Random Targets

by James Raven

  ‘Well, what do you know?’ he said, barely able to contain his excitement.

  The vehicle registration was clearly visible.

  CHAPTER 14

  TEMPLE PHONED IN the registration on his way back to the incident room. By the time he got there the team had discovered that the vehicle – a six-year-old Fiesta – had been reported stolen three days earlier from a street in Eastleigh near Southampton.

  Two detectives were on their way to talk to the owner who, according to the DVLA, was a 50-year-old woman named Susan Kline. A nationwide alert for the car was triggered and Temple told the press office to put out a news release. He also wanted to know immediately if it turned up on other CCTV footage in the area.

  Then he got the team together for another briefing and asked Chief Superintendent Beresford to attend. He told them about his meeting with Mrs Larkin. Then he showed them the footage from the Global Imports security camera which Barry had obligingly transferred to a memory stick.

  ‘This has to be our man,’ Temple said. ‘He parked the car as near to the bridge as he could. He must have known the industrial estate would be deserted. Look at the rucksack he’s carrying. It’s big enough to accommodate one of those rifles that fold up.’

  It was the kind of breakthrough that detectives hope for on any investigation and it generated an enthusiastic buzz in the room.

  ‘I can’t believe he didn’t spot the camera,’ Beresford said.

  ‘Maybe he did,’ Temple said. ‘He knew we wouldn’t be able to identify him from the footage. Showing himself like this might be part of his game. He’s playing with us.’

  Beresford nodded. ‘He’s obviously an attention-seeker. Why else leave the message under the bridge?’

  ‘Well, he’s about to get a bucket-load of attention,’ Temple said. ‘I want this footage on every TV channel. And I want images from it plastered all over tomorrow’s papers.’

  The security footage was a big boost to morale. There’d been no other significant developments during the morning. If they were lucky someone might recognize the man from his walk. Or maybe the rucksack would jog a memory. What they really needed was a shot of the bastard’s face.

  Nevertheless Temple told the team they had good reason to be pleased. Only eighteen hours after the shootings and they already had CCTV footage of a likely suspect. That was in addition to the forensic evidence – the bullets and the shoe prints. It didn’t amount to much, but it was more than they often had this early on in a major inquiry.

  He listened to various updates. Provisional postmortem reports confirmed that only two of the drivers had died from bullet wounds, the others from injuries caused by the crash. There appeared to be no link between any of the victims. They were just ordinary people: random targets. Two had lived in Southampton, one in the New Forest, one in Winchester and one along the coast in Bournemouth. A total of eight children had become orphans as a result of the crash. Calls had been flooding in from members of the public. Some were claiming they knew the identity of the shooter, others asking whether it was safe to use the motorways. This came as no surprise to Temple. A crime on this scale was bound to encourage people to pick up the phone. Most would feel they had something important to pass on. But a sick minority would be intent on wasting police time. All the calls had to be followed up because you never knew which of them would turn into a credible lead.

  When the meeting broke up, Temple returned to his shoebox of an office which had a view over the docks. There were no personal affects other than a framed photograph of his daughter Tanya. She was living in London now, having left university. She’d got a job as an account manager in an ad agency. He hadn’t seen her for three months and had yet to meet the new boyfriend she was sharing a flat with.

  He sat behind his desk and fired up his computer. He wanted to flesh out some vague memories he had of sniper attacks in other countries.

  And it didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for. There were dozens of news reports and features.

  1992 Lyons, France … A sniper had opened fire on drivers travelling along a motorway crowded with holidaymakers. A dozen vehicles were hit by bullets. One person was shot and wounded and three others were injured by broken glass.

  2004 Ohio, USA … A man hunted for a deadly string of motorway sniper attacks had been captured in a Las Vegas hotel. He was believed to have carried out twelve random shootings along Interstate 270.

  2011 The Netherlands … A man armed with a rifle fired at cars on the A4 motorway near Rotterdam. The public prosecutor put up a 10,000 euro reward for information that proved helpful in catching the gunman.

  Temple then came across a series of articles on the infamous Washington snipers. A dozen people had been killed and others critically injured in 2002 when two men carried out rifle attacks in Washington DC and along Interstate 95. He remembered there was widespread fear and commotion. Rewards totalling a million dollars were offered and eventually the killers were caught and convicted. But not before they’d established themselves as two of the most notorious criminals in American history.

  Temple sat back in his chair and released a long, loud breath. It all made for depressing reading. Random attacks of this nature were easy to commit and bloody hard to solve. What’s more, UK motorways were at saturation point. Hundreds of thousands of vehicles thundered along them every day. A nutcase armed with a high-powered rifle could cause mayhem. For the most part the roads ran through rural areas – trees, fields, wooded embankments: a million places to hide and wait and fire at unsuspecting motorists.

  His mobile rang – a sharp, crisp chirp. It came as a welcome distraction. He snatched it from his pocket and checked the caller ID. It was DC Marsh.

  ‘Hello, detective,’ he said. ‘Did you manage to drop in at the hospital?’

  ‘I did, sir. That’s why I’m ringing. It’s Angel. She’s not too good.’

  There was a sudden tightening in Temple’s throat.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘They won’t tell me, sir. But they’ve just whisked her away for some tests. She was complaining of a bad headache. I thought you ought to know.’

  ‘I’ll be right there.’

  CHAPTER 15

  TEMPLE TOLD THE incident room coordinator that he had to go somewhere in a hurry. He didn’t say where. Just that he could be reached on his mobile. Then he rushed out of the office and down to his car.

  Fifteen minutes later DC Marsh met him outside the general hospital’s main entrance. She looked utterly exhausted as well as anxious. Her cheeks were flushed and she had dark semicircles beneath her eyes. She filled him in as they hurried up the stairs.

  ‘Angel was awake when I got here,’ she said. ‘She seemed happy to see me and we talked for a while. She was worried about her car and wanted to know if it was a write-off. I said I’d find out. But she suddenly started complaining about a severe headache so I called the nurse. Then a doctor came. I was ushered out of the room and they rushed her off to have a CT scan.’

  I should never have left her, Temple told himself. I should have stayed with her until she was over the worst of it.

  ‘I’m sure she’ll be all right, sir,’ Marsh said. ‘Angel is a tough lady.’

  Temple turned to look at her. For the first time it struck him that Fiona Marsh was very much like Angel. They were both bright, confident women. Savvy enough to hold their own in the male-dominated world of the police. It was good that they had become firm friends.

  ‘I’m really glad you were here,’ he said. ‘But you look tired. I think you should go home now and get some rest.’

  ‘I don’t mind staying, sir.’

  ‘I know and I appreciate it, but you’ve been up all night. I’m here now so you can go and recharge your batteries. You’re needed on this sniper investigation.’

  She bit into her bottom lip. ‘Well, if you’re sure. But call me if you need me.’

  ‘I will.’

  He flashed her a smile an
d moved swiftly towards Angel’s room. The nurse he’d met that morning came out from behind her station. When she saw how worried he was, she took his arm and steered him into the little waiting room. There she told him that Angel was having more scans because there was concern about the headache.

  ‘I must stress that this is not uncommon in patients who’ve suffered concussion,’ she said. ‘We just need to find out if there are any problems that didn’t show up last night.’

  ‘When will you know?’

  ‘Very soon. If you wait here, I’ll come and get you when they bring her back up.’

  The moment he was left alone he had an anxiety attack. Adrenaline fizzed through his body and his heart felt like it was beating out of control. He was forced to sit down and take a series of deep breaths.

  He told himself to be positive and not to jump to conclusions. He knew from experience that most people recovered from head injuries, even those injuries that were life-threatening.

  When the nurse came back into the room he tensed, feeling an alarm blast through him.

  ‘Miss Metcalfe is back in her bed,’ she said with a wide, professional smile. ‘You can see her now.’

  He could feel the blood fill his cheeks as he strode along the corridor, one step behind the nurse. When he entered Angel’s private room he was surprised to see that she was sitting up against the pillows, wide awake. Her face broke into a gentle smile when she saw him.

  ‘Fiona called me,’ he said. ‘So I came right away.’

  The nurse left them to it and he stepped up to the bed. He kissed her on the mouth and took one of her hands in his.

  ‘So what did the scan show?’

  As if on cue, a doctor came into the room. One he hadn’t seen before. He stood on the other side of the bed to Temple and introduced himself as Dr Malcolm Fuller. He was forty-odd and had a round, square-jawed face. His eyes were the colour of pale slate.

  To Angel, he said, ‘We have an explanation for the headache, Miss Metcalfe. I’m afraid you have a blood clot. It’s located in the right transverse sinus, that’s a large vein between your brain and your skull, just behind your right ear.’

  Temple felt a clutch of apprehension. He squeezed Angel’s hand and listened intently, his breathing suspended.

  ‘It was almost certainly triggered by the concussion,’ the doctor said. ‘If untreated it could prevent blood from draining out of your brain, leading to a stroke.’

  Temple felt his stomach twist like a corkscrew and Angel drew in a sharp breath.

  ‘So what can be done?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, this type of clot we treat with anticoagulants, or blood thinners,’ the doctor said. ‘To begin with it’ll be administered through an intravenous drip in the arm. Once everything is stable we switch to an oral medicine and the drip is removed. The aim is to stop the clot from spreading. Your body should then dissolve it by itself.’

  ‘How long will that take?’ Angel said.

  The doctor shrugged. ‘No way of knowing for sure. You’ll probably be on the medicine for several weeks after being discharged.’

  ‘So what’s the prognosis?’ Temple asked. ‘She’s going to be all right isn’t she?’

  The doctor held his breath, then released it slowly.

  ‘She’ll be fine provided there are no complications in the next few days,’ he said. ‘That’s why we’ll be monitoring her carefully.’

  Temple suddenly found himself choking back an eruption of raw anger that was levelled against the sicko who had caused this. He wanted to rip the bastard apart – tear off his limbs. It would be nothing more than he deserved for what he’d done to Angel. And for what he’d done to all those other people.

  It took all Temple’s will power to stay quiet and calm. He pressed his lips together and felt a beat at the back of his throat.

  When the doctor left the room Angel said, ‘I’m scared, Jeff.’

  He pulled a chair up to the bed.

  ‘At least they know what’s wrong and they can treat it,’ he said.

  She winced from a dart of pain in her ribs. ‘That doesn’t mean it can’t get worse. Even in the best-case scenario it could be weeks or months before I can get back to work. And maybe I never will.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be thinking like that.’

  ‘It’s hard not to.’

  ‘You’ll be fine.’

  ‘But you don’t know that. Nobody does.’

  ‘Well, the doctor didn’t seem overly concerned,’ Temple said.

  ‘That’s because he doesn’t want to alarm me, but he said there’s a risk of complications developing. You heard him.’

  In an effort to stop her becoming increasingly despondent he tried to distract her by talking about the case. He told her about the CCTV footage and the lines of inquiry they were chasing up. And he said he wouldn’t rest until he’d caught the sniper.

  He wasn’t sure she was listening, though. She just stared at the ceiling, her features pale and drawn. Eventually she succumbed to fatigue and drifted off to sleep.

  Temple kissed her hand and dabbed at the film of perspiration on her forehead with a tissue. Then he sank back into the chair and looked at his watch. It was 3.30 already. The time had flown by and he knew he ought to get going.

  He felt a great wave of tiredness pull at him and closed his eyes. From outside came the mournful sound of a siren. Then voices reached him from the corridor.

  The last thing he heard before falling asleep was his own laboured breathing.

  CHAPTER 16

  RUSH HOUR ON the M3 in Hampshire.

  It was 5.15 p.m. and already dark. He took up a position on a wooded embankment between junctions eight and nine, south of Basingstoke.

  He looked down on the northbound carriageway, facing an endless procession of blazing headlights. It was a cold, dry evening with the traffic flowing freely at an average speed of 80mph. Vehicles were nose to tail; thousands of people cocooned in their metal shells, oblivious to his presence.

  Most were no doubt going home from work. To put their feet up and watch television. Their Tuesday night dose of Emmerdale and Eastenders. But some of them wouldn’t make it. This would be their last journey and this motorway their final destination.

  He‘d arrived half an hour ago and spent the first ten minutes leaving another message for the cops to find. Then he walked through the bushes to the spot he’d chosen a week ago.

  Now he lay on his belly with the rifle resting on the bipod. He gazed through the scope, preparing to acquire his first target. The magnified optics threw up the traffic ten times normal size. The night vision aspect turned everything but the headlights into fishbowl green.

  The vehicles looked close enough to touch. He could see dark shapes beyond the windscreens. He decided to strike at a range of 300 yards. The shells would move faster than the speed of sound so that the actual pile-up would occur about 150 yards away. Perfect.

  He clamped his teeth together and made subtle adjustments to his grip and body position. The crosshairs trembled in the scope and he started to breathe slowly in rhythm with the beat of his heart. He did a quick calculation in his mind, accounting for speed and distance. There was no wind to speak of. Then he selected his target. A lorry travelling in the middle lane. He centred the crosshairs on the driver’s silhouette and held steady for one … two … three seconds.

  Then he squeezed the trigger and the rifle kicked back, but the blast was muted by the suppressor. A heartbeat later he saw the lorry’s windscreen shatter. The huge vehicle swerved into the fast lane, crushing a car against the central barrier before tipping on to its side and sliding along the tarmac. More cars smashed into it and one of them flipped over on top of a motorcyclist. Even from up here he could hear the grinding of metal and the howling of tyres.

  He opened the bolt and the spent shell fell out. He quickly lined up another target. This time a car that was about a hundred yards behind the lorry. It was braking hard along with most other vehicl
es. He centred the crosshairs as before on the driver and pulled the trigger.

  The car veered violently to the left and cartwheeled out of control. It collided with a van and rolled into the path of a four-by-four.

  The knock-on effect was spectacular. Cars, vans, coaches and motorcycles crash into each other with tremendous force. Even those drivers who managed to apply their brakes were rammed from behind.

  The sniper couldn’t help but smile. Two well-aimed shots was all it took to cause bloody mayhem. So fucking easy.

  But he hadn’t finished. He wanted to ramp things up this time. Get the message across that he meant business. That he was not a one-hit wonder.

  So he lowered the rifle and let his senses feast on the havoc he’d caused. The chaos of lights. The hideous noise. The flying debris. The pulverized vehicles.

  It seemed an eternity before the collisions finally stopped. For several long seconds everything went quiet. The carriageway was blocked by wrecked and overturned vehicles. He saw pockets of smoke. One car burst into flames. Steam hissed from broken radiators.

  And then he saw someone on the hard shoulder. A small dark figure moving towards the front. Then another figure appeared further back.

  He looked through the scope and saw they were both male. They appeared to be uninjured and were probably looking to help those who were. He left it a further thirty seconds, by which time more people were moving around down there on the motorway. Through the scope they made big, fat, easy targets.

  He chose two at random. A middle-aged man and a young woman. Both were clearly distressed. Their startled faces were caught in the harsh beams of light. He lined up the crosshairs and shot them both. Their heads exploded in puffs of red.

  Even before their bodies hit the ground he was on the move, scurrying towards the footbridge that was his escape route.