Six hours. Short notice to get someone to drop everything and follow a man whom they did not know, who was not really suspected of doing anything. It was pretty unlikely they would wear that.
So, by a process of deduction, there was only one solution.
He reached for the phone.
Twenty minutes later, Henry was almost weeping with the agony of trying to hold it all in. He had to pass water instantaneously, otherwise he’d burst in a spectacular fashion.
‘ I need to pee,’ he declared, ‘and I’m not using that!’ He pointed accusingly to the chemical toilet.
‘ I could do with one too,’ said Philpot, the firearms officer.
‘ Right,’ said Henry. He looked out of the window. There was nothing moving on the Quay, vehicles, people, anything. He did a quick radio check using a prearranged code to find out if anyone had spotted the approach of Anderson and all came back negative. It seemed as good a time as any to break cover and dash across the road into the gap between two buildings and indulge in some blissful relief.
‘ We run across to that alley, go down to the far end of it and do it there. Then we wait for the all clear’ — he nodded towards Siobhan — ‘three clicks on the radio, and we’ll pile back into the van.’
‘ Gotcha,’ said Philpot, who for the last ten minutes had been fidgeting like he had a ferret down his trousers.
Henry opened the back door an inch. A blast of ice-cold air rushed in. He had another look to ensure it really was safe to go, dropped out of the van, sprinted across the road and disappeared down the alley, Philpot in hot pursuit.
They began to do what came naturally, their faces a picture of almost perfect pleasure.
Siobhan’s voice came over the radio, the words in rapid fire. ‘He’s here. Target One’s here. He’s pulled up at the front of the warehouse!’ There was a degree of panic in her speech.
‘ Fuck!’ uttered Henry. He had to finish peeing because he didn’t think he had a strong enough bladder to halt the process. Neither did Philpot. Both were in full flow, unstoppable. ‘How the hell did he get here without us knowing first? C’mon, c’mon.’ Henry urged himself. Down his radio he said, ‘You’d better get the ball rolling, Siobhan. We’ll be right behind you.’
If we can stop pissing.
Terry Anderson pulled up outside the converted warehouse in which he rented a one-bedroomed flat where he occasionally dossed down. He was driving his Shogun which bore Southern Irish number plates. He applied the handbrake and switched off the engine only seconds after Henry and his urinating colleague had disappeared down the alley. Had Anderson been less than a minute earlier he would have seen them climbing out of the van. As it was, the quayside looked safe and sound. A few parked cars. A van. No pedestrians. Nothing out of the ordinary.
He had been scanning police airwaves and again, nothing was going on which indicated a surveillance operation was underway. He caught a few officers transmitting radio checks, but it meant nothing to him.
He felt pretty secure.
The scanner was lodged on the dash of the Shogun. He leaned forwards and switched it off at the exact moment Siobhan made her hurried transmission to Henry.
Anderson did not hear it.
He did not sit for long in the car. He had parked in the residents’ bay on the opposite side of the road to the warehouse. He got out, locking the vehicle with the remote, and trotted towards the front entrance of the warehouse.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the rear doors of the van opening. Instinctively he knew he was in trouble.
The sight of two armed cops, one in uniform, one in plain clothes, confirmed his intuition.
Anderson did not hesitate, caught as he was between his car and the protection of the building.
His three-quarter-length sheepskin coat was unbuttoned, as always. He flung it open, skewed round to face the two officers, and the mini-Uzi which was hanging on a strap around his neck fell naturally into his hands with the ease of much practice. He clicked off the safety with his thumb and immediately whacked a short burst at the officers, bending low as he fired.
The uniformed male officer took the brunt of the burst across his shoulders and chest. The bullets ripped into his unprotected right shoulder and the rest thudded into his body armour — which saved his life. The impact spun him round like a top and he staggered face-first back into the surveillance van, screaming as blood spurted out from the wounds.
The female officer hit the deck, diving out of sight behind a car.
Two more officers appeared from an alley, one in plain clothes, one in uniform. Anderson gritted his teeth and loosed off another short burst in their direction. They leapt back down the alley, into cover.
Anderson turned and sprinted along St George’s Quay, disappearing out of sight underneath the railway bridge which spanned the end of the road.
Gun in hand, Henry ran up the alley towards the Quay. He could see Siobhan and the firearms officer jumping out of the back of the van and hear Siobhan’s near-hysterical voice over the radio, urging the rest of the troops to get going. ‘Move, come on, go!’ or words to that effect. There was the dull ‘du-du-du-du’ — a sound Henry recognised immediately as that of an automatic weapon being fired. The firearms officer pirouetted, clutching at his shoulder which had exploded in bright red, and toppled back into the van, screaming. Siobhan dived for cover. One officer down.
By this time, Henry and Philpot had reached the end of the alley. They ran rather stupidly out onto the road and showed themselves.
Henry saw Anderson about seventy metres away. The smoking muzzle of the deadly black Uzi zeroed in on the detective. Henry jarred to a halt, threw himself at Philpot and they bundled back into the alley only a fraction of a second before Anderson pulled the trigger again and released a deadly burst of bullets.
Stone chips flew. One lodged in Henry’s cheek. It was like being stung by a wasp.
They flattened themselves against the wall. Henry was breathing heavily already. Blood trickled warmly down his face. He wiped it away with the back of his hand.
He pivoted low out of the alley, gun in his right hand, supported by the left, bouncing on his knees. His elbows locked in an isosceles triangle ready to return fire, though painfully aware that the distance between himself and Anderson made the prospect of hitting him pretty remote… but all he saw was a glimpse of Anderson’s back in the fleeting second before he went out of sight.
‘ Leader to Car One,’ Henry bellowed down his radio. ‘He’s on foot, coming towards you, wearing a light tan coat, sheepskin collar, carrying an automatic weapon which he has used.’
Car One was the unmarked car which was supposed to have been keeping observations at the entrance to the Quay to clock Anderson if he came in that way. If the occupants of that car had been doing their job right, they should have seen Anderson and warned the surveillance van. That was an issue Henry would be taking up with those officers later.
‘ You stay here,’ he yelled across to Siobhan. ‘Look after him — call an ambulance. C’mon, bud, let’s move,’ he said to Philpot.
He went after Anderson, mindful that things had gone horribly wrong in less than a minute. Doesn’t take long for a job to get fucked up.
He and Philpot, who was much fitter and soon moved into the lead, ran to the end of the Quay where it becomes Damside Street, then onto the junction with Bridge Lane. Car One screamed down Bridge Lane from the direction of the city centre and squealed onto Damside Street, pulling up alongside Henry and Philpot.
The two officers aboard looked shamefaced. They had been away from their designated point and hadn’t bothered telling anyone. There were two Kentucky Fried Chicken wrappers in the back seat.
Henry was fuming. He could not recall a time in his life when he had been quite so fucking enraged.
‘ You fucking wankers — where have you been?’ he screamed through the driver’s window. He couldn’t be bothered to await a reply. ‘You’ — he pointed at the passenger — ‘get out.’ He turned to Philpot. ‘You and this dipstick get going after him on foot. I’ll get a lift to the southern end of town and work my way back down on foot.
