Two loud gunshots and a screaming Colin MacKay stopped Sarah and John in their tracks. Hit in the upper body MacKay was instinctively stepping backwards and as his legs folded beneath him he rolled, falling off the unguarded balcony to the footpath seven floors below.
After a moment’s hesitation John ran for the carrier where Dave Carter still sat unmoving. Sarah was scared; nothing in her twenty-three years had prepared her for this. What she should have done, as she had already decided that someone upstairs had a firearm, was to get clear and report. We are all wiser in hindsight, and besides, her friends were in trouble. Right or wrong she went to her colleagues’ aid something she would never be criticised for by her peers. Drawing her Asp and CS spray canister she ran for the stairs, also pressing her radios alarm button and shouting into the mike as she ran, reporting the sound of gunfire and an ‘officer down’.
Carmichael and company had extracted the information they wanted from the flats sole occupant just before the police had arrived. In the absence of Jubi himself it was the next best thing. He now knew where Jubi would be later that night and used a length of telephone wire to dispatch the informant before calling Constantine on his mobile with the news. The strangulation had excited him, as it always did. It was a shame it could not have been Svetlana whose eyes had turned red with burst blood vessels though. He was at odds of how best to deal with that girl. Whether to deliver her, addicted to crack cocaine and controllable, to a Mafia brothel for a very fat fee, or substitute her shower gel bottle for one containing a water sensitive phosphorus compound. Decisions, decisions, his erection throbbed now, a result of the killings as well as pondering Svetlana's ‘punishment’.
Killing the police sergeant had been a thrill but it was a shame that there were no women officers present. It was far more satisfying than killing men.
Although there were no approaching sirens yet audible, that situation would change very soon. McVinnie's gunshots had ensured that. Not aware that Sergeant Harrison had already sounded the alarm, Carmichael and the Irish quickly left the flat. Nearby was the windowless hire van that had brought them. Carmichael led the way downstairs, the sound of Sarah’s pounding approach caused them to leave the stairwell at the fifth floor to avoid meeting her but Carmichael caught a glimpse of a ponytail, as she swept past unawares. He could not resist.
“Constable! Over here”.
As a flushed Sarah glanced cautiously around the corner from the stairwell, Asp at the ready, she let out a relieved breath to see an armed police Inspector an arm’s length away.
“My, my, what extraordinarily beautiful eyes you have” said Carmichael, and promptly shot her through the right one.
With a clearer picture from Sarah’s hurried sitrep, ‘Trojan’ units were now converging on the scene. British police officers are not armed as a matter of course, despite the growing violence in the country. The Home Office would state the reason being that it was simply unnecessary. Politician speak for “It would cost money to arm and train our officers”.
The call sign of India 99 was added to those units attending as a police helicopter was making its way from the Lippets Hill base.
The Duty Officer, an Inspector, had ordered an RVP be designated and was driving toward that rendezvous point at speed. Local units although unarmed were also clamouring to be included. At least one of their colleagues was probably dead and now there were three activated radio alarms. None of the officers at the scene were answering radio calls.
John Wainwright did not notice the splattered blood and brain matter or small hole and matrix of glass fragments that were held together by friction alone in what was the driver’s door window until he reached the vehicle; he froze with hand on the driver’s door. Berria stepped out from behind the vehicle’s rear and shot him through the side of the head with a single aimed shot from her MP5 before hurriedly making off toward the waiting transport.
Svetlana had taken the day off sick on Constantine’s instructions to keep herself ready for whatever may arise. Clad in a leotard that was wet with sweat, and long leg warmers. She was suspended from ankle straps attached to the top of her bedroom doorframe, her hair in pigtails and coiled inside a sweat-cap. She slowly double over and touched her toes, holding the position for a few seconds before slowly unfolding and repeating the exercise. As she touched her toes for the eighteenth time that session her mobile rang. Hanging inverted she stretched out her hand and grabbed the phone off the carpet.
“Caroline Carlisle?” she answered with as close to a heavy head cold imitation as she could manage, and then an instantly cured “Hello sir” when Constantine spoke. After a minute she ended the call and released herself from the self-induced torture device to check her wardrobe and shower.
Constantine replaced the receiver and looked back at the television in his office. The media were reporting live from a street in London, blue and white police cordon tape was stretched across a road and grim faced policemen of all ranks were in evidence. He had phoned Carmichael asking if this was his handiwork and received a denial but he knew in his gut that the man was lying. Constantine was appalled that the man could kill in cold blood without considering an alternative, as there undoubtedly was. He corrected himself, no it wouldn’t have been in cold blood, and the man would have enjoyed the killing.
Switching off the TV set he stood and paced to the window. As soon as the suitcase was retrieved his own life and the girl’s, Svetlana, would be forfeit.
He was not unduly concerned for himself, he had faced danger often, but the girl? He had become very fond of her in a short space of time. On his desk were the building plans for a club in west London, he had gone over them thoroughly and tried to cover all possibilities in his head. Glancing at his watch he saw he now had nothing to do except kill time for the next two hours’. He opened a copy of the Times to the crossword page; confident he would crack it in the time. He would have been exasperated to learn that Svetlana rarely took more than twenty minutes to complete the broadsheet’s famous brainteaser.
Jungle night at the South London venue was the place to be if you wanted to be noticed. Despite the security on the doors, if you were really bad you didn’t get checked. Doormen who tried to make an issue over who really ran things tended to get shot before the night was over. Jubi had not reached the lofty heights where he could just turn up and blow through unchallenged; a £50 note had however ensured that his stash of rocks went un-confiscated.
He was trying to be cool and be noticed all at once; so far he had been ‘dissed’ and ignored.
After a trip to the gent’s toilet’s to unload some of his stash to two customers, he had some of his own wares and now was feeling pretty good. He tried for introductions with some of the names here tonight. The names were all rivals but the venue was neutral territory, just so long as each stayed in his own ‘corner’. ‘J-‘(Jay Dash) was the biggest there that night, he was up on the balcony with his favourite bitch and some long auburn haired girl, totally hot in denim hooker boots. Jubi had tried to catch his eye but ‘J-‘had been more interested in watching the girls’ heavy pet. Fuck ‘em all; he thought as he sat on the floor with his back to the wall, listening to the music that thumped out with so much bass it shook the walls.
There were several ‘crews’ present; all had some really hot pussy along, one day he would be there too.
The news had been full all day of some shooting, six pigs! In his mind he formulated a scheme that would get him noticed by the big crews and popping a copper featured strongly.