The Boudicca Parchments

Chapter 26

A feeling of dejection swept over Daniel as he was escorted back to the van. The guards actually seemed quite sympathetic towards him. There was no smugness or gloating as they slammed the van door behind him. It was if they realized that this was no “toe-rag” or “scrote” living a life of crime, nor even a man who thought he was above the law, but just an ordinary man swept up in a wave of circumstances.

This did not mean that they thought he was innocent, nor on the other that he was guilty. Just that he was an ordinary man who had somehow fallen afoul of the system and who now had to adapt to it, whether it be for a few weeks, a few months or a few years.

That last did not appeal to Daniel. But then again, in his mind, it wasn’t going to happen.

What evidence have they got? I was lured into a trap and some one set the place on fire? That’s not a case!

But as he felt the van moving, he realized there was more to it than that. What about the anonymous tip-off? They couldn’t even use it. So what did they have? Suspicion — naked suspicion. That was all.

In the darkened windows of the van, he saw flashes of light and he realized that photographers were holding up cameras, taking pictures, hoping that with the flash they would be able to capture his face. But the guard had been kind enough to position him facing the other way. At the time he wondered why. Now he realized.

His mind returned to his more serious predicament. Would they be able to check out his hired car and confirm that he hadn’t siphoned off any petrol? Would they “proceed with the indictment?” Peter Hackett had told him that if they did, it could be up to seventy days before the committal hearing.

Daniel was used to living in Spartan conditions, but he didn’t relish the thought of spending nearly four months behind bars.

At least it’ll be a British prison, he tried to reassure himself.

All those movies and TV series about prison rapes in the showers in American prisons didn’t exactly appeal to him.

“Cheer up mate,” said the guard in the van. “It might never happen.”

This was the kind of perky small talk that he could well do without. However, he couldn’t help but smile. The guard evidently meant well.

Daniel closed his eyes and tried to relax, feeling himself carried along by the smooth movement of the van. But his equanimity was shattered by the sound of an explosion. He opened his eyes to see panic on the eyes of the guard and hear machine gun fire raking the van. Peering though the heavy tinted glass between the rear and the driver’s section, he saw that the windscreen was not just shattered but was no longer there and the driver and front seat guard were slumped across the dashboard, unmoving.

He heard shouts from outside and saw the guard reaching into his utility belt first for his TASER and then for his CS-spray canister. For a second, it looked as if the guard was going to use them on Daniel himself. But then the guard turned to the door. There was a second explosion, but this one was much louder than the first — and more damaging. It smashed the double doors from their hinges and sent them flying, still locked together into the passenger cabin, smashing into the guard and slamming him against the partition between the cabin and the driver’s seat.

Daniel too was hit by it, but he turned away just as it happened and because he was further in, the impact was much less severe. It slammed hard into his left arm and shoulder with a powerful thump, causing a throbbing pain that lingered. But it was muscle pain. The door had impacted upon his flesh, but none of his bones were broken.

And it was then that Daniel found himself facing a most extraordinary sight. For standing outside the van, looking straight at him was an extremely tall, bearded man in the black costume of an ultra-orthodox Jewish sect.

Daniel’s mind was reeling from what was happening.

Has he come to rescue me?

But he had killed people. The driver and front seat guard had been either shot or blown up — possibly both — and the guard in the cabin was moaning in agony and bleeding profusely. Daniel hadn’t asked for this! He couldn’t accept freedom on these terms. It would be as if he had asked for this.

And then Daniel saw two things that began to put it into context. Firstly the tall, bearded man was holding a hand grenade in his left hand and a submachine gun in his right. Secondly, the man was raising the submachine gun into a firing position. But why?

Who is there left to shoot?

And then Daniel realized.

For a split second, he felt the urge to duck or squirm or cover his torso with his arms. But then he realized how pointless it would be. This was it: the “oh shit” moment.

And then it happened again.

There was a roar, like the gunning of a powerful engine and then another roar this one in a deeper pitch, but rising in pitch as it grew louder. And as the bearded man tried to position his finger on the trigger — made awkward by the grenade that was dangling from it — his eyes darted round and a look of terror broke out on his face as he tried to dive for cover.

He didn’t make it.

Instead he was hit by a large, powerful motorbike that sent him flying. The bike came to a halt directly behind the rear exit that had been turned into a gaping hole by the second explosion. And on the motorbike was a figure covered from top to toe in black leathers, face hidden by a fibreglass visor.

The figure’s head was turned so that he must have been looking squarely at Daniel. But who was he? Whoever he was, he was Daniel’s saviour. But what was Daniel to do now?

The figure looked round, in the direction that the bearded man had gone flying and signalled Daniel — with a sweeping gesture of his arm — to get out of the van and onto the motorbike. But Daniel hesitated. The same reservations applied as before. Even if the biker had not carried out the attack, to flee under these circumstances would make him look guilty. The authorities would have no way of knowing that the van was attacked by some one and that he had been rescued by some one else.

The man on the bike looked around frantically again and then produced a handgun and squeezed off two shots in what seemed like two different directions. The next thing that Daniel heard was a car engine roaring and receding. Again the man on the bike signalled Daniel, this time with the hand wielding the gun, but did not at any time point it at Daniel.

In the driver’s section, Daniel could hear voices on the radio suggesting that the police dispatcher was aware that something was up. But it was the next thing to happen that surprised Daniel most. The man on the bike lifted his visor to reveal his face and at that point Daniel saw that the he was in fact a she. And it was a face that he recognized. She had been baptised Siobhan Stewart.

But Daniel knew her as Sarit Shalev.

At that point his hesitation gave way to relief. He ran to the back of the van, leapt out and onto the motorbike, holding on to Sarit without fear or concern. The bike roared to life and swept past the fallen bearded man just as he was beginning to recover. Daniel felt the rush of wind and adrenaline as the powerful motor carried him away from the scene of the carnage. And in the distance he heard the sound of an approaching police siren.