Deadly Crossing (Tom Dugan 2) (16 page)

“Flash bangs! Now!” McKinnon said into his mike as he nodded to his own men. Anna holstered her weapon as one man smashed the door open with a well-placed foot near the doorknob, and the second lobbed a flash-bang grenade into the black interior. All three policemen slung their weapons, and Anna followed their cue as they turned away with their eyes closed tight and palms pressed over their ears. Even then, Anna saw the lights from the twin explosions flash through her closed eyelids, and the concussions felt almost like physical blows.

She staggered a bit and opened her eyes as she groped for her Glock. After an instantaneous lull, the screaming started again, even louder.

“Go!” McKinnon said, and his constables rushed through the open door and deployed to either side. McKinnon followed and cleared the door just as the interior of the warehouse was bathed in bright light and the roar of automatic weapons fire drowned out the screams of the terrified women. Anna watched, paralyzed, as the three police men jerked from the impact of multiple rounds and collapsed.

She spotted the shooter through the open door, some distance into the warehouse, crouching near an oil drum. She raised her Glock and opened fire, trying to relieve the pressure on the three wounded cops lying in the open. A round hit the drum with a metallic clang, and the shooter turned his attention to her. She dived to the floor as concentrated automatic fire shredded the thin walls of the office area around her.

Chapter Nineteen

Inside Holding Warehouse
516 Copeland Road
Southwark, London, UK

Arsov waited among the caged whores on the north wall of the warehouse, his flashlight illuminating an electrical panel. He had his eyes averted from the door in the east wall, almost fifty meters away. His wait was finally rewarded by an explosion that sent masonry rubble sailing across the darkened warehouse, to pepper the floor like falling hail. He smiled as all around him the whores began to screech in terror. He hadn’t thought of that — what a wonderful little addition to the confusion he wished to generate.

Anticipating what was to come, he held his small flashlight between his teeth, cupped his palms over his ears and faced the wall, presenting his back to the interior of the warehouse, his eyes tightly shut. Moments later, he felt the twin concussions of the flash bangs and held his position a second longer to make sure there wouldn’t be a third. When he took his hands from his ears, the terrified wails of the whores were even louder. Even better! The cops should be coming in just about… now! He turned his flashlight on the electrical panel and threw the main breaker.

The interior of the warehouse was flooded with light, and the black-clad policemen stood in the open, stunned as their NV glasses made it seem as if the sun itself had gone supernova in their faces. Arsov nodded in satisfaction as Yuri stitched the three policemen charging in from the office area across their lower bodies, and they went down together. Someone returned fire from the office area — the MI5 bitch, no doubt — and he again nodded approval as Anatoli began shredding the office area on full auto, attempting to silence his unseen adversary.

Arsov turned to the rear door and shook his head. Anatoli had obviously not listened as well as Yuri. Two of the policemen were down, but the third had taken most of Anatoli’s fire in the vest, though he was limping badly as he staggered towards the hole in the wall where the door had been. Arsov unfolded the stock of his Kedr, raised it to his shoulder, and took careful aim. He pulled the trigger and watched as the limping cop’s head exploded, washing the masonry wall with a swath of blood and brains.

Anatoli redeemed himself in the next moments by killing the other two downed cops, and then Arsov turned back to check on Yuri’s progress. Just in time. Yuri still hadn’t silenced the woman and seemed oblivious to the fact that one of the wounded cops on the floor had his hand to his shoulder mike, attempting a distress call. Arsov cursed under his breath, the last thing he needed was more cops riding to the rescue before he got far enough away. He pressed the gun to his shoulder and aimed at the struggling cop.

***

Blinding light flashed in McKinnon’s eyes, stunning him.
Ambush
, he thought, just as three hammer blows hit him mid-thigh, knocking his legs from under him. He hit the floor face first, the concrete driving the useless NV glasses into his face, and he felt them gouge into his forehead. He lay there a second, blinking beneath the now useless goggles, as something wet flooded his eyes and the air above his head filled with the cacophony of terrified screams and full automatic rifle fire.

He moved in slow motion and, with great effort, flipped up his damaged NV goggles, but he still could see nothing. He turned his head and willed his hand to key his shoulder mike. It came up gradually, almost as if it wasn’t attached to his arm.

“All units near… near… 516 Cope… land… Road. Offi… officers down… ambush… auto…”

***

Blood sprayed from the back of the cop’s head onto the shattered wall of the office area, and his ruined face rolled to one side, away from the shoulder mike. Almost done. Arsov jerked as a bullet ricocheted off the wall beside him into the caged whores, eliciting an even louder round of screams. One of the two wounded cops had his night-vision glasses flipped up and had recovered sufficiently to return fire, and the second was attempting to do so as well.

He couldn’t have that, now could he. Arsov reached over and threw the breaker again, plunging the warehouse into darkness just before he flipped down his own NV glasses.

“Hold your fire,” he bellowed in Russian, loud enough to be heard above the screams, just as Yuri stopped to change magazines. It wouldn’t do if one of these idiots shot him by mistake.

He ran across the warehouse, watching as the two wounded policemen struggled with their NV glasses. But they were blind fish in a barrel, and Arsov killed them both before they got off another shot. He turned without breaking stride and ran back through the dark, flipping his NV glasses up just before he turned the lights back on. He glanced down at his watch — less than two minutes since the cops had blown the rear door — but he still had to hurry.

“Anatoli! Come to this side and help us finish off the woman. Hurry!”

Seconds later, the Russians were lined up in front of the office area, with fresh magazines in place. Arsov glanced over at the cages where the whores cowered, quiet now, as if afraid to attract attention.

“I think I hit her earlier, before you finished off the cops,” Yuri said, as Arsov looked back. “I heard her yell. She’s on the right side of the door.”

Arsov nodded. “Keep your fire low. She will be on the floor.”

All three men sprayed the base of the wall to the right of the door with automatic fire.

***

Anna flattened herself against the floor and gazed at her useless Glock. She’d expended both her first magazine and her spare and was out of ammunition. The walls were rapidly being blown away to nothing, and light shined through the ragged holes, suffusing the previously dark space with a dull glow that threatened to steal her invisibility. She hadn’t caught a bullet, but the furious fire had turned the office walls into shrapnel, and blood puddled around her, leaking from a half-dozen wounds where ragged splinters had driven into the flesh of her unprotected limbs. She fumbled with her phone and had just pressed Dugan’s preset when another burst of fire shredded the cheap carpet in front of her and ricocheted off the concrete floor beneath, sending her smashed phone flying out of her hand along with the tip of her right index finger.

“Shit!” Anna said before she could stop herself, and then she scrambled to her left and under an old metal desk just as a fresh burst ripped through the place she’d occupied seconds before. She was unarmed and helpless, and apparently the sole survivor. She was pondering surrender when hope surged as different guns joined the battle to the left of what remained of the door. There were others still fighting back! Then the lights went out again. Someone yelled in Russian, and hope died as she heard unanswered automatic fire from where she knew the cops had fallen. They were being executed. There would be no surrender to these bastards.

Moments later, the lights came back on, and there was more shouting in Russian before the fire directed at her increased in intensity, all of it ricocheting off the floor now at a shallow angle, walking toward her. She rolled over quickly and turned her back to the gunmen, ducking her head and drawing her legs up to her chest, presenting as little unprotected flesh to the unseen gunman as possible, and gasping as multiple rounds bounced off the floor and slammed into her protected back, hammering the breath from her. Then she felt a jolt and a searing pain in her left hip below the vest, and something warm and wet flowing down her legs. She thought she’d wet herself until she smelled the coppery odor of fresh blood and knew she was badly hurt.

Suddenly she just felt tired. Very tired. How very nice it would be to take a bit of a nap. If only they would stop making all that noise. She closed her eyes and was at the edge of consciousness before something slammed into the desk above her with a tremendous crash.
Bloody noise makers
, she thought again and then slipped away.

***

Arsov watched as the shattered remains of the office wall folded over and the suspended ceiling crashed down into the ruined office area in a great cloud of drywall dust.

“Hold your fire,” he yelled and moved toward the rubble.

“Should we dig her out and make sure she’s dead, Boss?” Yuri asked.

Arsov watched a growing puddle of blood leak out from under the wreckage, mixing with white drywall dust to form a pink sludge.

He shook his head. “No time. Look at the blood. She’s either dead or soon will be. Besides, if she’s still alive when help arrives, they’ll waste a bit of time trying to save her.”

“So we go?”

Arsov nodded. “Go gather up your stuff, and let’s get out of here.”

He watched as Anatoli and Yuri pushed past him, and when they were a few feet away, he shot them both in the back. Just on the off chance he did get captured, he needed someone to blame all the dead policemen on now, didn’t he? He was congratulating himself on his cleverness when he looked up and saw the whores staring at him through the wire of the cages.

“Fuck!” He was so accustomed to thinking of them as furniture he’d totally forgotten about them as potential witnesses. He glanced at his watch again — five minutes since it had all started, though it seemed like an hour. He had no way of knowing if the cop got a call off before he killed him, but he had to assume he did. So first things first — he needed transportation.

He first searched the cop that tried to call and got lucky, pulling a set of car keys with an electronic key fob from the man’s pants pocket. He wiped the blood off on a dry section of the cop’s pants and looked over at the collapsed rubble of the office area. The collapsing walls had exposed a section of the glassed front of the reception area. He moved to the glass and pressed his face against it as he thumbed the button on the key fob and smiled as lights blinked in the distance up Copeland Road. Now to tidy up and leave.

He put a fresh magazine in his Kder and started toward the cages.

Peckham Road and Talfourd Road
London, UK

Dugan sat with the others in tense anticipation as they listened to McKinnon’s orders to breach the warehouse door and deploy the flash bangs. Then came the order to rush the warehouse, followed by — nothing.

He looked at Borgdanov. “Shouldn’t we be hearing someth—”

Dugan’s phone buzzed, and he fished it from his pocket and checked the caller ID before answering. “Yes, Anna?”

“Anna, are you there?” he asked into the phone as Borgdanov glanced over, a puzzled look on his face.

Dugan disconnected and stared at the phone.

“What is it,
Dyed
?”

“A call from Anna’s phone,” Dugan replied, still staring at the phone. “But I hardly think she’d call me in the middle of an operation, especially since we’re not supposed to know it’s going down. Maybe she just pocket dialed me by mistake.” He looked up at Borgdanov. “Do you think I should try to call her back?”

Borgdanov shrugged. “I do not know,
Dyed
. Perhaps it is as you say, a mista—”

The scanner squawked, “All units near… near… 516 Cope… land… Road. Offi… officers down… ambush… auto…”

Dugan’s blood ran cold.

“Go,
Dyed
!” Borgdanov yelled.

But Dugan was already starting the car. Tires squealed as they rocketed from the curb and careened around the corner onto Peckham Road.

Chapter Twenty

Inside Holding Warehouse
516 Copeland Road
Southwark, London, UK

Arsov glanced at his watch again as he hurried back from the cages, his mind working overtime as he strode across the warehouse. If anyone was coming, he needed to buy some time, just in case, and the best diversions were always the unexpected.

He saw the answer from across the warehouse, provided courtesy of MI5. One of the drums Anatoli had ducked behind was punctured by the woman’s fire, a single round just below the liquid level. A pungent smell assailed Arsov’s nostrils, and he saw clear liquid leaking down the side of the drum and puddling around it. A rivulet crept across the concrete floor toward a floor drain ten meters away. He drew close to read the labels on the drum and a dozen others around it. Nitroethane — raw material to feed multiple methamphetamine labs the
Bratstvo
was establishing across the UK. He nodded to himself and hurried over to Yuri’s body and searched the dead man’s pockets.

Moments later Arsov moved across the warehouse, unwrapping one of Yuri’s vile little cigars as he walked. He sniffed the air to make sure he no longer smelled the fruity odor of the nitroethane. He didn’t want an open flame near the chemical — not yet. Satisfied, he lit the cigar with a book of matches from Club
Pyatnitsa
and drew on the disgusting thing until the end glowed red. He then placed the butt of the burning cigarillo next to the matches in the open book and closed the cover, pinning the butt of the little cigar in the match book before he moved back to where the stream of chemical inched its way toward the floor drain. He set the matchbook down on edge in the stream’s path, two meters away, the matchbook forming a tiny stand to hold the burning end of the little cigar up in the air — an improvised, but effective fuse.

He took a last look around. Unlike the cages he’d been able to fire through, he’d no time to open each container and deal with the occupants, but the whores inside the containers hadn’t seen anything, and the fire should take care of them. And if help arrived while they were still alive, their rescue would provide yet another time-consuming diversion. Then he remembered the caged whores screaming during his ambush and had a flash of inspiration. He rushed back and picked up Yuri’s Sedr and opened fire, the bullets ricocheting noisily off the heavy metal containers. He ceased fire as screams rose from the terrified women and children trapped inside the boxes — he obviously had their attention. He moved closer, shouting, “Run! The whole place is about to explode! Forget the whores! Leave them, and let’s get out of here!”

Arsov nodded, as the screams from the containers rose to a satisfying din — that should be enough to occupy any first responders. With any luck, everyone would die together.

He jogged toward the section of exposed reception area glass at the front of the warehouse, blasting it apart with Yuri’s Sedr as he approached. The last bit of glass fell from the window just as he reached it, and he tossed the now empty automatic to the side and stepped lightly through the ruined window, fishing the cop’s keys from his pocket as he did so. He pressed the key fob, and car lights blinked down the street. He set off toward it at a jog.

Clayton and Consort Roads
London, UK

Dugan gripped the wheel tightly as he whipped around the roundabout and raced due south on Consort Road. He searched above him for the point where the London Overground tracks passed over the road, the landmark for a hard right on to Copeland Road.

“Hurry,
Dyed
,” urged Borgdanov, but Dugan already had the accelerator floorboarded.

Then the tracks were overhead, and Dugan barely slowed as he braced for the right turn. He blew through the traffic signal on screaming tires in a barely controlled skid, only to encounter the headlights of another car coming in the opposite direction.

“Watch out,
Dyed
!” Borgdanov screamed, but Dugan was already cutting the wheel, avoiding a head-on collision by inches. He clipped the back of the other car and sent both cars spinning away from each other to lurch to a halt against the curbs at opposite corners of the intersection.

“Is everyone all right?” Dugan asked.

“Arsov!” Ilya yelled from the back seat, and Dugan looked across to see Arsov behind the wheel of the other car. The mobster obviously recognized them as well, and the tires of his car squealed as he fled north up Consort Road.

“After him,
Dyed
,” Borgdanov shouted, but Dugan hesitated only an instant before he roared down Copeland Road toward the warehouse.

“What are you doing?” Borgdanov demanded.

“If Arsov’s hauling ass and McKinnon called for help, things went to hell at the warehouse.” Dugan handed Borgdanov his cell phone. “I doubt the cops will listen to us, so get Lou or Harry on the phone and tell them which way Arsov is headed so they can alert the cops. And tell them to get all the help they can over here. I have a feeling we’re going to need it.”

Borgdanov swallowed his frustration and nodded as he took the phone. Dugan accelerated toward the warehouse — and Anna.

A minute later, the car skidded to a halt, bucking as the front wheel rode up on the curb. Light leaked through a smashed floor-to-ceiling window at one end of the warehouse reception area, dimly illuminating the wreckage of the remainder of the office area visible through the intact panes. The car was still rocking on its suspension as Dugan threw open his door and tumbled out to race toward the shattered window.

“
Dyed
, wait!” Borgdanov cried. “It could be a trap.”

Dugan ignored him and ran toward the warehouse, with Nigel close behind. The Russians had no choice but to follow.

As he approached, Dugan heard muffled screams, but nothing prepared him for the scene inside the warehouse. Bodies lay scattered, and the pools of blood glistening in the harsh lights left little hope anyone was still alive. Heart in his throat, he scanned the bodies, momentarily relieved that he didn’t see Anna, then fearful at her absence. He scanned the walls, and fear turned to rage when he saw more inert and bloody forms on the floor inside the cages.

He stood trembling as Borgdanov walked through the blood and stooped at each inert policeman’s body to check for a pulse. Then he saw Ilya rush to the steel containers, obviously drawn by the screams. Ilya ran down the line, disengaging the locking dogs on each set of container doors and throwing them open. The screams died, and women and children rushed out of each container, to stop and gaze at their rescuers, confusion and fear in their eyes.

“Is Anna there?” Dugan called.

Ilya surveyed the small crowd of milling hostages. “
Nyet
,” he called back. Dugan heard a gasp behind him.

He turned to see Nigel pointing at a flame racing across the floor towards a collection of drums stacked near the wall of the warehouse. The small flame reached the drums and ignited a larger puddle around them, engulfing all the drums.

“What the hell is that?” Nigel asked.

“Nothing good,” Dugan said and screamed at the Russians, but they were already herding the hostages toward the hole in the back wall of the warehouse where the door had been.

“Go help them. I’ve got to find Anna,” Dugan said to Nigel, then turned without waiting for a reply. He rushed toward the wreckage of the offices, the only place that might conceal her.

“Anna!” he called, wading into the debris. “If you can hear me, make a noise.”

He stopped and listened, straining to hear over the growing roar of the fire behind him and feeling the heat on the back of his neck. Whatever was in the drums was burning hotly, and it was only a matter of time before the barrels ruptured and engulfed the whole building in flames. He pushed that from his mind and moved through the rubble calling Anna’s name. Please God, let him find her in time.

Then he was deep into the wreckage, his movement raising thick, swirling clouds of drywall dust to mix with the acrid smoke of the chemical fire, stinging his nose and eyes and obscuring his vision. A section of shredded wall loomed out of the haze, blocking his path, and as he wrestled it aside, his foot slipped on something slick. He went down hard and cursed as his left knee slammed painfully into the concrete floor, and when he dropped his hand to steady himself, he felt something wet and slimy. He lifted his hand and squinted through stinging eyes.

Blood!

“Anna!” he screamed at the top of his lungs and was rewarded by a low moan from beneath a huge debris pile.

“I’m here! Hang on, Anna! I’ll get you out of there.”

It was becoming difficult to breathe in the increasingly toxic atmosphere, and Dugan succumbed to a bout of violent coughing. He struggled to his feet. Saving Anna was all that was important now.

What looked like half the suspended ceiling had collapsed upon the debris pile in front of him, the metal supports and acoustical tile twisted into a solid mass. The loose end of the obstruction rested on top of the pile of wreckage, and the other end was still connected overhead some distance away. Dugan squatted and put his shoulder under the free edge of the mass and lifted with a desperate, adrenaline-fueled strength. The load stubbornly resisted, and he redoubled his efforts until the whole mass began to creep upward, inch by inch. Dugan’s straining hamstrings and butt muscles were on fire, but then he was upright, and he locked his knees, transferring part of the load to his skeletal structure. But what now? He heard a cough, and then someone shouted behind him.

“Mr. Dugan! Where are you? We have to get out. The whole place is going up!”

“Here, Nigel,” Dugan yelled back over his shoulder, and Nigel scrambled through the rubble toward him, the sounds of his passage barely discernible over the increasing roar of the conflagration.

“Mr. Dugan. We hav—”

“Negative,” Dugan shouted. “I found Anna. We’ve got to get her out!”

“Yes… yes, sir,” Nigel said, moving to help Dugan shoulder the load.

“No,” Dugan said. “I’ve got this. She’s under the desk. Get that piece of wall out of the way and then slide the desk over so we can get at her.”

Nigel set to work, his slight figure straining as the heavy wall section rose slowly and then crashed back onto the desk as his strength failed.

“It’s too much for one man,” Dugan yelled. “Go get the others!”

Nigel peered through the thick smoke and shook his head.

“It’s too late. The fire’s blocking the way. I came back just as they got the last of the hostages out the back, and I barely made it. I’m sure they’re coming around the outside, but it’s a long way, and there may be fences to deal with.”

Dugan coughed and struggled for a breath.

“O-okay, then find something we can use to prop this ceiling up, then we can—”

“I understand,” Nigel said, scanning the wreckage. He disappeared into the smoke and returned in seconds with a broken piece of wood slightly longer than Dugan was tall.

“This will have to do,” Nigel said, tipping the wood at an angle and placing one end under the end of the collapsed ceiling near Dugan’s shoulder and the other end on the floor. “If you can lift the ceiling a few more inches, I’ll push the bottom of this board in along the floor until it’s taking the weight.”

“Let’s do it,” Dugan gasped, twisting to get the heel of his hands beneath the ceiling panel — and failing.

“What’s the matter?”

“I-I’ve got to get out from under the load to reposition myself,” Dugan said, “and as soon as I let go, this panel’s coming down unless your little stick can hold the weight, so make damn sure the bottom of that thing doesn’t slide out. Got it?”

“Just a minute,” Nigel said, and Dugan felt the ceiling panel vibrate as Nigel kicked at the bottom of the board, trying to force it more vertical under the load. “Okay. I’m going to drop down and brace the bottom. Lower the load onto the board whenever you’re ready.”

Dugan nodded. “We’ll go on three. One, two, THREE.”

He twisted quickly and repositioned the heels of both palms under the edge of the ceiling panel. He’d barely gotten into position as the load began to increase.

“God damn it, Nigel! Hold it, I’m not ready! I can’t hold it with my arms alone.”

“The floor’s… slick… with… blood. It’s… sliding,” Nigel gasped between grunts. “I can’t… hold it… much longer. Get… clear!”

Dugan cursed and stepped back, releasing the load to sink on to the pile of debris, as the increased weight on the board pushed Nigel back a foot or so before the board came loose and clattered to the floor. Dugan stripped off his shirt and dropped to all fours to mop the blood off the floor.

“Take off your shirt and help me,” Dugan yelled, and Nigel rushed to comply. In seconds they had cleared a small area of the floor of the sludge of blood and drywall dust.

Dugan squatted under the edge of the ceiling panel and extended his arms straight above his head, his palms resting on the load. Catching on immediately, Nigel worked the board back under the edge of the ceiling panel at an angle, pressing the bottom of the board to the newly cleaned floor to hold it in place.

“Okay,” Dugan shouted above the fire. “At every count of three, I’ll push up as hard as I can, and you push the bottom of the board in and let me know when you’ve stopped. You’ll have to keep the bottom of the board in place while I’ll rest for a second or so, and then we’ll repeat. Start whenever you’re ready. Got it?”

“Go,” Nigel said, and Dugan began to take a deep breath and stopped as the smoke burned his throat. He coughed and steadied himself for the effort.

“One. Two. THREEEE …” Dugan clenched his teeth and pushed up with all his might.

“Stopped!” Nigel shouted.

Dugan relaxed a split second and squatted back down a bit to take advantage of the space his last push had gained him and began the count again. “One. Two. THREEE …” he called and fired upward on burning legs, gaining a bit of momentum before he shouldered the weight.