He looked behind. Edwards was there. Egging him on, notably not volunteering to go first.
He gritted his teeth, grabbed the top of the breezeblock wall with both hands and using all the force he had, pulled himself up and over the wall in one clean movement. He landed in a back alleyway formed by the rear of an old building and the new wall. He was wrong about the wall being the hardest bit. This was a dead end. Now they were sitting ducks. They ran along the alleyway looking for the other corner of the building and open space, but drew up short as they got there and shots rang out, making concrete dust of the wall in front of them.
They crouched down, hemmed in by the sudden action. They could still hear shots but the wall stopped exploding. The main sound now seemed to be the diesel engine that must belong to the tank.
Davie watched in disbelief as the fat old guy dragged his friend towards the airstrip. What was he going to do? Walk right out there? Just leave? And then what would stop him? Either they would shoot him and he would shoot Andy or they would miss him and shoot Andy. It was a Mexican standoff. It was OJ getting chased down the interstate at low speed. Who was really going to stop him?
They followed on slowly as the man made his steady advance to freedom.
Then the wall in front of them began exploding and the tank began to rattle as it got in the way of the bullets and everything went wrong.
Victor was leaving. They would not shoot him with this boy. They valued life too highly. He was going to walk out that gate and he was going to take the extra helicopter that stood waiting for him. That was what was going to happen.
They had destroyed everything here but they would not claim him as a scalp.
The tank tailed him slowly so he dragged the boy behind. They would not risk the damage likely to be caused by the exploding bullets from its gun.
Slow and sure. That was the way.
Then the wall exploded. Then the policeman was there on the ground and he dropped his guard and the boy.
They were going to have to beat a retreat, Burke thought. There was no way they were gaining any ground here. “Maybe if he makes it to the wall we could pick him off if we had a marksman here,” he suggested.
The eye in the sky advised that the targets were headed their way but that the marksmen were pinned down at the other side of the complex dealing with the others.
He turned to check for some kind of response from Edwards and was met with a cold gaze.
“You know, don’t you?” Edwards asked.
Burke had never had much of a poker face. On this occasion it failed him again. He did indeed know. “Why?” he asked before he could stop himself.
“You know why,” Edwards said. All trace of expression had left his voice.
“It can’t be for you career. It can’t mean that much to you.”
“Can’t mean that much to me,” Edwards barked back, “try going through what I’ve been through and tell me your career means so little. Try watching people under your command getting gunned down or blown to bits in front of you and coming out the other side the only one lucky enough to make it out and tell me that doesn’t mean something, and that you don’t feel you have to make everything count for the ones that didn’t make it.”
“I have,” Burke said. “But you knew that.”
“Of course. But I don’t think it’s the same thing is it? Losing your team because you weren’t up to handling a firearms incident on a council estate.”
“No.”
Neither man said anything for a few seconds as all hell continued to break loose around them. Burke had been trained to deal with people on the edge but this was one they didn’t cover in negotiation techniques, getting the homicidal nut job out of the firefight in one piece while at the same time maintaining your own structural integrity.
“Why Leon Williams?” he finally asked, playing for time.
Edwards smiled at this. “Luck of the draw I’m afraid. Collateral damage. Had to look after the operation and ensure targets were met. Had to pull rank. But I think it’s all shaping up nicely.” He cast an arm round at what they could see of the scene.
Another hail of bullets from the fire fight hit the wall and filled the air with concrete dust. Burke’s clumsiness was another great failing. He felt the shove before he actually knew what had happened. The air left his lungs as he hit the floor. He couldn’t breathe and the blood began to spurt everywhere.
He realised he needed time. There was no time. He gasped for air but there was none of that either. He had to move but couldn’t. And then it was all over.
The policeman had burst out from behind the shed in the corner causing the old man to hesitate. He must have thought his number was up. He dropped Andy, and Big Al who was never the steadiest in a combat situation, always dropped the ball if he got it out of the scrum, just a bit too trigger happy really, overreacted. They would later conclude it was like he’d thought he was trying to herd a bull with a quad bike. He’d just jammed both sides of the tank full on forward and didn’t stop, not until they were over the would-be kidnapper, through the breezeblock wall and on the airstrip facing a wall of coppers.
It had been an accident of course. No one really wanted to plough some old git down with a tank, no matter what they said in the pub about pensioners being worth fifty points in the car.
34
The air ambulance was swift in attendance, having been put on standby in preparation. Casualties were low, all things considered; one dead Lithuanian businessman it was doubtful anyone would miss, which was just as well, as an open casket funeral was well and truly out of the question given the very extensive crushing injuries not to mention familiar stripy pattern caused by the hopefully not too protracted death that came as a consequence of being mangled by a tank, one dead mercenary with a hole in his throat and some missing teeth who probably knew the risks, one heavily concussed lawyer who also had fractured ribs and collarbones but seemed alert and willing enough to confess to all sorts, one teenager with a broken arm who was pretty grateful about that and whose parents were unlikely to be worried about him going off to university in the city and the relatively tame dangers that involved, and last but by no means least, one detective inspector whose carotid artery had been shredded upon impact with the hollow point bullet from an AK47 assault rifle and whose resultant blood loss had meant not only Edwards’s death but also the irrevocable staining of Burke’s favourite North Face fleece.
He’d tried to stop the fucker bleeding to death but there wasn’t much to work with. Plugging a hole might be one thing but this was more of a burst pipe. Edwards though, would doubtless consider it a small mercy, avoiding the consequences of his actions as he now had.
It was Burke’s clumsiness that had saved him, that and his dodgy ankle. He’d lost his footing, and Edwards, overdoing it, had overextended and followed suit, turning himself into a human shield in the process, a duty he had performed admirably.
He knew it might be arrogance, knew some would interpret it that way, but it did all fit. It had been Edwards’ own use of language that had given him away.
Billet was not a word used by many these days to describe their bed, generally only those of a military disposition. At first he’d discounted the public school accent and the fact it didn’t generally tally with that of a Glaswegian detective inspector, but then the Sarah Armstrong had turned up, concerned about the death of one of her operatives who had been on an undercover operation to flush out drug dealing networks by attempting to set up a fake one. Leon Williams, was not a real yardie and although posing as one and indeed living as one was unlikely to have gone about killing supposed rivals. The whole thing had started to fall apart under scrutiny and began to look a wee bit stage managed. And when he guessed the military connection, and took a long shot it had all started to make a modicum of sense.