War on the Streets

PETER CAVE

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by 22 Books/Bloomsbury Publishing plc 1995

Copyright © Bloomsbury Publishing plc 1995

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2016

Cover photographs © Alain Le Garsmeur “The Troubles” Archive/Alamy (soldier); Shutterstock.com (textures)

Peter Cave asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008155360

Ebook Edition © December 2015 ISBN: 9780008155377

Version: 2015-11-02

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

OTHER TITLES IN THE SAS OPERATION SERIES

About the Publisher

1

Lieutenant-Colonel Barney Davies, 22 SAS Training Wing, cruised slowly down the Strand and the Mall, then turned into Horse Guards Road. It was not the first time he had been summoned to a Downing Street conference, and he’d learned a few of the wrinkles over the years. Finding a parking space was the first trick. You had to know where to look.

Finding his objective, he slid the BMW into a parking bay, climbed out and loaded the meter to its maximum. These things had a nasty habit of stretching out for much longer than anticipated. What might start as a preliminary briefing session could well develop into a protracted discussion, or even a full-scale planning operation. Failing to take precautions could prove expensive.

He turned away from the parking meter and, glancing up to where he knew the nearest security video camera was hidden, treated it to a lingering smile. Every little helped. If they knew he was coming it might just cut down the number of security checks he’d have to be stopped for. Picking his way between the buildings, he ducked into the little labyrinth of covered walkways which would bring him to the back of Downing Street and ultimately to the rear security entrance of Number 10.

In fact Davies was stopped only twice, although he suspected he had identified at least two other plain-clothes men, who had allowed him to pass unchallenged. He preferred to assume that this was due to his face having become familiar, rather than security becoming sloppy. There could be no let-up in London’s fight against terrorism.

The final checkpoint, however, was very thorough. Davies waited patiently as the doorman checked his security pass, radioed in his details and paused to await clearance. Finally, he was inside the building and climbing the stairs to Conference Room B.

He pushed open the panelled double doors and stepped into the room, casting his eyes about for any familiar faces. It was always a psychological advantage to re-establish any personal links, however tenuous, Davies had always found. It gave you that little extra clout, should you find yourself out on a limb.

Of the five people already in the room, Davies recognized only two: Michael Wynne-Tilsley, one of the top-echelon parliamentary secretaries, and David Grieves from the ‘green slime’. Davies decided not to bother with Wynne-Tilsley, other than to give him a brief nod. On the single occasion he had had any dealings with the man before, Davies had found him to be a close-lipped, somewhat arrogant little bastard, and far too protective of his job to give out any useful information. He would be better off having a preliminary word with Grieves. The man might be MI6, but he would probably respect Davies’s grade five security clearance enough to give him at least an inkling of what the meeting was about. And forewarned was forearmed. Davies hated going into things blinkered, let alone blind.

He sauntered over to the man, smiling and holding out his hand. ‘David, how are you?’

Grieves accepted the proffered hand a trifle warily. ‘Don’t even ask,’ he warned, though there was the ghost of a smile on his lips.

Davies grinned sheepishly. ‘Come on, David, you’re here and I’m here, so somebody’s got to be thinking of a joint operation.’

Grieves conceded the point with a vague shrug.

Davies pushed his tactical advantage. ‘So where in this benighted little world are we going to get our feet wet now?’ he asked. ‘First guess: central Africa.’

Grieves smiled. ‘Wrong,’ he said curtly. ‘A bit closer to home and that’s all I’m telling you until the Home Secretary opens the briefing.’

It was scant information, but it was enough to tell Davies two things. First, if the Home Secretary rather than the Foreign Secretary was involved, then it was a sure bet that it was a purely internal matter. Second, Grieves’s guardedness suggested that he had been called to another one of those ‘This Meeting Never Happened’ meetings. It was useful information to have. Briefings conducted on a strictly need-to-know basis were invariably the stickiest.

Wisely, Davies decided not to press the military intelligence man any further. He looked around the room, trying to guess at the identities of the other three occupants. The youngest man looked pretty bland and faceless, and Davies took him to be a minor civil servant of some kind. The other two were a different breed. Both in their late forties or early fifties, they had the unmistakable stamp of those used to exercising authority. The senior of the pair was tantalizingly familiar. Davies felt sure that he ought to recognize the man, quite possibly from exposure in the media. But for the moment, it just would not come.

Grieves followed the direction of his gaze. ‘I take it you recognize McMillan,’ he muttered.

It clicked, finally. Alistair McMillan, Commissioner, Metropolitan Police. Davies must have seen the man’s picture a dozen times over the past few years. Seeing him out of uniform had thrown him off track.

‘And his colleague?’ he asked.

‘Commander John Franks, Drugs Squad,’ Grieves volunteered. ‘Now you know almost as much as I do.’

‘But not for much longer, I hope,’ Davies observed. The Home Secretary had just entered the conference room, flanked by two more parliamentary secretaries. Davies recognized Adrian Bendle from the Foreign Office, and wondered what his presence signified.

The Home Secretary wasted little time. He moved to the octagonal walnut conference table, laying down his papers, and nodding around the room in general greeting. ‘Well, gentlemen, shall we get down to business?’ he suggested as soon as he was seated. He glanced over at Wynne-Tilsley as everyone took their seats. ‘Perhaps you’d like to make the formal introductions and we can get started.’

Introductions over, the Home Secretary looked at them all gravely. ‘I suppose I don’t really need to remind you that this meeting is strictly confidential and unofficial?’

Davies smiled to himself, momentarily. Just as he had suspected, it was one of those. That accounted for the absence of an official recorder in the room. Pulling his face straight again, he joined in the general nods of assent around the table.

‘Good,’ the Home Secretary said, and nodded with satisfaction. He glanced aside at the young parliamentary secretary who had accompanied him. ‘Perhaps if you could close the curtains, we can take a look at what we’re up against.’

The young man rose, crossed the conference room and pulled the thick velvet curtains. Pressing a remote-control panel he held in his hand, he switched on the large-screen video monitor in the far corner of the room.

As the screen flickered into life, the Home Secretary continued. ‘Most of you will probably have seen most of these items on the news over the past few months. However, it will be useful to view them all again in context, so that we can all see the exact nature of the enemy.’

He fell silent as the first of a series of European news reports began.

Davies recognized the first one at once. It was the abduction of the Italian wine millionaire Salvo Frescatini in Milan, some three months previously. The report, cobbled together from amateur video footage, police reconstructions and television news clips, covered the kidnapping, in broad daylight, the subsequent ransom demands of the abductors and the final shoot-out when the Italian police tracked the gang down. It was a bloody encounter which had left eight police officers dead and a score of innocent bystanders wounded. The film ended with a shot of the hostage as the police had finally found him – his trussed body cut to shreds by over two dozen 9mm armour-piercing slugs from Franchi submachine-guns. The kidnappers had been armed like a combat assault team, and were both remarkably professional in their methods and utterly ruthless.

The sequence ended, the venue switching to Germany and more scenes of murderous violence. Angry right-wing mobs razing the hostels of immigrant workers to the ground, desecrated Jewish cemeteries and clips of half a dozen racist murders.

A student riot at the Sorbonne in Paris came next, with graphic images of French riot police lying in pools of their own blood after protest placards had given way to clubs, machetes and handguns.

The screen suddenly went blank. Daylight flooded into the conference room once more as the curtains were drawn back. The Home Secretary studied everyone at the table for a few seconds.

‘France…Italy…Germany,’ he muttered finally. ‘The whole of Europe seems to be suddenly exploding into extremes of violence. Our fears, gentlemen, are that it may be about to happen here.’

There was a long, somewhat shocked silence in the room, finally broken by Adrian Bendle. ‘Perhaps I could take up the story from here, Home Secretary?’ the Foreign Office man suggested.

The Home Secretary agreed with a curt nod, sitting back in his chair. Bendle took centre stage, standing and leaning over the table.

‘As you’re probably aware, gentlemen, we now work in fairly close co-operation with most of the EC authorities,’ he announced. ‘Quite apart from our strengthened links with Interpol, we also liaise with government departments, undercover operations and security organizations. Through these and other channels, we have pieced together some highly unpleasant conclusions over the past few months.’ He paused for a while, taking a breath. ‘Now the violent scenes you have just witnessed would appear, at face value, to be isolated incidents, in different countries and for different reasons – but not, apparently, connected. Unfortunately, there is a connection, and it is disquieting, to say the least.’ There was another, much longer pause before Bendle took up the story again.

‘In every single one of the preceding incidents, there is a common factor,’ he went on. ‘In those few cases where the authorities were able to arrest survivors – but more commonly from post-mortems carried out on the corpses – all the participants in these violent clashes were found to have high concentrations of a new drug in their systems. It is our belief, and one echoed by our European counterparts, that this is highly significant.’

Commissioner McMillan interrupted. ‘When you say a new drug, what exactly are we talking about?’

Bendle glanced over at Grieves. ‘Perhaps you’re better briefed to explain to the commissioner,’ he suggested.

Grieves climbed to his feet. ‘What we appear to be dealing with here is a synthetic “designer” drug of a type previously unknown to us,’ he explained. ‘Whilst it is similar in many ways to the currently popular Ecstasy, it also seems to incorporate some of the characteristics, and the effects, of certain of the opiate narcotics and some hallucinogens. A deliberately created chemical cocktail, in fact, which is tailor-made and targeted at the youth market. Initial tests suggest that it is cheap and fairly simple to manufacture in massive quantities, and its limited distribution thus far could only be a sampling operation. If our theories are correct, this stuff could be due to literally flood on to the streets of Europe – and this country is unlikely to prove an exception.’

‘And the connection with extremes of violence?’ Commander Franks put in.

‘At present, circumstantial,’ Grieves admitted. ‘But from what we know already, one of the main effects of this drug is to make the user feel invulnerable, free from all normal moral restraints and totally unafraid of the consequences of illegal or immoral action. Whether it actually raises natural aggression levels, we’re not sure, because we’re still conducting tests. But what our boffins say quite categorically is that the use of this drug most definitely gives the user an excuse for violence – and for a lot of these young thugs today, that’s all they need.’

The Home Secretary took over again. ‘There are other, and equally disquieting factors,’ he pointed out. ‘Not the least of which is the appalling growth of radical right-wing movements and factions which seem to be popping up all over Europe at the moment. Many, if not all, of the incidents you have just seen would appear to be inspired by such ethology. The obvious conclusion is both inescapable and terrifying.’ He broke off, glancing back to Grieves again. ‘Perhaps you could explain our current thinking on this, Mr Grieves.’

Grieves nodded. ‘In everything we have seen so far, two particularly alarming factors stand out. One is the degree of organization involved, and the second is the degree and sophistication of the weaponry these people are getting hold of. We’re not talking about kids with Stanley knives and the odd handgun here, gentlemen. We’re dealing with machine-pistols, sub-machine-guns, pump-action shotguns – even grenades.’

Commissioner McMillan interrupted. He sounded dubious. ‘You make it sound as though we’re dealing with terrorists, not tearaways.’

Grieves’s face was set and grim as he responded. ‘That may well be the case, sir,’ he said flatly. ‘We have reasonable grounds for suspecting that a new type of terrorist organization is building in Europe, perhaps loosely allied to the radical right. If we’re right, they are creating a structure of small, highly mobile and active cells which may or may not have a single overriding control organization at this time.’

Commissioner McMillan was silently thoughtful for a few moments, digesting this information and its implications. Finally he sighed deeply. ‘So what you’re telling us, in effect, is that a unified structure could come into being at any time? That we face the possibility of an entirely new terrorist force on the rampage in our towns and cities?’

The Home Secretary took it up from there. ‘That is exactly what we fear,’ he said sombrely. ‘And we believe that conventional police forces may be totally inadequate and ill-prepared to deal with such a threat.’ He paused, eyeing everyone around the table in turn. ‘Which is why I invited Lieutenant-Colonel Davies of the SAS to this briefing today,’ he added, quietly.

There was a stunned silence as the implications of this statement sank in. Of the group, no one was more surprised than Barney Davies, but it was he who found his voice first.

‘Excuse me, Home Secretary, but are you saying you want to put the SAS out there on the streets? In our own towns and cities?’ he asked somewhat incredulously.

The man gave a faint shrug. ‘We did it in Belfast, when it became necessary,’ he pointed out. He looked at Davies with a faint smile. ‘And it’s not as if your chaps were complete strangers to urban operations.’

Davies conceded the point, but with reservations. ‘With respect, sir, an embassy siege is one thing. Putting a full anti-terrorist unit into day-to-day operation is quite another.’ He paused briefly. ‘I assume that’s the sort of thing you had in mind?’

The Home Secretary shrugged again. ‘Yes and no,’ he muttered, rather evasively. ‘Although personally I had seen it more in terms of a collaboration between the SAS and the conventional police forces. A joint operation, as it were.’

Davies held back, thinking about his response. Finally he looked directly at the Home Secretary, shaking his head doubtfully. ‘Again with respect, sir, but you are aware of the rules. The SAS does not work with civilians.’

The Home Secretary met his eyes with a cool, even gaze. ‘I think you’re rather stretching a point there, Lieutenant-Colonel Davies. I would hardly call the police civilians.’ He thought for a second, digging for further ammunition. ‘Besides, the SAS Training Wing works with various types of civil as well as military groups all over the world, so why not on home ground? Think of it more in those terms if it makes you feel better. A training exercise, helping to create a new counter-terrorist force.’

The man was on dicey ground, and he knew it, Davies thought. Nevertheless, his own position was not exactly crystal-clear, either. They were both dealing with a very grey area indeed. For the moment, he decided to play along with things as they stood.

‘And how would the police feel about such a combined operation?’ he asked.

McMillan spoke up. ‘We have discussed similar ideas in principle, in the past, of course. But obviously, this has come as just as much of a surprise to me as it has to you.’ He paused for thought. ‘But at this moment, my gut feeling is that we could probably work something out.’

The Home Secretary rose to his feet. He looked rather relieved, Davies thought. ‘Well, gentlemen, I’ll leave you all to think it through and come up with some concrete proposals,’ he said, collecting up his papers from the table.

‘Just one more thing, Home Secretary,’ Davies called out, unwilling to let the man escape quite so easily. ‘We’ll have full approval from the relevant departments on this one, I take it?’

The man smiled cannily. He was not going to be tempted to stick his head directly into the noose. ‘Grudging approval, yes,’ he conceded. ‘But of course you won’t be able to count on anyone with any real authority to bail you out if you come unstuck.’

It was more or less what Davies had expected. He returned the knowing smile. ‘So we’re on our own,’ he said. It was a statement, not a question.

‘Aren’t you always?’ the Home Secretary shot back.

It wasn’t a question that Davies had any answer for. He was silent as the politician left the conference room, followed by his aides. There was only himself, Commissioner McMillan, Commander Franks and David Grieves left around the table. No one said anything for a long time.

Finally, Franks cleared his throat. ‘Well, it would seem to me that the first thing you are going to need is a good, straight cop who knows the drug scene at street level,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘No disrespect intended, but it really is foreign territory out there.’

It made sense, Davies thought, taking no offence. Franks was right – the theatre of operations would be something completely new and unfamiliar to his men, and they didn’t have any maps. They would need a guide.

‘Someone with a bit of initiative, who can think for himself,’ Davies insisted. ‘I don’t want some order-taker.’

Franks nodded understandingly. ‘I’ll find you such a man,’ he promised.

2

The blue Porsche screamed round the corner into the narrow mews entrance at a dangerous angle, clipping the kerb with a squeal of tortured rubber and wrenching the rear wheel up on to the narrow pavement. Bouncing back down on to the cobbled street, the car slewed erratically a couple of times before straightening up and slowing down, finally coming to a halt outside one of the terraced cottages. Like everything else in this part of south-west London, the house was small but expensive.

Glynis Jefferson glanced sideways out of the car window, looking at the number on the house to check the address. There was no real need. The sounds of rave music and general merriment issuing from the house showed that the party was still in full swing, even at three-thirty in the morning. Relief showed on the girl’s strained face as she opened the car door and stepped out.

Her knees felt weak, buckling under her. She leaned against the side of the car for support, trying to control the violent shudders which shook her whole body in irregular and involuntary spasms. It was a warm night, yet she was shivering. Her young face, though undeniably attractive, was taut and lined with tension, ageing her beyond her years. Her eyes were wide, apparently vacant, yet betraying some inner disturbance, like a helpless animal in pain.

She pulled herself together with an effort and dragged herself up the three stone steps to the front of the mews cottage. She rang the bell, fidgeting impatiently as she waited for someone to answer it.

The door was finally opened in a blast of sound by a young man in his early thirties. Glynis did not recognize him; nor did it matter. Names were not important to her.

Nigel Moxley-Farrer lolled against the door jamb, appraising the young blonde on his doorstep. His eyes were glassy, the pupils dilated. He was either drunk, or stoned – probably both. An inane, vacant grin on his face showed that he approved of his attractive young vistor.

‘Well hello, darling. Come to join the bash? You’re too gorgeous to need an invitation. Just come on in.’ He lurched backwards, inviting her into the house.

Glynis shook her head. ‘I’m not partying. I’m just looking for Charlie.’

Despite his befuddled brain, Nigel’s face was instantly suspicious. His eyes narrowed. ‘Charlie? Charlie who?’

Glynis shuddered again. Her voice was edgy and irritable. ‘Aw, come on, man. Don’t piss me about.’ She paused briefly. ‘Look, I was at Annabel’s tonight. A guy called David told me I could score here tonight.’

So it was out in the open; no need for any further pretence. They both knew exactly what Charlie she was looking for. C for Charlie – the code word for cocaine among the Sloane Ranger set.

Still grinning, Nigel shook his head. ‘You’re too late, darling. Charlie’s been and gone.’ He spread his hands in an expansive gesture, giggling stupidly. ‘Hey, can’t you tell?’

Another violent spasm racked Glynis’s body. A look of despair crept over her face. ‘Oh, Jesus!’ she groaned. She looked up at Nigel again, her eyes pleading. ‘Come on, somebody’s got to be still holding, surely? The money’s no problem, OK?’

Nigel shook his head again. ‘Not a single snort left in the place. We all did our thing a couple of hours ago.’ He reached out, grasping her by the arm. ‘But don’t let that bother your pretty head, darling. We’ve still got plenty of booze left. Why don’t you just come in and get chateaued instead?’

Glynis shook free of his grip with a sudden, violent jerk. The sheer intensity of her reaction wiped the grin from Nigel’s face for a second. He stared down at her more carefully, noting the perspiration starting to show through her make-up, the nervous twitching of little muscles in her face.

‘It’s really that bad, huh?’

Glynis nodded dumbly. She looked totally dejected and pathetic. Nigel looked at her dubiously for a while, finally coming to some sort of a decision.

‘Look, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Got a pen and paper?’

Glynis nodded again, this time with a flash of hope on her face. She rummaged in her handbag and fished out a ballpoint pen and an old clothing store receipt.

Nigel took them from her trembling fingers. Holding the scrap of paper against the door-frame, he began to scribble.

‘Look, this guy is strictly down-market, and he charges way over the odds on street prices…but he can usually come across, know what I mean?’

The girl nodded gratefully. ‘Yeah. And thanks.’

She turned to go back down the steps. Nigel called after her. ‘Hey, look, don’t forget to tell him Nigel M sent you. It puts me in line for a favour, know what I mean?’

Glynis didn’t answer. Nigel remained in the doorway for a few moments, watching her as she climbed into the Porsche and backed hurriedly out of the narrow street. A slim female hand descended on his shoulder, and a pair of red lips which smelled strongly of gin nuzzled his ear.

‘Hey, come on, Nigel. You’re missing the party.’

Nigel turned away from the door, finally.

‘Who was it – gatecrashers?’ his companion asked.

Nigel shook his head. ‘No, just some junkie bird chasing Charlie. I sent her to Greek Tony.’

His girlfriend pulled an expression of distaste. ‘Ugh, that slimeball? She must have been pretty desperate.’

Nigel nodded. ‘Yes, I think she was,’ he muttered.

Detective Sergeant Paul Carney sat at his desk, sifting through a growing pile of paperwork. Several empty plastic cups from the coffee machine and an ashtray filled with cigarette stubs testified to a long, all-night session. There was a light tap on his office door, and Detective Chief Inspector Manners let himself in without waiting for an invitation. There was a faintly chiding look on his face as he confronted Carney.

‘Didn’t see your name on the night-duty roster, Paul,’ he observed pointedly.

Carney shrugged. ‘Just catching up on some more of this fucking paperwork, when I ought to be out there on the streets. Bringing this week’s little tally up to date.’

Manners clucked his teeth sympathetically. ‘Bad, huh?’

Carney let out a short, bitter laugh. ‘You tell me how bad is bad. In the last four days we’ve snatched five and a half kilos of coke at Heathrow alone. That means a minimum of twenty-five kilos got through. This morning we pulled a stiff off an Air India flight. Two hundred grand’s worth of pure heroin in his guts, packed in condoms. One of ’em burst during the flight. What you might call an instant high.’

‘Jeezus, I thought those things were supposed to stop accidents,’ Manners said.

‘Not funny, Harry,’ Carney muttered. ‘Christ, we’re under fucking siege here. Provincial airports, the ferries, commercial shipping, private boats and planes, bloody amateurs bringing back ten kilos of hash from their Club 18-30 holidays on Corfu. And we haven’t got a fucking clue yet what’s going to come flooding in through the Channel Tunnel. There’s shit coming at us from all sides, Harry – and we’re being buried under it.’

‘We…or you, Paul?’ Manners asked gently.

Carney shrugged. ‘Does it matter? Caring goes with the job.’

Manners conceded the point – with reservations. ‘Caring, maybe. Getting too personally involved, no. You’re getting in too deep, Paul. Maybe it’s time to think about a transfer out of drugs division for a while.’

Carney blew a fuse. ‘Dammit, Harry, I don’t want a bloody transfer. What I want is to get this job done. I want every dealer, every distributor, every small-time school-gate pusher out of business, off the streets, and in the nick.’

‘That isn’t going to happen, and you know it.’

Carney nodded his head resignedly. ‘Yeah. So meanwhile I’m supposed to just tot up the casualties without getting uptight – is that it?’ He paused, calming down a little. ‘I suppose you know we’ve got a batch of contaminated smack out on the streets in the SW area?’

Manners shook his head. ‘No, I didn’t,’ he admitted. ‘How bad is it?’

‘Bad bad,’ Carney muttered. ‘Two kids dead already and one more in a coma on a life-support system. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. We don’t know yet how much more of the stuff is out there, or how widely it’s already been distributed. And on top of that, there’s this new synthetic shit which has started to come in from Europe. Early reports say that it’s really bad medicine.’

Manners smiled sympathetically. ‘OK, Paul, I’ll get you what extra help I can,’ he promised. ‘Meanwhile, you go home and get some sleep, eh?’

Carney grinned cynically. ‘We don’t need help, my friend – we need a bloody army. That’s a fucking war out there on the streets.’

‘Yeah,’ Manners said, and shrugged. There was nothing he could say or do which would make the slightest amount of difference. He turned back towards the door.

‘Oh, by the way,’ Carney called after him. ‘You think I get too personally involved. You want to know why?’

Manners paused, his hand on the door-knob.

‘The kid on the life-support system,’ Carney went on. ‘His name’s Keith. He’s fifteen. His parents live in my street.’

Glynis Jefferson studied the row of sordid-looking tenements through the windscreen of the Porsche with a distinct feeling of unease. This was definitely not Sloane Ranger country. This was ghettoland. Under normal circumstances, she would have jammed the car into gear and driven away as fast as she could. But tonight she was not in control; all normal considerations were driven out of her mind by her desperate craving. She checked the address on the slip of paper, identifying the block in question. Glancing nervously about her, she stepped out of the car and walked up to the front door. Rows of bells and small cards identified the building as divided into numerous bedsitters and flatlets.

The door was slightly ajar. Cautiously, Glynis pushed it open, wrinkling her nose in disgust at the stench of filth and squalor which wafted out. She stepped gingerly over the threshold into a dark, dingy and filthy hallway, littered with junk mail and other debris. For a moment her instincts screamed out at her to turn back, run away. But then the shudders shook her body again, a pain like a twisting knife shrieked through her guts. She walked down the hallway past a row of grimy doors, most with bars or metal grilles over the glazed top half.

She stopped at the fifth one and knocked urgently. There was a long pause before the door opened a few inches and a pair of shifty eyes inspected her through the crack. Obviously they liked what they saw. The door opened fully to reveal Tony Sofrides, grubby and unshaven, with dark, oiled hair hanging down to his shoulders in greasy, matted strands. He was wearing only a soiled T-shirt and a pair of equally filthy underpants. His eyes ran up and down Glynis’s body as though she were a prime carcass hanging in a meat warehouse.

‘Well, you’re a bit out of your patch, aren’t you, princess?’ he drawled, noting her expensive night-club apparel. ‘What’s the matter? Lost our way to the Hunt Ball, have we?’

Glynis thrust the piece of paper under his nose. ‘Nigel M sent me. I need to score.’

Sofrides snatched the paper out of her hand, scanning it with suspicious, furtive eyes. ‘Did he now? Presumptuous little bastard, ain’t he? So what did he tell you?’

‘That you were a reliable supplier. I need Charlie. You holding?’

Sofrides leered at her, revealing a row of yellowed teeth. ‘I’m always holding, baby,’ he boasted. ‘Regular little mister candy-man to those who know how to treat me right.’ He stepped back from the door, inviting her to enter. ‘Come on in, sweetheart.’

Glynis hesitated, despite her urgent craving.

Sofrides shrugged. ‘Look, you wanna score or not? I don’t do business in hallways and I ain’t got time to fart about. Now you either come in or you fuck off. Your choice.’

Glynis made her choice. Reluctantly she stepped into the sordid bedsit, glancing around at the filth and mess in disgust as Sofrides closed the door behind her.

Catching the look on her face, Sofrides glared at her. ‘No, darling, it ain’t your daddy’s country house in Essex, but it’s where I live. So don’t turn your pretty little nose up, OK?’

Glynis rummaged in her handbag and pulled out a thin wad of notes. ‘Look, can we get this over with? I just want a couple of hits to tide me over, but I’ll take more if you want to make a bigger deal.’

Sofrides glanced at the money contemptuously, returning his eyes to her body. ‘Actually, darling, I’m not exactly strapped for cash right now,’ he said. He paused, jerking his head over to the grimy, unmade bed in the corner of the room. ‘But I am a little short on company, if you know what I mean. Wanna deal?’

Glynis shuddered – but this time it was mental revulsion rather than the desperate need of her drug-addicted body. ‘No thanks,’ she spat out, turning towards the door.

Sofrides jumped across the room, cutting off her retreat. ‘Wise up, kid,’ he said, grinning wickedly. ‘It’s four in the morning and I’m your last chance. Do you really think you can hold out for much longer?’ He raised his hand, extending one finger and running it slowly across her lips, down her throat and into the cleavage of her breasts. ‘Now, are we going to play or not?’

3

The sex was quick, violent and sordid. Afterwards Glynis felt dirty all over, and it wasn’t just the accumulated sweat and grime clinging to the grey bedsheets. Thankful that it was over, at least, she dressed hurriedly as Sofrides lay back on his pillow, grinning with post-coital pleasure.

Glynis glared at him, undisguised loathing in her eyes. ‘Right, you’ve been paid in full. Now what about my score?’

Sofrides leered at her. ‘I got bad news for you, princess. Apart from having me tonight, you’re right out of luck. Ain’t a snort of coke in the place.’

It took several seconds for the words to sink into Glynis’s mind. When it finally did, her first reactions were of shock and sheer panic, quickly followed by a wave of pure hatred. ‘You lousy little bastard,’ she screamed. ‘You told me you were holding.’

She hurled herself across the room in a blaze of fury, her arms flailing wildly. Sofrides uncoiled from the bed like a snake, warding off the attack by grasping her by the wrist and twisting her arm savagely. Drawing back his free hand, he smashed her across one side of her face and backhanded her on the other. He pushed her to the floor, where she lay sobbing.

The dealer looked down at her without pity. He crossed slowly to a chest of drawers, opened it and pulled out a flat tobacco tin, which he tossed on to the bed. ‘I got some smack, that’s all. Take it or leave it.’

Glynis crawled to her feet, shaking and in pain both from the violence of his attack and her appalling craving. Uncertainly, she moved towards the bed and opened the tin. She stared dumbly at the loaded hypodermic syringe it contained.

‘Well, come on, darling. I ain’t got all night,’ Sofrides challenged her, seeing her hesitation. He moved up beside her, taking out the syringe and thrusting it into her hand. ‘Shoot up and get out, before I change my mind.’

Glynis stared at the syringe in horrified fascination. Her face was a mixture of desperation, fear and bewilderment. She glanced up at Sofrides, her eyes almost pleading.

His lips curled into a scornful sneer as he identified her problem. ‘You little silver-plated spoon-sniffers. You’ve never shot up before, have you?’

Glynis could only nod.

‘Here, I’ll show you,’ Sofrides said. He clenched his fist, pumping his forearm up and down half a dozen times. He pointed to his slightly throbbing vein. ‘Just there, see? Just stick the needle in and push the plunger. That’s all there is to it.’

Awkwardly, Glynis copied his movements, holding the syringe clumsily in a trembling hand, almost at arm’s length. Fumbling and shaky, she pushed the gleaming point of the needle towards her arm.

Sofrides looked away, letting out a little snort of disgust. ‘Oh Christ! Go in the bloody bathroom and do it, will you?’

Still unsure, Glynis slunk into the poky bathroom and closed the door behind her. Sofrides threw himself back on the bed, propped himself up with a pillow and lit a cigarette. He plumed smoke up at the ceiling, grinning. He felt very pleased with himself.

The cigarette had burned down to a stub before he thought about the girl again. After crushing it out in the ashtray he pushed himself off the bed and strode to the bathroom door, rapping on it with the back of his hand. ‘What the hell are you doing in there?’ he demanded irritably. There was no answer.

He tried the door handle. It was unlocked. Sofrides pushed the door open to find Glynis sitting stiffly on the toilet, her head lolling back against the pipe from the cistern. The empty hypodermic dangled loosely from her fingers at arm’s length. Her face was ghostly white, her eyes wide and staring and her body twitching convulsively and obscenely.

Sofrides looked at her without sympathy. ‘Feel rough, huh? Don’t worry. A couple of minutes and you’ll be high as a kite.’ He reached down to seize her by the elbow, and hauled her roughly to her feet. The empty syringe dropped from her fingers, shattering on the tiled floor.

‘Come on, I want you out of here,’ Sofrides told the girl curtly, as he tried to drag her out of the bathroom.

Glynis took a couple of shuffling steps and stopped, her legs sagging beneath her. She would have collapsed to the floor but for the dealer’s grip on her arm. He pushed her back against the bathroom wall, propping her up. There was the first trace of concern on his face as he noted her wildly rolling eyes, the tremors which rocked her body and the shallowness of her breathing. Even as he watched, Glynis seemed to be torn by a convulsion of pain which caused her body to jackknife and made her clutch at her abdomen with her free hand. She let out one long, shuddering groan and went limp, before sliding down the wall to sit on the floor like a puppet whose strings have just been cut.

‘Oh shit!’ Sofrides spat out in anger – but it was fear that registered on his face. He dropped to his knees, staring into the girl’s wide, but unseeing eyes. They were completely still now, and her body was totally motionless. Panic rising in him, Sofrides snatched up her wrist, feeling for the faintest hint of a pulse. There was nothing.

Sofrides pushed himself to his feet and stood there shaking for a few seconds, his brain racing. He turned towards the telephone, thinking briefly about calling an ambulance but rejecting the idea almost immediately. The girl’s face was already puffy and showing signs of bruising where he had struck her. He remembered the bite marks he had put in the soft flesh of her breasts during their brief sexual encounter. With his criminal record, reporting the girl’s death was tantamount to placing himself on a manslaughter charge at the very least.

He tried to think, as he paced round the small bedsitter several times, trying not to look at the girl’s lifeless form slumped just inside the bathroom door. He crossed to the room’s single window and stared out into the dark and deserted street.

There was only one choice, he realized finally. Somehow, he had to get the girl’s body into his car without being seen. After that it would be easy. London had hundreds of backstreets and alleyways where the body of a drug addict, drunk or vagrant turned up every so often. With nothing to connect the girl to him, she would be just another statistic.

His mind made up, as quietly as he could Sofrides began to drag Glynis’s body towards the door.

Paul Carney tidied up the paperwork on his desk and switched off the Anglepoise lamp. Rising, he crossed to the door and switched off the main light, plunging his office into darkness. Locking the door, he strode across the deserted main office towards the outer reception area.

The desk sergeant looked up at him, grinning, as he walked past. ‘Barbados for our hols this year, is it, Mr Carney? Or a world cruise, with all this overtime you’ve been putting in?’

Carney smiled at the man wearily. ‘Oh yeah, at least,’ he muttered. ‘Goodnight, Sergeant.’

The man nodded. ‘Goodnight, sir.’

Carney walked out into the night air, taking a deep breath before heading for the rear car park. On reaching his Ford Sierra, he climbed in and drove slowly to the main gates. He was exhausted, yet in no hurry to get home. Or at least back to the Islington flat, Carney reminded himself, thinking about it. It had ceased to be a home when Linda had walked out, over six months earlier. She’d even taken the dog.

The roads were almost deserted. Carney cruised past the rows of darkened office buildings for a couple of miles before turning off into the residential back-streets around Canonbury. He passed a small row of shops, some with their windows still lit or showing dim security lights in their rear storage areas.

The grey Volvo took him by surprise, shooting out from a small side road only yards ahead of him. Carney stamped on the brakes instinctively, allowing the car to complete its left turn and accelerate away from him with a squeal of rubber on tarmac.

Crazy bastard, Carney thought, reacting as a fellow road-user. Then the copper in him took over, asking the obvious question. What could be so damned urgent, at four-thirty in the morning? He stamped down on the accelerator, making it his business to find out.

Carney caught up with the Volvo at the next set of traffic lights. He pulled across the vehicle’s front wing and leapt out of his own car. He wrenched the driver’s side door of the Volvo open.

‘All right, you bloody moron. What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’ he growled, before he had even seen who was sitting at the wheel. There was a long, thoughtful pause as he recognized the driver.

‘Well, well, well,’ Carney said slowly. ‘If it isn’t Tony the Greek. And what particular form of nastiness are you up to tonight, you little scumbag?’

Sofrides looked up at him with a fearful expression, cursing the cruel vagaries of fate which had thrown Detective Sergeant Paul Carney across his path this night of all nights. They’d had run-ins before – almost every one of them to his cost.

‘I ain’t done nothing, honest, Mr Carney,’ Sofrides whined, desperately trying to bluff it out.

Carney grinned cynically. ‘You don’t have to do anything, Tony. Just being in the vicinity constitutes major environmental pollution.’ He held the door back, jerking his head. ‘Out.’

Reluctantly, Sofrides climbed out of the car, still protesting his innocence. ‘I’m clean, Mr Carney – honest.’

Carney shook his head. ‘You wouldn’t be clean if you bathed in bleach and gargled with insecticide,’ he grunted. He paused, staring at the young man thoughtfully. There was something wrong, something out of character. Sofrides was not displaying his usual arrogance. He looked frightened, guilty.

‘What’s wrong with you tonight, Tony?’ Carney demanded. ‘Where’s all the usual backchat, the bullshit? You’re scared, Tony – and that makes me very suspicious indeed.’

Increasingly desperate, Sofrides tried to force a smile on to his face. ‘I told you, I ain’t done nothing. I just don’t feel so good, that’s all. Must have been something I ate.’

It wasn’t going to wash. Carney was convinced he was on to something now. He peered at Sofrides’s face more closely.

‘I do have to admit that you don’t look so good,’ he muttered. ‘In fact, Tony, you look as sick as the proverbial parrot.’ He paused momentarily. ‘Know what I think, Tony? I think you’ve just made a collection and I’ve caught you bang to rights. I think you’re carrying a major consignment of naughties, that’s what I think. The question is: what, and where?’

Carney suddenly seized Sofrides by the arm, forcing it up around his back in a savage half nelson. He frogmarched him over to his own car, opened it and pulled a pair of handcuffs out of the glove compartment. Snapping the cuffs around the young man’s wrist, he pushed him back to the Volvo, wound down the window a few inches and clipped the other bracelet to the door-frame.

‘So let’s take a little look-see, shall we,’ he suggested, returning to his own vehicle for just long enough to grab a powerful torch.

The Volvo seemed clean, much to Carney’s disappointment. Sofrides watched him search thoroughly beneath and behind the seats, in the glove compartment and underneath the dashboard.

‘See, I told you I ain’t done nothing. So how about letting me go, Mr Carney?’ Sofrides suggested hopefully.

Carney shook his head. ‘We’ve only just got started, Tony. It’d be a pity to break the party up this early now, wouldn’t it?’ He straightened up from searching the interior of the car. ‘Right, let’s take a little look in the boot.’

A fresh glimmer of panic crossed Sofrides’s eyes. ‘Look, tell you what. Suppose I make you a deal?’ he blurted out.

Carney sounded unimpressed. ‘Oh yes, and what sort of deal would that be, Tony?’

Sofrides snatched at his slim remaining chance eagerly. ‘I know a couple of new crack houses which have just opened up. I can give you names…places…times.’

Carney grinned wickedly at him. ‘But you’ll do that anyway, once I get you nailed,’ he pointed out. ‘You’ll sing your little black heart out just as soon as you see the inside of the slammer. You’ll have to do a bit better than that, Tony.’

Sofrides was really desperate now, clutching at straws. ‘How about if I set someone up for you – someone big?’ he suggested. ‘I’m only a little fish, Mr Carney – you know that.’

Carney paused, tempted. ‘And who might you have in mind?’ he asked.

Sofrides picked a name at random. ‘How about Jack Mottram? He deals in ten Ks at a time.’

Carney sighed wearily. The little bastard was trying to wind him up, he thought. ‘Jack Mottram wouldn’t piss on you if your arse was on fire,’ he said scathingly. ‘Now stop jerking my chain, all right?’ He pulled the key to the handcuffs from his pocket, releasing them from the Volvo door. He grabbed Sofrides by the scruff of the neck, dragging him round to the back of the car and nodding down at the boot.

‘Right, just so we don’t hear any little whinges about planted evidence,’ he muttered. ‘Open it up and we’ll take a little look in Pandora’s box.’

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.

Davies took the personal recommendation at face value. ‘All right, bring him in,’ he said quietly. He drained his beer and pushed himself to his feet, adding: ‘Well, I’ll leave you to go and lose some more money.’

Winston looked at him sheepishly, then grinned. ‘Your confidence in me is totally underwhelming, boss.’

6

Paul Carney’s telephone rang. It was by far the most exciting thing that had happened to him in two days. He virtually jumped across the flat to snatch it up.

‘Paul?’ The voice on the other end of the phone was hesitant, almost apologetic.

And so it ought to be, Carney thought, recognizing the caller as DCI Manners. The man had, after all, virtually suspended him. His response was somewhat less than enthusiastic. ‘Yeah?’ he grunted. ‘What is it?’

There was a long sigh on the other end of the line as Manners got the message. It was more or less the reaction he had been expecting. ‘Look, Paul, about that special job I mentioned to you,’ he muttered, finally. ‘They want to see you.’

‘They? Who’s they?’ Carney asked guardedly.

‘Sorry, Paul, but I can’t tell you that,’ Manners apologized. ‘But there are a couple of Special Branch officers on their way round to your flat now. I’m sure they will explain everything to you.’

Eagerness, and the air of mystery, had already raised Carney to a pitch of anticipation. A sense of frustration was not far behind.

‘Special Branch?’ Carney queried irritably. ‘For Christ’s sake, Harry, what’s going on here?’

‘Sorry, but that’s all I can tell you for the minute,’ Manners said flatly. He had only the sketchiest idea of what was going on himself, and he’d been pressed to secrecy. Whatever the full facts were, they were well above the level of a mere Detective Chief Inspector. Even as a friend, there was nothing he could tell his colleague on that score. There was, however, something he could say, and he needed to say it.

‘There’s one other good piece of news I think you ought to know,’ Manners went on after a brief pause. ‘You know that batch of contaminated heroin you were worried about? The stuff that killed the girl?’

Carney jumped on it immediately. ‘Yeah. What about it?’

‘We’ve pulled it in – hopefully the whole lot,’ Manners told him. ‘And you were right – it was real bad shit. Adulterated up to seventy per cent and cut with bleaching powder, among other things. Lethal.’

Carney let out a sigh of relief. ‘Yeah, thanks, Harry. That is good news. How did you get on to it?’

‘Sofrides talked,’ Manners told him. ‘He led us straight to his supplier. A callous little bastard out for a quick profit and damn the consequences.’ He was silent for a while. ‘Just thought you’d like to know, that’s all.’

‘Yeah, thanks.’ Carney felt equally awkward, not sure what to say to his boss. The line was silent for a long time.

‘Well, good luck – whatever happens,’ Manners said finally, and hung up.

Carney slipped the receiver back into its cradle and began to pace about the flat, trying to figure out what was going on. He did not have to wait very long. Less than three minutes after the call from Manners, there was a light but firm knock on the door.

There were two men standing in the hallway as Carney opened up. They both looked businesslike and efficient. They were unsmiling.

‘Paul Carney?’ one of them asked.

Carney nodded. The two men exchanged a brief glance and took the admission as an invitation to enter. They stepped across the threshold, the second man closing the door behind him.

Minutes later, Carney was in the visitors’ car, being driven south to New Scotland Yard.

McMillan gestured to a vacant chair at the table. ‘Please sit down, Carney. Would you care for a drink?’

Carney felt himself tense up, both physically and mentally. Was this the opening move in some sort of test? he found himself wondering. Coppers weren’t supposed to drink on duty. So did they want to see if he lived by the book?

He forced himself to relax, rationalizing the situation. All this secrecy was making him paranoid, he decided. The offer was probably an innocent and genuine one. Besides, he wasn’t officially on duty any more, and he could certainly do with a drink. He nodded, finally. ‘Yes, thank you, sir. A Scotch would be fine.’

The commissioner allowed the faintest smile to cross his face. So Carney was a man, and not just some order-following drone. Carney noticed the smile, realized that he had been tested, and could only assume that he had passed.

McMillan stood up, opened a filing cabinet and pulled out a bottle of Glenfiddich and a chunky tumbler. He splashed a healthy measure into the glass and carried it over to Carney before resuming his place at the table. He looked at Carney thoughtfully for a while. ‘Well, no doubt you’ve been wondering what all this is about,’ he said at last.

Carney allowed himself a small grin. ‘You could say that, sir.’

Commander Franks consulted a slim dossier on the desk in front of him. He studied its contents for a few seconds before looking up at Carney. ‘Your superior says you’re a tough cop, Carney,’ he said. ‘You know the streets and you know your enemy.’

Carney shrugged. ‘I just handle my job, sir.’

Franks nodded. ‘But unfortunately you can’t always handle your temper,’ he pointed out. It was a statement of fact, not quite an accusation, but Carney was immediately defensive.

‘I just hate drugs. And I hate the villains who are pushing them to our kids,’ he said with feeling.

‘As do we all,’ Franks observed. ‘But our job places certain restrictions upon us. We have to work to specific rules, standards of behaviour which are acceptable to society. You went over the top, Carney – and you know it.’

It was an open rebuke now, inviting some sort of apology. Carney bowed his head slightly. ‘Yes, sir, I’m aware of that. And I’m sorry.’ He did not attempt to justify his actions in any way.

It seemed to satisfy Franks, who merely nodded to himself and glanced across at McMillan, passing some unspoken message. The commissioner leaned across the table, resting his elbows on it and forming a steeple with his fingers. ‘Right, gentlemen,’ he announced in a businesslike tone. ‘Let’s get down to it, shall we?’

For the next forty-five minutes Carney faced an almost non-stop barrage of questions. Some seemed totally irrelevant, and a few were of such a highly personal nature that he found himself becoming irritated by what he thought were unwarranted intrusions into his private life. As the session drew to an end, however, he began to realize that the three men in that room now knew just about everything there was to know about Paul Carney the policeman and Paul Carney the man. His opinions, his personality, his strengths – and his weaknesses. It was a rather disconcerting feeling.

Finally McMillan glanced at each of his colleagues in turn, inviting further questions. There were none. He turned his attention back to Carney.

‘Let’s get to business, then. It would appear that you need a job, Mr Carney. We have one for you, if you want it. A very special job, I might add.’ He paused. ‘Are you interested?’

Carney was guarded. ‘I suppose that would have to depend on what the job was,’ he said.

‘Ah,’ McMillan sighed thoughtfully. ‘Now that gives me something of a problem. Basically, I cannot give you any details about the job until you agree to take it. You will also be required to take a grade three security oath.’

Carney was flabbergasted – and it showed on his face. He gaped at McMillan for several seconds before finally finding his voice. ‘With respect, sir, that’s crazy. How can I agree to a job without knowing what it is? It might not suit me. I might not suit it. I couldn’t be a pen-pusher, buried behind some pile of papers, for a start.’

McMillan smiled faintly. ‘I appreciate your candidness, Mr Carney,’ he murmured. ‘But I can and do assure you that far from being desk-bound, you’d be out there fighting crime. In the very front line, so to speak.’ He paused briefly. ‘But that’s all I can tell you at this point. It’s now completely down to you. We can proceed no further without your agreement.’

Carney’s head was spinning. In desperation, he looked over at Commander Franks. ‘If I turn this down, sir, what are the chances of my being returned to normal duty?’

Franks shook his head slowly. ‘None,’ he said, bluntly. ‘The very qualities which make you attractive to us also preclude your continued service in the conventional police force.’

The finality of this statement was enough to push Carney over the edge. He made his decision on impulse as much as anything. ‘All right, so let’s say I’m in,’ he muttered, still slightly dubious.

McMillan nodded gravely and signalled to Grieves, who produced an official-looking document from his pocket and slid it over the table towards Carney. ‘Read and sign this,’ he said curtly.

Carney scanned it quickly, eager to find some clue as to what he was letting himself in for, but the document itself told him virtually nothing. Finally he looked up at Grieves again, who silently handed him a fountain pen. Hesitating for just a moment, Carney read the security oath aloud and signed the paper. McMillan and Franks added their own signatures as witnesses and Grieves returned the document to his pocket. It was done.

‘Right. Now we can tell you what we have in mind,’ McMillan said. He began to launch into a detailed account of the plans formulated thus far.

7

‘I’ll tell you right away that I have some serious reservations about this whole concept,’ Barney Davies said candidly. ‘But I agreed to treat it as a workable idea, and you’re the man they’ve sent me. So if we can work something out, we will.’

Carney tried to think of a suitable rejoinder, and failed completely. An opening speech like that was a hard act to follow. And he was already feeling a little out of his depth anyway.

He’d been ordered to report to Lieutenant-Colonel Davies at SAS HQ in Hereford, and that’s what he’d done. Merely passing through the gate guard had been like walking into the lion’s den. Like most civilians, Carney had only a sketchy picture of the SAS and how they worked. Fact was thin on the ground, and the man in the street could only form his own mental image from the fiction and the legend. And that legend was of a special breed of super-heroes, just one step removed from Captain Marvel or Superman.

‘I’ll try to keep that in mind, sir,’ he managed to blurt out eventually.

Davies smiled. ‘Lesson one,’ he said. ‘We don’t place a great deal of emphasis on rank in the SAS. A man is respected for what he is, what he can do, rather than the extra bits of material sewn on to his uniform. In your case, as you’re basically an outsider, and a largely unknown quantity, you’ll be just another trooper. So don’t expect any deference from the rest of the men you’ll be working with. To them, you’ll be just another probationer.’ Davies paused, his tone softening a shade. ‘And you don’t have to call me “sir”, by the way. “Boss” is perfectly acceptable.’

Davies flipped quickly through the file which Commander Franks had faxed to him. ‘So you think you’re tough,’ he muttered, without condescension.

Carney bristled slightly. ‘I don’t think anything,’ he protested. ‘But I can look after myself, if that’s what you mean.’

Davies nodded, looking faintly pleased. ‘Good. You don’t allow yourself to be put down too easily. But don’t get any inflated ideas. Keep in mind that any one of my men could probably fold you up, stick a stamp on you and stuff you in the second-class post before you even knew what was happening.’

Carney took this somewhat colourful piece of information at face value. It was delivered not as a boast but as a hard fact – and he found himself believing it.

‘I assume Commissioner McMillan has already briefed you as to the general theory?’ Davies went on.

Carney nodded. ‘You want me to advise a special task force. Basically point you in the right direction.’

Davies nodded again. ‘In a nutshell, yes. But you’ll be more than just an adviser, more like a seeing-eye dog. We’re going to need a man on the ground. Someone who knows the right people and the right places.’

‘Or the wrong people and the wrong places,’ Carney suggested.

Davies found this mildly amusing, and smiled. ‘Whatever.’ He was thoughtful for a while. ‘Of course, in an ideal world you should never be required to get involved in a combat situation. However, we don’t live in an ideal world. There may be times when you find yourself up front. What have you done in the way of weapons training?’

Carney gave a faint shrug. ‘Standard police training. Revolver and some sniper rifle practice.’

Davies consulted Carney’s file again. ‘Not bad scores,’ he observed, in a matter-of-fact tone. It was the nearest thing to a compliment he had given out so far. He made a note on the file. ‘But we’ll check it out in a minute.’ He eyed Carney up and down like a piece of meat. ‘When was your last physical?’

Carney had to think about it. ‘I’m not sure,’ he admitted. ‘Probably about five or six months ago.’

Davies made another note. ‘We’ll have to do something about that, as well.’ He looked at Carney appraisingly. ‘You look reasonably fit. Do much in the way of training, working out?’

Carney shrugged. ‘Just regular health club stuff, once or maybe twice a week. Weights, bike machine, a couple of miles on the rolling road.’

‘Sports? Pastimes?’ Davies asked.

Carney smiled ruefully. ‘Don’t get a lot of time these days. I used to climb a bit, and I was junior squash champion at school.’ He studied Davies’s eyes carefully, noting that the SAS man was unimpressed. ‘Actually, all this raises something I wanted to talk to you about,’ he said.

Davies raised one eyebrow. ‘Which is?’

Carney paused for a second, framing his thoughts. ‘Look, I have a pretty fair idea of the sort of men I’m going to have to work with,’ he started out. ‘And I’m prepared for the fact that there’s quite likely to be a certain amount of resentment – me being an outsider and all.’

Davies made no attempt to deny it. There would have been no point. However, it was good that Carney appeared to have a realistic viewpoint. He eyed him thoughtfully. ‘So what’s the point you’re trying to make?’

Carney took the bull by the horns. ‘If I’m to stand any chance of gaining the men’s respect, I know I’m going to have to earn it,’ he said quietly. ‘That’s why I’d like to get involved at ground level, if it’s at all possible. What are the chances of my joining some of the men in basic training?’

Davies was impressed – both with the man’s accurate assessment of the situation and with his bottle. He smiled thinly. ‘Have you got the faintest idea of what you might be talking yourself into?’ he asked.

Carney was perfectly truthful. ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘But I’d still like to give it a go.’

Davies’s smile broadened. ‘Look, it’s fairly obvious that, like most members of the general public, you have a somewhat simplistic view of how we operate,’ he said, without sounding patronizing. ‘It’s not a question of “six weeks basic training and you’re in the SAS”. All our volunteers are already highly trained soldiers. Our selection training is short, brutal and perhaps the most intensive in the world – but it doesn’t just stop there. Basically, an SAS soldier never stops training from the day he joins the Regiment to the day he leaves. It’s an ongoing thing.’

Carney digested all this information stoically. ‘All right, I concede that I’m not prime material to start with. But I’d like to get some time in with the men.’

Davies was more and more convinced that Franks had sent him the right man, but he wasn’t giving anything away. He merely nodded faintly. ‘OK, I’ll see what can be arranged,’ he promised as he rose to his feet. ‘But right now, let’s get you down to the range and see what you can do.’

He ushered Carney out of the room and along a long corridor, eventally stopping by a steel-shuttered door. Producing a security key from his pocket, Davies unlocked the heavy door and swung it open, revealing a flight of concrete steps which led down into the basement. As the door opened, a barrage of loud noise echoed up the stairs. It took Carney a few seconds to identify it as the sounds of gunfire in an enclosed space. He followed Davies down the stairs and through another security door, finally stepping into the vast underground indoor firing range.

The sudden appearance of Lieutenant-Colonel Davies seemed to act as some sort of signal. The half a dozen or so troopers using the target range discharged their weapons quickly, put them down and walked away. Davies led the way over to a shooting booth next to the armourer’s office, summoning the man with a click of his fingers.

The armourer stepped over smartly, slipped a fresh clip into a handgun and laid the weapon down.

‘What have you used in the past?’ Davies asked, glancing at Carney.

‘Standard-issue army Webley .38 revolver,’ Carney told him.

Davies nodded, picking up the semi-automatic in front of him. ‘We tend to use these,’ he explained. ‘The Browning 9mm High Power handgun. They’ve been around for a good few years now, but we find they do the job.’ He picked the gun up and thrust it into Carney’s hand.

Carney weighed the weapon, assessing its feel. It was somewhat lighter than the heavy pistols he was used to, yet oddly it felt somehow more solid, more real. Instinct told him that this was not a gun which had been designed, or ever intended for, making holes in paper targets. This was a weapon expressly created to kill people.

Davies quickly ran through the weapon’s operation, finishing with basic safety instructions. ‘You’ve got eight shots in that magazine,’ he said, ‘although normally it’ll hold up to thirteen. Don’t put it down, or point it away from the target area, until you’ve emptied it.’

Carney moved into the firing position, spreading his feet slightly and balancing his body. Holding the gun in the approved two-handed grip, he squinted down the sights towards the black silhouette at the end of the range.

‘Carry on,’ Davies muttered.

Carney squeezed gently on the trigger, loosing off the first three rounds before checking the target. All three shots were high – the semi-automatic had a greater kick than he was accustomed to. Lowering his aim to compensate, he tightened his grip and fired off three more rounds. They were better – both body hits. He put the final two slugs smack in the middle of the target’s blank black face and laid the gun down again.

‘Not bad,’ Davies said, with grudging approval, as the armourer slid over and inserted a fresh clip into the magazine. ‘But don’t be too obsessed with going for head shots. The traditional “double tap” through the forehead isn’t quite as fashionable now as it used to be.’

Carney looked at him in some surprise. ‘I thought a guaranteed kill was the object of the exercise?’ he said.

Davies nodded. ‘Oh, it is. Basic SAS philosophy is that you don’t point a gun at someone unless you fully intend to kill him. But there can be other factors.’

Carney was intrigued. ‘Such as?’

Davies shrugged. ‘Suppose we were dealing with a hostage situation, involving armed terrorists,’ he suggested. ‘The prime consideration would be to neutralize the gunmen before they could do any harm and to protect the hostages as much as possible. Think about it, Carney – a head is a small target, and the human body is a bigger one. Accurate, sustained fire to the body is going to put your man down just as efficiently, but with less loose bullets flying about the place.’ He paused, nodding down at the the gun in front of Carney. ‘That’s why the Browning is a good weapon. It has real stopping power.’

There was a sudden crash from behind them as the inner steel door was kicked open. It was followed, almost immediately, by the roar of an angry voice. ‘I warned you, Davies – you bastard!’

Carney whirled round, to take in the burly figure of the soldier who had just burst into the underground range. His eyes were blazing cold rage, and his mouth was contorted into a mask of fury. They were looks that could kill – and the L1A1 self-loading rifle that he carried slung at his hip gave him the capacity to do exactly that.

‘I told you what would happen if you turned down my transfer,’ the man raged on, moving purposefully towards Davies. ‘Now I’m going to kill you, you bastard.’

Out of the corner of his eyes, Carney was aware of the armourer trying to edge towards the arsenal. The movement was also noted by the armed intruder, who barked out a warning: ‘Don’t even fucking think about it.’ He advanced upon them inexorably, his finger curled lazily around the trigger of the rifle.

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