'Standby!' called Tony. 'Lights to the north.'
On the chatter net I called the driver of our rammer van. 'All set, Joe?'
'Turning and burning,' he replied calmly.
'Fine. Listen out for my countdown.'
The lights bore down towards us, at first only one big glare through the drizzling rain, then three distinct pairs of headlam, ps, with blue police lamps flashing fore and aft. They were less than a quarter of a mile off when Tony's voice suddenly broke into the chatter net.
'Geordie,' he called. 'The cops are saying a rogue vehicle's bust through the cordon. There's a fourth car coming down the road.'
Jesus! I thought. Somehow the PIPA have rumbled us. They've overheard one of our planning conversations. They're coming to loin the party.
I had about five seconds in which to make a decision.
Abort or carry on? Pointless to abort. If this was the PIP-A, we were fairly well equipped to take them on here and now. If it was someone else pissing about we could stuff them with the greatest of ease. I said, 'Carry on as planned. Whinger, watch for a fourth fucking vehicle.'
In the distance, beyond the convoy lights, another faint glow was already visible. But I had no more time to worry about it. loss, driving the lead police car, had seen our obstruction and began to brake. The middle vehicle closed on him a bit, then slowed, increasing its distance again. The little group cruised on towards us at a diminishing pace. I kept mentally calculating the distance they had to run.
'Stand by to roll,' I told Joe. 'Five, four, three, two, one… GO!'
We stripped off our covert radios and dumped them in the boot of the Granada. Tony and I pulled on pairs of lightweight goggles. My eyes were glued to the approaching convoy, but my ears were listening for the engine o pounds ur van. There it was, running at high revs in second gear.
I flailed my right hand at the oncoming lights, urgently waving them down. The lead car had barely coasted to a halt when the van, its engine screaming, hurtled down on to the carriageway at right-angles and caught the meat wagon broadside. With a huge, crunching crash of metal and a screech of tyres the wagon was hurled sideways. As the wheels caught on the tarmac, the impetus toppled the van on to its right side and sent it powering on, sparks flying from the side that scraped over the road. From close quarters the violence of the impact was shocking. With a sudden stab of alarm I thought that the van was going to catch fire. If Farrell got roasted alive, that would be the end of everything.
It came to rest with the roo pounds ertical, on the edge of the shallow ditch. Then things happened very fast. I dived for the power saw, grabbed it, ran to the ditch, started up and applied the carbon blade to the metal.
Tony stood beside me, directing a torch on to the roof.
Above the scream of my saw I heard rounds going down in bursts, then the boom of flash-bangs.
The saw bit through the thin metal sheeting of the roof as if it were cardboard, and in a few seconds I'd made two big cuts running downwards and outwards from a central point at the top. A hail of fiery red sparks flew in all directions, and I thanked my stars that the fuel I could smell spilling out over the verge was diesel, not petrol. Out of the corner of my eye I saw somebody struggling out through the left-hand door of the cab, which was uppermost. Knowing it was one of our own guys I didn't worry; he'd keep out of the way, or.maybe just lie down.
One more cut across the bottom of my triangle and the job was done. As the piece came away, Tony stuck his head in through the hole, swept his torch beam and fired offwith a canister of pepper spray in the direction of the tail. Then he scrambled in through the opening and I followed.
The vehicle's lights had gone down in the crash, so the torches were our only illumination. In the beams I saw two gures piled into one back corner, struggling on top of each other, gasping and cursing and rubbing at their eyes. Tony reached them first and lifted the upper man bodily into the air, only to find he was attached to the second by a handcuff and a short chain.
Which was which? The top man had fair hair, the bottom one was dark; the minder was uppermost, Farrell on the deck.
Bolt shears out. Snap through the links. Blood shining on the floor of the van — or rather on the wall.
Grab Farrell.
He yelled a string of obscenities as t slammed him face-down, wrenched his arms behind him and got a pair ofplasticuffs pulled up tight on his wrists. 'Take it easy, Seamus!' he managed between coughs and splutters. 'That fucking gas! It's you, Seamus, is it not?
Jaysus, man, get offme! Get me out of this!'
That was all he could manage. He couldn't open his eyes. Blood was frothing out of his mouth, and as the pepper got to him properly he relapsed into incoherent roars. The spray was getting to me as well. My eyes were OK inside the goggles, but my nose, mouth and throat were burning, and I tried not to inhale.
I saw Tony had Farrell under control, so I dived back through the hole into the open and gasped in a few breaths of fresh air. Outside it sounded as though a full- scale battle was in progress: bangs, flashes, rounds clattering down, police sirens screaming. The moment Farrell's head appeared in the opening I grabbed him by the hair and pulled him bodily out. He collapsed on to the ground, bellowing and choking. A second later Tony dived out as well. Between us we hoisted the prisoner to his feet and gave him the bum's rush in the direction of the Audi. To right and left I noticed bodies lying on the ground.
It had originally been my intention to get Farrell in the back seat between Tony and myself. But on impulse I opened the boot, dumped him bodily inside and slammed the lid.
'Let's go,' I yelled.
Whinger loomed up in front of me, thrusting his MP 5 in my direction as he went for the driving seat. I grabbed the weapon, pointed it up in the air and squeezed the trigger, purely to make sure it was unloaded. To my amazement, five or six rounds hammered off into the night before the magazine was empty.
'For fuck's sake, Whinger!' I shouted.
'Get in! Get in!' he yelled. 'Stop pissing about.'
He already had the engine running. I leapt into the passenger seat, Tony into the back and with a squeal of tyres and the engine howling, the Audi shot away down the bypass.
'Those guys on the deck,' I panted. 'What happened to them?'
'Nothing.' Whinger sounded perfectly cool. 'They just lay down when we started firing.'
'What about the extra car?'
'A pale blue Lexus. It went past.'
'How?'
'Scraped round the front of the Granada, on the verge.'
'What was it doing?'
'Not a clue. But it was going like shit offa shovel.'
'Phworrh!' I was still choking and spluttering. 'Your tucking pepper, Tony.'
'I know. But it did the trick. I don't reckon our guy saw anything at all.'
In seconds we were nudging 120 m.p.h. Having tried an experimental ride in the boot earlier that day, I knew that Farrell couldn't possibly hear us talking: the noise inside the tin can was diabolical. 'Take it easy,' I told Whinger.:At this rate Stew'll never keep up.' On the radio I called, 'Zulu One to Zulu Two, what's the score? Over.'
'Zulu Two,' came Stew's voice. 'Mobile towards you. We have you visual.'
Looking back, I saw the Granada's lights in the distance. 'Zulu One to all Papa stations,' I went. 'Clear Point Charlie now. Anticipating Point Charlie figures six-zero seconds, repeat six-zero seconds.'
'Papa Nine,' came the answer. 'Roger.'