I pick up my coffee and take a casual sip, a man without a care in the world.
Unfortunately, it's too late. In the periphery of my vision, I can see we've caught the cops' attention. The black officer orders bacon and sausage on white bread and leans a stubby elbow on the counter top, looking our way. He's got that sort of officious expression you often get on petty bureaucrats. He wants to show the world that he's got power, that he's not just some meaningless cog in the big wheel of life. That he's a man to be respected. And at the moment, this makes him very dangerous. The white guy, who's made an excellent culinary choice and gone for what I had on the menu, looks much more nervous, and I can't say I blame him. If we're innocent, then all we're doing is interrupting his lunch; if we're guilty, then it's going to be no easy collar. Rubberface could probably break him in half if he chose to, and I doubt he'd have too much trouble stomping his tubby colleague either.
Rubberface picks up the briefcase and gets to his feet, apparently satisfied that it's the right one.
'What's in the case?'
It's the black officer speaking, and my heart sinks. His tone's confident, almost playful.
'Business papers,' Rubberface says brusquely.
The officer nods slowly, his expression coolly sceptical. 'What kind of business papers?'
I ask myself why the hell he's doing this. Is it because he genuinely believes he's stumbled on some sort of clandestine deal, or is he just showing off to the owner? It's difficult to tell. On the other table, MAC-10 man is staring hard at both cops. The barrel of the weapon has moved ninety degrees too, and the black officer's ample belly is now directly in the firing line. A single signal from Rubberface and I know he'll pull the trigger without hesitation. I'm no hero, but I can't allow that to happen. The guy's an idiot, but he doesn't deserve to die in a hail of bullets.
'Just papers,' reiterates Rubberface, his accent becoming more obvious as he starts to walk towards the door.
The officer moves away from the counter, blocking his path, and I see that his hand has moved down towards the can of CS gas in his belt. Five feet separates the two men. Probably the same distance separates the officer from the end of the MAC-10. I wonder if he can smell the tension. But no, it seems he can't.
'Do you mind if I have a look?' he asks.
'Yeah, I do mind,' snaps Rubberface. 'I'm in a hurry.'
He goes to walk past, but the cop doesn't move.
'I'm afraid I'm going to have to make this official,' says the cop. 'I'm searching you under the terms of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 on suspicion of possession of drugs.'
'This is fucking ridiculous.'
'Don't swear, sir. Please put the briefcase down and put your hands in the air.'
Rubberface does neither of these two things. Instead, he and MAC-10 man exchange a brief glance. A silent message passes between them, and MAC-10's trigger arm becomes as taut as a drum.
Both cops turn in MAC-10's direction, as if seeing him for the first time. He stares back at them, his left hand out of sight under the table, the right still holding the foul-smelling cigarette. He puts the cigarette to his lips and takes a slow, contemptuous drag, before flicking ash directly onto the table top. The contours of his face are cold, dead stone. It's the gaze of a natural killer.
The whole room becomes still, as if the pause button's been pushed. No-one moves. Even the cafe's owner has stopped what he's doing. He looks petrified. The coffee percolator fizzes and froths in the background, and there is a certain inevitability about what's going to happen next.
The MAC-10 is a so-called 'spray and pray' weapon, designed for close-quarter combat rather than accuracy. With a rate of fire of twelve hundred bullets per minute, its thirty-two-round magazine will empty in under two seconds if the trigger is pulled while the weapon's set to automatic, the nine-millimetre bullets tearing apart anything in their path as they leave the barrel at more than six hundred miles per hour. In a confined space like this one, and with the pistol bucking in the shooter's hand, the effects will be devastating.
I need to move, and fast. Before the shooting starts.
The black cop turns back to Rubberface. For the first time, I see the tension in his features. He's unarmed and outnumbered, and he knows it.
But he won't back down. Even now, he won't back down.
'Please put the case down, sir,' he repeats, unclipping the strap on the CS gas holder, 'and place your hands in the air.'
The white cop's sweating, and I can see that his hands are shaking.
MAC-10 sits with Zen-like calm, as if he is above the petty fears of the others in the room. He is at peace with himself, if not with the rest of humanity, and I know that he's making the final preparations to commit an absolute minimum of two murders, and that I may well be number three.
'I'm going to ask you one last time,' says the black cop, his voice faltering, 'then I'm going to place you under arrest for obstruction.' Slowly, he removes the spray from its holder.
'This is stupid,' complains Rubberface.
He has his back to me, and I'm wondering if I can use him as cover.
MAC-10 is looking at his boss expectantly, waiting for the final nod. He's sitting back in his seat, giving himself support for when he opens fire.
Every second seems to crawl by. The air in here is like glue.
My legs tense and stiffen, and I begin, very slowly, to get up from my seat.
And then it happens.
The door crashes open.
A man has rushed into the cafe. 'Officers!' he shouts, clearly panic-stricken. 'There's been a stabbing in the shop round the corner. The assistant's been knifed. She's bleeding all over the place. You've got to come quick.'
The cops don't need asking twice. The white cop is already running for the door and tugging his radio free. 'Has someone called nine-nine-nine?' he shouts, the relief evident in his voice as he kicks up a real cloud of dust in his desire to get out of here. You have to give the black cop credit, though. As he follows his colleague out the door, he shouts at the three of us to stay where we are because he hasn't finished with us yet. He even manages to chuck an instruction to the cafe owner to keep his bacon and sausage sandwich warm.
And then they're gone.
For a moment, no-one seems to know quite what to do. Then, without looking back at me, Rubberface says something to MAC-10 in Serbo-Croat, and he gets up, his machine pistol hidden from view once again. They hurry out together in single file, taking the briefcase with them, while I slip the Glock back into the waistband of my jeans, pick up the holdall and get to my feet.
The cafe owner looks at me vaguely aghast. He knows something bad's gone on here but, like the coppers, he's not quite sure what. I take a ten-pound note from my pocket, walk over to the counter and put it in his hand. 'That was an excellent lunch,' I tell him with a smile, and before he has a chance to answer I'm walking out of there, knowing that Lucas won't be able to distract the cops with his story of an armed robbery gone wrong for very long.
13
Outside, the street's busy with passers-by, all of them oblivious to the drama that's just been played out right under their noses. It always amazes me how little people really see of what goes on around them. They're like sheep grazing contentedly at the edge of a wood full of wolves. I try to imagine what the scene would have been like had MAC-10 made one simple movement of his index finger and pulled the trigger. Two seconds of noise followed by blood, death and outright panic, and suddenly the writhing underbelly of society would have been thrust right into their midst.