435 Tango: Out of the Blue and into the Black

by R J Holligan

  “It went better than expected… they’ve started moving Army units from Catterick, they’ll be on the streets by tomorrow,” said Dave laughing and raising his glass.

  It never made it, Palfreyman’s elbow smashed into it. Screaming, Dave collapsed onto the floor in a welter of broken glass, blood and smashed teeth. His arms were still in the fight though, his hands scrabbling for the revolver he wore in a holster in the small of his back. Palfreyman was faster, slipping out a paratrooper boot knife and lodging it straight in the scrabbling man’s larynx. Then it was game over.

  Derek and Quayle looked on aghast. “What the hell” said Derek.

  “I didn’t sign up for killing civilians,” said Palfreyman extracting the blade from Dave’s throat and cleaning it on the dead man’s shirt. Then things seemed to go in slow motion… Quayle remembered Derek reaching for the Browning pistol on the table at the same time as Palfreyman dropped to the floor under the table Then there was an earth shattering bang and Quayle’s eardrums seemed to explode and the world turned blazing white…

  Chapter 27

  The percussion grenades commonly known as ‘flashbangs’ thrown in by the assault team worked their magic. Quayle was found lying on the floor curled up in a foetal position. Hands and legs plasticuffed and a hood slipped over his head, he was bodily carried to a van and placed in the cage. The journey must have been quite long as when the adrenaline had spiked and worn off, he had dozed off. Hauled out of the van he was placed gently on a concrete floor and the bindings cut. A few seconds later the cell door clanked shut. Flexing his limbs to get the blood flowing again, Quayle slipped the hood off. It was a police cell just like any other police cell. He hadn’t been put before a Custody Sergeant, so he was probably being held under the Terrorism Act. The cell door opened, and three men dressed in military fatigues stood in the mouth of it.

  “Out you come, if you kick off, we’ll put you on the deck and use you for football practice, understand?”

  Nodding, Quayle said “Crystal,” standing up awkwardly and following then out. One man led and two fell in behind him. A short walk down a corridor brought them down to a steel door. It opened from within. Inside the room was a short man in an officer’s uniform. “Come in, sit down.,” he said pleasantly. Doing as he was bid, Quayle sat down. A plate of sandwiches, a steaming mug of coffee and a bottle of water sat on the table. There were no tape or DVD recorders or overt video cameras. The officer did not even have a note pad. Despite obviously being an officer, he wore no badge of rank or insignia. “Tuck in while I explain things…” he said gesturing to the food.

  Grabbing a sandwich, Quayle bit a big chunk off and unscrewed the cap off the water. “You won’t know this but during the early evening the 2nd Armoured Brigade crossed into Scotland and to up positions across the country. At midnight, the Prime Minister went on TV across the whole of Scotland. He explained that the legislation surrounding Devolved Powers has been superseded by direct rule from London. Moreover, he declared martial law and suspended habeus corpus. So that’s why you’re sitting before me and not a Sheriff Court. We’re treating you as an enemy combatant and you’ll be detained until you can appear before a military tribunal,” he said matter of factly.

  “What then, a firing squad?” asked Quayle. The officer cracked a thin smile. “Well, things haven’t gotten quite that far yet. This is a fluid situation, a matter of finding out who’s friend and who’s foe. Once things simmer down. For my part I’m not bothered with trifles like trials and tribunals. With what we’ve got on you and who and where we found you, we can hold you indefinitely…” he said letting the word linger. Without another word he got up and left the room. Making hay while he could Quayle demolished the sandwiches. Seconds after he’d finished the last of his coffee in came the three soldiers. Handcuffed to the front and hooded again, he was frog-marched to a waiting truck and they drove off in cloud of diesel smoke

  A few miles into the journey Quayle caught a whiff of cigarette smoke, followed by a distinctive cough. There was no doubt about it, it was Palfreyman. As the first tinges of dawn made itself felt the truck left the metalled road and bumped down a track “Journey’s end,” shouted the soldiers dragging the pair from the back of the army truck. Still hooded Quayle stumbled awkwardly and fell. “Don’t hurry to get back up said one of the Squaddies putting a boot into Quayle’s kidneys, His face hit the ground, he smelt earth and pine needles. From his prone position he could hear weapons being cocked.

  “Aw come on, at least let us see the sun one last time,” pleaded Palfreyman. Quayle was hauled to his knees and his hood yanked off. He blinked at the rays of orange sunlight piercing the tree canopy. The reflective calm did not last for long. Palfreyman who for some reason had had his cuffs removed slung a handful of finest forest track dirt in his guard’s face and headbutted the second. Using the distraction of the scuffle to get to his feet, Quayle slammed the gated joint of the handcuffs into his guard’s head. Then he ran. Leaving the track, he ran for the trees jinking left and right. Bullets zipped around him and blasted bits of bark off the trees. Soon, out of breath, he slowed to a jog.

  The shooting had stopped but his heartrate beat like a machine gun in his head. Finding himself at the top of a wooded ridge, he realised he needed to break his trail. Assuming the crash position he pitched himself off the top rolling down into a wooded gully. Crashing through brambles and bushes he came to rest at the base of a large tree. Checking that everything seemed to be where it should be, he shuffled into a comfortable position and waited.

  Checking the time on the luminescent dial of his watch, he waited an hour. There was silence apart from the night-time sounds of nature going about its business whilst the humans slept. Scrambling up the bank, he scratched himself on thorns and tripped over tree roots. In the quiet of the forest it sounded like an avalanche. Eventually he got there. Grasping around, he found a log and swung its weight in his handcuffed hands. Not much good against guns but better than nothing. The ruts of truck’s tyres were easy to find. There were three shapes scattered across the track like piles of rubbish. Three bodies, but whose? Bending over the first, Quayle turned the body over with his foot. A soldier. On his combat harness a clip-on torch like Quayle carried on his stab vest. Unclipping it he shone it over the corpse. Luck was on his side, on a D Ring climbing clip was a long handcuff key. The keys supplied with the cuffs were crappy little things that looked like they came from a cracker. Most cops bought themselves a couple of the long ones off the internet and kept them handy. Added to which the soldiers unused to cuffing people had put his cuffs on backwards with the keyhole facing inwards. Nor had they double locked them. With the key in his mouth he stuck it in the lock and one steel bracelet fell off, then he did the other. Leaning down he to a closer lo at the corpse. The dull eyes were bloodshot showing the signs of petechial haemorrhaging. The man had been strangled. There was an empty holster on his belt.

  Moving up the track were two other corpses. They were spread-eagled out. Drying blood on their fatigues showed they had been shot in the back fleeing as the larger and messier exit wounds were on their fronts. Playing the beam of the torch over their heads, he saw they had also been shot in the nape of the neck, execution style. No mercy shown or chances taken here. Weirdly they had no dog tags. Or had they been taken? Both still had their weapons, Glock pistol in their holsters. Taking a pistol from the first corpse he went across to the next and ejected the clip from the second pistol and pocketed it.

  The second soldier was a similar build to Quayle. The fall down the bank had ripped his clothes to shreds. Stripping the boots off he removed the trousers and blouson. Searching the pockets he found a basic first aid kit. Removing his clothes to just his boxer shorts he wiped his scratches and cuts with antiseptic wipes and then squirted antiseptic all over his wounds. While getting dressed in the dead man’s clothes, he assessed what had occurred on the isolated forest track as if it was a crime scene, which also to his mind off the pain.<
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  Palfreyman had made his bid for freedom and Quayle had followed. Two men had gone loing for them, leaving one to guard the truck. Someone had strangled the sentry and then masqueraded as him. On returning the two other soldiers had seen the ruse too late and made a run for it. Shot in the back as they had fled, they had lain wounded in the mud only to be despatched with a round in the back of the head. Had Palfreyman escaped? There was no time to muse further. Picking up a brisk walk he headed back down the track.

  The smell of fresh-brewed coffee hit Dominic Eaves’ nostrils as he woke. Quayle’s house was certainly a step up from a shed, but a cafetière and a kettle were stone age technology to him. Borrowing Quayle’s decorator’s van, he had headed to a nearby Lakeland outlet to dollop out several hundred pounds on a top-notch coffee maker with a digital timer. Rolling from the bed he booted up his Panasonic Toughbook and went downstairs to grab a coffee. He’d crashed at four in the morning, the display on the coffee machine telling him it was just after midday. Today was the day. After the wilderness years and his apparent disgrace came the time for his vindication. No national newspaper would touch his story with a bargepole. So his funder had gone one better. Just printed 250,000 copies of a basic newspaper with only one story. That for years the British state had waged an illegal war against what they deemed ‘subversive elements’. From animal rights protestors, the Welsh Nationalists of The Free Wales Army and a plethora of others, they had bugged, bombed their way to maintain the status quo. While much of this had been common knowledge Eaves had sewn up a solid case.

  A former Special Branch officer had spilled the beans. Suffering from terminal cancer, he had flown to Prague. Sequestered in a flat, he had recorded hours of interviews with Eaves. Moreover, he had brought a treasure trove of documents to the party with him. It was the cherry on the cake. Eaves logged onto the Freedom Live YouTube and saw the broadcast had begun. Terry Walters sat in a chair wearing a blazer. An oxygen cylinder next to him in case of need. His lungs were destroyed from years of heavy smoking while on stakeouts. The broadcast was being made from the Czech Embassy. London-based journalists could go and step over a doorframe into another country lo at the documents without breaching UK laws, technically speaking. Eaves toasted the old man with his coffee and watched his phone blow up with messages as ex colleagues texted, WhatsApped and emailed him, reporting distributors handing out copies of The Freedom Times, including one plucky fellow lobbing several rolled up copies of the paper over the gates at the end of Downing Street. Once the cops had realised it wasn’t anything noxious, they had retrieved them, and the copies had disappeared inside.

  “Read all a fucking bout it,” shouted Eaves jubilantly at the TV as it appeared on the BBC News Channel. As he was eating an omelette at lunchtime the hashtag #Chessmen was trending at the top of Twitter. The Chessmen was the collective name for the Establishment cabal running the campaign and the associated civil servants, cops and soldiers who had been the pawns in the game. Eaves had been careful to leaven the story with the human interest of many of these pawns who had also had their lives ruined through drugs, drink and divorce. They had not been well rewarded for their service.

  Having established the story was kosher the mainstream media had started running with it. As the architect of the story Eaves now had offers rolling in.

  “Dom, they’re talking six figures mate, you’ve got to get back down here,” said his old mate and agent in an excited call.

  “You keep ‘em warm I’m on my way,” said Eaves ending the call. Sticking his laptop into his bag, he left the house. Knowing the decorator’s van was only half full of petrol, he got into Quayle’s clunker and fired up the engine. Instantaneously the car blew to smithereens. There was a secondary explosion as the petrol tank blew up. Residents of the quiet street ran out of their houses to gape in horror at the spectacle of Eaves’ corpse blazing away, his seatbelt still attached.

  Chapter 28

  On leaving the forest, Quayle had hit a road and made a decision to take the opposite direction to that which they had come in the truck. In a vague plan literally drawn up on the hoof, he had decided to head away from urban areas to the less populated area, or so he discerned by the lack of streetlights. This was a region of second homes and holiday lets. He hoped to break in one of these and lie low until he worked out what was going on.

  Minutes after initially leaving the bodies he had had a thought and returned. Searching the bodies more thoroughly he had found half a dozen energy bars and a half full canteen of water. Snacking on a couple of bars he had resumed his march. Walking in the comparative silence he became aware of r a low rumble, which grew louder. And then there it was… a helicopter. Suddenly a massive beam blasted down towards him. Fight or flight he thought. In the movies the hero would shoot out the searchlight with a well-aimed shot. But Quayle knew the tech these ships carried. They would have spotted his heat source a few minutes before they switched on the searchlight to confirm he wasn’t a deer or cow. Either way he needed to create distance.

  Unholstering the pistol he vaguely aimed at the chopper and snapped off a few shots. Then he legged it, rolling into a hedge coming out the other side and jogging across a field. Then he slid over… in cowshit. The chopper had broken off its search when he had opened fire. Now it came back like a million-megawatt cyclops. Scraping slurry from his mouth Quayle got up and headed for the herd on the other side of the field. Spooked by the helicopter they were bellowing and running up and down. Quayle bumped his way through the beasts and found the edge of the field. Hopefully, it might mess up their thermal imaging a bit. Then he saw a reflection coming off water. A decent sized stream or small river maybe. Maybe if jumped in it would lower his body temperature. But then the night lit up in a series of flashes and bangs like Guy Fawkes Night. It was coming from the road. Quayle had only ever seen it on the news during the last Gulf War.... tracer fire.

  It was aimed at the helicopter which doused its searchlight and banked away. There was a roaring of diesel engines on the road. Quayle’s sixth sense told him salvation lay back on the road. He turned to trudge back not keen for another cowshit dunking, when three red dots appeared on his chest. “Get face down on the ground now,” multiple voices shouted at him. Back to the cowshit it was. Strong arms grabbed him and pulled him to his feet. Hands frisked him and to the pistol and spare magazines. He kept his face long at the floor, contrite. There was a revving of engines and two vehicles smashed through the hedge. Quayle looked up, his arms still pinioned to his sides. They were Pangolin armoured Land Rovers like he’d seen in Derry when he was on honeymoon. Except that these had a machine gun turret mounted to the roof. He was frogmarched forward and pushed against the side of the vehicle. Two black clad figures got out. One shone a torch in his face and the other ran a hand sized scanner over him which beeped.

  We have visual and tech confirmation, he fucking stinks, but it’s him,” a voice said into a radio. His arms were freed, and someone passed him a towel. Another man wrapped him in a foil space blanket. The doors of the second vehicle opened and two men got out. Quayle recognised one of them.

  “Glad to see you in one piece,” said Hartman. Quayle did a double take not at first recognising the officer now clad in full ballistic armour and kit. “We’ve got a lot of things to go over, but a shower first I think,” said Hartman slapping Quayle on the back. They helped him into the back of the Pangolin and slammed the door. In the back of the armoured Land Rover Quayle felt some warmth returning and the adrenaline buzz ebbing away. The rocking of the vehicle soon lulled him to sleep.

  He awoke back in his former bed at Milltown Crags. On the bedside table was paracetamol and a bottle of water. Swallowing down two tablets, he got out of bed and hit the shower. “Well you’re ready for court then?” joked Martin the intelligence guy as Quayle stood drinking an espresso in Hartman’s office. Quayle was clad in a grey tracksuit that was given to detainees going to court from Custody.

  “Take a seat,” s
aid Hartman.

  “So what the hell happened?” asked Quayle.

  “What happened was that Harrison got Caesar syndrome and crossed the Rubicon,” said Hartman.

  “Or the Tweed, to be more precise,” chipped in Martin. “He’d had a big chunk of money from the past he hadn’t spent so hired some mercenary types to fly up here and stage a mock coup, trying to prove us to put the full fat operation into effect. The guys who tried to off you were mercenaries,” said Martin.

  “Hence the lack of dog tags,” said Quayle. “Precisely,” said Hartman. “Thankfully, the Paras got them at the airport before they started making mischief.”.

  “We think the lot that got you had come in that helicopter that was chasing you around the fields,” said Martin. Seeing Quayle lopk longingly into the bottom of his cup, Hartman got up and walked to the coffee machine.

  “They’re down the corridor in the cells,” added Hartman dripping espresso into two fresh cups.

  “What will you do with them?” asked Quayle swirling the sludge in the bottom of his cup.

  “We’ll take their pictures, DNA and fingerprints and stick them on a plane to somewhere. They’ll be told not to show their faces for a year or two. If they show their faces, we’ll lock them up for firearms offences we’ve got on file,” said Hartman putting a double espresso in front of Quayle.