The Chop Shop

by Heffernan, Christopher

  Ben spun him around and grasped his throat, tightening his hold just enough to make Michael open his mouth. He jammed the barrel of his 9mm inside. “Do you think I'm fucking stupid? You're sweating like a pig. A pig, get it? You're going to call off your friends out there or I blow your brains all over the wall.”

  They manhandled him to the window looking out over the back garden, and Ben pointed to the rotting corpse impaled upon a stake. “This what we do to motherfuckers like you. That one was sniffing around here last week. We grilled his mate on the barbecue and fed him to the homeless. Good deeds and all that.”

  An explosion sounded downstairs, and the rattle of gunfire and screams of the injured echoed up the staircase. Ben turned him, locked an arm around his neck and pressed the gun into his temple. One of the gang went to the door, and then fell backwards an instant later, chest filled with bloody holes. A canister tumbled into the room, bounced off the skirting board and settled in the middle of the floor.

  The explosion blinded him, and then he heard the same old ringing again, hitch-pitched and painful. Ben's hold went slack, and they fell together and hit the ground. He tasted the blood running from his nose, and slowly, his vision returned. He looked up at the shape of Corporal Hill.

  Two policemen cuffed Ben's hands behind his back, and then gave him a kick to the head. Hill Lifted Michael to his feet. “You okay?”

  “No,” Michael said.

  Michael staggered down the stairs. The rest of the section dragged out their prisoners and laid them face down across the patch of mud in front of the house.

  “You were meant to recon the place and then come back,” Hill said.

  “Easier said than done when you get jumped by some guys waiting in the shadows. This place is like a fortress. Where's the IFV?”

  “Coming. I didn't want them to hear it, so we moved in on foot.”

  “Looks like they messed you up a little bit. Are you okay?” Richard said.

  “I can't hear you properly. Hill just blew my eardrums with a stun grenade.”

  “And saved your life,” Hill said.

  “After convincing me to go on a suicide mission.”

  “It doesn't matter now. The good news is that this will look really good on paper when they see we've rescued kidnapped police officers who were threatened with execution. They can't claim we've been slacking off when we've been facing such dire risks. It's all about efficiency,” Hill said.

  “I've been facing the dire risks, not you,” Michael said. He staggered away to the side and puked his breakfast on the pavement.

  “He looks really ill, and it's only noon,” Richard said. “You should go home and rest, Mike. I'll write your reports for you, but you'll have to sign them tomorrow.”

  The infantry fighting vehicle widened the gap in the barricade, grinding metal and rubbish as it drove through. One of the other policemen was on the radio to Croydon Station. He retrieved his .45 from the man.

  Ben wriggled on the ground with his restraints. Michael's hand curled into a fist, and he clenched his teeth until his gums hurt. The cold air turned the layer of sweat on his skin to ice, soaking his shirt through. He walked towards Ben, waited for him to look up, then stomped on his hands and kicked him in the ribs. Ben grunted as his finger bones cracked.

  “That's right, keep breaking them, Blood. It's the only way you'll ever one up somebody. Pain doesn't mean shit to me.”

  “Don't get too carried away, Ward. Nobody minds some broken bones, but we do need him alive, okay?” Hill said.

  Michael kicked Ben in the groin and walked away on shaky legs. He stuck a finger in his ear, wriggling it about, but the ringing wouldn't go away. “I'm going inside to see if there's anything useful. Watch the perimeter; you woke half the street up.”

  “Don't worry, we'll splatter them with the forty mike-mike if they try anything,” Hill said.

  Richard followed after him. “This isn't exactly the kind of place where I'd want to hang around with my homies.”

  “It's only got one main entrance, easily fortified, and the surrounding neighbourhoods are hostile to the police. That's got to count for something, right? The locals are probably watching us right now, waiting for us to leave so they can sweep the place clean,” Michael said.

  “Probably.”

  They entered the ground floor flat, and music still played from the media system. Michael yanked the power cord free. “I used to have an African knockoff of these made by small children in sweatshops, when I was about sixteen. The television wasn't so good, though.”

  “Didn't they have faulty power supplies that caught fire?”

  “My friends called it the Roman candle.”

  Richard removed a set of ring-binders off the shelf. They flicked through them together under the light of a pocket torch.

  “They're running this place like a business. Gang bangers like those guys out there don't keep invoices or records. They buy, sell and then spend the money getting fucking roasted,” Richard said.

  “One of them said they were producing their own stuff, and not small time like that prick on the estate. Check this; the phone numbers are bullshit. The area codes don't match the addresses. See?”

  “I don't see it. Wait, yeah, I do. Okay, so they're fake, but what about the rest?”

  “I don't know. Maybe it's to protect their buyers? Let's take it with us anyway.”

  “If these guys are as hardcore as you say, then they're not going to leave the good stuff lying around in plain sight. Too much of a liability,” Richard said. He stood up, shifting his weight back and forth to make the floorboards creak louder. “I've got a great idea.”

  Richard reached into his pocket and retrieved a switchblade, and then slid the knife between the floorboards and lifted one free.

  “No nails,” Michael said.

  “Exactly.”

  He took the other board up to reveal a box underneath. A plastic packet lay at the bottom. Richard held it up to the light. “Shit, just drugs. This stuff looks hardcore, worth a lot of money.”

  Michael looked out the window. “We're short on time, and Hill's getting antsy out there. There's people watching them from the other flats.”

  Richard pocketed the drugs and kicked the floorboards in the hole. “Okay, you do the rest of this floor and I'll take upstairs?”

  Michael nodded. “Fine.”

  He moved into the dining room. Family photographs of a couple and their children and grandchildren printed onto copier paper filled one set of drawers. Red time stamps in the corner dated the top lot as twelve years old. Another cabinet housed decorated china plates and bowls, and others had Japanese geisha painted onto the sides.

  Gang tags were carved into the dining table with a knife and pissed up the walls, until the paper had turned yellow and begun to come apart. More photos of the same couple lined the shelf, some older, some younger, but all unmistakable in resemblance.

  Michael crushed a fallen picture frame beneath his foot. He kicked it aside and moved into the kitchen, where a bag of weed lay on the table.

  He flicked the light switch, but the lights didn't come on, and his eyes drifted to the impaled policeman outside. Flies buzzed about the rotting corpse, and its stench crawled slowly into the room. A spotlight mounted on the underside of the plate above swept across the garden briefly, and he caught a flash of two skeletons hidden in the bushes, before the darkness swallowed them up again.

  “Mike? Mike, you need to come and see this. Right now,” Richard shouted.

  Michael pulled out his gun, and he took the stairs two at a time. Smoke filled the bedroom, escaping from a hole in the wall. Richard put a hand to his forehead and looked away.

  “What happened?”

  He kicked the bedside table over. “I found this safe behind the painting there, but I tripped a wire or something. Everything inside just got incinerated.”

  Michael batted away the smoke and took a closer look at the safe. The scent of burning filled
his nostrils. He touched the metal with the back of his hand. Fiery pain. Michael winced and yanked it away. “Shit, that's hot. Not your regular bunch of thugs, right?”

  “Doesn't surprise me; everybody is always one step ahead of us lately. From rich corporations to a bunch of fucking thugs running riot in whatever is left of the country.”

  “I'll settle for getting out of here alive right now. Everything else is secondary.”

  Richard's mouth dropped open. He reached for his gun. “Oh, shit. Look out the window.”

  Michael pressed his face to the glass. “What is it?”

  “Down there, people trying to get in,” Richard said, pointing to a shape rattling the fence, as it tried to cut through the concertina wire on top.

  Two more smashed a hole through the rotting wood at the base of the fence. Richard fired two shots through the window, shattering it into a dozen pieces. The men crawled back through their hole. More figures ran through the alley on the other side of the fence, and a flame appeared in the darkness.

  It grew bigger, flickering and dancing until Michael could see the glass outline of the Molotov. The bottle broke apart against the wall and spread fire down the side of the building.

  Dogs began to bark and howl. Michael and Richard stormed down the stairs with guns in hand. A kitchen window shattered, and Michael blasted the man twice in the chest as he tried to climb through. They snatched up the folders and headed for the front door.

  “Hill, Hill. Get the bloody station on the radio and call for help,” Richard shouted.

  “Something is screwing with the signal. All I can get is our own radio chatter,” Hill said.

  They dumped the evidence in an empty ammunition container and stowed it beneath the seats.

  “We're about to get steam rolled by the entire neighbourhood,” Michael said.

  Somebody appeared in the window of the next house down. He smashed out the glass and emptied a submachine gun at them. Bullets pinged off the vehicle's armoured plating, and Ben laughed.

  “They're going to skin you, and then they're going to turn you into dog food,” he said.

  Corporal Hill raised his rifle with one hand, still holding the radio in the other, and fired off a hail of rounds. The man slumped out of view.

  “Put the prisoners in the back of the vehicle. Sit on them if you have to. We need to get the hell out of here right now,” Michael said.

  “Do it,” Hill said.

  They dragged the prisoners kicking and wriggling into the back of the infantry fighting vehicle. Corporal Hill tossed two smoke grenades down the street, and white haze seeped out into the air. The cloud thickened, growing and growing until the houses disappeared.

  “There's not enough room for all of us,” Hill said.

  A thug rushed them through the smoke, screaming as he raised the fire axe above his head. Michael blew his cheek open, and the bloody hole exposed shattered teeth where the bullet had gone clean through. He went limp, falling and skidding across the road.

  “Just go. We'll find our own way out,” Michael said.

  “Screw it. This was my idea,” said Hill. He slapped the button to close the vehicle's rear hatch and shouted into his radio for them to leave.

  The IFV reversed, and then turned and ploughed back through the remains of the barricade. They ran after it, and footsteps pursued them. Michael stopped behind the remains of a car and aimed his pistol into the smoke, squinting with one eye down the green sights. Another man came forward. Michael shot him four times in the chest.

  They ducked into a side alley, led by Richard. He fumbled ahead in the darkness with one hand stretched out in front of him, and then caught a bin with his foot and sent it crashing into the fence. The rattle of metal echoed into the night.

  “Faster. They're following us,” Michael said. “My car can't be far.”

  He heard the voices getting closer. A Molotov exploded behind him and set the rubbish on fire. The pain of exhaustion stabbed at his insides, and Corporal Hill and Richard faded into the shadows ahead.

  Something emerged from the dark. Michael tripped on the rusting bicycle, managing to extend his hands a second before he impacted the concrete. He felt the skin rip from his palms and grunted. The gang came closer.

  Michael stood again and blocked the alley off with the bike. There was a junction further on, and he paused for a moment, trying to decide which way to go. He went right, and another turn brought him out onto an unnamed street. He looked both ways, but saw no sign of the others.

  A stampede of footsteps came from the alley, closing faster, dozens of them. Michael threw himself over a front garden wall and lay flat on the ground. He pressed as close to the old brickwork as he could, clutching his .45 in one bloody hand. A cold shiver overcame him.

  The group ran out into the street, and he listened to them panting for breath. They muttered something amongst themselves, and then ran on. Michael continued to lie still, looking up at the plate above.

  The lights above were like stars on a clear night sky, blocked out now and then by clumps of thick smog and smoke passing by. Finally he sat up and looked over the wall. The houses were vacant and devoid of power, and the ruined cars had lain undisturbed for longer than he cared to imagine, burnt remains slowly succumbing to the elements.

  Michael wiped his bloody hands on a tissue and ventured back into the alley. He flashed his pocket torch about, but everybody was gone now, and an uncomfortable silence hung about, disturbed only by the sound of his breathing and footsteps. The other alley exit took him into another street, deserted just like the last, but this one he recognised. He found no sign of the others, as he walked on.

  Then he came to the flaming wreck of his car. It burned a shade of orange, surrounded by the shattered remains of the windows. The paint job receded into nothing and bared the metal beneath it. He clutched his hair with both hands, tightening his grip until he felt like tearing it all out.

  Michael saw the charred remains of his route master travel guide in the passenger seat. Something in the vehicle popped, and he jumped back in fright.

  Chapter 12.

  A single car was parked alongside the pavement, lurking between him and the Chop Shop's entrance checkpoint. Michael moved closer, and he caught a glimpse of the driver's face in the wing mirror, staring back at him. The car looked Chinese, new and with sleek curves and a blue paint scheme free from scratches.

  The driver's window lowered, and a man leaned out and beckoned for him to come closer. “Mr Ward, I need to speak with you.”

  “I don't know who you are, but you seem to know me,” Michael said, nearing the vehicle.

  He let one hand brush against the plastic grip of his pistol. A trio of police officers stood around a burning bin just beyond, oblivious to the world as they listened to the radio and smoked cigarettes.

  The man had a receding line of red hair, leaving the top of his head bald, and he wore thick-rimmed glasses. Wrinkles in his skin put him in his early forties, and he was dressed in a suit, jacket draped over the passenger seat. A slight smile spread across his lips. “I've been trying to get in contact with you, but you're a hard man to find.”

  “You'd best explain yourself, before I have those three over there get rid of you.”

  His smile widened. “I'm a journalist.”

  “I don't talk to them,” Michael said.

  “Yeah, that's what a lot of people say. My colleague has been trying to reach you as well, but she didn't have any luck either. We did bump into your partner, but he wasn't very helpful.”

  Michael leaned a little closer. The journalist had a laptop beneath the jacket and a radio on the dashboard. He smelt car freshener. “You're the ones who ran that story about him?”

  “It was my colleague who wrote that. I fry bigger fish. Besides, it would've been a waste of time if we didn't get a story out of our troubles.”

  “And you wonder why nobody wants to talk to you. Look, I'm not interested in dealing with you. Wh
y don't you go and ride the lift back up to the plate and leave us to get on with things,” he said, turning and walking away.

  “Wait, I wanted to talk to you about Jim Belton. I know you're investigating the murder of his family and his death, and I know it involves Eratech. We might be able to help each other out.”

  Michael looked back. “Yeah, how so?”

  “I can get access to stuff that you can't. My colleague and I have a lot of contacts, and we can get to people who'd run for miles if they saw you coming.”

  “What is it you want in trade?”

  His expression became cold and more business-like. “You provide us with police files and access to confidential information. There's certain things and people we need to know about.”

  “I thought you had extensive contacts?”

  The journalist keyed the ignition. “Not in this particular case. You could say I'm developing them. Here's my card; call me when you can, but the offer's time limited, so don't wait too long, because I might find somebody else to get what I need.”

  He spun the steering wheel, forcing Michael to step back as he turned the car around and headed away from the station. Michael stared down at the business card.

  Michael came across a trio of armoured suburban vehicles inside the police compound, watched over by two private security guards. He stepped close enough to draw the attention of one of the guards, and the man stared at him with cold eyes that looked like they'd seen too much.

  His face was marked with burn scars and a thin line that ran from temple to jaw. One finger rested on his rifle's trigger guard. “Move along.”

  Michael nodded, and he headed into the reception area, where more guards stood about, totting carbines modified with rail accessories. One stopped him with a hand. “You have to wait in the waiting area until we're done here.”

  A security badge hung around his neck by its strap, complete with his photo and the Assurer company logo.

  Michael took a seat in the corner. The television display showed a blank blue screen, and the only sound was of a radio station playing old songs. He waited for a few minutes, before a group of footsteps echoed off the bare walls and hard floors.