With the carcasses of Paul Fitzhugh’s sheepdogs removed, two-man sniper teams chose un-obvious firing positions from where they could completely cover all possible escape routes, if not all of the buildings sides, between them. Once they had ‘gone firm’ the entry teams moved to their jump off points in the farmyard.
A very long way from the man who a few years previously had been mounting ‘Queens Guard’ at the Royal residences in full ‘glory order’, scarlet tunic, tweeds, bearskin etc., Pete ‘Sav’ Savage today resembled a cowpat. Or at least an inconspicuous part of a field studded with the aforesaid deposits. Cows are a less vocal hindrance to covert rural ops. With little to occupy their days except chewing the same old thing, immobile humans, invisible to the naked eye, seem to be an irresistible form of distraction in the cattle’s mind. It is most frustrating to have taken several hours’ getting into position, dug an O.P below a hedgerow, hidden the resulting spoil and got all of the team secreted away, only to have a Bovine appreciation society gather with the dawn. Fortunately the same kit that bamboozles dog’s noses also works on other species of God’s creatures.
‘Sav’ and his oppo had gone firm at 0222hrs. Dick French beside him was his spotter and his back up with a 7.62mm belt fed ‘Gimpy’. The elderly General Purpose Machine Gun had been replaced in infantry sections by the LSW. The LSWs lighter, magazine fed ammunition and its fixed barrel were a serious step back in most soldiers’ eyes. The LSW could not provide the necessary weight of fire needed. Its 5.56mm ammunition lacked the stopping power of the 7.62mm round and constant pauses to change magazine's cuts its rate of fire. Once its barrel overheated it was a useless lump of ironmongery until it cooled down again. With the gimpy it was a simple business to clip fresh belts of ammunition onto the end of the one being fed through the gun and swap the barrel over with one of several spares carried. Wherever possible, units of the British armed forces kept the gimpy despite the incompatibility of the ammunition it now meant for small arms.
Dicks GPMG was more than capable of stopping a mass breakout toward them, quite literally, dead in its tracks.
Sav had the superb Accuracy International .338 calibre rifle known simply as the L115A1in the British Army and this was topped with an American D-141 night sight. With the butt pressed into his right shoulder and barrel resting on its bipod he scanned the buildings ahead of him. At a fraction under 15lbs bare, the weapon was heavy enough on its own but with its telescopic sight and five round magazine, filled with armour piercing tungsten tipped rounds of ammunition it would tax an unfit man. Beside the armour piercing rounds Sav also had more standard ‘Ball’ ammunition, but with limited information on the target he intended to be prepared for the worst. Next to him Dick had the gimpy rested before him whilst he also scanned the buildings. Although there were twelve fellow troopers in amongst the farm buildings they could only see two, crouched beside the back wall of the barn.
In the same fashion that microphones had been placed on the house in St Johns Wood the troopers had wired the farmhouse. A recce of the other buildings and out houses had not revealed any surprises. All the suspects were confined under one roof.
A mile away Major Craig Thompson, the G Squadron commander, the Deputy Chief Constable of Essex and the Chief Superintendent for that area listened whilst all stations reported in. Major Thompson was concerned at the lack of movement from within the farm. To all appearances it was indeed a working farm, yet there were only the sounds of sleeping men. He would have expected some movement by now.
A Royal Signals sergeant informed him that the London targets were awake and one arrest had already been made without alerting those in the house.
“Do you relinquish operational control, sir?” he asked the Deputy Chief Constable.
“I believe the moment has arrived Major”.
Two signatures made it official. Taking a headset he informed the London operation that he intended to go in five minutes at 0430hrs exactly. London agreed and both operational commanders passed the word to the troops.
There had been a disagreement on how to handle the situation earlier. Whether to telephone the occupants of the addresses once cordons were in place and negotiate their surrenders or assault the buildings without warning. Unlike many of his staff the Commissioner of the Met had spent considerably longer in front line policing than the minimum two years. Pussy footing about with terrorists who’d butchered his unarmed officers went against the grain. That however had not been his line of argument. He stated, with some justification, that the suspects were heavily armed, ruthless and giving any kind of warning would further endanger lives.
Carmichael had finished dressing and had put the kettle on for himself. The coffee percolator bubbled and hissed with Alexandra’s favourite start to the morning. Striding to the kitchen window he pulled open the curtains in order to behold the new day.
“Shit!” breathed a black clad police officer of the team about to assault the rear of the address. PC Tony Stammers froze motionless in a crouch on Carmichael’s herbaceous border; he kept his head down and attempted to imitate a lethally armed garden gnome. Lying prone and using the garden hedges as cover the remainder of his team were less than impressed. Carmichael had been interested in the state of the sky rather than the progress of his Liliflorae and dropped the curtains back into place. Scuttling sideways into cover the gnome mimic received a thump on the top of his helmet.
“Next time you hug the cover, you don’t take short cuts!” hissed his sergeant and emphasised the salient point of his argument with a second, harder blow. Constable Annabel Perry, the errant SFOs partner, was looking at him with a despairing look on her face.
Intending to take Berria her morning coffee in the bath Carmichael raised one foot to mount the stairs when several things happened at once. Having climbed rubber clad storming ladders at the front and rear bedroom windows four SFO’s stormed through the flying shards of glass to toss stun grenades onto the landing and over the banister rail. Carmichael dropped the china cups and saucers he had held and was reaching down for a small handgun in its ankle holster at the sound of the windows shattering. Berria had been rather more switched on, she knew that what would come next would be mind numbing. Placing hands across her ears she slid below the water’s surface to muffle the sound. Four stun grenades went off with two of them within three feet of Carmichael, temporarily ruining his vision and hearing. Despite the pain in his ears Carmichael raised the gun in front of himself defensively and that was the sight that greeted the first two officers to burst through the front door.
Berria emerged from below the surface of the bath water the second she judged all the grenades had finished and heard two gunshots, so close together that the sounds almost merged. Fishing below soiled undies in the linen basket she withdrew and cocked an Uzi sub machine gun and extended its wire stock before opened the door to the landing.