by Robert White
If we had to fight our way in and out then so be it. It was the worst case scenario, but I was in the mood to do some damage.
To gain entry to a house like Joel Davies’s, you needed a considerable amount of skill, bottle, and inside knowledge. I knew enough about Davies’s security to get us inside. I had codes for the gates, entry doors, garage, even his safe. My biggest hope was Joel’s old computer was still there.
If it was, we’d nick it. Knowledge is king, my mate.
We had enough weaponry to start a small urban war and when I got the chance, I intended to use mine.
For ten years I’d been convinced that the Secret Services had sold me to the enemy and instigated Cathy’s murder. They had worked hand in hand with a terrorist organisation to meet their own ends. I knew that everyone thought I was mad, that I was fucked up in my own world of grief, but I knew that governments didn’t play by the same rules as us mere mortals. They had different agendas; they had targets and budgets that could not be broken. Failure was unacceptable.
The one thing that I never told Des, or any living soul, was what I saw that night in Ireland at the DLB.
Despite my silence, forty-eight hrs later Cathy was torn to pieces by the IRA. There was no question which organisation carried out the killing. But who ordered it, and held the information to enable it to happen was a different matter. Was it a warning or was I supposed to get the good news too?
Either way, the murderous bastards had returned to their hole over the water, leaving me alive on the outside but very much dead within. That morning Des had whisked me away and, not to put too fine a point on it, I’d been running ever since.
Now, a decade later I had a familiar feeling in my gut. It wasn’t pleasant.
I recalled that Susan knew about my past in Amsterdam. Then Stephan read my life story to me, before trying me out as Gordon Ramsey’s next big dish.
He could only have received that information from one place.
Once again I'd studied the data that we had at our disposal. A major criminal organisation had access to military records of the highest order. No question.
These guys had the power to asset strip bank accounts from all over the world. The power of the organisation came from the highest sources of business or government.
On leaving the hotel, I walked briskly back toward Oxford Road and onto Hulme Street. I passed by regenerated warehouses which lodged some of Manchester’s student village. I eventually saw the Vectra, bathed in sodium light, surrounded by rusting chain-link fencing. The car park gates were left ajar permanently. National car parks had grown tired of replacing locks. The street was deserted.
I opened the car, stowed my bag and checked my watch. It showed three-fifty a.m. I sat in the driver’s seat with the engine off. The last thing I needed was a nosey copper.
At three fifty-five Des came into view. He sauntered along past the grubby Salvation Army hostel. A single bulb appeared on the second floor and bathed him in light. I heard a raised voice from the building. Some tortured soul barking at the moon.
Des reached the car. I popped the boot using the remote switch and felt a blast of cold as Des sat alongside me.
“Alright,” he said.
“Yep.”
“Lauren is just behind me. I saw her crossing at the Palace Hotel.”
I motioned forward.
“She’s here now.”
Lauren didn’t stride with Des’s confidence, but she looked positive enough.
“You think she’s up to this, Des?”
Des nodded.
“She’s a natural, Rick. Trust me.”
I did, so there was no more to be said.
The rear door of the car was pulled open. Lauren threw her bag on the back seat and flopped down after it. I could smell Tisserand and for a second I thought of Tanya.
“Sober?” I asked.
“As your proverbial judge, mate,” she said. She looked at her watch, smiled at Des and added, “What are we waiting for?”
Des turned to me.
“We off then, boss?”
I started the engine and pulled the car onto the road.
We rode in silence, each member of the team deep in their own private thoughts. I stuck rigidly to the speed limits. The last thing we needed was a pull. We would have all gone to jail for a long stretch with the firepower we were carrying. It took thirty minutes or so to get to our next stop, the LUP or ‘lying up point,’ as it was known in the Regiment. It was a safe place to sit and kit up. I had selected it from memory.
Davies’s house was nothing less than a fortress. It was surrounded by eighteen hundred feet of eight-foot wall, covered by thirty CCTV cameras. Motion sensors covered large parts of the grounds. I knew where, I’d designed his security. That, in itself, meant the security system posed little problem even if someone had decided to change his security codes, I had the override. I was pretty confident.
I’d visited Joel’s old house straight after my devastating visit to my own Salford Keys pad. It had been most enlightening. The house was very much inhabited.
Several vehicles came and went in the short period I was there. The people driving those cars were our enemy. The suits, the cars, the haircuts. Yes deffo, Stern had taken Joel’s home from him, just like he had taken mine. In Joel’s case, though, the team had taken root.
Despite my anger, I knew we had to attempt a covert entry and at least endeavour to stay under the radar for a while longer.
The LUP was situated some five hundred meters from the main house. It was a small car park at the rear of two shops that served the village. Both shops opened at a reasonable hour and both were of the lock-up variety with no one living above. The car park itself was shrouded by mature trees. With a little luck we would be safe there until daylight. We could sit, brief and kit up.
Once we were parked, Des got out a small flask and we all had a brew whilst I went through each team member’s respective tasks.
I had a full floorplan of the house and grounds. Davies had given them to me when I had reviewed his security. I had scanned them into my home computer and they were saved with all the other stuff I’d left in my Bergen. To the rear of the house was a raised section of rough ground that acted as a natural vantage point. Des was to set himself up there and watch the rear. Despite the high wall, the annex that housed the staff and the CCTV monitoring station could be seen from there. Should there be any signs of life in the CCTV room Des could tip us off before we started the entry. The two poor bastards that had been Joel’s staff probably held up the same section of motorway that he himself did.
The hope was the annex and the monitoring room would be in darkness. Once inside we would steal anything of use and get the fuck out before anyone was wiser. If Joel’s computer was still lurking around it would be a bonus. Information, at this stage, was king.
We had shortwave comms for two but not for Lauren, so she would have to stay with me. When the all clear came from Des, we’d enter the grounds through the front gate. Once we’d made the front door we would have to hold. Des had to get from his observation post, scale the rear wall and make to an entrance on the east side. That would take him seven minutes.
On my call we would enter the building simultaneously, locate a computer that had been useless to the new occupiers for the last three months, and steal its hard drive.
Easy, eh?
As soon as I’d finished my spiel, Des was out of the car and pulling on his camouflage gear. I watched him check and re-check each piece of kit he carried, which included the .222 rifle should he need to drop anyone from a distance. Finally, he gave me a quick ‘thumbs up’ and pressed his comms pretzel twice. I returned the gesture to inform him the shortwave was working in my ear and he disappeared into the night.
Lauren sat motionless in the Vectra. I popped my head into the open window.
“Get your kit together, we’ll move as soon as Des is on plot.”
She didn’t speak, but simply stuck t
o her instructions, and started to pull on her overalls. She was indeed beautiful. There, at four in the morning, bitter cold, no make-up, with little sleep, she shone.
“You nervous?” I asked.
“A little,” she said, and gave a brief smile.
“Everyone is. I mean, even experienced guys in the Regiment get nervous. It’s a good thing. Use it, Lauren. Use it to your advantage; to stay focused.”
She slid from the back seat, stood, and faced me. She held the silver SIG in one hand and two spare magazines in the other. The black Special Forces overalls she wore hid her figure, but nothing could dull her radiance.
“I’m sure you and Des will look after me. Besides, I never felt like this when I was changing bedpans.”
She pushed the magazines into pouches in her suit, pulled on her balaclava and adjusted her hood.
“I’m ready,” she said.
I pushed the rear door of the car closed and locked it using the remote. Even though I knew all my kit was in the right place and working perfectly, I checked all the pockets on my overalls to ensure nothing was going to fall out or make any noise.
I rolled down my balaclava and pulled up my flameproof hood to match Lauren. I gestured her over and we checked each other, just like divers do before entering the water. Not even the SAS can see behind their backs, and a loose flap can ruin everything on a covert entry.
I heard two short bursts of white noise in my right ear, which told me Des had got himself in position. I motioned to Lauren and, using the shadows of the high walls surrounding all the properties in the area, we walked into the darkness of the street.
There was the slightest hint of daylight in the sky and the solid black of mature branches swayed above us in the breeze.
Over five silent minutes passed until we reached Davies’s electric gates which cast a striped shadow against us.
I motioned Lauren to stay in the darkness whist we waited for Des to report in. Within seconds I heard the shortwave click and Des’s voice.
“All quiet, Rick.”
I punched in the six digit entry code I had personally written for my old boss, and the gates silently opened. We were in. No turning back.
My heart rate increased as we carefully made our way across the pathway. We had to avoid any censors which might set off the security system. I had studied the layout, and knew the location of every one. By the time we had reached the front door I was sweating under my hood. It felt good. For the first time in months, I was back in business, back doing what I did best. This time, though, my motives were totally different.
The house had two large bay windows to each side of a centrally placed main entrance. A pair of very solid looking oak doors, beautifully varnished and sporting large oval brass handles, barred our way. A rectangular keypad glowed green to the right of the doors.
The place was in total darkness, which I found slightly unnerving. Lauren was in a crouch to the left of the doorway, her arms outstretched, pointing her pistol at the firmly locked doors.
I waited and listened. People forget their ears when they get scared. That’s why you hear of people who have run out into the path of a speeding car when being chased by some bruiser or other silly drama.
It’s the first sense we lose when stressed. You can hear your heart and your lungs working fucking overtime, but not the express train that is about to kill you.
So, in this scenario, you wait, let your heart rate fall, let your breathing return to normal and, most of all, listen.
A minute went by. As I tuned my ears into my surroundings, concentrating all my efforts into my audible range, I felt a chill.
Somewhere to my right, probably close enough to touch, was a dog.
Not just a dog, but a fuckin’ big dog, and it was just getting ready to rip my head off.
Animals, of any sort, are your worst fucking nightmare. At best they make enough noise to wake the dead. This bastard had done the opposite. It had tracked us silently and was ready to go for the kill.
An adult German Shepherd dog’s bite has the same pounds per square inch power as a gristly bear. You do not want to be bitten by one. He will take out skin, muscle, tendons and even break bones if he has a mind to.
If this guy attacked, before Lauren or I had stopped screaming, our target would be awake and laying down rounds on us.
Now I know what you’re thinking. Killing a dog is not good. It isn’t, I’ve always liked dogs. It’s just this one had to go.
Lauren was physically sick on the ground as the animal twitched and bled to death on Joel’s gravel drive.
In a previous life, I was taught how to kill a dog silently.
“Get it together!” I hissed.
She glared at me with some degree of disgust through the holes in her balaclava. Then with as much dignity as she could muster, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and resumed her position. I was beginning to believe Des’s remarks about her bottle.
I approached the keypad to get us into the main house. I entered the digits.
There was the smallest click and then a mechanical whirring as the locking mechanisms drew back.
The door clicked open and a crack of light escaped into the porch. We wanted to get in and out without a trace. We had the element of surprise and we were armed to the teeth. We were on top.
I’ll tell you this, and listen carefully.
Walking through that door was like walking into hell.
Des Cogan's Story:
The second I heard gunfire from the front of the house I loaded a c4 charge, pushed it onto the back door frame, took cover and pressed the fire button. The rear exterior door of the house was blown twenty-five feet into the back kitchen. On its way it destroyed most of everything in its path. At the back wall various pots, pans, spices and the rest were clattering to the floor. Through the dust and shite, I charged forward, cleared the kitchen and covered the first interior door.
This was not a job you should do alone, but I had no choice.
I pushed out my right leg and opened the interior door to reveal a sitting room in darkness.
I rolled to a large armchair and scanned the area, I arced the Glock across the full width of the room, confident it was empty.
Then I heard AK47’s and I knew we were in the shit big time.
Lauren North's Story:
My heart felt like it was about to leave my chest. I was sweating in places a girl never sweats, and I still felt acid burn my throat from vomiting. When the charge Des had used went off, despite the ear protection Rick had given me, my world went silent for a few moments.
We had stepped through the front door into a hail of bullets. Something, maybe the dog, had disturbed them.
Rick was through in a split second.
I followed him using pure instinct.
It was a war.
The hallway was open plan. The black and cream floor tiles glistened in the half-light and made me feel like a pawn in a chess game. A central marble staircase rose up majestically to a balcony which, in turn, ran in a semi-circle around the back of the house. Every upstairs room was accessed from those stairs. I counted eleven doors.
I could see two men running down the steps. Two of the eleven doors above them were opening and I could hear shouting.
One man on the stairs was blond.
He had a fine muscular body and wore only black boxer shorts. He had a bad scar on his cheek. He also had a machine gun.
Rick Fuller's Story:
I saw him straight away, Stephan, the fucker who tortured me, the guy who poured kettle, after kettle of boiling water over me, and then laughed as I screamed my bollocks off.
Happy fuckin’ days.
A heavyset guy was just behind him. He had a pistol of some kind. He looked out of it, as if he had been sound asleep. Even so he was working on killing us all and emptied a full clip in our direction.
The Dutch was much cooler and hadn’t fired a shot.
Not laughing boy.
He ran straight toward me, armed with a Kalashnikov.
Des Cogan's Story:
From the rear sitting room the gunfire was horrendous.
The unmistakable sound of 7.62 short high velocity rounds still made my blood run cold, even after all those years.
There was so much being fired that plaster dropped on my head as I made my way toward the battle. Fine ceiling roses dusted me so much, that by the time I opened the door to the hallway I looked like a Scottish ghost.
Rick and Lauren were pinned down by the front entrance. They both had some cover from two large stone plant stands, but they were in the shit. I entered from under a massive stairway which seemed to lead to a balcony I couldn’t see. How many targets were laying down fire was difficult to say.
I banked on five.
I legged it under the stairs and slid in as far as I could.
I was completely hidden under step two.
I could see Lauren but not Rick.
The gunfire was constant but my heart was raised as I heard the return from my comrades. It wasn’t over. Not just yet.
Lauren North's Story:
I caught sight of Des. He looked like someone who worked in a bakery.
He’d hid himself under the fabulous stairs out of sight.
The noise was unbearable. I felt a trickle of sweat in the small of my back, as the marble tiles around me were shattered by gunfire. I was now totally deaf.
Two other men had emerged from the upstairs rooms but stayed on the landing above. They had automatic weapons and were firing bursts at Rick and me in turn.
They were determined and I was terrified.
All I had to protect me was a big plant pot, and it was getting smaller by the second.
Rick was firing at the two guys on the stairs. He hit the dark one immediately. The guy spun around, firing a pistol at nothing in particular. A fountain of blood burst from his thick neck and doused the black and cream tiles red before he fell.
The blond muscled guy jumped over the banister to my left and was running to a door. As he did he looked me in the eye. He appeared to be enjoying the whole thing. He made my blood chill.
