by Robert White
Lauren was curious. "Whatever?"
Evelyn's tone became flat. "Anything they want, straight, anal, girl on girl, BDSM, water-sports, whatever they want...they get."
She returned to the plan as if what she had just said was all in a day's work and tapped her finger to the rear of the building.
"And if you complain, or don't do a good job, you go here. Here are the cages."
Lauren was incredulous. "Cages!"
Evelyn nodded. "Yes, two large cages, enough space for maybe ten or twelve girls...or sometimes boys... in each one. Maxi brings in girls from places like the Ukraine and Romania. When they first arrive, he holds them in one of the cages. From there they can see into the punishment cage...here. This is the place you go when you piss him off. When you haven't fucked a guy right, or given him what he wanted. In this cage there is no food, to toilet, nothing...nothing but...the needle. Of course he never lets you go without your fix. Clever guy, huh? Now, you can imagine what the new girls must be thinking when they see what happens in the other cage. He starts to control them the moment they arrive...it's really fuckin' scary."
Lauren creased her brow. "But he didn't force you to go to him, did he, Evelyn?"
The girl dropped her head and picked at what was left of her fingernails.
"No...I came in the other way, the one no one sees, or pretends not to see. The cops, the social, no one does fuck all about what's going on under their noses. They don't help any of us, but it is happening everywhere, in every city in the country, they call it grooming, a nice word for a set of perverts, eh? Maxi's cousin found me in a burger bar, I'd run away from home, no money, no place to go, scared, tired. You know the story....I was thirteen...I don't have to spell it out, do I?"
Surprisingly, Rick spoke up. "No, Evelyn, you don't. We aren't here to judge you. You're here to help us...and you're doing a good job."
The girl managed a smile and went back to the plan on the table.
Within a couple of hours, we had a complete and up to date layout of the interior of the old social club, including the new entrances and exits. By five, we had an outline of how we could take Maxi on in his own back yard. It was just a question of when.
As we ate together, Evelyn gave us the answer to that question too.
She stirred her food around her plate, occasionally stabbing the odd morsel, as if it were her enemy. Finally she pushed the plate away and dropped the bombshell.
"Maxi has some very special guests visiting the club almost every night at the moment. They're from Ireland, two men and a woman."
Rick nearly spat his pasta out. "Have you seen them...these three?"
Evelyn shook her head. "No, not me, but other girls have. They've been coming to see Maxi for a long time...months...maybe longer...but I never saw them, I wasn't their type see; they're into the Eastern European types, tall leggy blondes...all three of 'em. Whenever they come over, Maxi rolls out the red carpet, they do big business together."
Lauren leaned forward. "Drugs? Do they buy drugs from him?"
Evelyn nodded. "Yeah, crack, cocaine, smack, weed...but their big thing is girls. Maxi provides whores to work in Dublin and Belfast. I've heard that the Irish lot hand-pick them straight from the cages. The girls are taken over the water for a few months, then they're shipped back here and new ones go out to replace them."
"That must cost them big money, eh?" I said.
Evelyn nodded. "I heard that they bring mountains of cash. One girl I know was given to the Irish woman for the night, she's a lesbo...that or she bats for both sides...anyway, this girl told me that they sometimes trade guns for the girls instead of cash. Maxi always needs guns and stuff."
I turned to Rick who was listening intently. "That a new one, eh, pal, the Irish selling guns..."
Rick was deep in thought for a moment, before he spoke.
"That's what I've been thinking all along, Des, but we have it from two sources now, so it must be right." He turned back to the girl. "So are they here for girls or drugs this time?"
Evelyn's blue eyes flickered. "I heard that they are here for drugs, a big deal, but they are here for a girl too."
Lauren leaned in. "A girl? You mean some girls?"
Evelyn shook her head. "No, I heard it was one girl they were looking for, one very special girl."
Once the food was eaten, Lauren and Rick cleared, whilst we smokers adjourned to the street. J.J. rolled his cigarette, I filled my pipe and Evelyn sucked greedily on a Benson and Hedges.
"So what now?" I asked.
J.J. looked at his shoes. "Evelyn will go to my home tonight. My wife will look after her until we finish our job."
I gave the Turk a look that Evelyn read instantly. Her voice was sharp.
"I ain't goin' to let him down if that's what you're fuckin' thinkin'."
"I didn't say you were, hen," I countered. "But you must know, you are a big ask for anyone. There is a lot riding on this job. More than you know."
She stamped on her butt with her foot and ground its remains into the concrete. Evelyn may have been a child, but she knew exactly where she was, what position she had found herself in.
"And where do you think I can go now, pal? You think I can just wander back to Maxi...maybe you think I can work for another pimp...maybe get my gear from a different Manchester dealer? Guess again, mate. Even if I grassed you up, gave him this place, I'd be dead before you could say Jack Robinson. If I don't get clean, don't sort myself, don't get out of this shit hole of a city, I'm dead anyway...dead from the smack, dead from HIV, dead... at fifteen years old...not a good look, eh, Scotty?"
J.J. put a fatherly arm around the girl.
"Come on, Evelyn, I will take you now, you will be safe at my house."
I watched as the girl totted along the cobbles in stupidly high heels, until she disappeared out of sight. I thought about my upbringing back in Glasgow, the poverty, my father's constant struggle to feed and clothe us. Nonetheless, it had been a loving caring environment; he had been hard but fair, and my dear mother had kept our tiny home clean and warm. With the exception of a Saturday night and Christmas, there had been no drinking, no drugs, no violence. How would I have fared at fifteen, had I found myself on the street? Probably no better than that wee girl.
The pavement glistened with frost and music played somewhere in the distance, a tune that suddenly reminded me of home. Other people, not people like me, were having fun.
I stepped back inside to plan a slaughter.
J.J. was back within an hour. He seemed more relaxed than earlier. He'd also shaved and found his bottle of hair gel again.
Rick had laid out all our kit including four MP7's, slings and extended mags, four SLP's loaded with the fearsome hollow-point ammo, more oversized magazines, eight flash bombs and four devastatingly evil phosphorus grenades. Alongside were torches and in-ear comms, everything down to black flameproof coveralls, boots, balaclavas and gloves.
Whatever the outcome of our little soiree into Levenshulme tonight, we were going to make a hell of a mess.
Rick was sitting at the table and studied a large scale map of the area around the club. He checked his watch. "It's just eight... we'll leave in two hours. Lauren, we're going to risk using your RS6, as well as the BMW. I'm going to be on foot..." He pointed to a spot on the map, "...around here and act as a spotter for Maxi's X5. As soon as he's on plot, we'll RV ....here, at the Beamer. That's as close to the club as is safe. It's a demolition site. High walls on three sides, good cover. Des...you act as quartermaster...we will all kit up at the car. Everything we have will be with Des in the BMW. Before that, the remaining three of us will all be totally clean... J.J., that includes your knife."
J.J. opened his mouth to complain, but Rick was in no mood for an argument.
"If you get a pull from the law with that fighting knife, we'll be a man down before we start, we can't afford that. We have to take a chance with Des and the BMW...no choice there... but the rest of us are clean un
til we kit up...non-negotiable."
Rick turned to Lauren.
"You and J.J. will enter and exit in the RS6. Park it nose out onto Stockport Road on Shakespeare Street...here. Des and I will exit in the Beamer; if all goes according to plan, we all put some distance between us and the carnage and RV...here."
J.J. pursed his lips. "And Maxi..? If the Irish aren't inside, we need him alive no? How do we get him all the way from the club to one of the cars? He's a big guy, huh? He will not want to go with us."
Rick was his usual business-like self. In all the years I'd worked with him, the one thing no one could ever accuse him of was a lack of decision making.
"Good point...Ideally we'll find the Irish and Maxi all sitting pretty and we get the job done in one hit. That said, our main objective tonight is to deal with Maxi, then we find out the location of the Irish...slot the three of them...soon as....then collect our fee."
Rick started to fold his map.
"You're right, J.J. ...we won't be taking Maxi on a tour of Manchester's highlights. We get the info we need there and then, inside the club."
Rick gestured toward J.J.'s fighting knife." I'm sure you have a very persuasive nature... Either way, his reign ends tonight. Manchester will be looking for a new king...understood?"
We all nodded.
Rick leaned forward, hands flat on the table.
"I want to make the rules of engagement clear, here and now, so everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet. Inside the plot will be hardened Sudanese gangsters, maybe NIRA terrorists, armed drug dealers, the lot. Mixed in with the low life will be young, innocent frightened girls. It will be tight, noisy and within seconds full of smoke.
That said, anyone, and I mean anyone who shows the slightest aggression is taken out. I want double taps to the body in there, and if you get the opportunity, a head shot when they drop. Our intention is to slot the Irish and permanently remove Maxi and his crew from Manchester. Keep your balaclavas on at all times and keep the chat to a minimum...any questions?"
There were none. As was the norm, the room fell silent as each of us started to come to terms with what was about to happen. I busied myself with packing all the gear into the Beamer, ensuring each member had the right size kit to go with their preferred weapons.
During my service, I had taken part in this kind of operation, a rapid intervention, just seven times. It was a rare choice and extremely dangerous. The chances of all four of the team coming out of Maxi's grotty hole were slim.
I caught Lauren's eye, saw a glimmer of a nervous smile and gave her a cheeky wink. She turned away and I said a quick Hail Mary for the lot of us.
Rick Fuller's Story:
An R.I. or Rapid Intervention is usually an attack on a building, dwelling or aircraft, and is only used as a last resort to rescue hostages or recover property held inside. Probably the most infamous R.I. was the Iranian Embassy siege in London, carried out by the British SAS.
The premise of such an operation is simple enough. It should be meticulously planned, (it had been known for the Regiment to mock up complete buildings and practice for hours before an entry, had time allowed.) The approach should be silent and undetectable by the hostage takers/drug dealers, until every member of the team was in place, then speed and overwhelming force should be used to terminate the threat to life inside.
We had several problems. The first was we were only four. Usually the cops or military would use a minimum of twelve for a simple dwelling. If I'd had the bodies, for a building like Maxi's club, I would have wanted between fourteen and twenty-four. Every door, window and in the case of the club, the three large skylights, should be manned, and on the command of the officer in charge, entry made using everything from axes to explosives. Every available opening should be breached simultaneously.
To clear a three-bedroom house and secure the hostages should take no more than three minutes.
Our second problem was the club was guarded on the outside. According to Evelyn, two or sometimes three of Maxi's crew were standing watch on the doors and we had to presume they were armed.
Our plan had to be simple and would operate on a little stealth and lots of pure aggression. During the first Iraq War, a unit of eight SAS troops fell upon an armoured convoy of close to a hundred heavily armed Iraqi soldiers, they had no way out and had no choice but to engage them. Rather than bed themselves into cover they charged the Iraqis using a technique favoured in the Boer War, where the front rank stormed forward firing as they went; then the rear would push through doing the same whilst the front lay prone and reloaded.
The technique took ground and bodies at an alarming rate.
The amazing courage and skill of those eight soldiers sent the Iraqi convoy running for the hills. Even though some of the men in the unit disagreed with the events that day, they left eighty-two dead behind them and the SAS without a single casualty.
I was hoping for similar aggression and luck.
How wrong you can be?
At 22:26hrs Lauren and J.J. dropped me on Stockport Road, just shy of a quarter of a mile from the plot. The only kit the three of us carried was our covert in-ear comms. Des was parked up in the BMW, as planned, awaiting our arrival. The night was freezing cold and the paths were slippery underfoot. I turned up the collar on my Berghaus and stuffed my hands in the pockets as I walked. My first task was to have a wander around the streets adjacent to the club to get a feel for the place, then hope to find a spot close enough to get a view of the entrance without attracting attention to myself.
It was as I got two streets away, that my hackles started to rise. Something was definitely wrong.
In the days when I'd worked for the Richards family over in Moss Side, I'd seen first-hand the way Yardie security worked. Just like a well-run military camp in enemy territory, the gang would have spotters in the outlying streets, normally kids as young as ten on BMX bikes, circling their precious nest like prowling buzzards, relaying any suspicious characters back to base.
This was a mirror image, the difference being the spotters were on foot, older and wiser. One guy clocked me the moment I turned off Stockport Road. I pretended to be lost, studying the street nameplate and looking puzzled. Then, turning on my heels, I headed back for the main drag. He didn't follow, but eyed me suspiciously and pulled a mobile from his pocket. I worked out that a kebab shop on the far side of the street, could give me the angle I needed to see the club entrance.
I spoke to the team as I walked, relaying what I'd seen.
Five minutes later, I was standing in front of 'I Love Kebab' holding a disgusting looking wrap of donner meat which I had no intention of eating. I felt it gave me some semblance of camaraderie with the locals. I shuffled my feet against the cold, being bumped into by sad drunks with no taste and no thought for their dietary requirements.
My cover was short-lived.
Someone very strong indeed grabbed me by the collar of my coat and I felt the unmistakable cold steel of a blade at my jugular.
Never, ever dally.
Unless you have absolutely no chance and the odds are overwhelming, give your assailant something to think about before he gets all smug and confident.
I twisted away from the knife and pushed back my left elbow in an attempt to get a dig into my assailant's ribs. I connected, straightened my arm, spun again and parried his knife hand. He was a big Somali and looked shocked that he had lost his grip. I reminded him I was still about and smashed him under the nose with the heel of my right hand, knowing instantly by my connection, he was going down. I hit the pretzel on my comms and whilst I had the chance shouted, "Abort...abort...abort..."
The African with the knife was pulling himself upright. I'd just about got the second 'abort' out of my mouth, before my ear-piece was ripped from me. An even bigger guy shoved a .44 Magnum under my chin.
Game over.
The small crowd of carnivores outside the shop had considered that discretion was the better part of valour and
buggered off quick sharp. The guy with the knife had recovered enough to stand in front of me and deliver three quick punches to my face, splitting my eye and lip. This was going to be a long night.
I was unceremoniously bundled into a big saloon which had screeched to a halt on cue. Seconds after hitting the back seat, I was hooded and plasti-cuffed. Hoodlum number one took great pleasure in accompanying me and giving me the occasional dig in the guts for good measure.
My ride was brief. It didn't take Einstein to figure that I had been taken to the place I had planned to visit all along, albeit in different circumstances.
As the car pulled to a halt, I was dragged out, feet first. I did my best to protect my head from hitting the deck by hunching my shoulders. Even so I landed with a sickening smack and felt dizzy and nauseous in equal amounts as I was pulled along the pavement.
Despite being blind from the hood, I was suddenly aware of being inside a building. The three African voices that had filled the car had been joined by others, who decided that it would be good sport to stamp on me as I made my way, on my back, along what appeared to be a long corridor. I did my best to protect my balls by twisting myself and crossing my legs as I went. It worked...some of the time.
Mercifully my transit was short-lived and I heard the unmistakable sound of metal gates being opened. From what Evelyn had told us, I reckoned I was destined for the punishment cage.
The crew had been unprofessional, in that they hadn't done a great job in searching me. My mobile was still in my jeans, they'd checked for weapons and nothing more. Still, I couldn't reach it, so for now it was no use at all. Someone sat me up and placed me in a stress position. Seconds later, footsteps faded away and the door of the cage rattled closed. I made to move immediately, I didn't need any more discomfort and figured that if I was alone behind bars I would get away with it.
Wrong.
A guard was obviously standing to my left. He screamed at me and slapped me across the temple. He must have been built like a brick wall. The mixture of the sheer power of the blow and not being able to see it coming sent me sprawling and light-headed.