Critical Threat

by Nick Oldham

  The two leading officers brandished sledgehammers, the one behind them wielding a one-man door-opener which was basically a heavy tube of iron with a flattened end and handles used as a mini battering ram. Behind these three officers came the remaining four, all in a disciplined line. Their job, once the door had been battered down, was to tear into the house. Two would go for the stairs and two would go for the ground floor, with their remaining colleagues piling in behind them, just to ensure the house was unoccupied as promised.

  They crossed the pavement in two strides. They were then at the front door, which they attacked without mercy but with great accuracy, their movements practised and choreographed by months of training and other ‘live’ entries, mainly into drug dealers’ houses.

  For a few moments it was sweet to watch.

  The sledgehammers swung at the door hinges at the right-hand side of the door, one high, one low. Henry marvelled at the precision and the fact that the officers didn’t smash each other’s heads in; at the same time, the third officer swung the door-opener at the mortise lock. All three implements whammed simultaneously into the flimsy-looking door.

  Henry braced himself, expecting the door to burst off its hinges, readying himself to follow the sergeant in. He’d seen it happen dozens of satisfying times.

  Except in this case.

  The door remained intact. Didn’t even shudder in its casing. From the blows it received, it should have been halfway down the living room, and Henry realized immediately that it must have been reinforced, otherwise it would have been on its way to matchstick city.

  Undaunted, the officers raised and aimed their battering tools again.

  ‘Movement, rear door,’ came a shout into Henry’s earpiece from one of the constables around the back.

  A horrible, nauseous dread coursed through Henry, and a feeling of panic.

  ‘Not good,’ he breathed to himself as the sledgehammers reconnected with the door – and still it held. ‘Situation report,’ he said into the mouthpiece of his PR, which was attached to his helmet.

  ‘Rear kitchen door opening … one male at the door … Asian,’ the officer said. ‘Pistol in hand – armed!’

  Henry whacked the sergeant’s shoulder. She turned and looked at him, her face a mask of consternation.

  ‘I thought this was supposed to be an empty house,’ she shouted.

  Henry did not have time to get into discussion. He yelled, ‘Tell ’em to stop’ – he pointed at the officers by the door – ‘stay here and watch the door and don’t try to go in. I’m going round.’

  She nodded and turned to yell some orders.

  Henry ran up the road, hearing the word, ‘Shit!’ come through the earpiece from the officer at the backdoor.

  His kit was extremely heavy, topped by the riot helmet, and he felt like he was running in slow motion. He skidded at the gable end of the terrace, then into the cobbled back alley, high brick walls either side of him and a paved drainage channel running down the centre. The three officers who had gone to the rear of the house were standing in the alley, looking through the door into the yard of number twelve, their arms raised defensively. Henry hurried towards them.

  They glanced round worriedly, their faces squeezed tight by their helmets, their visors in the ‘up’ position. He stopped in his tracks behind them.

  There was a dark-skinned Asian youth in the yard, pointing a handgun at the cops. He was dressed in T-shirt, jeans and trainers. Henry put him around the twenty mark. He was small, thin, with a droopy moustache and, young as he was, the old adage came into play when facing anyone armed with a weapon – he became a ‘sir’.

  There was another youth behind him who Henry could not see properly.

  ‘Out, out,’ the first youth ordered the police, gesturing with the dangerous end of the gun, which looked heavy and of a high calibre. ‘Back, back,’ he motioned.

  The officers took reluctant steps backwards.

  ‘I will not hesitate to use this weapon,’ the youth said, now framed in the backyard door, the second youth still obscured behind him.

  ‘OK, OK, that’s fine,’ Henry said over the shoulders of his officers, using soothing hand signals to attempt to calm down any sudden urge to pull the trigger. His team members continued to shuffle backwards and round him and he quickly found himself with no one standing between him and the gun-toting youth. Suddenly he was very isolated and vulnerable. He was wearing the regulation stab vest which might have given him some protection from a knife attack around his vital organs; he was under no illusion that a slug from the pistol now aimed at his chest would travel through the fabric and tear his heart and lungs to bits.

  ‘We are prepared to die.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ Henry said, finding it hard to speak. ‘But no one has to die, no one.’

  ‘I am prepared to take others with me,’ the youth warned, not having taken in Henry’s words.

  ‘That doesn’t have to be the case.’

  Henry saw the lad’s eyes were wild and staring, that he could not remain still, always jumpy and jittery, dancing on the balls of his feet, the gun shaking dangerously in his hand, his finger wrapped, then unwrapped, and dithering around the trigger.

  ‘Come on, put the gun down.’

  The youth sneered and stepped out of the doorway into the alley, giving Henry an uninterrupted view of his companion in the yard behind him.

  It was a sight that made him freeze.

  The second youth looked much the same as the first, same age, height and facial hair and was similarly attired – jeans, T-shirt, trainers – but there was one exception. Maybe a dozen blocks the size and thickness of large chocolate bars were strapped across his chest and waist and he was holding something that looked like a stubby pencil in his right hand. Henry knew instantly what he was looking at.

  A suicide bomber.

  In a backstreet in Accrington.

  The first youth saw Henry’s expression change – and he smiled.

  ‘Yes,’ his head nodded, his eyes wide.

  Behind him, the explosive-clad youth held up his right hand, showing Henry the plunger switch and the wire running from it, around his back. He had a wild glare in his eyes.

  ‘Get back, everyone,’ Henry shouted over his shoulder. ‘He’s got a bomb.’

  They did not need telling twice and very rapidly Henry was truly on his own in the alley facing two people who didn’t care about dying or taking others with them, and there was nowhere for him to go.

  The first youth waved the gun at him, holding it parallel to the ground like some hip-hop gangster in a music video. Henry half expected him to start rapping, though with the youth’s ethnic background, he was more likely to spout Bangra.

  Henry was thinking fast.

  It looked like these two had been disturbed in acts of preparation, meaning there could be others in the house, equally well armed. The whole street could end up being detonated if things went badly.

  Neither youth was over five-six in height; both were as skinny as pipe cleaners, no muscle, no weight on them. Unarmed, Henry would have had a go at both, but just at that moment in time the scales were somewhat weighted in their favour.

  ‘There’s police officers at the front of the house, us here and more on the way,’ Henry said. ‘This is going nowhere,’ he added, hoping they would believe him.

  The big Adam’s apple in the skinny throat of the gun-toting youth rose and fell. The gun dithered in his hand, his finger curling and curling again around the trigger. His head rocked and weaved. Sweat rolled down his face. He knew the implications of what he was doing, looked determined to go through with it.

  ‘Don’t do this,’ Henry said. ‘Nothing is worth this.’

  ‘You ignorant fool,’ the lad almost spat. He twisted his head and spoke over his shoulder, keeping one eye on Henry. ‘Has there been time?’ he asked the second youth.

  ‘Yes, brother.’

  His head spun forward. ‘It is time.’
r />   He raised the gun, pulling it upright. It was aimed at the centre of Henry’s chest and he knew he would not survive this. He braced himself and in his mind he kind of knew he should be telepathically letting Kate know he loved her, tell her to look after the kids – ha! They weren’t kids any longer. They were now exceptionally beautiful young women, hounded by slavering boys. Yes, a section of his mind knew that this is what should be happening – but the biggest part was shutting everything down, knowing he would be able to watch the bullet leave the end of the muzzle in slow motion, see it fly majestically across the gap like a CGI in a movie and enter his chest, then probably leave through his back whilst making a hole as big as a saucer.

  Every muscle in his body tightened, from the stretched sinews in his neck to his calves.

  ‘Are you ready, brother?’ the youth shouted.

  ‘Yes …’ The explosive-bound youth raised his right hand, his thumb hovering over the button. Then he looked quickly down at the wire and Henry caught the movement of his eyes and saw what he had seen. ‘Omar!’ the lad gasped.

  ‘What?’ Omar responded impatiently, brow furrowed. He twisted his head to glance, his eyes momentarily off Henry … at which point, Henry knew he had to act. He had a nanosecond to do so and he pitched himself at the lad, going in low under the gun with a rugby tackle, driving his right shoulder low and hard into the lad’s midriff, flattening him and at the same time grabbing the lad’s wrist. He landed on top of him, completely taking him by surprise, slamming the gun hand down on to the hard ground with as much force as he could. The gun clattered out of his grasp. Immediately Henry reared up and delivered the hardest punch he could find, smacking him on the jaw just below his left temple, knocking him senseless. As a blow it hurt Henry’s knuckles a lot, but there was the satisfying feel of dislocation and breakage in the young man’s face.

  Henry had to keep moving. He dived for the gun, scooped it up and rolled up on to one knee, coming up with it poised and aimed at the second youth, who was desperately fiddling with the wire from the switch.

  ‘Stop!’ Henry yelled. ‘Or I’ll fire.’

  The lad dropped the switch on the ground and looked pathetically at Henry, now every inch the immature, scared teenager. He raised his hands, a defiant expression on his face.

  Henry climbed to his feet, breathing heavily, his nostrils flaring, knowing he had just cheated a terrible death.

  Both lads were quickly pinned down, their wrists cuffed behind their backs, a burly cop standing astride each, baton extended and ready for use.

  The one who’d had the gun – Omar – was trussed up in the alley, his face a swelling mess from the punch Henry had laid on him. The other was in the yard, his explosive vest having been carefully peeled from him. They were being kept separate and two vans were on the way to collect the prisoners.

  The situation had been radioed in and other assistance was also on the way. The house had yet to be entered and although Henry had been ordered to keep it secure, he was itching to go inside, now that his blood was flowing.

  He was not convinced the two lads had been in there by themselves, tooling up for some atrocity or other; they were far too young and inexperienced for that. A team had been disturbed and Henry thought there was a good chance others were still inside, although there had been no signs of movement.

  The front door was still intact and Henry intended to leave it that way, three cops guarding it. The rest of his team, with the personnel carrier, were in the back alley and the kitchen door was invitingly open.

  ‘I’m going in,’ he told the sergeant.

  She regarded him anxiously. ‘Is that wise?’

  ‘Probably not – but what the hell? This was supposed to have been a nothing job.’

  ‘We’ve been told to hang fire, wait until a firearms team has arrived, wait until the circus arrives.’ She was toeing the party line, but Henry could see she, too, was raring to get in.

  ‘I used to be part of the circus,’ he said. ‘You coming?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘We really do need to check.’

  ‘But carefully,’ he warned her. ‘Any sign of a gun, we run, any sign of a booby trap, we try not to step on it, OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  Henry’s stab vest had been replaced by a bullet-proof one from the equipment in the carrier.

  The sergeant briefed two of her men to stay by the kitchen door, the rest to come in behind her and the chief inspector. Henry poked his head around the door and looked into the kitchen.

  ‘Police!’ he shouted, though he was pretty sure that if anyone was in there, they had a good idea that the law had arrived. He stepped into the empty room, still dithering from his close-run encounter, but not even starting to think it through. It was just like any other kitchen in this neck of the woods: fitted, fairly modern, functional, large enough for all the mod cons, a small table and four chairs … and on top of the table, three half-drunk mugs of tea, three plates with the remnants of a curry on them, half-eaten naan breads.

  ‘The three bears,’ he said to the sergeant.

  She nodded.

  Even with a cursory glance, Henry could see there was no one else in the kitchen, unless they were in the fridge. ‘Room clear,’ he said, then moved across to the inner kitchen door to the threshold of the next room, which was a cheaply furnished lounge: tatty settee, two battered armchairs and a TV. No carpet on the floor, just bare boards, the wallpaper peeling.

  Henry ushered a couple of officers in ahead of him and they did a quick search behind the furniture. ‘Clear,’ one said.

  There was a road atlas of the UK and a London A–Z on the settee, together with an exercise book, pens and scraps of paper. Two rucksacks leaned against the wall. Henry was tempted to look, but held back because he was pushing his luck by disobeying the instruction he’d received not to enter the property.

  ‘Touch nothing,’ he said forcefully, and walked slowly across the room to the open door leading to the next room, the front lounge. He looked in and saw there was no furniture in here at all and could say with reasonable certainty that no one was in it. A wooden, open-plan staircase ran up directly opposite the front door.

  He went across the threadbare carpet to the front door, which, as he suspected, had been reinforced. This had been done by an extra skin of hardwood and numerous bolts. But that wasn’t the only thing that caught his eye. The wires leading down from the edge of the door into a small plastic lunchbox made him gasp.

  ‘Christ!’ the sergeant breathed behind him. ‘A booby trap … if we had managed to put the door in …’ Her thoughts were left unexpressed, although her instructions to the officers behind were as clear as day.

  Henry exhaled, not even aware he’d been holding his breath, then turned to the stairs, peering cautiously up through the treads. ‘Starting to get shaky,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sweating like a horse,’ she said.

  ‘Too much detail,’ he said, grinning. ‘We need to be very careful here.’

  ‘I like the obvious statement,’ she came back.

  Giving the front door as wide a berth as possible, they eased themselves up the stairs without incident, stepping on to a tiny landing from which the back and front bedrooms and the toilet could be accessed. Henry took his time looking round, thoughtful. ‘Front bedroom, back bedroom, loo,’ he said, pointing at the closed doors. ‘Agreed?’

  ‘Yep.’

  He raised his eyes and saw a loft hatch.

  ‘So,’ he said hoarsely, ‘if there was a third or fourth person, where have they gone?’ he speculated. ‘And if you were a member of a terrorist cell preparing to commit a crime, using a terraced house as a base, what would be a prerequisite?’

  The sergeant looked at him, uncertain. ‘Dunno what you’re getting at.’

  ‘What would you need just in case the cops came calling to break up the party?’

  ‘Ahh – an escape route.’

  ‘Bob on,’ he said, ‘b
ut why didn’t they all use it, if there is one?’

  She shrugged.

  Henry said, ‘I thought it was a good question and I reckon I know the answer and somehow I don’t think it would be the wisest course of action to go barging into any of these rooms through these doors, just in case.’

  ‘What? Just in case number three’s behind?’

  ‘No – in case these are booby trapped, because if there is a third person – and I’d bet my newly enhanced pension on it – he’ll have gone now across the rafters.’ He pointed up to the loft access flap. ‘And any terrorist worth their salt will have probably left a calling card behind the doors and that flap … so this is where we stop …’

  ‘Boss!’ came an urgent shout from one of the officers downstairs, interrupting Henry’s audible thought process.

  ‘What?’ he responded doubtfully, hoping he wasn’t going to hear that the two prisoners had escaped, or they’d managed to take cyanide pills. He stepped back down the stairs.

  ‘There’s a bit of a kafuffle out back – one of the neighbours says he’s just had a nasty experience. Someone’s just dropped into his house from the attic.’

  ‘OK, be with you in a sec.’ To the sergeant, he said, ‘Before we even turn one of those door knobs, we get our act together. We don’t want blowing to smithereens, or anywhere else for that matter. And this little contraption by the front door’ – he pointed down stairs at the lunchbox – ‘needs paying some respect.’

  ‘I’ll sort it,’ she said, businesslike.

  Two police vans arrived as Henry emerged into the alley behind the officer who had called him about the neighbour. The alley was now alive with people gawping at the police activity and probably had not been this busy since the last cotton mill closed down.

  He was introduced to an elderly Asian man called Ali Iqbal who had clearly just risen from his slumbers, was unshaven and a little confused and still dressed in what looked like very loose fitting pyjamas. He was a gnarled gent, probably in his seventies, and was chewing something sweet smelling.