What none of the Pagans realised was that the Ratae knew they were coming and were more than ready for them. The resident of the farm in Brackley just happened to be a friend of a newly-recruited Pagans prospect called Shandy. Having seen the size of the force that made its way to Hillmorton, Shandy became concerned for his friend’s welfare and decided to call ahead and warn him to make himself scarce. Having stormed one empty home earlier in the week, the prospect didn’t think the Pagans would be suspicious if it were to happen again.
But instead of fleeing, the target called the one man he believed would know exactly what to do: Scout. Furious about the way the attack at George Street had turned out, the club president hastily arranged for as many Ratae as possible, all carrying as many guns as they could manage, to travel to the farm and take up defensive positions around the main approach.
Once again, the Pagans parked their vehicles on the edge of the perimeter, armed themselves, vaulted the fences and made their way towards the entrance. And as they did so, the whole sky seemed to open up. All they could hear was gunfire. All they could see were the flashes from the muzzles of the dozens of shotguns and rifles bearing down on them from the windows and rooftops.
It had all turned to shit. It was a textbook, military-style v-shaped ambush, and the Pagans had walked right into the heart of the killing zone. Rounds were hitting the ground, kicking up dirt in all directions. Fence posts and tree branches burst into fountains of splinters. Clouds of blue-grey dust and smoke drifted in the twilight air. Every kind of explosion echoed around them. In the space of ninety seconds, at least 200 shots were fired.
Caz was screaming at the top of his voice: ‘Get the fuck out of here, get the fuck out!’ Shadows flitted this way and that as the Pagans ran for cover, zigzagged, threw themselves to the ground, pulled their friends to safety, screamed and howled at one another, trying to make themselves heard above the barking of the guns.
Boon felt a sharp pain in the back of his thigh, like an invisible fist had punched him from behind. He fell, pulled himself up and ran for his life back the way he had come, each step on legs of wobbly jelly. He made it back to where the vans had been parked and launched himself into the nearest, a jet-black Toyota model. The noise of the gunshots became quieter. His head was spinning. It was a waking nightmare.
As his eyes adjusted back to the darkness Boone could see someone on the floor beside him, groaning and holding his stomach. At first he feared he had hurt them when he jumped into the van. Then the sticky blood on the floor began to soak through his jeans and he saw the gaping hole in the centre of the man’s chest. For a split second his face was unrecognisable, twisted and distorted with agony. Then the familiar features returned. It was Rabbi. And this time there was no mistaking the fact he had been shot.
While Boone and others tried to administer first aid, keeping pressure on the wound to slow the bleeding, Shandy the prospect jumped behind the wheel and began driving to the nearest hospital. Only he had no idea where the nearest hospital actually was. None of them knew the area at all well and they had no map. They were driving blind and racing against time. The nearest large town was Northampton so they headed for that.
Rabbi had taken the full force of a 12-bore shotgun cartridge in the centre of his chest. With a shiver, Boone realised that the hole was in exactly the same place that he had seen a shot pass through his friend two days earlier during the battle at the clubhouse. Only this time the shot had entered at a downward rather than upward angle. The van sped along the country roads. Unbeknown to those inside, the Pagans actually passed two other hospitals on the way to Northampton. The closer they got to town, the more Rabbi’s condition worsened. He began screaming, calling out the names of his three daughters, aged from six years to just eight months: ‘Don’t let me die, don’t let me die,’ he wailed. ‘I have to live for my girls, for my little girls.’
Confusion and recriminations bounced around the inside as the Pagans tried to make sense of how it had all gone so horribly wrong. There was only supposed to be one person there, not a whole army. They were supposed to have the element of surprise, not walk into a trap. They had gone there to get revenge for the destruction of the clubhouse, not to get their noses bloodied.
By the time they arrived at the hospital, Boone was convinced that there was no hope left for Rabbi. He had simply lost too much blood and his wounds were too severe. His breathing was becoming increasingly shallow and his pulse could no longer be found. Boone had known Rabbi for years and he was also close to his long-time girlfriend, Jackie. He simply couldn’t bear to be around if the news was going to be as bad as he feared. While two other Pagans and the prospect entered the hospital to await the official verdict from the doctors, Boone slipped off into the shadows.
Thirty-two-year-old Stephen ‘Rabbi’ Brookes lived a few minutes more but died on the operating table as doctors began working on him. There was nothing they could do. Debates would rage in the weeks that followed about whether Rabbi would have survived if he had been taken to a closer hospital, but it was a pointless discussion.
The Pagans had fucked up big time. Even if they had known that such a large force was waiting for them at Brackley, they still would not have stood a chance because of the overwhelming firepower ranged against them. The operation had been completely botched from the start. Instead of relying on careful planning, the whole thing had been thrown together simply to satisfy those members who had not yet been in combat. As a result they had paid a heavy price.
Police arrived at Northampton General Hospital soon afterwards and arrested the three Pagans milling about in the waiting room. The trio refused to say anything about what they were doing there or how Rabbi had come to be shot. For Northampton police, well aware of how their neighbours in Warwickshire were struggling with their own biker-related inquiry, it didn’t bode well at all.
In the meantime, back at Brackley, Scout was celebrating his victory and ordering the rest of the Ratae to undertake a massive clean-up operation. Fence posts were sawn off to remove all bullet holes, any parts that could not be removed were simply drilled out in order to remove potential evidence. Teams of Ratae spent hours crawling across the fields on their hands and knees picking up every cartridge casing, every piece of wadding, every piece of shot to ensure that by the time the authorities arrived, there would be nothing for them to go on.
Only once the clean-up was complete did the owner of the farm at Brackley head over to his local police station and hand himself in. He had, he explained, been woken one morning earlier in the week by the sound of someone trying to break into his property. In order to scare them off he had taken his .410 shotgun, pointed it through his bedroom window and fired a shot up into the air. This seemed to have done the trick and the potential burglar had run off, but as time had passed he had become increasingly concerned that he might have just possibly, completely accidentally of course, hit someone.
The .410 shotgun was taken away for testing and quickly eliminated as the weapon that had killed Rabbi. When police went to visit the farmhouse, there was nothing to suggest that anyone other than the owner had been there. There was nothing to suggest his account of the events of that evening were anything other than the whole truth.
Police forces across the country began to link up to investigate the wave of MC wars under the umbrella of Operation Biker and at last made a firm connection between the events in George Street and those in Brackley. What shocked them most was the revelation that a large group of heavily armed, well-organised men had been criss-crossing the country for several days and carrying out acts of horrific violence. But until a man had been killed, they had known virtually nothing about it.
For the first time, they realised that all those groups of dirty bikers they had tolerated on their patches for so many years were actually far more sophisticated, dangerous, organised and capable than they had ever imagined.
Within days the task force announced that they were looking for another bod
y, somewhere between Leamington and Rugby. They had learned that one of the Ratae had put his head through a door or window during the first stage of the assault on the clubhouse and had been shot at point blank range. The story going around was that the body had been thrown out of a van and was lying in a ditch somewhere along that route.
Three vehicles belonging to the Ratae – a Ford Capri, a transit van and a Volvo saloon – were searched and found to be carrying an arsenal of weapons including sheath knives, pick axe handles, sawn off shotguns and coshes. Several members of the gang were arrested, some after high-speed car chases, from as far afield as Humberside and Norfolk.
Most MC gangs have rules that forbid members from making statements or cooperating with the police. In some cases the rule is actually written down and appears alongside other regulations. In other cases, it is simply something that is understood by one and all. The thinking behind this is that the club is not part of society as a whole and what happens inside the club concerns only club members.
For the Pagans the rule was introduced in the mid-eighties following an incident in which another MC, the United Bikers, set off in a car loaded with weapons to carry out a hit on their rivals, the Birmingham-based Cycle Tramps. On their way, they had the misfortune to almost run over a police officer on foot patrol.
He approached the driver to berate him on his poor driving, only to have the man immediately reach beneath his seat and produce a shotgun. The unarmed officer was instantly alarmed but it lasted only a second as the man held up the weapon to surrender it. ‘You got us bang to rights officer,’ he said, to the astonishment of the rest of the men in the car. ‘You caught us red handed. It’s a fair cop.’
Each of the four potential hitmen were imprisoned for three years and biker gangs throughout the area decided to ensure that from that moment on, everyone in the club knew the rule: when confronted by the police, no one says anything.
The Ratae had no such rule. The farm owner – whose actions were a pre-emptive strike aimed at diverting attention from the rest of the gang – immediately gave the police his version of events and the rest of the Ratae quickly filled in their own interpretation of the events leading up to the fatal battle.
In some ways it was obvious that what the Ratae were saying didn’t make sense. Rabbi had been shot by someone firing from one of the barn rooftops, and the blast had struck him at a downward angle. The missing fence posts and single shotgun handed in by the farm owner could be seen as proof positive that someone else must have been there.
But with none of the Pagans willing to give their version of events, the police had no choice but to draw their own conclusions: Rabbi had, they surmised, been among a large group of bikers who launched an attack on the Brackley farmhouse. They had been scared off when the owner fired his own weapon in the air. Somehow in the confusion, Rabbi had been shot by his own men. The only thing the police didn’t yet know was exactly who was responsible.
The three Pagans who had been arrested at the hospital were the first beneficiaries of this new theory and their adherence to the code of silence meant there was nothing they could do to defend themselves. They were all brought out of their cells, lined up in front of the custody sergeant and formally charged with the murder of Stephen Brookes.
They looked at one another, their faces blank and ashen. Spending some time in prison was a risk they had all been prepared to take when they became Pagans in the first place. But if they were convicted of the murder of one of their own – a crime they were wholly innocent of – there was only one sentence they could receive: life.
LIFE ON THE LAM
News of the impending murder charges sent many of the remaining Pagans scattering across the country in search of safety. Every county had its own MC scene and because its main emphasis was always on brotherhood and partying, the Pagans had met almost all of them at one time or another. This meant that, wherever they decided to hide, they could usually count on some friendly bearded biker to help them out. Many were happy to shelter fugitives in their clubhouses, all too aware that it would take only a simple twist of fate for them to find themselves on the run and in need of similar assistance.
Boone made his way to London, Link and Caz headed to Cornwall (though to separate hide-outs across the county) while Dozer hid out in north Wales. Only a few chose to front it out and remain in Warwickshire. Among these was Tank, who took to wearing a long, dark wig over his naturally fair, short hair. It not only looked completely natural, it totally changed the shape of his face and rendered him strangely unrecognisable. Although the police had started rounding up anyone connected with the Pagans, he soon became confident enough to walk about town with virtual impunity, safe in the knowledge that no one could work out his true identity.
Just two days later, a police car pulled up alongside him as he was walking home after a pub lunch. His heart sank as the officer in the passenger seat wound down the window, called him over and held up a small photograph.
‘Do you know this man?’
‘Yeah, I know him,’ Tank replied wearily.
‘How well do you know him?’
‘Well, you know, pretty well I guess.’
‘Great. Do you mind coming down to the station with us? We’d like to ask you a few more questions about him.’
‘Okay. Why not.’
The photograph was of Tank himself, minus the wig. The game, it seemed, was up. The biker recognised the police officer behind the wheel as one he had crossed swords with on a traffic violation a few months earlier and assumed that the two of them knew exactly who he was and were just being smart arses. He decided to play along.
It was only after he had been taken to the station in the back of the police car without being placed in handcuffs, and then led to a front-of-house interview room rather than the secure custody suite that Tank began to realise that the officers hadn’t actually recognised him at all. When they began asking him questions like when had he last seen himself and where did he think he might be hiding at that precise moment, it was all he could do to keep a straight face.
He told the officers any old rubbish, pulling stories and anecdotes out of thin air, until he felt he had been as helpful as any innocent member of the public might be expected to be. He then announced that he had an appointment at the dentist that afternoon and would have to leave. The officers shook his hand, thanked him for his assistance and waved him off. It wasn’t until weeks later that the police realised their blunder. Heads rolled.
Boone briefly considered fleeing to the States. In the months leading up to the battle, a couple of club members had begun writing to members of an American MC based in Pennsylvania called the Pagan’s (the apostrophe in their name was a deliberate ploy to antagonise the Hell’s Angels whose own patch neglected to include one). The letters had been pinned up on the wall of the clubhouse and there had been talk about arranging a trip to visit them, though nothing had actually been set up.
Founded in 1965, the Pagan’s were the fourth largest MC in America but had shown no sign of wanting to grow beyond their own borders. At the time only the Hell’s Angels were truly international. Across the world, the majority of clubs tended to be small and independent like the Warwickshire Pagans. Apart from the name, though, the two clubs had little in common. The American Pagan’s were at war with the Hell’s Angels while the Brits regularly partied with them. There were also rumours that their namesakes were involved in the drug trade and worked hand in hand with the New Jersey mafia. ‘They’re just thugs,’ said Dozer during one conversation. ‘I’ve heard they don’t even have motorbikes. They’re just a gang.’
Indeed, while most MCs wear a bottom rocker to show their territory, Dozer had discovered that the Pagan’s chose not to, as a way of making it more difficult for the police to work out where they came from. The general consensus was that no one wanted to get involved with anything like that, even in a crisis. And happily, at the last minute, a club associate living in a tower block in Deptf
ord, south London, offered to put Boone up for a few days.
Boone headed to the capital and attempted to keep a low profile, telling only a few close friends where he was hiding out. Since his mate wasn’t due home until later, Boone headed to a nearby pub and had a couple of drinks to calm himself down. As he stood by the bar, a large, heavy-set man approached and seemed to stumble just as he arrived at the spot next to Boone. The man threw out a hand to steady himself, his open palm grazing down the line of Boone’s back as he did so. To most people it might have seemed like a simple accident but Boone immediately knew what was going on: the man was feeling to see if he was wearing patches underneath his jacket.
As Boone looked over, the man turned slightly, showing the back of his own leather jacket. Just the sight of the centre logo was enough: a large brown rodent baring its teeth and looking ready to pounce. The man was a member of the Road Rats MC, arguably the oldest, toughest and most ruthless biker club in the country.
The Rats started out as a street gang in the early 1960s before evolving into a full-blown MC. The club established its fierce reputation in October 1970 – a year after the London Angels first received their charter. The Rats had been offered the chance to patch over and become Angels themselves but declined. After months of increasing tension and a number of small skirmishes, the two groups met up at Chelsea Bridge in Central London (a popular biker hangout since the 1950s) to decide which MC would have overall control of the capital.
Paul Luttman, the twenty-year-old president of the Road Rats and Peter Howson, the twenty-one-year-old leader of the Angels approached each other from opposite sides of the bridge in a scene that would later be described as looking like something out of High Noon.
Outlaws: Inside the Violent World of Biker Gangs Page 5
