Limit of Exploitation (10 page)

“That’s us at the entry point.”

Click clunk, click clunk.

Sam kneels to get a better look at the keypad and reader head; she pulls out a small electrical screwdriver rubber banded round her wrist and sets to work on the outer screws. Rain has soaked her hair and face, her ponytail hangs limp. As she works away she whispers a running commentary.

“These things are configured by a computer software programme and then networked into a centralised control system.” She dispenses more pearls of wisdom.

“The access control systems on this model are inherently insecure. I just walk up, pop off the cover, put my device in and we’re away.”

Sam reaches into her cargos and produces her calculator type device. John is intrigued.

“Just what the fuck is that thing?”

“Something I shouldn’t have. Once this device is spliced into place an encoded card can be used to command it to replay the last valid entry code or have the system deny access to people with legitimate cards.” Sam was in her element. She punches buttons on her device and attaches her own swipe card to the protruding wire attachments. She swipes it through the reader head, leaving it half way down.

“Basically I can now lock all the valid users out while I can still get in.” Swivelling her head she looks at John with her big blue eyes, “You like?”

“I’m strangely aroused yes, now hurry up.” Although he was talking to Sam he kept his eyes on Phil for any signal of danger, any signal of third party interference.

A light audible click emits from the lock. They look on as the steel door opens an inch under its own weight. John nods across the courtyard to Phil, and then covering each other he and Sam duck inside the unit.

Phil hits send. “That’s two into the Unit.”

Click clunk, click clunk.

The corridor they enter is black and silent. In the ambient light they can make out two open-plan office’s either side of a central corridor with another door ten metres to their front. There are no windows or other exits, the room is contained. The place stinks of sweaty bodies, stale cigarettes and coffee.

John flicks on a surefire torch mounted on the side of his weapon. Covering the beam with his left hand he allows only a slither of light to escape. He sees a notice board on the far wall, a water cooler and office junk stacked in boxes.

The offices have chest high partitions dividing the workstations, but there’s no IT and no phones. Nobody works at these desks.

He aims light towards the far door and picks out another card reader. He indicates to Sam who shakes her head.

“Don’t worry, they’re all disabled.”

The pair glide silently down to the door. It’s a fire door. With John covering, Sam puts her ear against it. Nothing. John’s puzzled, why would a fire door have an access control system fitted?

Taking a step back he stands in a stable fire position and brings his weapon up into the aim covering the door. In his peripheral vision Sam is pulling her SIG, she nods at John. He grips the M4, controls his breathing and thumbs off the safety. With her left hand Sam slowly finger pushes the door ajar, nothing, she pushes more, still nothing. She peers into the pitch-black room. Silence.

Pausing, Sam twists on a small Maglite torch and holds it like a knife in her left hand. Her weapon hand rests on top as her point of aim follows the torch beam.

Both beams now slice around like light sabres inside the darkened room, they move inside. John’s jaw drops.

“Jesus Christ, I am definitely in the wrong business.”

It wasn’t so much a room as a laboratory, laid out like a science room you’d find in any comprehensive school. There are neat rows of long workbenches, sinks, and fittings with electrical sockets. Neatly positioned on the benches are all the trappings of a thriving drug distribution network. Electronic cooking scales, face masks, surgeons gloves and thousands of small freezer bags ready to be filled and sold as baggies.

The stainless steel work surfaces glint their torchlight, the whole place is spotless. Stacked neatly along each bench are blocks of Heroin tightly wrapped and heat sealed in cellophane. Little wonder EL had such a hard-on for security.

Johns peers into the gloom, his mind working overtime. Why was there no one here?

Pure heroin is rarely sold on the street. A baggie may contain a hundred milligrams of powder, only a small portion of which is heroin. The remainder could be sugars, starch, powdered milk, or quinine. Traditionally the purity of heroin in a bag has ranged from one to ten percent.

Sam looks up at John with sad eyes. “She won’t be here, you know that right?”

“Yeah, yeah I know. We can still go with plan B though.”

Kneeling on the tiled floor, Sam swings off her daysack. John checks back down towards the entry point and hits send.

“That’s a no on the primary, she’s not here. Looks like you guessed right on the second option though Phil.”

Click clunk, click clunk.

Sam holds the Maglite in her teeth and takes a two litre plastic Coke bottle from her daysack. The bottle is three-quarters full with a dark grey jelly like substance.

As she gets busy John swings his rifle around the Lab, its torch beam settles on tins of powdered baby milk stacked against the walls.

The typical user today consumes more heroin than a user did just a decade ago, which is not surprising given the higher purity product now currently available on the street thanks to people like the Zemun brining it in from the Afghan. Until recently heroin in the United States and Europe was almost exclusively injected, intravenously, subcutaneously, or intramuscularly. Injection being the most practical and efficient way to administer low-purity heroin. John sends an update.

“Sam is setting up now. Jack, pick up point in two minutes, we’re gonna burn this place off the fucking map.”

Click clunk, click clunk.

Today the availability of higher purity heroin has meant that users can now snort or smoke the narcotic. Evidence suggests that heroin snorting is widespread or increasing where the high-purity narcotic is available, again that would be the US and Europe. Nobody could blame the Taliban of not doing their market research.

In Sam’s torch beam John can see a cheap Nokia mobile phone gaffer taped to the outside of the coke bottle. An electric detonator is wired through the cap into the grey mixture and gaffer taped into place. Sam carefully places her blast incendiary on one of the benches in the middle of the Lab.

By dissolving handfuls of small polystyrene balls into a petrol solution, she had created a highly flammable stodgy gel of homemade Napalm. When the mobile was rung Miroslav and the Zemun really would be treated to a Coke and smile.

Sam powers up the Nokia and checks the signal as John picks up one of Heroin bricks and studies it. Pure heroin is a white powder with a bitter taste. Most illicit heroin is in a powder form which may vary in colour from white to dark brown because of impurities left from the manufacturing process, or due to the presence of additives.

John had done his homework and noted that the colouring of the brick he was holding was pure white.

As he held the china white in his hand he wondered how many British Soldiers had now given their lives trying to stem the flow of over forty-two percent of the world’s supply of Heroin coming out of Afghanistan. Anger welled up inside him, but anger was for later.

A hoarse whisper from Sam brings him back to earth.

“Okay that’s it.”

John hits send. “Heads up, we’re coming out.”

Clunk click, clunk click.

Out in the van Jack quietly starts his engine. With his lights off he slowly drives across the street and reverses into the courtyard.

John and Sam head back to the exit. Behind them in the darkness, a figure in a grey hoodie slowly creeps out from the partitions of the side offices. In his right hand is a Skorpion Machine Pistol.

From his over watch position in the FRV Phil watches as Sam and John exit the unit. He hits his PTT.

“That’s two out the unit.”

Click clunk, click clunk.

The Renault Trafic reverses into the courtyard. Phil, still is closely watching the scene over his weapon sights. His eye is suddenly drawn to movement at the entry point. A black male in a grey hoodie and jeans steps out into the courtyard, there’s confusion on his face as his brain tries to process what his eyes are seeing.

Phil has already thumbed off his safety and pushed the lever round to full auto. The Skorpion in the hoodie’s right hand has decided the issue.

Sam and John pause, instantly knowing something is wrong. In a micro second it’s all over.

Johns head jerks round as he instinctively drops to one knee, Sam drops flat as a burst of high velocity fire rings out from the FRV. In the stillness of the confined urban space Phil’s rounds are insanely loud as four M4 rounds slam into the hoodie’s chest. As he goes down a burst of fire rips out the Skorpion, nine millimetre hollow points hammer into the side of the Van.

John just catches Phil’s red dot playing across the hoody’s body as he drops with a sickening slap onto the wet concrete. Unlike in the movies, bodies don’t jump back three feet when hit by high velocity fire, the bullets are moving far too fast.

Jack revs the van hard and hits the horn numerous times. Its time to mount up and get the fuck out of Dodge.

In some nearby flats, lights are flicking on and neighbourhood dogs are going ballistic. Phil sprints at the Van, diving through the open doors held by John. He catches his breath. “Where the fuck did he come from? Where’s Sam?”

John spins around and see’s Sam standing over the hoodie’s with her SIG drawn in a perfect two-handed weaver firing position. The hoody’s blood is pissing out everywhere; it mixes with the rain to form lake like pools around his body.

As Phil and John look on, she points the SIG downwards and cracks off two quick rounds. The hoodie’s head bounces. Without a word she turns and sprints the short distance to the van. As John leaps inside, Jack guns the van onto the main and accelerates away with the revs screaming in protest.

In the gloom the two men exchange glances as they watch Sam. She is calm and composed, carefully wiping the rain from her face. She reaches inside her vest for her Blackberry. Over the screaming engine Phil speaks quietly to John.

“This bitch has some fucking issues mate.” Sam’s head snaps up.

“What’s that Phil? You fucking dropped him remember? If you can’t stand the heat sunshine you know what to do.” She spits the words him.

Phil starts to lose his cool. “Heat? I did what I had to, but you? You just did it for the fucking pleasure of it. That aint the same.”

John buts in. “That’s enough! What’s done is done. Sam make the call, Phil get the clean kit.” Sam issues can be dealt with later. He motions to Phil. “Get the bags mate, let’s get on with it.”

Phil grabs black bin liners of clean clothes as John starts to strip off his dirty kit. He unzips his ops vest, “Remember bag everything”

The clothing they were wearing wasn’t just dirty from mud and rain; it was also contaminated with DNA and forensics that could associate them with the events at the Lab. After they had bagged their kit into the bin liners they would move into a ‘clean’ vehicle.

Sam’s facial features are cool and hard as she thumbs buttons on her phone. “Let’s hope I have enough credit.” She laughs at her own joke and hits the send button before stripping off her kit.

Back at the Lab the incoming call is picked up by the Nokia, which is the trigger and power source for Sam’s IED. In the confined space the initial blast of Napalm flame fireballs into the roof causing an uprush of overpressure that blows through the suspended ceiling and into the roof space above. Having left the door open at the entry point there is plenty of oxygen to be sucked up by the fiery gel as instantaneous super heat engulfs the entirety of the lab rolling sheets of flame out into the night sky. In just a few seconds the whole building was looking like a bad night in Dresden.

In the van Sam strips down to her sports bra and briefs. She is slim and athletic but no one is looking, John has too much on his mind and Phil is too pissed off. Besides, at the end of the day she is just one of the team. In the bouncing van they pull on fresh clothes and shove their wet kit into the bin liners.

After a short drive across south London the van splashes into a deserted car park and Jack kills the lights. The only other vehicle around is the Omega John prepositioned earlier. At least it had stopped raining.

As Jack pulls up alongside the Omega, the vans rear doors open and the three in the back hop out onto the wet tarmac. They carry sports holdalls containing their weapons and equipment. John pops the Omega’s boot with a key fob and slaps the side of the Renault Trafic.

“Jack, let’s go mate, it’ll be light soon.” Silence.

He pauses, looks back to the Van, his eye line drawn to the bullet holes made by the hoodie’s Skorpion. He follows the line of holes to the driver’s door.

Phil is now looking on. “JACK?” Nothing.

They exchange glances and approach the van. As John heaves the drivers door open, Jacks limp body falls into him. Jack fights for air, the deep gurgling rasping sound in his throat spells drama. John catches his falling body and both men ease him to the ground. Bright red oxygenated blood chokes out of Jacks mouth, his hands grasp at John, pulling his clothing.

“SAM! SAM! MED KIT, NOW! Fuck, I can’t see any entry wounds.” He holds jacks face in his hands.

“Take it easy Jack, take it easy. Phil get his warm kit off, we can’t see shit.” Phil is already frantically ripping at Jacks Rab Jacket, every second counts. The big puffa would easily conceal small holes made in it. Sam sprints in with a daysack of medical kit, she tears at military field dressings as John rips open Jacks T-shirt. Phil and Sam pull out large sachets of Quik Clot and start ripping them open as John feels for holes under Jacks body.

Quik Clot is a military medical application designed to stop serious bleeding. It comes as large clotting gauzes that contain an adsorbent haemostatic agent that helps to speed blood coagulation and prevent blood loss.