Ambush (19 page)

‘Yes – turning into farm track now,' Alford responded excitedly.

‘Shit!' Flynn grunted as he watched one of the men reach into the back of the VW and pass a machine pistol out to one of the others, then another to the third guy. ‘These guys are armed,' he said, looking down the lane and now able to see the police convoy racing up. The two ARVs were the lead vehicles, followed by the support unit personnel carrier, then the dog van, a couple of liveried Astra patrol cars, then the plain cars driven by the detectives. ‘And they've seen you,' Flynn added bleakly.

The men had spun around and they panicked when they saw who was approaching.

One shouted something, a warning lost in the wind and rain, but Flynn got the gist:
Run
.

They split three ways, like a formation flying team, but all of them headed towards the trees where Flynn was concealed by foliage.

Two went either side of him, crashing into the bushes. One came directly at him, charging like a wild animal.

Flynn rose to meet him at the very last moment and the expression of shock horror on the man's face was a brief moment of delight.

He was going full pelt, tried to dink around Flynn and bring the gun up at the same time to spray him with a hail of bullets.

Flynn swivelled at the hips and brought the chopping edge of his right hand into the man's throat, stopping him instantly. The gun dropped and the man clutched his windpipe, his eyes bulging like fat red marbles. He dropped to his knees.

Flynn did not waver. He drove his fist into the man's temple, knowing he had to be put down, out of action. The punch was one he had learned many years before and he hoped he got it right – just powerful enough to pole-axe the man and put him out of business for a couple of minutes without actually causing brain damage or death, just to give him a very sore head.

The man toppled over as his brain went into neutral.

Flynn ripped the gun from him and hurled it aside in two directions – the gun one way, the magazine the other – then hastily rearranged the unconscious man into a recovery position so his airway would always be open.

He glanced up.

The cops had almost reached the farmhouse.

Twenty metres to his right there was the crashing of one of the other men who'd done a runner, as he fought his way through the undergrowth.

Flynn went in that direction. He had half-considered not going for the other two but he thought it could be dangerous not knowing what they were up to. There was a glimpse of the man and his face as it twisted towards Flynn – and another delightful reaction of shock. The man tried to run faster, but his feet were in the dead leaves and branches carpeting the woodland floor.

This was not going to be a stalking job. It was going to be a run down and ram, and Flynn knew he had the speed, strength and stamina to bring this second guy down.

The man ran, but Flynn came up on his flank and was glad to see this one had already discarded the machine pistol he'd run off with.

Flynn was about three metres to one side of him when the man looked at him again but in so doing ran straight into a branch at head height, which was about as effective as being hit across the head by a baseball bat, saving Flynn a job.

His head stayed where it was, but his legs ran on and then he fell flat on his back.

Flynn moved in quickly. He was reluctant to give this man a similar punch to the one he had just landed on his accomplice, so he dragged him, moaning, over to a slim but strong tree, made him hug it and then cuffed his wrists. Flynn patted his head, then turned to find the third escapee. He had lost sight of him, but as he looked around he saw the guy had made it all the way through the copse and was sprinting away across the fields. Flynn let him go.

‘See you soon,' Flynn said to the man who was attached to the tree; his head was lolling loosely.

Flynn then heard the unmistakable sound of gunfire from the direction of the farmhouse.

Hunkered down behind a tree that had fallen diagonally against another, he peered through the leaves at the farmhouse.

Two armed officers crouched down behind their vehicle. The other vehicles in the police convoy had rapidly reversed back down the track and were still in a line about 200 metres from the gable end of the house. Flynn had no idea what was happening on the opposite side of the building. From what he could deduce it seemed that the first ARV had drawn up outside; the officers had presumably alighted and immediately been fired on from one of the windows. They had dived for cover behind their car – which, as they would be only too acutely aware, was no guarantee of safety. Bullets easily travel through cars.

Neither appeared injured, though.

Flynn saw a shape at a ground floor window, the glint of a gun barrel, then ‘crack-ack' as two rounds were fired at the ARV and the instant clunk as at least one of them ripped into the bodywork and another ricocheted off the ground, sending up a mini-eruption of grit.

The officers crouched and so did Flynn. He was in the firing line if any misaimed shots came his way. He kept very low.

The two officers had drawn their Glocks and were babbling urgently down their radios, words Flynn could not hear because his radio was tuned into a different channel. This was undoubtedly the first time they had ever been under real fire and it was suddenly a very scary world.

Another shot.

Flynn ducked, the armed officers cowered, but this time the shot had been fired not from a window at the front of the house, but from the gable end that faced down the track. Someone inside the farmhouse was firing at the remainder of the convoy, who had retreated to what they had thought was a safe distance.

Flynn guessed the make and model of the weapon being fired. Experience of having been pinned down a few times by enemy fire had made him fairly expert in being able to recognize the type of gun being used to blow your brains out. It was a useful bit of knowledge in a battle, knowing exactly what you were going to be facing.

This time Flynn recognized the gun being fired at the convoy as a Czech Å korpion machine pistol set on single shot. Though not massively accurate at 200 metres, if it hit you it killed or seriously wounded you.

The officers milling about down the lane all hurled themselves down or behind their vehicles as the shooter from the house loosed off more rounds at them.

Cops held down at the front, cops pinned down at the side and, Flynn assumed, cops held down at the back of the house where the second ARV had gone.

He was sure things should have been the other way around. It was the villains who should have been on the back foot.

The people inside the farmhouse had responded very quickly to the situation and it was clear this was all going to end up very messy. In that moment, as Flynn crouched in the bushes, he could not have guessed just how messy.

He saw flickering flames and plumes of smoke at the bedroom window at that moment. The whole bedroom was suddenly engulfed by fire, something whooshed inside like a bomb and the whole window frame was blown out of its casing and came hurtling through the air in front of the explosion. It spun like a huge death star and embedded itself in the side of the armed response vehicle with a crash.

Flynn ducked but the force of the blast still rocked him, hot air shrouding his face as well as bits of grit.

He rolled to one side as a shard of glass shaped like an axe head struck the tree trunk in front of him. A foot to the left and it would have cleaved through his skull and split his brain into two perfect halves, left side, right side.

He looked up through the stems of grass, saw the front door of the farmhouse open and two armed men burst out side by side, firing into the ARV. The two cops dropped to the ground behind it, terrified.

The men were well armed: both had machine pistols with magazines taped back to back so that when the first one clanked empty it was simply a case of reversing them and slotting the fully loaded one in place.

They were on single shot now, but firing rapidly.

Flynn raised his head. Neither of the two was Brian Tasker, which meant he was still inside the farmhouse, as were Davenport and the baby boy.

The first floor fire seemed to be taking hold and raging. Flames spewed out of the bedroom window, reaching up to the wooden eaves above, which also caught fire quickly.

The two armed cops were still crouching low, their guns drawn, having a heated discussion over the radio and with each other.

‘Shoot back,' Flynn thought.

Then movement caught his eye on the gable end of the farmhouse – the opposite end from where someone had been shooting down the farm track. A ground floor window opened, then a leg appeared. A man scrambled out, dropped low and paused dramatically, almost like a pantomime villain.

It was Tasker, and he was armed with a handgun. Flynn expected him to turn and assist the girl and baby through the window but he did not, something which gave Flynn a bad feeling.

Instead, Tasker sprinted away across what had once been a farmyard, vaulted a low fence and dropped into a field.

At the front door, the two gunmen continued to pour rounds into the Ford Galaxy, which was now mortally wounded.

Upstairs, flames whooshed out of the space where there once had been a bedroom window.

Flynn started to run after Tasker, keeping his head down as he crashed through the undergrowth, transmitting to Craig Alford down his radio, ‘Tasker's on the move, done a runner from the ground floor window out of your line of sight, and he's armed.' He included Tasker's direction of travel. ‘I'm after him.'

Alford acknowledged him. ‘Be careful, Steve.'

Tasker ran, still at a crouch, heading north across the fields, then across a narrow track that dissected Cookson's Plantation before turning right in a north-easterly direction and into the next field, heading towards Many Pits Wood. If he got into that it would give him cover.

He had not spotted Flynn who, keeping his own cover in Cookson's Plantation, was tracking him like a leopard on a warthog.

He broke cover just behind Tasker in the field.

Tasker was constantly checking his shoulder, but it must have been a bit of a shock to see Flynn suddenly burst out of nowhere and bear down on him.

Tasker spun, fired on the run, a wild shot from a pistol that recoiled crazily in his hand.

Flynn dropped to one knee instantly, even though he realized the bullet was going nowhere near him.

Away in the distance behind them the bang of gunfire could still be heard from the farmhouse.

Tasker fired wildly again, missed and ran on.

Flynn rose up and after him, cutting the distance between them easily but also knowing that by doing this he was increasing the chance of getting shot. He knew, however, that hitting anything while running with a handgun was a hard thing to do unless the shooter was trained and very fit.

He guessed that Tasker was neither, but nevertheless he only had to get in one lucky shot.

Tasker reached the perimeter of Many Pits Wood and dived into the treeline about thirty metres ahead of Flynn. He disappeared instantly into the undergrowth.

Flynn powered on relentlessly and entered at exactly the same point, a tiny piece of woodland much darker and more densely packed than Cookson's Plantation. He was immediately enshrouded.

If he had been Tasker he would have waited for his pursuer to come in behind him, dropped into a kneeling shooting position and taken him out as soon as he entered the woods.

Bearing this in mind, Flynn dived sideways once he entered the woods, just in case that was what Tasker had done. And indeed it was: he had lain in wait.

He had hidden himself and fired twice, but missed as the cop went sideways. This gave Flynn a brief advantage because, although he could not see Tasker, he saw the double muzzle-flash in the half-light which pinpointed Tasker's exact position.

Tasker fired twice more. Flynn scuttled around on all fours, feeling the whap of air above him from the shots just as he dropped full length behind a fallen log.

Flynn counted up. Tasker had fired six shots, which meant that if he had started with a full magazine he could possibly have nine or up to eleven bullets remaining, but he doubted Tasker would get as far as the last bullet.

Flynn bobbed as Tasker double-tapped, revealing his position again but – more importantly – missing Flynn's head.

Then he heard the sound of Tasker running away, crashing through the vegetation. Flynn rolled up on to his feet and, keeping down, weaved behind him, seeing fleeting glimpses through the trees as Tasker ran to the far edge of the copse.

More gunfire from the farmhouse. This time Flynn recognized the sound of Glocks being discharged. The police were shooting back. He gave a silent hooray and dipped under a branch, coming round wide on Tasker in a one-jawed pincer movement.

Tasker burst out through the edge of the woods, scrambled over a low fence and then was in the next field.

Flynn came out twenty metres to his right and both were in the open again.

Tasker ran fast; the man obviously did not wish to be caught but, Flynn decided, he would be.

Flynn powered up, vaulted the fence easily and came diagonally at Tasker just behind his right shoulder, a place he hoped would be similar to a driver's blind spot.

Tasker was noticeably flagging.

Flynn wasn't.

It was only as Flynn came within touching distance that Tasker saw him and turned.

He was too late to bring the gun around.

Flynn was on him, smacking the gun sideways as he smashed into him, a full body charge, grabbing the gun hand at the same time. Tasker pulled the trigger, fired, but Flynn had control of his hand and wrist. As they toppled over, Flynn hit him with an uppercut from his left fist, jarring his jaw.

It wasn't Flynn's best punch but had the desired effect and, in an involuntary spasm caused by a brief explosion of his brain synapses, Tasker dropped the gun.

Flynn saw it, rolled off Tasker and grabbed it. He did another sideways roll, using the impetus to come back up on to his knees with the gun already in his right hand and, supported by his left palm, pointed it steadily at Tasker, who groaned, sat up and grinned lopsidedly at Flynn.