ll be round later.”
“Yeah, good.”
Simon goes back to bed.
When he wakes it’s late in the afternoon, and after a shower and some toast he feels a lot better. His apartment, while still in the Neziah estate, is on the better side of the valley, away from the rougher centre, but close enough for its tenants to still feel one of the people. It’s a dream of the young in Neziah to move on to the hills. It says you have made it, that even the poor can become somebody. Simon sees himself as a role model to the youngsters and if that means encouraging them to stand up and fight the Government, so what! The fact that most of his record sales tend to come from rebellious middle-class teenagers makes him laugh, and to some extent pleased. At least they can afford it, and maybe they might believe the message. The Government thinks so, or why would they do last night’s raid. He gets himself a coffee and sits on his brown leather suite. From the living room window he has views of the lake and the hills on the other side of the valley; as the evening sun streams in, he closes his eyes.
Not for the first time today he is interrupted, this time it’s the door bell. He lets Flatpack in and goes back to sit in the sunshine.
“Have you had the news on?” Flatpack asks.
Simon shakes his head.
“Well, I think you might want to see it.”
Simon looks round for the remote and then turns on the large TV. Flatpack gets impatient as Simon, not in any rush, flicks through the channels.
“Give it here,” he grabs the remote and puts the news channel on.
There is a live feed outside the theatre in Jericho. A woman reporter is interviewing an elderly man who lives opposite. He is telling her what he saw and heard, which doesn’t appear to be much. He saw police cars and vans, that’s it. Along the bottom of the screen the ticker scrolls along with the latest updates. Simon watches as the ticker reveals the words: two men were…, his heart misses a beat, and his brain finishes the sentence …seen running away. He can picture the photofits with help from the people in the crowd, his face will be all over the country and he braces himself for the inevitable. …shot dead, police confirm. He lets out the biggest sigh, and is visibly shaken.
“Oh shit, I thought…Oh shit.”
“That’s exactly how I felt the first time I saw it,” Flatpack laughs.
“You could have just told me, I nearly had a heart attack!”
They both sit and watch the report. It explains how the police had a tip-off that Caleb G Barnabas would be speaking at the rally organised by the Independence League of Israel (ILI). It says that Caleb was wanted by the police for the murder of a foreign politician working for the Union and that he was considered a threat to national security. The most interesting thing though is what it doesn’t say. It doesn’t mention anything about the police storming the building, or the way they treated those inside, and the use of several police is some way off the fifty or sixty that were actually there.
“Looks like they were really only after Caleb,” Flatpack points out.
“So you’re saying we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time,”
“Yeah, bad luck, that’s all.”
Simon gets angry “bad luck, Steve get real, back luck would be if we’d gone to the theatre to see Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, that would have been bad luck.”
Flatpack smiles “Hey, that’s good, mind if I use it in something?”
“Sure, all your best lines come from me anyway.”
On the TV they are showing a picture of the politician that Caleb killed. Flatpack points to it.
“You see, that was Caleb’s problem, he was too high profile, the Government had no choice but to react. I’ll tell you something else… how come you haven’t offered me a drink?”
“You know where the kitchen is, get one yourself!”
Flatpack does, and while he’s in the kitchen decides he’s hungry and looks in the fridge. Butter, beer and milk.
“Flatpack comes back in with a bottle of Goldstar lager.”
“That’d better not be the last one.”
“What are you moaning about, I thought you had a hangover?”
“Had! I had one.”
“In that case,” says Flatpack “let’s go down the Angels.”
From the apartment to the Angels it would only be a short walk downhill, but they take Flatpacks car anyway, which he drives while drinking his beer. Simon notices it takes longer for Flatpack to reverse into the space than it would have taken him to walk there and back. It might have been to do with the fact that he did it while holding the bottle, but more likely he’s only just got his new Jag and is extra careful.
Inside the club they go to their favourite table, and both order burger, fries, and more bottles of Goldstar.
Toothless is in there and wanders over.
“Thup guyths”
“You heard about Jericho? Simon asks.
“Yeth, you guyths okay?”
“Fine.”
“Tuth on Caleb. Thucking polieth.”
From out of his pocket Simon takes out a large roll of notes and peels off a tenner, handing it to Toothless.
“Get a round in for you and your mates.”
“Cheerth Thimon.”
Simon peels off another note and sits staring at it. He hates these things, he hates everything they stand for. He hates the colours, the fact that they look like toy money. Worst of all is the picture; a building in Rome. The Government had promised to have pictures of Israel on them, but like everything else these people promise, it never happens.
“We need to do something,” says Flatpack.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, something that people can see, a statement.”
Simon takes out his cigarette lighter and holds the note above it. Flatpack stops him.
“I don’t think so, you can buy beers with that.”
Simon leans back and looks up at the ceiling, trying to think of something.
“We could go looking for a collector,” suggests Flatpack.
“That’s not a statement, that’s a typical Monday,” laughs Simon, who has a better idea.
“But we could go and smash up their office.”
“Not bad, that’ll get noticed. It’s the collectors so the police won’t do anything. I like it.”
Flatpack gets on his phone and calls up some reinforcements.
Simon waves Toothless over.
“You and your mates up for a bit of revenge later?”
Simon knows it was a silly question really, the chance to do some damage with him and Flatpack.
“Oh yeth.” was the expected reply.
Flatpack comes off the phone.
“Midnight.”
Toothless goes over to tell his mates that tonight they mix with the big boys.
Midnight arrives and Simon and Flatpack haven’t left their table all night and they’re a little worse for wear. They’ve been joined by Hannah, Flatpack’s girlfriend and her friend, who is sitting on Simon’s knee. Another half a dozen lads hanging round next to the door signal when a van pulls up.
They all make their way out to the van as its side door slides open revealing two boxes. The first is full of torches, hats, scarves, and chil
dren’s masks. The second is full of crowbars and baseball bats. A figure dressed all in black starts to hand them out. Once everybody has got what they want, Simon and Flatpack jump in the back of the van, others get into their cars. They shout and cheer as each car tries to burn more rubber than the others.
“Good turnout,” says Simon.
“The targets are the toll booths. The idea is to do as much damage as we can, put the booths out of action. Break into the offices, torch any documents and smash up what we can. There isn’t any one working at this time of night, only CCTV. So masks on at all times. We have eleven minutes, that is the time it will take for the police to respond once the alarms have been triggered. Plenty of time when you consider they would be at a bank raid in under four,” says Flatpack.
The van parks just before the booths and well away from any cameras. A Ford Focus pulls up behind it and five guys get out. Counting up, Simon thinks that there are plenty here to cause some serious damage.
They run along the sides of the roads, keeping in the shadows until they get to the booths, and split into two groups, one attacking the toll booths and one the offices. The front of the offices are heavily protected by steel shutters and the windows are made from bulletproof extra thick glass.
“This won’t take a second,” says one lad, as he reveals a shotgun from under his trench coat. He blasts the door twice, the sound echoing around the area. One of the guys pushes it with his shoulder to try and open it.
“Give it another go, you’re almost there.”
Flatpack takes out one of his guns, a Desert Eagle .50 and with two hands blows a hole right though the lock, the recoil knocking him backwards.
“After you ladies” he laughs.
The deafening noise of the alarms immediately sound. High in a corner is one camera. Simon, wearing a child’s Spiderman mask looks directly into it, giving the bird before smashing it with his baseball bat. One lad writes on the wall using black spray paint. Another does the same on the outside. They all have a go at destroying a large wooden desk. They smash whatever they can find. Some have gathered together as many paper documents as possible and set fire to them. The alarms make it impossible to hear anything, even the sirens from the police, so after the eleven minutes each man stops what he’s doing and leaves as quickly as possible. Once outside they all run back to their vehicles. Sounds fill the air from all the alarms, and as the sirens get closer, the lads slip away into the night.