by Robert White
I was ready for the bastard.
As he grabbed me, I didn’t fight the movement. Instead, I used his own strength alongside my own, to propel my head forward and butt him in his already ruined nose.
I wanted to push his nasal bone into his skull; smash his nasal bridge, to the extent that the fluid that bathed his brain ran out of his nose.
I drew my head back again and used every last ounce I had to slam it back into the same spot. George’s blood covered my face, I could feel the hot spatters each time I brought my head down.
At the fourth strike, George went limp.
A quick check on my surroundings saw me outside the body repair shop some twenty meters from the front door of the main house. It seemed that all the players had moved toward the rear, of the gaff, no doubt hoping to finish Lauren and Des off, secure in the knowledge that Red George would handle me with ease.
How fucking wrong they were, eh?
I wiped George’s blood from my eyes and checked his pulse.
He was alive.
I pulled the AK-47 from underneath his body, knocked the action forward and applied the safety.
Ideally, I would’ve just put a 7.62 into his head, but I didn’t fancy attracting the marauding hordes.
Still…where there’s a will and all that.
A quick recce of the body-shop armed me with a crowbar.
It wasn’t pretty.
Keeping my head down and using vehicles for cover, I made toward the rear of the main house.
As Goldsmith’s guys had all approached from the garage area, I tabbed in the opposite direction, approaching Lauren’s position from green face. All I could hope for was that JJ would get to the compound anytime soon, and attack the crew from their rear, giving us a pincer movement. But with no comms to guide him in, it was no more than wishful thinking.
As I reached the corner of the main building, I dropped into the kneel and risked a quick look-see onto the back off the gaff.
Twenty feet in front of me a porta-cabin smouldered away, obscuring my view of most of the ground floor. What was left of a big Merc was parked about thirty feet adjacent to the back door. I could just see the toes of a pair of black boots tucked in behind it which just had to be Lauren’s. And heartbreakingly, lying face down in the dirt, halfway between the car and a log-pile was the unmistakeable body of Des Cogan.
Des and I had gone back a long way and my gut churned with a devastating concoction of sadness and fury.
Someone once told me, ‘never fight angry’.
It was way too late for that.
Lauren North’s Story:
As I sat finding the courage to move, the rate of fire from the boys who were tucked in between me and the garage slowed, they simply took the odd pot shot in my direction. It appeared that since Goldsmith’s tirade, they were confident that they could take their time with me. One shouted from behind a Sprinter van. ‘I come get you now, English…I fuck you good. Your boyfriend dead…Red George kill him.” His mates found the whole thing amusing and guffawed at his bravado.
I couldn’t concern myself with the hired help, or their attempts at unnerving me further.
I knew I had two, maybe three targets hanging out of any of the four upstairs windows above me.
But who was in which?
My head told me, Goldsmith would be the least switched on.
A tormenter, more concerned with taunting me than finishing the job, he had been unable to keep his braggart’s mouth shut and I was pretty sure he was at the window, closest to red face.
I told myself he may not even have his weapon ready and in the aim, whereas the other players would be waiting for my head to appear from the cover of the car.
As I had my back to the Merc, I decided I would be twisting my body left as I rose.
Attacking all the upstairs windows, one through four, would require a line of fire approximately sixteen meters in length. My PP19 had a full sixty-four rounds in it, and on fully automatic, the little Bizon would spit them out at around twelve per second.
If my plan worked, I could strafe all four windows in three seconds flat. Left to right.
This meant Goldsmith would get the good news last.
Beggars and choosers again.
Three seconds.
I took a deep breath and turned.
Rick Fuller’s Story:
Before I could find a way to indicate my position, Lauren popped up from behind the Merc and let go with the PP19 toward the upstairs windows, strafing the house from left to right.
She wasn’t messing about either and didn’t take her finger off the trigger until she was happy.
I heard screaming as she found her targets.
Rolling forward out of cover I joined in the party, firing in twos and threes toward the windows above.
It was a pointless exercise, my rounds found only corpses for targets as two very dead men dangled from the openings, their blood dripping down the whitewashed walls of the house, their weapons useless on the ground beneath.
She turned toward the sound of my gunfire, saw me and tapped the top of her head, a signal indicating for me to join her. A split second later she vanished behind the Merc and turned her attention toward the garage area and our remaining enemy.
I sprinted over and hunkered down beside her.
“Jesus, am I glad to see you,” she said. Then, looking over toward the Scott lying twenty feet away added. “Go get Des from there, Rick, I’ll cover you.”
I nodded, feeling the sour taste of grief in my mouth.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll drag him behind the woodpile. Once I’m set, I’ll cover you and you join me.”
Lauren grabbed my arm. “Be careful,” she shouted over another burst of gunfire coming from the garage. “…Please.”
I held the AK one-handed and fired toward the shooters as I ran. As I approached Des, I dipped down, grabbed his vest collar and dragged him behind the pile of timber.
The Scot rolled over on his back and groaned in agony.
“You took your fucking time,” he said.
I had been so convinced the fucker was dead, I nearly shit myself.
I pulled his balaclava from his face. “Jesus Christ, Des, I thought you’d been slotted.”
The Scot lay immobile on his back, face racked with pain. He was desperately short of breath.
“I caught one in the leg…then one got me right in…in the back…hit the enamel plate in my vest, think my ribs are busted.”
I rummaged in my combats, found a field morphine shot, and stabbed it into his leg. The results were instantaneous. Des blew out his cheeks.
“Fuckin hell…that’s…that’s better, pal…cheers.”
Being hit by a 5.56 round even with full armour is shocking, but our makeshift kit was just a cotton vest with the breast and back-plates sewn in. There was no Kevlar to absorb the shock of the impact. No wonder his ribs had gone. It must have been like being hit with a sledgehammer. Still, it saved his life.
“Well, you have the Turk to thank for still being here to tell the tale, mate.”
Des nodded. “Yeah, he’s been in the shit himself. I think me and him are the only ones with working comms. He’s been trying you and Lauren for the last ten minutes. His Karabiner went fucked on him. He’s on his way to the compound.
As if JJ had heard his cue, I heard the very welcome sound of his PP19 rattling out some rounds to the rear of the garage.
Des pulled himself into a sitting position and checked over his own Bizon.
“I reckon I can shoot, but dinnae be askin’ me to run anywhere, pal. I was out cold for a while there, and when I came around, I was in too much pain to move. I knew if I started crawling into cover, they’d put another couple of rounds in me and I’d be a goner for sure.”
I almost slapped him on the back.
“You get tucked in here, pal,” I said. “We’ve got these fuckers trapped now JJ’s on plot. I just need you to keep an eye on the main house.
Make sure nobody pops out of a window and spoils the party.”
The Scot shook his head. “I didn’t see it, but I heard it. I reckon Lauren took them all out. Goldsmith included.”
For a split second, I was slightly disappointed.
“Give me your radio, pal, cover those windows just in case, and I’ll be back for you shortly.”
Lauren North’s Story:
The four of us stood behind a big silver Mercedes Sprinter van parked in the centre of the compound. Apart from the birds, there was silence in the yard. The dead lay everywhere, blood soaked the pale ground beneath them, their twisted, grotesque corpses casting long shadows in the early morning sunrise.
JJ had killed four of Goldsmith’s crew, before Rick and I even moved from cover. Two with his Bizon, two with his knife.
Between us we’d slotted the rest as they bottled it and tried to run away. You may think it unsporting to shoot a man in the back, but after they have just done their level best to kill you, it makes it a whole lot easier.
A massive guy who Rick identified as Red George lay on his back, close to the front door of the main house. Half his head was missing and a bloodied crowbar lay next to him.
As Mr Fuller’s face neck and forearms were still splattered with claret, I presumed it was his handiwork.
Rick was talking us through the house entry as we reloaded our weapons.
Before we got paid for the job, Kostas Makris required photographic evidence that Stephan Goldsmith was dead. There was no doubt in my mind that Rick would have done the job for free, but the deal had been struck, and a quarter of a million pounds was to be split between the team once the picture had been delivered.
At that price, if he wanted a fucking album he could have one.
I knew I’d hit Goldsmith at least twice. I saw him fall, but we’d come too far not to make sure, and after all, he’d risen from the dead once before.
Des rested against the van trying to get his breath. I was so pleased to see him alive, I grinned like a Cheshire cat every time I caught his eye. If he hadn’t been in such pain, I would have hugged him there and then.
After a second morphine jab, he was moving a little easier, but the drug made him feel sick and light-headed. It seemed silly to put him through the entry when it was more of a mopping up exercise.
Reluctantly he agreed, kept one set of comms and acted as lookout.
Rick Fuller’s Story:
I’ve lost count of how many buildings I’ve cleared.
For me, there’s always been a niggle with the job, and it always gave me the hump when I had to do it.
You are victorious, if you can ever call killing a victory, and for all intents and purposes the fighting’s over, the job done...except it isn’t, is it?
What’s left after all the bangs and flashes, all the smoke, the screams and the blood, are streets, yards, and houses. They were there before your battle, and they would probably be there after you had gone. Yet lurking in those places was what may be left of your enemy.
I’ve also lost count of how many good blokes get killed during these ‘simple’ clearances. People switch off. It’s natural in a way, and it was my job to ensure everyone stayed sharp and on point.
Clearing houses in a ‘three’, was not unusual. It was a simple case of methodical movement and cover. The team made its way through the house room by room, floor by floor, leapfrogging each other, each taking turns on point. It couldn’t be done quickly and it was best not to make too much fucking noise. Clearing houses is hot sweaty, dangerous work.
The rear ground-floor rooms had been badly damaged by Lauren’s RMG 27. It didn’t appear that anyone had been inside the kitchen or laundry room of the main house when the rocket was fired.
Stephan’s pet cat hadn’t fared too well though.
We cleared the three receptions at the front with relative ease, but then, we had the staircase to deal with
Ask any soldier, any cop… ‘what’s the worst part of an RI (Rapid Intervention) or clearance?’ And they’ll tell you it’s the fuckin’ stairs.
This one was fourteen treads high with a solid wall to your left as you rose. The landing at the top split left and right, then back on itself to give access to the two front bedrooms. Two of the four rear windows that had been so troublesome for Des and Lauren were accessed by the part of the landing we could see.
In each of those windows lay an unidentified corpse. This meant that if Lauren was correct, Stephan Goldsmith’s body lay in the rear bedroom to the right of the landing.
I indicated to clear the left rear first.
We climbed slowly and silently.
Our first target, the left room, had its door ajar. JJ took point, went in low, I stepped right, Lauren left. Check under the bed, in the wardrobe.
Clear.
In a line of three, we stepped past the two dead men hanging from the windows, me on point, covering the target door, Lauren and JJ covering the two closed front bedroom doors.
Once we got in close, I held up my hand and we had a good listen.
All quiet.
Indicating that I would take point, Lauren left, JJ right, I grabbed the door handle, pushed, and we were in.
Lauren North’s Story:
The room was not a bedroom at all, but an office, and sitting behind a grand mahogany desk, was none other than Stephan Goldsmith.
He had both his arms upturned on the polished top. In his right hand, he held a small grenade, in his left, the pin.
His usual pallor had taken on a grey hue and I saw that I had indeed hit him with my PP19, not twice, but three times. He did his best to breathe through his mouth. I’d hit him in the upper chest and jaw, and his lungs were filling with his blood by the minute. Unless he got urgent medical treatment, he was not long for the world.
If he let go of that grenade, neither were we.
“Well, well, Fuller,” he croaked. “We finally meet again.”
He coughed down his nose, but blood still escaped from the corners of his mouth as he spoke.
“I knew you would come, Richard. I knew the moment my death certificate was accessed by that silly little girl you were fucking in Manchester, that you’d come…eventually.”
Rick clicked off the safety on his AK-47.
“Not a good ploy,” coughed Goldsmith. “You know what I have in my hand.”
Rick stepped to his right and raised the AK in line with Goldsmith’s face.
“Oh yes, I know, a Soviet F1 grenade.”
The bastard actually smiled, his blond hair falling over his right eye as he spoke.
“Yes, Richard. The Russians call it ‘the little lemon’, did you know?”
“No,” spat Rick. “I didn’t.”
“Ah,” said Goldsmith, wincing in pain. “But you do know its capabilities, don’t you?”
Rick remained impassive; Goldsmith had the floor and all the cards. He coughed again, his breathing worsening by the moment.
“It will cause devastation for thirty square meters, Richard, shrapnel travel of up to two hundred. Easily powerful enough to kill everyone in this room. Of course, you understand that the standard fuse on this weapon is three-point-five to four seconds, do you not? More than enough time for the three of you to shoot me, dive for the door and plunge down the stairs to safety…no?”
“No,” said Rick flatly.
“No,” said Goldsmith, with all the satisfaction he could muster. “Because the fuse attached to my little lemon is different, isn’t it?”
Rick curled his lip.
“Yes, it’s a Russian MUV booby trap device. A zero-delay fuse.”
“Exactly,” purred Goldsmith. “Well done, my Cockney wide boy, go to the top of the class. And that, of course means, that when I die…you all die too. See…there really is a God.”
“Look, Goldsmith,” started Rick. “We both know this is about me and you, why not let these two go, and we’ll see this out…just between us two? Me and you…man to man.”<
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Goldsmith tried to laugh, but his pain was too great.
“Ah yes, Richard Fuller the hero. There for the greater good. Always the one to sacrifice yourself for the cause eh? Queen…Country…friend…lover...”
He turned his head and looked deep into my eyes. Despite his imminent mortality, he still gloated.
“Because that is what you are now, are you not, Ms North? His lover?”
I didn’t answer.
Goldsmith turned his attention back to Rick. He practically snarled, his voice full of hate.
“You see, Fuller, I’m going to take away what you took from me. I’m going to take away the only thing you love.”
JJ was standing to Rick’s right. I hadn’t seen him draw his knife.
He sprang at Goldsmith, plunging the blade into the side of his neck and falling on the grenade, smothering it with his body.
I heard a tiny hissing sound. Rick bellowed, “Get down!” Dragged me to the floor and landed on top of me.
Rick Fuller’s Story:
As a result of JJ Yakim’s selfless bravery, we had survived the fragmentation of the grenade.
The shockwave from the detonation, however, was a different matter. My nose and ears bled and I felt like Red George had been kicking me in the guts after all. Being in such close proximity to an explosion damages your hollow organs.
I checked Lauren over, she was groggy but conscious. Exactly how much internal damage we had suffered from the over pressure, time would tell.
She rolled on her side, picked herself up and walked over to JJ’s body. The blast had thrown him across the room and he was lying on his back under the window. The breast plate of his vest had taken the brunt of the detonation, but his wounds were devastating. Lauren knelt by him and stroked his hair.
Goldsmith was sitting in his chair. Most of his right arm had gone and he bled from both eyes. JJ’s knife was still buried to the hilt in his neck. I pulled my phone from my combats, took a shot of his corpse and pulled the knife from his neck. I wiped Goldsmith’s blood from the weapon, and joined Lauren at JJ’s side.