The Death Sculptor

One Hundred and Ten

SWAT-team Beta was comprised of Charlie Carrillo and Oliver Mensa. They had entered the house through the front door. Mensa was the one who had used the breaching shotgun, so Carrillo was the first to blast through the door. The living room was large but sparsely furnished – an old sofa, a four-seater table, two armchairs, and a TV on top of a wooden box. Sitting on the sofa facing the door was a tall skinny blond man. He looked half stoned. On the sofa next to him was a Sig Sauer P226 X-Five semi-automatic pistol.

The man jumped in his seat like a donkey rejecting a mount as he heard the noise. His gaze seemed distant and totally lost for an instant, and then, as if somebody had waved a magical sobering wand, his eyes refocused with incredible intensity and he went for his gun.

‘Nuh-uh,’ Carrillo said, aiming his MP5 red laser target beam directly at the man’s forehead. ‘Believe me, buddy, you ain’t fast enough.’

The man paused with his hand mid-air, considering his options. He knew he was one sudden movement away from having his brains splattered all over that living room. His eyes burned with rage.

From the door, Mensa had moved like lightning, and while his aim searched the room for any new threats, he was already by the skinny man’s side, and had retrieved the Sig Sauer P226 from the sofa.

‘On the floor with your hands behind your back, now,’ Carrillo ordered.

The skinny man didn’t move.

Carrillo moved closer. They had no time to waste by arguing, or repeating orders. He brought the muzzle of his gun inches away from the man’s face, grabbed him by the hair, and dragged him to the floor.

With his knee locked onto the suspect’s neck, forcing his face to the ground, Carrillo used a special linked zip-tie cuff to tie the skinny man’s wrists and ankles together behind his back. The whole process took less than five seconds.

‘Qij ju, ju ndyrë derr!’ the man screamed, as Carrillo released the pressure from his neck. He started struggling on the ground like a fish out of water. No matter how strong he was, he was going nowhere.

Carrillo took one last look at the man’s face.

It wasn’t Ken Sands.