Crossing The Line

by Catriona King

  “You’re looking forward to this, aren’t you?”

  Liam Cullen didn’t hesitate in his response. “Sure I am. Aren’t you? We’ve starved the bastards of their market, so no kids will get hooked on their combos tonight at least, and we get the chance to stick a gun in Bellner’s face. Job satisfaction. You can’t beat it.”

  Craig laughed and finished securing his own vest, reenergised; there was no doubt about it, Liam was the best possible man to have beside you on the street. He rummaged in the pocket of his abandoned suit jacket for a moment and withdrew a radio, making a round of status-check calls.

  “OK, Andy and Annette?”

  “Check. We have clear sight of the back of the casino, Guv. There’s no-one around.”

  His next call was made in a more formal voice.

  “Commander McEwan. Do your men have both external sides of the club secured?”

  “Check. And use the proper call signs, will you. We’re ARC One and you’re MS One.”

  At least it was more than his usual monosyllable. Craig cut the communication without comment and made a third call.

  “John? Can you and Des check in, please.”

  The scientists were in a Land Rover safely out of the way down a side street, but he still needed to ask just to be sure. John Winter pressed his radio button excitedly, gripping the device in his hand for the past half-an-hour just waiting for the chance.

  “We’re here, and it’s brilliant! Thanks for sending one of the ARC team to wait with us, Marc.”

  Craig smiled at the warmth of his tone, knowing that it signalled forgiveness of even his recent enormous mistakes. Either that or the excitement of getting to play cop for a few hours had performed a memory wipe.

  “No problem. Just hold your position.”

  As he was cutting the call he heard, “Did you hear that, Des? Hold our position, like in a mov-” and his final, now half-laughing, contact was with the uniformed police officers at the ends of the short, ice-slicked street.

  They were stationed behind the barriers he’d ordered raised in both places to ensure that no-one went in or out, and when he was satisfied that everything was in place Craig turned to the three other men with him in the Pangolin.

  “Right, as discussed, we’ll be covering the front.”

  Liam peered through his small window again, scanning the white, high-fronted casino opposite with its gold neon sign announcing its name, and its three steps leading up from the street to a grand, brass-framed glass door. The gaudy facade singled Zenith out from the area’s surrounding elegant, still warmly lit but long evacuated, cafés and galleries as a place where people got up to naughty and very expensive things. It made Liam curious as to what experiences he might have missed in life, but then on a policeman’s salary he supposed he hadn’t done too badly. Besides, his granny would have called the casino Sodom and Gomorrah and she’d really known her stuff.

  As his deputy was pondering the fast life Craig was removing two items from a rucksack: a smart-pad, and a paper floor-plan of the two storey casino which he unfolded on the floor of the truck.

  “OK, the aim is to find exactly where Bellner and his men are located inside and drive them out. That’s the job of our team and ARC entering through the side and rear access points and mopping up as they go. Anyone leaving by the front is for us.”

  As Craig woke up his smart-pad Aidan frowned. “It’s nearly Christmas, Guv, and I know it’s early but there could already be some punters inside gambling. So how do we work out which are Bellner’s people and which aren’t?”

  “It’s chancy, I know, but we covered everything in the risk assessment. I’ll tell you more about that in a moment, but the reason we chose six o’clock to enter was because we needed some darkness for cover but we had to choose a time before nine when the clubs opened, in case Bellner became aware of what we were up to there and panicked. I don’t want him killing anyone else.”

  He shifted position in the cramped space, hunkering back on his heels as he went on. “On balance this is likely to be as quiet as Zenith gets tonight.”

  He nodded Liam to take over and the D.C.I. tapped the floor-plan on the top floor corner room at the back, proving that he had been paying attention at the ARC briefing a couple of hours before.

  “OK, so anyone with half a brain will choose a defensible position as their base, and in this place that means a room at the back corner of the top floor. Exterior walls on two sides and a peaked roof so no-one can land above.”

  He ran a black gloved finger around the perimeter of the room. “It’s a big room with toilet facilities, so self-contained, but there’s a door at the front out to the casino and one at the back to the street down a fire escape. That means Bellner can see everyone entering and make a quick escape out the back to Donegall Street if he has to. ARC has men on the ground there in case he does.”

  Aidan raised a point. “Bellner can’t see to shoot down at them, can he?”

  “No. The room’s only window is at the side and it has a wide sill, so unless they right hang out and over they can’t see anyone on the ground.”

  Craig pulled up another view of the room on his pad. “OK, so Davy and Ash have located the casino’s security features and thankfully Bellner’s shot himself in the foot there slightly; the room he’s in has internal CCTV so we can see inside. The downside is that its entrance door is alarmed and accessible only by code-”

  Liam guffawed. “Unless you knock it in with the Big Key.”

  ‘Big Key’ was the colloquial term used by the police for the hand-held Enforcer battering ram that they used to knock down doors.

  Aidan chuckled. “Low-tech beats high-tech every time.”

  Craig smiled. “That’s what we’re relying on. OK, there are also CCTV cameras above the room’s door covering all approaches from the lift and stairs, so Bellner will see people coming and there’s no way around that.”

  Andy spoke for the first time in twenty minutes. “Is there CCTV over the fire escape door too?”

  “No. And that could prove useful later. OK, so even if Bellner’s prepared for a siege he’ll have to give in eventually. They can drink the tap-water from the bathroom but they need food like everyone else.”

  Aidan wasn’t as optimistic. “It could take weeks to starve them out, and if we try to go in he’ll be prepared for a fire-fight. He could have heard that McCrae’s been lifted and know we’re on to something, even if it’s not specifically about him.”

  No-one argued with his assessment and Andy added to the gloom. “I’m not so sure about Bellner ever caving in. He could drag hostages from the casino if he’s quicker than we are.”

  Craig sighed. “None of you are wrong, but like I said we assessed all the risks, so we’ve had ten armed plainclothes officers inside Zenith since an hour ago, encouraging people to leave without alerting Bellner’s men. At the first sign of trouble they’ll clear the floor of any remaining public.”

  Aidan sat back against the vehicle’s side, trying to make himself more comfortable; unfortunately the Pangolin didn’t come fitted with comfy chairs.

  “OK, so that’s why that couple came out just after we parked. How many civvies do you reckon are left in there now?”

  Guessing became redundant when, after a few strokes and taps, a series of thermal images of the building appeared on Craig’s screen.

  Andy’s eyes widened. “Where’d you get those from?”

  “Didn’t you hear the helicopter flying over about ten minutes ago?”

  “Sorry, I was miles away. So aerial support’s in on this?”

  “And we’ve got satellite imagery too. They’ll be back in five minutes to do another pass, but these pictures already tell us something. They’re adjusted to show the heat signals on the casino’s two floors.”

  He enlarged an image that showed around twenty people scattered across an open-plan, ground floor room. Three clustered together in one corner, two together against one wall, with the other
s dotted more randomly and in looser groups.

  “Those three are playing poker and the others are mingling around the roulette tables. Ten of the twenty are ours.”

  Aidan pointed to the two dots set tight against the room’s back wall. “Bellner’s security staff?”

  “That’s what I’m hearing from plain clothes. They’re armed so they’ll need to be taken out first, but the undercovers will do that as soon as ARC breach the room.”

  Liam gave him a nudge. “Take us up a floor, boss. I want to see how Bellner’s men are laid out.”

  A few seconds later they were looking at Hugh Bellner’s office and the definite outlines of eight people inside: two by the entrance door, one by the fire escape and the others moving around randomly, all except one, who seemed fixed in the middle of the room, facing front.

  Liam jabbed the screen, inadvertently enlarging the image. “Bloody smart-screens, always jumping about when you touch them.”

  “Don’t touch it then.”

  “Ach, I was just pointing to your man there. He’s not moving. I reckon that’s Bellner sitting at a desk. Can you alter the contrast to show furniture?”

  Craig adjusted the contrast and colour scales and the faint outline of a rectangular object appeared, seemingly cutting the man in half. Liam had been right.

  “That’s someone sitting at a desk all right. On their laptop by the looks of it.”

  Craig’s sharp eyes spotted something else as well and he shrank the image again to show the whole of the top floor, pointing to a room beside Bellner’s office that with the altered contrast was now showing outlines that looked out of place at an entertainment venue.

  He took out his mobile and called the squad-room.

  “Ash? Hi. Put me onto Davy, please.... Davy, can you access the CCTV at Zenith for me?”

  The analyst had been caught mid-yawn and gave a muffled, “Yes”. He was tired and aching from hunching over his computers all day; he needed some crisp Icelandic air in his lungs. Only four days one hour to go.

  “OK, good. I want you to access the room with the internal CCTV. The heat signals are showing eight shapes in there. Two by the coded front entrance door, one by the fire escape door, four wandering and one immobile in the centre at what we think is a desk. We need to know if that’s Bellner.”

  After a moment’s quiet clicking the analyst responded. “Yes it is. He’s sitting typing. I can see the other men too, and they’re all armed.” He paused for a second and adjusted his focus before adding in an incredulous voice, “They have machine guns! Heckler and Koch MG5s I think.” A quick nod to his junior and Ash’s voice came on the line, informing Craig that each gun carried, “Fifty rounds to a pouch.”

  Not the best news he’d had that week, but they were where they were.

  “OK, thanks, Ash. Pass me back to Davy please. Right, Davy, move to the room next door. There seem to be some very strange pieces of furniture in there and I have a hunch that that’s Bellner’s manufacturing lab. Check it out please.”

  The answer came back quickly. “There’s no CCTV in there but with the contrast changed I can see shapes like the glassware you’d find in a chemistry lab. Flasks and test-tubes. And what looks like s...some heavy equipment too. It’s a very dense looking material, maybe steel. It could be the s...sort of press that factories use for moulding plastic into different shapes.”

  It was good enough. Bellner was producing the combos in the casino; they’d been right about the gangster trialling them on a small scale first. Although... he couldn’t get too cheerful about the idea that destroying this lot of equipment would stop the problem; Bellner might have production and trials on the combos going on all across Europe as well. But getting rid of one set-up would have satisfy them for tonight.

  A beep told Craig that the helicopter was about to make its next pass.

  “Stay on the line, Davy, and get ready to cut the power to the whole street on my word.”

  They watched in the Pangolin and squad-room as the images updated, telling Craig that apart from another couple of people leaving the roulette room to go home, confirmed by a quick glance out at the street, everything was much as it had been before. It was as good as they were going to get. Time to get moving.

  After another radio around to prime everyone and instruct them to don their night goggles, Craig said, “Now, Davy”, giving the signal for his analyst to hit the switch.

  Liam, peering out at the street through his portal, watched as the gold neon ‘Zenith’ flickered and spluttered and then went dark, leaving the white casino standing in complete darkness amidst a myriad of no longer warmly lit small businesses in the narrow street.

  The back doors of the truck flew open and its four occupants jumped out, taking up their pre-agreed positions by its side. Almost immediately they heard a series of muffled bangs followed by screams and shouts, and flashes of white light lit up the ground floor of the building, each one just long enough for the detectives to glimpse the grim determination on each other’s faces.

  The casino’s glass entrance doors flew open so hard that the panes on one side cracked into huge pieces that then slid and tumbled apart, sending huge shards crashing out onto Warehouse Lane followed by a group of well-dressed people stumbling, running and gasping straight into the policemen’s path. Andy and Aidan steered the terrified gamblers towards a nearby alley for ID checks and after a minute Aidan returned.

  “We’ve found all but two of the plainclothes people, Guv, and they’re heading back in with us.”

  Craig shook his head firmly. “Not without body armour and we don’t have any spares. Leave two of them here to take people’s details, and the rest are to go round the back and sides to see if they can lend a hand outside. You and Andy come with Liam and me.”

  A minute later the four detectives were ascending the casino’s front steps, Craig and Liam in the middle making themselves the main target, and the others at either end. As they entered the gambling house’s darkened ground floor they scanned the expansive space slowly, shocked by what they saw. Two male bodies were lying amongst the detritus of overturned chairs, scattered cards and poker chips and Craig signalled whoever was closest to check if they were alive. One was and one wasn’t, but he wasn’t about to lose any sleep about it because, as planned, they were both Hugh Bellner’s men.

  “Radio an ambulance, Aidan, and stay here with them while we check the back.”

  The search yielded no more bodies, and thankfully they found the two missing undercover officers intact and standing outside at the building’s rear with some ARC officers and Annette. Craig nodded to his inspector, who was loaded with as much munitions as she could carry and looking as if she was having a high old time.

  “Where’s Commander McEwan?”

  “Upstairs, sir, with four of his men. D.C.S. White as well.”

  She gestured to the evening-dressed man and woman beside her who had probably been posing as a romantic pair, and Craig noticed that both their, very expensive, outfits had got so ripped in the fracas that they had seen their last ever wear.

  “These two officers were undercover.”

  Craig nodded in acknowledgement. “I know. Thanks for the help, you two.” He looked meaningfully at the female officer who was shivering an off-the-shoulder dress. “If you’d like to get warm there’s coffee in the back of The Land Rover down Skipper Street. You too, Annette. John and Des are there.”

  “I’d rather come with you, sir.”

  Craig smiled. Annette was a crack shot who’d once saved both him and Liam from certain death. It looked like she fancied doing it again.

  “Glad to have you, but lodge these officers with John and Des and then check the cordon for me first, please. Tell them I want it extended to cover from High Street down to the Cathedral. This could get rough and I don’t want some tourist wandering down here and catching a stray bullet.”

  By the time the ambulance had arrived to remove the casualties Craig had joined the
rest of his team and ascended the stairs cautiously to the top floor landing, expecting to find a group of tooled-up ARC officers there waiting for them in front of Bellner’s office door.

  Instead all they found was an abandoned Enforcer, the code-locked door with a series of futile dents in it, and scuff marks and splashes of blood all over the deserted landing’s real wood floor. Craig’s heart sank at the most obvious explanation, but he needed to be certain so he calmly signalled two people to check the moulding room, hoping against hope that McEwan and the rest would be there.

  But there were no police officers in the room, only the equipment that Davy had described, the remnants of some half-completed drug combos awaiting their liquid core, and stacked boxes full of tiny plastic bags each holding a single tablet; obviously tonight’s freebies ready for the clubs.

  Craig motioned everyone out and back down the stairs, instructing them to scour the outer perimeter of the building in silence for Andy White and the ARC men. But the only officers to be found were those posted to guard the fire-escape and the ones that had been with Annette. It meant that Andy White, Bill McEwan and all of his officers had to be in Bellner’s room.

  On Craig’s order the group moved stealthily back to the vehicle, where he woke up his smart-pad and signalled Liam to get Davy back on the phone to turn the lights back on, access the CCTV inside Bellner’s office and share the images to his pad.

  What the five detectives saw there made their hearts sink. Two men, thankfully not in uniform, lay unmoving on the floor of the office, and two others were nursing wounds, one of them clearly an ARC cop. Although Bellner’s men had clearly suffered the more severe damage in the encounter their own troops hadn’t escaped unscathed. But what the camera revealed next made Craig’s heart leap into his mouth; Bill McEwan and the rest of the now unarmed police officers, including Andy White, were on their knees with guns pressed against their temples, and Hugh Bellner was sitting at his desk in the middle of everything, smiling as if he didn’t have a care in the world.