Soft Target 05 - Blister
Page 13
There was a rustling in the grasses on the far side of the Bentley. Tank looked over the bonnet and noticed that four boot prints had been left behind on the vehicle itself by whoever had hit Victor. That was how they had left the scene without leaving any prints on the ground. Unfortunately, Tank had noticed the clues too late. A shape exploded from the grass and leaped across the bonnet of the Bentley, touching it only once. Tank stood to face the attacker and he raised the Glock ready to fire, but the man was too fast and had the drop on him.
Uri launched himself off the bonnet of the Bentley and hit Tank with the force of a steamroller, before he could raise his gun and fire. The Glock span out of Tank’s hand and landed in the sand underneath the Bentley. The two men hit the front of the pickup truck with a loud clang. Tank connected against the front grill of the truck with the side of his head. He took most of the impact below the temple, which stunned him momentarily. Instinctively the men grappled as they fell and then bounced onto the sand. Each man was trying to get a decisive grip on the other. Tank was incredibly strong but the head trauma had weakened him considerably. It was all he could do to hold onto his attacker. Uri freed his right hand and swung it in a wide arc. The right hook hit Tank in the temple, the same one that he had injured in the fall and a blinding flash of pain seared through his brain. Tank tensed his neck muscles and his forehead shot forward and connected with Uri’s mouth. The head butt cracked one of Uri’s front teeth and smashed his bottom teeth against his lips. The fragile tissue of his lower lip split wide open and he cried out in pain. Uri released his bear like grip for a second and Tank shrugged free of him.
Tank was on his feet in a flash and although his legs were unsteady, he pounced on his attacker. As he lunged at Uri he was hit hard from behind by an unseen fist. The punch caught him below the left ear and bruised the soft nerve centre there. A blinding flash went off in his head and he turned to face the fresh onslaught. Victor was crouched in a wrestling stance ready to attack. Tank was confused and looked at his crushed hand. The fingers were twisted into unnatural shapes but they didn’t look real. Victor smiled and tapped the forearm below his wrist. It made a hollow plastic noise. The limb was prosthetic and Tank hadn’t noticed it, nor had he read it in his file. Victor wiped the trickle of blood from his forehead and Tank realised that there was no wound there at all. He had been set up. Victor grinned and then flew at him.
Tank anticipated the rush and stepped sideways out of harm’s way. As Victor came into range, Tank swung his right shin using all the power in his body by twisting from the hip and it crashed into Victor like a baseball bat. Tank’s shin bone was conditioned by years of training on heavy pads and sandbags. The blow cracked three of Victor’s ribs as he careered past him. Tank followed up with a heavy elbow strike to the back of his head. Victor crumpled like a concertina onto the sand. Tank turned to see that Uri was rising quickly and he moved like lightening to initiate the first decisive attack. Tank launched a powerful left hook, right cross combination. The hook was parried by a skilful block but the cross hit the target and Uri buckled as the giant fist connected with his jaw. He hit the Bentley as he stumbled which stopped him falling on his back, but Tank wasn’t about to let up the attack and he was already throwing the next set of blows at Uri. A vicious knee strike caught Uri straight in the centre of his face. His nose cracked and blood flowed freely from both nostrils. Uri was blinded as his eyes watered with pain. The blow was so powerful that his head bounced off the wing of the Bentley leaving a melon shaped dent in the vehicle. Tank threw a low roundhouse kick, which struck Uri below the knee. It swept his feet from underneath him and he crashed onto the sand again. Uri was losing badly. The big government agent was just too powerful. Tank was on him like a flash and he forced a muscular forearm around his throat. The powerful limb squeezed his windpipe closed and consciousness began to fade. Uri reached a shaking hand into the lining of his jacket. He wrapped his fingers around a small aerosol canister of Mace and aimed it over his shoulder. He depressed the button and the incapacitating spray hit Tank full in the face.
Tank didn’t see the aerosol spray coming. The gas hit him square in the eyes, which blinded him instantly. The chemical constricts the airways of the nose and throat making it difficult to breath, and he released the chokehold that he had on Uri. Uri scrambled away from him and sat gasping for air on the sand. Tank collapsed to his knees. He was holding his hands to his eyes as the pain and discomfort increased. Victor was up and he kicked Tank in the ribs hard. The blow winded him badly as he was already struggling to breathe. Tank knew that he had to try to get away from his attackers before Uri recovered from the chokehold. He was totally defenceless, only his survival instinct was driving him onward.
Uri caught his breath and a dull glint of metal caught his attention beneath the car. Tank’s Glock was inches away from his face. He grabbed it and stood up on shaking legs. Tank was trying to crawl away on his knees, but every time he made a yard of progress, Victor threw a brutal series of kicks into his midriff. He was coughing and spluttering as the chemical constricted his breathing and the kicking began to take a terrible toll. Uri walked behind him and raised the Glock above his head. He was holding it by the barrel like a hammer. Uri brought the gun down in a wicked arc and it hit Tank on the first vertebrate at the base of the skull. The big agent groaned and shook his head. Tank knew that he was nearing unconsciousness and that he had been hurt. Uri lifted the gun a second time and brought it down with force again. Tank dropped face down in the sand for a second, but then he coughed and spluttered and tried to stand. Victor punched him hard in the face knocking his head backward and exposing his chin. Uri hammered the butt of the pistol across Tank’s jaw, which twisted his head violently and sent the nerves in his spine into shock. Tank fell face down into the sand and became still.
Chapter Twenty One
The Mersey Estuary
Constable Danny Lee had been an officer in the River Police division for nearly a decade. He thought that he had seen everything that there was to see on the River Mersey, drug smugglers, people traffickers, modern day pirates, arms smugglers, diamond smugglers, illegal immigrants and the odd Irish terrorist or two. The port handled millions of tons of freight every month, which was carried by container vessels from all over the globe. Despite the impressive list of arrests that he had made, his working day was usually trouble free. The small police cruiser he piloted was comfortable enough and was big enough to carry two police officers and half a dozen handcuffed passengers if necessary. They generally cruised inland up the estuary toward the many petrochemical plants that lined the riverbanks at Runcorn, and then navigated across the river at its widest point to the huge oil storage depot at Stanlow. It was one of the county’s biggest storage facilities and had been the target of Islamic Extremists and the Irish Republican Army several times. Access to the oil tanks from the river was easy and so the River Police division monitored it hourly. From the oil depot, they traversed the river again to pass by the John Lennon Airport which was also situated on the riverbank, and was another possible target for terrorists. Dropping a fully loaded passenger jet full of tourists would be relatively easy for a competent combatant with rocket propelled grenade training and a boat.
Constable Lee was half way through his nightshift when they were alerted to a suspected arms smuggling shipment that could possibly be sailing into Liverpool. The information was scant and they were ordered to be on the lookout for any unusual activity on the river. He was annoyed by the lack of specific details because he was a stickler for procedure. Being told that there could be arms being smuggled into the port was like being told that it might rain, but then again it might not. To cap it all he had also been told that there was an extreme weather warning being issued across the entire country. Heavy snowfall was expected. Constable Lee lived twenty five miles from the port in a green belt area which was serviced by narrow country lanes that were only wide enough for one vehicle at a time. When it snowed, they bec
ame impassable and that would mean that he would have to walk home from the main road again for the third time in three months. The journey on foot would be a two and a half mile trek through the snow following a twelve hour night shift.
“Fucking hell, that’s all we need,” Danny said to his fellow officer.
“What’s up Danny?”
“Severe weather warning apparently, there’s a bloody snowstorm on the way,” Danny Lee grumbled. He picked up his binoculars and scanned the mouth of the estuary. Snowflakes began to spiral down and they landed on the lenses where they melted and distorted his vision.
“You’re in for a long walk home after the shift then eh?” his colleague scoffed. He reached into the cabin and retrieved a stainless steel thermos flask and two mugs. He twisted the top and steam drifted from inside. “Here get your mouth around this it’ll warm you up.”
“Thanks Darren, you’re a star,” Danny said as he took a steaming mug of strong coffee from him. He sipped it and although it burnt his lips it tasted good. Darren always brought good strong coffee and fresh meat pastries on board.
“Do you want a pastry?” Darren asked, even though he already knew the answer.
“What flavour are we on today then?” Danny asked, as he took another big sip of the coffee. Darren’s wife was of Indian origin and she loved to cook for him and his workmates. Every day she prepared and baked different meats laced with oriental spices wrapped and baked in pastry.
“Lamb Tikka,” Darren answered proudly handing one of them to his partner. He held a second pastry underneath his nose and inhaled deeply enjoying the spicy aromas.
“I don’t know where you found that woman but I’m glad you did,” Danny joked. He put down the binoculars and bit into his pastry. “That’s really nice,” he added spraying pastry flakes from his mouth as he spoke. He brushed them off his dark police uniform with the back of his hand.
Darren picked up the field glasses and looked through them. Thick flakes of snow were tumbling with more vigour now. He took a large bite of his Tikka parcel as he scanned the estuary. “That is my favourite,” he said with his mouth full. He was about to take another bite when he became still and stopped chewing. Danny noticed the look on his partner’s face and followed his gaze to see what he was looking at. In the distance, he could just make out the aft and stern lights of a vessel through the flurrying snow.
“What is it?” Danny asked his colleague.
“It’s one of the lightships,” Darren answered displaying the contents of his mouth as he chewed.
“What direction is she headed?” Danny was confused by Darren’s concern. His eyebrows lifted and he screwed his face up accentuating the wrinkles around his eyes.
“She’s headed toward the docks at Seaforth I think,” Darren said. He took another bite of his pastry and washed it down with a mouthful of coffee.
“Which one is it?” Danny asked, still frowning. It wasn’t unusual to see lightships in the estuary even though had been replaced by remote ships. They were still used occasionally to service the port authority’s beacons. Some of them had been sold off to collectors and others were in maritime museums.
“L2,” Darren said frowning. He put down his food and his coffee and looked at the ship again through the binoculars. He turned to his fellow officer with a look of concern on his face.
“L2?” Danny said. He reached for the shift manifest and checked all the sanctioned movements of port authority vessels for that day. “She isn’t on our list for today.”
“She isn’t likely to be. She was decommissioned years ago.”
“Are you sure?” Danny turned to look at his partner. He picked up the radio microphone and tried to make contact with headquarters. There was nothing but static. The storm clouds were beginning to effect radio communications.
“Of course I’m sure, she was used as a restaurant at the Albert Docks for a while, remember? We went there once with the girls,” Darren said. He was referring to a day out shopping they had with their wives a few years earlier.
“Oh yes I do, it was defiantly the L2 that we had dinner on. What the bloody hell would she be doing out in the estuary?” Constable Danny Lee tried to call into headquarters again but he was met with nothing but static.
“I think we should check her out,” Darren said.
“I agree but if we’re sailing to a potential arms smuggling operation then we need to break out the weapons,” Danny said. In the event that officers felt that they needed to be armed then they needed authorisation from senior firearms officers ashore, however if communications were broken then the unanimous agreement of the officers on board would suffice. “Are we agreed?”
“Agreed,” Darren consented. Constable Lee took a keychain from his tunic and climbed down the step into the cabin where the weapon’s lockbox was situated. His partner followed him and removed his own set of keys. The two policemen inserted their keys at the same time into the corresponding locks and turned them. The lockbox clicked open and they removed two model 14 Glock nine millimetre automatic pistols. The model 14 was smaller than the model used by Tank and his team, and as the number indicates it holds only fourteen rounds in the clip as opposed to the seventeen rounds held by its big brother the model 17. Both men placed Kevlar helmets on and then checked each other’s equipment for combat readiness.
“I’ll try headquarters again,” Constable Lee said as they climbed back into the bridge. “Set a course to intercept her.”
“We’re all set on course, estimated time of interception is seven minutes,” Darren said. “Is there any joy with the radio?”
“Nothing but static, I’m going to start signalling the L2,” Constable Lee said. He climbed onto the bulkhead above the cabin and switched on an Aldis signal lamp, which communicated to other vessels by sending Morse code via a series light pulses. He began to click the lamp on and off requesting the lightship to hold its progress and stop the engines. The river policeman signalled them to state the purpose of its voyage, and its destination. He repeated the message three times without receiving any response from the crew of the L2. “They’re not responding to us, I’ve got a really bad feeling about this,” Constable Danny Lee said shaking his head. Thick flakes of snow fell from his helmet. The river policeman didn’t know how right he was. He thought he’d seen it all but he was about to learn that he hadn’t at all.
Chapter Twenty Two
‘On board the L2’
Petre Gustav was becoming seriously concerned about the situation that he’d found himself in. He was originally from Poland and had travelled to the United Kingdom to look for work along with hundreds of thousands of his countrymen. When he arrived in the country, the prospects of employment were very positive. The economy was at its peak and the future looked bright. The wages in the UK were worth ten times what he could earn at home in Poland. Twelve months later the world economy had crashed and things couldn’t be any worse. Petre had worked in the gas drilling industry as a diver and welder based on the drilling rigs in Liverpool Bay. When the credit crunch arrived, it wasn’t long before the British workforce turned on their foreign workmates demanding that jobs were given to indigenous British workers before foreigners were considered for vacancies. There was a series of wildcat strikes which brought the petrochemical industry to a standstill forcing the government’s hand. Petre and many of his countrymen were given their papers and made redundant.
Petre knew that Uri was a Mr Fix-it and he asked him to keep his ear to the ground for any diving work that he heard of, even if it was unlicensed or illegal. Eight months later Uri had come back to him with the proposition of leading a salvage team employed by a man called Walsh. Uri had explained that he was an eccentric character, but that he was an incredibly wealthy man. The price for the contract was ludicrous, almost two years salary for what would equate to a few week’s work. Petre couldn’t refuse the opportunity. He pieced together a ragtag salvage team of Eastern Europeans and shook hands on the deal.