Death Games

by Chris Simms

  A few drivers from cars that had pulled up retreated to the open doors of their vehicles. He could see at least one mobile phone trained on him as he went down on one knee. The man inside was about thirty. He’d managed to get the door partly open. He looked Greek, maybe. Dark eyes were unfocused as he pawed at the nonexistent window.

  ‘Sir, can you hear me. Sir?’

  The man grunted as he tried to push his way through the gap.

  ‘Sir, it’s OK. An ambulance is on its way. Can you hear me?’

  He appeared not to. Fingers curled round the empty window frame and he began to tug desperately at it.

  ‘Hang on.’ The officer grabbed the edge of the door and pulled. It creaked open another few inches and the man immediately wormed his way out. Trying to raise himself onto all fours, he began to retch.

  ‘Sir, you’re safe. It’s OK.’ He placed a hand on the man’s shoulder. ‘You’re safe there.’

  He now started trying to stand. Jesus, thought the officer. Is he hearing anything? ‘Sir, it’s better if you – ’

  Almost on one knee, the man began to keel over.

  ‘I’ve got you, I’ve got you.’ Draping one of the man’s arms about his shoulders, Paul managed to walk him towards the hard shoulder. He noticed the man’s other arm swinging uselessly about. ‘Let’s sit you on the barrier here. The ambulance will be with us soon, OK?’

  Groggily, the man began to look around. He coughed. On the far side of the motorway, the screaming had grown more shrill. The officer looked across: orange flickers. Vehicle fire. Oh fuck. ‘Stay there!’ He pointed at the man’s chest. ‘Just stay there!’ He span round and ran towards the central barriers.

  The workman who had been waving both arms above his head was now sitting down, legs stretched out before him. He was examining the sky with a serene expression. Not wanting to lose seconds running back to the gap in the barriers, Paul climbed over the metal railings. Steve was at the driver’s door of the Z3, attempting to get it open. Flames were coming out from beneath the stoved-in front of the van, oily smoke churning upwards. A workman in an orange tabard was struggling to get a fire extinguisher started. It let out a brief, explosive whoosh. Paul remembered hearing a dolphin surface. It had been off the coast of Cornwall. Their family holiday last summer. He wished he was back there.

  ‘Won’t open,’ Steve cursed.

  Inside the car, the teenager continued to shriek and yell. ‘Get me out, get me fucking out, get me out!’ He kept turning to look at the flames licking the shattered windscreen.

  Paul moved to the back of the car, removed a bulbous-headed tool from his belt and put the rear window in with a series of quick blows. ‘This way! Out here! Come on!’

  The lad scrambled back over the seats. His arms emerged and Paul grabbed one, hauling him clear of the vehicle. As he flopped down on the tarmac, Steve took hold of his other arm. They marched him a safe distance up the hard shoulder. Behind them came more sounds of dolphins surfacing. Lots of them. The fire extinguisher had obviously started working.

  A siren that had steadily been growing louder cut off. Second unit, finally. Paul looked to his right to see Derek and Ian clambering over the barrier.

  ‘Any other casualties?’ Derek called across.

  ‘Check the lorry driver, I think he was alone,’ Paul shouted back. ‘And the Highways workmen, I’m not sure if any were hit. You got him?’ he asked Steve.

  ‘Yup.’

  Paul turned round. He needed to get back to the upturned Honda and box things off. People were out of their vehicles again, but staying close to them. He ran back to the interceptor, opened the boot and removed a foil blanket, a roll of police tape and a stack of bollards. As he jogged in the direction of the flipped car, he noticed a snack-sized bag of carrots. A carton of orange juice. Stuff flung from the interior as it had rolled. A mechanical arm, about a foot long, with propellers on the end. Another one, then the rest of it: a drone. A camcorder, the outer casing broken open and the lens shattered. He skirted round the vehicle. The man had gone. Paul looked left, right, then behind him at the wreckage. No sign of him.

  ‘Excuse me!’ He started towards the queue of stationary traffic. One of the watching drivers pointed towards the screen of shrubs beyond the hard shoulder.

  ‘He ran off down there.’

  CHAPTER 1

  ‘Mmm, I love shiny things.’ The Weapon Inventory Officer wiggled his fingers in the air, like a kid who couldn’t decide which type of toy to pick. ‘Don’t you love shiny things?’

  Detective Constable Jon Spicer gazed down at the open weapons box in the car boot. At the back was a baton gun with a variety of 38mm rounds: ones for disrupting a vehicle’s tyres, ones for filling a room with crystallised CS gas and ones just for knocking a violent rioter flat on his back, unable to do anything but gasp.

  Next to that was a Glock 17 handgun, with a selection of tools that could be attached to the rail beneath the barrel. Of these, Jon could only ever see himself using a tactical light if the building he was entering was dark. The laser attachment just annoyed him and the window breaker was, in his opinion, crap.

  The front part of the slide-out tray was taken up by the main item. Jon let his eyes linger. There was no denying it; the dull gleam of firearms sent a tingle down his spine – and the MCX had a special allure. Most of his training had been spent with a G36c, a decent enough assault rifle. It certainly had served the interests of firearms units up and down the country well enough. But rumours were swirling that the carbine was about to be replaced by a different model – and just as Jon was sent to do the Specialist Firearms course, the MCXs had arrived. Lightweight and modular, they looked the absolute business. A couple of spare magazines were embedded in the foam casing beside it. Jon flipped them out and dipped them by sliding a thin length of metal in beside the bullets. Each time, it stopped at the 30 mark. Satisfied the magazines were full, he replaced them and lifted up the grab-bag. Inside would be another seven magazines for the MCX, two for the Glock and six stun grenades. The seal that tied the bag was intact and he checked the issuing number against the one in the WIO’s book. They matched.

  The officer looked up at Jon’s face. ‘All your bits and pieces present and correct?’

  ‘Looks it to me, cheers.’ He jotted his signature at the base of the page.

  ‘Lovely. Now you need to set a number for the combination lock. Four digits. Most people do a family member’s date of birth.’

  His wife’s face appeared in his mind, swiftly followed by Holly’s and Doug’s. Unwilling to favour one child over the other – even in his head – Jon leaned forward and punched in 0511. Fifth of November. Alice’s birthday. ‘Done.’

  ‘OK, back we go. Where’s your desk?’ the WIO asked, short steps taking him to the corner of the indoor parking area. The set of keys dangling from his belt was very loud.

  Jon took one last look at the small arsenal that lay before him. He couldn’t quite believe he had responsibility for it. What the hell, he thought, are Greater Manchester Police thinking? He slammed the boot shut and followed the other man. ‘Apparently. Nick...bollocks, can’t remember his sur – ’

  ‘Grant?’

  ‘That’s him.’ Jon cursed himself: first proper day in the new job and his inability to remember names was already embarrassing him. ‘He’s sorting me out.’

  ‘Good-o.’

  The man’s blustery manner was beginning to grate slightly. Jon wondered what part of his training he’d messed up to be landed with the role of WIO. A large white van with BT OpenReach markings started reversing out from a row of commercial vehicles on the far side of the garage. Impressive, Jon thought. They’d even etched some graffiti in the grime that coated the rear doors. No way anyone would realise that was a surveillance vehicle.

  The WIO was stamping his way up a set of metal stairs. They led to the door into the main facility. ‘Where is Granty?’ he called over his shoulder.

  ‘Not sure.’ Jon took the
stairs two at a time. ‘We were on our way to find you, then he got a call.’

  The WIO held his card to a panel and the door clicked. ‘Don’t forget.’ He pointed to the sign above the panel.

  No tailgating! You must swipe your own card each time you enter or exit.

  Jon went to hold his own card against the reader. The lanyard hadn’t been designed for someone his height and he had to bend forward slightly. Immediately beyond the door was a brightly-lit room. Mirrors lined one wall, lockers the other. Two dishevelled-looking men were sitting before the mirrors. A petite Latino-looking woman in jeans and a white shirt was using a spatula to smear what looked like wet clay into one of the men’s hair. On the floor beside her was a case full of bottles, tubes, pastes, brushes and pads. Like Alice’s make-up bag, Jon thought, but on steroids.

  ‘Christ, Alan,’ the WIO said loudly. ‘You remind me of me after my stag night.’ An approval-seeking glance was sent in Jon’s direction. ‘Right messy, it got.’

  The other man raised a cut-down Costa Coffee cup. ‘Spare some change, mate?’

  The WIO flicked two fingers. ‘Get a job, crack-head. This big bastard, by the way, is DC Jon Spicer.’ The WIO was carrying straight on towards the far door. ‘He’s Specialist Firearms, joining Granty’s lot by the sounds of it.’

  Jon reached out and quickly shook their hands.

  ‘Alan.’

  ‘Guy.’

  ‘Good to meet you.’ Jon directed a quick glance at the girl doing their make-up. ‘You had me fooled.’

  ‘Cheers.’ As she ran a hand through her jet-black hair, he was struck by the colour of her eyes: bright blue. He hurried after the WIO, wondering where she could be from. Brazil, or somewhere like that, maybe?

  ‘So,’ the WIO was holding open the door. ‘Did I hear mention that you’ve joined us from the Major Incident Team?’

  Here we go, Jon thought. Tongues have been wagging. ‘That’s right.’

  They set off down a long corridor. ‘But fancied the Counter Terrorism Unit instead?’

  Jon readied the response he had prepared. ‘Racing around after proper bad guys – who wouldn’t?’

  The WIO sent a brief look sideways. Jon felt the man’s eyes lingering on his ear, or rather the top of it that was missing. ‘I heard you gave a very good account of yourself over in Ireland. What was it? Five blokes in a dog-fighting gang you took on?’

  Jon wanted to sigh. The episode had cost him his position in the MIT, a role he had loved. It had also cost him the rank of Detective Inspector. Now here he was, busted back to Detective Constable. Mind you, he said to himself for the thousandth time, if the Counter Terrorism Unit hadn’t come calling, he’d be in uniform: a constable at over forty-years-old. ‘You make them sound like a proper outfit. They weren’t.’

  ‘Not what I heard. I heard they were about to – ’

  ‘Jon! Sorry about that.’ Nick Grant had stepped out of a room further along the corridor.

  Thanks Christ, thought Jon. ‘No problem.’

  The officer nodded at the WIO. ‘Michael shown you to your car?’

  ‘All signed off,’ Michael said before Jon could speak. ‘Detective Constable Spicer, maybe continue this conversation next time we meet?’ He took a left turn.

  Nick waited a moment. ‘So, you’ve met Michael,’ he announced quietly.

  Jon gave a nod.

  ‘Right prick, isn’t he?’ Nick grinned. ‘Don’t worry: we all know it.’

  Jon smiled uncertainly. ‘Well, he did seem a bit...’

  ‘Full of himself?’ You wouldn’t have thought he totally bollocksed his SFO course would you? I’ll give you the gory details sometime. You’ll piss yourself. Anyway, this call I took. There’s been a nasty RTA out on the M60.’

  ‘I heard something on the radio earlier, on my way in. They’ve had to close both sides?’

  ‘That’s the one. Just past junction three. One fatality, a few others injured. You’re wondering why they want us?’

  ‘Yup.’

  Nick started walking him back to the garage area. ‘Turns out one of the vehicles had false plates. Not only that, there was a drone on board. They also checked the glove compartment and found some maps with handwritten notes on. Some weird language.’

  ‘Have they identified the dead guy?’

  ‘Negative. He had no identification. None whatsoever. There was also a passenger in his car. A male who needed to be dragged from the wreckage. He’s done one, despite his injuries. Fled.’

  ‘Interesting.’

  ‘DCI Pinner wondered if you fancied tagging along? Me and Hugh Lambert need to collect the drone’s camera, then secure any other interesting evidence and the like. You did plenty of that in the MIT, I assume?’

  ‘Years of it.’

  ‘Great. Hugh’s meeting us downstairs. We’ll go in my car.’

  CHAPTER 2

  As the new detective and Nick Grant strode purposefully back through the room known as the departure lounge, the female was snapping shut the clips on the box of theatrical make-up. ‘You’re good to go.’

  The officer she’d been working on stood and frowned at his reflection. Grime was etched into the wrinkles of his forehead. His eyes appeared sunken through lack of sleep. ‘She’s got the touch. That’s bloody ace, cheers, Iona.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ she replied. ‘I’ll let you put the effects box back, I’ve got a meeting to make. And be careful out there.’ She hurried back into the main part of the building, checking her watch as she went. Almost eight. Damn it, she said to herself. She couldn’t stand being late.

  She darted into the women’s wash room, grateful to be among the few female officers in the CTU: never a problem with crowded facilities. Standing before the row of empty sinks, she washed the smears of make up from her fingers and sneaked a quick look in the mirror. Her oval face was framed by hair that hung to her shoulders. On starting in the CTU, she’d had it cut in a very short bob. Big mistake. She was aiming for businesslike, but ended up – in her opinion – more like school kid.

  Up in the main operations room, she swung past her desk, snatched up her daybook and continued towards the murmur of voices coming from one of the two meeting rooms at the far end.

  All seats at the central table had been taken. Seeing some photocopied sheets on its corner, she took one and then slipped into a spare chair near the door, eyes going to the clock up on the wall. Seven-fifty-nine. Just made it.

  A moment later, DCI Martin Weir looked up. ‘OK, everyone.’ He waited as conversations rapidly died away. ‘This package is part of a wider thing resulting from foreign intelligence. It’s a mop-up operation, basically. The dead guy on your top sheet is a British citizen.’

  Iona took a moment to study the image. It was of a man’s face and shoulders. He appeared to be laid out on a concrete floor with the camera pointing straight down at him. Most of the long black hair was caked in blood. The face was puffy; bruising had forced both eyes shut, his nose was a shapeless lump and his lips were so swollen, the skin had burst open in several places.

  ‘He was captured recently by militia forces our government has been funding out in Syria. He was the only survivor from a group of four Isis fighters. During interrogation, he gave up some information that the Syrian guys passed to us. It’s got merit.’

  Merit, Iona thought. Corroborated by secondary sources, therefore more than the desperate claims anyone being tortured would come out with.

  ‘A couple of years ago, Isis forces over-ran an Iraqi Army base near Tikrit. The Iraqis, in their rush to get the hell out, left behind eight surface-to-air missiles. FIM-92 Stingers which can be shoulder-fired by a single operator. A great deal of effort has since gone into getting these back.’

  No wonder, Iona thought. Allied forces in the region relied on having total domination of the skies. Isis didn’t – as yet – have an airforce. But ownership of several Stingers dramatically altered the balance of power.

  ‘Next sheet,’ her s
enior officer instructed. The sound of rustling paper briefly filled the room. The page was filled by a grainy image of a desert crater. ‘That’s a satellite image of what was an Isis command post in Western Iraq. The bomb that took it out is believed to have destroyed six of those missiles. One other missile was handed over in return for a senior Isis figure American special forces snatched close to Mosul last year. The whereabouts of the last missile has remained a mystery, until the guy you were just looking at was taken. Turn your sheets again, please.’

  The image below was of a healthy-looking male, probably mid to late thirties.

  ‘This is our man, during happier times. Name: Feiz Atwi, formerly of 33 Richmond Grove, Longsight. He’s from quite a large extended family here in Manchester. Originally, they came to this country from Lebanon – displaced during its civil war in the 1980s. He has one sister. The dad has two brothers, one is married with two sons, one married with one son. The mum has a sister who also lives close by: she married a Lebanese man, called Gibran Yared. You’ll find all this in the family tree in the file.’

  A voice came from the back. ‘Was Feiz Atwi known to us?’

  ‘To the CTU, no. To local bobbies? Yes. I’d classify him as a nuisance; low-level stuff like driving without insurance, threatening behaviour, handling stolen goods. Similar situation with his cousins.’

  ‘But nothing to suggest Feiz was developing any radical views?’ Iona asked.

  ‘Not until he showed up in Syria. So, he gets himself captured and, during his questioning, mentioned that an attack was being planned. This attack involved the use of the final Stinger missile.’

  He paused a moment before continuing.

  ‘You’re all aware, I presume, of our Royal Family’s tradition of sending their younger members to serve in the armed forces?’