Backlash (33 page)

But as he walked towards the package, there was the niggle this could be that one time, the possibility it could be the real thing. The only consolation was that if it blew, there wouldn't be much to feel. A surge of heat, noise and then death.

Some consolation. Both men felt very vulnerable.

‘You made a will?' Henry asked.

‘Yep. You?'

‘Yep.' As Henry answered a stab of thought cut through his mind of Kate and his two daughters. He saw all their faces. Then it was gone. It was a short, painful thought.

‘My throat's as dry as the bottom of my cockatoo's cage,' Donaldson admitted.

Henry stopped walking and laid a hand on his friend's bicep. ‘You have a cockatoo?' Donaldson nodded. ‘I never knew that, you sad person.'

‘Thanks for that.'

They continued to walk.

‘I'm actually feeling dead cool about this,' Henry boasted, paused and added, ‘not.'

The short journey seemed endless. Then they were down on their knees on the carpet among the beer stains and fag ash, noses almost to the floor. Henry flashed his Maglite underneath the bench seat.

There it was. A lunchbox. Tucked behind a seat leg. Not in a place where it could have fallen or rolled accidentally. To get where it was it must have been placed there deliberately. Through the opaque plastic, indistinct shapes could be seen inside. Not sandwiches or Kit-Kats. Strapped to it by tape was a detonator.

‘He's here,' Donaldson breathed.

Getting the general public to take any evacuation seriously was difficult. No one ever truly believed the danger, that it could be a real bomb, that they could get killed. It did not help when most of them that evening were half-cut.

Once, though, Blackpool had been the target for the IRA when incendiary devices inside several shops had caused massive amounts of damage. So it could happen.

Henry ordered all available officers to attend the scene, including the recently arrived PSU and those officers recently deployed to investigate the possibility of a body in the sea. He began the tiresome job of emptying the club of people who did not want to leave, then trying to evacuate and close all the surrounding premises which consisted mainly of amusement arcades, another night club and several burger joints. Next, the promenade itself had to be closed two hundred metres in both directions. All traffic had to be diverted inland and the trams had to be stopped. Chaos reigned.

Then he needed to establish a rendezvous point.

The only easy thing was calling out the bomb disposal squad: they were already resident in the town because of the party conference.

Henry did a lot of shouting, ordering, threatening and cajoling, and found himself very much the centre of attention. In a perverted sort of way he enjoyed it all, even if at the back of his mind the worry remained about Jane Roscoe and Mark Evans.

‘One thing, bud,' Karl Donaldson said in his ear. ‘Don't put the RV point in the obvious place, just in case it is our man.' Henry gave him a blank look. ‘Remember, he bombed the last RV point in Miami with a secondary device. I don't want that to happen here.'

‘Good point, well made.'

With that in mind Henry decided to use Adelaide Street West, which, though a one-way street, could be used to allow access to emergency vehicles from both directions. It was out of a direct line of sight of the club, some hundred and fifty metres north of it. Henry got the traffic department to cordon off the street and park the big accident unit in it to be the centre of the RV point.

Amazingly this was all achieved within about fifteen minutes, adding fuel to Henry's belief that the police were a great ‘doing' organisation. They liked being told to do things, just didn't like to think about anything else too deeply.

As everything fell into place, the bomb disposal squad arrived on scene.

Within minutes they were reversing the robot ‘wheelbarrow' out of the back of their vehicle, intending to use it instead of a man. It was a safer option than sending a man in to fiddle about with what increasingly appeared to be a real bomb. The wheeled machine, which resembled a small tank, was equipped with a camera through which the operator – who never left the back of the equipment van – could see exactly where it was going. He could manoeuvre it down, up and around most obstacles using a remote-controlled joystick; the wheelbarrow was also fitted with a double-barrelled shotgun which, when loaded with the appropriate shot, could be discharged into a suspect device to bring about a controlled explosion. The wheelbarrow was a common sight on the streets of Belfast. It was not so well known in Blackpool.

It set off on its journey.

Henry peered over the shoulder of the operator and watched the monitor which was showing the picture from the camera on the front of the contraption. The wheelbarrow trundled up the pavement rather like something out of
Star Wars
, a very hi-tech piece of machinery, developed over the years by the army to do a dangerous job. It had saved the lives of countless soldiers in the battle against the Provisional IRA.

The journey continued up the promenade to the front entrance of the club. The operator did a right turn and the machine lurched through the first door which Henry had left wedged open.

‘Here we go,' the soldier said.

The wheelbarrow moved through the door into the entrance foyer, straight across the tiled floor to the stairs leading down to the main bar where the package was located. The steps were easy. Like a tank on Salisbury Plain tackling a steep hill, the wheelbarrow just took them in its stride, even the one-eighty degree turn halfway down was no problem. Henry was impressed. The skilled soldier at the remote control manoeuvred the wheelbarrow round and into the bar, where it stopped and had a look round.

‘Mine's a pint,' the soldier said.

Henry looked closely at the image on the screen.

‘Straight across, then bear slightly right,' he said helpfully.

The machine trundled on, slowly approaching the corner of the room. The soldier made minor adjustments to direction constantly.

‘Under that bench, dead ahead,' Henry said.

‘ACC to patrol inspector.' It was FB on Henry's radio.

‘Shit,' Henry said. ‘Go ahead.'

‘Sit rep, please. I'm monitoring.'

‘EOD in attendance, wheelbarrow deployed, should have a result soon.'

‘Well that's nice to know,' FB whined sarcastically. ‘I'd like to be kept informed.'

‘Understood,' Henry said, wondering why FB had not just asked a communications operator because Henry had been relaying a blow by blow account for the log.

‘I'll be in communications if you need me,' FB transmitted helpfully.

‘Thanks for that,' Henry said. He shook his head despondently and turned his attention back to the monitor.

The wheelbarrow had moved forward and was now peering under the bench seat at the lunchbox, displaying a very clear image to the monitor.

Two army types were whispering to the operator. One nodded then turned and introduced himself and his handlebar moustache to Henry.

‘Captain Renfrew.' The two men shook hands.

‘Henry Christie.'

Renfrew did not beat about the bush. ‘Taking all factors into consideration, I propose we blow it up in situ, cover the cost of damage as necessary. No point taking any chances.'

‘I don't have a problem with that,' Henry agreed. ‘In fact, I think––' But whatever Henry was about to say was lost forever when the wheelbarrow operator gasped, ‘Oh, fuckin' Jesus!'

All heads spun to him, then the monitor.

‘I thought the place had been evacuated,' he said.

On the screen was the face of a man staring directly into the lens of the camera fitted on the wheelbarrow. He was a big, happy, smiling man who was tapping the lens with his knuckles and saying something – more words lost forever. He looked excessively drunk.

Henry ground his teeth and the blood drained from his face. He had assured the army guys the place was empty because he had been so assured by a sergeant from the visiting PSU who had carried out the search and evacuation of the premises. Not well enough, it transpired.

The man on the screen put his tongue out, stuck his thumb in his ears and flapped his hands and blew raspberries. Then he looked in the direction in which the camera was pointing. It was clear he had seen the lunchbox.

On his hands and knees he got down and reached for it.

‘Oops,' the operator said.

All eyes turned to Henry as the officer in charge. It was as if the world was holding him in sharp focus. Everything else was blurred and only Henry stood out. He did not know what to do. His mind was a complete blank.

‘If there's an anti-tamper on it and he moves it . . .' the operator said bleakly.

Then, for Henry, the world seemed to resume some of its normality. ‘Move the wheelbarrow. Jab him with it. Do something. Try and distract him from touching the bomb – I'll go and get him out.'

‘You must be barking,' Renfrew said. ‘You can't go in there now.'

‘I've been in once and it didn't explode. If he doesn't touch it, then it probably still won't explode.' Henry's eyes flashed back to the screen. The man was stretching out towards the lunchbox, could not quite reach it. ‘And if it's on a timer only, it's more than likely to be set for a busy period. I'm going,' he said. ‘Distract him if you can.'

The operator thumbed the joystick. The wheelbarrow arm extended and pushed the drunken man in the ribcage and knocked him over. He rolled and recovered. The extending arm went out towards him again, attempting to push him over again. The drunk struggled to his feet and lumbered towards the wheelbarrow. The screen got a close-up shot of his fat legs and then the sole of his boot as he tried to stamp on the nasty, horrible thing that had attacked him.

Henry moved like lightning.

He ran up the promenade and skidded through the door of the club, hurtling across the foyer and down the steps into the bar. If it hadn't been so serious, it would have been ridiculous. The fat drunk was laying into the wheelbarrow as though it was an adversary in a street fight. He rained kicks on it, which must have hurt him, because they were having no effect on the wheelbarrow which just stood there placidly absorbing the onslaught without complaint.

Henry hurried across, shouting, ‘You need to get out of here now, that could be a bomb under there.'

‘Eh, what? Fuck off, copper.'

That was all the negotiation Henry was prepared to do. With strength induced by fear, anger and danger, Henry looped an arm around the man's neck, grabbed his shirt and started to drag him across the bar using the momentum of the man off balance. He managed to get him as far as the foot of the steps which led up to the foyer. He dropped the gasping man, who landed on the small of his back, legs akimbo. It was only past bad experience that prevented Henry from booting him in the testicles. Last time he'd done that, the recipient of the kick had lost a ball and caused Henry no end of grief.

Such had been the speed and power of Henry's attack, there was still a look of utter surprise in the drunk's face – which Henry tried to use to best advantage.

He said menacingly, ‘You get the fuck up them steps, or I'll beat the living shit out of you here and now. There's a bomb in here.'

It was as if the man had not heard.

‘Fuck you,' he shouted and dived for Henry's feet. He got them before Henry could move out of the way. Henry cursed as he fell onto his hands. He kicked back at the man's chest and extricated himself from the grip.

Large and drunk though the man was – and the stench of booze on his breath was overpowering – he was moving pretty quickly now that Henry had lost the element of surprise. He threw himself onto Henry's back and flattened him on the floor. It was like being crushed by a bed and doing a belly-flop at the same time. All the air whooshed out of him, winding him. The man pummelled him, though the punches were not well placed or particularly effective. Henry rolled away, jerking his elbow into the man's face, satisfyingly connecting with a hard bone somewhere. The man emitted a scream of anguish, but only got madder. He came after Henry with his feet, starting to boot him before he could stand up properly.

‘You idiot,' Henry yelled to no effect.

He took a kick in the lower stomach and recoiled against a pair of double doors marked ‘Store Room – Private'. The doors did not give even when the back of Henry's head whacked hard against them.

The drunk bore down on him, a snarl on his lips. ‘I've always wanted to do a cop.'

Henry's mind clicked into clarity. He ducked and sidestepped, spun on his heels and drove his fist into the side of the man's head, hard, right on the ear. The blow had no effect, except to make the guy even angrier. Henry hit him again, hurting his knuckles on the man's cranium. Still no effect. The man turned like a Challenger tank, roared and grabbed Henry. He wrapped both arms around him, pinning Henry's arms to his side and squeezing tight. The men were stomach to stomach, chest to chest, both now with red faces: the drunk's from exertion, Henry's from his chest being constricted. The man swore at Henry, who felt his feet leave the ground. The drunk started to move in a circular motion, round and round, still trying to squeeze the life out of Henry, to crush him, while bouncing up and down.

He began to laugh. ‘I'm gonna kill you, cocksucker.'

Which was OK, but why? Drunks do not reason well and Henry did not want to die by being squeezed to death by a bloated, admittedly strong, inebriate, nor by getting blown to bits by a bomb. This thought gave him a surge of self-survival.

He braced his arms and, using all his strength, pushed them outwards and upwards and broke the man's vice-like grip. Henry's hands went to either side of the man's head, each grabbing an ear, holding the head steady as he head-butted the bridge of the man's nose with his forehead. The nose did not burst as expected, nor did the man seem to have an adverse reaction to the blow. He just laughed and tried to grab Henry again. Henry pushed against the man and they crashed back against the double doors. This time, they flew open with a clatter. The men reeled through into a room full of collected rubbish onto which they tumbled. They continued their struggle amongst black bin liners crammed with all sorts of debris which burst open, spilling everywhere as they fought.