Blood, Bullets and Blue Stratos lom-2

by Tom Graham

‘You’re no idiot, Verden,’ Sam said, wondering where the hell Gene was and why he was taking so bloody long about it. ‘You know you can’t bring down the state just by setting off a few bombs and cutting up coppers like me. If it was that easy, the IRA would have beaten you to it long ago.’

  ‘The IRA!’ laughed Verden. ‘All they care about is their rotten little patch of bogland over the Irish Sea. Small fry. Papist lunatics, as bad as you fascist police thugs.’

  ‘We’re not fascists and you know it. We uphold the law.’

  ‘Does the black community agree with you on that? And what about the Asians? And the homosexuals? And anyone too poor and lowly to enjoy the protection of the goitred aristocrats who carve this country up between themselves like it was a side of roast beef?’

  ‘I …’ stammered Sam. ‘I don’t know the word “goitred”. And I won’t deny that there’s prejudice and corruption in the force. God knows, where I come from three-quarters of my department would be doing time themselves the way they carry on. But all that’s changing. Coppers like me are changing it — from the inside.’

  ‘Oh, well, in that case, everything’s fine, we can all go home,’ grinned Verden, and fired up the drill. It howled. Carol licked her lips in anticipation. Sam’s mouth went dry. The drill fell silent, and Verden said, ‘Coppers like you won’t change anything. But the glorious Red Hand Faction will.’

  ‘By blowing up banks like you did tonight? You’re kidding yourself.’

  ‘We’ve got explosives. We’ve got guns. We’ve got men — and women.’ He flashed a smile at Carol. ‘And we’ve got conviction. And we’re not going to stop. Our little car bomb this evening was to show we’re not bluffing. It was to show the likes of you that, when we say we can strike, we’re serious. Tomorrow, we’ll hit a courthouse perhaps. The day after that, a police station. Or a petrol station. Or what about one those big, shiny, expensive public schools that groom all those fee-paying baby fascists to inherit the regime? How does hitting a public school sound to you, Carol? Any suggestions which one we should take a crack at?’

  ‘Chichester Academy for Young Ladies,’ said Carol.

  ‘Aah, a personal grudge, I think,’ smiled Verden, winking to Sam. ‘The truth is, there’s no telling where we’ll pop up next. But we’ll pop up somewhere. And then, while you’re scooping up the bodies, we’ll pop up somewhere else. And we’ll keep on popping up — in hospitals and underground trains, at airports and in shopping centres — until the ordinary people of this filthy, capitalist, abomination of a country start to realize that you and your corporate masters can’t save them, and they rise up and rip you to pieces.’

  ‘You’ll kill the very people your revolution is supposed to save.’

  ‘Omelettes and eggs,’ said the Captain dismissively. ‘We’re playing the long game. Between now and the glorious day, there’s a lot of tough decisions to be made. But we’re prepared for that. And, once the common man — and woman — understands what we’re doing, they’ll be right alongside us, every one of them.’

  ‘It’ll never happen,’ said Sam.

  ‘Not in my lifetime or yours,’ said Verden. ‘But our names will go down in history as the ones who started the ball rolling. We will inspire new generations with our example, and they will take up the torch when we’re dead and gone, until, one day, in a thousand years …’

  Verden trailed off, lost in his imagination. Carol gazed at him, drinking in every word of her hero’s madness. Sam glanced wildly about, looking for inspiration. There must be some way he could get out of these cuffs. He fought down the rising panic that threatened to overwhelm him. He began struggling.

  Verden fired up the power drill again.

  ‘Time to turn you into a walking manifesto for the Red Hand Faction,’ he said, coming closer.

  Sam fought against the cuffs, but they held firm.

  ‘This is pointless!’ he cried. ‘Think, Verden! You’ve got the law against you, you’ll have the army against you, Interpol against you — damn it all, you’ve even managed to piss off the IRA!’

  ‘So?’

  ‘For God’s sake, Verden, what kind of idiots actively piss off the IRA?’

  Verden thought for a moment, then said, very mildly, ‘The British?’

  It was hopeless. Peter Verden and his Red Hand Faction were living in a nightmare Alice in Wonderland world where logic had broken down, and all that existed was political fanaticism, car bombs and dreams of a glorious death in a hail of police bullets.

  ‘I’m going to drill out your front teeth,’ said Verden. ‘Top ones first, then the bottom ones. Just to get us all nicely warmed up.’

  ‘If you want a hostage, take me!’ Sam yelled at him. ‘Let the little girl go! I’ll sit in that shed instead of her, if that’s what you want.’

  ‘I’ve told you what I want,’ Verden said calmly. ‘I want you to carry my message back to your owners.’

  ‘Verden, listen to me!’

  Carol jabbed the pistol against his head to shut him up, but Sam ignored it.

  ‘Verden, for God’s sake!’

  The electric drill screamed.

  Carol watched intently.

  Verden nodded to himself, said, ‘Teeth first. Then eyes.’

  From outside, there came a hard, concussive noise — the sound of splintering wood, the clang of a chain being hurled powerfully across the compound. There were shouts, the sudden clatter of automatic fire, the crazy whine of an over-revved engine, the mad blast of full-beam headlights flooding the workshop.

  Peter Verden and Carol Waye both looked up, wide-eyed, open-mouthed, as the silver letters of the word ‘Ford’ came ploughing into the side of the workshop, destroying the wall in a cascade of shattered timbers and tumbling tools. Sam flung himself over, fell hard against the floor, still manacled to the chair, as the air directly above him exploded with gunfire.

  I know those bullets, he thought. It’s the Magnum.

  A leather-clad hand grabbed him and hoiked him up. There was a powerful crash as the chair he was chained to was smashed with a single kick, freeing him. Then Sam felt himself being thrown roughly against the reeking leather of the Cortina’s back seat.

  Bullets screamed in from all sides and the Magnum offered resounding replies, rending the air with a succession of deafening roars. Moments later, the Cortina was hurtling about insanely, tyres screaming, the suspension howling, rifle rounds smacking into the bodywork, boot and rear bumper as it tore back out of the compound through the shattered doors and shrieked away into the brightening dawn.

  Face down on the back seat, Sam heard the rattle of gunfire rapidly receding. With an effort, he managed to lift his head. Craning his neck, he could make out the bulk of Gene Hunt at the wheel, the Magnum smoking and sliding on the dashboard as the Cortina flew along the narrow service roads of the industrial complex, making for the city. Sam tried to speak, but Gene sensed he was about to say something and got in there first.

  ‘Next time you decide to fall off a bloody fence, Sam, choose a better side to land on. Am I coming through loud and clear?’

  ‘Loud and clear, Guv,’ said Sam, his strength ebbing away, his mind drifting. ‘Oh, and Guv?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Cheers for that.’

  ‘And cheers for wrecking my motor, you ponce. Now zip your hole and dream of bunny rabbits while Uncle Genie concentrates on his driving.’

  Sam zipped his hole as he was told, and he did indeed dream, but not of bunny rabbits. He dreamt of a girl in black dress watching him sadly from across a wide room, a black balloon tugging free from her little hand, floating through the open window, and drifting away across a bleak landscape still untouched by the light of the rising sun.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  EMPTY LAIR

  ‘You’ll survive,’ said the prim, narrow-eyed doctor who was examining Sam’s head wound. ‘No fractures, just surface tissue damage. Minor blood loss. You were lucky.’

  Sam was sitting up
on a hospital trolley, sealed off from the rest of the ward by green plastic curtains drawn on all sides. The doctor aggressively peeled off his latex gloves and dropped them into a pedal bin.

  ‘You just need a couple of stitches,’ he said. ‘I’ll send for Dr Thanatos.’

  He looked Sam over coldly, as if he were some sort of vile specimen the doctor was forced to deal with, and then he batted his way through the plastic curtains and vanished.

  Sam sat on the trolley, looking down at his hands. They were still covered in dried blood. Nobody had bothered to wash him. He would have to find a basin and clean himself up, and if this Dr Thanatos didn’t show up straightaway he’d look for a phone, call Annie, tell her he was okay.

  He climbed stiffly down off the trolley and searched for a gap in the curtains. But there was none. He smacked and pawed and tugged at the plastic sheets draped all about him, but they seemed to be continuous, unbroken, impenetrable. There was no way through. Panic started to rise in his chest.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ he cried out. ‘Hey! Doctor! Somebody!’

  Something moved above him. He looked up, and saw a black balloon bobbing gently above the curtain rail. Through the plastic sheeting, the silhouette of a child was visible, moving steadily closer, whispering to him.

  ‘Stitches, stitches, I’ve come to give you stitches.’

  Sam stumbled back and fell heavily against the trolley.

  ‘A stitch in time saves nine times nine …’

  A dark shape became visible, looming on the far side of the curtain. It pressed itself against the translucent plastic, revealing wide, glassy eyes and a monstrous, snaggle-toothed mouth.

  Sam screamed, sat up sharply, and found himself on a hospital bed, surrounded by green plastic curtains, a prim, narrow-eyed doctor examining his head wound.

  ‘You’ll survive,’ the doctor said. ‘No fractures, just surface tissue damage. Minor blood loss. You were lucky.’

  The doctor aggressively peeled off his latex gloves and dropped them into a pedal bin.

  ‘You just need a couple of stitches,’ he said. ‘I’ll send for Nurse Ambrose.’

  Sam glanced about anxiously, his heart pounding, waiting for something to happen.

  The doctor paused before heading through the curtains.

  ‘Is there a problem, Mr Tyler?’

  ‘You said I was lucky,’ said Sam. ‘A couple of stitches, nothing worse. No — no brain damage, then?’

  ‘Brain damage? No, Mr Tyler, I can assure you there’s nothing like that.’

  ‘Concussion?’

  Humouring him, the doctor held up three fingers, said, ‘How many fingers?’

  ‘Nine,’ said Sam.

  The doctor held up one finger.

  ‘Now how many?’

  ‘Nine times nine.’

  The doctor offered a tight smile and said, ‘Sit tight, Mr Tyler. Nurse Ambrose will be along to give you a couple of stitches, and then you can be discharged.’

  And, with that, he disappeared through the curtains.

  Sam looked down at his hands, saw that they must have been washed by a nurse.

  ‘No blood …’ he said, and held up his palms. ‘All clean …’

  But Sam couldn’t relax. He slid down off the trolley, crossed warily to the curtains, reached out and pulled them aside — revealing a bustling accident-and-emergency ward. No little girls, no black balloons, no monstrous devil faces with strangling hands — just a ruddy-cheeked woman in a white coat striding briskly towards him, carrying a needle and surgical sutures.

  ‘Something the matter, Mr Tyler?’ Nurse Ambrose beamed at him.

  ‘Nothing,’ Sam smiled back. ‘Absolutely nothing at all.’

  Stitched up, repaired, and ready for duty, Sam strode out of the A amp;E doors into the grey light of a Manchester morning. A boxy, primitive-looking ambulance hurried by, blue light flashing feebly, and as it passed it revealed Annie standing ten yards away, waiting anxiously for him.

  ‘You promised you’d look after yourself,’ she said coldly.

  ‘I’m fine, Annie.’

  ‘Only just. I heard what might have happened to you.’

  ‘But it didn’t happen. My guardian angel stepped in, just in the nick of time.’

  He moved forward to kiss her, but she stepped back. Sam frowned, and Annie made a head movement towards the battered Cortina parked across from the hospital, Gene Hunt leaning against the bullet-riddled wheel arch, puffing on a cheroot.

  ‘Not in front of your guardian angel,’ Annie said, unsmiling, and together they headed over to Gene.

  ‘Managed to stick all the necessary bits back together, did they?’ Gene intoned as Sam approached him. ‘The Cortina has more need of urgent medical attention than that oversized bollock you use as a head, Tyler. Them bastards nearly killed my motor. And nobody kills my motor.’

  The three of them got into what was left of the Cortina, and Gene hit the gas, narrowly avoiding an old lady with swollen legs being helped to walk by a young nurse. The car rattled and shuddered as it reached the main road — a valiant veteran, battle-scarred but struggling on.

  ‘While you’ve been enjoying bed baths and carbolic washes, Samuel, the rest of the department has been getting on with some police work,’ said Gene. ‘We called in the goon squad and raided that compound. Properly raided it, with an armed response team and blokes in riot gear — not some go-it-alone twonk in a poofy leather jacket leaping in there like John Wayne.’

  ‘I didn’t leap, I fell, Guv,’ said Sam. ‘It was you who wanted me to climb the fence in the first place.’

  Gene ignored him. ‘Our boys stormed the place but found chuff all. The RHF had cleared out — packed up their guns and ammo and their hostage onto those trucks in the yard and buggered off out of it.’

  ‘Any idea where?’

  ‘Nope. The place had been well and truly cleared out before we stormed it. They had plenty of warning we were onto them — thanks to you, Sam — so they didn’t hang about. We could have had ’em, Tyler. If you hadn’t ballsed up the operation, we could have had ’em.’

  ‘Guv, I don’t know how many more times I have to say it — it was an accident,’ Sam protested. ‘Do you really think I’d have jumped in there on purpose?’

  ‘What do you think, Bristols?’ asked Gene over his shoulder. ‘Would your fella play the hero to save a poor little girlie from the bad guys?’

  ‘He might,’ said Annie from the back seat, her voice cold. ‘And he’s not my fella, Guv.’

  Sam turned round to look at her, but she turned her face away and gazed out the window.

  ‘So, the RHF know we’re onto them and they’re playing hard to get,’ Gene continued. ‘At least we got something out of last night — names. Peter Verden and Carol Waye. Annie, I want you to get stuck into the files, see if you can dig up anything about those two. Sam, if you can put your Lone Ranger mask back in your dressing-up box for ten minutes, perhaps you would be so good as to assist me in locating the Red Hand Faction and stopping them before they blow up anything else. Everybody happy with that?’

  ‘Yes, Guv,’ muttered Sam, settling back in his seat, his back to Annie.

  ‘Yes, Guv,’ muttered Annie from the back, still looking out the window.

  ‘Right, then,’ said Gene, and he flung the wheel, stamped on the gas and carried both Sam and Annie with him on his hurtling drive north.

  They arrived at the compound on the outskirts of town and found it cordoned off with great fluttering steams of blue police tape. Patrol cars blocked the entrance to the industrial estate. Gene held up his badge and was ushered through. The place was bustling with activity — uniformed coppers, plainclothes police, firearms officers, forensic photographers, explosives experts.

  Gene drove up to the smashed door of the compound, wrecked after his explosive forced entry the night before.

  ‘You know what them gates did to the front of my motor?’ he chided Sam.

  ‘It could
n’t have been half as bad as what Peter Verden was about to do to me,’ Sam replied.

  But Gene just scowled at him. ‘If that’s an attempt to elicit sympathy, Tyler …’

  ‘I nearly had my face drilled off — why should I be fishing for sympathy?’ said Sam, throwing up his hands in despair. ‘I’ll just sit here and let everyone hate me, how’s that?’

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ muttered Gene. ‘Sound good to you, Bristols?’

  Annie said nothing. But even with her face turned away from Sam, she gave off enough negative vibes to make her feelings more than clear. Sam was desperate to take her to one side, to convince her that he hadn’t been playing the hero last night, that he hadn’t put himself recklessly in danger for the sake of some sort of masculine one-upmanship over Gene. But a quiet word in private was even less possible here, trapped inside Gene’s bullet-riddled Cortina, than back at the station or in the reeking fug of the Railway Arms. Sam sighed, and tried to put his feelings to one side.

  They passed through the smashed doors of the compound and drove into the courtyard. All the RHF trucks were gone, replaced by an assortment of police vehicles. Sam peered through the Cortina’s chipped windscreen and made out the wrecked remains of the workshop where he had been held. The sight of the place made his blood run cold.

  Gene stopped the car and wrenched up the handbrake.

  ‘That’s the shed the girl was being held in,’ Sam said, pointing. CID and MI5 officers were going in and out of what had once been Mary Deery’s prison. ‘And that cabin over there was the operations room.’

  ‘What did you see in there?’ asked Gene. ‘Anything useful?’

  ‘A map, up on the wall,’ said Sam. ‘A map of the north-west coast.’

  ‘Any markings on it? Pins stuck in it?’

  ‘There were markings, Guv, but I couldn’t read them. I assumed they were planning areas they wanted to attack.’

  ‘Or picking a site for a new HQ,’ said Gene. ‘Either way, it doesn’t really narrow things down for us. We already know they’re somewhere in the north-west. Can’t you be more specific about what you saw, Sam? Cast your mind back.’