by Cain, Tom
Then they got to this curry house called the Khyber Star. In they went, kicking over tables, sending plates of chicken tikka and pints of beer flying. There were only half a dozen punters in here, and they were bricking it. The women were screaming. The men were dragging them to the door, trying to make them shut up. One of the men slipped on the curry sauce lying on the floor, fell over and got a good kicking before he managed to crawl away. All the waiters had gone behind the bar, trying to get out of the way. But then Random saw one of them, this skinny little Bangladeshi geezer, reach down below the bar and pull something out. It took Random a second to work out what it was because it was the last thing he expected to see. A sawn-off shotgun – what the fuck was that all about?
The Bangladeshi didn’t even know how to use the gun. He just waved it in the general direction of the mob piling into his restaurant, pulled the trigger, and was almost knocked off his feet by the unexpected power of the recoil. The deafening noise of the gun going off was still echoing round the cramped dining-room as a shriek cut through the ringing in everyone’s ears. Random turned his head and saw one of the rioters, a teenage girl, screaming incoherently and pointing to something on the floor. He pushed through the crowd, knocking tables and chairs out of the way to get a better view, and then wished he hadn’t because the thing the girl was pointing at was the mashed-up bloody remains of a lad’s face. The full force of the blast had hit him and blown his eyes, his nose, his mouth – every single recognizable feature – to pulp. They just weren’t there any more.
And suddenly it was like a switch had been flicked. All the positive, high-spirited energy turned nasty in the blink of an eye. Forget the orders to keep violence to a minimum. The people wanted revenge. They wanted blood.
The crowd surged towards the bar. The Bangladeshi threw the gun away, as if he was trying to pretend it had nothing to do with him. But it was too late. People were grabbing the Khyber Star staff and hacking at them with their knives, butchering them where they stood. A couple of the cooks made a run for it. They got to the door and were a few paces out on to the street by the time they were caught and chopped to pieces.
People who’d not been in the Khyber Star saw that, and somehow it infected them with the same bloodlust. Some of them started running towards the pub, the Dutchman’s Head, and there was a new air of menace about their charge. The old man they’d picked up in the truck, Bakunin, was trying to stop them but they were ignoring him. Another, smaller posse was heading in another direction, towards a small car that had crashed broadsides into one of the garbage trucks. A woman was trying to get out of the car.
Random decided to follow the lads who were making for the car. He had the feeling he’d get some more great pictures there.
25
CARVER HEARD THE first bottle-bomb detonating as it hit the road, followed immediately after by several more explosions, then shouting, the squeal of a skidding, desperately braking car and the smash of metal on metal. Then the front door of the pub burst open and there were people streaming in. They were male and female, black and white, aged anywhere from early teens to middle age. They carried knives, pipes, clubs of every kind. One of them was even waving a handgun above his head. All they had in common were the hoods, hats and masks covering their faces and the hostility and aggression blazing in their eyes.
Schultz was staring at the mob, but he didn’t seem scared. The look on his face and the expression in his voice was more one of outrage as he shouted, ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ like they were disobeying an order.
The intruders ignored him. The gun went off, blasting a hole in the ceiling. But it didn’t have the effect they might have expected. Instead of yelling in terror and running for their lives, the regulars in the pub seemed to be galvanized by the sound of the shot. Two or three of them were even pulling out weapons of their own. Carver saw one of them wielding a fearsome-looking machete with a long, curved blade – like a cross between a scythe and a scimitar – that could slice through a human limb as easily as if it was jungle undergrowth.
A battle was breaking out, and Carver wanted no part of it. He looked across at Schultz: ‘Time we got out.’
Schultz snapped right back into the role he had played almost two decades earlier: the tough NCO taking orders from a Special Boat Service officer who’d earned his respect the only way that really counted with him – on the battlefield.
‘Got you, boss.’
‘And bring her.’
Schultz grabbed Chrystal by the upper arm. ‘Where’s the back way out of here?’
‘Through there,’ she said, pointing to a door behind the bar, and trying to make sense of the transformation that had suddenly come over Snoopy, the man who was scared of flying. He didn’t look scared of anything now.
‘Right, love,’ Schultz said. ‘Lead the way. Fast as you can go.’
She lifted up the flap at one end of the bar to let them through, and they followed her into a small kitchen. Schultz stepped across to a rack of knives and got out the longest one he could find. Carver moved past him to a broom that was leaning against the wall. The handle was wooden. He leaned it against a counter, stamped down hard and snapped it in two. Now he had a baton, roughly 75cm long, with a jagged end. Stick that in someone’s throat or face and they’d know all about it; jab the round end hard under their diaphragm or into their kidneys and, again, they’d be nicely softened up.
The back door at the far end of the kitchen led to a small, cobbled yard, no more than four metres across. Plastic crates and empty metal beer kegs were piled against the back wall of the pub. On the far side of the yard were two large, wheeled metal rubbish bins, about one and a half metres high, with hinged metal lids. To the left the yard ended in a double gate made of high, spiked metal bars. The gate was secured by a thick chain. Carver cursed to himself. The girl had led them into a dead end. No! There was a way out. If they rolled one of the bins up to the fence it should give them enough of a leg-up to get over without too much trouble, the girl included.
It was still raining, if anything a little harder than before. No, make that a lot harder.
Carver went up to the nearest bin and positioned himself behind it. He called across to Schultz. ‘Give me a hand.’
Schultz didn’t need to be told what Carver was thinking. One look at the bins and the gate was all it took. He stood next to Carver, stuck his knife in his belt and they started pushing. The swivel wheels rattled against the wet cobbles and swung from side to side as skittishly as a supermarket trolley, but they were making steady progress when Schultz said, ‘What the fuck’s occurring now?’
Carver had been pushing with his arms out and his head down. He looked up to see a group of rioters crossing the road towards the gate, coming in their direction. If the pub hadn’t been overrun by now it would be very soon. There was no way out apart from the gate.
The three of them were trapped.
26
A MUCH OLDER man was leading the rioters coming towards the gate. The hood of his duffle coat was down, enabling Carver to see his painfully thin, sunken face, topped by a few unbrushed tufts of grey hair, the eyes hidden behind rain-spattered, metal-framed glasses. Physically, he was less imposing than any of the people around him, and yet he was unquestionably their leader. ‘Hey, you!’ he shouted out, looking at Carver and the others. ‘What happened in the pub?’
‘Fuckin’ ’ell,’ Schultz hissed. ‘He thinks we’re on his side.’
‘Better not disappoint him.’
‘No worries.’ Schultz raised his voice and called out: ‘Just moppin’ up the bastards now.’
To Carver’s surprise the older man seemed bothered by the news. ‘That wasn’t meant to happen,’ he snapped crossly. He turned his head towards one of the other rioters next to him, a Rasta with his locks piled up inside a knitted tam cap. ‘Open the gates.’
The Rasta stepped forward. He was carrying a heavy-duty, 760mm bolt-cutter. It snapped through the chain like sc
issors through ribbon. Bakunin called out. ‘We need that rubbish bin. Bring it here. Now!’
‘Posh fucker, isn’t he?’ Schultz said to Carver as they started pushing again.
‘Maybe, but he’s getting us out of here.’
Schultz turned his head towards the barmaid. ‘Oi, Chrystal, give us a hand!’
As she joined them, Schultz told her, ‘Don’t say nothing, yeah? Just do whatever we do and we’ll get you out of here. All right?’
She nodded, her expression wide-eyed and fearful.
As they pushed the bin out into the side street, the grey-haired man directed them to turn right. A barricade was being erected about twenty metres away, blocking off the road and preventing any access to Netherton Street. The bin was taken from them and shoved between an overturned Transit van and the side of a parked BMW 5 Series. Carver saw Schultz wincing as the bin scraped along the BMW’s glossy flanks, leaving a trail of dents and scratches in its wake until it was finally jammed solid. More rioters followed, bringing the second bin and a trolley piled with beer kegs.
The massive shadowy figure of a man was perched halfway up the barricade. His back was turned, but something about him sent an apprehensive chill through Carver. A woman who’d been walking beside the trolley called out, ‘Curtis!’ The man stopped what he was doing, turned around and looked at her. ‘What do you want us to do with these?’ she asked.
Carver took in the leather jacket, beanie hat and rugby-player’s face. Curtis was the big man he’d encountered less than half an hour earlier in the abandoned council estate. He hadn’t spotted Carver yet. He was too busy dealing with the woman’s question. He walked over to the trolley, picked up an eleven-gallon keg as easily as if it were a pint of milk and threw it on to the barricade.
Now he spotted Carver, walked right up close and growled, ‘Thought I told you not to come here.’
Carver said nothing.
Curtis looked at him and very quietly said, ‘And now I’m telling you to get the fuck out. All right?’
Carver nodded and started walking away.
‘What was all that about?’ Schultz asked as they headed back up the road.
‘He thought he knew me. Right . . . Time to get back up to Netherton Street. We need to be out of here before this place really kicks off.’
‘Bit late for that,’ said Chrystal, pointedly.
‘So we need to get out even faster, then, don’t we?’
27
THEY HAD REACHED the junction with Netherton Street. The Dutchman’s Head was right beside them. Someone had torn down the pub sign, which was lying on the pavement being stamped on by a rioter in construction boots. A wisp of smoke seemed to be seeping out through one of the upstairs windows. On the ground floor the windows facing the street had been broken and they heard the sound of someone inside, a man, begging for mercy.
The pitiful sound of his pleading caught Carver off-guard and he felt a stabbing pain in his guts at the unwanted memories it brought back: all the times when he had been battered and helpless, down on his knees, or bound and gagged waiting for the end to come.
‘I’m not listening to that,’ said Schultz, pulling his knife out of his belt and stepping towards the broken windows.
Schultz was as impetuous as he was courageous. He never stopped to consider the odds against him when he went into battle. Carver had always been more calculating. He was only willing to risk his neck when he knew what he was up against, had worked out his plan of attack, and possessed the equipment needed to do the job. None of those conditions applied now. He came up behind Schultz, swung his right arm and wrapped it tight around Schultz’s neck, gripping him in a chokehold. ‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing we can do.’
Carver could feel the energy coursing through Schultz’s body. He was fired-up, breathing heavily, the knuckles of his right hand white with tension around the handle of his knife. Carver readied himself. Schultz might just be so angry he’d try to fight his way out of the hold. He wouldn’t take kindly to being shown up in front of Chrystal, who was watching the two men anxiously. She’d trusted her safety to these two. The last thing she needed was them starting on each other.
‘Stop it!’ she cried out. ‘Stop fighting!’
For a second or two they stayed locked together, then Carver felt the tension ease a fraction from Schultz’s body and heard a grunt of grudging assent. He let his arm drop from the other man’s neck. They stepped apart. Neither man said a word, but when Carver turned round and walked out into Netherton Street itself Schultz and Chrystal both followed him.
And walked right into a vision of total, unrestrained anarchy.
Fires had broken out everywhere: parked cars were ablaze, and searing orange and yellow flames billowed from the scorched windows of looted shops. The rioters had trapped several cars in Netherton Street, cutting off their attempts at escape. One was slewed across the road. Its driver’s door was open and a man’s body was hanging half out of it, suspended from his safety belt. A group of kids who barely even looked in their teens were clustered around another car. An elderly woman was lying motionless on the ground beside it, but they were ignoring her completely as they squabbled amongst themselves, fighting for the right to get in and drive. Small groups of rioters were running to and fro aimlessly, looking for something to do, some new target to attack.
Carver looked up the street and saw a blue alarm light flashing outside the Lion Market. The shutters were half-down, evidently blocked by some obstruction, though he could not see what it was: the dozen or so people gathered outside, shouting and throwing things, were in the way. One of them made a dart for the shopfront and dived under the shutter. A few seconds later he rolled out again, clutching his head. Blood was streaming through his fingers. Carver thought of the big lad he’d seen putting out the fruit and veg. It looked like he was holding the fort. The other one, behind the counter, had been no one’s idea of a fighter.
He looked around for a means of escape and his spirits fell even further. Both ends of the road were completely blocked by garbage trucks, and both trucks had people by them. It would be next to impossible to sneak past undetected.
A car had skidded to a halt by one of the trucks. Another scrum of people was gathered round it. They’d pulled open the door and were dragging out a woman. She was long-limbed and slender as a gazelle, and about as defenceless, too, as she writhed frantically, trying to wriggle out of her attackers’ grasp and evade the punches they were raining down on her, and making futile attempts to hit or scratch them back. Some of the men around her had hunting knives or machetes in their hands, their blades glinting in the firelight.
This time Schultz didn’t give Carver the chance to stop him. He just started running towards the car.
‘Shit!’ muttered Carver. He looked at his old sergeant. It was one thing being calculating enough to stop him doing something stupid. It was quite another standing by and watching him go to his death. ‘Stay here,’ he said to Chrystal. ‘Do nothing. I’ll be back.’
And then he sprinted after Schultz, his baton in his hand, straight towards the mob and the screaming, desperate woman.
28
PAULA MIKLOSKO WASN’T thinking any more. She was barely conscious of fear or pain. Hers were the raw, instinctive, un conscious reactions of a trapped animal, operating on nothing but survival instinct. The snarling, shouting faces around her were as much animal as human, too; as untamed and unfeeling as a pack of wolves.
Through the crowd she could see another two men rushing towards her like more scavengers running to feed on a bloodied corpse. But then they got to the pack and suddenly everything changed. She saw a knife flash and blood spurt from a severed throat, and another one of her attackers double over as a blade sliced into his gut. One of the new arrivals had what looked like a stick in his hand. It didn’t seem like much of a weapon but he was jabbing it at his targets and following up with a blur of kicks and jabbed elbows that left them doubled over in pa
in – and defenceless against further brutally effective slaps to their lower faces that made their heads twist round on their necks and sent them spinning to the ground.
Most of the men around her took one look at the clinical brutality being meted out and ran for it. But one stood his ground. His face was hidden behind a black balaclava and a pair of goggles with a black metal cylinder that looked like a small torch attached to them. He looked like some kind of futuristic warrior in a suit of black armour plating as he reached round to the small of his back and pulled a gun out of his waistband. He raised his arm, bringing the gun to bear on the two onrushing men. But before his arm had even straightened in front of him the knife was flashing through the air and burying itself up to its hilt in his throat. He dropped the gun and fell to the ground, dead by the time he hit the pavement.
One of the newcomers came up and took Paula in his arms. ‘You OK?’ he asked, looking into her eyes as though they might give him the answer he needed.
Paula mumbled some kind of incoherent reply. The man who was holding her said, ‘It’s all right, it’s all right,’ and it was the tone of his voice more than the words themselves that calmed her a little.
The other man, the taller and burlier of the two, was standing over the corpse. He picked up the gun that was lying nearby. He took the magazine out, checked it, replaced it and racked the slide. Then he said, ‘Piece of Chinese shit, but it might just come in handy.’
Carver heard Schultz’s voice, but in the deafening cacophony of the riot could not make out what he’d just said. He turned his head in Schultz’s direction and was about to ask, ‘What?’ when something caught his eye: something black on the side of the dead man’s head. He pointed at it and shouted, ‘What’s that?’