by Bill Carson
The three men at the back door went in just ahead of the front door team, and Ryan felt the tremendous warm blast wave across his hands and face as they crashed through the back door. The detonation of the simple but deadly improvised device had killed all three of the men instantaneously: a nail bomb at close range is a murderous device. The front door team smashed the lock with a dynamic hammer at the same time, but despite Ryan’s quick reactions to try and stop them, they both tumbled into a shallow pit which Kane had dug out and then covered with some thin strips of timber and an old rug. A vicious pit of razor-sharp thin steel tubes that he’d made from the legs of the old kitchen chairs. He’d hacksawed them off and had hammered them into the ground, and then run the angle grinder over the protruding ends to form jagged two foot long spears.
Bravo One fell into the pit face first and was impaled through the throat and died at once. Bravo Two, who followed immediately behind, stumbled over his fallen comrade and his right boot was speared clean through. A small fountain of blood spurted from the appalling wound as the spike took his full bodyweight. His screams were loud and quite sickening, but at least he was alive.
John Kane had successfully outwitted them.
“Fucking hell,” Ryan said, as he cocked his MP5 and pulled his radio receiver from his ear. He decided on a one man gung-ho assault on the building. He stepped over Bravo One’s body and ignored the screams and flailing hands of Bravo Two and crept along the edge of the hallway, glancing at the carnage outside the back door as he went. Thick, choking white smoke filled the kitchen and the place had now also caught on fire, but he could just about see into the small garden where he saw Bravos Three, Four and Five lying motionless. Their twisted black shapes no longer resembled the human forms that were so full of life moments beforehand. They were now lumps of mutilated, burnt flesh.
He slowly made his way up the staircase, pressing his back hard against the wall as he ascended. On reaching the landing he opened the door of the first room a fraction, pulled the pin and tossed in a flash bang grenade. The grenade exploded with a deafening crack and a flash of blinding light which lasted for a millisecond. He quickly booted the door open, stepped inside and swept the room with the barrel of the machine gun. The room was empty so he stepped back out onto the landing and then crept toward the strange door of the chamber. The door was slightly ajar and Ryan slowly nudged it open with the muzzle of his weapon.
He kicked the door open and burst into the strange room. He stood in the centre of the bizarre smoke-filled black room and switched on his torch. He shook his head. The intel was good, but we were too fucking late, he thought to himself. He ripped off his respirator and made his way downstairs, and then called in the medics to patch up Bravo Two. Doris Clarke had been informed of the failure and was now on the line. She was not best pleased.
“Ryan, what the bloody hell happened out there? I need an explanation and it had better be a good one, as I have got the PM breathing down my neck,” Clarke said.
“Sorry, ma’am, the place was rigged with traps. We had no reason to believe that the target had any knowledge of explosives or this kind of urban warfare. This was supposed to be a simple breach in and rescue.”
“Yes, it seems you have met a worthy adversary, Ryan. Now, I am giving you one last chance and also one last simple instruction, and that is to find this John Kane and eliminate him quickly. Both of our necks are now well and truly on the line. Do you understand what I am saying, Ryan?”
“Understood, ma’am.”
Ryan went back to the van and sat in the back to gather his thoughts for a moment. There was then a sudden stroke of luck, and the CCTV operators radioed through a message saying that they had spotted a white transit van leaving the scene just before the extraction team had arrived. After enlarging the photo of the driver they were convinced that it was John Kane.
The registration and description had now been circulated, and Ryan and every police officer in London were now combing the streets for it. Ryan got into the driver’s seat of the box van and headed toward central London, which was where the CCTV had tracked the van thus far.
Ryan contacted HQ and was immediately patched through to Doris Clarke.
“Go ahead, Ryan.”
“May I make a request, ma’am?”
“Within reason, yes, what do you need?”
“A drone, ma’am. We need a drone to get up there and find that white van ASAP. It takes too long with the CCTV; there are too many vehicles to search for at this time of night, and I don’t think we have much time.”
“Your surveillance drone will be airborne within the hour. That’s good thinking, Ryan, now get this mess cleared up.”
“I’m on it,” Ryan said, as he went around a corner on two wheels.
John Kane had indeed headed for central London, but later decided to pull off the main drag to avoid the CCTV cameras. He doubled back and, instead of going into central London and to Westminster Bridge as planned, he opted for his old stomping ground. He may have had to change the destination, but the plan in his head would remain unaltered.
The odd shaped rotor-driven craft that had been launched from a secret location in London was equipped with all the latest military grade surveillance technology. This included an experimental number plate and facial recognition system, and it also had a digital uplink capability and could send real-time live data capture. This particular drone could stay up for hours. As Ryan crawled through the busy city traffic, the small black drone above was scouring the darkening London streets for the old white transit van.
“Fucking traffic,” Ryan shouted, and blasted the horn at the evening rush hour commuters who were dawdling along after another mind numbing day at the office.
Fifteen minutes later, the spy in the sky spotted a likely vehicle heading toward west London and sent the real time images through to Ryan’s iPad, which he had secured to the dashboard with some sticky tape. Ryan’s iPad came to life a second later, and a jerky image popped up on screen. The staccato images were live and the drone was now hovering over a van which was parked in a salubrious side street of Kew in West London.
He suddenly spun the large VW box van around in the middle of the road, which shook the idling commuters from their autopilot comas. They stared from their cars with wide eyes and mouths agog as the tyres screeched and the diesel engine roared its disapproval. Once the van was facing in the opposite direction he slammed it into gear and floored the accelerator.
Twenty-five minutes later he arrived at the location. The roads had already been sealed off with a convoy of police vehicles, and thin strips of blue and white crime scene tape.
An EC2 police helicopter had been scrambled and was now concentrating the beam of its powerful SX5 starburst spotlight onto the suspicious vehicle. After the last encounter Ryan decided to take no chances this time, and adopted a more stealthy approach due to fear of the van possibly being rigged with explosives. Ryan pulled up a little closer and reversed the box van towards the target, which was now roughly a hundred yards away.
As the last of the inhabitants of the surrounding grand, upmarket houses were being evacuated, Ryan climbed up onto the bonnet of his cab and then hauled himself onto the roof of the van. He inched forward, and lay as flat as possible as he set up the bipod on his sniper rifle.
Kane’s Transit was parked at the end of a cul-de-sac, so there was only one way out, and that was through the police cordon and into the sights of Ryan’s sniper rifle.
Ryan was extremely cautious and shot out three of the tyres with some precision shots. You’re going nowhere, he said to himself, as the next round shredded the wall of the remaining tyre. He waited for a moment, observed the van through the scope, and then put another round through the side window.
He was hoping that the impact of the high velocity bullets would detonate any would-be explosive devices, but there was nothing, so he gave it another thirty seconds then clambered down from the van. He asked the police chief to lose
the chopper above them as it was far too noisy; for the next part of the assault he would need all of his senses.
As the police helicopter slowly peeled away, Ryan slung his MP5 across his back and slowly crept to within twenty feet of the van. He pulled the pin and hurled a tear gas canister through the shattered side window of the van. He ran and then dived for cover behind a sturdy brick wall of a front garden.
He lay flat on his face with both hands clasped around the top of his head. There was nothing, so he waited and let the gas fill the interior of the van before making a move. He pulled his FM12 respirator gas mask over his face, cocked his machine gun and crept toward the rear doors of the van with his index finger pressing against the trigger and the barrel pointing directly at the centre of the rear doors.
There was no sound except that of his exhalations into the respirator filter. He let the MP5 drop to his right hand side on the harness and carefully jemmied the door open. As he had expected, it was empty, except for some strips of gaffer tape, a black patent man’s shoe and an old carpet.
Ryan pulled off the mask and called for the police tracker dogs. A huge manhunt was now put into action as the target was almost certainly on foot. After the bomb squad had declared the van safe, it was winched onto the back of a police lorry and taken away for forensic analysis. Within an hour the street was pretty much back to normal.
“Fucking hell,” Ryan said quietly, as he lent against the cab of the box van.
He must still be quite close by, but why all the drama? Why not just kill the judge and leave him in the van? He could have done that easily and had the chance to escape at least a couple of times tonight? What’s he trying to prove?
While all the commotion was going on in the nearby street, John Kane and the judge were gently gliding down the Serpentine in a small rowing boat that John had stolen from the wharf a little further upriver.
The gentle current was sufficient to propel them along at a slow sedate pace. He silently steered the craft by twisting the blade of the oar so that the boat hugged the slimy riverbank wall. As they neared the pleasure boat jetty, he noted the large sign on the gateway which had the times of the tides posted on it. The next low tide at Kew Bridge would be tonight at 23.41.
After ten minutes the boat came to rest just underneath one of the huge arches of Kew Bridge. Ten feet below the towpath, the small craft was almost invisible as it was as black as hell down there. However, thirty feet above, it was a different story as there was much commotion. The traffic had taken its time to clear after the roadblocks had been lifted, and the bridge was choked with traffic and irate drivers on both sides.
John had just under an hour or so to kill, so he shoved the judge into the bottom of the boat and covered them both with a thick tarpaulin that was rolled up in the bottom of the boat, along with a few other items which included an old Berry pistol flare gun. John picked it up and noted that it had a cartridge in the chamber. He shoved it into his rucksack with the long length of rope.
They lay under cover in complete darkness, listening to the sounds of the traffic and the occasional passing aircraft overhead, and the constant lapping of the slowly ebbing tide against the sturdy brickwork archway of the old bridge. Every now and then there was a strange, inexplicable faint buzzing which sounded like some irate giant mosquito.
John checked the luminous dial on his wristwatch. It was a quarter to eleven.
“It won’t be long now, Judge,” he said quietly as he tapped the judge’s head with the sole of his muddy boot. There wasn’t even the remotest acknowledgement from the judge, and not even a groan of displeasure. He had now resigned himself to the fact that it was all over for him. John had indeed brought him to the precipice of despondency and he was now simply waiting to die.
Chapter 15
“Before we proceed to our destination, I’ll need to stop off in Knightsbridge,” Harold Harper, said as they slipped past Hammersmith tube station in Nick’s sleek sports car.
“But Jimmy said we have to go straight back once we’ve got him, Harold.”
“Do not speak to me, do not look in my direction. I will speak to you and you will do what I ask, do you understand, or I’ll end your miserable life right here and now you uncultured, imbecilic oaf.”
“All right, all right, there’s no need to get nasty, I was only saying.”
“Shut it, Bill. Knightsbridge is only up the road from here, so drive,” Johnnie Carter said.
“OK, but there’s no need for that, is there? I mean, I‘m only carrying out the guvnor’s orders, ain’t I?”
Harold squeezed the handle of the pistol a little tighter with frustration. He usually worked alone and detested every moment of having to converse with such low lifes. It was a first for him and, as soon as he was paid, this would be his last job for Costa.
“Knightsbridge coming up, Harold, where do you want us to stop?” Johnnie said, as they went past the Victoria and Albert Museum.
“I’ll let you know when to stop. Keep driving, and when I get out, keep a gun on this fellow. I don’t like him as he looks like an untrustworthy sort,” he said as he stared at Nick.
“OK, will do, Harold, you don’t have to worry about that. Killing a cozzer will be a fucking pleasure,” Billy said.
“Ex-cozzer,” Nick said, which earned him a sharp smack across the bridge of the nose with the butt of Harold’s pistol.
“Be quiet and pull the car over just here. I will be no more than fifteen minutes,” Harold said as he nimbly slipped out of the car.
“Where’s he off to? He’s a bit weird, ain’t he? I mean, with that little hat and raincoat, and do you know I haven’t seen his face. He’s got the peak of that cap pulled down so far I can’t make him out. It’s all a bit strange innit?”
“He’s a proper fucking nutter, Bill, and quick with that pistol. He’s killed more people than cancer, so I’d just keep schtum if I was you and concentrate on the driving,” Johnnie said.
“Nutter is right, he’s liable to kill the lot of us,” Nick said.
“Oi, you’ve been told once, so shut it. This job is giving me the arse ache. Why the fuck did Jimmy put us with him? What’s he need us for?”
“He can’t drive, Bill, that’s why we’re here and Jimmy wants us to keep an eye on him, I suppose. Look, do yerself a favour and don’t start thinking Bill, just fucking drive the car, and shut the fuck up, all right?”
“Blimey, I can’t even ask a question now. Anyone would think I was thick or something. Nice innit, getting insulted every time I open me mouth,” Billy mumbled under his breath.
“Bill, I’m fucking warning you. This bloke is real dangerous, so we’ll humour him until we drop our mate off, and then we’ll disappear and leave them all to it, OK?” Johnnie said
“OK, John, whatever.”
“You two are a couple of fucking comedians,” Nick said.
“You what? You cheeky bastard, you don’t know when to shut up, do you? And you haven’t got a clue who you’re dealing with. Tell him, John, tell him how many people we’ve topped,” Billy said, as he pointed the barrel of the revolver at Nick’s forehead.
“Keep quiet, mate, or I’ll have to drop you right here and now,” Johnnie said as he laid the barrel of his small pistol on the headrest of the front seat. Nick knew by the look in his eye that he meant business and so he kept quiet. For now.
The reason for Harold’s departure was that he’d decided to pay one last visit to his tailor. He was sure he would not be passing this way for some time so a little late night shopping was in order. He was pleased to see that the old boy who ran the place was still there, and was glad as it would save him from damaging such a beautifully made door.
The shop was closed but the owner always stayed late one night a week for a stocktake, and this was one of those nights. Harold waited for a moment and observed the old boy through the window as he sipped his tea. It all looked so cosy, warm and elegant in there with the dim lighting and the Victoria
n fixtures and décor. Harold gently tapped on the glass door and the old boy recognised him immediately. He opened up and gave him a warm welcome as usual, even though the shop had been closed for nearly two hours. As Harold stepped inside he became calm and relaxed and his usual stone cold emotionless persona seemed to wane.
As the humming chorus from Madame Butterfly floated from the old man’s radio, Harold stood absolutely still. Something from his past had crept into his mind and stirred something within him. It was the music that had triggered it; it was his mother’s favourite piece which she would often play to him on those long lost summer evenings when he was a child.
As he listened he became momentarily lost within his melancholic moment, and almost shed a tear of joy. The old proprietor broke the spell and brought him back to reality by asking how he could help him. Harold was soon equipped with three raincoats, two pairs of trousers, five shirts all the same colour and style, and two pairs of brown brogues. He paid for everything in cash and thanked the old gentleman courteously. Harold felt positively rejuvenated as he left the little shop, but it didn’t last long. Three strides from the doorway he pulled down the peak of his cap and immediately reverted back to his evil self.