Gang War

by Graham Johnson

  Mayonnaise heads down to the roadblock on his Segway to scope it out, on a dry run, just to see what’s going on. But there’s a queue of cars a mile long at Croxteth Hall roundabout. He bangs on some workie’s van window.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Need a travel permit now, lad, to get in and out of The Jez,’ says the workie, using the new slang word for Crocky and Norris Green, from GEZ for Gang Exclusion Zone.

  ‘Fuck’s sake,’ mutters Mayonnaise, thinking on how he’s gonna get Nogger’s gear out on time. He whizzes through the traffic jam to the front of the queue. They’ve replaced the makeshift army checkpoint with a brand-new complex.

  Mayonnaise goes back to the stash. Instead of crashing the checkpoint in one go with a big parcel, he decides to split the gear up instead, gives five of the younger lads a kilo each in a small Eastpak knapsack, so they can bring it to Nogger’s new build via the back roads, the cycle paths and the nature trails on the old railway.

  They get the stuff there early evening, just in time. Nogger gazes on it proudly, slashes open the brown packing tape. Freshly imported cocaine. Nogger and Mayonnaise are enthralled by its beauty. Their eyes follow the grey veins across its marbled surface. It looks like rough granite. Layer upon layer of compressed flakes arranged in interlocking panels, reflecting light in a spectrum of colours.

  ‘Ah! Smell that. Fucking lovely,’ says Mayonnaise.

  ‘Unmissable,’ Nogger says, putting the block into a thick, see-through polythene bag. He lays it on his beechwood kitchen worktop and starts smashing it with a hammer, breaking up the brittle slab into muesli-sized flakes.

  He weighs out 250 grams on the brushed-steel surface of his electronic scales. He pops the paper seal of the milk-churn-shaped beno drum with his kukri, scoops up two cupfuls, cuts a cupful of coke off and puts the 2:1 beno/coke mixture in his Jamie Oliver blender, which still has a picture of Jamie’s head stuck on the side.

  ‘Go ’ead, Jamie lad,’ says Mayonnaise as he gives it a spin. ‘Happy days.’ After it’s been bashed up, Nogger puts the diluted coke through a hydraulic compressor so that it looks like pure crystalline gear again. When he runs out of capacity, he takes the back wheel off a car, then lowers the axle down onto the bags to compact them. He’s all ready for graft night.

  CHAPTER 25

  CUSTODY

  Dylan, New Loon and Pacer head across The Boot. Nogger’s promised them a parcel of cocaine so they can make some money over the weekend. It’s dry and hot. Weeds are growing tall over the rubble and shitty standpipes, cracked by the tractors during the demolition and clearance, are drying up now.

  ‘Try and keep away from the T-scans,’ Dylan tells the others. ‘Keep behind the walls as much as you can.’ The T-scan 2003 A and the ThruVision use tetrahertz waves to see through people’s clothes even as they’re walking down the street, exposing concealed metals, ceramics, plastics, liquids and organic matter such as heroin or skunk. But most of the walls have been knocked down or are paper-thin partition walls and are easily penetrable by their millimetre-wavelength beams. The oversized CCTV cameras are perched on telescopic lamp posts on banks of surveillance equipment, next to the usual sonar sound probes and infrared sensors.

  Two Chinooks are flying overhead. Dylan watches their perfect shadows undulate over the bumpy ground, conquering every inch at lightning speed. Dylan has to move his eyes quickly to track the dark blobs, until briefly he is caught in the shadow for a fraction of a second. As the noise of the rotors dies off, Dylan hears the shrieking revving of an armoured personnel carrier behind him, moving down a demolished street. The Chinooks must have radioed the lads’ position in on the off chance.

  New Loon spots the diesel exhaust. ‘It’s a Warrior. FV 510.’ He catches the little flag on the end of the aeriel. ‘Royal Irish Fusiliers – cunts, them.’

  The three of them bolt off, trying to find a hole to hide in. But a smaller APC comes round the opposite corner, quickly, to head them off. It’s a nimbler fighting vehicle – a 430 Mk3 Bulldog in desert colours. It does some fancy turns on the length of its own track to come side-on, blocking their way.

  An officer comes through the hatch and speaks through a loudhailer from behind the panel of bulletproof glass attached to the mounted machine gun. ‘Stop where you are. Put your hands above your heads.’ He plays the standard psy-ops ‘read you your rights’ tape recording. It starts with three bleeps and then comes the message: ‘This is a public information film. You have been stopped by the Youth Crime Task Force. You are suspected of TerrorCrime activities, and under the anti-terror laws now in force in the Gang Exclusion Zone if you refuse to cooperate, we have the right to detain you in contravention of those laws.’

  Pacer: ‘Fuck’s sake. We’re going to get a stop-and-strip now.’

  Under the new laws, the army and police can strip-search suspects in public, drug-test them on the spot and swab them for explosives and gunpowder.

  The officer tells them to take their clothes off.

  ‘Not another fucking strip-search,’ complains New Loon.

  ‘Shut up, you cheeky cunt, and do as you are told.’

  The tank engines roar, the heat and diesel fumes blowing over the lads. Meanwhile, the infantry dismount the Warrior and are taking up positions, scoping with their SA80s.

  New Loon and Pacer take off their gear down to their boxies. Dylan refuses and sits back on a smashed-up old sink, lights up a ciggie. The officer sends over two privates to get him to comply. ‘Who the fuck do you think you are? You heard the order – take your clothes off, you scruffy cunt.’

  Dylan blows smoke rings and squints his eyes. The officer in the Bulldog orders New Loon and Pacer to take their underwear off. New Loon starts protesting now. ‘Fuck’s sake, you can see we’ve got fuck all on us.’ But the officer gestures to them to take their boxies down.

  Dylan’s still saying and doing fuck all. Then it clicks with one of the soldiers. He recognises Dylan and whispers to the other, then goes back to the APC to tell his officer that Dylan Olsen is one of the suspects in the Chalina murder and can’t be harassed.

  ‘Why the fuck not, corporal?’ asks the officer. ‘He looks like a fucking scroat to me. Like all the fucking rest of them.’

  ‘Because every time we search him, sir, we get a shitload of grief off the C-in-C. This one’s lawyers kick up a shitstorm, sir, complaining that his human rights have been fucked up, sir. Got to be wrapped in cotton wool and all that, sir.’

  ‘But the cunt killed a three-year-old girl, corporal. If you had any fucking balls you’d slot the little fucker yourself, now.’

  ‘I would, sir. But to tell you the truth, sir, we’re short. Pulling back tomorrow, sir, to the enduring bases. The quicker we get out of this shithole, the better. I don’t want to fuck it up on the last day.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right, corporal. But it’s political correctness gone mad, if you ask me.’

  ‘I know, it’s fucking madness, sir. But so is all this shit, sir.’

  ‘Well, what about the other two?’

  ‘They’re just normal gang members, sir.’

  ‘Well, fucking well search them then, corporal. And take a good look up their dirty little arses. Fourth-generation Fenian scum are fucking clever at getting one over on us.’

  Dylan carries on smoking his ciggie, looking at a beautiful cloud formation through his robbed £400 sunglasses. One of the soldiers kicks an empty yellow oil barrel over the waste ground. Two of the others get New Loon in an arm lock and drape his naked body over the oil drum. New Loon winces at the sun-heated metal on his skin. Other parts of the drum are muddy and cold. He can feel his cock rubbing against rust and flakes of yellow paint. Two other soldiers splay his legs and a fifth puts a Durex on the barrel of his SA80.

  ‘An internal search for contraband will now proceed under the Prevention of TerrorCrime Act. Do you wish to report to us any illegal substances or firearms that you may have secreted inside your body?’


  ‘No.’

  The soldier parts New Loon’s arse cheeks with the barrel. ‘Who’s been a naughty boy then? Not cleaning his arse properly. Look at the fucking state of that.’

  The other soldiers laugh. The officer walks over, looks at the small pieces of shit and bog roll stuck to New Loon’s arse pubes. New Loon blows up crimson.

  ‘Is that a piece of carrot or red pepper there, corporal?’

  ‘Where, sir?’

  ‘Right on the star of his arse, corporal.’

  ‘Neither, sir. It’s a discoloured piece of onion, sir.’

  ‘Well, whatever it is, I’d flick it off with a stick before engaging your weapon. I don’t want the undigested supper of a fucking peasant coming into contact with your kit. Is that understood, corporal?’

  ‘Perfectly, sir.’

  Smiling, the soldier pushes the tip of his rifle up New Loon’s arse. He pulls it in and out at least 30 times until the Durex is covered in streaks of blood and mucus.

  New Loon says fuck all. He’s been sexually abused on and off since he was four. So he knows the script.

  The officer turns to Pacer. ‘You’re getting this next.’

  Pacer laughs. ‘Not arsed, lad. Do what the fuck you want as long as it’s not your cock.’

  Dylan speaks to the prodding soldier: ‘If your ma could see you now! She’d be proud of you, lad. The British Army – finest fighting force in the whole world.’

  ‘Only following procedure. If it was up to me, big shot, I’d pull the trigger. But I’m bound by regulations.’

  Dylan stares up at the sky and smiles. ‘Remember One Arm?’ he says to New Loon. He’s wincing with pain but forces a chuckle, acknowledging the memory. ‘What goes around comes around, eh?’ says Dylan. All three of them burst out laughing.

  ‘You’ll be laughing on the other side of your faces,’ the corporal chips in as he’s splaying Pacer across a barrel. He stares at Dylan, having the last laugh. ‘The private military contractors take over tomorrow, and they can do what they like.’

  The first soldier bursts Pacer’s arse until it bleeds.

  * * *

  The Devil phones up to tell them that two private security companies have won the contract to police the Gang Exclusion Zone. He warns Dylan to be careful, so the lads call a meeting to decide how to play it. The first company is Global Social Solutions, a London-based consultancy run by former British Army officers. Clegsy fills Dylan in on the details: ‘They’re the ones that drive round in the Mambas.’

  Dylan’s tired and impatient. He’s been running the show recently because Nogger’s been spending a lot of time away, grafting. ‘What are Mambas, mate?’ he asks Clegsy wearily.

  ‘Like armoured-up jeeps, riot-control trucks made in South Africa. The firm’s made up of older fellers, old paras and marines. A few of them are a bit tubby, but they’ll have a go. They’re the ones in charge of putting up the knife arches all over the place.’

  ‘Knife arches?’

  ‘They’re like the walk-in metal detectors you get at the airport. Except they’re mobile and they move them up and down the street, in the shopping centres and that, searching people at random. Anyone caught with a blade gets carted off.’

  The second company is Greyrock, an American military contractor that got famous when it was brought in in the aftermath of a hurricane and runs law and order in several US cities.

  ‘Wraparound sunglasses, big tats, mainly Yanks,’ says Clegsy. ‘They bomb around in brand-new right hand drive Chevrolet Suburbans. SUVs, lad. Trigger happy, serious. They’re the ones who video everything as they’re driving along.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They videotape the routes to and from John Lennon Airport, to and from Lower Lane HQ, everything. Then they play them back later to see if they’ve missed any security threats.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ asks Dylan, finding it all too much to take in, feeling as though they’ve won already.

  ‘IEDs, car bombs, ambushes. Standard operating procedure for them, lad. Their last contracts were in Baghdad and Afghanistan.’

  ‘Mad, innit?’

  ‘We’ll have to watch them. Cowboys, them, lad. Shoot first and all that.’

  Dylan heads out of Nogzy into town but he can’t move out of the Exclusion Zone because of a new roadblock on the border with the city. Gone are the ramshackle huts and barbed wire of the army. In their place are state-of-the-art permanent roadblocks in navy-blue Global Social Solutions livery. For pedestrians, there’s a massive walk-in border control centre built by an Israeli contractor. Dylan meets Lupus coming out.

  ‘Watch it, lad. Everyone going through’s drug tested and swabbed up for bombs. If you test positive, you’ll get nicked on the spot. Fucking out of order.’

  ‘When was that brought in?’

  ‘Just started today. Gauleiter’s orders, lad.’

  The Gauleiter: Robin Farquharson, the head of the CPA. Lupus gives Dylan the Echo. There’s a picture of the Gauleiter getting out of his white Suburban. His guards, with buzz cuts and wraparound sunglasses, are armed with Colt Commandos. Farquharson’s quoted as saying:

  We are introducing blanket drug and gun residue testing to protect the community. Anyone who fails a test will go before the special tribunal we have set up, the Community Combatant Status Review Tribunal, which is made up of experts including senior anti-terrorist officers, military advocates and psychiatrists. Anyone who is judged to be a threat to the community, for instance a gang member, can be rendered to one of our facilities outside of the city and detained until that threat is neutralised.’

  Inside, there are pictures of Farquharson next to a Little Bird OH-6 helicopter owned by Greyrock, and he’s quoted praising them for introducing the right kit to get the job done:

  Greyrock are deploying three Little Bird helicopters to patrol the Gang Exclusion Zone. These helicopters are small, speedy, well-armed scout helicopters, ideal for the challenges we face in the War on TerrorCrime in our cities. It’s long been recognised that the army’s helicopters were designed for a different conflict and that the Merseyside Police helicopter is vulnerable to small-arms fire.

  Fuck’s sake. Dylan looks around. Granmas with wheelie shopping bags. Young mas with kids. Workies.

  Lupus tells him, ‘Don’t fuck off from the queue. They’ve got BSCs behind them mirrors over there.’

  Dylan’s confused again: ‘What the fuck are BSCs?’

  ‘Behavioural science consultants, lad. Special spotters who’re trained to look for suicide bombers and oddballs and suspicious types. They look for people leaving the queue, talking to themselves, swearing and muttering under their breath, mad clothes, sweating, all that. They call it TerrorCrime profiling. Fuck the test off now, lad, and you’ll end up at a tribunal.’

  ‘Fuck it. I’ll take the test.’ Dylan knows his clothes are negative cos he’s been washing them every night, but there might be old residues in his hair and skin.

  ‘Make eye contact. That’s a key one, lad. Don’t make it look like you’ve got something to hide. Don’t carry your mobile or your iPod, cos these pricks think it’s a remote control for an IED. Remember, lad, these are not long off the streets of Eye-raq.’

  When Dylan gets to the front of the queue, a guard takes a small stick and swabs his cuffs, collar and inside his pockets. He then puts the swab in an explosives trace detection scanner. Dylan watches it search for forty different explosives, including RDX and PETN, in eight seconds.

  Another guard takes Dylan’s ID and puts his name into the Police National Computer and the TerrorCrime database. As the screen flashes red alert, the man doesn’t move a muscle. He’s good. But Dylan clocks the armed guards behind the Perspex barrier get the message in their earpieces.

  The guard puts Dylan’s ID into a Smiths Ionscan 400B document scanner that looks for traces of discharge powder, TNT, Semtex, NG, nitrates, HMX and TATP. The colour-coded display blows up green for all clear.

  But the
y badly want Dylan. He can see a snatch photographer in the back of a white Suburban whacking off some shots of him. Another guard moves a Smiths Sabre 4000 up and down his body looking for molecules of cocaine, heroin, cannabis and 37 other banned substances. But again it proves negative.

  A massive black American guard wearing a jungle hat pinned up at the sides comes over and tells him, ‘We know who you are, fucko.’

  Dylan smiles. ‘I’m saying fuck all, lad. Fuck all.’

  CHAPTER 26

  RENDITION

  Jay and Iggo have been missing for three days now.

  ‘They’ve been nicked, lad,’ says Pacer. ‘Telling you.’

  Nogger tells him, ‘Jay, the little cunt, best not be snitching about Chalina. Don’t care where the fuck he is, I’ll smash his head in.’

  ‘Don’t worry about Jay,’ Dylan says. ‘Staunch, he is. No back answers. And I don’t think they’ve been nicked, either. More likely been had off by someone. For all we know they could be in an abode somewhere or in Crocky being tortured, whatever.’

  ‘D’you mean those rats might have shot them?’ asks Pacer.

  ‘Don’t know. But if they’d have been nicked, the bizzies or the redcaps would have to tell us, or tell their mas or whatever. They can’t just hold you for no reason, can they? They’ve got to tell your next of kin, d’you get me? And the Devil’s phoned every fucking bizzy station and no trace.’

  ‘Telling you, lad,’ says Pacer, ‘they’ve been purely rendered. Those private security can do what the fuck they like, take you off to some mad place somewhere. Don’t have to tell anyone except the TerrorCrime tribunals. End of story, lad.’