Danger Close (20 page)

39

Corley services on the M6. We’d driven straight here from Luton, scarfed a quick breakfast, and we were now sitting on a low wall in the car park near the van with our poor-quality Starbucks teas. I checked my watch for the third time and Bang-Bang slapped my wrist. ‘Stop it. They’ll be here.’

I shrugged and looked away. Tomorrow was D-Day and we had nothing, not a thing. We were all due at 23 SAS’s barracks up in the north of Birmingham as soon as possible.

9.04am. Before us in the car park two sleek white motorhomes and two souped-up Ford street racers, one a Tickford Capri, the other a classic Sierra RS Cosworth, roared and grumbled in and stopped in a staggered line. The engines shut down one after the other, and just as per usual, the drivers and crews got out and started arguing. Sixties Rare Groove was thumping from the leftmost motorhome. Jesus Christ, here was the Hur al-Ayn.

‘D’you ever look at that lot, Holly, and wonder…’

‘Often. They’re crazy, aren’t they?’

I recognised Raggydoll. She was stumbling out of the side door of the nearest motorhome wearing big shades and lugging an inflatable shark. Sadie emerged, blinking and even more heavily pregnant than last time I’d seen her.

There was a commotion. Calamity had Roadrunner up against one of the motorhomes and was shouting at her. Roadrunner looked like a snake about to strike and was reaching for something in her jacket. Without further ado, Fuzz dropped down from the cab and clumped Calamity round the head.

‘D’you also ever wonder, Holly, what helter-skelter we’re going down here, and whether we might all like it a little bit too much?’

Her gaze focused on mine. Again, those non-committal hazel eyes. There was another commotion in the car park as Sadie hit Roadrunner with an A to Z and Roadrunner punched her in the eye and then launched into Calamity, who fell backwards over the inflatable shark. Then everyone piled in.

‘How d’you mean, Riz doll?’

‘Well… law and order is unravelling. You saw what happened to the top cops last night. The army’s all over the place, extremist groups are squaring up to each other and promising
all
kinds
of death and mayhem. Oh and the Home Office and our employers at the MOD are in open war with the Met. It’s chaos.’

She smiled slightly. ‘It’s
great
, Riz.’

‘Oh so obviously moral relativism is lost on you.’

‘Moral relativism be damned, Riz. There’s them, and there’s us, and we fight and die for us and that’s it.’ She clasped my hand and this time the smile was warmer. ‘What code d’you follow, doll?’

‘The way of the companions of the Prophet.’

‘Still?’

‘Still, Miss Bang-Bang. You?’

‘The blood-code of the Hur al-Ayn. There might not be any overlap.’

‘There might not. I try to command the good…’

She laughed. ‘…and forbid the evil. Bloody salafis.’

And then we were suddenly enveloped by the gang as they whooped and welcomed Bang-Bang back from the dead, smothering her in kisses. Fuzz Shaheen wandered over behind the ruckus. She still had the old Fuzz swagger. ‘Found ya then.’ She grinned. ‘The murders I had hiring those wagons. I was the only one over 25 with a drivers’ licence.’ She looked back at Roadrunner and Calamity, who both grinned sheepishly.

‘Where’d the two Ford racers come from, Fuzz?’

‘Roadrunner and Calamity sourced them. Good work all round if I say so. Bhai - the gang has wheels.’

Roadrunner had the hood of one of the motorhomes open and was poking at the engine approvingly. ‘150 brake horsepower. Nice.’ She waved towards the rear of the wagon. ‘Holly babes, Fuzz picked up the stuff you wanted. Go take a look.’

We took a look around inside the wagon. It was a custom Swift Bolero with all the fittings, berths, bunks, kitchen, TV… and on the floor were a selection of Peli cases and kitbags. Bang-Bang chuckled. ‘Ahhhhh. My airforce. You will fly, my pretties.’

Fuzz pulled my arm and showed me to the other wagon. On the floor of
that
were many green kitbags that I recognised as Uncle Khan’s. ‘Enough to start a small war, bhai. Both wagons. It’s all there.’

This was good. There was a tug at my other sleeve. Calamity. ‘Come and indulge your inner petrolhead Riz, check the wheels out.’ She dragged me over to admire the custom Fords. I resisted the urge to point out that I’d been stealing these when she was still at school.

‘Look Riz bhai. Tickford Turbo Capri with all the skirting and spoilering, 205 horsepower. And over here, I give you the Sierra RS500 Cosworth with whaletail spoiler, and even more horsepower. I’ve checked the rear brakes on both and given their turbo systems a good going over. All we have to worry about is making sure they don’t take off.’

‘Perfect. OK ladies. Let’s get to Birmingham.’

40

We arrived in a convoy and got stared at like we were the Wacky Racers as we pulled in to the Kingstanding Road TA Centre, home of 487 (Kingstanding and Perry Bar) Squadron, RAF Air Training Corps, and also, headquarters of 23 SAS Regiment (Reserve). The ATC kids weren’t training tonight.

We found room in the car park behind some army trucks and two things that made us stare. Two black MH-6 Little Bird helicopters. We hustled our kit out and made our way into the building. Bang-Bang muttered ‘blimey, are we back at school?’ She had a point. Cream walls, coat hooks, a trophy cabinet. We were shown through blue doors and then, school was out.

The gym hall had been torn into and converted into a command centre. Taped-down cables ran to laptops and wall-mounted flatscreen displays. Three TVs were tuned to local news channels. One large flatscreen display showed a moving aerial picture from one of the orbiting Army spy planes. Another showed a map of Birmingham with cursors and arrows floating over march routes. KTS were not going to get caught on the hop this time round. Behind us, some Int Corps staff were struggling with two rather impressive dioramas, one of the city as a whole and one of the city centre. That one came complete with crowd markers and vehicles, and all the junctions had been spot-coded for ease of reference. To one side were sheafs of plastic-wrapped streetmaps, also spot-coded. God I hated spot codes.

Belatedly the gym door opened and Maryam limped in. We turned in amazement. She stared back. ‘And what? You think I’d let you lot start without me?’

The gym hall erupted in laughter and she came to sit beside me. Behind her a bunch of Malay-looking girls had walked in and were quizzing the support staff. One waved at me and Maryam. That would have to be Pixie, the girl from the council. We went over. ‘Yep. I’m Pixie. This is Sasha, Lana, and Kiki.’

The diminutive girls behind her also waved. Brummie Blackeyes. ‘They’re friends of ours, if you get my drift.’

I got the drift.

‘I’ve brought the laptops. I want them to show me how to link this HQ to wherever we end up.’ An Army Signals girl showed us to a trestle table where an SAS guy was waiting. ‘You must be Riz. TrapWire staff called. Paul-Pierre Jesko just surfaced, positive hit from a CCTV in Digbeth two hours ago. He’s here.’

‘And if he’s here, they’re all here.’

My phone buzzed. The Colonel. ‘Passing it on, Riz - Home Secretary wants to know if we should turn the city’s mobile networks off. You’re on the ground, your call.’

All eyes were on me. I thought it through.

‘No. Not this time.’

‘OK. Good news is that the Cabinet has the authority under the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 to invoke emergency powers and make any necessary emergency regulations. On this one, you’re covered. To put it brutally, Riz, you’re Muslims so you’re needed, especially if we’re going to be defending mosques. They don’t want regular forces in there. The bad news is you’re the gang of lunatics who put acid in the coppers’ tea, but they’re going to overlook that… forever…’

I laughed and he clicked off.

I was watching the Blackeyes kid around. The Birmingham contingent had a blanket rigged up and they were flinging baseballs at it, trying to put a backspin on them. Apparently that was how you increased the accuracy of a thrown grenade. A backspin. Not how we did it when I was in al-Qaeda, but maybe things changed. Mishy and her little faction were laughing at the fact that they’d got Maryam to fall for the hammer and envelope trick. It was bound to befall her sooner or later as she was the youngest. ‘BASTARDS!’ she shouted as she stormed back in to main hall from the stores section.

My laugh registered with Dinger. ‘Share the joke?’

I explained the wind-up. ‘New kid gets given an envelope and a hammer, she has to take the note to stores to get signed before handing over the hammer…?’

He got it. ‘Ah, that. And the note says “give me all the stores or I’ll kill you with this hammer”. They did it to me once when I was in the Light Infantry. If it’s good enough for us I suppose it’s good enough for Saint Trinians over there.’

Fuzz, Roadrunner and Bang-Bang took main stage in the gym hall, in front of a large expanse of hung paper sheets. The sheets were scrawled with marker pen and one had projections lit onto it. The audience was a mix of black-flameproof-clad SAS, senior Army staff, and us. I could see Briney and Dinger. Their RWW team was gazing curiously at the motley crew of Asian girls that had assembled. To our left were our medical packs and as much weaponry as we’d been able to assemble. Rifles, PKM squad machine guns, some strange, squat black crude assault weapons… grenades… I could even see one RPG-7
launcher and projectiles. Uncle Khan had done well. Sadie was proudly cradling the vintage Dragunov sniper rifle he’d lent her for the event. She’d been given the lecture about returning it, as it was from a museum and he’d been given the contract to replace and relacquer the furniture. My Uncle Khan was sought-after as the best weapon restorer in Britain. Apparently Captain Peter Mason had got it from Vietnam on behalf of the CIA. It had pedigree.

‘On the tarpaulin before us is your personal kit for tomorrow’s big day out.’ Roadrunner, Fuzz and Bang-Bang began ticking it off. ‘Pay attention, you all need one lot of each. Field dressings, two, for the use of. Silicone ear defenders. Personal radios. They’re the Binatones, we’ve all used them before, stick to the same frequencies please and make sure your earpieces are in, and
stay
in. Use black tape if you have to. We have two combat medical packs with giving sets. OK, now personal weapons. Take your pick. We said overmatch to Uncle Khan and he’s lent us the following… two PKMs plus two belts each; three frag grenades; three smoke; AKS-74U oh that’s yours Holly; two AM-15s in .22 Long Rifle; one Ares Shrike belt-fed 5.56; two Alliance Armament Accelerator 12-gauge shotgun pistols. And a bunch of AKs. We’ve also got some Thales dazzlers, use them wisely. There is also an RPG but please leave that alone. It’s heavy and only Riz knows how to fire the damn thing. We’ve got enough firepower to kill more people than you’ve seen all day in as little time as I’ve said this sentence.’

The leaders started the blood-typing tests. A queue formed for the required prick on the finger and the swabbing. Bang-Bang picked up her carbine and went to fetch some tools. Roadrunner carried on. ‘Now you’re all bleeding and I have your attention… part two. Morphine autojectors.’ She held one skywards and everyone’s gaze tracked upwards with it. ‘Do NOT administer one of these to anyone with a chest wound or head injuries. Once injected, write “M” on the casualty plus time of injection, and attach the injector to their clothing where it can be seen. Got that?’

Roadrunner placed a bunch of black marker pens down. ‘One each. Probably the most important piece of kit you will carry tomorrow apart from your radio.’

There was a scramble to grab one. They got that. It was starting to sink in and the audience quietened. They were being given the tools to end life on a massive, rapid scale, and clot the approach of rapid death. Things were coming into focus. I retrieved an AK and checked its chamber. Roadrunner was glaring at Maryam, who had flung the hammer onto the ground and was throwing a strop. She then turned to address the bench. ‘No it’s not popular, I’m not here to be popular. If I wanted to be popular I’d be selling icecream, now clue in, and come here and get your tests! Then write the result on your armbands. Yes, that’s the issue orange
armband with “Security Forces/MSSG” on it. Fail to wear that tomorrow and you’re liable to be shot. By both sides.’

The blood tests continued. Roadrunner took the samples and called out the results. Maryam said “ow” and they skulked back to their seats and wrote their blood types on their armbands.

Mishy put a hand up. ‘We got any body armour?’

Roadrunner gestured to a pile of stained, motheaten Second Chance vests. ‘More bad news, we could only rustle up four sets. As leaders we’re not going to take them so we’re giving them to the youngest and Sadie ‘cause she’s pregnant.’

Bang-Bang came back from the tarpaulins and stood next to her. ‘You lot need to be listening to Roadie. This stuff will save you and your opposite number’s lives tomorrow. Three more things. First, for our younger members, you don’t need face camo, you’re in Birmingham. Secondly, make sure you take enough ammo. Third…briefing finished. Now get out there and die in a loud, grotesque and military manner. That is all.’

The SAS guys started laughing. The briefing broke up to attend to details. The Brummie girls sparked up a laptop with Tweetdeck on it and showed the signals staff how it worked and the various hashtags they would track tomorrow. Mishy got her little group together and talked them in slow-time through the hand signals they’d use tomorrow… Stop. Go to ground. Attack.

Bang-Bang had a screwdriver in her mouth and that serious expression. She was speaking around it. ‘It doesn’t matter where you go in the world, you can never find the right Allen key.’

I produced the Allen key.

‘It was in the van, babes.’

She took the screwdriver out of her mouth. ‘You’re marriage material, Sabir.’

She took the key and started working on the sight. ‘OK so here we have my AKS-74U and a sight that we can’t put on the carbine, oh no.’

I hunkered down and watched. To our left was the issue loadout - four magazines in pouches, two oil cans and a little AK cleaning kit. Bang-Bang was muttering. ‘So in one hand I have a Kobra red-dot sight, and in the other an AKSU. Spoon - fork, fork - spoon…’ She slid the side mount apparatus onto the slide rail on the left hand side of the carbine and pushed down the lever. ‘And now, I have a Picalilli Rail.’

‘Babe. It’s a
Picatinny
Rail.’

‘Yeah one of them.’ She got the Allen key and worked on fitting the Kobra sight to the rail. ‘Sorted and it’ll hold zero, or so I’m told. Check out the CQB setting. Rounds will land
between the three bars.’ She cycled the button on the sight and handed it to me. I tracked the weapon back and forth. It looked good. ‘Nice. Now you’re an expert, you can fix mine.’ I handed her my AK. She gave me that look. I took the cue and went back to the ops centre.

The staff were busy turning the centre into a replica of the main HQ back in London. In the time I’d been next door, they’d laid in loudspeakers for various command channels, new blown-up aerial photos, and three briefing boards, one each for callsign shouts, codewords and tomorrow’s order of battle. Dinger was jotting an entry in the duty log. He looked up at me. ‘They’re just
kids
, Riz. Are they any good? I mean when it really falls apart?’

I shrugged. ‘They may be shortarses but they’ll kill, don’t you worry about that, Dinger.’

‘Let’s hope so.’

‘Besides, they’re all in Military Stabilisation Support Group, haven’t you heard?’

‘I had. Strange days.’

There was a green flash and a scream behind us. We turned. Roadrunner was beating Maryam around the head with a manual. ‘It’s a dazzler! Leave it alone. Turn that button off you gaylord! It’s a laser, it dazzles! Get me?’

11pm found me wandering between the various vehicles in the drill square; SAS Range Rovers, Army Signals four-tonners laden with radio kit; a few BMWs from the top brass. I bumped into Fuzz, Calamity and Bang-Bang poring over a city map of Birmingham spread over a car bonnet. Calamity was smoking. Bang-Bang was chewing the last of her Hollywood gum. She leant into me and smiled. ‘Can’t sleep either babe. Tomorrow is going to be the mother of all battles.’

‘Did you see the local news? 2000 UAF being bussed in.’

‘Yep. It’s gonna be a fuckup.’

Calamity was pressing buttons on an Army Bowman radio. ‘This is not going to work. Nope. Don’t understand it. We’ll take one for form’s sake, and one Airwave handset, and keep our Binatones. Go with what we know, yeah?’

The girls nodded.

I cleared my throat. ‘You lot. We need to try and catch some Z’s. At least try?’

Over by the nearest MH-6 a voice called. An RAF Flight Lieutenant was sitting by the chopper, with a tarpaulin in front of him. He was cleaning some cut-down special weapons.

‘So, these are our new Black and Tans, huh?’

Calamity threw down her cigarette stub. ‘Is he being racist?’

I held her back. Bang-Bang eased herself off the bonnet and smiled at him. ‘Nope, we’s just God-fearing, mosque-going folks.’ She grinned and popped some gum.

The Flight Lieutenant got up and wandered over to the map, bringing a penlight with him and a carbine SA80 which Bang-Bang grabbed and started cooing over. Calamity eyed him warily. He flicked the penlight over the map and spoke to everyone and no-one in particular.

‘I’m Cope from Joint. I’ll be one of the people flying top cover tomorrow morning. Show me what to look for on this and what frequencies we should be on.’

Behind him Fuzz had got into the MH-6 he’d left and was steering the nose cameras right and left and waggling the control surfaces. I glared at her and she got back out and walked over with a butter-wouldn’t melt look, hands behind her back. Our new arrival was watching Bang-Bang trace the march routes on the map as Calamity read from two printed out itineraries. All lines converged on the city centre, the Bullring, the train station, and then seemed to veer off to one or both main mosques.