Tom Graham - Blood, Bullets and Blue Stratos

‘Where’d he go? Sam, where the hell did he go?’

Gene glared all about him, anger rising like bile at the realization that he had been cheated of his quarry, that Balaclava Man had given him the slip.

‘Bastard!’ he spat, and punched a Britt Ekland calendar off the wall.

Sam stood up from the desk and fished out his police radio. ‘Ray? Are you reading me? The gunman’s got away from us — my guess is he’ll try to make a break for it. Keep the entire building cordoned off. Seal off every street. Set up a “ring of steel”. I don’t want so much as a cockroach being able to make it out of here without being picked up, you got that? … Ray? Ray, are you there? Speak to me, Ray!’

‘I’m here, boss,’ came Ray’s voice at last.

‘Did you hear what I just said?’ asked Sam.

‘Um … Kind of,’ muttered Ray. ‘I weren’t really listening.’

‘Why the hell not?’

‘Because I’m … sort of … looking at Chris.’

‘And what’s Chris doing?’

‘Sitting on a bomb. As in, right on it. Right on it, boss. With his arse.’

Sam and Gene exchanged a blank look, then Gene grabbed the radio.

‘Speak, Raymondo — and this time, start making some chuffing sense.’

They found Ray down on the ground floor, hovering about in a corridor and anxiously chewing his Juicy Fruits.

‘We thought you might need a spot of backup,’ he said, ‘so we followed you in here. And then Chris got nervous — said he needed the khazi …’

‘The khazi? You mean this one here?’ asked Gene. Ray nodded. Gene said, ‘It’s the ladies.’

‘I know. I think he found the idea … exciting.’

Sam opened the door and went in. Chris was in one of the cubicles, sitting on the toilet seat, staring at him with a face sweaty and bloodless from terror. His bare knees were shaking.

Gene pushed his way in, loomed over Chris, and, after a few silent moments said flatly, ‘Explain.’

‘I got caught short,’ Chris stammered. ‘All this running about, it went to me guts. So I came in here for a … you know.’

‘Get on with it.’

‘I’d just sat down, Guv — I didn’t even get a chance to start ’coz, like, I suddenly realized …’

He looked down. So did everyone else. There were wires visible just under the rim of the toilet seat, one black and one red, running away into the bowl.

‘I heard a click,’ said Chris, ‘and then I saw the wires, and that’s when I knew …’

‘Looks like we’ve found our explosive device, folks,’ said Gene. ‘Chris — I never want to have say these words to you ever again, but open your legs for me, nice and slowly.’

Shaking and sweating, Chris nervously obliged. Gene peered into the toilet bowl.

‘What can you see down there, Guv?’ asked Ray.

‘Shipyard confetti,’ Gene replied.

‘That ain’t true, Guv,’ whined Chris. ‘I haven’t dropped anything yet, I’ve kept it all in.’

‘That’s not a euphemism, you pillock — that’s the kind of bomb you’re sitting on,’ said Gene. ‘There’s a wad of explosives down there the size of a house brick; it’s been packed with nails and metal splinters and ball bearings — a little concoction the IRA call “shipyard confetti”. You’ve primed the detonator by plonking your cheeks on the seat, Chris.’

‘Oh my God! Get me out of here, Guv! Please! ’

‘You’ll just have to wait for Bomb Disposal,’ said Gene. ‘If you try to stand up you’ll trigger the mechanism and next thing you know you’ll get half a ton of metalwork shooting right up your Fray Bentos.’

‘I really needed to go when I came in here,’ grizzled Chris, ‘and now I really, really need to go, like, urgent, like.’

‘Shit on it, you might defuse it,’ said Gene. ‘Ray, stop standing about like a spare prannet and get this place sealed off. Our gunman’s probably a mile away by now but have the whole area shut down just in case.’

‘Will do, Guv.’

‘And get onto those lazy sods at Bomb Disposal and tell ’em to get their arses down here double pronto!’ Gene called after Ray as he hurried away. ‘I do not intend to lose one of my officers today, even if it is just this dopey doughnut.’

‘Sit tight, Chris,’ said Sam. ‘You’ll be okay as long as you don’t move.’

‘You’re not going to leave me here, are you?’ Chris cried.

‘And give up spending time with you in the ladies’ bogs?’ asked Gene. ‘After all the years I’ve dreamt of this moment?’

‘We’ll stay with you, Chris, don’t worry,’ said Sam, patting Chris’s shoulder. ‘Gene, I don’t get it. This doesn’t feel like the IRA.’

‘It bloody does to me ,’ put in Chris.

‘Not their usual way of operating, I’ll grant you that,’ said Gene.

‘We’ve been lured in here on purpose,’ said Sam. ‘This booby trap here, it’s meant to make a point. And that gunman, he wanted us to see what I found upstairs — a red hand, Gene, painted on the wall, and the letters RHF. Mean anything to you?’

‘Sam, as your superior officer, may I suggest that we discuss the finer details of this situation at a more conducive moment? Right now, I’m more worried about the ruddy great bomb primed to explode under our colleague’s rear quarters.’

‘Don’t keep mentioning it,’ Chris wailed.

‘Hard not to, Christopher, it does rather dominate.’

Chris buried his face in his hands and started to rock backwards and forwards.

‘Chris, sit still,’ said Sam. ‘You’re safe as long as you don’t move.’

Peering at the two visible wires, Gene mused, ‘Red wire … black wire …’

‘Don’t even think about it, Gene,’ said Sam.

‘It’s fifty-fifty. Worth a punt, you reckon?’

‘Leave it to Bomb Disposal. That’s what they do.’

‘Bomb Disposal!’ Gene scoffed. ‘If them nobbers can defuse one of these things then how hard can it be?’

‘Gene, don’t start tampering. I mean it.’

‘I can’t stay here,’ Chris was moaning into his hands.

‘Keep calm, Chris,’ said Sam, trying to sound calm himself. Gene was eenie-meenie-miney-mowing between the red wire and the black one.

‘I don’t want to die like this,’ Chris cried.

‘Nobody’s going to die, Chris! Gene, leave them bloody wires! Chris, keep still !’

But panic was starting to set in. Chris was shaking, rocking, staring out through his fingers with wild eyes. Sam planted his hands on Chris’s shoulders to keep him where he was, but that just seemed to make things worse, as Chris howled that he was too young to die and began fighting to get out. He clawed at Sam and shoved him away, leaping up from the seat and instantly tripping over the trousers that were coiled around his ankles.

Sam heard himself cry out, ‘ Chris, no! ’ and instinctively threw himself backwards, covering his face with his arms, bracing his body for the shattering impact of the explosion, the agony of a thousand nails ripping into his flesh at high speed.

But no explosion came. There was just silence, and the sound of Chris stumbling and tripping frantically away along the corridor outside.

Lowering his arms, Sam found himself looking up at Gene, who was holding the snapped end of the red wire in his gloved hand.

‘If only I had the same luck with the gee-gees,’ Gene said.

‘Bombs, bullets, and bogs that go bang in the night,’ intoned Gene. ‘It’s a tough ol’ world out there. But somehow, ladies, we’ve made it through another day. Time to get hammered.’

No arguments there.