The Takers

by Robert Enright

  Sooner or later, Sam knew that Lady Luck would pull the rug from underneath him. As with any form of gambling, the house always wins. But as he stood outside the port, the rain crashing against him, he knew he had to gamble one more time.

  A young girl’s life was at stake.

  Sam reached to his side and grabbed hold of his rifle, pulling it around his body and allowing it to slip seamlessly into his grip. His fingers slid around the stock, one of them naturally falling onto the trigger. With a rifle in his hand, Sam was the deadliest weapon in the country.

  The Takers were about to find that out first hand.

  The commotion beyond the nearest stacks of crates grew loudly and Sam heard a series of crunching thuds, as if someone was being bludgeoned by something. Whoever it was, they’d messed up and Sam had a clear indication of the type of man he was dealing with.

  There would be no negotiating. Not with these people.

  Sam needed to make use of his head start, get in, get Jasmine, and get out.

  Anything else, and he would have to break his promise once more, something that was happening with an alarming regularity. Sam took a deep breath and reached for the fence, pulling it away from the heavy, rust covered chain that attached it to the next panel. It budged a little, creating a small, uncomfortable gap for Sam to squeeze himself through. Just as he lowered himself to pass under the mighty links of the chain, a blue light lit up the horizon line. Flashing like a mobile disco, Sam felt his heart drop as a convoy of police cars and vans turned the far corner, racing towards the port like a heroic cavalry. Without their sirens, there was a morbid silence to their arrival that only added to the tension that was drifting through the downpour.

  Sam’s odds had just doubled.

  The first two cars pulled to a stop to the side of the gate, a number of officers leaping from the car and taking positions against the barrier. Two vans pulled up, the back doors shoved open and two teams, armed with assault rifles and bulletproof suits leapt out, all of them following strict orders and forming a tight line, ready to go at the drop of a hand.

  Sam wondered if somewhere among them Singh was barking out orders, her tiny frame juxtaposed by her ferocious leadership and will to succeed. On some level, he admired her, knowing what it was like to live an ideal. To run your life by a moral code that you fully believe was for the good of the people.

  It was something they had in common. It was the line of the law that lay between them.

  After a few moments, Sam heard the first gunshot, the Takers had realised they had unwanted guests and had opened fire on the boys in blue.

  The police took up their positions and the incoming shoot-out was just moments away.

  Another war zone that Sam was willingly walking into.

  Sam’s window of opportunity was dwindling, and before he could identify Singh in the crowd, he slipped through the gate and into the port, out of sight of the police, but under a watchful pair of eyes from the ninth floor of the clock tower.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Aaron Hill was shaking as Singh sat him down in the interview room earlier that evening. The man looked like a wreck, the last day or so weighing heavily on him. Singh had only been to see him the day before, yet he seemed to have aged drastically. Something must have happened, a horrible ordeal that had led him from being defiant about his business with Sam Pope, to knocking on her front door begging for help.

  She had gotten him a glass of water, and with watery eyes he told her everything. How Sam had been blazing a path through the London underworld to find his daughter and how now, with time running out, was running head on into a no-win situation to find her. While he would never condone the carnage Sam had created, he was thankful that Sam did what the police didn’t.

  He gave a damn.

  When Singh tried to counter that statement, she was reminded of her own reaction when he first reported it. She had dismissed him as a drunk waste of time, caring more about her own career than the life of a teenager. It cut her deep, but she took it on the chin. She had made plenty of mistakes, but she was eager to put them right. While Sam did what the police didn’t, she assured Hill that if he cooperated with her, she could deliver what Sam couldn’t.

  His daughter.

  Battling with his own sense of betrayal, Hill had done what any good father would have and put his daughter first. Despite his intentions, Sam Pope was still a dangerous criminal who had the means to cause serious damage to a lot of people. He would no doubt fight to the death for Jasmine, but Hill agreed that the full back up of the Metropolitan Police would lower the odds.

  If it meant it would increase the chance of saving his daughter from a life of drugs, prostitution, and death then Sam was a sacrifice he would make.

  Even Sam himself would understand, especially after what he had been through.

  When Hill had made that remark, Singh had been confused and made a note to investigate later.

  Was there something about Sam she didn’t know? It was unlikely, considering her task of bringing him in was slowly becoming an obsession and being face to face with him but incapacitated had driven her to the edge.

  She was determined to put it right and when Hill had told her where Sam was heading; she burst out of the room like she’d just found the last golden ticket.

  She raced through the station, her little legs bounding the steps two at a time until she burst into Assistant Commissioner Ashton’s office, earning a furious glare and a dressing down.

  She didn’t care.

  It was her time.

  When she explained everything, her superior had demanded to speak to Hill herself, stomping down the corridors with Singh in tow. A few minutes later, she gave the order for two tactical teams to head for the Port of Tilbury and that she would accompany them.

  Singh was ordered to stay put.

  As the sirens and lights burst into life and the Sam Pope Task Force raced towards his final showdown, Singh sat dejectedly in the interview room. Hill thanked her for her help and asked where he should wait. It was then that a new purpose bloomed in her.

  This was her task force.

  She looked up at Hill and smiled.

  ‘You want your daughter back, right?’ He nodded. ‘Then get your coat.’

  Forty minutes later, Singh and Hill were slowly crawling down a side road next to the Port of Tilbury, having broken several traffic laws in the process. She didn’t care anymore, the chance to apprehend Sam and set everything right was driving her forward. An insatiable need to win.

  Amara Singh didn’t fail.

  With her licensed firearm secured in her hand, she told Hill to wait in the car, slowly creeping out and along the side of the fence, casting an eye down the street to the tactical unit assembling in front of the gate. With her vision skewed, she decided to climb up a nearby industrial bin, trying to see over the nearest metal crate.

  She saw a luxury car and a group of men around it. One of them looked familiar, his expensive clothes doing little to cloak the sheer menace within. Just as she realised it was Andrei Kovalenko, one of the most dangerous men in London, two of his armed goons opened fire at the gateway, unloading half a clip from their automatic rifles at the police.

  Her comrades.

  As the adrenaline pumped through her like a house anthem, she paid little heed to the threat before her and clambered onto the top of the crate and into the port. She slowly slid along the top, careful not to alert anyone to her presence.

  As more gunfire rang out, she abandoned her quest for stealth and reached the edge of the crate. The drop down was a sizeable nine feet, and she draped her legs over the side, turned and lowered herself down. As she did, her fingers slipped on the slick metal and she scrambled to keep hold. Her feet clanged hard against the crate and she dropped, taking the impact in her bent knees. Someone yelled out and through the torrential rain, she caught a glimpse of a burly man racing towards her, gun raised. A second gun man soon followed.

  S
he turned and ran into the metal maze, cursing herself for running headfirst into a war zone.

  There was no backing out now.

  She needed to fight.

  As she ventured further into the labyrinth, she knew they wouldn’t stop until they had her.

  That wasn’t an option.

  Rounding the next corner, she stopped and threw her back against the corrugated iron wall of the crate. She held her gun to her chest and took a few deep breaths.

  Amara Singh didn’t fail.

  Sam had moved through the narrow walkways of the port, rifle held up at eye level, the stock comfortably pressed into the crevice of his shoulder muscle. Every corner was well scouted and he progressed further into the maze, the sound of the gunfight echoing in every direction like a stray bullet.

  Sam approached an opening at the end of the passage way, stepping out into the darkness, a lone floodlight illuminating the loading area. The rain was crashing down with a thunderous rage and Sam glanced at the sign.

  Bay 26. Zone A.

  Sam took another step forward, when from the dark corner of the opening, a bright light burst, followed by the echo of gunfire. The bullet hit Sam directly in the chest, a few inches below his scar. Spinning in the air, Sam crashed to the concrete, the impact into his Kevlar vest driving the air from him.

  He lay still.

  Footsteps splashed on the wet floor.

  A hunter coming to claim his kill.

  As the footsteps got closer, Sam’s instincts told him that the man was raising the gun again, a second bullet of confirmation was soon heading his way. In one fluid motion, Sam swivelled on the wet concrete, his hand releasing the Glock from its shoulder holster and he lifted it through the illuminated rain drops.

  He saw the man’s eyes widen with a mixture of shock and fear.

  That was replaced with pain as Sam unloaded two bullets from the handgun, both of them ripping through the man’s chest like wet tissue paper.

  The man collapsed, his final breaths struggling to leave his body as he wheezed, staring vacantly at the rain as the puddles around him soon turned red. Sam stood, wincing as he stretched his chest out, when another henchman raced into the clearing, drawn by the gunshots like a moth to a flame.

  Sam spun quickly on his heels and slammed his back against the crate next to his attacker’s entranceway. As the splashes echoed louder off of the metal, the man darted through the opening towards his fallen friend. In a flash, Sam reached out and grabbed the man’s collar, wrenching him backwards and off balance. Before the man could react, Sam struck a crunching blow with the grip of his pistol right between the man’s eyes, shutting his lights out and leaving him in a collapsed heap on the floor.

  Sam swung up his rifle once more, carefully stepped into the walkway, and ventured further into the unknown. Passing into Zone B Sam halted as two flashes flickered at the end of the corridor, before an armed officer dove recklessly into the walkway, a barrage of bullets whipping inches above him and into the giant storage container. The young officer tried to scramble back to his feet, but soon accepted his fate as two more armed henchmen stormed around the corner with an unquenchable blood lust.

  Sam instinctively pulled the trigger.

  The first bullet cut through the dark walkway, slicing through rain drops before ripping into the throat of the first henchman, severing the jugular vein in a stunning outburst of blood. The henchman collapsed to his knees, hands clasped to the wound as blood seeped through his fingers and he fell before the officer who tried to crawl away.

  The second guard raised his handgun in Sam’s general direction, shooting blindly into the dark. Sam had already dropped to one knee to change his position and a bullet soon imbedded itself into the man’s stomach. As he stumbled back pressing his hands to the wound, a follow up bullet to the chest sent him sprawling.

  The officer pushed himself to his knees, splattered with the blood of the two men Sam had just eliminated. Reaching for his own gun as Sam approached, the officer was in self-preservation mode, having come so close to death. He raised it at Sam, who stepped forward, the young man realising that the very reason they were there was the same reason he was alive. The officer tipped back his helmet, revealing his youthful face and looked his saviour in the eye and nodded his appreciation.

  Sam reciprocated.

  The officer had no intention of stopping Sam, not when he owed him his life.

  Sam plundered on, stepping over the now dead bodies in the walkway and approached the entrance.

  Two officers lay motionless under the floodlights, their bodies riddled with bullets and Sam felt guilty for being a few minutes too late. He had avenged them, but seeing officers die in the line of duty was always hard to take, regardless of what line of the law you walked. As he squatted next to them and shared a silent moment of respect, two more officers burst into the clearing, one of them trying to reload his rifle while the other was marching backwards, gun aimed into the darkness of the walkway.

  The rain was playing havoc with any visibility, and the officer on guard didn’t see the two men on the metal walkway above the crates, their rifles aimed down at them.

  Like shooting fish in a barrel.

  A gunshot exploded behind the officers, followed swiftly by another.

  Both men flopped over the edge of the walkway and to the hard concrete fifteen feet below. They were dead before they hit the floor.

  Sam Pope had aimed for the head.

  He didn’t miss.

  As the officer spun on his heel, his gun still up, Sam drove his own rifle into the officer’s gut, disarming him before flipping him over onto the concrete. The second officer reloaded his rifle, but Sam aimed his own at the officer’s head.

  ‘Drop it.’

  The officer obliged and Sam motioned for him to move next to his fallen comrade, who was gingerly pushing himself to his knees. As they regrouped having come seconds from death, the two officers looked across at their fallen comrades and realised how lucky they’d been.

  Sam ventured into the darkness of the walkway from whence they’d ran, only stopping as he caught a glimpse of the sign ahead.

  Zone C.

  As the footsteps approached with impending doom, Singh realised she was holding her breath. As the first gangster stepped out from the walkway and straight past her, she kept her composure, ensuring she kept deathly quiet. A moment later, his comrade followed, a heavy assault rifle in his arms.

  ‘Police. Drop your weapons,’ Singh commanded, stepping up behind him and pointing her own gun in his direction. The man held his hands up, turning slowly with a sadistic smile on his face. He was a broad man, with a thick physique and a unibrow that slithered across his beady, grey eyes. Singh kept the gun pointed on him, but with the rain obscuring her vision, struggled to see the first gun man.

  She took her eye off him for one second.

  The man dropped his rifle and lunged forward reaching for her gun, his powerful fingers snatching at her wrist. Singh rocked backwards, her boots slipping in the rain and her finger squeezed the trigger.

  The echo of the gunshot in the metal confines was almost deafening.

  The roar of pain from her attacker equally so.

  The bullet tore through the man’s shoulder, a clean shot that had passed right through. With blood pumping from the wound, the man yelled aggressively in Ukrainian before lunging at Singh, his heavy fists fallen down like the hammer of god.

  Singh dodged the first blow, the man’s flat knuckles cracking the concrete with a bone breaking thud.

  The second blow caught her hard on the side of the head, a high pitch ringing drilled into her brain. Her vision went bright and she quickly regained composure, ducking the follow up strike and reached up and thumped the man in his fresh bullet wound.

  He fell back in pain and Singh arched her back and planted both boots as hard as she could into his granite like chest.

  The man doubled over onto his back, but as Singh tried to get t
o her feet, the second man slipped his hands under her arms and wrenched her up off the ground, using considerable strength to hurl her recklessly to the side. She collided with the metal container, her lip splitting on impact and it took everything in her not to fall to the floor. The man approached and as he reached out for her, she spun to her left, drilling a vicious kick to the side of the man’s knee, knocking him off balance. Quickly, she grabbed his hair and with her full force, drove him face first into the metal.

  The explosion of blood from his broken nose was like a grenade and he limply dropped to the ground, dabbing at his shattered face with fear in his eyes. Singh readjusted and turned back to her first attacker who had gotten to his feet, his bullet ridden arm swung loosely from his body.

  His eyes were wide with murderous rage.

  She raised her fists and as he approached, she blocked his wild swing, before catching him with two swift hooks to the kidneys, ducking another erratic fist and lunged forward, driving her knee into his stomach. As he hunched over, gasping for air, she searched the glistening concrete for her weapon.

  Any weapon.

  A sickening thud was closely followed by a searing pain in the back of her skull and Singh slumped forward. The henchman with the broken nose adjusted his grip on the rifle, the collision of its stock with her head had nearly driven it from her hands. Singh woozily pushed herself up onto her hands and knees, her brain felt like it had been shunted loose. Her vision was blurry, and the freezing rain slithered over her entire body.

  As she reached feebly for her handgun, a large boot pressed down on her forearm, the weight of it testing her bone strength. One of the men then reached down and lifted her gun from the floor.

  Singh knew she was defeated.

  Her head throbbed and Singh forced herself to look upwards, determined to look her killer in the eyes. She may have failed, but she would never cower. She had fought through too much in her life, beaten every obstacle that had been thrown in front of her. She had never backed down and now, as she lay on the soaking wet concrete of the port, she wanted to look death in the eye before it took her.