Soft Target 04 - The 18th Brigade

by Conrad Jones

  The eventual arrival of a convoy of police cars and ambulances had startled him back to reality. The platform was ablaze but he had only seen one body falling. It was still too far away to see exactly what had happened properly. He had then tossed the empty petrol canister toward the blaze, destroying any evidence that he may have left. The burning cradle was still climbing the building at a steady pace, but now it was setting fire to every window frame that it passed, six floors were already starting to burn. The smoke and flames were adding to the chaos inside the dark tower block. People were flooding into the stone stairwells, and the noise levels were reaching crescendo pitch. Jay didn’t have any problem slipping away past the emergency services on the ground floor, their priority had been the safe evacuation of the residents.

  Unfortunately Omar had shared the same luck and escape had been relatively simple for him too. He reached his car and bundled Gemma into the passenger seat. She was behaving like a zombie, shocked by the evening`s events. The car started first time and Omar had to wait for a fire truck to pass by before pulling the car onto the main road. Crowds of half dressed people were gathering, some only wearing dressing gowns. The top section of the building had been well ablaze when he noticed a big man crossing the road about a hundred yards further down the road, beyond the crowds. He was heavily muscled, his head shaved, and there was a tattoo below his ear that Omar couldn’t make out, but he looked like a member of the 18th Brigade. He was one of the men who had been sent here to behead the Somali Yardies, by killing Omar himself. They had failed. Omar decided to follow him.

  Jay turned up the collar on his jacket, heading away from the burning tower block while talking into his mobile telephone. He was guiding one of their men to his position to pick him up. A black panel van pulled across two lanes in a u-turn manoeuvre, and stopped alongside him. Jay looked up and down the street checking for the presence of the police. Once he was sure that he wasn’t being watched he opened the door and climbed into the van. He noticed a small two door customised car crawling close to the pavement a few hundred yards away. He couldn’t see the occupants but his instincts told him that they were following him. Jay smiled and shut the door, looking at the vehicle in the wing mirror.

  “Are you being followed?” the driver had asked.

  “Yes, I think so, just head back toward Warrington, and take the motorway,” Jay ordered.

  “Do you want me to lose him?” the driver slowly pulled away from the kerb, watching the coupe behind them doing the same.

  “Pull a u-turn here, see if he follows,” Jay said. The driver swung the van back around heading in the opposite direction. As they past the suspect hatchback Jay got a very brief look at the driver. He was black, but he couldn’t see any more than that.

  Jay watched in the wing mirror as the car`s brake lights lit up. It pulled into the kerb. The passenger door opened and the interior light came on. A blond woman stumbled out of the car and fell onto the pavement, as if she had been thrown out. The door was pulled shut from within the vehicle, and then the car mirrored their u-turn and followed at a distance.

  “He`s following us,” the driver said.

  “I know, let him, I`ve got a good idea where to take him,” Jay said dialling the cell phone of the 18th Brigade leader, Terry Nick.

  Chapter Forty

  Vigilante

  Old Jim approached the nurses` station and smoothed his grey hair back with the palm of his hand. His hair felt sticky with Brylcream. Jim always used the famous man`s hair product, which was first introduced in the fifties to help the Teddy Boys and rockers keep their quiffs in the perfect shape. Jim had once sported a fabulous quiff. He had to shave it off during his army days when they were forced to keep hair hidden by the famous regimental red beret. Whatever hair was beneath their beret was their own concern. When Jim was a young Para he would trawl the dance halls with his friends looking for pretty women.

  Jim spotted a young nurse behind the reception desk and his male instinct made him preen his hair. He still kept it groomed even though it was grey and thinning. It barely covered his pink liver spotted scalp.

  “Hello Jim,” she said in a broad St. Helens accent, making it sound like `elloh`. Jim thought that it was a shame that she had such a thick accent. She looked so perfect until she spoke, then the accent ruined the moment. He was familiar with the pretty nurse from previous visits.

  “Hello Yvonne,” he replied, smiling to reveal yellowed teeth. His smile had once wowed the women, but now it attracted their attention for all the wrong reasons.

  “Is he expecting you today?” she asked.

  “No, I just thought that I would call in as I was passing, how is he doing?”

  “He`s up and down. One day he`s jolly and full of beans, the next he`s barely capable of holding a conversation with you. His moods seem to be swinging lower and lower lately. He still manages to get to the cinema a couple of nights a week though, getting used to using his new legs too,” she walked from behind the desk.

  Jim noticed how the crisp material of her uniform hugged her hips, accentuating her buttocks. If he was twenty years younger, he thought. Better make that forty years, she wouldn’t know what had hit her. He tried not to stare but she caught him in the act and he blushed a little. Jim looked away quickly and headed off down the pastel coloured corridor. There were rooms situated on both sides of the corridor which stretched as far as the eye could see. He was on the second floor of massive residential nursing facility, which had been built to accommodate wealthy elderly people in a fully serviced mini-community. The facility had a huge foyer surrounded by shops, which sold everything you could buy on the high street. The ground floor area incorporated a library, gymnasium, spa-centre, bar, and several clothes boutiques, a proper self contained micro-town. In recent years the government had purchased a dozen or so of the one bedroom apartments to house recovering war veterans. The project was designed to give them more independence than they would get in a conventional hospital, but still offer them round the clock medical care, and group therapy support.

  Jim chuckled to himself as he passed the imitation front doors and windows. The architects had come up with the concept of making the corridors look like a narrow street lined with terraced houses. Mock windows were fixed to the walls in-between the front doors. Each fake window was fitted with mock curtains and mock flower vases. The idea was sound; it was supposed to give the residents a feeling of normality, and to dispel feelings of claustrophobia or being institutionalised. To Jim it just looked silly, but then he didn’t have to live here for years on end.

  He reached the room which he wanted. The front door was imitation Georgian, painted bright red, with a polished brass doorknocker fixed to the middle panel. Jim chuckled again and rattled the knocker to announce his arrival.

  “Who goes there, friend or foe?” said the voice from within.

  “Friend, Parachute Regiment, may we enter,” Jim laughed as he opened the door. They went through the same comedy routine every time he visited.

  “Hello son,” Jim said saluting as he approached the figure of a man in a wheelchair.

  “Hello dad, I wasn’t expecting you today,” his son, Ross, turned awkwardly in his chair to greet him.

  Jim still choked every time he saw his son in the chair. He had been caught in a fire fight in Afghanistan two years earlier. His convoy had been hit by three coordinated roadside devices. The first two bombs took out the lead and rear vehicles, trapping the remaining armoured cars between them. Standard procedure under these circumstances was to deploy the infantry soldiers out of the vehicles immediately. They would then set up defensive positions and create a bridgehead. The Taliban were well versed in Western military procedure and waited until the Paras left the safety of their armoured vehicles before detonating the third and biggest device. The ploy was used many times with devastating effect. The devices were activated remotely from hundreds of yards away. Once the armoured vehicles were neutralised the Taliban followed
up with an ambush catching the British troops in a deadly crossfire.

  Ross had caught the full force of the third blast as he deployed from his Warrior jeep. The blast had sheered his body completely in half at thigh level and shattered his pelvis. The shrapnel that ripped his legs and genitals from his upper body was so hot that it cauterized the injury, preventing him from bleeding to death at the scene. Ross wished that he had bled to death. He was under constant suicide watch. He felt no hope when he looked to the future and no sense of pride or achievement when he looked back at his military career. He would never have children, never have sex again, he couldn`t walk, he couldn`t even go to the toilet anymore because everything went into a bag. Ross had been fitted with prosthetic limbs but would always need a chair and sticks. He was a cripple and he saw no joy in living as a cripple.

  “I was passing so I thought I`d say hello, catch up on the news,” Jim playfully punched his son`s shoulder. Ross clenched his fists and made a boxers guard, joining in the pretend fight.

  “What`s going on?” Ross asked pointing to the television. The local news was on and an image of the Turf and Feather flashed onto the screen. Then the image changed to show Terry Nick walking out of Warrington police station through a crowd of photographers.

  “There`s been trouble at the Turf son,” Jim explained. “Do you remember little Mandy?”

  “Yes, little barmaid that never smiled,” Ross answered.

  “That`s her, well she got caught in a crossfire, took two in the head I believe, poor girl, she was a bit miserable sometimes but she didn’t deserve that,” Jim said, nodding to the television as he spoke.

  “Fucking hell that`s a bit harsh, who was doing the shooting?”

  “Some Yardie gang from Manchester I`m told, although they haven’t got anyone for it yet. Two cars turned up at the Turf and started shooting with a Mach-10, then they dumped Headbutt Norman and Dithering Dave on the tarmac, all cut up,” Jim carried on with the story.

  “Those two old boys were no harm to anyone, are they alright?”

  “Last thing that I heard they were still in intensive care, horrible facial scars I believe, but I don’t know any more than that really,” Jim said.

  “I bet they were both pissed eh?” Ross joked.

  “Oh, there`s absolutely no doubt about that son,” Jim laughed.

  “Bet they didn’t feel a thing, pissheads,” Ross laughed again, enjoying male company. His dad made him forget his injuries, even if it was only for a short time.

  “Yes, I bet they woke up in casualty and thought they had fallen down the stairs,” Jim carried on the cruel, but funny scenario, enjoying seeing his son laugh.

  “Can you imagine those two if they were in the next bed to each other, they`d be sneaking vodka into their orange juice every five minutes.”

  Jim stared at the news laughing when the picture changed to the remnants of a Porsche, which had been hit by a roadside bomb at Westbrook. Jim swallowed hard before starting his next sentence.

  “Have you been keeping up with that?” Jim asked, changing the subject quickly. Ross stopped laughing and his face darkened.

  Ross leaned over the side of his chair and picked up a bottle of Teacher`s whisky. He turned the top off slowly, and poured himself a large measure into a glass tumbler. He offered the bottle silently to his father, but Jim waved his hand as a refusal.

  “Too early for me son,” Jim said trying to keep the mood light.

  “It`s not really an issue for me,” Ross said sourly. His mood had changed dramatically in just seconds, and it was the television pictures from Westbrook that had changed him.

  “What do you think about that mess at Westbrook?” Jim pressed on.

  “The bloke is an extremist collaborator, worse still he was arming the bastards that put me in this chair, so he got what he deserved as far as I`m concerned,” Ross took a long gulp of whisky and then filled up his glass again.

  “Have you heard that it was his wife and not him that they got?”

  “Pity they didn’t get them both and their kids too, fuck them.” Ross swallowed the whisky in two gulps and filled up the glass again.

  “You`re hitting that a bit hard aren`t you son?” Jim said.

  “Fuck off if you don’t like it, no one asked you to come here did they?”

  “Alright son, I`m not having a go. Just take it easy on that stuff, it takes you down into the dumps that`s all I`m saying,” Jim held up his hands to calm his son down. He was incredibly volatile, all part of his condition now, and there was nothing anyone could do to help him. It broke Jim`s heart to see him like this, but he had to know if he had anything to do with the missing Semtex.

  “Do you know the details of the device?” Jim asked seriously.

  “I don`t need to know, it`s obvious. You don`t get that type of damage from anything else but an Iranian design improvised formed device, nothing else it could be,” Ross drained the glass again.

  “That`s got to be last thing you would expect to see in your home town Ross, but you don`t seem too surprised,” Jim tried to coax an answer from him.

  Ross ignored him and filled his tumbler with whisky again. Half the bottle had gone in less than five minutes. His face was flushed with anger, and the veins at his temples throbbed visibly.

  “They reckon that the device was ignited by using a small amount of Semtex as the catalyst,” Jim pushed harder, giving him a little more information as bait.

  “So what,” Ross said, swallowing another large mouthful.

  “So, it isn’t easy to get hold of Semtex, you don’t just go to the supermarket and buy it,” Jim sat forward and looked hard at his son, trying to see inside his troubled mind.

  “What the fuck are you implying dad?” Ross didn’t even look at his father when he spoke.

  “The Semtex that I told you about has gone missing Ross, someone has stolen it, bit of a coincidence don`t you think,” Jim pressed again.

  Ross seemed to freeze when he heard that the explosives had gone missing. He looked confused as he drained the glass for the third time.

  “What do you think dad? Do you think I whizzed out in my chair and nicked your fucking Semtex?”

  “I`m not saying that, but whoever built that bomb had the same training that you did. They also used Semtex to build it. There are four people who know that the Brigade acquired a batch of explosives. So far the only two people that know it has been stolen are me and the person that stole it. You are one of the people that knew about it Ross,” Jim explained his thoughts calmly and rationally.

  Ross poured the bottle again, filling the tumbler to the rim once more. He took a long swig of the potent liquid. Jim knew that the combination of drink and his medication would be catching up with his son very shortly. He needed an answer desperately.

  “Maybe you`ve told one of your pals in here when you`ve been pissed, maybe you didn’t mean to tell them but it just came out because of the drink,” Jim offered his son a way out by blaming the drink.

  “Maybe you`ve lost it yourself you senile old twat,” Ross emptied the glass, and then lost his grip on it. It tumbled into his lap and then rolled onto the floor in front of his wheelchair. His chin lolled onto his chest and his eyes seemed to roll back into his head. Drool ran from the corner of his mouth onto his jumper. Jim knew that he would get no sense from him today. The moment had past.

  Jim stood up and picked up the empty bottle of scotch, placing into the waste paper bin next to the bed. He knew when the explosives had been stolen. Jim had identified the days when the explosives went missing by using his diary. He surmised that the thief needed him to be out of the house for at least an hour or so. He had narrowed it down it to just two possible days. One day he had gone to the pub to watch the football. He had returned three hours later worse for wear from the beer he had drunk during the match. The second day he had been at a rare visit to the doctor for a routine check up, which had taken him away from home most of the afternoon.

  O
n the sideboard, opposite his son`s bed were his medical notes. They had to be filled in every time someone entered the room. Even the cleaners had to fill in the journal when they came and went. Jim flicked through the pages to the dates which fitted. He ran his finger down each day`s events, first one day and then the next. Jim sighed deeply and placed the notes back on the furniture. Ross had been in is room all day, both days. It couldn’t have been him even if he had had help.