Blood, Bullets and Blue Stratos

CHAPTER NINE

They passed through silent streets, the orange glow in the sky behind them fading as it receded. Ray’s voice sporadically came through over the radio, keeping them informed as to the Deerys’ progress.

‘Parker Street … Freyermont Way, heading north, joining the new flyover …’

Gene powered the Cortina through the night at a fierce lick, hurtling down side streets and streaking along dual carriageways until he had overtaken the Deerys’ position and could sit in wait for them to arrive.

‘Back off, Ray,’ he ordered over the radio. ‘They’ll be driving by us any minute now. We’ll take it from there.’

‘Understood.’

The radio went dead. Sam and Gene sat silently, the Cortina tucked away in an unlit lay-by, waiting. A set of headlights approached. Gene’s hands tightened on the wheel. He let the Deerys’ Cresta go past, counted slowly to ten, then unobtrusively fell into pursuit.

The Deerys pressed on, heading north, always north. At times they slowed to a crawl to read road signs, and at least twice they stopped entirely to peruse a map by the overhead light in the car.

‘They’re not familiar with the route,’ said Sam. ‘You think they’ve been given directions by the RHF for a new rendezvous point?’

‘I was off sick when we did mind reading at school, Sam, so I can’t answer that,’ answered Gene. ‘But I know this: whatever it is, it’s not a picnic hamper they’ve got in the back of that motor.’

Gene drove cautiously, allowing plenty of space between them and the Deerys’ car up ahead. From time to time he even let them move out of sight for a few moments, then stamped on the gas and caught up again. He was determined not to be spotted this time.

‘How you doing, Guv?’

It was Ray coming over the radio again.

‘No probs, Raymondo,’ Gene replied. ‘But I’m killing the radio now, for safety’s sake. I don’t want to be spotted talking into it and I don’t want you piping up noisily at an inopportune moment. You and Chris, keep on standby in case we need you.’

‘We’ll be waiting for your call, Guv. Good luck.’

Gene clicked off the radio, then felt inside his coat for the reassuring bulk and weight of the Magnum. Sam found himself checking that his own pistol was safely in place.

They had followed the Deerys through what had started to feel like an endless suburb of drab houses and tower blocks, but now they were entering a bleak landscape of looming warehouses and industrial storage depots. The Deerys drove uncertainly, stopping from time to time, trying to get their bearings. Gene killed the Cortina’s headlights and crept ahead in almost total darkness, sticking as close as he dared to the Deerys’ rear lights.

‘The sort of place you could stash arms and explosives,’ said Sam, looking about at the anonymous sheds and storage yards.

‘And the sort of place you could stash a hostage, too,’ put in Gene.

‘You think that’s what we’ll find here?’

‘You tell me. Whatever the Deerys have come here for, it’s not drinks and nibbles. Keep your eyes peeled, Sam. Much as you grate on my nerves, I’d hate to lose you just yet to a bullet in the back.’

The Deerys’ brake lights flared. They had pulled up outside a tall set of wooden gates that were firmly secured with chains and padlocks.

Twenty yards behind them, Gene silenced the Cortina.

There was a pause. Nothing happened. Gene’s finger began to tap nervously on the wheel.

‘Come on,’ he murmured under his breath. ‘Come on …’

Moments later, the Deerys emerged from their car. Michael strode up to the wooden gates, rattled the heavy chain, and then shouted, ‘Open up, you stinking bastards! We’ve got your lousy package. Get your filthy English arses down here and collect it!’

‘I think he’s the same bloke who delivers my post every morning,’ murmured Gene.

Cait opened the boot of the car, and together she and Michael hauled out a large box, secured all over with heavy tape.

There was movement and the sound of chains rattling, and then the wooden doors slowly swung open. A man appeared, kitted out in black overalls, an assault rifle raised combat-fashion and trained on Michael Deery. Moments later, a second figure appeared, dressed in camouflage trousers and khaki shirt, brandishing a semi-automatic pistol. He waved it in a get-your-hands-up gesture, and the Deerys reluctantly complied. While the man with the rifle kept them covered, the man in fatigues frisked Michael, then Cait, found them clean of weapons, and indicated curtly towards the package. The Deerys said something, but the man with the pistol shook his head. When Cait moved towards him, imploring him with her hands, the man thrust the barrel of the gun in her face. The man with the rifle tensed, as if preparing to open fire.

‘Do we intervene?’ Sam breathed, already reaching for his firearm.

‘We sit tight,’ muttered Gene. ‘Don’t take it seriously. It’s all show. You’ll see.’

Michael and Cait backed away from the armed guards, exchanged a look, then together lifted the taped-up package and carried it through the open gates and out of sight.

‘Told you,’ said Gene. ‘The Deerys are worth far more to them alive than dead.’

The two guards followed the Deerys inside, and the gates swung shut behind them. With much clanking and clanging, the padlocks were secured once again.

At once, Gene slipped the Magnum from its chest holster and released the safety.

‘Let’s go, Sammy-boy.’

‘Where? You want to check out the Deerys’ car?’

‘Check out their car? We’re CID, Tyler, not Currie bloody Motors. I want to get past them gates and have a right ol’ snoop about inside. That’s where the action is. There’s chuff all going on out here.’

Sam thought hard for a moment. Gene was right, of course: it was pointless to come all this way to reach what seemed to be the very threshold of the RHF, and then do nothing. But, then again, there were armed men on the far side of those gates. Heavily armed men. And, if Brett Cowper was anything to go by, they were fanatics.

‘We’re taking a big risk going in there, Guv,’ said Sam. ‘Do you think it’s wise?’

‘Unless you’d rather sit here playing “I Spy” till they come out again,’ said Gene. ‘Come on. It’s like when you’re a kid on the high diving board: if you think about too much, you never jump. So let’s jump.’

They got out of the Cortina, Sam slipping the pistol from under his jacket. If Gene was going to jump, Sam would jump with him. He wouldn’t sit in the car while the guv went it alone.

‘Feeling like a good Boy Scout?’ Gene asked.

‘Ready for anything, Guv.’

‘You’d better be.’

‘Gene, keep it low-key,’ Sam urged him. ‘We mustn’t get into a shooting match. We’ll just observe, see what’s what, and call for backup.’

‘Well obviously, you pillock. I haven’t come here for target practice. Now, zip your cakehole and follow the master.’

Keeping low, making barely a sound, they crept through the shadows towards the Deerys’ parked car. Around them were the menacing shapes of storage buildings, deserted car parks, empty truck yards. Above them, a black and starless sky seemed to press down on them, reminding Sam momentarily of his dream. He pushed images of the Test Card Girl and her insinuations of hopelessness out of his head, and focused instead on getting himself and Gene in and out of this place alive and unharmed.

They reached the wooden gates and found them firmly chained.

‘We need to get in there,’ Gene hissed in Sam’s ear.

‘No,’ Sam whispered back. ‘It’s too dangerous. I’ll call for backup.’

‘No backup, Sam. Not yet.’

‘Why the hell not?’

‘Because, Samuel old chum, the Deerys are leading us to all the right people,’ Gene growled back, spelling it out for Sam as though he were simple. ‘They’ve led us to the Red Hand Wotsits, they can lead us to their IRA contacts too. They’re a bloody goldmine.’

‘But Guv-’

‘If we swoop now, that’s it — they’re kaput. The Deerys are worth too much to us to piss ’em away by nicking ’em. You understand? No backup, no raid — just you and me, keeping it quiet, observing from the shadows. Am I making myself clear?’

‘Crystal, Guv.’

‘Primo. Right, Sam, follow me.’

Gene ducked away, moving from shadow to shadow until he had disappeared from view. Sam steadied his breathing, calmed his heart, unwound his tightening nerve endings, and then dashed into the shadows after Gene.

Keeping well under cover, Sam and Gene moved about the high perimeter fence that enclosed the compound. They could see the roofs of various buildings rising above the level of the fence — warehouses, storage sheds, workshops — and the bright glare of security lights. At one point they stopped and listened, alerted by the sound of raised voices.

‘We’ve brought you what you wanted,’ Cait Deery was shouting. ‘Now we want to see her. You promised. You promised we could see her, you lying English scum!’

A man’s voice responded to her. Like Cowper’s, it was English, well-modulated, very middle-class. ‘Tonight’s not a good night for social visits.’

‘But you promised.’

‘I have a war to pursue,’ said the Englishman coolly. ‘I have to prioritise.’

Instantly, there were the sounds of a scuffle, and Michael Deery could be heard hurling threats and abuse.

‘That’, said the Englishman, ‘is not the way to earn privileges.’

‘She’s our daughter, you stinking English bastard!’ Michael spat back. ‘We don’t need to earn no privileges to see her.’

‘We supply you with everything,’ Cait shouted. ‘Without us, you’d have no war. You owe us.’

‘I owe you nothing at all,’ the man replied. ‘We’re in the middle of operations. We made a strike tonight. My duties lie with my soldiers, not with you. Surely you of all people can understand that.’

‘We’re not leaving here until we’ve seen her,’ Cait said flatly.

The Englishman, without any emotion in his voice at all, said, ‘Would you like us to start sending your daughter back to you one little piece at a time?’

‘You wouldn’t do that,’ Cait said.

‘I’ll do whatever I have to in the name of the revolution,’ said the Englishman. ‘Nothing is more important than the cause. You understand that. Now, go home, and await further instructions.’

Somebody spat, but, whether it was Michael or Cait, Sam couldn’t tell.

‘Be very careful,’ the Englishman said in a low, threatening voice. ‘Your daughter is at present all in one piece. That can change.’

There was movement, and scuffling feet, and the people on the far side of the fence moved away. Moments later, Sam and Gene heard the Deerys’ car doors slamming, the engine rev up and the vehicle move away back into the night.

‘Annie was right,’ whispered Sam. ‘It’s a hostage situation. The RHF’s coercing the Deerys by holding their daughter.’

‘Time for a good ol’ nose-about, Sammy-boy,’ said Gene, eyeing the height of the fence and calculating whether he could make it over.

‘It’s too high,’ said Sam. ‘And they’d see us the moment we reached the top.’

‘Us? Who said anything about you, pale face?’

Gene hurried over to the stretch of fence he intended to scale and beckoned Sam over with the barrel of the Magnum.

‘See?’ he said, pointing at a roof just visible above the fence. ‘There’s a building up close. I can monkey up the fence and get on the roof.’

‘I can’t imagine you monkeying anywhere, Guv.’

‘When the mood takes me I can monkey like a good ’un, you saucy tit, now listen up. No one will see me on the roof if I keep me head down. I’ll have a good ol’ shufty, see what’s occurring in there, then hop back down and we can leg it.’

‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Guv.’

‘The beauty of being your boss, Tyler, is that I don’t have to give a tinker’s what you think. Now, give me a bunk-up.’

Unsure quite what he was doing, Sam moved vaguely to put his hands under Gene’s armpits and push him skywards, but Gene irritably indicated that Sam was to make a stirrup by linking his fingers. Once Sam had complied, Gene planted his patent-leather loafer onto Sam’s locked hands, and braced for the jump.

‘You won’t let me down, Sam.’

‘I won’t let you down, Guv.’

‘Right then. One — two — three!’

Sam heaved. Gene’s weight bore down on his hands like an elephant, breaking his grip. Gene crashed onto him, and together they sprawled on the ground like a couple of half-arsed circus acrobats. But the sound of their bodies tumbling was masked by the bellow and cough of a large diesel engine firing up in the compound courtyard.

‘You could’ve broken my neck,’ hissed Gene.

‘You could’ve broken my hands,’ Sam hissed back.

‘My neck’s worth more than your flippers, Sam.’

The wooden gates of the compound were opened, and a truck moved out, trundling away into the darkness.

‘They’re on the move,’ said Sam. ‘More bombs and booby traps, you think?’

‘We won’t know if we don’t get in there and have a look,’ Gene growled back. ‘Right, Sam, seeing as you’re a prick-fingered pansy what can’t be trusted, looks like you’re the one gonna have to shinny up that wall.’

The clanging of the wooden gates as they were shut and relocked covered the sound of Gene jockey-lifting Sam up the fence. He practically threw Sam into the air, so powerfully did he lift him. Sam reached out and grasped the top of the fence, hauling himself up while trying to remain hidden from view behind the tall building next to him. He could see down into the courtyard — it was a wide space, with several vehicles parked in it, bathed in the bright glare of the security lights. A man with an assault rifle was locking the gates from the inside; two other men were carrying the package the Deerys had brought, heading for one of the various low-roofed buildings bounded by the perimeter fence. The security lights clicked off, the armed men disappeared; all that remained were a few windows dotted around with lights burning inside them.

‘Well?’ Gene hissed up at him. ‘What can you see?’

Sam gestured at Gene to shut up and keep quiet, and peered around him. He leant forward, squinting through the darkness at the registration plates on the parked vehicles — and then, sickeningly, he felt his balance shift. He reached out for something to steady himself, found nothing at all, slid, toppled, and fell.

The next thing he knew he was slamming to the ground on the wrong side of the fence. Pain surged through his body and he bit his tongue to stop himself crying out.

There was a voice, the sound of footsteps, a noise that might have been an assault rifle being cocked. Ignoring his pain, Sam scrambled for cover, squeezing himself into a tight space between towers of stacked pallet crates. He held his breath and waited.

If anybody had indeed been there, they were gone now. Silence. All Sam could hear was the furious beating of his heart.

He looked about. There was no getting back over the fence, not without noisily dragging pallets about and climbing up them. The wooden doors out of which the truck had driven were firmly chained. Even if Sam could reach them, somebody would see him, and then he’d be caught in the full glare of the security lights with nowhere to run. Given how determined and reckless the RHF were, they’d gun him down first and worry about who the hell he was later. And, even if they didn’t gun him down, he could not expect a friendly welcome if captured, especially once they discovered he was from CID.

That’s it, he thought — no way out, and no way of speaking to Gene without drawing attention to myself. I’ll just have a prowl about, hope to God nobody notices me, see what I can, and find a means of escape somewhere.

He renewed the grip on his gun — and then realized that he had no gun.

Where is it? he thought. Where the hell is it?

He looked about wildly, but there was no sign of it anywhere.

Damn it! I must have lost it when Gene fell on top of me. The damned thing’s on the other side of the fence.

He glanced about. There were lights on in the windows of a low cabin away to his left; from time to time, he glimpsed moving figures. Sam crawled, keeping to the shadows, until he reached the cabin and flattened himself against the wall. Inching up, he reached the level of the window and dared to peer inside.

The interior of the cabin was very spartan, with a couple of naked light bulbs burning in the ceiling. A number of rifles were lined up against a wall, above which a map of the north-west of England had been pinned to a board. The map was marked with lines and notes Sam couldn’t read — areas around Blackpool, Fleetwood, Morecambe Bay and the Cumbrian coast all bore scribbled information.

Targets for future attacks? Safe houses? Rendezvous points and meeting places?

He risked lifting his head further to see more clearly, but at that moment a figure stepped directly in front of him, only inches away on the other side of the glass. Sam instantly ducked back down, holding his breath, his heart hammering.

Too risky here, he thought. I have to move.

Without leaving the shadows, it was possible for him to reach an open-fronted shed just across from the cabin. Sam inched his way towards it. Peering all around, he could see no sign of movement, so he made a dash for it. He flung himself into the deep darkness of the shed and waited. No voices were raised, no lights snapped on.

My luck won’t last, thought Sam. I can’t creep around here all night. Where’s Gene? What’s he doing? Posing with his Magnum and chewing on a cigar? Damn him to hell! He’d better be calling for backup.

Sam was an unarmed officer, alone and in trouble. Gene was duty-bound to summon help. It was the correct procedure. Gene would follow the correct procedure. He would. He would.

God, I wish I could believe that.

Looking out from his hiding place, he saw movement. A door opened, and a young woman sauntered into the courtyard, a cigarette burning between her fingers. She was slim, neat, very youthful — perhaps no more than twenty-one — with her long blonde hair tied into plaits on either side of her face like Heidi. Unlike Heidi, however, she sported a large semi-automatic tucked into the belt of her camouflage trousers.

It was a strange sight, this delicate, attractive young woman all kitted out for war. Was she, like Brett Cowper, another educated, middle-class college graduate seduced by the RHF’s crazy mix of anarchism and world revolution? Was she high on the Red Hand Faction the way other girls her age were high on the Bay City Rollers or their latest boyfriend? Did a life on the run, planting bombs and shooting at policemen, give her the sort of thrills that the privileged existence she was born into could never hope to achieve? Was she spiting her parents by joining the RHF? Was she looking for kicks? Did she really believe all this rubbish the RHF stood for? What had motivated her to become an urban guerrilla, hazarding her life for a hopeless, violent cause?

Looking at her pretty face with its clear complexion and bright, intelligent eyes, Sam might have been looking at a young air hostess, a wannabe actress, a singer of pop songs; perhaps even a rookie detective new to the job and not yet hardened to the sexism and endless blokey bullshit of the force. He could not imagine her killing in cold blood.

The girl finished her cigarette. She placed it carefully on the floor, ground it beneath her boot — and then picked up the crushed dog end to dispose of it properly in a rubbish bin. She had embraced violent anarchism, but she had been brought up not to drop litter.

These people really are mad, thought Sam, crouching in the shadows. Perhaps that’s all the explanation there is.

He turned his attention away from the girl and tried to figure a means of getting out of the compound. There seemed to be no way over the fence from here, so Sam decided to keep moving and hope an opportunity presented itself. He ducked behind one truck after another, making for a set of workshops and lockups on the far side of the cabin. His hand kept reaching instinctively for his gun and finding nothing but an empty holster under his jacket.

I’m probably the only person in the compound who isn’t carrying a firearm, he thought. Unless the Deerys’ daughter is here somewhere.

Michael and Cait certainly thought she was here. If Sam found her, and saw a way of getting her out, what should he do? His instinct, of course, was to save her, but, if he did, the RHF would find her gone and realize CID were trailing their munitions suppliers. They’d go to ground at once, disappear — and only resurface again when they managed to trigger a bomb somewhere.

But if he found the hostage and didn’t take her with him, what then? He was a police officer — he had a duty to that girl, no matter the violent activities of her parents and no matter Gene’s views about running this operation. He couldn’t leave a young girl here in the hands of these lunatics. How could he face himself if he did?

I’ll do what I have to do, Sam told himself as he dodged and crept his way past the cabin. The moral debates will just have to wait for another day.

He reached a workshop. It was locked, and dark inside, but Sam could see rusty tools hanging from hooks by the window.

A short distance away, some sort of lockup shed was visible, its stout metal doors firmly bolted, the only window a tiny, thick-paned opening covered with a metal grille. As Sam looked, a light came on, and for a brief moment a small girl’s face appeared wretchedly at the grille. She peered out with sunken eyes — she was perhaps ten years old, twelve at the most — and then disappeared from sight.

Sam remained crouched in the darkness, hidden, thinking hard.

The moral debates will have to wait for another day, he told himself again. I’ll just have to do what I have to do.

He glanced about the compound, could see no sign of anybody moving, braced himself, and then dashed towards the lockup.