Dead Watch

by Steve Liszka

  When he was about to reach the fresh air, Jimmy charged at him, rugby tackling him from behind. As they hit the deck, the book left Mac’s hand and slid five feet across the floor. Jimmy crawled up his back, letting off a couple of kidney punches on his journey towards Bogarde’s prized possession. Stretching out, he almost had it in his hand when Mac managed to roll over beneath him. Remembering the pistol, Jimmy gave up on the book and lunged with both hands at Mac’s wrist.

  As they struggled, two rounds went off, almost deafening Jimmy. One of the bullets had been so close to his face, he had felt the pressure of it passing his cheek. Mac’s grip was solid. No matter how hard he tried, Jimmy couldn’t get the pistol away from him. Instead, he changed tactic and butted the older man in the nose. As Mac’s head went back and crashed against the tiled floor, Jimmy yanked at the pistol with both hands, yelling as he exerted every fibre in his body. Mac finally released the gun, causing Jimmy to fall back onto his arse as the resistance to his efforts disappeared. He quickly stumbled to his feet, turning the pistol around so the muzzle was now pointing at Mac.

  ‘You haven’t got the bollocks,’ he said, wiping away the blood that was running down his face.

  Before he could answer, one of the heavies stuck his head back around the front door, craning his neck to find his boss through the smoke. Jimmy shot a hole in the timber, inches from his head.

  ‘Get him out of here,’ Jimmy said, nodding to Mac, ‘before I blow both your fucking heads off.’

  As the heavy gingerly crept forward and assisted his boss to his feet, Mac continued to smile at Jimmy.

  ‘You should have killed me,’ he said. ‘You boys are too soft.’

  ‘Yeah, well, that’s our problem. We’re all heart.’

  ‘It’ll cost you,’ Mac said as he and the other man backed towards the door. ‘Believe me.’

  As he got to the door, he glanced at the book. It was less than three feet from his left leg.

  ‘Go on, try it,’ Jimmy said. ‘Then you’ll see how soft I am. Now, jog on, before I show you how big my bollocks really are.’

  Mac smiled before stepping out of the house. When they had gone and the smoke layer had dropped another foot, Jimmy picked up the book before running to the bottom of the stairs. It was impossible to see anything up there, the smoke had done what it was meant to do and risen to the highest part of the building. If his friends were going to get that kid out safely, they would have to be quick.

  ‘Wesley! Dylan!’ he yelled up. ‘You okay up there?’

  He wanted to wait for an answer, but when the smoke forced him down to his knees, he had to turn and crawl towards the front door, hoping Mac’s boys weren’t waiting there to put a bullet between his eyes.

  Building Well Alight

  By the time they’d got to the top of the stairs, Dylan and Wesley were already coughing heavily. The smoke was black and acrid, and they could taste the petrol contained in it. After taking ten steps down the corridor that seemed to go on forever, they were forced to their hands and knees. A dozen steps more, and with at least another dozen left until they reached their destination, they were on their bellies, army crawling as they sought out the breathable air.

  ‘You okay, Wes?’ Dylan shouted behind him as they progressed towards the child’s room.

  ‘I’m fine!' Wes yelled back. ‘Just keep moving.’

  Except he wasn’t fine. In fact, he was about as far from fine as it was possible to get. All he could think about, as they made their way down the corridor, was the last time he had been in a similar situation to this; when he’d abandoned his partner and fled the building. What struck him, as the smoke filled his lungs, was that the feeling of panic he was experiencing was exactly the same as it had been all those years before. He desperately wanted to do the same thing as he had done on that occasion; turn and leave the building as quickly as he possibly could.

  Except this time, he didn’t. Instead, he did the thing that countless other firefighters had done before him. He took that fear, panic and self-doubt that was rising up his throat, swallowed it down and got on with the job in hand. He pushed his nose closer to the floor to avoid the smoke and did his best to keep up with his partner.

  ‘I’ve found it,’ Dylan said finally. ‘I’ve got the door.’

  He turned and grabbed his boss, directing him towards the area in question. It wasn’t uncommon for BA partners to manhandle each other in such circumstances; it was quicker and easy than explaining to them when visibility was this poor.

  ‘We need to get in and get the door shut behind us as quick as possible,’ Dylan said. ‘We don’t want them breathing in this shit.’

  ‘Fine,’ Wes coughed. ‘Let’s just do it.’

  The door was only open for a matter of seconds, but in that time, they managed to fill the child’s room with smoke. Dylan moved quickly to the French doors that led to a small Juliet balcony and opened it up, allowing in the roaring wind.

  Within seconds, it had diluted the smoke and taken it back outside to an area of lower pressure. At the same time, Wesley took a blanket off the child’s cot and laid it across the bottom of the door to prevent any further ingress of smoke.

  When the visibility and conditions had improved, Wesley cast an eye around the room. ‘They’re not here,’ he said, peering under the bed.

  Before Dylan could answer, they heard a child’s cry coming from behind the closed door of the en-suite bathroom. He tried the handle, but it was locked.

  ‘Mrs Bogarde,’ he said as gently as he could, ‘we really need to get you out of here. We don’t want to hurt you, we’re not the bad guys, but your house is on fire, and you and your baby’s lives are in danger.’

  When no answer came, Dylan looked to Wesley then gave the door three gentle raps with his knuckle. ‘Mrs Bogarde, we really need to go.’

  ‘How do I know you’re not going to hurt us?’ a female voice asked after a pause. English was definitely not the owner’s first language. Dylan looked at Wesley who shrugged back at him.

  ‘We just want to help you,’ Dylan said. ‘We’re firefighters.’

  A few seconds later, the door opened. Dylan put on his friendliest smile for her, but when she saw him she screamed and slammed the door in his face.

  ‘Fucking liar!’ she yelled. ‘You say you were fucking fireman.’

  ‘We are!’ Dylan shouted back through the door.

  ‘Then why no uniform? Lying fuck.’

  Wesley approached the door. ‘He’s not lying. We are firefighters. We came here tonight to speak to your husband. He’s been shot but not by us. Our friends are downstairs trying to save his life. If you and your baby don’t come with us now, then you may not make it out at all. You need to choose quickly because it’s not safe for us to be here much longer.’

  Except that wasn't necessarily true. When firefighters carried out their Home Safety Visits to the public, they would tell them that if, for any reason, they couldn't get out of their property should it be on fire, then the safest thing was to stay put rather than attempt a potentially dangerous escape. You were more likely to get injured scaling down sheets or jumping out of windows onto mattresses. The solid oak wooden doors should provide them with at least half an hour’s fire protection, and the fire service should be there within minutes. But staying put wasn’t an option for Wes and Dylan, and there was no way they were leaving the mother and child in the building whilst they escaped. They were firefighters. Their job was to protect people, not abandon them. They couldn’t rely on should.

  After a pause, the door opened again. The woman looked scared and not sure if she should believe them. In her hands, she cradled her baby who, despite his quiet cry, seemed oblivious to the danger around him.

  ‘You promise you’re not going to hurt us?’ the woman asked.

  Despite the fear in her face, she was beautiful in a glamour model way. She wasn't his type, but Dylan could see what had attracted Bogarde to his much younger wife.

&nb
sp; ‘We just want to get you and your baby outside safely,’ Wesley said. ‘I promise.’

  The woman looked down at the child in her arms and sobbed. ‘Please, don’t let my baby die.’

  Dylan placed his hand on her shoulder. ‘We’re going to get you both out of here, I swear, but you need to trust us.’

  ‘What’s your name?’ Wesley asked her gently.

  ‘Katya,’ the woman said. ‘But most people call me Kat.’

  ‘Can I?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good stuff. Now, we just need to think of a way to get out,’ Wesley said, to himself more than anyone else. ‘There’s no way we can take you through that smoke.’

  When they stepped onto the balcony, the wind almost knocked them off their feet. Within seconds, all of them, including the child, who now screamed like his life depended on it, were soaked through. Dylan peered over the edge, it was at least a twenty-foot drop to the lawns below. Do-able for an adult, if you landed right, but not a fall you’d want to put a baby through. He considered lowering himself down and getting Wes to drop the child to him, but remembering what a useless goalkeeper he was, and doubting Wesley’s skills were any better, he quickly dismissed the idea.

  ‘When we came in,’ Wesley said, as if picking up on Dylan’s thoughts, ‘we drove past a garage that had a load of scaffolding and other builder’s gear stored against it. I think I may have seen a ladder there.’

  Dylan was already over the balcony railings and in the process of lowering himself down when he spoke again. ‘I can’t see any other options.’

  He landed with a thump, turning his ankle awkwardly. If it had been concrete he had landed on, he probably would have broken a bone. Before leaving, he looked through the window of the room directly below the one he had just leapt from. It was engulfed in flame from floor to ceiling. The quantity of accelerants used by the arsonists meant that it must have flashed over in minutes. The rooms either side of it had also followed a similar pattern. As he tried his best to sprint towards the garages, he thought that it didn’t matter what the bedroom doors were made of and how much fire protection they offered. Those people needed to get out of that building and fast.

  The relief he felt when he found the double extension ladder was immense. It took a couple of minutes to get it from the garage back to the balcony, and every time he stumbled or the ladder bumped into something, he cursed his clumsiness. He’d always hated ladder drills in training school, but Dylan had never done a better pitch than he did that evening when he positioned the head of the ladder three rounds above the top of the railing, in text-book fashion.

  When he got to the top, he was met by Kat, who Wesley had shepherded to the railings.

  ‘Go on,’ he said gently. ‘Give him the baby. I swear he’ll be fine.’

  Dylan held out his hands and did his best to smile at her.

  ‘Please, look after my boy.’

  ‘I will,’ he said, scooping the child into his arms.

  When he was at the bottom of the ladder, Wesley helped the woman over the railings, watching as she slowly made her way down in the pouring rain. He waited until she was reunited with her baby before he climbed down himself. Just as he got to the bottom, the window in the room below gave out, allowing the thick black smoke to escape. If they had still been on the balcony when it had happened, the four of them would have been engulfed.

  Less than a minute later, they made it to the front of the house to see Lenny and Jimmy kneeling down next to Bogarde’s prone form. Jimmy was using his jacket to try and stem the blood escaping from the bullet wound. Seeing her husband, Kat let out a scream before quickly composing herself. It was then that they finally heard the distant sound of sirens.

  Jimmy looked to the rest of the team. ‘We need to get the fuck out of here.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Kat said, then wrapped her free arm around Dylan and pulled him closer. ‘You saved my baby,’ she said after kissing her rescuer on the cheek. ‘I’ll never forget that.’

  Dylan inspected the soaking wet, screaming child and smiled.

  Bogarde attempted to sit up, his shirt was drenched with rain and blood but somehow, Jimmy had succeeded in slowing down the flow of red. ‘Neither will I. Don’t worry about this mess. I’ll make sure you stay out of it.’

  Jimmy threw the book on the floor next to him. ‘Let’s hope so.’

  No one else said anything. Instead, they turned and ran towards Jimmy’s car.

  They were only just out of the gates and onto the main road when the fire appliance flew past them as it raced towards the ten-million-pound bonfire.

  ‘Fuck,’ Jimmy said when they’d made it a safe distance from the scene. Up until that point, they’d sat in silence. No one had known what to say.

  ‘Fuck,’ he repeated. ‘If Mac’s wants to get out of this in one piece, he’s going to need the book.’

  ‘Tough shit,’ Lenny laughed. ‘Bogarde’s got it.’

  ‘I know,’ Jimmy said. ‘So, now, he’s going to go after the next best thing.’

  He slammed on the breaks and turned the car around, driving west as fast as he could.

  All Aboard

  Jo clung to the arm of the sofa as the boat lurched up and forward for the umpteenth time.

  ‘If I’d known it was going to be like this,’ she said, looking a little green around the gills, ‘I would have stayed at home. Where the fuck did this shitty weather come from?’

  Bodhi laughed and gripped her hand. ‘What? You’re Wonder Woman. I didn’t think anything bothered you.’

  ‘It doesn’t bother me, I’m just saying.’

  ‘Yeah, I can see that. Anyway, you’re a triathlete. You’re meant to like water?’

  ‘I like being in it,’ she said, pointing at the sanded boards below her feet, ‘not on top.’

  As the boat moved again, she returned the grip on Bodhi’s hand with interest. ‘How often does it get like this?’

  Bodhi gave her his usual carefree smile. ‘Not that often, but the tides in, so we're going to have to sit it out for a few hours ’til the water drops.’

  ‘I’m going to take a piss,’ she said, ‘then I’m going home. The roller coaster ride is doing nothing for this baby.’

  If anyone else had heard her, they would have thought she was lying. She was nearly three months and was showing hardly any sign of a bump.

  ‘Then I’ll come with you,’ Bodhi said as she clambered to her feet.

  Jo gave him an I-don’t-think-so look. ‘Really? I thought you knew me better than that by now.’

  ‘I’m serious,’ Bodhi said. ‘You know what the others are doing. Until it’s over and Bogarde’s got his book back, I don’t want to let you out of my sight.’

  Jo studied her boyfriend before breaking into a smile. ‘Oh, Mr Bodhi, I like it when you’re forceful. Keep that up and you could be in for a treat when we get back to mine. Now, hold that thought. I’m bursting.’

  As she disappeared down the galley, Bodhi sat back and took a slug from his beer bottle, thinking about how crazy it was. A few days earlier, the most important thing to him was how big the waves were or what the wind speed was and the direction it was blowing from. Now, though, he was getting ready to be a father. To paraphrase Lenny; shit just got real. Bodhi and Jo had created another life, a life that was growing and developing inside her right at that second. Soon, that child would be born, and it was to the two of them it would look to for its moral guideline. It was them the child would ask why the sky was blue and why it was important that we share with our friends and eat our vegetables. The responsibility was immense, and it excited and scared the shit out of him in equal measures.

  He was so busy thinking about these life-changing issues, that it wasn’t until he was almost at the bottom of the steps that he noticed bruiser number one; the big one they called Frank, who he had knocked out cold a few weeks previously.

  ‘I got to say…’ He was soaked through, the leather jacket he was wearing had pr
ovided little resistance to the almost horizontal rain outside. ‘You’ve done a good job of getting this place straightened out after our last visit. Very cosy, indeed.’

  Bodhi sat up in his seat, trying to show his usual calm and not the panic that was racing through his body. He had to summon all his energy not to turn and look to the bathroom door. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I think you already know that,’ the man said. As he came off the final step, he ruffled his hand through his cropped hair like a dog shaking water from its fur. ‘Where’s the book?’

  Bodhi caught his breath and tried to slow his heart rate. ‘You’re brave coming here on your own, after what I did to you and your friends last time.’

  Frank shrugged. ‘Wasn’t planned. Just got a call from the boss. I don’t know what this is all about, but he wants that book pretty bad.’

  ‘And you reckon you can take it?’

  The man buried his hand into his coat pockets and brought out a small but deadly looking pistol. ‘I reckon so. I came prepared this time.’

  Bodhi gave the weapon an impressed nod. ‘Yeah, looks like you did, bud.’

  ‘So, like I say, where’s the book?’

  ‘Where are my friends? What’s happened to them?’

  Frank raised the gun’s muzzle. ‘I’m the one who asks the questions. Don’t make me ask again.’

  What the fuck to do. Bodhi wanted the guy out of his home as quickly as possible before he realised Jo was there. But something had obviously gone wrong at Bogarde’s house. By giving him the book, he could be putting their lives in danger. What the fuck to do.