Revenger

25

Carver heard the first bottle-bomb detonating as it hit the road, followed immediately after by several more explosions, then shouting, the squeal of a skidding, desperately braking car and the smash of metal on metal. Then the front door of the pub burst open and there were people streaming in. They were male and female, black and white, aged anywhere from early teens to middle age. They carried knives, pipes, clubs of every kind. One of them was even waving a handgun above his head. All they had in common were the hoods, hats and masks covering their faces and the hostility and aggression blazing in their eyes.

Schultz was staring at the mob, but he didn’t seem scared. The look on his face and the expression in his voice was more one of outrage as he shouted, ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ like they were disobeying an order.

The intruders ignored him. The gun went off, blasting a hole in the ceiling. But it didn’t have the effect they might have expected. Instead of yelling in terror and running for their lives, the regulars in the pub seemed to be galvanized by the sound of the shot. Two or three of them were even pulling out weapons of their own. Carver saw one of them wielding a fearsome-looking machete with a long, curved blade — like a cross between a scythe and a scimitar — that could slice through a human limb as easily as if it was jungle undergrowth.

A battle was breaking out, and Carver wanted no part of it. He looked across at Schultz: ‘Time we got out.’

Schultz snapped right back into the role he had played almost two decades earlier: the tough NCO taking orders from a Special Boat Service officer who’d earned his respect the only way that really counted with him — on the battlefield.

‘Got you, boss.’

‘And bring her.’

Schultz grabbed Chrystal by the upper arm. ‘Where’s the back way out of here?’

‘Through there,’ she said, pointing to a door behind the bar, and trying to make sense of the transformation that had suddenly come over Snoopy, the man who was scared of flying. He didn’t look scared of anything now.

‘Right, love,’ Schultz said. ‘Lead the way. Fast as you can go.’

She lifted up the flap at one end of the bar to let them through, and they followed her into a small kitchen. Schultz stepped across to a rack of knives and got out the longest one he could find. Carver moved past him to a broom that was leaning against the wall. The handle was wooden. He leaned it against a counter, stamped down hard and snapped it in two. Now he had a baton, roughly 75cm long, with a jagged end. Stick that in someone’s throat or face and they’d know all about it; jab the round end hard under their diaphragm or into their kidneys and, again, they’d be nicely softened up.

The back door at the far end of the kitchen led to a small, cobbled yard, no more than four metres across. Plastic crates and empty metal beer kegs were piled against the back wall of the pub. On the far side of the yard were two large, wheeled metal rubbish bins, about one and a half metres high, with hinged metal lids. To the left the yard ended in a double gate made of high, spiked metal bars. The gate was secured by a thick chain. Carver cursed to himself. The girl had led them into a dead end. No! There was a way out. If they rolled one of the bins up to the fence it should give them enough of a leg-up to get over without too much trouble, the girl included.

It was still raining, if anything a little harder than before. No, make that a lot harder.

Carver went up to the nearest bin and positioned himself behind it. He called across to Schultz. ‘Give me a hand.’

Schultz didn’t need to be told what Carver was thinking. One look at the bins and the gate was all it took. He stood next to Carver, stuck his knife in his belt and they started pushing. The swivel wheels rattled against the wet cobbles and swung from side to side as skittishly as a supermarket trolley, but they were making steady progress when Schultz said, ‘What the fuck’s occurring now?’

Carver had been pushing with his arms out and his head down. He looked up to see a group of rioters crossing the road towards the gate, coming in their direction. If the pub hadn’t been overrun by now it would be very soon. There was no way out apart from the gate.

The three of them were trapped.