by Neil White
The fire chief's smile widened. ‘Those hoses can blow. If you got in their way, you'd know about it.’
Rod smiled. He had what he wanted.
Chapter Ninety-three
Carson was tense. The officers nearby waited for his signal, but he was putting other professionals at risk. The firefighters took risks every day, but then the enemy was fire, something they had been trained to contain. This was something different. Their safety depended on decisions he reached, and on the reactions of the madman in that house.
Everyone knew Rod's plan. The first step was the distraction.
Carson pressed dial and heard the ring of Dan Mather's phone in his ear. There were seven rings before it was answered.
‘Yes?’
‘Just seeing how you were doing?’ Carson said, and then he nodded at the officers standing nearby.
The plan was to get the explosive wet, very wet, so that it wouldn't matter if sparks started flying. There were three units of police officers, and in each of them were two men holding riot shields to the floor, and another two holding theirs so that they overlapped the others, but higher, so that each unit consisted of a two-by-two bulletproof shield, protecting the men behind them. Each four-man riot shield allowed a small gap in the middle. Behind that gap stood a line of three firemen, one behind the other, the front one holding the high-pressure water hose, the two behind helping, with the nozzle of the hose protruding through the gap, the shields clamped like vices around it to limit any way through for bullets. Just behind the firemen were two tactical response officers. They were carrying their guns across their chests, the settings on rapid fire.
‘I'm just fine,’ replied Dan. ‘McGanity doesn't look too good though.’
Carson gave the nod to Joe, who radio'd the command, and then watched nervously as the air was filled with the sound of shields banging together and heavy feet shuffling through long grass.
The lines advanced slowly, the officers with the shields moving carefully, making sure they stayed together as a solid wall. Two units shuffled towards the windows of the main room in the house, vulnerable in the open space at the front. Another unit headed towards the house from the side, sneaking along the wall that formed the boundary.
Carson lifted binoculars to his eyes and looked at the house. There were no signs of movement. A curtain flapped around the upstairs window, but everywhere else was as peaceful as a Sunday morning. Sweat prickled his forehead, despite the November cold, and his shirt stuck to his back. He put the binoculars down and looked at the control van. All eyes were trained on the house.
‘Let me know that they are both still alive,’ said Carson, trying to keep Dan's concentration on what was happening inside the house, not outside.
The units crept forward at a pace almost too slow to see. Each unit was waiting for the signal to pull back if there was any sign of adverse movement from inside. Carson had given his men clear instructions not to put the fire officers' lives at risk under any circumstances.
Each line came to within ten yards of its intended target. There was nothing from the house. The countryside around was quiet, except for the buzzing of radios clipped to jumpsuits, everyone waiting for the signal from Karl Carson.
Tom Mather stood up quickly when he heard something outside.
‘They're coming!’ he shouted.
Dan Mather looked at his son, and then glanced outside, saw the riot shields. I made a dash for him but my knee gave way, and so I fell to the floor, grimacing with pain. I heard my cheekbone crunch as Tom jammed the butt of the shotgun hard into my face. I yelled out in agony. My face felt like it was on fire, my cheekbone cracked in half.
I almost passed out, but as everything went distant I heard Laura straining on her bindings. I fought the image to vomit, but before my vision cleared Tom had me pinned to the floor, the gun pressed against my shattered cheekbone, making my vision speckle as the pain took me over.
I took deep breaths, tried to clear my head, to see through the panic and the nausea. I could feel my cheekbone moving around under my skin, every breath making it click and grate, and I felt a jab of pain run through me, as sharp as a sword.
Tom got his face near to mine. ‘Getting brave, Garrett?’ he snarled. ‘We die together.’
At that moment, I knew that he was probably right. I summoned up all my anger, all my venom, tried to get past the pain, and spat at him. It landed on his face, bloody and angry, and he swiped me across the face with his free fist. I groaned with the pain, and for a moment I sensed myself drift off, but I tried to shut it out, determined to stay conscious.
I started to stand but fell down again, my head spinning out of control.
‘You are one sick bastard,’ I said to him, blood spewing from my broken mouth, every word agony. ‘At least I know that no one else will die after today.’
I collapsed back onto the floor, panting, my outburst draining me. Tom's gun followed me, the dark barrels tracking my forehead. I saw Dan appear behind him.
‘So that's it,’ said Dan, strangely emotionless. ‘Your final words. Not good.’ He bent down towards me, tried to meet my gaze. ‘How does it feel?’ he said. ‘Not long. Your life gone. What are you thinking?’
I spat blood onto the floor, panting, struggling for breath. I closed my eyes. ‘Mostly, I'm thinking “fuck you”.’
Dan smiled at me.
‘And there's something else too,’ I said.
Dan nodded at me to continue.
‘I just want to know why your wife killed herself,’ I said. ‘Tom's mother. What was behind that?’
‘She was weak,’ came the reply. ‘Like the little slut who just ran out, when it came to it, all her wild talk meant nothing in the end.’
I thought I saw Tom wince as his father said it. Something occurred to me, a chance. Divide and conquer.
‘But didn't she think about young Tom here?’ I asked. ‘He was left behind.’
Dan shook his head. ‘She didn't care about him. She was selfish to the end.’ And then he laughed. ‘She was hard to shift though.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The whining little bitch used to moan that it had all been just a game, sex talk, that she didn't really want anyone to die,’ replied Dan. ‘But that was bullshit. She used to like the dirty talk, my hands around her neck, describing what it would be like to kill someone, the big squeeze, her face full red, eyelids fluttering.’ He grinned at me. ‘If you've never tried it, you're too late now.’
Tom looked uncomfortable. He was looking at the floor, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
‘So to her it was a game, but for you it was just practice,’ I said.
‘Something like that.’ He sighed. ‘She couldn't handle it, but she knew it was partly her fault, that she had stoked the fire, and then when I couldn't stop, well, she was desperate. It didn't take long to persuade her to jump.’
I noticed Tom's head snap up at that.
‘You made her jump?’ I queried loudly, making sure that Tom could hear me.
‘She was going to tell,’ said Dan, ‘but I had other plans,’ and he tapped his head. ‘I've told you, if the voice keeps on fucking tap-tap-tapping, non-stop, then you give in; you obey.’
‘But it was your voice in her head?’
Dan laughed. ‘Genius, don't you think?’
I heard a noise behind him, and I saw that Tom had raised his gun and he was pointing it right at me. I saw his bared teeth as he began to squeeze on the trigger.
Carson looked over at Joe, who seemed pensive for a moment. Then he glanced at the fire chief, who appeared worried but proud. Carson spent a second or two surveying the scene, and then unclipped his radio and shouted, ‘GO! GO! GO!’
The firefighters by the appliances turned the water on quickly. It coursed down the three hoses, making them stretch and writhe and buck like live snakes on a grill. As the firefighters braced themselves behind the shields, the tactical response officers burst out from
behind the shields and sprinted towards their targets, one set for the door, the other two taking a window each. The door went in with a kick, the windows needed just a jab with a gun. The officers dived to one side just as the water rocketed out of the hoses and into the house.
Chapter Ninety-four
The window smashed behind me.
I whirled around in panic. I saw a flash of light reflecting off police shields, and then I saw movement in the grass behind them. I threw myself against the wall, driven by instinct.
Tom tracked me, surprised by my movement. Then he looked at the window, and then back at me, his face filled with surprise. He raised the shotgun once more.
And then the water came through.
A torrent shot across the room, catching Tom in the chest like a liquid battering ram. The gun flew out of his hand and skittered away from him. He went down hard, and then tried to scramble for the gun, but he slipped in the water gathering on the wooden floor.
Tom got to his feet quickly and looked around. I saw fear in his eyes. Laura started to pull at her ropes, screaming for help.
A second burst of water came through the side window, glass scattering across the floor. Tom turned to face it and screamed.
Water was crashing off two walls, moving across, taking down pictures, clocks, books. Wallpaper began to look sodden, started to wrinkle and peel. The tins of fuel tumbled over, the contents lying in a sheen on top of the water before soaking through the gaps in the floorboards and away.
Tom scrambled to his gun once more and moved back towards me, and I braced myself for the shot. I heard Dan shout at him, ‘Kill him, you useless little bastard!’ It was barely audible above the noise of water crashing around the house.
I shut my eyes and waited for the end.
But then the water must have moved across. Tom had been near its path as the jet roared across the room, soaking everything in its way. The roar had a steady rhythm, a deafening drumming on the opposite wall, but for a moment I heard the sound change. It went for a second to a high-pitched smack, and as I flung my eyes open I saw Tom hit in the face by a spear of water coming in so fast that it snapped his head back hard. He thrust out his arm and pulled on the trigger. The blast from the shotgun made my ears ring and knocked me off balance, and then he slipped to the floor.
I glanced around quickly, tried to see what he had hit. I looked at Laura. She was panicking, strapped to the chair, being thrashed against it, trying to keep her head out of the water, but the power of the spray was too much for her. I tried to get up and go to her. I was knocked over by the water, taking a hit in the back like a punch from a heavyweight. Dan was moving towards me, keeping low, the water still coming into the room hard. I tried to shout for him to stay still, but the sound was lost.
He fell towards me, and then I heard a moan. It was the sound of breath being expelled, and I could feel it hot on my cheek. I pushed him off, and he tumbled to the floor. As I looked down at him, his gaze seemed hollow. He gasped, his hand clasped to his chest. I glanced down and I saw his shirt billowing red. He'd taken the shot in his stomach. Blood was soaking into his trousers, running down his arms, pushed around by the water on his body, diluted, keeping the blood flowing.
He looked at me, his eyes becoming distant. He'd been hit. Tom had shot him. Was it an accident?
I tried to get a good look at his chest, but didn't lose sight of his eyes for fear it was a trick. I reached down onto his chest with my good hand. His shirt felt like tarpaulin, thick and oily with blood. I pressed hard onto his abdomen and I felt him buck beneath my hand, his teeth gritting and rolling, his voice an almost silent roar.
I could see holes in his shirt where the blood was thickest. I looked back into his eyes, my hand still over the wound. I ignored the sound of glass smashing as the water jets knocked things over, taking out more window panes. My mind was only on Dan Mather.
I glanced at Laura, still strapped to the chair, and let my anger run wild. I thought of Sarah, the girl I'd never met. I thought of her parents, mourning their daughter, nothing left but old photographs and heads full of memories. I looked down at Dan Mather, and I wanted him to suffer.
I gritted my teeth and went looking for the wounds. I stared into his eyes as I felt along, my hands wet and sticky, his breaths coming quicker, his eyes widening as I pressed and prodded.
I found holes in his stomach, just a short reach apart, his flesh torn ragged.
I looked at him hard in the eyes. I thought I saw a plea for mercy.
‘Why didn't you blow us all up?’ I shouted over the water, my voice angry.
He shook his head weakly.
‘Because you are a coward,’ I said, ‘just like all of us.’
And then I plunged my thumb hard and deep into one of the wounds, jerking my hand upwards as I did it, my teeth bared in anger. I moved my thumb around, backward and forward, Dan's eyes wide with pain, his mouth open and screaming. I could feel him tight around me, could feel every second of pain with every push of my thumb. He put his hands around my neck, tearing at my hair.
I was snarling by now. I kept my thumb inside him but went searching for the other wounds with my index finger. I found one and plunged my finger in deep. He dug his nails hard into my back, drawing blood, increasing my anger. I forced my middle finger in there, and I felt him push himself hard against me, his eyes rolling in their sockets.
I was gripping him like a bowling ball. I could feel him around me, the wetness, the movement of pain as he screamed and bucked against my hand, my fingers and thumb hard and straight inside him. I could feel tissues, veins, muscles between my fingers. I looked into his eyes and I could see fires burning. I hoped they were the fires of hell, ready for him. I felt his body between my fingers, his agony in my grasp.
Then I clenched my fist hard.
He opened his mouth to scream some more but only blood came out, a stream covering his chin, and he started to shake.
I helped him. I shook him by the tissues and muscles I gripped in my fist and I screamed for him. But my scream wasn't a cry for help or a scream of pain. It was a shout of victory, for Sarah, and Rebecca, and April, and all the rest.
I yanked out my hand, making the two wounds one, still holding parts of him in my fingers.
Dan slumped back and stared at me in disbelief. He fell back into the water, the splash lost in the roar as he landed in the growing pool of red. He tried to lift his head and I saw the end in his eyes. I knew at that moment he was dying. And I saw that he knew it. I could see it in his pleading, his silent cry for help.
His eyes looked away from me, and as I followed his eyes I saw his gun.
I knew what he wanted. He wanted out.
The water was still crashing into the room. It was six inches deep now; the flow in was too fast for the flow out. The old wooden floor had become treacherous.
I scuttled over to the gun, splashing through the water, my clothes now heavy and wet, blood from Dan Mather mixing with my own. I grasped it and wondered what to do. I looked back at Dan Mather, who was breathing death breaths, his chest racking itself for air, his mouth open, his pallor white and laboured.
The water kept me awake. I couldn't close my jaw and every breath in and out was like the draw of a sword. The pain twisted my thoughts, made me angry. I saw Laura being knocked by the water, and I saw her knees sagging, as if she was beginning to lose consciousness.
I threw the gun down and rushed to her, put my arms around her, and pulled the chair to the floor, out of the line of the water. I was kneeling on the floor, cradling Laura, the water coming in above my head. Pictures were gone from the walls and I could hear glass smashing in the kitchen.
Then the water stopped.
The house became deathly still, silent apart from the dripping from the ceiling and shelves.
I realised I was cold.
Dan Mather looked at me, pleading.
I shook my head and smiled. ‘What do you see?’ I said quietly, mocking.
‘Now you know the final moment, enjoy it.’
I plunged my hands deep into the water to soak away his blood, and then I heard the door crash in.
I lay in the water as it slowly seeped through the floorboards, my arms around Laura, still strapped to the chair. The water cleaned the blood off my hands and cooled the pain in my cheek. I could hear the shouts of the police officers as they ran through the house.
Dan Mather was still alive, just. I lifted my head up. The pain almost sent me back down, but I had to see. He was breathing short breaths, his chest going hard like a piston, trying to draw air in. His cheeks had sunk hollow and his eyes rolled in their sockets. I could see his blood painting the floor red.
There were two police officers standing over him, each with their gun trained on him. But Dan was looking at me. Someone was talking to him, asking him how he was. He smiled, thin and weak. He knew he wouldn't need them.
I heard the tear of Laura's bindings as someone cut her free, and she fell into my arms. I could hear running footsteps, shouts and yells, and someone appeared with a blanket. I thought I saw a paramedic.
I looked back at Dan Mather. He groaned and his chest rose one last time, his back arched, his eyes wide and scared, one last effort for air.
I closed my eyes as the pain shot through me. ‘Rot in hell,’ I hissed, before collapsing back down.
I heard footsteps around me and I looked up. It was Karl Carson.
‘You stupid bastard,’ he said.
I managed a smile. ‘Thank you.’
And then it all went dark.
Chapter Ninety-five
I heard the letterbox clang as a letter dropped onto the mat.
I checked my watch. It was still early, dark outside, but I hadn't been sleeping well. Every time I fell asleep, I saw Dan Mather's face. But it wasn't the look that he'd had when he was hurting me that kept me awake. It was the look as he'd died that was in my mind, that final knowing glance. I could still feel his flesh on my fingers, cold and wet, and I could have tried to save him.
