There were muffled thuds and flashes ahead down the halls, and then figures started running out of the haze in ragged order. It was Jawad’s team, retreating and trying to light molotovs. It had worked. The SAS had headed them off. Maybe. I spoke into my headset.
‘Wait until the last second, chicas, the last second. We want to get all of ‘em.’
Two sets of clicks. They were going to run into a classic L-shaped ambush. Bang Bang was softly cooing ‘ you’re gonna die , you’re gonna die … ’
I got my sight into focus. The holographic heads-up-display on the AK settled on Jawad’s back. Jawad ran backwards down my aisle, firing as he went, turned, and saw me.
I stood AK in shoulder and let him have a full mag of 7.62. He dropped in pieces. His gun arm flew off and his head blew up like a melon and liberally decorated the window of Yo!Sushi and his separated parts dropped over a table in a mess.
I yelled into my headset.
‘FIRE!’
Above me Calamity opened up and the level below turned into a boiling haze of cordite and death. They died dumb. Akkas, one I recognised, took three rounds in the chest and dropped a lit molotov on himself and died noisily as it exploded and took out the front of Next. The window shattered and he fell in flames among the mannequins.
There was a yell in my ear. Bang-Bang starting dropping guys. She broke cover and ran forward down the escalator, M14 to the shoulder. She jumped and slid down the escalator rail, picking targets and she shot, crack-crack-crack. Men died. A very surprised Hamja turned just in time to get a rifle bullet through the eye that punched his brains all the way across the food court. The two men behind him dropped dead too as they ran into the field of fire. No chance. One round each to the chest and they hit the floor like sacks of shit.
I shouted across the plaza. Bang-Bang ran to finish them off. Harsh cracks echoed up the stairs as the bodies took rounds to the head.
Bang-Bang ran back. She looked happy in the rain from the sprinklers. I took the time to search for the Glock I’d taken but it had gone. Obviously I’d dropped it somewhere.
Bang-Bang was hugging my side.
‘Let’s hunt ‘em ALL, cuz! Hunt ‘em ALL!’
‘Hang on a sec. We’ve got the SAS coming this way in seconds, let’s stay out of their way and-’
Calamity broke in on the channel.
‘Guys. Just seen another lot running under us on the next level down, heading for the front. Moving now.’
Shit. That would be the remnants of Devlin’s team.
‘See you downstairs luv.’
We ran for the rear escalators as stun grenades barked and flashed behind us. As we reached them an SAS trooper in black kit came running out of New Look aiming a pistol.
‘Stand down!’
Bang-Bang looked him up and down, sucked her teeth and walked away towards the down escalator. He was pale and pointing his Sig between me and her. He seemed confused, and was looking at our yellow armbands. I walked up to him, AK held away.
‘I’m Riz. Who are you?’
‘Captain Foxall, 22 Reg. Are you KTS?’
Oh great. A Rupert.
‘I am. We are. How’s it going out the back?’
He gathered himself and jogged along.
‘We’ve fixed them. We got to the hotels before them and we drove them back into here … some mad Asian girl crash landed a Gazelle in the plaza outside Premier Inn and shot a bunch …’
I laughed.
‘She shot a G4S guy too.’
‘Good. That’s Fuzz Shaheen. She’s one of us. Half the X-Rays in here are in G4S uniform.’
‘Christ.’
Captain Foxall got on his radio and started relaying actions on. The radios squalled.
‘… any idea on the rest of the X-Rays?’
I pointed down.
‘Level below. Care to join us?’
He checked chamber as we ran for the jammed escalator.
‘Of course. This is what I joined for.’
I checked the mag on my AK. No idea. I ejected it and slapped a fresh one in and racked a round into the chamber. Below us, all hell broke loose. Bursts of machinegun fire rattled downstairs.
‘Holly? Priya?’
‘ We’re outside in the plaza ... see you at ... ten x - rays ... kilo ...”
Static. I looked at Captain Foxall.
‘On me.’
We ran down the escalator into the smoke and the rain of sprinklers.
35
We found them on the outside plaza, in Wahaca, fixing drinks among spent cartridges and some corpses of Jawad’s team. The floor was slippery with blood. Bang-Bang smiled at me and laid one hand on my shoulder. Calamity was checking the box mag on her weapon. It was the last magazine.
‘We figured if we were going to die we may as well have some shots. What would you like darling?’
I sagged.
‘Make mine, sarsaparilla.’
Bang-Bang looked at me with those endearing wonky eyes.
‘I meant tequila.’
‘Sure.’
Calamity laughed. At least she got the joke.
Bang-Bang looked up at me.
‘Riz. Bhai. Can you give me a hug?’
She held onto me. She seemed so small. I just hugged her. Bang-Bang looked back out over the bloodied mess of the plaza and spoke under her breath, quietly so that only me and her would hear it.
‘I love you, Rizwan Sabir. I don’t care about what is about to happen in the next five or ten minutes. Just remember what I said. Remember.’
My words died on my lips. Maybe they’d come later. I realised that for the first time in all the years I’d known her, there were tears on her cheeks, and she was trying not to make a big thing out of it. Damn. I hugged her and looked out onto the plaza. Finally we let go. She thumped my chest twice, wiped her nose and then stepped away and composed herself and broke the silence.
‘Sorry about that. I just had a feeling I was going to lose you.’
I shook my head and smiled down at her.
‘Not ever, Holly. Not ever . I love you Holly Kirpachi.’
She wiped her eyes and gave that grin I had grown to know.‘Sure?’
‘Holly. Holly. Miss Bang-Bang Kirpachi. Fiancée . It’ll never happen.’
She stepped back and clapped her hands in delight.
‘Fiancée! It took about five years but you finally said it!’
I conceded this point. Couldn’t fight with women, pointless fighting with Blackeyed Girls. And pointless fighting with a Black-Eyed fiancée.
‘You win, Holly Kirpachi.’
‘Hey! What if we both die? We’ll be in Jannah by the afternoon!’
I laughed.
‘Yeah, that’s a plan.’
She nodded.
‘Let’s go then. Huah.’
Calamity was finishing up fixing the drinks.
‘You two finished?’
We laughed.
‘Yeah we were just renewing our betrothal vows, as you do in a firefight.’
Calamity was watching us with a sniper’s eye.
‘As long as I get to be best girl ….’
She turned away.
‘OK, Mr SAS Sir. What would you like to drink?’
Captain Foxall shrugged.
‘I’ll have what you’re having.’
We drank up and slapped the glasses down. Bang-Bang picked up her rifle and pointed out targets.
‘Listen in. We came outside and found them holed up round those down escalators. They died stupid, because they had no comms. We killed them, and we figure the remnants are holed up in the shops over the way …’
she chopped her hand forward …
‘and we’re going forward to clear them out. Hooah?’
Sounded good. She climbed onto the bar and chambered a round from the last magazine on her M14.
‘WHAT MAKES THE GRASS GROW?’
Calamity shouted back.
‘BLOOD BLOOD BLOOD!’
<
br /> ‘WHAT DO WE DO?’
‘KILL KILL KILL!’
We jumped over the bar and followed Bang-Bang. I looked behind me.
‘Hooah. Captain Foxall?’
‘Forward with you.’
We ran across the plaza, past huddled bodies and over broken glass, and towards Armani Jeans. Scanning right, scanning left. There was a wall of white smoke to our right. CS gas? I couldn’t tell. Strobe lights seemed to be flashing in the smoke. There was a rapid rattle of gunfire in the distance. To our right a wheelbarrow robot came barrelling out of the smoke and hit a shop window. We ran forward. All I could hear were emergency sirens. Captain Foxall was speaking on his throat mike.
‘Lower level, looking for X-Rays, I’m with KTS. Be advised tha -
Whack.
Foxall had just taken a rifle bullet to the head and dropped like liquid. Blood and brains spattered everywhere.
‘CONTACT FRONT!’
Bang-Bang stood over his body to cover him like a lioness over her cub, M14 in the shoulder. She swept it over the exits. There was the X-Ray, with no cover. He brought his AK right. She shot him. CRACK CRACK. He fell against a litter bin and his legs twitched and kicked spastically. I recognised this one. Fuad, his name was. He was writhing in pain and holding his arms up, pleading and praying as he dropped his rifle. His legs kicked in a mess of his own blood. Bang-Bang ran forward and shot him in the face.
The last remnants of Devlin’s team came running out of the mall entrance and tried to drop into position. Too late. We’d got in there ahead. As one, me, Bang-Bang and Calamity stood in a line and opened up on them. Bang-Bang looked at them and screamed.
‘Kill them!’
Calamity let the Minimi rip. Tracer rounds went downrange. Devlin’s team died like the pawns they were. The Minimi smacked them through shop windows, over displays, up against shopfronts. Glass smashed. Bang-Bang fixed the guys running in on the right. She aimed and squeezed the trigger on her rifle. They died, badly. To my left, three men ran into my field of view and tried to bring their weapons into the aim. I dropped to one knee, got my AK into the shoulder, sighted in and let fly. They dropped and blood spumed into the air. I shot their prone figures and they jerked like puppets. To my right the Minimi ran out of rounds and its breech locked back.
Silence. Smoke.
Dead men. Dead men.
‘FORWARD!’
We ran forward through a veil of cordite to make sure they were dead. I loaded my last mag in and chambered a round. Here was a man floundering on the ground. Crack-crack. Crack. Crack-crack. They were dead.
We ran into Armani Jeans and I hung back to scavenge some AK mags from the corpse of … who was this? His face was a bloody wet grimace and his hands clawed at dead air. Fuck him. I booted his face and took a magazine. We ran into the shop. The crowds screamed again. Where was Devlin?
Holly Kirpachi, Bang-Bang Kirpachi, turned to look at me and raised her M14 in triumph. OK. We’d won. She winked at me.
‘GET DOWN!’
Calamity shouted just a shade late. The fire exit behind us had smacked open. I’d been deafened from the belt of 5.56 that we’d let loose so I didn’t hear it. We turned, one tenth of a second shy.
A round took Bang-Bang in the top right, blood spattered and she staggered back, and behind her, from nowhere, out ran Johnny Devlin in his G4S uniform and one other guy. Devlin’s Glock fired and burned my left side and I fell back into the display.
Bang-Bang laughed, coughed bright blood and emptied her weapon at them. Fire and smoke enveloped the store and brass cases shot from her rifle. One round hit Devlin in the shoulder but he ducked left and his companion took the rest of the mag in the chest and dropped to the ground in a pile of spilt guts and torn shirt. Bang-Bang’s legs wobbled and went from under her. She fell to the floor and fired a round into the ceiling. Calamity’s weapon was out of ammo. She spat a curse and went for a dropped AK. Too late. Devlin stood over me and grinned like Satan. Blood fountained from his shoulder wound.
‘Fasiq. Fasiq.’
He was declaring me to be an apostate and therefore worthy of death. Holly lay pale and still on the ground. She looked dead. Oh God. Holly . I lay very quiet, then summoned up all my strength and kicked Devlin’s legs away from under him. He fell on me and smashed his elbow into my face.
I grabbed him in a bear hug, bucked my hips and rolled him. Krav Maga kicked in. He floundered and tried some crap Shotokan Karate move. A display dropped on us. He punched me in the kidneys. Yeah right. Five years of training you motherfucker . I got to my knees and he bounced to his feet to face me. I struggled to my feet and summoned all my strength. This was going to be hard. We both stepped back. He pulled up his Glock and aimed it at my face. He hadn’t realised the slide had locked back. No ammo. He squeezed the trigger and nothing happened. I could feel my entire left side wet with my own blood. My breathing was harsh and ragged. Devlin sneered at me.
‘Think you’re gonna win, koof?’
Oh yeah . Johnny . You’re gonna die . I spoke.
‘Yes, Johnny Devlin, you Nazi scum. I’m going to kill you.’
His eyes widened. To my right, Calamity ran out from between two shop displays, aimed the AK she’d grabbed at Devlin and pulled the trigger.
The firing pin clicked dead. She swung the rifle at him. He looked left. She missed as he jerked away but I smacked the pistol out of his grasp. Now I had it as I instinctively smashed my elbow into his jaw and felt the bones separate with a sickening crack. I turned the pistol down and out, his fingers broke and I ran within his reach and barrelled the flat of the slide into the right side of his head with all my might. He punched out - too late, hard but he missed my skull by a millimetre. My right knee went into his lower ribs and took all the wind out of him. I grabbed the left side of his head and went at it superfast, caving his ribs in with my knee.
He sagged onto me, slackjawed as my air ran out. I had just enough energy left for some punches as he wobbled and coughed. Smack smack smack smack smack into the head with the pistol. Blood flew and he dropped like a stone. I kept at it. His skull caved in. I kept going as we fell through a clothes rack and I dropped on him with all my weight.
Calamity scrambled back for the AK. I followed him down and beat his fucking brains out with the Glock, so bad that that the Glock stuck in his broken eye socket. Devlin sneered at me with one good eye as he died and the dark blood poured from the back of his head and pooled on the carpet. And then I tried to get up. Calamity got the rifle off the floor and swung it like a club and connected with his head.
She hit him again. And again. And again. I tried to make a difference but I was bleeding too badly. I tried to stand up. I couldn’t. I slipped in the blood and fell back on his corpse and rolled off. I needed to get to Holly but my limbs wouldn’t move. Calamity battered Johnny Devlin’s face into a leaking sieve and his blood spattered all over the shop. Now there were SAS everywhere. Calamity dropped the rifle and ran back and was trying to pick up Holly, and failing, and crying over her, and all I could see were men in boiler suits and radios were squalling.
The last thing I saw was Fuzz punching an SAS commander and then Calamity held her back and then my vertical hold went and it was all dark.
36
They told me I was OK to walk about for a bit on Sunday. My left side was bandaged up. Busted ribs and entry and exit wounds. Not nice. Still, I was dosed up on really good painkillers and antibiotics.
Fuzz and Calamity had sat with me nearly every night while I was doped up. Both of them wouldn’t let anyone near me apart from one nurse. Even the firearms cop had given up and gone away. Armed police weren’t exactly flavour of the month in London at the moment. The first night the girls had been crying as they told me about the huge punch-up they’d got in while trying to save Holly. They had both been arrested and only the intervention of Colonel Mahoney had got them past the cordon as every emergency service had piled in. It hadn’t helped that Calamity had scalped J
ohnny Devlin’s corpse and was refusing to let go of the trophy. No-one knew who had taken Holly’s body, or where. All there had been was a lot of blood on the shop floor. The Gazelle was a mess, but Fuzz had shrugged that away as irrelevant. It hadn’t been her helicopter.
The Colonel visited in the evening. He handed me a USB stick. It had ‘ HERRICK 16 BRIEFING NOTES’ written on it in Dymo.
‘We found this in a PC in the main building.’
That was how she had got FlameLite into the system. I started to laugh but it still hurt too much.
‘Some daft staffer must have thought it was important and put it in a port. So we had some strange new variant of Flame on our servers for weeks. It deleted itself and vanished before we could catch it. God knows where it is now.’
We looked at the rolling BBC News on the television in the corner of my room. The total death toll from what they were calling Black Thursday now stood at 545. 368 at Liverpool Street and 177 at Stratford.
‘Could have been worse’ said the Colonel, ‘a lot worse. There were nearly 20,000 people in Westfield that day.’
Oh yeah, that made it so much better. It had been a bloodbath. Liverpool Street station had taken the brunt of an Oklahoma-style truck bomb, how fantastic. The whole front of the station had caved in.
‘As you can imagine, there are all kinds of conspiracy theories flying about on the web. “MI5 built the bombs”, “some of the terrorists were army.” We’ve had a hell of a job making the CCTV footage go away. And of course there’ll be an inquiry. Or two.’
He stood up. Ramrod straight.
‘Riz, you, Farzana, Priya and Holly have all been put forward for the Queen’s Gallantry Medal. We’re not sure whether to award Holly’s posthumously. I’m sorry. She was a great kid.’
I got to my feet and faced him. I started to speak and realised my voice was about to break up.
Locked and Loaded: A Riz Sabir Thriller Omnibus Page 15
