All Or Nothing

by Ollie Ollerton

  And if so, why?

  ‘No further activity,’ replied the sniper.

  And then he got back to what it was he’d seen.

  Parked cars. Two parked cars that weren’t supposed to be there. One that he’d spent far too much time in himself, McGregor’s BMW. And another, a black Audi TT that he was pretty sure belonged to Cynthia fucking Doyle.

  Abbott pulled up his balaclava so as not to look scary and then tried the door to the canteen. It was unlocked. These kids were too terrified to even think of escape. Where would they go anyway? That’s what they would have been told. Try to escape and we’ll find you and punish you. The kids looked up as he entered, their eyes widening in fear. He held up I come in peace hands. ‘I’m here to help you. I’m here to take you away from these bad people,’ he told them.

  They regarded him mutely. He was used to that. It’s what he’d expected. Experience had taught them not to trust men like him. ‘Do you speak English?’ he asked, and the little dark-haired girl who sat by herself nodded. ‘Can you translate for me?’ She nodded again, still with the same wary look but prepared to listen at least. ‘There will be some explosions, but you’ll be safe in here as long as you stay away from the windows. I’ll come back for you. How many others are there?’

  ‘Three,’ she said slowly, carefully.

  ‘Where are they?’

  She shrugged. ‘Around. They’re around.’

  ‘OK,’ he said, ‘just stay away from the windows and I’ll be back.’

  ‘Charges are set.’

  This from Ward. Brilliant, dependable Ward.

  ‘OK, Whiskey One stay back, ready to blow. Mike One, on me,’ said Abbott.

  ‘Where is everybody?’ This from Miller.

  ‘Good question,’ said Abbott. All quiet on the enemy’s walkie-talkie. The word pinging around his head was ‘anniversary’. He had this image of them all inside in party hats, McGregor and Cynthia Doyle included. But that couldn’t be. That just wasn’t possible, was it? McGregor was Doyle’s right-hand man. Any celebration and he would have known about it, and if he had known about it then he would have told Abbott. The last thing they wanted was a major concen tration of the enemy all in one place, because then it went from being a stealthy incursion to a full-on firefight.

  Abbott gave an intel update to the rest of the team over his radio, making them aware of the situation, confirming his intention to carry on regardless. It remained a DA unless the enemy became aware of them. After all, the enemy weren’t expecting an attack – especially not one initiated by a former SF team – it was just another night for them.

  Together they came up on the factory. The entrance was a large metal roller-door inset with a smaller door. There was a fire exit to the right-hand side of the entrance which would be the entry point, obscured from Brace’s field of view. Abbott and Miller moved either side of the door, Abbott provided cover while Miller went to work, confirming the position of the hinges and placing three horseshoe-shaped charges around each, ensuring the detonators were firmly in place. He moved down the side of the building, unravelling the shock tube which would initiate the dems. The other side of that door, armed men. No idea how many. Also, innocents, usual scenario.

  And then he heard it over the enemy squawk: ‘All right, boys, party’s over.’ A snigger. ‘Get back to your positions.’

  At the same time Brace was in his ear. ‘Main door’s opening.’

  ‘Confirm target,’ said Abbott.

  ‘Enemy. Definitely an enemy.’

  The main entry roller-door shutter rattled, about to open. Abbott and Miller remained still in the shadows, crouched low. It was time to go.

  ‘All call signs stand by, stand by. GO.’

  Ward cranked off the distraction and it did what it needed to do. A crack and thump followed by the flash of flames as the petrol tank of the car lit up the night sky, illuminating the entire complex.

  Almost instantaneously, Miller initiated the door charges, peeling the door clean off its hinges and at the same time blowing the enemy coming out the main door out onto the loading bay.

  The complex came to life as doors opened and the enemy started to spill out into the open, confused and in shock, a sniper’s dream.

  Brace picked them off, men dropping like puppets with their strings cut. Abbott and Miller were now through their entry point and engaging the enemy as they moved through the building, making their way to their objective, in flow and working at ease. Peace in war.

  CHAPTER 41

  In the office above, Raymond Doyle’s rage had emptied the room, the men inside piling out and pulling faces at other guys who’d been standing on the gantry listening, bemused, to the events inside the office. Back to work, back to work.

  Left in the room was a raging Ray Doyle, a ruined ashtray cake, Cynthia Doyle, their son, Finn, and McGregor – McGregor, who wore an odd look. Who seemed unsure as to whether he should go or stay. Acting like a cat on a hot tin roof.

  Behaving strangely, thought Cynthia, who said to him, ‘What the fuck is wrong with you, Mac?’ She was going to have to have words with him, she thought. Find out just exactly what the little toad was playing at by organising a party and making her look like an idiot.

  His eyes were darting. His mouth was working. He even glanced at his watch.

  ‘McGregor . . .’ she prompted.

  And then it came. From downstairs. Shouts. A gunshot. The sound of soft popping and more shouting, running.

  McGregor pulled out a gun. He held it on Doyle. ‘Get out,’ he yelled. ‘Out of the office.’

  Doyle looked at him, a picture of confusion. His mouth worked, but no sound came out.

  ‘McGregor,’ shrieked Cynthia.

  McGregor turned the gun on her.

  And shot her. Twice.

  Finn, the kid – the as-it-turned-out brave kid – gave a shout and leaped forward, but McGregor was quicker, swinging the weapon around and plugging the kid once before he could even reach him.

  Two bodies. Mrs Doyle sprawled half on and half off the sofa, a patch of purple blood on the front of her Juicy Couture; Finn, sliding down the wall, his mouth working like a beached fish, dying before their very eyes.

  ‘You’re a dead man,’ said Doyle.

  But McGregor had already turned the gun on him. ‘Out,’ he said.

  Doyle’s eyes blazed, but he did as he was told, leaving the office on the end of McGregor’s gun. His cheeks were puffed out. He was reddening. Sweat poured off him. A picture of fury and confusion.

  Out on the gantry and oblivious to the combat raging below, McGregor punched the big red button to activate the grinder.

  ‘Get in,’ he told Doyle.

  Doyle looked at him incredulously. ‘If you think . . .’ he began and then clutched at his chest. The faded area of his sweatshirt was suddenly bunched in his fist. He was gasping for breath, shivering at the same time.

  McGregor saw his chance. He stepped forward. Manoeuvred the breathless, convulsing Doyle in front of the chute and was about to shove him backwards when from behind him he heard a familiar voice.

  Abbott calling out to him. ‘McGregor!’

  CHAPTER 42

  Tom Brace had taken out the guy leaving from the side door. At the same time, the front entrance to the factory had opened and a Doyle goon appeared. Abbott took him out. One, two, three clustered shots, coming forward at the same time and using the guy’s falling body as a shield to step across the threshold with Miller at his rear. Guys inside. Guns being drawn.

  ‘Another one,’ said Brace. ‘Target acquired.’

  ‘Fire at will,’ said Abbott, a target in his own sights, bloke in sportswear, hardly out of his teens, taking him out, pop, pop, pop, seeing the familiar landscape of the factory floor but through new eyes now, as a battleground, a plane of combat divided into metre squares.

  He went left, indicating for Miller to go right and advance, both finding cover behind industrial equipment and dropping to one
knee. Pop, pop. Another gunman fell. One of the enemy got a shot off, but it was wild and panicked, the guards in complete disarray as Abbott and Miller moved forward. There were three bodies on the factory floor ahead of them and a general sense of panic in the air. Somebody took a pot shot at them from the back of the factory floor and they both went flat behind cover, searching him out, Miller’s suppressed AR-15 chugging.

  ‘Magazine!’ Abbott shouted, removing his empty mag and replacing with a fresh one, at the same time moving behind cover and then surfacing to engage the enemy, allowing Miller to carry out a similar drill. On the stairs was another guy. He held his pistol sideways like an LA gangbanger, firing wildly, and it gave Abbott no pleasure to take him out, the red dot laser sight finding its mark in the centre of mass followed by two rounds. A terrified crew member made a dash to their right and Miller took him down.

  Two other shooters had taken cover behind machinery to their twelve and were loosing off shots that zinged overhead, splitting the air above them. At the same time, Abbott looked up and saw activity on the gantry, McGregor holding a gun on Doyle. As he watched, McGregor seemed to be leading Doyle out, Doyle wearing a stricken, shell-shocked look.

  Two things happened next: McGregor reached and punched the grinder button, the machine instantly leaping into life, and Doyle clutched at his heart, his whole body going taut for a second, face slackening, the classic symptoms of cardiac arrest.

  With a signal to Miller – cover me – Abbott scooted forward, popping off with the Scar, creating noise and ricochets, keeping the enemy’s heads down as he reached the steel steps leading to the gantry, boots on metal as he raced to the top, where he came up on where McGregor had moved towards Doyle and was surely about to shove him into the funnel of the grinder.

  ‘McGregor,’ he shouted. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  McGregor turned, saw Abbott, and then returned his attention to Doyle. Red-faced Doyle. Spasming Doyle. And then, like a man possessed, McGregor did it. He shoved Doyle into the funnel.

  Abbott, halfway along the gantry, stopped, not especially wanting to see Doyle dragged into the grinder. But he heard the screams all right. Even a man in the grip of a heart attack knows when his body is being sucked into a machine designed to turn it into mincemeat.

  Abbott remembered himself, raised the rifle and took aim at McGregor. ‘Switch it off,’ he yelled. ‘Drop the gun and shut the machine off now, McGregor, or I swear to God I’ll put a bullet in you.’

  ‘Abbott, we’re on the same side,’ called McGregor over the pulverising sound of the grinder. ‘I mean, did you see that, pal? I just did you a favour. You should be thanking me, not threatening me.’

  Even so, he did as he was told, dropping the gun, which fell with a metallic clank to the gantry and reaching to slap off the grinder.

  Abbott glanced into the chute and the sight was as bad as he had feared. From below came more of the pop pops of Miller’s AR-15. He took a step back, sweeping the barrel of his own weapon across the floor below. If there were any enemy left, they were keeping a low profile.

  ‘Abbott, I’ve got two guys surrendering down here,’ called Miller from below. ‘What you want me to do with them?’

  ‘Zip them,’ he replied over his shoulder. ‘Find out if they know where any of the kids are, then tell them to get out of here. We’re about to blow the place.’

  He turned his attention back to McGregor. ‘You and me are going to have a talk about this at some point. Right now, I need you out of my sight.’

  To Brace he said, ‘Tango One, I have a guy coming out. Hands raised, unzipped. He’s a friendly. He’s getting in his car and leaving.’ Back to McGregor. ‘Later,’ he said warningly, ‘now get out,’ watching as McGregor made for the steps.

  Abbott was now on the lookout for friendlies. Gun raised, he entered the office, saw the bodies of Cynthia Doyle and Finn, checked for signs of life, and found none. McGregor’s doing, no doubt.

  ‘Downstairs clear,’ he heard from Miller. ‘They’ve either legged it or they’re hiding.’

  ‘Sensible,’ said Abbott. ‘They know when they’re beat. Make a final sweep, would you? We’re leaving now.’

  Next, he called for Ward, who in a few moments had joined him on the gantry, Miller covering his quick journey across the factory floor.

  ‘The safe’s in there,’ Abbott told him when he arrived, and Ward already knew the drill. They’d been through how Ward needed to blow the safe but preserve whatever was inside. Ward did as asked, and in two minutes the door to the safe was hanging off, Abbott clearing smoke with his hand to peer inside.

  What was he expecting to see? He had no idea. Even so, it caught him by surprise. The sole contents of the safe was a CD. He grabbed it and then together with Ward clattered back along the gantry and down the stairs, covering himself as he approached the factory floor. No sign of Miller.

  ‘Tango One, be advised Mike One and I are exiting the building,’ reported Abbott.

  They emerged to see Miller close by, packing off a guy who was zip-tied, all but slapping him on the rump, yelling, ‘Get out of here,’ sending him darting off away from the site.

  At the same time, Abbott saw two children cowering by one of the buildings. He recognised the bruised cleaner girl. ‘You two,’ he shouted to them. ‘You need to get out of here. This place is about to go boom.’

  Not far away, Ward shrugged off his rucksack and set to work on the charges. The kids, seeing him at work and knowing for sure that the men in balaclavas meant what they said, emerged from their hiding place, allowing Abbott to hand them off to Miller.

  ‘Tango One, we need the van down here for extraction,’ said Abbott into his mic, looking around for the one more kid left, needing to find the child because if they didn’t then he couldn’t risk blowing the factory, and if he didn’t blow the factory then as far as he was concerned the job was incomplete. His message was not as powerful as he wanted it to be.

  And then he saw him, the last one, the Polish couple’s kid, who like the first two, was hiding in the shelter of a nearby building. Abbott held up his hands, ran over and spoke to him. ‘We’re here to rescue you. You see that man there?’ He gestured towards Miller, who was returning. The kid nodded. That was a relief. At least he could understand English. ‘Go to him. He’ll take you to the others and then we’ll get you out of here. This place is about to explode.’

  Miller left, Abbott covering Ward. ‘That’s it,’ he told Ward over the comms. ‘All the kids are accounted for. You’re safe to proceed.’

  ‘Any enemy remaining?’ said Ward, already working, thumbs pressing a detonator into C4.

  ‘If there are, they’ll have to take their chances,’ replied Abbott.

  An expert and a fast expert at that, it took Ward just five minutes to set dems charges on the four buildings.

  ‘Ready,’ he told Abbott. ‘Place is rigged.’ The two of them joined Miller at the canteen, where the eight children were gathered, and Abbott did a headcount. The little girl he’d spoken to earlier was there, the other three; the Polish couple’s child, the cleaner girl and the last one. All accounted for. He and Miller ushered them into the back of the van, which had arrived with Tom Brace at the wheel, Miller covering them, swinging the barrel of his AR-15 left and right, showing good muzzle discipline even after all these years.

  ‘We have someone out there,’ he said all of a sudden.

  ‘You back there,’ called Abbott. ‘You need to come out into the open now. You won’t be harmed.’

  The guy appeared. One of Doyle’s flunkies. Another kid in track pants and a sweatshirt. As Abbott covered him, Miller moved forward, relieved the guy of his gun and zipped him up. ‘Go,’ he said, and the guy began running, hands behind his back. That was four altogether, zipped and sent on their way. Aside from that, plenty of fatalities inside the factory, as well as the sentries taken out on the approach. As a plan, it had not been carried out flawlessly, but so far each objective had b
een achieved. Abbott wasn’t complaining.

  They drove, putting the factory to their back. At the dual carriageway they stopped. Abbott saw the final zip-tied guy still running across the wasteland behind them, but the guy was out of the blast zone by now, and besides, the police would be here soon.

  ‘Whiskey One, blow it,’ he said.

  They opened the rear doors of the van but motioned for the kids to stay inside. ‘Watch,’ he told them. ‘The place is about to go up.’

  Ward gave the small handheld detonator to the bruised cleaner girl, inviting her to press the button. She did the honours, and the children cheered as in the distance came the crump of the explosion – one, two, three, and then a final fourth as the main factory went up, the skyline suddenly orange, the fingers of a huge blue-black plume of smoke reaching to the heavens.

  Time to leave, and Abbott provided Brace with directions to The Freemasons Arms. Arriving about ten minutes later, they pulled up out of sight of the pub. Shards of light blazed beneath the boarded-up windows.

  ‘Do you need back-up?’ asked Brace.

  ‘No,’ said Abbott. ‘Anybody who comes out that front door can take their chances.’ He swapped his Scar for his Glock, left the van, and took a familiar route to the cellar hatch, discovering that it had been padlocked since his last visit. He put a round in the padlock. Another one until the lock hung loose. Carefully he raised the hatch, pointing the gun below, into the cellar.

  Empty.

  The screens were on, just as they had been during the Sweaty era. The operation was clearly still a going concern. Abbott trod carefully and quietly down the steps into the cellar with the Glock held two-handed. He glanced at the screen, where he could see that the rooms upstairs were currently not being used. No customers, thankfully. In the communal area were three kids; sitting in the bar area on the ground floor were two men playing cards as usual, while behind the bar sat the guy with dreads.

  Abbott reported the sitrep back to the van.

  ‘Do you need support?’

  ‘Negative,’ said Abbott, ‘I can do this myself.’