by Paul Finch
Heck rolled sideways, his Glock already drawn. ‘Police officers … drop your weapon!’
When he came to a halt, he took aim with both hands.
However, Green Van Man had already leapt back into the driving cab. As he did, a police-issue MP5 fired a single round from somewhere close by, the heavy slug visibly denting the vehicle’s side, but not punching through.
‘Damn thing’s armoured!’ Heck shouted. ‘I don’t believe … Sir, you all right?’
‘I’m OK!’ came Reed’s voice, though he sounded dazed.
‘Stay flat … the shots are on it!’
Another MP5 boomed. This bullet struck the van’s driver side window, which spiderwebbed, but again was not smashed through.
‘Jesus wept!’ Heck exclaimed. ‘That’s military grade!’
With a cough, the van’s engine growled to life and it lurched forward.
Heck had no choice but to open fire on its wheels, putting three rounds into the front offside and three into the rear offside.
The vehicle jolted downward as both tyres exploded, but continued barrelling forward, its undercarriage grinding along the ground. It limped forty yards or so, veering right, as more heavy gunfire from unseen positions slammed into it. However, its reinforced hull resisted, and the driver was still giving it full throttle, the wounded machine chewing its way through the perimeter mesh fence and clattering out of sight into the shadows beneath the flyover, where, by the sounds of it, it smashed through various obstacles.
Heck rose to his knees, dragging the chequer-banded baseball cap from his back pocket and jamming it onto his head. Not too far to the side of him, Reed did the same.
Beyond him, two firearms officers ran in an arc across the north side of the lorry park. They too wore hi-vis caps but carried MP5s at chest-level. Heck looked south and saw another officer coming diagonally towards him. In all cases, torches had been attached to their barrels, issuing intense beams. From a distance and a static position, their night-vision scopes would be adequate, but at close quarters, when moving through a darkened landscape this was the only real option; you couldn’t scamper around while watching the world through a rifle sight. The downside, of course, was that it made you into a clear target.
From somewhere beneath the flyover, there was an echoing impact, and the throb of the van’s engine cut out. Driving without headlights, it had finally hit something that wouldn’t yield.
The firearms officer from the south now reached the two detectives. He was a young, black cop, with a slim build and a military bearing. He yabbered into his radio, presumably calling in additional units, but broke off to speak with them.
‘Either of you two hit?’
‘Negative,’ Heck replied.
‘Good … stay back. Leave this to us, yeah?’
‘Sounds like he’s had a smash,’ Heck replied. ‘Probably on foot now, headed towards the other side of the overpass.’
‘We’ve got the other side covered,’ the shot answered, advancing into the shadows, torchlight blazing ahead of him.
Heck scrambled over to Reed, who was still on one knee, his Glock drawn but dressed down. The DI was breathing hard, sweat sparkling on his forehead, but he looked looser-limbed, less tense. It was the same for Heck; it always had been. You might be nervous to start with, but the instant you made contact with the enemy, all fear left you, the adrenaline pumped and it was arse-kicking time.
‘Bloody thing’s like a tank,’ Reed muttered.
‘Agreed. Which means there’s even more going on here than we thought.’
Heck looked back across the lorry park, but of the firearms men there was now no sign, which meant that they had all gone forward. If, as the young black cop had mentioned, there were units on the far side of the flyover too, that likely meant the target was already contained.
Keeping low, guns in hand, the detectives ventured to the edge of the flyover.
Ahead of them, blobs of light moved erratically as the shots scrambled and slithered forward, presumably hemming the bastard in. With luck, he only had that pistol, so he was more than outgunned.
Reed glanced at Heck. ‘We’re not letting these heroes grab all the kudos.’
Heck shrugged. ‘Whatever you say, sir.’
Reed jumped up and gambolled forward across the flattened section of fence. Beyond there, the firm ground of the lorry park gave way to a mulch of filth and trash. There was also that wreckage they’d glimpsed; a virtual jungle of abandoned vehicles and tossed-away property. They’d no sooner navigated around the gutted shell of a Mini Cooper than they were sidling through thickets of rotted furniture and rusted appliances.
Just then a thunderous chatter of automatic fire echoed ear-splittingly in the cavernous space.
Heck dropped to the floor, Reed following.
The firing broke off.
‘That one of ours?’ the DI asked, breathless.
‘Unlikely,’ Heck whispered. ‘Our lads wouldn’t fire in protracted bursts like that!’
He holstered his Glock and slid forward through the darkness on his belly, using only his elbows. When he reached a tall, angular object – something black as char and stinking of grease, an old oven no doubt – he rose and peeked over the top.
All the lights had gone out, presumably switched off by the shots, who’d only now realised what they were up against. The automatic fire recommenced, continuing uninterrupted for what seemed like a full minute. Heck crouched lower but could pinpoint the source of it: a flickering dab of flame about forty yards ahead and twenty to his left. It moved back, forth and around, as if the gunman kept changing position.
Abruptly, the shooting stopped again, its echoes resounding for a moment or two.
This could only be because he needed to reload. Which was worrying; he’d just pissed away an entire magazine, so how many spares did he have?
Even more worrying was the lack of response fire.
Where was the firearms team?
Heck strained his eyes as he scanned the blackness.
But nothing moved or sounded. There was no explosion of return fire; there wasn’t even a crackle of radio static.
‘Fuck’s going on?’ Reed whispered, crouching alongside him.
Heck shook his head. He circled the oven, dropping to all fours and shuffling forward. Reed brought up the rear, and a few seconds later they paused behind an old sofa, listening.
‘Think they might have withdrawn?’ Reed wondered.
‘Would make sense,’ Heck replied.
At which point an MP5 boomed not twenty yards to their left.
In the brief glare, Heck saw one of the firearms cops standing upright, carbine at his shoulder, eye at his night scope. He fired a second round, but a fusillade of automatic fire responded, this time from a different position. The volley sprayed in a wide, turning arc, cutting across the firearms guy mid-section, dropping him to the dirt with an agonised gargle. Before either Heck or Reed could move towards him, several slugs punched through the sofa, tufts of spongy stuffing bursting out.
Heck lurched to the right, moving at a crouch again, grabbing Reed by the collar and hauling him along. They shuffled down a weed-filled avenue formed between heaped plastic sacks and piles of string-tied magazines. Green Van Man, who might have had night vision himself, swivelled after them, continually firing, hammering everything he hit into fragments. They went to ground again, and only just in time, bullets whining overhead.
Abruptly, the firing ceased, the protracted, echoing roar taking an age to die away.
Nothingness followed, during which they were deaf and blind. They had no clue where the gunman was, whether he’d moved position again in his quest to find them, or whether he’d seized his chance to do a runner.
But then Heck heard someone approaching from the front.
He gestured at Reed to keep still and tensed where he lay. Just ahead, around the corner of another abandoned, lopsided vehicle, a hunkered shape scuttled into view. Whoever
this was, he hadn’t seen the detectives, and as he crawled past, Heck reached up, snatched him by the collar of his Kevlar vest and yanked him down. With an angry grunt, the newcomer, who was all wiry muscle, rammed a knee into Heck’s groin and smashed a forearm down across his throat, pressing him back into the weeds and stones.
‘Fuck’s sake,’ Heck gasped, noting the white beard and chequer-banded baseball cap.
The eyes in the sweat-drenched face widened and the grip slackened.
‘Fuck are you playing at?’ Renshaw hissed. ‘I could’ve killed you.’
‘Yeah?’ Heck whispered; only then did Renshaw realise that Heck’s Glock was jammed muzzle-on against his genitals.
‘Fucking get off me!’ The firearms officer tore loose and got to his knees.
‘One of your boys got slotted,’ Heck said.
Renshaw whipped back round to him. ‘Who? Where?’
‘Don’t know who. Somewhere to our left …’
‘How badly?’
‘Don’t know.’ Heck kneeled up. ‘About thirty or forty yards that way.’
‘Could be Andy Gillman. Fuck’s sake … I asked you how badly?’
Heck pulled him nose-to-nose. ‘I don’t fucking know … all right?’
‘They’re kitted out with the latest body-plate. They should be—’
‘All I can tell you is he definitely got hurt. We heard him squawk.’
Renshaw looked bewildered and frightened, all trace of his earlier confidence long dissipated.
‘What’s going on, Renshaw?’ Reed hissed. ‘I thought you guys were the experts.’
That seemed to bring Renshaw to. ‘Hey, dipshit! You didn’t tell us we’d be facing firepower like this.’
‘We didn’t know,’ Heck said. ‘But I did warn you that we didn’t know …’
Metal clunked some twenty or thirty yards to their right.
Renshaw risked standing, and raised his MP5 to the firing position, but only so he could look through his night scope. Heck and Reed crab-crawled forward until they were flush against the lopsided vehicle, and then rose up too, flattening themselves on its bodywork and edging around the corner, screening themselves from the shooter’s last position.
‘No sign of the fucker,’ Renshaw said, sliding around to join them.
‘I appreciate that you’re outgunned,’ Reed whispered. ‘But what counteractions did you initiate once you realised that?’
‘Soon as we came under heavy fire, I ordered the lads to pull back,’ Renshaw said. ‘Andy was the only one who didn’t copy. Mustn’t have heard ’cause of the racket. I’ve called in additional units.’ He glanced at the luminous dial of his watch. ‘Five minutes tops. Division are already closing the adjoining roads. We’ll contain this bastard, don’t worry. I summoned a casevac too. Terry Chowdry got hit. Both his fucking legs, poor sod.’
‘So, you’re actually two men down?’ Reed said.
Renshaw’s face twisted into a snarl. ‘Chowdry’s alive, in case you were worried for him.’
‘But he’s out of the fight?’
‘Course he fucking is.’
‘Where is he now?’ Heck asked.
‘Laying low over that way somewhere.’
Renshaw gestured vaguely, as though unsure of the actual direction, which, in truth, they all now were, having been turned around so many times. Their vision had attuned – some moonlight penetrated under the bridge, but all this really did was create a wasteland of jumbled, indistinct shapes.
‘Where’d you say Gillman was?’ Renshaw asked.
‘Round the other side of this thing,’ Heck tapped the wreck they were sheltering behind, ‘and down that alley through the trash.’
Renshaw nodded and moved to the corner.
Heck went with him. ‘From where we are now, I’d say two o’clock. But, sir … if support units are en route, we’re better sitting tight.’
Renshaw’s features were saturnine in the dimness, but his eyes glinted. ‘If it was one of your lads, what would you do?’
There was no rational objection Heck could make to that.
Renshaw slid around the corner. They leaned out to watch his progress. The alley they’d come down was only faintly illuminated but looked to be clear.
‘You two get your arses out of here,’ Renshaw whispered back. ‘Don’t go to your car. Get out of the lorry park. RV on the same road where we hooked up earlier. Copy?’
Heck looked at Reed. They both nodded.
Renshaw turned back to the alley – only to find that the outline of a man had now risen into view from behind the rubbish bags at its far end. He stood to about five-foot-seven, and was of stocky build, with a bull neck and a flat, anvil-shaped head.
He was also levelling a firearm.
Renshaw raised his own weapon, shouting that they were police officers – but the blinding blast of automatic fire hurled him backward, slamming him against the vehicle, right at the corner alongside which Heck and Reed stood goggle-eyed, his blood spattering up its battered green bodywork.
Green.
Incredibly, even in that whirlwind moment, there was time for Heck to realise that they’d unwittingly come up against the very vehicle they’d been chasing.
Vaguely aware of Renshaw flopping lifelessly down, he and Reed scrambled back to the other side of it, unsure whether or not the gunman had seen them. There was even more rubbish here; no immediate flight was possible without clattering over heaps of twisted metal and creating a fearsome racket. Instead, they had to lurch down the length of the van until they reached its front end, which had mashed full on with an immense concrete stanchion.
The cab hadn’t been completely crushed, but the roof had concertinaed down, the reinforced windshield had been bashed in and the driver’s door hung from a single warped hinge.
They halted, breathing hard, listening.
From the other side, they heard the gunman kicking his way through the detritus. He was coming.
Heck pointed. On the immediate right of the vehicle’s shattered front, if they slid between the stanchion and an upended refrigerator, it looked as if open space beckoned.
Reed went first, turning sideways to negotiate the gap. As Heck waited, he glanced back to the far end of the van. No figure had appeared there yet, but a heavy tread drew closer. As he turned back, ready to push through after Reed, his eyes fell on something else: a ragged old rucksack lying in the driver’s side footwell.
It was nothing, an old canvas thing with shoulder straps, fastened with two buckles – but it had to contain something belonging to the man who’d caused this carnage. And if Heck was about to flee from here and continue the enquiry another day, it only made sense for the rucksack to flee with him.
He reached in and yanked it out of the van. It was heavier than he’d expected, but he jammed it under his arm as he slid through the gap between the stanchion and the fridge. As he did, the shooter appeared at the far end of the vehicle and opened up.
The fridge took the brunt, flying apart in a rain of shrapnel. But Heck was already past it, slinging the rucksack over his shoulder as he ran hell for leather into the darkness.
Chapter 31
Even in circumstances like these, Heck was loath to peg blind shots behind him. Renshaw had said he’d pulled his remaining men back, but he hadn’t said where to – which meant they could still be within range. Not that there was time to ponder this. The submachine gun continued to chatter as they fled, hails of lead ripping through the objects they ducked and dodged around, a wheelie bin bursting apart, a stack of tyres shredded like paper.
Green Van Man clearly didn’t have a night-sight himself; he was taking pot-luck as he pursued them, raking the darkness with bursts of fire, only stopping to reload, which he did quickly and efficiently.
‘How many fucking clips does that nutcase have?’ Reed stammered.
Heck was too busy trying not to lose his footing to respond.
‘And what’s the fucking point?’ The DI turne
d to shout over his shoulder. ‘You mad, mate? There’s coppers closing in from all over London! You should get away while you can!’
The response was another protracted fusillade, the stroboscopic muzzle flash only fifty yards behind, slugs whipping past.
‘He wants this rucksack,’ Heck panted, as they pelted across firmer ground. ‘It can only be this!’
If it was true that they possessed something so valuable to the maniac, that was all the more reason not to relinquish it, of course. Either way, Reed barely heard; he was too distracted by a twinkling line of streetlights ahead of them – they’d run southward down the length of the flyover, but were now veering east, looking to emerge on the other side.
Their stalker ceased firing, but maybe that was to ascertain their position. And in short order, he managed this, zeroing in as they raced out from beneath the overhanging concrete into brighter moonlight, his weapon opening up again. They separated, running in zigzags across flat cement, myriad chunks of which catapulted loose as it was peppered with gunfire.
Seeing that they were in some kind of empty compound encircled by high mesh, Heck veered left towards what looked like a single gate, on the other side of which loomed a boarded-up church. In contrast, Reed spun around, dropped to one knee, took aim with both hands and fired three shots into the shadows.
The submachine gun was abruptly silenced.
Heck ran on. As he reached the gate, he leapt, slamming it with the flat of his foot. The impact was massive, jarring his ankle and knee, but the bolt was corroded, and it snapped, the gate swinging open.
‘Jack!’ he shouted, spinning back, mopping the sweat from his eyes.
Reed had risen slowly to his feet, weapon dressed down, but instead of running was scanning the shadows, certain he’d scored a hit.
‘Jack!’ Heck hollered. ‘Over here!’
Reed turned and walked slowly, only belatedly breaking into a trot. ‘Think I might’ve—’
‘No!’ Heck interrupted him. ‘You haven’t!’
‘Seriously, Heck …’
Reed was ten yards away when a strobe-like flame bloomed again – just to the left of where it had been previously. The DI jolted around three-sixty degrees, before dropping to the ground.