The Burning Man

by Paul Finch

  She started running, as much as she was able to.

  ‘Gary … are you still on the west gate?’ she asked.

  Quinnell’s post was one she had not been able to visit, as it was located on the far side of the compound. He and Sally Gorton were on a rise of tree-covered land, which didn’t just overlook the whole west side of the pound but also a single-lane exit on that side, a little-used cart-track which was already deep in mud when they’d arrived here. It was only a small exit, but on earlier examination the chain on its gate was found to have been hacksawed through and the gate unfastened, which suggested this might have been the way Sagan had originally entered.

  ‘Affirmative,’ Quinnell confirmed.

  ‘Gary – you need to intercept him right now!’

  ‘Ma’am! It’s been chucking it down for hours. I don’t know how easily we’ll get down there! We’re parked off-road.’

  ‘Gary, I told you to find a decent lying-up point!’

  ‘We did, ma’am!’ he protested. ‘But this weather’s a bugger, isn’t it?’

  If Gemma was honest, that was the truth. Just to get near the west gate and avoid the swampy exit lane, Quinnell and Gorton had parked on Hill View, an adjacent road further down the hill, and then had ascended the slope on foot over rough ground until they could find their OP. Hill View connected with the exit lane about eighty yards south of their current position; in normal circumstances, even during ordinary rainfall, they’d have been able to scramble back, jump into their car and move it out in time to create a blockade at the junction. But the incredible intensity of the storm had dumbfounded all of them.

  ‘What if we’re stuck?’ Quinnell said. ‘I’m up to my ankles just walking around up here.’

  ‘You’d better bloody not be!’ Gemma staggered on, rounding the northeast corner of the vehicle pound. ‘I told you all to keep an eye on that.’

  ‘We were doing,’ he said. ‘But it’s been coming down for bloody hours … shit-bollocks!’

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘It is Sagan. It’s a beige Discovery. He’s passing through the west gate now.’

  ‘Gary … just calm down! These conditions can’t be easy for him either. He’s hauling a caravan, for God’s sake.’

  ‘Yeah, but he’s in a four-wheel drive, isn’t he! Talk about prepared for every eventuality.’

  Which we quite clearly were not, Gemma thought as she stumbled on. ‘Just get back to your vehicle and follow at the first opportunity!’

  Gemma clambered through a ditch that was knee-deep in foul water, and found herself back on Hunger Hill Road, a hundred yards or so away from her own lying-up point. She started running again, at last gaining speed. It seemed incredible to her that, with officers covertly observing every conceivable exit and entry point, no one had noticed Sagan come back here for his vehicle. Even if he was on foot, someone should have spotted him. Unless … and this was a particularly ugly thought; suppose he’d been residing inside his caravan? They said it was a torture chamber in there, though from what they knew of this guy he’d be right at home.

  But none of that mattered now. Hunger Hill Road connected a mile further down the hillside with Hill View, so that was no problem. Even though the bastard was driving a Land Rover, Gemma was determined to overhaul him before he gained any distance. And when they did that, it was possible he’d give them a fight. She wasn’t sure what she felt about that, but inside her anorak the Glock was holstered snugly beneath her left armpit. She’d had all her SCU personnel draw pistols before coming up here.

  There’d be no more unarmed coppers shot dead on her watch.

  All she needed now was for Ron Gibbshaw to have moved her Merc onto the actual road to ensure it wasn’t bogged down, as she’d ordered him to do before going for a walk, and the chase would be on. But a moment later, when she came in sight of the vehicle, it was still parked on the layby, now sunk almost to its wheel-arches in thrashing water.

  Gemma raced forward and yanked open the front passenger door.

  Gibbshaw jerked awake.

  Clearly the ultra-long shift, the lulling drone of the rain and the luxurious warmth inside the Merc had been too much for him.

  ‘Christ’s sake, Ron!’ she shrieked. ‘What the hell are you playing at!’

  ‘I … erm …’ He was sallow-faced, pop-eyed. ‘I wasn’t asleep!’

  ‘The hell you bloody weren’t! I told you twenty minutes ago to get us out onto the road. Now look where we bloody are!’ She hurried around to the driver’s seat and threw herself in.

  The car started easily enough and crunched into gear, but when she tried to reverse it out, she found herself grinding muck and slurry. The chassis shuddered, but the Merc gained no traction.

  ‘Ma’am, I –’ Gibbshaw began sheepishly.

  ‘Shut up, Ron!’ She grabbed her radio from the dash. ‘All units, this is DSU Piper …’

  *

  Eyeball was the first of Shaughnessy’s hoodlums to specifically catch the Incinerator’s attention. His mouth dropped open as the newcomer drove a roaring wedge of flame across the altar, completely enveloping him. The bare-topped gangbanger stood rigid, before cavorting away, a living torch.

  A dozen things then happened at once.

  Shaughnessy and the bulk of his crew staggered backwards, the leader leaping over the pew behind him. Dropping to one knee, he tried to take cover. He pulled his jewel-hilted Ruger, intending to pop a shot at the advancing figure – but instead he had to shield his face against the unbelievably intense heat. Inevitably, he ducked his head.

  Meanwhile, Heck rounded on Langton, slammed a knee into his groin and, as he doubled over, clenched his fists together and bludgeoned the back of his neck. But Langton’s ox-like frame was sturdy, his aggression instinctive. He kept his feet and clung to his pistol as Heck wrestled him for it. Their struggle took them over the altar rail and onto the altar itself, where they fell to the floor. They rolled back and forth, each with one hand clamped to the weapon.

  The rest of the crew began shooting as they backed down the aisles. Sporadic cracks of gunfire and staccato muzzle-flashes filled the church. The Incinerator had to be well armoured because he came on regardless, bypassing the hanging priest, ignoring Heck and Langton too as he stepped down from the altar into the front aisle, but looking left and right as he decided which of the other, more dangerous elements to go after first.

  On the altar, Heck used his left hand to try and wrest the gun free, which meant that his stronger right hand was available to bombard Langton’s head and face with punches. Langton tried to gouge Heck’s eyes, even to bite his throat. Heck head-butted the bridge of Langton’s nose. They scrambled back to their feet, Langton bloodied but clinging to his gun, before crashing into the solid slab of marble that was the altar table. Heck slammed Langton’s gun-hand down on it several times. The pistol came loose and skittered out of sight. Langton responded by grabbing Heck’s throat in his orange-gloved hands.

  Some twenty yards away, the Incinerator took the north aisle first. He jetted an arc of fire at the knot of figures retreating down it, sweeping it left as some straggled across the nave through the pews. Two or three, including that big, dopy-looking character, Azzy, were engulfed; they staggered and toppled, screaming and blazing. One shucked off his burning jacket, and attempted to clamber up the scaffolding on the north wall. Two others had already scaled this. All three turned their pistols on the invader as he tromped down the aisle. The pistols discharged, those slugs that didn’t hit him ricocheting from the tiled floor, whining and screaming.

  With a fresh WHOOSH of flame, he swept his arc upward.

  It roared through the steel framework, embracing all three as they clung to their perches. Pistols clattered to the floor as hoarse screeches filled the smoky, stinking air.

  A fusillade of additional fire now struck the Incinerator from the south side, where Stardust had managed to marshal a few more troops. They pumped shot after shot at him. He
spun around, and let loose another searing torrent. It snaked across the nave, exploding through the wooden pews, falling on them like infernal rain.

  Still on the altar, Langton was in the process of throttling Heck, having bent him backward over the marble table. His spade-like hands applied crushing force to Heck’s windpipe. In return, Heck went for the bastard’s eyes, which were already bloodied and puffy. Langton clenched them shut and drove his head down, cracking it against Heck’s jaw – once, twice. The pain was dizzying. Heck felt consciousness ebbing away. Frantic, he clawed out across the table, and found a heavy brass candlestick. He grabbed it and swung it over. There was a massive clunk, as it connected with Langton’s skull. The grip on Heck’s throat lessened. Langton slumped slightly. Heck coiled his legs and kicked him backward. Langton reeled away. Heck jumped up and landed another blow with the heavy piece of metal. This one was two-handed, a roundhouse, like he was swinging a cricket bat.

  The impact was colossal, the sound like meat smacking stone.

  Langton dropped to his knees, head wobbling, eyes rolling as blood spilled over his face.

  The third blow was the hardest yet; it sent him nose-down to the altar floor.

  In the south aisle, Stardust ran towards the back of the church. Those of his troops not already burning were so mesmerised by the demonic shape barging across the nave, passing through fire and smoke unscathed, that they barely realised their clips had run empty. Another of them tried to flee, but the Incinerator caught him in a crosswise blast, lighting him head to foot.

  With shrieks, the remaining two took the first door they came to – it stood directly behind them, but it led to the ultimate dead-end: a confessional box. The Incinerator kicked his way in after them. They howled like babies as he blasted them with flame.

  Heck meanwhile, swaying on rubber legs, made his way to the scaffolding at the back of the altar. Father Pat hung insensible. His lean torso and belted trousers were caked with clotting gore. Heck checked for the priest’s vital signs and found that he still had a pulse. He reached up, tore at the knots and yanked them open, before catching the tortured body as it sagged down.

  At the other end of the church, the last four of Shaughnessy’s soldiers struggled to escape the building, but the main door had been locked. They kicked and punched the heavy timber, but to no avail. With relentless footfalls, their nemesis came on. Sobbing, screaming, they attempted to reload. But he was only yards away.

  As Stardust fled, the others collapsed like waxen figures in the roaring, white-hot spume.

  Stardust sped for the church’s northwest corner, where the font stood beneath a window from which the glass had been removed and where only paint-stained canvas hung in its place. The font, which was made from intricately worked metal, and roughly the size of a child’s bathtub, was penned in by wooden railings, but Stardust vaulted these with ease and leaped up on top of the structure. The window’s lower ledge was only seven feet overhead, but with the canvas hanging lower, he knew he could reach it – until he heard feet close behind.

  Stardust’s handgun of choice was better adapted for urban warfare than many: a Smith & Wesson Model 500, with shortened barrel. His knowledge was better too. This maniac might be wearing Kevlar under his fire-retardant suit, but up top it was only a motorbike helmet.

  Stardust went for the head.

  His aim was poor – he was in the process of climbing the canvas and firing one-handed. Of the three shots, one missed, but though the other two only clipped the Incinerator’s helmet, the effect was huge. The fifty-calibre rounds smashed the headpiece apart, the faceplate flying loose, the rest of it torn clean off, revealing a grey canvas hood and the sweating, smoke-stained features of Nayka underneath. The force staggered the Russian, knocking him down to one knee, his aim slipping downward, hosing the footings of the font, which, thanks to the paint and spirits stored there, literally exploded.

  Soaring flames licked at Stardust’s soles, driving him up the canvas like an ape. The window ledge was almost in reach when the fabric tore. He plummeted back, landing full in the font, though it now more resembled a cauldron, the water bubbling, hissing. He struggled and kicked as he boiled, but could gain no leverage, his suffering only ending when the Incinerator strode up through the flames, now wielding one of the others’ discarded handguns, from which he pumped four heavy shells into Stardust’s chest.

  Much of this macabre scene was obscured from the front of the church by swirls of oily smoke, but Heck kept one eye on it as he hauled the inert form of his uncle to the rear of the choir screens. The priest’s face was cadaverous grey; his cheeks had sunken. When Heck whispered to him, he showed no signs of life.

  A few yards away, Lee Shaughnessy finally raised his head, wild-eyed, drenched with sweat.

  All around were burnt relics of his crew: blackened, semi-melted forms hanging from the high scaffolding; twisted travesties of humanity sprawled on the pews or in pools of seething fat. The nave was filled with smog and a foul stench of sizzling flesh. But the way to the sacristy, and the open outer door beyond it, was clear. He clambered over the pew into the front aisle, and scampered across the northeast corner of the altar.

  ‘Shaughnessy!’ Heck shouted, appearing around the choir screens.

  Shaughnessy turned and pegged a shot at him with the Ruger, but it went wide. Heck ducked out of sight anyway, because now heavy footsteps echoed down the church. As Shaughnessy glanced over his shoulder, the Incinerator advanced along the north aisle. Even without his helmet, he looked no less a monster, the familiar deranged face under the canvas hood blackened and blistered, a tongue of flame flickering at the end of his device.

  Shaughnessy raced blindly out through the sacristy.

  Nayka followed, tramping past the altar.

  Heck watched from around the choir screens, before retreating to his uncle, who, by his low moaning, was gradually regaining consciousness.

  ‘Uncle Pat,’ Heck whispered into his ear, having now stuffed an altar cushion under the guy’s head. ‘You’ve got to lie still, all right? And keep it down. We’re not out of this yet.’

  Not sure if the priest could even hear him, he glanced back down the church to check that the fire wasn’t spreading. Though cloying smoke hung everywhere, what little there was that could actually burn was no more now than ashes and embers. Reassured by that, he moved to the sacristy entrance. From somewhere beyond that, he heard the cough and snarl of an engine as it ground to life.

  For half a second, Heck went groggy. He’d taken quite a beating earlier; both sides of his face were crusty where blood had trickled from his busted eyebrows. But this was no time for calling in sick. He swayed through the sacristy to the outer door and then into the passage between the garage and the church, which he edged along until he’d reached the first corner. From here he could see down onto the car park, where an amazing sight met his eyes.

  Almost as quickly as it had started, the deluge was suddenly losing its intensity, but even so the church car park was flooded to a depth of several inches. Lee Shaughnessy, who had got back into his green-and-white van, now skidded and slid as he tried to negotiate his way across it towards the entrance on the main road. Nayka was also out there on the open lot, stalking almost casually after him, aiming the flamethrower one-handed as he jetted spears of flame at the clumsily moving target. The van had been struck at least twice already; it was seared black along its offside, two of its tyres alight. Shaughnessy pulled a desperate righthand turn in an effort to angle away from his tormentor, and the damaged vehicle slipped completely out of control, turning 360 degrees as it slewed away.

  It came to a rest facing Nayka, though with about seventy yards between them.

  The van growled to life again, Shaughnessy clearly seeing his chance, hitting the gas hard. It juddered forward, picking up speed despite the fire eating away at its flanks and undercarriage. Nayka levelled his weapon in both hands, but held his ground as it barrelled towards him – twenty miles
an hour, thirty miles an hour, almost reaching forty before he drove another massive cloud of flame into the front of the van, engulfing it entirely: its engine grille, its bonnet, its windscreen.

  With a yowl that was almost like pain, the blazing vehicle swerved sideways, caroming off Father Pat’s Volvo and skating along the car park kerb, before hitting a raised manhole lid, which flipped it over onto its roof with a shattering impact, though it still slid another thirty or so yards before coming to a halt. During the course of this collision, the deeply puddled rainwater surged up and over it, which accounted for most of the flames. That could only be a good thing; the van had a petrol tank of its own, after all. But given the force of the crash, it seemed unlikely that Shaughnessy would have survived. Even so, Nayka strolled idly towards it, intent on finishing his work – at which point he spotted Heck in the entrance to the sacristy passage.

  Again he veered away from his chosen target, but halted by the kerb. Even from forty yards or so, Heck saw the Russian’s smoke-grey features split apart in a big toothy grin.

  ‘How you doing, cop!’ he shouted up the slope. ‘You pansy English motherfucker. Here I thinking … this English cop, this Detective Heckenburg, he better than others. He good cop. But today I go to Britannia … I spy, my plan to kill Shaughnessy and bratva. But what I see? Heckenburg … beating him? Da! You beat Shaughnessy. Get good intel, da? So, I follow … Shaughnessy later, you first …’

  ‘Yeah, and how did that work out for you?’ Heck shouted back. Now, with the rain easing off, their voices carried on the chilly night.

  Nayka laughed raucously. ‘It work out in end. Here we are, nyet?’

  ‘You think you’ve done a job of work?’ Heck retorted. ‘You fouled up, Nayka. You were supposed to get these Brit gangsters to destroy each other.’

  Nayka shrugged, still grinning. ‘Hey … we do what we can.’

  ‘They know it’s you. The Manchester mob … they know you’re the Incinerator, that you’ve been burning their associates. This latest massacre might show that it’s nothing personal, but it won’t do much else. The Tatarstan boys will never be welcome in the Northwest of England now.’