Nick Oldham - Critical Threat

But what the hell? It ensured he did not have to sit through a double helping of Coronation Street followed by some Sunday evening romantic drama that would have made him want to commit suicide.

An hour later he was at Blackburn Police Station, ill-fitting uniform, overalls and all, watching an SB briefing and trying to work out who the shady figures were lurking in the background. Spooks, he realized. MI5, MI6: the taskmasters of the Special Branch. When they cracked the whip, SB jumped.

Henry listened hard and critically and as much as it kicked his already bruised ego, he was glad he had been given a nothing job in the scheme of things.

‘ Control to Echo Echo Two-Zero ,’ the earpiece burst to life, making Henry jump awake. The call sign of his team.

‘Receiving.’ Everyone in the van stiffened with anticipation.

‘ Green light, I repeat, green light. Understood? ’

‘Understood — responding.’ Henry turned to the Support Unit team. ‘OK, folks, show’s on the road.’

There was never an easy way to approach a target address, particularly with a gang of cops kitted out like storm troopers. Sneaking up wasn’t really an option and so it had been declared at the briefing that the way in which every property would be hit was through ‘shock and awe and professionalism’. Henry had shuddered at the phrase, not only because it probably meant that somewhere amongst the lurking spooks were Americans; but it also meant fast and furious and hope to hell you were piling into the correct address. As everyone was repeatedly assured that the intel was spot on, there would be no problem on that score unless, it was insinuated, thick bobbies misread door numbers. Henry, who felt he was sitting alone in the naughty thinkers corner, remained to be convinced about anything and the look on his face probably said it all.

But that did not mean he wasn’t enjoying himself and wouldn’t do his best.

The personnel carrier moved off without any undue haste and cruised as quietly as the 3.5 litre diesel engine would allow towards the street on which their target house was situated. It was a terraced house in a row on a steep incline, typical of Accrington. Two-up, two-down, bathroom and toilet upstairs and an extension at the rear which housed the kitchen. The front door opened directly on to the street one side and into the lounge the other. It was the sort of house that had been built over a hundred years earlier for the mill workers in the town and was familiar in style to the millions of viewers glued each week to Coronation Street . Unlike Corrie , though, the white families were long gone and most of the inhabitants of these houses were of Pakistani or Bangladeshi origin.

At the top of the street, the personnel carrier halted to allow three officers to de-bus and jog as silently as their noisy kit would permit, crouched low, to the back of the target house, six houses along. Their job was to cover the back, wait until the front door got caved in, then enter through the kitchen door, which would be opened for them. They were also expected to grab anyone who bolted from the house.

Not that anyone was actually expected to be there. This was supposed to be an empty property in which, the briefing had informed them, it was suspected that illegal meetings had been held by would-be terrorists and extremists to plan their campaigns. It was possible that traces of explosives might be found, maybe other weapons and DNA traces, but no — definitely no — living creatures. It was the task of Henry’s team on that grey, drizzling Accrington dawn to enter, secure it and keep it secure until the arrival of a specially-briefed forensic team. They had been told to touch nothing once inside.

‘That should be easy enough for you,’ the SB superintendent had said to Henry. His name was Greek and he added, ‘Shouldn’t it?’

Henry had ground his teeth, even though he thought that ten bobbies, a driver and a sergeant was perhaps overkill just to secure an empty property. That query had been greeted by a sneer and a ‘Better safe than sorry’ quip. But, judging by the huge number of officers taking part in the operation as a whole, it was apparent that the police were out to make a statement of intent that day.

‘ We’re in position ,’ Henry’s earpiece crackled — the message coming from one of the officers in the back alley. That meant they were waiting at the backdoor. Henry nodded to the driver, who slammed his right foot down to the metal and set off down the street, unintentionally kangarooing the van and drawing an unrelenting barrage of laughter, complaints and insults from the people in the back as they lurched in their seats.

Another smooth policing operation, Henry thought wryly, as he discarded his flat cap and squeezed his head into a blue riot helmet, squishing his face up, as required by the Health amp; Safety risk assessment. It hurt his ears as he forced it down over his skull, making him suspect that the size of his head had also expanded in line with his body.

Fortunately the journey was over quickly. They stopped outside number twelve. Henry shouted, ‘Go!’ whilst dropping out of the carrier at the same time, closely followed by the sergeant. Henry stood to one side as the well-trained and regimented team descended on the front door. He glanced at the house, only ever having seen photographs of it in the operational order. He took in the door and windows, saw curtains drawn upstairs and down, no lights visible.

The two leading officers brandished sledgehammers, the one behind them wielding a one-man door-opener which was basically a heavy tube of iron with a flattened end and handles used as a mini battering ram. Behind these three officers came the remaining four, all in a disciplined line. Their job, once the door had been battered down, was to tear into the house. Two would go for the stairs and two would go for the ground floor, with their remaining colleagues piling in behind them, just to ensure the house was unoccupied as promised.

They crossed the pavement in two strides. They were then at the front door, which they attacked without mercy but with great accuracy, their movements practised and choreographed by months of training and other ‘live’ entries, mainly into drug dealers’ houses.

For a few moments it was sweet to watch.

The sledgehammers swung at the door hinges at the right-hand side of the door, one high, one low. Henry marvelled at the precision and the fact that the officers didn’t smash each other’s heads in; at the same time, the third officer swung the door-opener at the mortise lock. All three implements whammed simultaneously into the flimsy-looking door.

Henry braced himself, expecting the door to burst off its hinges, readying himself to follow the sergeant in. He’d seen it happen dozens of satisfying times.

Except in this case.

The door remained intact. Didn’t even shudder in its casing. From the blows it received, it should have been halfway down the living room, and Henry realized immediately that it must have been reinforced, otherwise it would have been on its way to matchstick city.

Undaunted, the officers raised and aimed their battering tools again.

‘ Movement, rear door ,’ came a shout into Henry’s earpiece from one of the constables around the back.

A horrible, nauseous dread coursed through Henry, and a feeling of panic.

‘Not good,’ he breathed to himself as the sledgehammers reconnected with the door — and still it held. ‘Situation report,’ he said into the mouthpiece of his PR, which was attached to his helmet.

‘ Rear kitchen door opening … one male at the door … Asian ,’ the officer said. ‘ Pistol in hand — armed! ’