The Fire (15 page)

Rick leaned forward, hands flat on the table.

"I want to make the rules of engagement clear, here and now, so everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet. Inside the plot will be hardened Sudanese gangsters, maybe NIRA terrorists, armed drug dealers, the lot. Mixed in with the low life will be young, innocent frightened girls. It will be tight, noisy and within seconds full of smoke.

That said, anyone, and I mean anyone who shows the slightest aggression is taken out. I want double taps to the body in there, and if you get the opportunity, a head shot when they drop. Our intention is to slot the Irish and permanently remove Maxi and his crew from Manchester. Keep your balaclavas on at all times and keep the chat to a minimum...any questions?"

There were none. As was the norm, the room fell silent as each of us started to come to terms with what was about to happen. I busied myself with packing all the gear into the Beamer, ensuring each member had the right size kit to go with their preferred weapons.

During my service, I had taken part in this kind of operation, a rapid intervention, just seven times. It was a rare choice and extremely dangerous. The chances of all four of the team coming out of Maxi's grotty hole were slim.

I caught Lauren's eye, saw a glimmer of a nervous smile and gave her a cheeky wink. She turned away and I said a quick Hail Mary for the lot of us.

Rick Fuller's Story:

An R.I. or Rapid Intervention is usually an attack on a building, dwelling or aircraft, and is only used as a last resort to rescue hostages or recover property held inside. Probably the most infamous R.I. was the Iranian Embassy siege in London, carried out by the British SAS.

The premise of such an operation is simple enough. It should be meticulously planned, (it had been known for the Regiment to mock up complete buildings and practice for hours before an entry, had time allowed.) The approach should be silent and undetectable by the hostage takers/drug dealers, until every member of the team was in place, then speed and overwhelming force should be used to terminate the threat to life inside.

We had several problems. The first was we were only four. Usually the cops or military would use a minimum of twelve for a simple dwelling. If I'd had the bodies, for a building like Maxi's club, I would have wanted between fourteen and twenty-four. Every door, window and in the case of the club, the three large skylights, should be manned, and on the command of the officer in charge, entry made using everything from axes to explosives. Every available opening should be breached simultaneously.

To clear a three-bedroom house and secure the hostages should take no more than three minutes.

Our second problem was the club was guarded on the outside. According to Evelyn, two or sometimes three of Maxi's crew were standing watch on the doors and we had to presume they were armed.

Our plan had to be simple and would operate on a little stealth and lots of pure aggression. During the first Iraq War, a unit of eight SAS troops fell upon an armoured convoy of close to a hundred heavily armed Iraqi soldiers, they had no way out and had no choice but to engage them. Rather than bed themselves into cover they charged the Iraqis using a technique favoured in the Boer War, where the front rank stormed forward firing as they went; then the rear would push through doing the same whilst the front lay prone and reloaded.

The technique took ground and bodies at an alarming rate.

The amazing courage and skill of those eight soldiers sent the Iraqi convoy running for the hills. Even though some of the men in the unit disagreed with the events that day, they left eighty-two dead behind them and the SAS without a single casualty.

I was hoping for similar aggression and luck.

How wrong you can be?

At 22:26hrs Lauren and J.J. dropped me on Stockport Road, just shy of a quarter of a mile from the plot. The only kit the three of us carried was our covert in-ear comms. Des was parked up in the BMW, as planned, awaiting our arrival. The night was freezing cold and the paths were slippery underfoot. I turned up the collar on my Berghaus and stuffed my hands in the pockets as I walked. My first task was to have a wander around the streets adjacent to the club to get a feel for the place, then hope to find a spot close enough to get a view of the entrance without attracting attention to myself.

It was as I got two streets away, that my hackles started to rise. Something was definitely wrong.

In the days when I'd worked for the Richards family over in Moss Side, I'd seen first-hand the way Yardie security worked. Just like a well-run military camp in enemy territory, the gang would have spotters in the outlying streets, normally kids as young as ten on BMX bikes, circling their precious nest like prowling buzzards, relaying any suspicious characters back to base.

This was a mirror image, the difference being the spotters were on foot, older and wiser. One guy clocked me the moment I turned off Stockport Road. I pretended to be lost, studying the street nameplate and looking puzzled. Then, turning on my heels, I headed back for the main drag. He didn't follow, but eyed me suspiciously and pulled a mobile from his pocket. I worked out that a kebab shop on the far side of the street, could give me the angle I needed to see the club entrance.

I spoke to the team as I walked, relaying what I'd seen.

Five minutes later, I was standing in front of 'I Love Kebab' holding a disgusting looking wrap of donner meat which I had no intention of eating. I felt it gave me some semblance of camaraderie with the locals. I shuffled my feet against the cold, being bumped into by sad drunks with no taste and no thought for their dietary requirements.

My cover was short-lived.

Someone very strong indeed grabbed me by the collar of my coat and I felt the unmistakable cold steel of a blade at my jugular.

Never, ever dally.

Unless you have absolutely no chance and the odds are overwhelming, give your assailant something to think about before he gets all smug and confident.

I twisted away from the knife and pushed back my left elbow in an attempt to get a dig into my assailant's ribs. I connected, straightened my arm, spun again and parried his knife hand. He was a big Somali and looked shocked that he had lost his grip. I reminded him I was still about and smashed him under the nose with the heel of my right hand, knowing instantly by my connection, he was going down. I hit the pretzel on my comms and whilst I had the chance shouted, "Abort...abort...abort..."

The African with the knife was pulling himself upright. I'd just about got the second 'abort' out of my mouth, before my ear-piece was ripped from me. An even bigger guy shoved a .44 Magnum under my chin.

Game over.

The small crowd of carnivores outside the shop had considered that discretion was the better part of valour and buggered off quick sharp. The guy with the knife had recovered enough to stand in front of me and deliver three quick punches to my face, splitting my eye and lip. This was going to be a long night.

I was unceremoniously bundled into a big saloon which had screeched to a halt on cue. Seconds after hitting the back seat, I was hooded and plasti-cuffed. Hoodlum number one took great pleasure in accompanying me and giving me the occasional dig in the guts for good measure.

My ride was brief. It didn't take Einstein to figure that I had been taken to the place I had planned to visit all along, albeit in different circumstances.

As the car pulled to a halt, I was dragged out, feet first. I did my best to protect my head from hitting the deck by hunching my shoulders. Even so I landed with a sickening smack and felt dizzy and nauseous in equal amounts as I was pulled along the pavement.

Despite being blind from the hood, I was suddenly aware of being inside a building. The three African voices that had filled the car had been joined by others, who decided that it would be good sport to stamp on me as I made my way, on my back, along what appeared to be a long corridor. I did my best to protect my balls by twisting myself and crossing my legs as I went. It worked...some of the time.

Mercifully my transit was short-lived and I heard the unmistakable sound of metal gates being opened. From what Evelyn had told us, I reckoned I was destined for the punishment cage.

The crew had been unprofessional, in that they hadn't done a great job in searching me. My mobile was still in my jeans, they'd checked for weapons and nothing more. Still, I couldn't reach it, so for now it was no use at all. Someone sat me up and placed me in a stress position. Seconds later, footsteps faded away and the door of the cage rattled closed. I made to move immediately, I didn't need any more discomfort and figured that if I was alone behind bars I would get away with it.

Wrong.

A guard was obviously standing to my left. He screamed at me and slapped me across the temple. He must have been built like a brick wall. The mixture of the sheer power of the blow and not being able to see it coming sent me sprawling and light-headed.

Hooding your prisoner is by far the more effective disorienting tool than a blindfold. And it sends a message to the captive. It says, 'you are going to die inside that foul-smelling canvas sack. We are going to cut off your fucking head or hang you, you are in the shit. Listen to your breath. It will be your last'.

I was unceremoniously lifted back into the stress, and relative silence fell in the room.

In circumstances like mine, it's essential that you take in as much detail as you can. The game is never over until the fat lady sings, as they say. I controlled my breathing, did my best to ignore the heavy nasal grunting of the guard to my left and listened.

There were small movements across from me and the occasional whimper. Then I remembered Evelyn again. Of course, there would be young girls in the cage opposite, looking at me kneeling on a shit-stained floor, hands tied and a sack on my head. For a brief moment I felt sorry for them. That was until I heard the unmistakable sound of more bodies being dragged along the corridor. Even though no English was spoken, I knew they had Lauren and J.J.

I could hear the punches and kicks going in and desperately wanted to be free to stop them.

Then the cage was open again and I heard Lauren cry out in pain as they dropped her in the stress alongside me. I wanted to reach out to her, just a simple touch, to let her know I was by her side, maybe a comforting word, but I could not. It would be against all my training just to acknowledge that I knew her.

J.J. was cursing his captures in Arabic and received some rough treatment for his trouble. I heard some boots slam into his body before the Somali were finally happy they had him under control and how they wanted the three of us.

All we could hope for now was that Des had got away. Not for the first time in my life, he felt like our only chance.

Except for the whimpers from across the way, silence fell again.

We waited.

It was again short-lived. I heard a door open off to my right followed by the heavy footsteps of three, maybe four men, together with panting and the clatter of a dog's claws on a hard floor.

It had to be Maxi and his crew.

Seconds later, the guard inside our cage confirmed my suspicions by removing my hood, swiftly followed by Lauren's and J.J.'s.

I blinked in the harsh lighting and risked a glance to my left. Lauren's face was bruised and she had a cut on her chin that needed stitching. J.J. had taken a kicking but kept stock still, eyes to the floor, the way he had been trained. My guard grabbed my hair and raised my head so Maxi could take a better look at me.

Before I could look back at him, my eyes were drawn to the cage opposite and my heart sank. Somewhere between nine and eleven young girls were crammed in the small space. Some were clothed, some were in underwear; others shivered in their nakedness. They held onto each other for comfort; terrified.

My attention finally turned to Maxi. The big Somali was flanked by the same two bodies we had photographed on Boxing Day. In his left hand he held the lead of the massive long-coated German Shepherd dog that had taken such a liking to Des's leg.

He still sported the big IWI Jericho pistol with the Mega gun converter around his neck and wore a pure white Nike hooded tracksuit that I desperately wanted to tell him was not his colour.

Even more of a concern, in his right hand he was clutching an electric cattle prod.

"Mr. Richard Fuller," he said in heavily accented English. "I thought you would never come to visit me. It's so nice to see you and I believe this lovely young woman to be Miss North, am I right?"

He stepped forward, the dog pulled slightly on its lead, a low deep growl emanating from somewhere deep inside it. Maxi rolled the prod around in his hand and nodded to the guard to open the cage. This was not looking good.

The Somali ignored me and stood directly in front of J.J. He let the dog's lead slip a notch and the animal snarled and snapped inches from the Turk's face.

J.J. didn't flinch and simply raised his face to the African to give him his trademark 'fuck you' stare.

This irritated Maxi no end and he instantly jabbed J.J. with the prod. The shock knocked him backwards with such force he slammed against the back wall, cracking the back of his skull as he did so.

He didn't cry out, but was forced to breathe in short sharp puffs to regulate his pain.

I could smell burning flesh.

Ten seconds later, the Turk was back on his knees, eyeballing his captor with those fish eyes of his.

I know you," said Maxi. "And I know you have been sniffing around my club, asking questions and being a nosey boy, eh?"

Maxi waved the prod and smiled briefly, but as he spoke it faded to be replaced with an expression of pure revulsion.

"What have you done with my Evelyn?" he said.

J.J. dropped his head and looked at the floor.

The African, who was at best fucking bi-polar, then laughed out loud. Several of his minions deemed it necessary to follow his lead. He was like a caricature of a bad Bond villain.

"You are in love with one of my little slut girls, is that it?"

Maxi didn't wait for an answer. He simply lumbered a step to his left and faced Lauren.

My heart raced.

The dog was straining at the leash and the Somali had to hold the animal back with his powerful fist. Its mouth was so close to Lauren's face, spittle splattered her. Another inch and it could sink its massively powerful fangs into her cheek, tearing at her flesh, her nose, her throat.