Hi-viz guy, now completely ignoring the still-stroppy commuter, focused on the ‘clean up team’ and, in particular, the tall, fierce-looking man carrying the Glock 17. They were the most evil-looking bunch of ‘cleaners’ he’d ever seen. They were all powerfully built, probably heavily armed too, and scanning the crowd like a bunch of SAS soldiers on an operat… oh. Shit…
Realisation kicked in and hi-viz guy gulped. He quickly decided pursuing any kind of argument he might have about who was allowed where and when was probably trumped by the sheer amount of ordnance this ‘clean up crew’ were packing. He fumbled with a key and unlocked the gate, opening it just wide enough for the team to squeeze through.
As Danny Smith walked past the man he stopped for a moment. He kept his voice low, so as not to alarm the civvies. “Listen, fella. Things are going to get a little bit urgent in a while. So when you hear screaming and a shit-load of people stampeding up the stairs, you open this damn gate and you let them out. Got it?” He gave hi-viz guy what he thought was a reassuring smile.
“I… I… I…”
“I said, got it?” Danny’s smile melted away.
“Y-yes. Yeah. I got it. Sure. Why the hell not?” Hi-viz guy nodded. He really regretted not calling in sick this morning.
“Adda boy.” Danny patted the man on the shoulder just a tiny bit harder than he needed to, and followed his team into the bowels of the station and out of sight of the crowds outside.
Inside, a lone London Underground official stood shaking in a corner. Watching the team pull balaclavas over their faces, wrapping throat comms around their necks, and opening up bags filled with automatic weapons did nothing to rebalance his peace of mind. He let out a little yelp.
A pair of hard, steely eyes immediately connected with his own. He could tell the face was scowling underneath the black fabric. Terry barked out two words. “Which platform?”
The official pointed a shaking finger towards the escalator. “P-p-platform two…”
Terry gave a curt nod. “Thank you. Now fuck off.”
The man fucked off at a rapid scuttle, and Terry motioned to Bravo Unit. “Move out.” Time to tie up with the boss…
“You’re late.”
“You’re welcome!”
Terry gave Micky the finger and threw a kit bag at him. Micky Cox caught it with all the grace and dexterity of a one-armed blind man in a dark room. Terry chuckled. “Careful, fella. That’s the bag with the UV flash bangs.”
Micky plonked the bag down and crouched next to it. He unzipped the bag and pulled it open. “Okay. Wadda we got, then? Big, honking great bullet chuckers?”
“Check.”
“Spare organo FMJs?”
“Check.”
“Sneaking-around black ninja outfits with anti-Taint kevlar weave?”
Gary Parks glanced over and primed his Remington 870 shotgun as an underline, before attaching it to a lanyard and picking up a C8. “Micky, we are not doing sneaking-around ninja shit. We’re going in dressed as a team of London Underground Northern Line fluffers who’ve had all the love, hope and faith in humanity sucked out of them through years of working in one of the city’s shittiest hellholes. So it’s regulation boilersuits, boots and beanies. No ninja shit.”
Micky looked puzzled and glanced over at Yolanda, who was busy checking the recoil on her Glock. “Um, boss? Question?”
Without even looking at him, Yolanda immediately responded. “Fluffers are teams who clean the underground tracks.”
“Oh, so they’re not…”
“No, Micky. No. They’re really not. You bloody pervert.”
Gary laughed. “Mate, you watch far too much porn, you know that?”
“Yeah. Porn with your mama in it.”
Gary gave Micky a blank look. “Seriously? Did you actually just throw down with a ‘yo mama’ joke at me?”
Terry Warner turned to Colby. “Are they always like this?”
Colby grinned. “These two? Fella, this is a good day. They’re usually going at each other like an old married couple.” Colby dropped the magazine out of the C8, tapped it, checked and re-inserted it with a snap. He primed and checked the primary holographic sighting, making absolutely sure that he hadn’t accidentally knocked the switch from ‘Safe’ to ‘Rapid’ — or ‘NoKill’ to ‘Parp’, as Micky liked to call it. The team were using the more compact 10-inch barrel version. The 16-inch barrel might be more accurate, but when you were going in up-close-and-personal with a grabby Taint full of bad intentions, then the longer barrel tended to snag and get in the way. There was no point attaching the standard bayonet either. That would just tangle you up even more, and if you were using a bayonet against a Taint then you were probably way too up-close-and-personal already.
A clatter of heavy boots announced the arrival of a worried-looking Danny Smith. He was carrying a tablet in one hand and a C8 in the other. “Boss, you better see this.” He spoke rapidly. “Came in via our covert channels about three minutes ago. It was addressed to the team.” He glanced at Colby. “Personally.”
The team gathered around the tablet and studied the flickering, jerky picture. Yolanda squinted at the screen. “That picture is piss-poor, fella. What are we looking at?”
“Hang on…” Danny pointed at the screen. “There.”
Gary groaned. “Oh, now, this isn’t good.” On the screen was a figure that, while the face may have been blurry and grainy, there was no question as to whom it was.
Vlad’s lieutenant sat among a train full of oblivious commuters and stared up at the CCTV, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. Next to him, the old lady had her head down on her chest, looking for all the world like she was simply having a quick nana-nap in-between stops. The team, however, knew immediately that she wasn’t asleep. They could all see a dark mark on the side of her neck; a small wound with the tiniest trickle of blood running from it. That was one ‘nana-nap’ the old girl wouldn’t be waking up from, bless her heart…
Gary glared at the screen. “Motherfucker!”
Yolanda stared at the screen. “Is he sending us this via live feed?”
Danny nodded. “Yes, boss. The train’s been held in the tunnel next to Tufnell Park on an emergency ‘suspect package’ order. The entire Northern Line this side of the water is at a standstill. The commuters are getting majorly angsty, and I’m guessing Vlad’s lieutenant is just a finger-snap away from unleashing that pack of Taints you saw and turning that train into an all-you-can-eat buffet.” Danny paused. “Boss, there’re a lot of people on that train. A lot. And we’ve basically put them slap-bang in the middle of a potential feeding frenzy.”
Yolanda nodded. She pushed the Glock back into her leg holster. “Get the train moved back here and hold it. Doors shut. We move. Now.” The steel in her voice told the team it wasn’t a suggestion. It was an order.
They grabbed their kit. The time for a bit of pre-op, barrack-room banter was well and truly over.
The team had picked a quiet spot well away from prying eyes and in the station’s CCTV dead spot. Nobody needed to know what was going on down here, least of all some jobsworth security ‘spotter’ in a grey room somewhere. They were here to clear the nest, get the civilians to safety with minimum collateral, and take out the lieutenant at the very least. Not provide some bored security guard with an impromptu reality show.