War on the Streets

For a moment, Sofrides was tempted to try to struggle free and run for it. As if sensing this, Carney tightened his grip. ‘Don’t even think about it, Tony. I could outrun a little lardball like you in twenty yards flat. Besides, you might have a little accident resisting arrest, and we wouldn’t want that to happen, would we?’

Sofrides sagged, realizing he was beaten. His heart pounded in his chest as Carney turned the key and opened the boot, then shone the torch inside.

Carney was not prepared for the sight which greeted his eyes, and he was visibly shaken. It was revulsion, quickly followed by a wave of rage, which washed over him as the beam illuminated the girl’s contorted body, her sightless eyes staring up at him out of her pale, bruised face.

‘Jesus,’ Carney muttered, with a long, deep sigh. His body quivered with shock and anger.

The desperate urge to run washed over Sofrides again at that moment. Not really thinking clearly, he twisted his body to break free from Carney’s grip and jerked up one knee at his groin.

Carney’s reactions were fast, but not quite fast enough to avoid contact altogether. Twisting his body, he winced with pain as Sofrides’s savage blow connected with the side of his hip bone. That, on top of his grisly discovery, was enough to make Carney snap. His mind exploded in a red mist of pain and rage. Suddenly, everything came out – his tiredness, his frustration with the job, his total loathing of little low-lifes like Sofrides. He raised the heavy torch and smashed it against the side of the dealer’s head, shattering the glass. Sofrides screamed in agony as Carney drove a full-blooded punch deep into his solar plexus and then cuffed him across the ear as he began to double up in agony. Several more blows followed as the policeman went berserk, venting the full force of his frustration in a few moments of blind, senseless violence. Finally he pushed Sofrides over the lip of the boot until he was half lying across the girl’s body, and brought the heavy lid crashing down.

There was a last, agonized scream from Sofrides, then silence.

Mentally drained and utterly exhausted, Carney fell back against the side of the car, breathing heavily and cursing himself under his breath. Sanity had begun to return now, and he knew he’d gone too far.

There was no smile of greeting on the desk sergeant’s face as Carney strolled into the station later that morning. ‘Excuse me, sir, but the DCI asked me to tell you to report to his office as soon as you came in.’

Carney nodded. He had been expecting it. ‘Thanks, Sergeant.’ He headed straight for Manners’s office and tapped lightly on the glass door.

‘Come.’ The man’s tone was curt and peremptory. He stared grimly at Carney as he walked in. ‘Sit down, Carney,’ he snapped, pointing to a chair.

Carney did as he was told, his heart sinking. Harry Manners’s use of his surname had given him a pretty good clue as to the severity of the dressing down he was about to receive. He looked across at his superior with what he hoped was a suitably contrite expression on his face.

There was a moment of strained silence before Manners spoke. ‘Tony Sofrides is in the Royal Northern Hospital,’ he announced flatly. ‘He has two skull fractures, a broken arm, ruptured spleen and three cracked ribs.’

Carney could not resist the only defence he had. ‘Christ, sir, did you see that girl?’

Manners nodded. ‘I saw them both.’ He paused for a moment, sighing heavily. ‘Goddammit, man, what the hell got into you? Don’t you realize you could have killed him?’

Carney hung his head, although there was a spark of defiance left. ‘So what should I have done? Slapped his wrists and told him he’d been a naughty boy? Look, Harry, I know I blew my stack, and I’m sorry.’

Manners was shaking his head doubtfully. ‘I don’t think that’s going to be enough – not this time.’

Carney realized for the first time that he was looking suspension, possibly dismissal, in the face. He could only presume upon their years together as colleagues, and as friends. ‘Aw, come on, Harry. You can cover for me on this one, surely. There’s a dozen shades of whitewash. Resisting arrest, assaulting a police officer, injured while trying to escape…’ He tailed off, studying his superior’s face.

Manners shook his head again. ‘I’m not sure I can – and what’s more to the point, I’m not sure that I should,’ he said. ‘The bottom line is that you had a chance to make a righteous arrest and you blew it. Not only that, but you beat the shit out of the suspect as well. That’s bad policework, and we both know it. It was sloppy, it was excessive – and it was dangerous.’ He paused, sighing. ‘And it’s not the first time.’

There was a pleading look in Carney’s eyes. ‘Oh Christ, Harry. Don’t throw that crap at me as well. Three isolated incidents, spread over fifteen years in the force. I’ve been a damn good copper, and you know it.’

Manners nodded regretfully. ‘Yes, you have been a good copper, Paul. But you’ve got a touch of the vigilante in you, and that makes you a risk. One that I don’t think I can afford to take any more.’

There it was, out in the open at last. Carney sighed heavily. ‘So, what happens now? Are you going to suspend me? Or would you prefer me to do the honourable thing, and resign? Hand over my card and go the way of all ex-coppers and take a job as a private security guard?’

Manners fidgeted awkwardly. He was not finding his task at all pleasant. ‘That’s not your style, Paul – and we both know it.’

‘Then what?’ Carney demanded. ‘Is there any kind of choice?’

Manners looked uncertain. He shrugged faintly. ‘I don’t know…there might be,’ he murmured.

Carney snatched at the thin straw of hope. ‘Well what is it, for Christ’s sake?’

Manners looked apologetic. ‘Sorry, Paul, but I can’t tell you anything more at the moment. It’s just something which has filtered down from the boys upstairs. I’d have to look into it more closely, and it might take a bit of time.’

‘And meanwhile?’ Carney asked.

‘Meanwhile you take a rest, on my direct recommendation,’ Manners said firmly. ‘You’re suffering from stress. Overwork, the sheer frustration of the job, you and Linda splitting up. Let’s just call it a period of enforced leave for the time being, shall we?’

4

Maybe it wasn’t such a crazy idea after all, Davies thought, on the drive back to Hereford. He’d spent the remainder of the previous day and most of the evening hammering out the bones of a workable scheme with Commander Franks and Commissioner McMillan, and they had made surprising progress.

What had particularly impressed him had been both men’s total commitment to the job, and their willingness to be flexible. While he had not been given a total carte blanche, most of his ideas and suggestions had been listened to and given serious consideration. By the end of the day, they were all more or less in agreement as to the general size and structure of the unit they would create, and had a good idea of the sort of personnel who would make it up.

This factor alone had allowed Davies to take some vital first steps. After leaving the two policemen, he had checked into the Intercontinental Hotel and spent the rest of the night making a series of telephone calls. Most of the key personnel who would help set up the new force were already either on recall to active duty, or about to receive transfer orders. For obvious reasons, SAS officers with experience on the streets of Northern Ireland had been high on the list, along with individuals with particular skills or interests which might be required for such an unusual operation.

Now he was on his way back to Stirling Lines to start the tricky process of recruiting his foot soldiers, leaving Commander Franks to fulfil his promise to provide a nucleus of hand-picked police officers. It now seemed more than feasible that together they could merge the two interests and peculiar skills into a single, if somewhat hybrid, task force which could transpose the disciplines and tactics of a military force into a civil environment.

Only one thing had changed from the Home Secretary’s initial briefing. For try as he might, Davies had been unable to share the man’s conviction that the job could be seen as an operation for the SAS Training Wing. It had become increasingly clear to him that the task was in fact almost tailor-made for the Counter Revolutionary Warfare Wing. In many respects, the CRW team had already been doing that very job for a number of years. Davies intended to place the day-to-day operations of the new unit under their jurisdiction at the earliest opportunity and then duck out, remaining available solely as a liaison officer between SAS commanders and the Home Office should such contact prove necessary. That was the theory, anyway. But first came the people, for a unit was only a collection of individuals moulded to a common purpose. And finding the right individuals was crucial.

It would take a very special kind of young man to do the job properly, Davies was well aware. And young they would have to be, if Grieves’s theories were correct and their enemy was deliberately targeting the youth culture. Infiltration might well prove their best weapon, at least in the early days, which effectively ruled out anybody over the age of twenty-five. But they would also need to be sufficiently mature and stable enough to cope with the pressures and possibly the temptations they might be exposed to. They needed to be resourceful as well as tough, disciplined yet independent thinkers.

Davies nodded to himself thoughtfully as he pulled off the M4 at the junction which would bring him into the north-east suburbs of Hereford. Yes indeed – a very special breed of young man, for sure!

The white Escort shot through the red light and came screaming out of the side road into the main flow of traffic along Oxford Street. A collision was inevitable. The driver of the mail van stamped on his brakes and attempted to swerve, but was unable to avoid clipping the offside front wing of the Escort and spinning it round in a half-circle. The car bounced up the kerb, scattering terrified pedestrians in all directions, glanced off a bus stop and finally came to a halt half on and half off the pavement, facing the oncoming traffic. The squeal of brakes and the heavy thumps of a multi-vehicle pile-up continued for a full fifteen seconds. It was a nasty one. The shunts finally stopped, and there was a blessed few moments of silence before a concerto of angry car horns began to blare out.

Constable John Beavis slapped his forehead with the flat of his hand and let out a weary groan. It was only his second week of traffic duty and something like this had to happen. Even worse, he’d been due to go off duty in less than fifteen minutes and his daughter’s school sports day started at twelve-thirty. He’d promised to be there to cheer her on in the three-legged race. He began to walk towards the long snake of crashed vehicles, counting them gloomily. This little mess looked like it would take a couple of hours to sort out.

He hurried past the line of irate drivers, ignoring the dozens of shouted complaints and curses which were hurled in his direction. The sight of a uniform seemed to give them all a scapegoat, someone to blame. Finally reaching the end of the line, he approached the white Escort which had started it all and peered in through the closed passenger window.

There were two occupants, both young. A male driver and a blonde female. Both sat rigidly in their seats, gazing fixedly straight ahead of them through the windscreen.

Constable Beavis rapped on the passenger door with his knuckles. There was no reaction from inside the car. The couple continued to stare blankly ahead, ignoring him. He banged the window again, more angrily. Neither occupant even glanced sideways. It was as if they were both totally oblivious of what was going on around them.

Beavis felt his anger rising. They were probably both dead-drunk, he thought, and it made his blood boil. It was a miracle that no one had been seriously injured, let alone killed. As he wrenched open the car door the girl turned to face him slowly, like a video replayed in slow motion. Her face was blank, utterly devoid of expression. Beavis felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle slightly as he stared into her eyes. They were wide open, but vacuous, almost dead. Like two small green mirrors, they seemed to reflect back at him. Beavis noted the dilated pupils, the strange facial immobility, and came to a revised decision. Not drunk, worse than that. They were both stoned on drugs, blasted out of their minds, the pair of them.

His anger reached a peak and he thrust his hand into the car, grasping the girl by the arm. He wanted to pull her out, shake her, slap some life and some sense into her pretty, but stupid little face.

The girl’s lips curled slowly into a scornful smile, which was almost a snarl. ‘Fuck off, pig,’ she hissed, with sudden and surprising vehemence. Then, sucking up phlegm from her throat, she spat full in his face.

The young man also came to life. As Beavis staggered back, clawing at his face and trying to clear the sticky spittle from his eyes, he reached forward to the car’s dashboard locker, opened it and reached inside. His hand came out again holding a 9mm Smith & Wesson 39 series automatic pistol. With cool deliberation, he leaned across his passenger and brought the pistol up, taking careful aim. Then, with an insane little giggle, he shot the policeman straight through the forehead, between the eyes.

The youth lowered the gun again and unhurriedly opened the driver’s side door. He climbed out, dragging his girlfriend behind him. Hand in hand, they crossed the paralysed road to the far pavement and began to stroll casually in the direction of Marble Arch, firing shots indiscriminately into the crowds of panicking shoppers.

Two hours later, Commissioner McMillan had a full report on his desk. He read it gloomily, digesting the horrific facts. The constable had died instantly, of course. Of the four subsequent victims, one young woman had been dead on arrival at hospital and an older woman was on life support and not expected to make it. The two other bullet wounds were serious, but not critical. The Escort, stolen two days earlier in West Hampstead, had contained several bundles of right-wing pamphlets and propaganda material, along with a Czech-built Skorpion machine-pistol in the boot. The couple had eventually disappeared, unchallenged, into the underground system. By now, they could be anywhere.

McMillan finished reading the report with a heavy, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. All the pieces seemed to fit the pattern. Pushing the document across his desk, he sighed heavily. So it had started already, he reflected bitterly. He’d been hoping they’d have a little more time.

5

Sergeant Andrew Winston took a careful and calculated look at the pot on the table before flicking his eyes over his hand again. It was not an easy call. Seventy-five quid in the pot, a fiver to stay in the game and he was holding a queen flush. Winston hesitated, feeling vulnerable. Three-card brag wasn’t really his game; he was more of a poker man. He’d only allowed himself to be suckered in out of boredom.

‘Come on, Andrew,’ Andy Collins taunted him from across the table. ‘Put up or fold up. Or are you chicken?’

Winston never got a chance to answer the challenge. A strange hand plucked the three cards from his hand, dropping them face down on the table.

‘He’s not chicken – he’s just sensible.’

Winston whirled round, ready to jump to his feet and ready for a fight. Interfering with a man’s gambling hand was serious business. He recognized Lieutenant-Colonel Davies at once, instantly relaxing. His face broke into a surprised grin. ‘Hello, boss. What a coincidence, seeing you in this boozer.’

Davies shook his head. ‘Not really. I was looking for you.’

Winston was still puzzled. ‘How did you know I’d be here?’

Davies smiled. ‘I didn’t. But I’ve already been to just about every other pub in Hereford.’ He nodded at the cards. ‘Pick up your money. I need to talk to you.’

Winston looked uncertainly at the two players remaining in the game.

‘Don’t even worry about it,’ Davies assured him. ‘Collins wasn’t your real threat, except he’d have kept you both in the game longer and cost you more money. Pretty Boy’s the danger. My guess is that he’s holding a run – or better.’

It was a prediction which was about to be put to the test. Emboldened by the fantasy that he had bluffed Winston out of the game, Collins dropped his jack flush triumphantly. ‘See you, Pretty. Got you, I reckon.’

Pretty Boy Parrit shot him a scornful glance. ‘You got to be fucking joking, my old son.’ Slowly, deliberately, he laid out the king, queen and ace of spades and reached for the ashtray full of money.

Collins’s face dropped. ‘You spawny bastard. I thought you were bluffing.’

Pretty Boy grinned wickedly. ‘Who dares wins,’ he joked, scooping up the pot.

Impressed, Winston looked up at Davies. ‘How did you know?’

Davies shrugged. ‘Probably from playing a damned sight more games in the spider than you’ve had hot dinners. And from knowing men, being able to read faces.’ It was an expression of quiet confidence, rather than a boast.

Winston pushed himself to his feet. ‘But what if you’d been wrong?’ he asked.

Davies grinned. ‘I’d have paid you myself,’ he said – and Winston had no doubts at all that the man was perfectly sincere.

‘So, what did you want to talk to me about, boss?’ Winston asked, after Davies had bought fresh pints and led the way to an empty table. Davies took a sip of his bitter, eyeing Winston over the top of the glass. ‘Something’s coming up,’ he said flatly. ‘And I want you in on it.’ He paused for a few moments, savouring his beer. Finally, when the glass was half empty, he launched into a slightly edited account of the events of the past two days.

Winston listened carefully until Davies had completely finished. There was a slightly ironic smile on his face when he finally spoke. ‘Excuse me for pointing it out, boss, but aren’t you forgetting something rather important.’

Davies looked puzzled. ‘What?’

Winston laughed. ‘For Christ’s sake, you’re looking at it. Or are you getting colour-blind in your old age? I’m black, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

Davies stared at the big Barbadian’s grinning features with a perfectly straight face. ‘Fuck me – are you?’ he said, in mock surprise.

Both men shared the joke for a few moments, before Winston spoke again. His face was more serious now. ‘No, seriously though, boss. If we’re really talking about mixing with a bunch of these crazy fascist bastards, having me around ain’t going to help much, is it?’

It was Davies’s turn to be serious now. He felt a little awkward, knowing that he had to step on sensitive ground. ‘Maybe you’re forgetting something, Andrew,’ he pointed out. ‘Like it or not, the fact is that a high proportion of London’s drug abuse occurs within the black community,’ he went on, almost apologetically. ‘You’ll be able to get to places, gain the confidence of people who wouldn’t give us poor honky bastards a chance.’

Winston conceded the point with a nod. ‘Yeah, you’re right there, boss. I hadn’t thought of that.’

There was a moment of thoughtful silence. ‘Well, what do you think?’ Davies asked eventually. ‘Do you want in?’

Winston didn’t really need to think about it. He was normally a mild, easy-going man who never made a big thing out of race, and he was well aware that some of his more militant brethren would probably refer to him disparagingly as a white nigger for doing the job he did. But he had a quiet, but unshakeable pride – both as a man and as a black man. All extremes of bigotry offended his sense of decency and humanity. As he would sometimes say, if pressed on the matter: ‘We all bleed the same colour.’

He looked Davies in the eyes, nodding his head firmly. ‘I’m in,’ he muttered. ‘All the way.’

‘Good.’ Davies raised what was left of his pint by way of a toast. ‘I’m calling a briefing in the Kremlin for 0900 hours on Thursday. Meanwhile, I’d like you to come up with a few names, if you can. You’re closer to ground level than I am these days.’

‘Who have we got so far?’ Winston wanted to know.

There seemed no reason to withhold the information, Davies thought. He felt totally confident that he could count on the man’s discretion. ‘I’ve already called in Major Anderson from Belfast. And Captains Blake and Feeney will be at the meeting,’ he said. ‘With you on board, that should take care of the officer level. What we need now is a couple of dozen young but reliable troopers with plenty of recent experience in the Killing House. If we’re putting combat-armed men out on the streets, they’re going to need bloody fast reactions.’

Winston nodded in agreement. Davies was right about the last point. Knowing the difference between friend and foe was preferable in combat, but not absolutely crucial. Mistakes could, and did, happen – a death by ‘friendly fire’ was an unfortunate but accepted risk that every trooper took. If it happened, there would probably be an enquiry, but not a major scandal. The same could not be said for a mistake being made among the civilian population. One innocent person shot by mistake, and at least seven different flavours of shit would hit the fan.

That was where the ‘Killing House’ came into its own. Officially known as the SAS Close Quarter Battle building, it created remarkably lifelike situations in which mock battles could take place – often demanding lightning-fast reactions and split-second judgement by the combatants. At any moment they might be confronted by a dummy or pop-up target which could be anything from a terrorist with an Armalite to a blind man wielding his stick. Hesitate and you were dead, losing valuable points. Shoot too hastily and you risked being sent back to basic training, or worse. More than one SAS hopeful had been RTU’d purely on poor performance in the Killing House.

‘You’ll also be needing at least four specialist snipers, of course,’ Winston added.

Davies nodded. ‘And a couple of men with Bomb Squad training, and at least two good demo men,’ he confirmed. ‘But the fundamental requirement is going to be youth, which will probably mean a fairly high proportion of probationers. That’s why sheer quality is so vital on this one. We won’t have any leeway for any guesswork, or don’t-knows. Every unit boss will have to have absolute and implicit trust in every single man under his command.’

Winston thought about it for a few seconds, finally whistling through his teeth. ‘That’s a pretty tall order, boss.’

Davies nodded at him. ‘I know – a shitty job with a lot of responsibility. That’s why I’m asking you for your personal recommendations.’

‘Well, thanks, boss,’ Winston muttered, grinning ruefully. Being put on the spot like that was something of a backhanded compliment. He nodded discreetly over towards the table where the card game was still in progress. ‘Off the cuff, I’d say that Pretty Boy would be a rather good contender. He seems like a real laid-back bastard at times, but he’s got the reactions of a bloody mongoose.’

Davies cast a brief glance in the man’s direction. ‘Any specials?’ he wanted to know.

Winston nodded. ‘Explosives and demolition. That man can blow a hole in a building wall without rattling the windows.’

It was a wild exaggeration, but Davies knew what he meant. ‘Age?’ he asked.

Winston shrugged. ‘Twenty-eight, but he looks younger. And his accuracy scores on the range are impressive.’ Winston broke off to grin. ‘Despite his nickname, he’s not just a pretty face.’

It was time for a more direct and important question, and Davies asked it. ‘Would you want him covering your back?’

There was not a second of hesitation. ‘Rather him than a hundred others,’ Winston stated unequivocally.