A Shot In The Night (John Harper Series Book 2) (25 page)

The rifleman also heard the sirens and felt no
comfort.  He also felt no fear only the thought that there would be more
targets for him to fire on.  What he was more concerned about was the sound of
a helicopter approaching.  On a personal note he did not feel that those police
officers and pilots could possibly collude with drug dealers to the same extent
as the ones on the street that he had already dispatched.  He would however
fire on the vehicle if it came too close or threatened to reveal his location.

Instead he calmly put his hand into a pocket of his
camouflage jacket and removed one of the multiple mobile telephones he had on
his person.  He was still lying in the prone position, his rifle resting on a
padded bag.  His eyes remained focused on the van and the car and he made a
call on the cell phone.

The small rucksack that Peter Stevenson had seen
earlier suddenly came to life.  A short explosion which was more deafening than
forceful moved the stricken drug dealer from the ground.  Its concussive force
shattered the nearby windows of one of the houses which were not as well glazed
as others.  Following that, shorter less forceful bangs erupted.  It sounded
like gunfire which was enough to make the driver of the police car stand up.

Of course he was frightened; he thought he was under
fire from a location behind his cover and he ran towards the police station entrance. 
It was a good eighty yards away and around a corner.  He was barely ahead of
his own vehicle when he was hit.  The first shot hit him in the chest, spinning
him, before a second hit him in the gut and the larger man fell to the ground
dead.

A grim smile crossed the shooter’s face and he moved
the rifle to the front of the police station.  The small squat building was on
the corner of a side street, opposite which was a playing field with three
football pitches and greenery for walking around.  Surrounding the field were
trees which made it difficult to get a clear shot on the entrance or the
windows and completely obscured the secondary entrance which was in the
enclosed police car park where the van was supposed to have delivered the
arrested drug dealers.  He could see three men outside the building; one of
them had made it to the corner and seen the small massacre that the shooter had
dished out already.  It was a mistake he would not recover from as he became
the fourth police officer to be shot.  The bullet hit him in the chest and
doubled him over the low wall and behind some cover.

One of the men ducked and ran, keeping a low profile
to help his fallen comrade, the final officer was chased back inside as the
sniper opened fire on the entrance and visible windows, shattering them in a
cascade of glass.  There were still three rounds in his rifle magazine and he
pumped one into the small brick wall that provided cover for the officer who
was struggling valiantly to save his colleague.  The power of the bullet was
enough to crumble the brickwork and cover the man in dust as he fell back,
stunned.  A second shot destroyed more of the wall, and in a moment of
selflessness the man dived over the stricken officer, hoping to protect him if
there was another bullet.  Instead the gunman turned away from that target as a
sign of grudging respect for the officer.  He fired the final shot into the
rear passenger van tire.

With the helicopter now hovering overhead and the
police cars nearing, the shooter wanted to move position so as to keep them off
guard.  The helicopter was directly above the crime scene but he knew that they
would struggle to see him.  Although he was wearing camouflaged clothing more
suitable for forest warfare, he had covered himself with two sheets.  The
closest layer was thermally insulated so that the heat sensors would struggle
to see him, the second outer layer was coloured like the dilapidated rough and
there was enough accumulated junk up there to make it difficult for anyone to
make out his prone figure.  Leaving the rifle and shouldering the bag he had
been resting on, he quickly got down from the roof of the old petrol station
using a ladder he had brought with him.  Briefly covered from view by the
building he had been using, the shooter took two smoke grenades from his bag. 
They had been easy to come by compared to the weapons he was using and he
tossed them across the street till the entire road was covered in a thick white
fog.  He folded the sheeting he had been using and placed it in his bag before
running to the nearest lamppost.

Under the cover of darkness the night before, he had
made some arrangements in the area.  With hardly anyone on the street he had
not only placed the backpack, which had detonated earlier, but had also tied
thin high tension fishing line to the base of the light, and had attached a
plastic bag to it just in case anyone had passed by and looked carefully
therefore thinking it was nothing more than just another piece of rubbish on
the street.  Picking up the spool he ran across the road and tied it to the
metal fencing that surrounded the park area.  It took some time but he rigged
one of the handguns he had in his bag of weapons to the line as a booby trap
and pointed it down the street, facing away from the besieged police station.

The helicopter hovered above and the downforce from
the rotors was slowly clearing the smoke.  It swirled and was nearly fully
dissipated before the gunman threw another surprise across the road, this time
something he had been working on for a couple of weeks and he was interested to
see if his labour would pay off.  Not once whilst he was making the small
weapons did he think that he would be using them on the police but after seeing
Harper save the drug kingpin, he was more than happy to give them a test run
today.

It had taken him a full day to assess his target
areas, which had been the reason for the delay, and he also wanted his parcel
deliveries to arrive on the same morning without arousing suspicion.  He had
been tempted to just walk up to one of the policemen patrolling the street and
shoot them up close but this plan was to maximise the amount of damage.  It was
also so well planned that if everything did go to script even more drug dealers
and police would die as a consequence of his actions.  The shooter had
surprised himself with the leap he had taken to start killing the police.  At
first it felt wrong to even contemplate putting the crosshairs over a boy in
blue, but the more he thought about it and how drugs were so prevalent on the
street the easier it was to see that there must be widespread collusion or just
sheer incompetence.  Even if it was just negligence on their behalf, he hoped
that his actions would put more scrutiny on the police and the dealers and that
there would be a crackdown.  He had seen the way the media had turned on him
but he had never started this to be some sort of hero. No, he wanted to clean
the streets around him and save people.  Some people had to die for that
possible future and he was the only one brave enough to do it.

No one was out on the street or in the park but he
still ran under the cover of the trees and jumped over the dilapidated railings
till he was directly opposite the police station.  He had not been able to get
a police radio to listen in on their conversations but was sure that the
helicopter had pinpointed him now.  The surviving officer who was by the wall
was just visible to the shooter.  Even from across the road and in the midst of
the remnants of smoke he could see the blood covering the man’s hands.  A brief
moment passed where the gunman thought of his actions before he hurled a
grenade over the metal railings and a parked car into the small car park of the
police station.

Ducking behind a tree and also shielded by that same
car, the man who had brought destruction to that small suburb covered his ears
as the device detonated.  Windows shattered; fragments flew and sliced through
the bodies of the two officers near the wall, killing them.  Inside, people hid
under desks and cowered in fear of another attack.  They were right to be
afraid for their safety as another grenade flew through the air and into one of
the damaged windows.  The explosion was muffled by the walls but the calls for
help and screams of anguish were still audible.

Time was running out for the shooter though, as he
heard the sirens coming even closer.  It had only been a couple of minutes
since he had left the rooftop but the response time was even better than he had
anticipated.  He had specifically chosen one of the more remote stations and
when he had thrown the grenade at the drug den earlier in the day, he had
ensured that the majority of the available police in the area would be
attending that scene.  Of course, with a city the size of Liverpool there would
be more police to help plus the armed response unit that was tasked with
bringing him down.  However he had reduced the amount of responders by the fake
ricin attacks he had had delivered across the Merseyside police force.  There
were only three stations in this direction he had not sent parcels to, which
not only reduced the effectiveness of a response but also ensured that the
police would have to bring the drug dealers to this particular station since it
was the closest and had a suitable detention area.

With more haste than previously seen, he hurled a
smoke grenade at the station and down the road, away from the destruction he
had already created.  Once the smoke was sufficiently thick enough, he
scattered more of his surprises across the tarmac and ran back behind the cover
of the treeline.  Firing one of the remaining pistols out of his bag at the van
and car, he kept the remaining survivors from seeing which direction he was
taking.  With the last of his smoke grenades he covered the T junction of the
road in thick white mist.  Taking a knee briefly, he pulled out the sheeting
and put it on as a makeshift poncho.  He knew that their helicopter would still
be able to see his face and hands on their thermal imaging but if he moved quickly
there would be no possible way they could track him in this area especially
since he utilised the last of the tricks he had laid out the night before.

He had managed to walk across the road in the early
morning with no one paying attention to him.  His face had been covered by a
thick black scarf and down his leg he had taped a small hose with which he had
discretely coated the junction with petrol.  It was only a thin layer and
blended well with the sheen from the cold morning dew.  Still, once he was
close to it the shooter could smell the fumes and he took out a flare from his
bag of tricks and ignited it.  Tossing it into the road, the petroleum caught
fire and covered the road in acrid black smoke, which further reduced
visibility.

Down the road, opposite the van, he saw the flashing
lights of a police vehicle approaching and in the first moment of desperation
he opened fire with a pistol, spraying deadly lead down the road as more of a
distraction than in the hope of hitting someone.  He had hoped he could have
disappeared before more police arrived on the scene.  Still he waited for only
a short amount of time till the petrol flames were sufficiently raging before
running into the smoke and out of sight.

I was sitting in my car, which was parked outside
the bookmakers near the Fraser gym, when my phone rang.  The number was
withheld and although that would normally stop me from answering the call, I
was on a case so accepted the intrusion into my thoughts.

“Hello?”

It was difficult to hear anything on the other end
as there appeared to be the repeated sound of gunfire, the thumping of mortars
and the occasional detonations of explosives.  To me it sounded more like one
of Harris' video games than real life, “John, I can't really talk at the moment
but I thought I would give you a heads up.”

“Rich.  Where the hell are you?”

“I can't tell you.  Just put it this way, I'm trying
to protect some books,” my friend said with a strained tone in his voice as if
he was doing something else other than calling me.

I shrugged at his comments, “Guess that is one of
your ‘need to know things’.  What is the call for then, matey?”

“Just here to help you.  Your friend on the force
will probably be calling you in a second to inform you of the details so I will
be brief.  I'll give you a number you can call if you need my help as well.”

“Rich, get to the point, it's unlike your types to
beat around the bush.”

It was as if I could hear his smile down the phone
as he moved, creating a ruffling effect, “I had a colleague monitor police
frequencies to keep me informed if there was any more attacks after the threat
went viral.  As of approximately,” he paused for a second, “three minutes ago
an attack was reported on the Elsworth estate police station.  Sniper fire and
explosives have been reported with both civilian and police casualties.”

“Fuck!” I exclaimed as I hurriedly put a Bluetooth
headset on, the small earpiece projecting Rich's voice as I started the
ignition and tried to think of the best way to Elsworth police station, I'd
done my best to memorise the area since my satellite navigation device had been
playing up.

“Yeah that about sums it up.  Anyway I was trying to
keep you ahead of the game, I take it you are on the way now?”

I swung the car onto the main road and accelerated,
breaking the law but certain that the police would be much more concerned about
what was going on at the station than my speeding, “Gonna be a couple of
minutes but yes I'm driving there now.”

“Okay well, John, I know you are going to be rather
pissed off with me for this but it is for your own safety.  Since you haven't
tried to get in contact with me over it I take it that you have not opened the
present I left for you.”

Instinctively I shook my head, “No, I've been rather
busy, mate.”

The spook coughed down the phone before speaking,
“As I said it is for your own safety,” once again he coughed and the sheepishly
said, “It's a gun.”

His words took me surprise to the point where I
nearly veered the car into oncoming traffic, “It’s what?”

“I procured you some protection.  Don’t worry, I’ve
ensured that it is untraceable and fully loaded.”

“Rich, you bloody mad man, I’ve been driving round
with an armed weapon in my car for the past couple of days.  What if someone
had broken into my glove compartment?  What if I had been pulled over by the
police?”

“Don’t worry, I would have sorted all of that out if
it had come to it, mate,” Rich said in a nonchalant manner that did nothing to
improve my demeanor.  I didn’t doubt the man could do it, hell he had managed
to find a gun for me on short notice, but at times he just didn’t think like
regular people.

I took a deep breath before replying, “Right, well
there is nothing I can do about that now then is there?  So tell me what you
got me?”

“Browning Hi-Power just like you used in Ireland.  I
went with something you would be familiar with and they’re phasing the weapon
out of service completely so it wasn’t too difficult getting my hands on one. 
Thirteen round magazine which should be enough for most problems you face.”

“So what you are telling me is that you anticipated
me being in a shootout?”

“After our little joyride to the Lake District,
mate, I just wanted you to be prepared.  I was a Cub Scout after all.”

Again I shook my head at the man but could not help
smiling, “Look mate, I have no intention of carrying a gun.  You know I can
shoot one but I’m not going to go in to a situation were I can end up being
arrested for having it on my person, or even worse get accidentally shot because
I just happened to have one in my hand.”

The line went quiet for a second and then there was
a deafening series of bursts from an automatic weapon, which severely hurt my
ear.  I went to remove the earpiece when Rich replied, “Sorry about that.  I
just want you to have it for safety, mate, better to have one and not use it
than not have one and need it.”

There was logic in what he said so I was left
shrugging as I turned down a street and passed a sign that said I was entering
Elsworth, “Look Rich I’m getting close to the police station.  Thanks for the
help.”

“Take the gun with you, John; I’ll clear up any
problems I can if you get in trouble.  I’ll try and stay in touch for the next
couple of hours but, as you probably heard, I’m a little busy myself,” he
punctuated that with another burst of machine gun fire.  It was very intriguing
whatever he was up to but I had to focus more on what dangers I was about to
enter than his worries.

“Okay I will, you just keep your head down and I’ll
try to do the same on my end,” I was immediately held to my word as my car was
fired upon.  I’d been driving past a set of playing fields on my left and saw a
parked police car with two officers behind it when a bullet struck the bonnet
of my car.  I turned sharply to the right and slammed on the brakes before I
felt another thud hit the car bodywork.  I vaguely remember Rich shouting
something down the phone at me but I’d opened my door and was behind the wheel
before the car had come to a complete stop, “Going to have to call you back,
mate.  Things just got a little busy for me as well.”