Eighteen

The two men's paths cross

Lee crouched on a cold December morning. The silver paintwork of the car in front glinted in the street-light as it hid his figure. He turned his head to the left and watched James crouching in what must have been a similar position.

‘Is everyone in position’ the old man asked him. For that was what crouched before Lee, an old man. The events of the last month had certainly taken their toll on James, and his weeks of recovery hadn’t seemed to be able to get him back to his old self.

‘Everyone’s ready’, Lee replied, ‘Just need to get word from Turner around the back’.

‘Good’ James nodded, mostly to himself. The two sat there for a number of minutes. Lee poked his head above the line of the silver car to look at the building they were readying to storm. One dark blue door marked the main way in, with flecks of paint peeling off. On the left of the door grey wall was marked with unimaginative graffiti. About 2 metres from the door on each side were two windows, with curtains pulled shut. Lee thought he saw some shadows moving behind the curtains once or twice, but couldn’t be sure if it was a trick of the light.

‘In position’ the voice echoed over the radio. With this Lee nodded towards James and the two looked from each other to the rest of the officers in positions they could see. Then just a moment or two before James was to signal the beginning of the raid, both he and Lee heard the faint sound of an engine. James held up his hand as a signal not to move. The noise worried both men, as indeed it should have worried all the officers who were there. The road they were on had been closed, or should have been. No car should be driving with the kind of vigour the sound suggested at this time of night, and certainly not on that road. The men sat and waited for the sound to abate but they soon started to realise it was in fact getting louder. The sound continued to amplify causing more and more worry to the officers now eager to get going, until before long the men could see the car speeding down the very road they were on. They did not know what to do and hadn’t planned for this. Perhaps the car would turn off before it reached them. The officers could not force the car to stop as it would alert their presence to whomever was inside the building. The car continued to speed up, approaching nearer and nearer to where the men were hiding. 400m, 300m, 200m.

‘What the f**k?’ whispered James. The car continued to approach until right on the street it jerked right suddenly. The front right wheel of the vehicle clipped a fire hydrant on the opposite side of the road to where James and Lee were hiding. This had the effect of flipping the vehicle. It made an almighty screech as it landed on its roof, smashing almost all the windows and coming slowly to a complete stop with the engine smoking. Then Lee noticed faces peering out of the curtains. That’s when the element of surprise was lost.

 

Oscar had left early that morning, taking one last look at Lucy and convincing himself she would do what he asked and that he’d done the right thing. As he approached the BMW a shiver made its way down his spine. As he pulled his leather jacket up to his chin he realised he should have worn something warmer. He crouched down next to the vehicle, rummaging his hand around the front left tyre well attempting to lay his hand on the key. Eventually he felt something hard and plastic and pulled it out. He clicked the unlock button and to his satisfaction the car beeped. Walking to the driver’s door he opened it and got in. Sitting for a moment and gathering his thoughts, preparing himself, he pushed the start button for the engine, and the car awoke. He knew the direction to go, where to go, but he’d been given a very specific time. He looked at his watch intently and as the second hand ticket past the 12, he put the car in gear and drove off. Within about 20 seconds Oscar noticed a police barrier directly in his way. He had no option, he would have to run it. He noticed a couple of officers attempting to wave him down as he approached, before they noticed he wasn’t going to slow down. He then smashed straight through the barriers, pushing down the accelerator and moving into the next gear. Looking in his mirrors he was bemused to see them not following him. He continued accelerating for another 30 seconds. As he ran red light after red light he noticed there were no other cars driving on the road and he started to wonder just what was going on. Eventually he started to approach where he knew the property was. He took his foot off the accelerator and went down a gear. After a moment or so he put his foot to the brake pedal, but nothing happened. He pushed again. Nothing, again. He was about to career past the building. He started weaving the car to try and burn off some speed. As he approached the building he noticed he was heading straight for a crane that was on the other side of the building. Oscar had done physics, he knew the survivability of that. At his velocity of about 50 metres a second, even taking into account the crumple zone of the car being about 1 metre that still meant Oscar would undergo g-forces in excess of 200g. The maximum g-force ever survived on record is 214g. Oscar knew the odds. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a red shape approaching rapidly and made a split second decision. He directed the car into the red shape and within a second with an almighty shudder he hit it. The car lifted off the ground and flipped onto its roof. It came down hard, smashing the windows. Something hit onto the top of Oscar’s head. The car screeched slowly to a stop, with Oscar hanging limply from his seatbelt. He was so dazed he couldn’t think what to do. Then suddenly he heard the sound of gunshots.

 

Lee didn’t know who the man in the car was but he made a sustained effort not to hit him �" or his car. The firing was intense. There were three shooters shooting out of two windows. They had been alerted to the police presence by the car crash and had managed to grab semi-automatic and automatic weapons to deter them. Lee had had snipers in the buildings as stand-by so awaiting them the objective was simply to contain the shooters and not get injured. Not an easy thing to do by any means. Most of the windows in the car Lee and James were hiding behind had been smashed by bullets. Occasionally the two men would fire shots around the car and into the two windows on the building. They heard from Turner over the radio that men were attempting to escape out the back as well. Eventually the snipers obviously reached their positions. The word came over the radio;

‘In position’, so Lee shouted his reply,

‘Take the f*****g shots!’, suddenly a number of very loud bangs came from behind them, and most of the shooting on their side of the building died down. Lee and James crouched behind the car for a couple more moments, before jogging to the crashed car in front of the building and using it for more cover, whilst popping their heads out to see the situation. As they leant against the smoking car Lee peered in to see a man who looked seriously injured. Still strapped in, blood was oozing over his face and onto the roof of the car.

‘Just hold on buddy’ Lee shouted in. The man seemed not to hear him. Lee nodded to James and the two men made their way to the front door and kicked it in. Searching each room they found dead bodies of the men who had been hit by the snipers. Moving toward the rear of the house, they heard shuffling. But poking their heads into the rooms they saw only more dead bodies, taken out by snipers on the other side. Eventually they moved round to one last room, hidden deep within the building and with no windows. They entered after turning on their flashlights to see a rather pudgy man with long hair and glasses sat on a seat with his hands up. Opposite him Lee spied the chest.

‘Don’t shoot!’ he said in a British accent as he held up his hands.

‘Who are you?’ questioned Lee, breaking with protocol as he should have just restrained the man.

‘I’m Eli West’ he replied. With that James moved in and cuffed the man. Lee holstered his weapon, and wiped the sweat from his forehead. As Lee followed James out of the building, he emerged to see the emergency services had arrived and were pulling the man out of his car. He tapped James on the shoulder and walked over to one of the other officers there.

‘I want that man arrested’ he said, ‘And I want to know who the f**k he is’, the officer nodded as Lee walked off to try and figure out just what had happened.