Matt Hilton - Cut and run

Now it looked like he was going to get his chance.

The front door of the house opened and a tall, slim man appraised Alisha with a nonplussed expression. He studied her clothing, the body beneath it, and then an eyebrow lifted as he saw her bare and dusty feet. He nodded, then jerked his head, directing her inside. As Alisha moved past him, the man stepped forwards on to the porch and said something to the two guards. All three of them took a long look round. Rickard hunkered down in the seat of his car. The tall man then went inside.

Rickard started the car and drove away.

He took a couple of left turns, and drove down the next parallel street. The houses here were similar to the one where Alisha had sought sanctuary: single-level homes made from wooden beams and planks, peaked roofs, kids' toys or abandoned vehicles left to rot in the front yards. Occasionally the houses looked like their occupants were attempting to stave off the destitution of the neighbourhood by planting shrubs and flowers to brighten their gardens. But these were the exception to the norm.

Rickard drove by the house back-to-back with the drug dealer's place. Guards were placed there as well. He suspected that other spotters further afield would be watching for unmarked police cars. He continued on to the end of the street and this time took a right. Up along on the left he noticed the burnt-out shell of a house. He turned the Taurus into the garden, manoeuvred round a pile of shattered and scorched furniture piled on the sun-bleached lawn, and parked under a tree. A rope hung from one of the branches, frayed at the end. In some neighbourhoods this would have been a child's swing, but here he guessed that a large dog would once have been tethered. He checked his weapons, gun and knife, then climbed out of the car.

As soon as he walked out from under the tree he saw trouble. A teenage black kid on a cycle was wheeling circles in the road. The boy watched him with baleful animosity. The kid had made him: not necessarily as a cop, but as someone who had no business being here. Rickard walked towards him, feet crunching through brittle grass. The boy immediately rode away, watching Rickard over his shoulder. He stopped fifty yards away. Standing with his legs splayed either side of the cycle he watched Rickard turn and head off away from him. When Rickard next checked, the kid was gone. Rickard picked up his pace. There were no guarantees but the kid could simply be a local child with the inherited distrust of strangers. Or maybe he was a spotter for another dealer. Place like this there would be more than one outfit peddling narcotics, he thought. It was still a good idea to get to the target house before the alarm was sounded.

When he rounded the bend on to the street running parallel to the one he wanted, two men were waiting for him. They were the guards stationed in the garden of the house behind the one Alisha hid in. Rickard saw that one of them was holding a mobile phone to his ear – probably getting an update from the kid on the bike. They were scrawny men, like rejects from the Jerry Springer Show, but they were packing guns so they were still dangerous. Going for Rickard was the fact that they thought he was a cop. They could intimidate and run him off without fear of immediate retribution.

Rickard would have smiled, but that would maybe warn them that he wasn't what he seemed. He walked directly towards them, pulled out his handgun and shot them once each in the chest. Both men fell in the street and he barely gave them any further notice. As he approached them he snatched up the mobile phone from where it had fallen in the gutter.

'You should've kept your mouth shut, boy! If I see you again, you're dead.'

Rickard dropped the phone and stamped it to ruin. Then he scooped up the men's handguns and slipped them into his belt. He had a feeling he was going to need the firepower. From a distance he heard shouting. Likely it was the kid on the bike hollering the alarm to all who would listen.

Rickard knew that to be successful he had to move quickly and decisively. Crash through their defences, cut them down. His greatest weapon was that punks like these prepared to defend themselves against a dawn raid by the cops, or drive-by shootings by rival gangs. They would never have seen anything like him before.

He ran into the garden where these men had been standing moments before, and round the side of the house. The shooting must have alerted those inside the house with Alisha, but he had a feeling that their reaction wouldn't be to mount a defence against someone coming to kill them; they'd be too busy flushing the evidence of their illegal pursuits for that.

Whenever the Miami Dade Special Response Team conducted a raid on one of these crack houses, they came in force. An armoured truck nicknamed a Bear Cat would spearhead the raid, men in flak jackets clinging to the sides, before rushing forwards behind a shield wall to smash down the doors. Non-lethal flash-bang grenades or tear gas would be launched inside the building, and then the armoured officers would go in sweeping and clearing each room in turn. The occupants would be arrested while evidence was secured. It was conducted with military precision. In situations like that, the dealers had their own routines. Usually they laid down their weapons, got down on their bellies with their hands on their heads and waited for the inevitable. Rickard was hoping that their ingrained reaction would play out this time. But – if it didn't – well, so be it. He'd plenty of guns.

Gun in hand, he swept the rear garden for any other guards, but there were none. A high wire fence separated this property from the dealer's house, but there was a gate in one corner where the guards could come and go. The gate was locked, but it was no taller than Rickard. He sprang up, caught the top with his left hand then swung over it. He landed on both feet facing the back wall of Alisha's hiding place. Junk lay all over the yard, some of it so old it was partially embedded in the earth. There was an engine block from some ancient vehicle, an oil drum on its side, a stack of building blocks from an abandoned project. There was also a dog. It was a Rottweiler-mix, a huge, bulky monstrosity that launched itself at him with slavering ferocity. Before it reached him the dog came to a sudden halt, checked by the heavy chain round its neck. It strained at the length of its tether, jaws snapping as it barked with a madness close to insanity. Rickard shot the dog in the head.

Then he was moving again.

One of the tattooed thugs who had first met Alisha came round the side of the house. He was bouncing on the balls of his feet, undecided whether to run or to fight. He was expecting a cop, and Rickard's appearance threw him long enough for Rickard to snap his gun up and shoot at the man. His round struck high in the man's right shoulder and knocked him down. The man screamed curses: he knew now that Rickard was no cop. Rickard leaned over him, and with his ceramic knife slit his throat, shutting him up.

The most obvious play would be to take out the remaining guard, but Rickard could not see him. Maybe he'd fled inside at the first sound of gunfire. Maybe he'd high-tailed it to avoid arrest. Whatever, he wasn't apparent. Rickard turned his attention to getting inside the house. This, without doubt, would be the most difficult and dangerous part of his attack plan. He could hear alarmed voices sounding from within the house, three distinct ones.

He spied at the door on this side of the house. It was a heavy timber door with the original glass boarded over, surrounded by a porch with a flat roof. Knowing how these places were protected, there could possibly be an inner door of steel or wire mesh to thwart easy access by the police. Next he checked the windows. They were boarded over as well. He'd need a crowbar to pry his way inside. So he didn't bother with either. He stuffed his weapons in his belt, then jumped and grabbed at the roofline, swinging up and on to the porch. From there it was an easy jump up to the actual roof of the house, and he clambered up the eave so that he was on the roof's apex. From there he had a panoramic view of the surrounding streets. They were as deserted as a ghost town as people with better sense hid themselves from harm.