Scorpion's Vengeance

by Lawrence Hebb

  Chapter 14

  “999 Emergency, which service do you require” the voice, that of a young female seemed so ridiculously out of place, very English yet totally wrong for the situation.

  “Er, not sure” the young man on the phone spat back, “There’s been a shooting, down Hucknall street,”

  “Thank you, putting you through to the police” the voice came back, “please stay on the line” like he was going anywhere, he’d just entered the street and a hail of bullets seemed to be coming his way, he’d dived for cover and prayed like he hadn’t since he was five years old. At least that’s what he was about to tell them, and it was all a lie. A few moments later another voice, that of a male came on the line.

  “Police emergency, how can I help?” the voice asked.

  “There’s been a shooting, a shooting, down in Hucknall street” he played it as if he didn’t realise the nerves causing him to repeat himself.

  “Thank you, can I clarify where you are, where exactly was the shooting?”

  “I’m on the corner of Hucknall and Bracegirdle streets”

  “Is that is Bath?” the voice cut him off, “or?”

  “Bristol you bloody idiot” the young man screamed, he was beginning to lose the plot, “There are bullets everywhere, a couple of people have just bundled a guy into a car, I think they’re taking him to the hospital!”

  “Has an ambulance been called?”

  “I just damn well told you, someone took the guy to the hospital! Besides, you’re the flaming emergency services, you should know that!”

  “Stay with me sir” the voice was calm, bringing order to the chaos, “I need to ask you, are the shooters still at the scene?”

  “No”

  “Are they injured?”

  “How the hell should I know, they left in a car!”

  “The shooters? Or the victim”

  “Both!” he knew it probably wasn’t making a lot of sense, that was good, a panicking civvie wouldn’t, and that’s what Smithy was trying to be. But he was telling things as they happened, “Look, all heard was a hail of gunfire, and a car speeding off followed by the other two bundling a guy into the back of a car.”

  “How do you know it was gunfire?”

  “There are holes and broken glass at least half a dozen cars in the street, the car alarms are going nuts”

  “Okay sir” the voice was still calm, “Armed police are on their way, as well as ambulances, please stay where you are and don’t touch anything”

  “Get in and stay down” Joey screamed as he pushed Paul hard to the floor in the vehicle, “Move your legs” he reached down and violently pulled them up into the back of the estate car, slamming the back down he ran round to the passenger door, Jacko was waiting in the driving seat, Sandy was already buckled into the front passenger seat, the second the door slammed shut he floored the accelerator, wheels spun and tyres screeched as they hurtled down the road, so far everything was going to plan, though to the rest of the world it looked as if everything had fallen apart, just what they needed people to think.

  “I thought it was Mac coming for us?” Joey sort of asked the question.

  “You just wanted to see my awesome driving skills again” Jacko was laughing, his driving was legendary in the unit for being totally reckless

  “Yeah right” Joey replied as he climbed into the backseat, Sandy was already in the passenger seat at the front and buckled in, “Sorry to disappoint boss, but even I’d prefer to take a pass on that one!”

  “And I thought you had a sense of adventure” Sandy was almost laughing, a nervous laugh.

  “We’ve just been bloody well shot at” Paul blurted out, “and all you people can do is a joke about it! Who the hell are you folks?” he was trying to raise himself up, Joey had thrown a heavy blanket over him, it was hard work, but he was moving it, and his wits were slowly coming back.

  “Your guardian angels” Joey quipped as he slapped him hard on the back of the head forcing him down again, “It’s Kevlar, keep the sodding thing over you, we’re not out of the woods yet!” he turned to Jacko, “let’s get the hell out of here boss!”

  Jacko floored the accelerator, the front wheels spun as the car jumped forward forcing Sandy and Jacko back into their seats, Joey was already hanging on and watching the back of the vehicle, pistol still drawn ‘just in case’.

  “Sorry to disturb you sir” the voice on the phone sounded apologetic, Sir Michael knew it was the duty officer at Vauxhall house, and he was performing the task everyone at MI6 dreaded, giving the director of intelligence bad news, “but we’ve got a bit of a situation, sir, a code yellow,”

  “Casualties?” Sir Michael cut him off, he knew the codes, ‘red’ was an ambush with fatalities, yellow was injuries, green was ‘bloody lucky’ he thought, he already knew all the information, but it was vital he plays the part, they couldn't let the ‘mole’ know it was a setup, and that mole was a part of ‘6’s infrastructure!

  “We have at least one injury sir” the young agent replied, “the one they were protecting took a hit, we’re not sure how bad yet.”

  “Why not?” Sir Michael asked, doing a good job of sounding alarmed, “aren’t you in contact with the team?”

  “Sorry sir” the agent sounded flustered, “I’ve only got the information my superior gave me, the team is mobile to one of our safe houses, one with medical facilities”

  “Which one?” Sir Michael already knew the reply, and he knew the team weren’t on their way there, at least not with the ‘target’ but MI6 wasn’t to know that.

  “The one they were sent to protect sir” he began to reply.

  “What the?” Sir Michael cut him off, “weren't they SUPPOSED to be damn well protecting that one?” he acted angrily, it was pretty convincing, he carried on “what about cleanup, has a cleanup team been dispatched?”

  The desk officer was taken a bit by surprise, “negative sir, a call was made to the police before we could respond, armed police are sealing the area off as we speak!”

  ‘Cleanup teams’ have one job, and that's to remove any trace of agency involvement. They're often the best forensics people around. The challenge of ‘hoodwinking’ the police is just too much to resist, but there just wasn't time, the ‘plods’ as the cops were often known were on their way.

  “In that case”, Sir Michael began again, “we better get a liaison officer down there, I want to know everything they know, and preferably first, I want a lid screwed down tight on this, and I mean NOW!”

  Chapter 15

  “Just what the hell is going on?” Paul tried to raise himself up, he was being held down by someone, “this is kidnapping, let me up”

  “In case you haven't realised yet” Joey pushed him back down, “those bullets were meant for you, now sodding well stay down until we tell you otherwise”

  “But what, why?”

  “You're forgetting the first one” Sandy chipped in, “the who?”

  “Whatever!” He shouted, “one minute I'm playing a game on my laptop, the next I'm being bundled into the street, and people are shooting, just who were they, and why me? and where's my laptop?”

  “You’re on a ‘tech-free’ diet as of now!” Sandy spoke loud enough to be heard over the engine, the big Ford wasn't noisy, but Jacko was ‘pushing her’ a bit, Sandy saw the speedometer touch eighty miles an hour just as they merged onto the M5 motorway, he backed off as soon as they were in the flow of traffic.

  Ten miles further up was a motorway service, petrol, restaurants, accommodation, truckstop, the works, almost perfect for the car swap, if the CCTV didn't catch them that is.

  Back in the 1950s, a rather well-known author wrote a book about the Britain of the future, a book that painted a bleak picture of CCTV cameras and microphones everywhere, watching every move, listening to every word, checking every person to make sure they’re ‘towing the line’. The book became a classic, and everyone thought that what he predicted would never h
appen in a Democracy, how wrong they were!

  But, even with the best cameras, the most potent mikes, there are always ‘black spots’ parts where the camera doesn’t see, the mic doesn’t pick up the noise, and there are two kinds of people know where they all are, the criminal, and the spy, big brother might watch the masses, but he misses the ones he needs to watch!

  “You and Joey take the Ford,” Jacko yanked the handbrake on, they only had seconds before someone suspected something, even in the black spots, there’s a security guard watching who goes into and out of them all the time, anything out of the ordinary and someone will be ‘sent to investigate’ especially here on the motorway where a truck’s entire load can go missing in seconds, “Head for the RV with Smithy, by then he should have info on where those arseholes are, but wait for Mac and me OKAY” he turned and faced Joey, he knew Sandy would wait, Joey was a bit of a different story.

  “Gotcha boss” Joey replied as he climbed out of the vehicle, they were leaving the explorer here, the ‘Ford’ was a Grenada Sedan, 2.8 litres of pure mean under the bonnet.

  “You drive or me?” Joey asked as they stepped around the vehicles.

  “Me” Sandy replied, as she took the keys out of his hand, slotting the remote into her handbag she reached down, turned on the ignition, put the car into gear as Joey clambered in. “we need to be in one piece when we get there!”

  “Are you insinuating?” he began.

  “That you're a maniac?” she shot back with a cheeky grin, “absolutely” and they took off, wheels spinning.

  “And just how do you come to that conclusion?” Joey was starting to relax, there's nothing like humour for relaxing tension.

  “Let’s see” Sandy cut him off, they were both laughing slightly, “Jumping out of a bloody aircraft with just a skimpy parachute, Jumping off a cliff with nothing but a darned wingsuit, that was after rigging a bomb to blow half the mountain up, that explains why I’ve come to that conclusion?”

  “And I’ll add” he cut her off, “You were right behind me in all those,” he turned and looked at her, she was gorgeous, she glanced his way. “Takes one to know one as they say where I come from!” she gave him a playful dirty look.

  Joey reached for the car speaker controls, he’d already enabled the ‘Bluetooth’ on his phone, it meant the phone would make the calls he needed but would play over the car’s speakers and mike system, as soon as he set the controls he spoke, “Call Smithy” within seconds the Geordie accent could be heard over the speakers.

  “About bloody time man” it sounded like he’d said “mon” but that was just the accent. “Where are yer?”

  “Motorway services on the M5” Joey replied, “heading back in as fast as we can”

  “Stay away from the area, it’ll be swarming’ with bloody cops in a couple of minutes” Smithy warned them, “I gave yer a five minute start before I called her in, told ‘em I was just walking by, they’ll be looking for us all soon,” he paused for a moment, from the sounds of it he was on the move, “Tracker’s still active, they’re about four miles away, I had a look on Google and it looks like a warehouse of some kind, car’s been inside for about five minutes, meet me there!”

  “Shit” Joey didn’t mean to say it on the phone, but it came out anyway, “Jacko said to hold off anything until he and Mac get there, Smithy hold off, we’ll be there as fast as we can!”

  “Where are we with communication?” Mildred wasn’t sounding polite, they were monitoring everything remotely, and things didn’t sound too promising, yes the mole had taken the bait, but the car switch wasn’t something they needed, possible yes, but needed ‘like a hole in the head’ as Joey would say. Just about every thief who knew what they were doing would have something like that planned, but most of them didn’t know where the cameras were, and that was often their downfall, these people seemed to know where everyone was, and that meant only one possibility, it had to be an ‘inside job’. It had to be the ‘mole’ telling them where they were.

  “Sooner we catch this Bastard the better” she swore under her breath, not really caring who heard her, there wasn’t much that angered spies, they were trained to stay calm under pressure, but when one of ‘your own’ goes over to the other side, that hurts.

  “We’re monitoring the phone numbers we have” the young girl with the studs spoke up, “but so far nothing”

  “What about the tracker?”

  “As Smithy said” Cody cut in, “Went into the warehouse seven minutes ago, nothing since, it’s still there!”

  “We got camera footage from around there yet?”

  “Working on it” Mark, her second in command chipped in, “Not easy, each area’s compartmentalized, preventing hackers from getting in and taking over the system, should”

  “Don’t give me excuses” she cut him off, “hack the bloody system!”

  “Was going to say, should be any second, and I’ve gone back fifteen minutes so we can see what left around that time!” he let his frustration out a little, Mildred could be short and rude, but she believed in ‘do unto others as you’d like them to do to you’ and that meant she didn’t mind them getting ‘stroppy’ back when she got ‘stroppy’ with them, as long as they got the job done. “Here we are boss, coming through now.”

  “My terminal” was all she said.

  Chapter 16

  “Here we are” Jacko wrenched on the handbrake as they came into the yard, the car skidded to a halt outside what looked like a farm shed.

  A small stone cottage sat to their left, the two buildings were separate, but connected by a small dry stone wall that formed a rectangle shape encompassing the cobbled courtyard.

  “Stay inside the vehicle, and out of sight until I tell you otherwise,” Jacko addressed the heap that Paul was under, he’d been too scared to move since he'd been bundled into the vehicle ‘like a sack of spuds’. Jacko exited the car and headed for the door to the farm shed.

  The door was closed but had a few unusual features, one of which was a keypad and screen, he quickly punched in a ten-digit code, the door started to move as he headed back to the car, it was fully open by the time he got in.

  “Glad you made it” a female voice spoke from behind as they were getting out of the car, they recognised it as being the cop ‘Sam I think’ Jacko thought.

  “We've been keeping up to date with things over the radio” Sam continued, they noticed both she and Hene were wearing the shoulder holsters, they both had Glocks in them, “is he injured?” she motioned to the ‘sack of spuds’ that was shaking, Paul was trying hard not to even move, but the sheer terror of what had happened had taken hold, shock, can be delayed, but never stopped altogether.

  “Nothin’ that a cuppa Cannae cure” they couldn't miss the Scottish brogue.

  “No physical injuries then Mac?” it was Hene asked.

  “Nah” the big Scot replied, “psychological’ a different story though!” he frowned, then resignedly went on “still, cannae be helped, c’mon laddie” he prodded Paul, “yer quite safe now”

  Paul began to move, though it took a few seconds for the words to register, “Safe” he mumbled, “I’ve been kidnapped, shot at, damn near killed, beaten to a bloody pulp by my SUPPOSED protectors, and HE says it's safe?”

  “Safer than staying where you were” Mac retorted, none of them had the time, or the patience for whining, “lead tablets are bad for the health” Mac went on, “and they were Tungsten, that’s even worse, one will kill ya, and there were about sixty, all headed for ya!” he reached in and virtually yanked Paul out of the car, “now get a move on!”

  Paul stumbled as he was wrenched from the car, the left foot catching the back of his right leg, just above the ankle, he went down, only to be caught by Hene who held him up.

  “Do you have to be that rough?” Sam quietly asked Jacko as the made their way towards a small trap door in the floor, she was a cop and used to being rough with the criminal she arrested, but Paul wasn'
t under arrest, he was just an average bloke.

  “ When you're armed offenders squad clears a building in a hostage situation, do they stop each hostage to give ‘em tea and biscuits in the way out?” Jacko shot back, “bloody hope not” he replied to himself before she had the chance, “they're still in danger, get ‘em out of the danger first, then be nice to ‘em”

  “But we’re at the safe house!”

  “He’s never going to be safe” Mac cut her off, he'd been listening in, “until we nail these pricks, and dinna forget” he went on, “one of ‘em is MI6, they bloody well know the safehouses!”

  “That's why we’re not using one of theirs” Jacko cut in, “this one’s ‘5’s, but Mac’s right, he’s gonna have a target on his back until we get these guys!”

  Chapter 17

  “This is bloody unreal” BJ through the file she’d been reading down, rubbed her eyes and stared down at the desk. They’d been on the case for days, it felt like months, but they were getting nowhere, and fast! “Nothing, we’ve got sodding nothing, five days and zilch!” the frustration getting the better of her, she stopped and looked up at the wall, the clock said eleven pm. That didn't make her feel any better, it just reminded her she’d been working sixteen hours straight.

  “I suppose he’ll still be dead tomorrow,” she said to no one in particular, there were still a few in the office, the detectives on the night shift, and a couple of other workaholics, no one paid her much attention, they all had their own cases to deal with.