by Nick Oldham
Without uniform or kit, it would have been a snug fit. In kit it was a tight squeeze and very uncomfortable. Overalls, boots, ballistic vests and hats, each officer with a Glock 17 holstered at their side, each with a Heckler and Koch MP5 machine pistol slung diagonally across their chests. Each also had a Taser gun, plus all the usual accoutrements: rigid handcuffs, CS canister, extendable baton, radio, torch. All with hard edges, nothing comfortable. And six people cramped up in the back of a Transit had a certain ‘whiffy-hum’ to it, even if one of them was female.
Morton was sitting directly opposite Jake, both of them by the back doors of the van. When – if – it happened, they would be the first two to pile out of the doors.
‘Here,’ Morton said again. He was holding a paper cup towards Jake, steaming chicken cup-a-soup in it, a smell that didn’t necessarily gel well with the body odours within the confines of the vehicle. He had poured it from his flask.
Jake took it with a nod of gratitude, even though four hours into this operation he was bursting to pee.
It tasted remarkably good. He took a few sips of the hot liquid and passed it on to the officer sitting alongside him, catching her eye fleetingly in a shaft of light from the nearby street lamp. She took it from him and glanced guiltily across at Dave Morton, catching his eye, too.
In that instant Jake realized that his friend knew.
Morton had observed the seemingly innocent cup handover carefully and seen the eye contact between Jake and the policewoman, whose name was Kirsten Lee. Morton sat back and tilted his head knowingly, looking down his nose with smug disapproval at Jake as if everything had just slotted into place, made sense.
Jake cursed inwardly, but just arched his eyebrows at Morton, then looked out through the one-way window in the van door to the world outside, thinking: How the hell does he know?
Shit.
With a gloved hand, Jake wiped the window which constantly steamed over, despite the overworked air-con unit in the van that fought a losing battle to keep the atmosphere fresh.
From the window Jake was looking northwards along Clifton Drive, towards the South Shore area of Blackpool. Even though it was dark he could still make out the Meccano-like structure of the huge roller-coaster ride, the Big One, on the Pleasure Beach. Its red aircraft warning-light rotated brightly on its apex, the highest point where the ride paused before plummeting spectacularly, almost instantly reaching a speed of eighty miles per hour.
The van was parked on the roadside, actually facing the direction of St Annes, the more genteel resort to the south of Blackpool. Across to Jake’s right was Blackpool airport; to his left were the Starr Hills sand dunes, and beyond them the black Irish Sea.
There had been very little radio traffic for the last hour over the encrypted and dedicated channel being used for this operation. The target, under surveillance, had been seen to enter a flat in South Shore about ninety minutes earlier, and the expectation – hope – was that he would leave and make his way back to a flat in St Annes he was supposed to be hiding out in. The route he chose would, with any luck, take him right past the Transit van in which the six heavily armed cops sat.
But he seemed to have settled in for the night.
Not that Jake was concerned.
If the target didn’t reappear, then they would go for him at the flat at dawn. Ideally, they wanted to take him en-route whilst he was on the move, which made it easier to isolate him – hence the firearms van plus two unmarked and two liveried police cars parked discreetly nearby. They wanted him on the move so that they could control everything, not holed up in a flat, which could get very messy.
Whatever, they were going to get him that night. That much had been decided.
The guy was wanted for murder, was known to carry and use firearms, and he was going to be nailed at some time in the next few hours. Jake hoped that he would be the one to come face-to-face with the bastard, just to see him shit himself when an MP5 was shoved up his nostrils.
Jake inhaled and exhaled, taking in a shot of fresh air from the gap between the ill-fitting van doors that shouldn’t have been there, but was.
He thought about the target.
He was a low level drug dealer, the kind of person who seemed to be the target of many similar police operations. The difference with this lad – and he was only a kid, eighteen years old – was that he’d gone into ‘turf expansion’ mode and fallen out with another gang and the guns had been drawn. If he’d murdered a member of a rival gang, that would have been one thing. But he had killed someone in the crossfire: a completely innocent boy of twelve who had strayed into a wild-west shoot-out by mistake and taken a bullet in the head.
The police had been ruthless in their pursuit, led by a Senior Investigating Officer (SIO) called Henry Christie. After causing serious disruption to a lot of the drugs trade in Blackpool, they had identified the killer, and there was no way he was going to keep his liberty.
Jake had been annoyed by the claim that the young victim had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. That made him fume because the youngster had been exactly where he had every right to be and should have been able to go about his activity without fear of having his head blown off.
It was the gang member with the gun who had been in the wrong place.
Jake found he was grating his teeth.
‘Here.’
This time Dave Morton was proffering a tube of polo mints. Jake took them, flipped one out with his thumb and passed them on to the next firearms officer along. This time, no eye contact with her. But Jake could not help but be pressed up tight to her, thigh to thigh.
His eyes caught Morton’s again. On this occasion there was no expression of knowledge in them – just anger.
Jake looked out of the van window again, along the deserted road, and sucked on his mint before manoeuvring it with his tongue to sit wedged between his back teeth and cheek to see how long he could keep it there without chewing it or it dissolving. His record was twenty minutes. The team record was thirty-two minutes, held by Morton.
A voice over the radio cut into Jake’s thoughts: ‘Alpha Two to patrols on Operation Amethyst.’ Alpha Two was the call sign of DCI Rik Dean, the on-the-ground commander for tonight. He was second in command to the Gold commander – Detective Superintendent Christie – who was monitoring the operation from the communications room at Blackpool police station. Jake knew that Alpha Two had been working with the surveillance branch to pinpoint the target and was presently sitting in eyeball contact with the target’s current location, the flat in South Shore. Alpha Two went on, ‘Target emerging from flat … A car has drawn up to pick him up … not the vehicle he arrived in, which is still parked up; this one is a Ford Mondeo, registered number …’
A shuffle of excitement went through the firearms team in the van. Suddenly, they all came to life, as though roused from hibernation. Weapons were touched. Bottoms twitched. Breaths were taken. Heartbeats were controlled. Glances exchanged, throats went dry and, to a person, each needed to pee. Prayers, possibly, were silently said.
They listened to the DCI’s commentary.
‘I’m confirming it is the target, Wayne Oxford, and he is getting to the Mondeo driven by an unknown male … Mondeo presently stationary on Boscombe Road; the men inside are talking … Target sitting in front passenger seat …’
Jake knew that Boscombe Road was one of the maze of streets that made up South Shore. It ran east–west, and its main junction was with Lytham Road. The assumption being made, based on information received, was that once the target left the address, he would turn right on to Lytham Road and eventually travel along Clifton Drive and head for the flat in St Annes he was believed to be holing up in. It was a fair assumption to make, but nonetheless an assumption. If he travelled in that direction, everything was geared up to net him. If he went in another direction – which villains often had a nasty habit of doing – the operation would become more fluid. Fluid, Jake thought cynically. That was the
word Henry Christie had used at the briefing. Just like every other police op, then.
The DCI’s voice came over the air again: ‘He’s still in the car, talking.’
Jake ran his right hand along the full length of the MP5 strapped across his chest, then allowed the tip of his right forefinger to rest on the trigger guard. Nice weapon, easy to use. Reliable and deadly. He had never used it in anger, but he had pointed it for real at a lot of people, including a kid on a pedal bike armed with a BB gun. He was as sure as he could be that if the time came to fire, he would do so and live with the consequences, emotionally and legally.
Nothing happened for another five minutes, fuelling the tension in the van.
Jake glanced at Morton and saw he was looking back, thoughtful and accusing. Jake returned the look, causing Morton to drop his eyes and purse his lips.
‘Target on the move, repeat, target on the move … in the Mondeo, two males on board, unidentified driver, the front-seat passenger is our target,’ DCI Dean said over the radio, his voice now controlled and cool. In charge. It was exactly the kind of voice you wanted to hear. ‘East along Boscombe Road towards Lytham Road … All lights on vehicle working.’
The tension in the van ratcheted up a notch as the team began to prepare mentally and physically, focusing tightly on what might lie ahead.
‘Now at the junction with Lytham Road,’ the DCI informed them.
Jake wondered exactly where the DCI was located. He knew the target was surveillance conscious; travelling in the early hours of the night gave him an advantage and the police a problem. Even in a place like Blackpool, which had a twenty-four-hour culture, traffic on the roads at that time of day was light. A sensitive crim would very easily spot a tail and maybe take evasive action. That was why, whatever happened, the police would have to move stunningly quickly on Wayne Oxford.
‘Turning right on to Lytham Road,’ Rik Dean said, then repeated the information.
‘Alpha Four, confirming eyeball,’ another mobile unit piped up.
‘Over to you, Alpha Four,’ Dean said, handing over the tailing baton to this next unit who were clearly positioned somewhere on, or just off, Lytham Road, ready to take the reins from the DCI.
‘Roger that,’ Alpha Four clipped. ‘He’s on Lytham Road, heading south towards Squires Gate Lane and the airport.’
He was heading in the right direction. Jake shifted on the bench seat, stretched his legs and rotated his ankles, getting the blood flowing and purging the stiffness from his joints. He swallowed, set himself for the task to come.
‘He’s turned left on to Highfield Road,’ Alpha Four said. ‘I cannot follow or he’ll make me out. Alpha Two, instructions?’
‘Shit,’ Jake mouthed. Highfield Road also ran east–west, meaning that Oxford was now heading inland.
‘Alpha One interrupting.’ This was the voice of Detective Superintendent Christie from the comms room. Jake knew that Christie would be utilizing audio/visual feeds in the control room and would know the exact location of every cop on the operation.
‘Go ahead, Alpha One,’ Dean said.
‘Let’s just sit tight here,’ Christie said. ‘Alpha Four, see if you can get on to Squires Gate Lane and position yourself there. Let’s stick with our intel. It may be that he’s just being careful, and he’ll simply do a few twists and turns to check his rear and, if he’s happy, he’ll head home.’
Christie’s voice was calm and confident. Jake knew the guy – not well – and that he was well respected by the troops and knew his job.
‘Alpha Two, roger.’
‘Alpha Four, roger also.’
So they were going to let Oxford have a bit of rope and pray the intelligence was good. Jake was happy enough with that.
The radio transmissions then ended.
In his mind’s eye, Jake visualized Oxford driving through the streets of South Shore, left, right, stopping, waiting, checking, moving on, trying to flush out a tail if there was one. He also imagined Christie sitting away from the scene of the action, tense but warm in comms and probably sweating as he watched the monitors and listened in. Jake grinned. He was probably cacking himself that he’d made the wrong decision and that a ‘most wanted’ man would just disappear into thin air.
‘Target now on Squires Gate Lane.’ The silence was broken by Alpha Four. ‘Heading towards the seafront.’ Squires Gate Lane ran, again, east–west, in front of Blackpool airport, and its most westerly junction was with Clifton Drive.
‘He’s coming, guys,’ one of the firearms team said.
Alpha Four: ‘Now Squires Gate Lane, junction with Clifton Drive. Left-hand lane, stationary at the lights, which are on red. Units ready to respond?’
There was a raft of affirmatives from everyone.
If Oxford turned left, this was going to be quick and decisive.
‘Lights still on red … changing … He’s turning left now!’
The van in which Jake and the firearms team were sitting was perhaps four hundred metres south of the junction, parked on the road alongside the remnants of a holiday camp, now almost completely bulldozed and demolished to be replaced by a housing development.
Jake knew this was where it was all going to get a bit blurred.
His left hand gripped the inner handle for the left door. His right clamped the MP5 to his chest.
Morton held the opposite door.
‘He’s passed the junction with New Road,’ Alpha Four shouted. ‘All patrols – go, go, go!’
Jake was amazed how well it all went – up to the point where Oxford opened his door and fled like a whippet.
Two liveried police cars seemed to emerge from nowhere, like demons from a cave, all blue, red and white lights. One was suddenly in front of the Mondeo, one alongside. The two unmarked cars were just as fast, both slotting in behind it, giving it no choice but to pull into the side of the road. That this manoeuvre was completed so quickly and effectively was testament to the expert driving skills of the traffic officers, and they stopped the Mondeo, as planned in the briefing, just metres short of the firearms team van.
As soon as Jake and Morton saw what was happening, they piled out almost before the rolling roadblock had come to a complete halt.
But Wayne Oxford was no slouch either. He must have been living on pins, and his senses and reactions were heightened by his fugitive lifestyle. He threw open his door and, without even a glance, sprinted, vaulting a low wall and running into the remains of the holiday camp.
‘He’s running,’ Jake said, transmitting via his PR with the microphone taped to his throat. ‘Into Pontins.’
Jake ran, Morton thundering behind him, into the holiday camp, which now consisted of the shells of derelict, two-storey chalets, windows smashed, doors kicked off hinges; some of the blocks had been completely demolished and were now just mounds of rubble and hard-core, while others still stood, but vandalized. The whole area was unlit and consequently dangerous underfoot.
Oxford had disappeared into this wasteland. He had moved quickly.
‘Shit,’ Jake breathed, clambering clumsily over the low perimeter wall, weighed down by his kit, followed by Morton. He saw a shadow move. ‘There,’ he gasped, changed direction and ran, already sweating underneath all the equipment.
They reached the corner of a still-standing chalet and slammed their backs up against the prefabricated wall, which wobbled precariously like a badly built stage set. Their MP5s were ready, safety catches off.
‘I’m sure he went this way,’ Jake said, glancing at Morton, who nodded agreement. Then they heard footsteps crunching.
Jake swung away from the wall, weapon ready, and looked along the chalet, seeing Oxford sprint along the front and out of sight. Jake heard footsteps on stairs.
‘This way.’
He trotted to the corner of the building, then pivoted out in a combat stance, ready to fire if necessary.
No sign of Oxford.
At the front of the chalet were the rem
ains of the staircase that ran from the centre of the block and split at the top to give access to the flats on the first floor.
Jake signalled to Morton with a finger. Up there. He was sure Oxford had gone up the steps and taken refuge in one of the rooms. Jake caught his breath. ‘I think we’ve got him,’ he said over the radio and began to call in other officers to surround the block. As they were getting into position, another cop saw a black shape flit behind one of the broken windows, confirming that Oxford was up there – trapped in a holiday chalet. Most people’s nightmare.
From that moment on it was the kind of waiting game they all enjoyed. Oxford was going nowhere; the police were going nowhere. The detective superintendent arrived on the scene within fifteen minutes, and after a short but tense negotiation, Oxford emerged from his hiding place in a wardrobe, hands aloft. Jake talked him down on to his knees, then face down on the floor, where he handcuffed him, heaved him upright and marched him to a waiting police van.
A killer had been caught without too much drama. Good result.
The team reconvened at police headquarters following Henry Christie’s mercifully brief – but glowing – debrief at Blackpool nick. A more detailed one would follow in due course. Their weapons were returned to the armoury in the firing range at the training centre, and then, all exhausted, they turned down the offer of a brew and headed for their cars.
Dave Morton loped up behind Jake as he was about to get into his motor. ‘Hey, pal.’
Jake’s mouth twisted sardonically. The tone of Morton’s voice alerted him to what was coming. Jake stood upright and turned to his colleague, instantly struck by the change of personal perspective. Morton had suddenly become a colleague, relegated from friend.
Morton sidled up, close. A space invasion. His face was serious.
‘Unwritten rule,’ he said, and Jake swallowed. ‘You’re a fool, Jake, and it’ll all end badly.’
Jake turned away, as if to get into the car. Morton grabbed his shoulder, but Jake shrugged it off. ‘What?’ he demanded, his eyes blazing.