Soft Target 04 - The 18th Brigade

by Conrad Jones

  “That`s the door.”

  “Text a message to Jay with your mobile and tell him that we`re here.”

  “Cut his hands free.”

  “Who`s got the nail gun?”

  “It`s here, hurry up and cut him free.”

  The screen of the mobile phone glowed and it beeped as a return message arrived.

  “Jay is at the fireman`s switch. He`s going to kill the power as soon as Brendon has reached the windows.”

  “Tell him to fucking hurry up, if someone comes out of their flat we`re fucked.

  “Shut up; nail him to the wall opposite the door, directly in front of the spy hole.”

  “Help me lift him he`s out of the game, a dead weight.”

  “Hold his arm up there, I`ll put it through the palm of his hand, and one through the wrist so that it doesn`t rip out.”

  Lewis heard the whispering, but it was dream like. It didn’t affect him anymore. Pain was a thing of the past, or that`s what he believed for a few precious moments, until the first nail punctured his right hand, pinning it to the wall. He was shocked back into the land of the living just in time to feel a second nail punched through his wrist. He gagged, and his eyes widened, almost busting out of his head. Hot stinging tears ran like small rivers down his face and his body started to convulse as his left hand was nailed to the wall in similar fashion. The volume of his struggling cries was increasing despite the gag. A solid punch to the stomach knocked the wind from his lungs and his body sagged, supported by the cruel nails. Lewis was delirious with pain and agony, wanting death to come and release him from his torment. The overriding sensation of warm blood running down his outstretched arms, tickling his armpits was surreal. For one brief second he thought he had died, but he hadn’t, it was just the lights going out as the power in the building had been turned off at the mains.

  “Take the gag out.”

  “What?”

  “Take the fucking gag out, we need him to make some noise.”

  A hooded Brigade man snatched the gag out of Lewis`s mouth, and he gasped clean untainted air deep into his lungs. He took another deep lungful and then started screaming for Omar`s help. The Brigade men skulked in the darkness of the corridor and waited for a reaction.

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Omar

  Omar stood in the bedroom looking through the window into the night. Across the road was the head office of McDonalds, the burger giants. A brown brick building built on the outskirts of the city, beneath the tower block, because the real estate value of the land was significantly lower outside of the city centre. The burger moguls had made doubly sure that their administration headquarters wasn’t just a financial drain on the system by building a huge drive thru restaurant adjacent to it, generating a constant profit.

  The Golden Arches glowed brightly, an icon of the Western World. Omar drew deeply on a joint, allowing the noxious fumes to fill his lungs and seep into his blood stream, spreading its narcotic effect through his body. He was adjusting to cannabis resin. The Somalis recruit young men and boys into militias by offering food and lodgings, plus as much Khat as they could use. Khat is a drug weed, unique to Somalia. It is distributed at lunch time in the form of blades, similar to long grass, and is chewed throughout the day. The cumulative effect of the drug is displayed by the gang members as the day wears on. Fear disappears, and aggression takes control, resulting in fierce battles between rival militias, most of which are instigated by the excessive use of Khat.

  Omar yawned and moved away from the window. He was thirsty and needed to drink water. He still found the taste of clean cold running water from the tap heavenly. His girlfriend, Gemma, stirred in the double bed, reaching over to where he should have been lying. They had spent all day sharing drug fuelled sex, stopping only to roll another joint or sniff another line of cocaine. Gemma`s pale skin seemed luminous in the darkness. She was strawberry blond, almost platinum sometimes and other times golden, depending on how the light caught her hair. She had highlights bleached into it which made it shine, and catch the eye. Omar stared at her body in the glow from the streetlights outside. She was built like a goddess, lean where she should be, curvy at the hips with a flat stomach and a narrow waist. He treated her body like a sexual theme park, his first white woman, his first blond, brilliant white teeth and the smile of an angel. She moved again and he smiled as he opened the bedroom door and headed toward the kitchen.

  He poked his head around the doorway as he past the living room. There were two of his affiliates crashed out on the armchairs, one of them still holding a long black Colt 45 as he snored. The television was still on, casting shadows around the room as the scenes changed. There was an ashtray overflowing on the coffee table in-between the sleeping Somalis. Omar deduced that they had smoked at least half a pound of weed between them, little wonder they were sleeping. He walked over to the television and switched it off, plunging the living room into darkness. He chuckled to himself as he walked back toward the door, and then he stopped suddenly. Omar thought he`d heard something, scraping outside the window. Maybe it was intuition developed by years of living in fear for your life, or maybe it was the drugs making his hearing muddy. He looked toward the window and stared at the heavy drapes, trying to see through them with his mind`s eye, piercing the curtain material and the glass beyond, searching the darkness outside for danger. He stepped toward the drapes and reached for the Colt, when suddenly the power was cut and the flat was plunged into darkness. It was only moments later when he heard the screaming start.

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Brendon

  The cradle swayed gently as it descended. The further away from the electric motors on the roof it travelled, the quieter the journey became. The height was frightening, and he held on tightly to his machinegun for comfort. There was a strong breeze blowing around the corner of the tower block, but as he neared the lower floors it seemed to ease substantially. Brendon took one of the fragmentation grenades from his jacket and turned it in his hand nervously. The cold dull metal felt heavy in his hand.

  He had a fascination with grenades, brought on by watching war films as a young boy. When he`d played war games as a kid his friends would use sticks and run around making machinegun noises.

  “Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.” He could remember those long summer days like they were yesterday. Brendon always filled his pockets full of small stones, which he would bite to mimic removing the safety pin, and then throw at his friends.

  “Ka-booooom!” he`d cry as his pretend grenades struck their target.

  Now all these years on he was still playing war games, fighting rival gangs, but now the stakes were much higher and the grenades were very real. The machinegun in his hand was capable of firing nine hundred high velocity bullets every minute. He had only ever used his weapons at training camps in America, and once shooting rabbits in the wilds of Snowdonia, turning the fluffy bunnies into red mush instantaneously. Brendon had longed to be like his brother, fighting wars on foreign soil, killing with impunity, feeling the god like power of taking a life with a machinegun.

  Here he was approaching the fourth floor of Salford Towers, armed to the teeth. All of a sudden he felt very alone. The breeze whistled through the steel cables of the cradle, a desolate sound almost warning him to turn back. He shivered and steeled himself against the wind, pushing the doubts from his mind; after all it was his own plan, a good plan, a plan his soldier brother would have relished and been proud of. Brendon peered over the cradle as it reached the fourth floor. He put the gun down and grabbed the remote control box; he pressed the red button and stopped the platform level with the window ledge. The cradle juddered as it stopped moving, and it bumped the building making a scraping sound. He froze and instinctively ducked down below the ledge, holding his breath as he did so. He took his mobile out and texted just two letters, `OK`. He stuffed the phone into his jacket pocket and reached for his gun, just as all the lights went out.

  Brendo
n didn’t move as screaming started from somewhere deep inside the flats. He heard a door slam beyond the window, and the shuffling sounds of movement inside. There were hushed voices coming from a room beyond, one deep and male, and the other softer and female. The screaming was further away, but it was becoming louder. He could hear movement coming from other flats now, bedroom doors opening and closing, angry voices calling for the racket to stop. Someone shouted that he was working the early shift in the morning, another called that he had only just gone to bed. The building was coming to life, woken by the screaming inside. He decided that the best thing to do was abort the mission, as the whole plan revolved around stealth.

  He grabbed the control box and pressed the `down` button, but nothing happened. He stabbed at the `up` button with the same result. It suddenly dawned on him that all the lights had gone off simultaneously, and someone must have killed the power. Brendon was trapped in the cradle four floors up. Whatever was going to happen next the police would be called, and with Brendon`s previous convictions if he was found in possession of an automatic weapon and grenades he would be going to prison for a very long time. He realised that whoever killed the power was hoping that he would have smashed the window with the hammer, and tossed the grenades into the flat, before trying to move the cradle away from the blast. At that point it would have been too late. He reached for the hammer and cocked the safety on the Uzi, he`d have to fight his way out.

  Chapter Thirty

  Omar

  Omar heard the screaming coming from the corridor and reacted instinctively. He had spent his life in Mogadishu hunting his enemies, or being hunted, and he had a heightened sense of survival. The man screaming outside the front door was calling out his name, and pleading for help, using English, but he also kept slipping into Somali and shouting a warning. There was an ambush outside the front door, and one of his men was being used as the bait. The man screamed in Somali again and Omar recognised Lewis`s voice. Many weaker men would have wavered at the sound of an old friend screaming for help, but Omar was a different breed. He was made from stainless steel, tough and ice cold inside. Everything he did revolved around his own very selfish agenda. If there was nothing to be gained personally then there was no point in wasting time with it. Lewis being used as bait wasn’t pleasant to listen to, but his obvious distress meant that Omar had been alerted to the danger outside, therefore it could be tolerated.

  Omar ran into the living room and slapped his affiliates around the face. They moaned in protest at being disturbed from their narcotic slumber. He shushed them when they spoke and gritted his rotten gold teeth as he placed his index finger to his curled lips.

  “Trouble man! Someone has Lewis outside, cover the front door,” Omar whispered.

  The Somalis sprang into action, confused and unsteady on their feet, and they wobbled into the hallway aiming their weapons at the front door. Omar headed back into the bedroom where his girlfriend was still drowsy from cannabis use. He shook Gemma`s sleeping body.

  “What`s wrong babe? Come back to bed, I`m still horny,” she mumbled, and reached for him.

  “Shush,” he whispered and held her pretty face between his hands. He stroked her blonde hair gently and tried to rouse her without causing her to panic. She was the closest thing to love that Omar had found. He wasn’t sure why she loved him, but she did. He was in total awe of her beauty, when she walked into a room he could feel himself staring at her, open mouthed. From the first time he`d seen her until present day he had put her on a pedestal, a feminine goddess, a walking talking sexual fantasy come true, which he could only wonder at. She tensed suddenly as she woke properly and heard the tortured sound of a man screaming nearby.

  “What`s going on?”

  “There`s trouble babe, init, I need you to get dressed quickly.”

  “Omar, you promised me that there would never be any trouble here, not at my flat, this is my home Omar.”

  “I know that babe, but trouble has found me. We have to get out of here, now get dressed quickly.”

  “Just call the police Omar, because I`m frightened. I don’t want to go out there.”

  “No police babe, init, they`ll send me back to Somalia, and you know that. We have to get out, get dressed.”

  Gemma tutted and rolled off the bed, her curves were accentuated by the artificial light which seeped into the room. Despite the imminent danger he took a long look at her, and sighed, if only there was more time.

  “Lock this door behind me, and don’t open it for anyone except me,” Omar slammed the door closed and headed for the hallway. He had left his bag in the shoe cupboard next to the kitchen door, which contained the Mach 10 machine pistol that he had used in Warrington.

  “Have you looked through the spy hole yet?” Omar asked as he joined his men near the front door.

  “No way man,” I think that`s Lewis out there man, heavy duty. I don’t want to see him like that.”

  Omar shook his head; he just couldn’t get the staff in this country. They were all squeamish compared to the war hardened veterans he ran with in Mogadishu. He opened a small electric meter cupboard which was behind the front door, inside was a twelve bore, sawn-off shotgun. Omar rattled the metal cage that reinforced the door, checking that it was fitted flush into its housing. It would take a bulldozer to knock it down. There was a three inch square sliding plate fitted to the cage. Omar slid the plate and peered through the spy hole at the dark corridor beyond. He swallowed hard as he looked into the dark landing area, and saw Lewis through the gloom crucified to the wall opposite him; his face was a bloody mess. There were shiny new nails piercing his deep black skin through his hands and wrists, and a pool of blood was spreading at his feet. Omar felt anger rising in his throat, but realised that was exactly what his tormentors wanted. They were trying to provoke a reaction.

  Lewis wasn’t struggling against the cruel nails anymore, and his cries were growing weaker and less frantic. Omar reckoned that his friend and companion had reached the end of his tether in this world, and he was already on his way to the next. He had to kill him, it was the only compassionate thing to do in Omar`s warped mind. He had to help him to be free of the pain, and allow his friend`s soul to move on.

  He pushed the sawn-off shotgun through the letterbox flap and pulled both triggers together. The shotgun roared and buckshot hit Lewis on the right hand side of his head, ripping a huge piece of scalp and skull bone away, and splattering the pale walls with grey brain matter, which trickled down the walls mixing with fresh blood. Omar slammed the sliding plate closed as three Uzis opened fire at the door, blasting long splinters of wood across the hall way. Lewis`s ruined body stopped twitching, free from the pain of torture at last.

  Omar and his men moved away from the front door as hundreds of high velocity rounds smashed it to smithereens. The metal frame behind it was too thick to penetrate and the sound of bullets ricocheting around the landing area filled the air. Despite the lack of electricity the tower block was coming alive, woken from collective slumber by the sound of gunfire. Raised voices could be heard on every floor and the telecommunications networks were jammed with emergency calls.

  The Uzis fell silent for a moment. Omar figured that they were either reloading or waiting for something else to happen, another part of the plan that was yet to be revealed. Years of civil war had given Omar a sixth sense. It was the only way that some of the young men of Somalia survived when so many of their compatriots perished beside them. He looked back down the hallway toward the living room, and remembered the scraping sound that he`d heard just before the lights went out. It suddenly occurred to him what the men in the corridor were waiting for. There was a flanking move yet to come.

  Omar chambered a round into the Mach 10 and ran to the doorway of the living room. He stared into the gloom, trying to see beyond the heavy drapes. As he watched and waited he saw the slightest glimmer of movement, a darker shadow mingling with the gloom, and it seemed to be growing taller, as if someon
e where standing up outside the window. They were four floors up, but there was no denying what was in front of him, and his instincts were rarely wrong. He lifted the machinegun and was just about to fire when the windows shattered. A shrill wind blew into the room lifting the drapes away from the window, revealing the dark silhouette of a hooded man, pointing an Uzi directly at him.

  Chapter Thirty One

  Vigilante

  The television news was running a continuous loop focusing on the violence that had hit Warrington in the previous forty eight hours. There had been two fatalities and two critically injured, one of them was his kill, but the others were allegedly attacked by drug gangs. There was some speculation from reporters that the drug gang was of Somali persuasion, Muslims. He shifted in his chair uncomfortably, and his knees were burning in agony from their extended excursion the previous day. He was still nowhere near ready to walk around unaided for any real length of time. His prosthetic limbs irritated the stumps terribly if he used them for any length of time. The doctors had told him that it could be years before his legs would adapt. Although he had managed to become mobile well before anyone expected him to be, the pain he suffered after walking was quite simply intolerable.