As one of the men stepped forward to take the case from Dewar, Grant moved in between. ‘All right, I am the law and you are interfering with the police in the execution of their duty. Stand aside or I’ll do the lot of you for obstruction.’
‘My my, we are in trouble,’ said the hissing voice to the amusement of the others, then more harshly, ‘Right now you don’t mean jack-shit in this neck of the woods any more, Grant. Hand over the case!.’
Dewar knew there was no question of tacitly handing over the virus. The chips were down. It was five against two but there was no choice in the matter. In the event, it was Grant who opened the proceedings. He had been holding the stretcher in a vertical position while they spoke. Now he suddenly slid his hands down to the bottom and swung it round in a scything arc to catch two of the opposition in the face before they could move out the road.
Adrenaline flowed in a violent flurry of swinging feet and fists. Dewar was forced to put his careful packing of the vials to the test by using the metal case as a two handed battering ram to break through the two man barrier in front of him. For a moment there was nothing between him and the doors as the two fell like skittles.
‘Go!’ shouted Grant. ‘Get the fuck out of here!’ He threw Dewar the keys to the ambulance. Dewar caught them one-handed.
Dewar hesitated but only for a second. Grant was right. He had to get the virus out of this place but he hated to leave Grant on his own. He forced his way out through the glass doors, opening them with his shoulder as he held the case close to his body with both hands to avoid contact with the glass or precipitate any kind of fumble. He sprinted across the tarmac apron to the ambulance, knowing that there were running feet behind him but not turning to look as it would only slow him down.
He tried to unlock the door with fingers that had suddenly become all thumbs as haste cancelled dexterity. He finally found the right key and had succeeded in half pulling the door open when the boy who’d been guarding the vehicle cried out, ‘Behind you, mister!’
Dewar instinctively dropped to the ground and the body of the man pursuing him crashed straight over him slamming the door shut with his momentum as he fought to regain balance. Dewar got to his feet first and swung his fist several times into the body of the man, hoping to disable him before he could recover but recover he did in a testament to formidable strength. He suddenly whipped his ham-like fist back-handedly across Dewar’s face sending him to the ground with pain exploding inside his head like a starshell. Dewar just managed to get out of the way of the follow-up kick and get to his feet. There was little or no time to get his breath however as his opponent came hurtling in again to grab him in a vice-like grip and send both of them back to the ground.
Dewar felt the man’s hands grip his throat, obliging him to grasp his attacker’s wrists in a desperate attempt to free himself. To his dismay he found the man’s grip too strong to break. The pressure on his throat was increasing despite him using all his strength to force his hands apart. He had to concede there was no use in continuing with this and went for a desperate gamble. He let go the man’s wrists and sought out his fingers.
Despite the sudden increase in pressure on his throat, that he’d anticipated and which threatened him with unconsciousness he managed to find his attacker’s little fingers and succeeded in getting real purchase on one of them. Focusing all his remaining strength, he bent it violently backwards against the joint as hard as he could and heard it snap. The man let out a scream of pain and let go of Dewar’s throat.
Dewar took in a huge lungful of night air. He knew he only had as long as the man was concentrating on his broken finger to take the initiative. He rolled over on the ground and sprang to his feet to aim a vicious kick at the man’s head. Right now the human consequences didn’t matter. This was a fight he had to win. The man tried to duck but Dewar’s foot still connected with his cheek bone and it shattered under the blow. The man slumped into unconsciousness, suddenly no longer a problem.
Dewar looked up to see another of the men starting to run out from the flats. He recovered the metal case from where he’d left it at the side of the vehicle and got into the cab to turn the key. He revved the engine hard and flung the gear stick forward into first but froze with his foot on the clutch. He knew exactly what he had to do. His clear priority was to get the virus out of this God-forsaken hell hole and into safe hands as quickly as possible but he’d just found that he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t leave Grant there to suffer the consequences.
Grant was a powerful man, an experienced street-wise copper who knew how to handle himself but the odds against him were overwhelming. The bastards would probably kill him. Dewar let out the clutch and swung the vehicle round to race over the tarmac back towards the flats. The man running towards him had to dive out of the way as Dewar drove straight through him without varying his line. He could see three figures through the glass; they were kicking at something on the ground.
‘Bastards!’ He turned the headlights on full beam and crashed the vehicle straight through the doors to enter the hallway. The armoured glass frontage exploded into a million fragments, showering the yobs in clouds of glass shards as they sprang back from Grant’s prostrate body. They split into two and one. Dewar drove the vehicle at the pair who presented a bigger target and caught the legs of one as he failed to get out of the way quick enough. Two down, three to go. In a crunching of gears Dewar turned the vehicle and raced it over the floor to have a go at the other man before finally swinging it round and screeching to a halt beside Grant’s still body.
He got out of the vehicle and ran round the front to pull Grant up by his shoulders and feed him into the cab as quickly as he could but it still took time; Grant was heavy. He felt as if life had gone into slow-motion. It seemed to take an eternity before he finally tucked Grant’s feet inside and slammed the door shut. He ran round to get in the driver’s side just as one of the yobs — the man who’d dived out of the way on the tarmac outside, came hurtling towards him. Dewar grabbed the cab’s fire extinguisher and swung it round to smash the base of it into the new arrival’s face. The man fell backwards, teeth and blood spilling from his mouth, his screams stifled into a liquid gurgle. Dewar revved the engine to screaming point and burst out of the hallway to race across the tarmac apron and up on to the road. He turned on the blue lights and set the siren wailing as he jammed the accelerator pedal to the floor and kept it there.
He was now running on pure adrenaline. He had to get help for Grant but the truth was that he wasn’t at all sure if the policeman was still alive. He glanced to the side and saw that his face was practically unrecognisable. Nausea was added to his anger. He swerved round the burned — out Escort with taking his foot off the pedal and raced up to the hill leading down to where gap tooth and his friends had their barrier. As before, figures moved out into the road, signalling him to stop.
‘That’ll be right,’ muttered Dewar as he headed towards them at full pelt with all the fired-up zeal of a Japanese kamikaze pilot
One of the yobs realised he wasn’t going to stop and lit something he’d been holding in his hand. Dewar saw the arc of flame against the night sky as the yob threw the Molotov cocktail. The bottle smashed on the road in front of him allowing the lit paraffin rag in its neck to ignite the spilling petrol and sending up a yellow wall of flame. Dewar was going so fast it scarcely mattered. What mattered more was the half brick that came crashing in through the windscreen and hit him on the left temple.