St Johns Wood, London: 0427hrs
Carmichael had finished dressing and had put the
kettle on for himself. The coffee percolator bubbled and hissed with
Alexandra’s favourite start to the morning. Striding to the kitchen window he
pulled open the curtains in order to behold the new day.
“Shit!” breathed a black clad police officer of the
team about to assault the rear of the address.
PC Tony Stammers froze motionless in a crouch on
Carmichael’s herbaceous border; he kept his head down and attempted to imitate
a lethally armed garden gnome. Lying prone and using the garden hedges as cover
the remainder of his team were less than impressed.
Carmichael
had been interested in the state of the sky rather than the progress of his Liliflorae
and dropped the curtains back into place. Scuttling sideways into cover the
gnome mimic received a thump on the top of his helmet.
“Next time you hug
the cover, you don’t take short cuts!” hissed his Sergeant and emphasised
the salient point of his argument with a second, harder blow. Constable Annabel
Perry, the errant SFO’s partner, was looking at him with a despairing look on
her face.
Intending to take Berria her morning coffee in the
bath Carmichael raised one foot to mount the stairs when several things
happened at once.
Having climbed rubber clad storming ladders at the
front and rear bedroom windows four SFOs burst through in a cloud of flying
shards of glass to toss stun grenades onto the landing and over the banister
rail.
At the sound of the windows shattering Carmichael
dropped the china cups and saucers he had held and was reaching down for a
small handgun in its ankle holster.
Berria had
been rather more switched on, she knew that what would come next would be mind
numbing. Placing hands across her ears she slid below the water’s surface to
muffle the sound.
Four stun grenades went off with two of them within
three feet of Carmichael, temporarily ruining his vision and hearing. Despite
the pain in his ears Carmichael raised the gun in front of himself defensively
and that was the sight that greeted the first two officers to burst through the
front door.
Berria emerged from below the surface of the bath
water the second she judged all the grenades had finished and heard two
gunshots so close together that the sounds almost merged. Fishing below soiled
undies in the linen basket she withdrew and cocked an Uzi sub machine gun and
extended its wire stock before opened the door to the landing.
Hearing the sound of door being opened Tony
Stammers was bringing his MP5 around to bear on the direction of the noise but
he hesitated, for just a milli-second, at the sight of a dripping wet and naked
blond in the bathroom doorway.
The Uzi roared, intensely loud in such a confined space, and floral wallpaper on the wall at his back
sprouted several holes but his ballistic body armour stopped both the rounds
that struck him at chest height, however the round that pierced his left bicep
shattered the bone behind it.
Annabel Perry had also heard the door but she had
dropped prone at the sound. Alexandra Berria’s only burst of fire was cut short
as Annabel shot her between the breasts. The butt of the sub machine gun
remained in her shoulder but Berria came out of the aim and stepped backwards
drunkenly with a wide eyed and open mouthed look of surprise on her face until
the back of one leg struck the bath tub and she sat down heavily upon its edge.
By accident or designed the muzzle of the Uzi swung toward the prone officer.
Instantly, Annabel raised her point of aim and shot Berria again, this time
below the right eye.
Alexandra was left draped over the side of the bath
with legs akimbo, sticking over the edge, and with her head below water now
turning crimson.
At the foot of the stairs Carmichael was staring up
at the ceiling whilst one of the officers who had shot him applied direct
pressure on a wound dressing.
With the building secure, para medics from the London
Ambulance Service entered and having told Carmichael’s first aider to save his
energy they moved on up the stairs and gave the same advice to an officer
working on Berria. Andy's book page on Amazon
Andy on Goodreads
No comments:
Post a Comment