TimeStorm

by Steve Harrison

  “I won’t even bother to ask!” she said, laughing. “Follow me.”

  He followed like a puppy, light-headed and watching her buttocks undulate hypnotically beneath her shorts. She led him into a shabby, two storey wooden building and up a flight of stairs into a small room. The only items of furniture were a chair and a bed. He had little doubt as to which would be used.

  The girl sat on the bed. “Straight?” she asked. “I can see you’re eager. You’d better get your trousers off before you punch a hole in them.”

  Watkins grinned. He knew how to treat whores. He unbuckled his belt.

  “That’s fifty first,” said the girl.

  “Fifty?” said Watkins innocently.

  “Dollars! What do you think?” An unpleasant edge crept into her voice, but the surgeon was not perturbed.

  “I have no money,” he said, pleasantly.

  He backed away, even more excited, when the girl jumped angrily from the bed. “What do you mean no money?” she cried, “and you let me bring you here, you fucking wanker!”

  The string of obscenities which followed drove Watkins into a frenzy of lust. Oh, he was going to enjoy this! He stepped forward and slapped her hard across the face, sending her spinning across the bed. She screamed and yelled, “Charlie, Charlie, help!”

  Watkins heard a movement downstairs and hesitated, cursing his stupidity at assuming they were alone. The girl used the diversion to leap from the bed and land a tremendous kick directly to Watkins’ groin. He doubled over in agony, feeling as though his testicles were travelling up through his body to bounce off the inside of his skull.

  “That’ll fix you, you fucking prick!” he heard the girl say from what seemed to be a great distance. He wheeled around and staggered to the door, knees together and vaguely aware of the need to get out of the building. He arrived on the landing just as Charlie’s huge legs reached the top of the stairs, running full into the surgeon’s bowed head with his stomach. Charlie went back down the stairs quicker than he came up them and Watkins hobbled down after Charlie’s tumbling body and scrambled from the building like a crab into the sunshine.

  Now, as he sat in the shade of the garden wall, the pain was easing and Watkins slowly began to see the possibility that his private parts may one day function again. He stretched out and breathed deeply, hoping for a short nap before he continued his journey. The experience was almost enough to put him off women for life, yet when he thought about the girl’s body he experienced another sharp pain and decided to think about something else. He reached for the deed in his inside pocket, comforted that it remained safe. Life would certainly improve when he...

  “Whaddaya think you’re doin’ there, ya bloody wino!”

  His eyes opened wide in horror. An enormously fat woman stood on the porch of the house he had thought unoccupied. She wore a simple floral dress big enough to supply a spare set of sails for the Marlin and carried a bucketful of ice-cold water. Watkins discovered this when she threw the entire contents over him.

  His injury seemed insignificant when the surgeon saw the broom in her other hand. He jumped to his feet and staggered through the gate as the woman clattered the broom about his head. Fortunately she did not follow him into the street. He itched to hurl some choice abuse back at her, but in his present state he was worried she would catch him and finish him off.

  So much for fate, thought Watkins as he walked slowly away, turning back toward the city. He realised he should have stayed on his original course when he emerged from the naval building. However, it could not be undone. He had paid his dues to this unfathomable place and would not, in future, take anything for granted. He patted his pocket. Life could only improve.

  MOGLEY

  Joseph Mogley pulled aside the cafe curtains to peer down the unnaturally quiet street. He knew something wasn’t right, but because the shop windows were indented into the face of the building, he could not see very far. No people or roarers had passed by outside for the last five minutes and it must have been twenty minutes since Redmond, Hand and Lockwood left the cafe.

  Where the devil were they? Mogley’s instincts told him they would not be coming back, yet he didn’t want to believe it. He looked at the priceless shotgun in his hands. He couldn’t believe Redmond would leave the prize behind. I should have gone with them, he thought. They would have taken me if I’d kicked up a fuss. But it was too comfortable in the cafe. An overfilled belly, the need for rest and the incredible picture box had combined to dull his senses. When Redmond and the others made a move, Mogley, despite his suspicions, took the gun and the easy way out.

  He was alert now, though. The cafe was a shambles. The convicts were sitting around, all their appetites sated, watching the magic box. The women prisoners were still alive, perhaps; a last convict was thrashing around on top of the younger one. The captive men were beaten unconscious. Or dead.

  Mogley had not violated the women, unable to get through during the frenzy. He regretted it now, but it was too late and he was too preoccupied. His mind was reeling as he grappled to find a way out of this mess. Redmond was right to leave them, the bastard! Why, oh why, didn’t I go, he wondered bitterly. He knew the big convict hated him; knew everyone hated him. It was the story of his life. He had never been liked. Never had a friend. Didn’t know what that meant.

  Abandoned by his parents in the slums of London when he was a nipper, Mogley lived with, and like, the rats constantly beneath his feet. He studied them, saw how they ferreted and survived. Like them, he didn’t live, he survived. Crime was no decision on his part, it was as natural as growing up. He joined gangs, attaching himself to the strongest ones as they came and went. They all hated him, of course, but he was useful. Need someone to crawl through a sewer to break into a house – Mogley! Want someone to rob a newly buried rich man – Mogley! There was nothing he would not do to survive. They loved what he did, but loathed him for doing it. He fought back by hating everybody first.

  Turned in to the magistrates for a few shillings; that was his reward in the end. He hated Redmond, Hand and Lockwood, especially now he was no use to them. And he hated the mob he was with. They had no control. No cunning. What use were they to anyone? It was Mogley’s turn to do some rejecting. He grinned. There was nowhere on earth he could not survive.

  “Wot’s goin’ on?” asked the thrashing convict breathlessly, his face red as he stood above the girl, hoisting up his trousers.

  Mogley turned to look at the man, Jeb Wilkes, with disgust, and some envy. “Dunno,” he said. Should’ve had one of them women, he thought. Too late now. “I’m goin’ out to ’ave a look about.” Then I am on my own.

  He broke open the gun like he had seen the shopkeeper do, ensuring there was a ball in each barrel. His finger tight against the trigger, Mogley stepped into the porch outside. Taking a deep breath he walked into the street, looking to the right. Deserted. He turned to the left and gasped. In the doorway of the building next door, only ten feet away stood a man in a blue uniform, just as stunned as Mogley. The man wore a thick, padded breastplate, also blue, and carried a strange-looking musket. Even if he had been unarmed, Mogley would have known him to be a trooper.

  Mogley moved first, swinging his shotgun round, seeing fleetingly the other troopers and roarers massed further down the street. He fired the gun as the trooper recovered his wits and dropped to the floor. The shot took a chunk out of the brick wall close to the man’s head and peppered him with fragments.

  Mogley ducked quickly back into the cafe, to be immediately surrounded by frightened convicts. He hardly saw them through his blind rage. “You rotten plaguey bastard, Redmond!” he screamed.

  BAKER

  In thirty years of cutting hair, Arthur Baker had never seen a thatch like the one before him now. The giant – Rufus, his friends called him – had a mass of dirty, slimy red hair covered in Christ-knows-what. And he wanted it cut like the picture of the male model on the wall!

  The three of them had
burst in just before opening time, hurling Baker to the floor and threatening him with dismemberment. Of one particular part of his body. The barber had seen them emerge from Charlie’s Big Man clothes shop across the street. It seemed odd, as Charlie should not have opened up for another hour or so, but he had not registered how odd until they were in his own shop.

  The two normal sized men wore nice, though stained, suits, yet they did not seem right in them. All were unshaven and dishevelled, though the youngest had some style about him. The second looked like a derelict in a suit and had a horrible wart on his nose, quite the most compelling and repulsive feature he possessed. All three stank like a sewer. Body odour would be perfume in comparison.

  Rufus was one of a kind, however. Charlie had managed to clothe him in a suit, but he looked ridiculous. It was his head. The cheap suit was conservative grey and he wore enormous black shoes, but his head belonged to a wild animal, not a man. Red hair exploded from his shirt collar and rendered any features indistinct. And when he spoke, the words came out as deep grunting noises. “Shave ’n haircut.”

  Baker was doing his best to oblige, taking his time to allow the shaking of his hands to subside. It was like cutting wire and he used four pairs of scissors to get enough hair off to wash the rest. The man’s head was like a giant golf ball, pitted and matted by months or years of dirt and dandruff, and, Baker saw in horror, lice! It took five rinses before the water changed from black to merely dirty.

  Baker finished rinsing as a loud, distant bang sounded. The three men went rigid. “What was that?” demanded Rufus.

  “Probably just a car backfiring,” said Baker. Rufus relaxed, but the other two shifted nervously in their seats near the window and peered behind the closed blind. These three blokes were serious trouble.

  He began the enormous task of tackling the beard. He needed a scythe, not a razor. The texture was that of a soap pad, a thicket of hair encrusted with flakes of skin and, unless Baker was mistaken, dried blood. He had to fight even harder to keep his hands steady.

  Eventually he finished shaving and looked at the face in the mirror. Rufus could lay no claim to being handsome. His face was dominated by the biggest jaw Baker had ever seen. He had a large nose and his eyes, sunk deep and almost black, were too close together. The skin was in good shape, apart from a few scars, though it was red from shaving. The wildness was gone, but he looked no less dangerous. Baker began work on Rufus’s hair. This was one job he was reluctant to finish.

  MARSHALL

  Cray Street was completely sealed off when Bill Marshall arrived. Police cars blocked both ends of the street and uniformed officers leaned on the roofs and crouched behind the doors and bonnets of their vehicles, guns drawn. Looks like a scene from downtown Los Angeles, thought Marshall as he stepped through the cordon. Thank goodness he was here in time.

  Holding the rank of Superintendent, Marshall was in charge of the Rapid Response Squad, an elite armed group belonging to the police, yet more closely linked to the army. They were not popular with the regular police.

  “Who’s in charge?” asked Marshall, tapping a constable on the shoulder. The officer jumped in surprise. Marshall frowned.

  “Senior Constable Howell. Over there.”

  Howell stood around the corner, talking heatedly with Sam Hargreaves, Marshall’s second in command. Marshall walked across and looked to the sky in frustration. It was the same old story.

  Sean Howell was in his early forties, some ten years younger than Marshall. Unlike most of the service, he did nothing to disguise his feelings about the RRS. He was waving a finger at Hargreaves, whose face was a mask. “...regardless of your authority, I am in charge of the police perimeter and...”

  Marshall ignored Howell. “Are the men in place, Sam?” he asked Hargreaves.

  “Just about,” he answered, relieved by the intervention.

  “OK, go to your post. I’ll call you in two minutes.” Hargreaves hurried away. “Oh, hello Sean,” said Marshall, “didn’t see you there.”

  Howell was six inches shorter than Marshall, who knew he hated the fact. “Look, Marshall, I was trying to get through to your bone-headed mate that...”

  “I don’t give a fuck if you were propositioning him for sex. I am here now. I am in charge. If you want to fart, ask for my permission first.” Marshall allowed the words to sink in, unable to believe Howell had not got the message from dozens of other operations. “Update me on the situation.”

  Howell fought to keep his temper, but the look on Marshall’s face allowed no argument. “The cafe half way down the street contains up to fifty armed men; and a number of hostages. Though we don’t know how many.”

  Jesus! thought Marshall, though his face gave nothing away. He had only heard about the one guy with a shotgun from the driver of the car sent to pick him up. “I heard one of my men was shot at.”

  “Yes.” Howell glanced down at a paper in his hand. “Harper. He’s been taken to hospital suffering shock and partial hearing loss.” Howell looked rather pleased by this.

  Marshall was relieved the injury was not too serious. He had never lost a man in his three years in charge. “What’s known about these hostages?”

  Howell consulted his report again. “We think they have the proprietor of a gun club in Oxford Street who was robbed this morning. A man was shot dead in the raid. Two brothers called Ng run the cafe. We presume they’re inside. God knows how many customers are in there. We’re questioning locals to get a better picture.”

  “Good,” said Marshall. Tricky. Very tricky. “Right, what about the villains? Anything to do with the ship on the harbour this morning?”

  “I’m sure of it,” said Howell. He went into detail about the Oxford Street gun shop robbery and killing and the sightings of the armed men running through the back streets. “They’re armed to the teeth. The club was picked clean.”

  Walking back into Cray Street, Marshall felt a growing excitement. The RRS usually spent its time attending domestic sieges. It was not a very satisfying career for highly trained marksmen who were neither soldiers nor police and were frowned upon by both. But this was different. A daunting task, without doubt, but something to get everyone’s teeth into. A test.

  There was something to sort out first. He called back to Howell. “Sean, I want your men to holster their guns and stay back. We’ve got enough firepower to finish anything that starts.”

  Unhappy, but with little choice, Howell repeated the orders into his radio. Marshall watched the reluctant policemen obey at both ends of the street. Satisfied, he took a closer look at the operating area. The street was only one hundred and fifty metres long and had a ‘T’ junction at each end, effectively enclosing the area. The buildings were mainly two- and three-storey office or warehouse blocks on either side, with the cafe, the only one-storey structure, neatly in the middle of the southern side, to his right. The street was a natural arena.

  Flicking the switch of his pocket radio, Marshall said, “Come in Squad One.”

  A burst of static was followed by Hargreaves’ voice. “Squad One here and in position.”

  “OK. Tell me what you’ve got.”

  “Not much to report, chief,” said Hargreaves. “We’re on the second floor directly opposite the cafe. The target windows are covered by lace curtains, so we can’t get a clear view. There’s a hell of a lot of movement inside, though.”

  “Hmm.” Marshall played with a corner of his moustache. “What about the others?”

  Hargreaves had spread his five squads through the street and outlined their positions. Squad Two was in the same building, on the ground floor. Three and Four were in the buildings either side of the cafe, and Five was in the laneway behind, cutting off the exit. “It’s the only other way out.”

  “Good work,” said Marshall. Ready for action. All that remained was for him to go and tell the bad guys the news. He borrowed a megaphone from a police car and walked into Cray Street. Everything was silent and everyone w
atched him. Keeping close to the right hand side of the street, he hurried from doorway to doorway in case any of the armed men appeared. He wanted to get as close as possible for the loud psychological effect of his voice. The adrenaline was flowing now, just as it had during his service days in the first – the real – Iraq war. The sky was a deep blue, but the street was still in morning shade. His shoes echoed loudly on the pavement. He stopped, raised the megaphone to his mouth. At least they’d chosen a nice day for it.

  MOGLEY

  Joseph Mogley was close to breaking point. Fury, fear and loathing gripped his insides as he cursed his rotten luck for being trapped. Since he had fired the shot the cafe had been in chaos. Convicts milled around in panic, the women and the picture box forgotten in a frenzy of terrified activity. Mogley felt tears of anger roll down his cheeks. They were all going to die. Unless he could think. “Shut up! Shut up!” he screamed over the babble. The men took no notice, until another voice, loud and metallic sounding, echoed outside the building. The convicts froze.

  “This is the police. The street has been sealed off and your building is totally surrounded. Open the door and throw out your weapons, then release all the hostages.” The voice paused. “You will then leave the building in single file with your hands over your heads.”

  So used were they to years of captivity, many of the convicts began to obey and approached the door. Mogley threw himself in front of the exit. Hostages! Of course! A ray of hope in the darkness. He did not know how many of the prisoners were alive, but that didn’t matter. The people outside didn’t know either. He saw a way out and once past the troopers he would go it alone. They were about to get a faster and more unpleasant response than they would have liked.