The Chop Shop (19 page)

Part of the
street was on fire. Licks of flame escaped from open windows and turned the
surroundings a shade of orange-brown. Shadows stretched across the road, and an
overturned police patrol vehicle blocked one lane, windows smashed, tires
punctured and its shape pockmarked by bullet holes.

Richard eased
off the pedal and wheeled his car around the wreck. Bodies lay scattered across
the road and pavement.

“Stop the car
and pull over, now. Before they see the headlights,” Michael said.

Richard parked
next to the pavement and killed the engine. The mob strung up another dead
police officer from a lamp post. Two others dangled nearby.

“There's the
place and the van,” Richard said. He pointed to one of the houses.

Michael rolled
down the window and leaned out. He gestured to the woman standing in front of
her flat, cradling a child in her arms as she puffed on a cigarette. “Hey, what
happened here?”

She took another
puff from her cigarette. “They tried to evict some squatters from that building
over there. They came out and found this lot waiting for them. Are you the
police?”

“No.”

“Too bad, I was
hoping you could shoot them all. They woke my baby up.”

Michael rolled
up the window again. “What do you want to do? I think we could get in there,
but getting out alive with our prisoner is going to be another matter.”

“I'd like to
turn the car around and come back later, but they might not be here later.
Maybe somebody will tip them off that we're on to them and disappear, and then
it'll be another case we couldn't solve, and another step towards getting the
sack for poor performance and failing to meet government targets.”

Richard reached
into his pocket and inspected the grenade. “I'll call it in on the radio. We
can always shoot our way out, right?”

Some of the
group turned away from beating the corpses with sticks to stare at them, and
the woman took her child inside.

“Best leave the
radio. They'll know we're police if they see it. Let's play it quietly,”
Michael said.

They got out of
the car and opened the boot. Michael retrieved the duffel bag they'd taken with
them. “Are they watching us?”

“Yeah, and I
think they're starting to tire of their piñata.”

Michael went
down the alley. Overgrown weeds and bushes crept up the sides of the fences,
and a rusting washing machine blocked half of the path. Broken glass crunched
under their feet. They turned the corner out of sight of the mob, and he
allowed himself to relax.

“Needles
everywhere,” Richard muttered.

Michael pulled
on a glove and felt along the top of the fence, pulling on it gently before
climbing up to look over the other side. “It's safe.”

They climbed
over and landed in a patch of overgrown grass. The glow of warm light behind
net curtains stretched across the garden from a kitchen window. Michael went
down on one knee, unzipped the duffel bag and passed Richard a carbine and
ammunition.

He inserted two
blue breaching cartridges into shotgun, followed by five green slugs. They put
in their ear plugs and removed more equipment from the bag, piling it into
their coat pockets.

Michael advanced
towards the kitchen door. He tried the handle, but it didn't budge. Richard
lined up behind him. He pointed the shotgun at the lock, looked away, and then
blasted it twice. The door swung open, and Michael moved into the kitchen, as a
humanoid shadow extended from the lounge.

He sidestepped
across the doorway, shotgun stock pressed into his shoulder. The man was
reaching for a double-barrelled weapon from beneath a cushion on the sofa. He
stood six feet tall, bald head reflecting the dim light of the energy saving
bulb above them. His white t-shirt was stretched taut over bulging muscles.

“Drop it,”
Michael said.

The man levelled
the shotgun in his direction. Two barbs shot past Michael, trailing thin wire,
and they pierced the t-shirt and then the man's flesh. Richard's stun gun
crackled.

The man's eyes
widened, and his facial muscles contracted as a spasm ran through his body.
Finally he dropped, tumbling and squirming about on the carpet.

“Have some of
that,” Richard said.

Saliva ran from
the corners of his mouth. Richard squeezed the trigger again, and another jolt
electricity struck him.

“Try not to
electrocute him to death,” Michael said. He whipped a set of flexicuffs from
his pocket and retrained the man's hands behind his back. “Simon Doyle? You'll
be coming with us the police station to answer a few questions.”

Simon spat on
the floor. “Fuck off, I ain't done nothing wrong.”

“Who lives in
the flat upstairs?”

“Fuck off.”

“Forget it,
Mike. The mob is still out there. Check the rest of the place and then let's
go,” Richard said.

Michael went
into the bedroom. He flicked on the light switch and rifled through everything
he could find. An envelope full of cash lurked beneath the mattress, along with
a list of phone numbers and addresses. He pocketed them all.

“I've gotten
what I can from his bedroom. I don't want to hang around anymore, we'll have to
get another unit to come back and search the place again,” Michael said.

“What's it look
like out front?” Richard said.

Simon growled
and raised his head off the ground. “I'm going to break every bone in your
body, do you hear me?”

Richard grabbed
a damp flannel from the washing rack, pulled back Simon's head and forced it
into his mouth. Michael turned off the lights before parting the curtains.

The mob of
people surrounded another car beneath the street lights. The driver hammered
the vehicle's horn, only to stop abruptly, as they prised open the door and
dragged him onto the road.

“Mike?”

“They've just
stopped somebody in their car,” he said. “Now they're beating him to death. Get
operations on the radio and tell them to get us some backup before this gets
even uglier.”

Simon was
turning red in the face, so Michael yanked the flannel from his mouth. A
torrent of verbal abuse met his ears. He listened to the radio chatter. Food
riots. No backup available. Richard groaned.

He looked out
the curtains again, and another group of people ran down the street to join the
mob. Others waved burning torches in the air, as splinter groups broke off to
loot nearby homes. They dragged an elderly couple into the front garden and
left them lying there while they ransacked the place.

“I think we're
going to have to move; some of them are looking at your car. We'll have to take
him out the back,” Michael said.

“Take a deep
breath, steroid head. This isn't coming out for a while,” Richard said.

“Fuck off.”

Richard forced
the flannel back into his mouth. They lifted him up by the arms and pushed him
into the hallway, and then through the kitchen towards the back garden. Simon
tripped over the door step. He slipped from their grasp, struck the concrete
with his chin and let out a muffled cry of pain. A trail of blood ran down the
front of his white t-shirt.

Michael took the
bolt cutters from his bag and broke the trio of padlocks securing the back
gate. “You got him?”

“Yeah, go,” Richard
said.

They pushed
Simon into the alley, retracing their route back to the street. Five men had
gathered around Richard's car with cricket bats and metal poles.

Michael fired
off a warning shot, and the group backed away. Others came running towards
them.

“Get on the
fucking floor,” Michael said.

“Mike, help me
out here,” Richard said.

He lowered his
gun for an instant as he stepped backwards. They rushed him. He fired the first
shot with a single hand on the weapon. The slug caught the man in the shoulder,
and he crumpled to ground as though he'd been hit by a bus. He fired again and
then another time, hitting the second man centre mass and the third in the
clavicle. The others reached him before he could get another slug off.

A punch sent him
to the ground. They snatched the shotgun from his hold and turned it on him.
Richard let off a burst of fire from his carbine, splattering some of them down
the side of his car, and the others went low.

“Come on, get
up. There's more coming,” Richard said. He fired off another burst.

Michael picked
up his weapon and hurled himself into the passenger seat. Richard dumped the
carbine in his lap as he tried to start the engine. The car rumbled twice.
Michael leaned out the window and blasted the closest man in the legs.

“Reversing,”
Richard said.

The car impacted
upon something hard. Michael's seatbelt locked and crushed the air out of his
lungs, and he felt Simon's head hit the back of the seat an instant later.

“Shit,” Richard
said. “I struck a lamp post. Is he still alive?”

Michael reached
into the back and lifted Simon's head up. “Broken nose. He'll live.”

“I've got to go
through them.” Richard put his foot down on the accelerator. The rear bumper
detached, trailing the car before it fell off completely.

Dozens of men
and women came straight at them, armed with sticks, burning torches and looted
weapons from the police vehicle. Bullets began to puncture the bonnet, and the
windscreen cracked, spider webs forming around the entry holes.

Michael checked
the carbine. “I need a magazine.”

“My left
pocket.”

He inserted the
fresh magazine into the carbine, slapped it into position and yanked back on
the charging lever. He opened fire on the mob. Bloody holes opened in their
legs, and they fell grimacing in agony.

Molotov
cocktails arced through the air. Two went wide, but the last shattered against
the car and sent liquid fire trickling across the bonnet.

“I can't see,”
Richard said.

“Don't stop.
Keep going,” Michael said. He rolled the passenger window up.

The mob swarmed
them. They bricked the windows, thrusting bloody hands through the remains,
clawing and snatching at him as they felt for the door locks. Others climbed
onto the roof and clung onto the back of the car. Some caught fire, but they
seemed immune to the pain.

Michael tried to
fire the carbine again. Hands snatched it away from him, spraying off the last
few bullets into the air. One of the back doors came open and more hands
grabbed at their prisoner. Simon kicked them away, only for the mob to catch up
with the car again.

Richard slammed
the breaks on, and the tires squealed, momentum carrying the people on the roof
forward. They shattered the remains of the windscreen and rolled through fire,
before finally landing on the road. The survivors flailed about as the fires
engulfed them.

They drove
forward again, swerving left and right. Richard cracked the headlights on
another group, scattering them across the road in a mass of broken limbs. The
way forward was clear, and Michael watched the survivors in the wing mirror
trailing behind.

One by one they
slowed and stopped, heaving for breath in the orange fire light. The street
burned, flames spreading from building to building.

The engine kept
going for another street before it cut out. His head was dizzy with the smell
of burning plastics and petrol, and the backs of his hands were scarred with
burn injuries. They climbed out of the car and dragged their prisoner out the
back.

A tire burst
with a sudden pop as the fire spread through the rest of the car.

“You okay?”
Michael said.

Richard nodded.

He glanced at
Simon. “What about you?”

“Piss off.”

“Yeah, same to
you.” He felt the ground rumble, as blinding white headlights approached from
down the road.

Richard waved
the infantry fighting vehicle down with an injured hand. “We could've used you
lot ten minutes ago,” he said to the driver, whose head stuck out the open
hatch.

The rear door
popped open, and four policemen dismounted. Three took up overwatch positions.

“We just
extracted ourselves from a bank robbery so we could come and clean this mess
up. You should show a little more appreciation,” Corporal Hill said.

Richard pointed
to the flaming car wreck. “They nearly cooked us alive.”

Corporal Hill
held a hand close to the fire. “Hot enough to grill your marshmallows on. I
guess you'll be wanting a new car as well now. Are they still back there?”

“Some. You're
going to need more than four guys and a vehicle to clean that place out,”
Richard said.

“Luckily for
you, we need transport to take our prisoner back for questioning. Somebody else
can have the pleasure of clearing this mess up,” Michael said.

“Fine. Stick
this lump of meat in the back and we can roll.”

“How are your
hands?” Michael said.

Richard raised
them to show off the bandages. “Sore. How are yours?”

“Sore.”

The light above
them buzzed again as the moth flew into it. Michael checked his watch. “It's
getting late. I say we give the guy a once over now, and then if he won't
cooperate, we can let him sweat it out in a cell overnight. Nobody knows he's
being held here, so no problems there.”

Richard nodded.
“I think we can break him. He's a total amateur, and whoever hired him is a
moron.”

The policeman on
guard duty stepped aside and unlocked the door for them. “Shout if he gives you
any trouble.”

“Gladly,”
Richard said.

They went in and
sat down opposite Simon at the table. He heard the door lock behind them.

“I've been
waiting for this part,” Simon said. A pair of handcuffs kept his hands
restrained behind his back. Another set shackled his ankles together.