Soft Target

Owen’s radio crackled. ‘AC Hannant here. Everything okay, Paul?’

Owen clicked his mike. ‘Fine, sir. Just wanted to see what your ETA is. Seems to be a protest. We’re keeping a watching brief and we’ll pick them up when they climb down.’ He looked at Shepherd. ‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m sure,’ said Shepherd.

‘God help us if you’re wrong.’

Again Hannant’s voice crackled over Owen’s transceiver: ‘Are the TV people there yet?’

‘No, but they’ll probably be here soon, sir,’ said Owen.

‘You handle the press, Paul. You’ll know what to say. Public protests are a right, but public safety is paramount, we don’t want to be heavy-handed, blah-blah-blah. The usual waffle.’

‘Will do, sir.’

Owen waved at Rose’s MP5. ‘The guns can go back in the car, Sergeant.’

‘I’d be happier if we remain armed,’ said Rose.

‘Sarge,’ said Shepherd. Rose followed his gaze. Two of the three men had reached the top of the tower and had taken off their backpacks. As the third joined them they unfurled a huge banner. It billowed in the wind. ‘FATHERS HAVE RIGHTS, TOO!’

‘Stupid bastards,’ Rose muttered.

Shepherd headed back to the car. Rose went after him and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Nice call.’

‘Just lucky.’

‘It was more than that. To remember something you saw in the paper a year ago! I’d have slotted them without a second thought.’

‘And you would have been right,’ said Shepherd. ‘They could just as easily have been al-Qaeda. If I hadn’t recognised the guy and we’d been ordered to shoot, I’d have done it.’

‘And the media would have crucified us,’ said Rose.

‘Yeah, well, they want it both ways, don’t they? They want the UK safe from terrorists yet they accuse us of being heavy-handed when we do what’s necessary. Can’t bloody win. Journalists and politicians– don’t know which are worse.’

‘Throw in senior police officers and I’ll agree with you.’

They got into the car and stowed the MP5s. Rose picked up the radio and called in that they were back on watch.

Sutherland was peering up at the tower. A second banner had been dropped so that it covered the north face of the clock. ‘KIDS NEED THEIR DADS.’ ‘Do you think they know how close they came to getting shot?’ he mused.

‘They just want to make their point,’ said Shepherd.

‘They were lucky,’ said Rose. ‘And you must have one hell of a memory.’

‘Nah, story just interested me.’

‘You’ve got kids?’

‘Not that I know about,’ Shepherd joked. He hated denying Liam’s existence but Stuart Marsden didn’t have a family. ‘These guys get a raw deal. Most of them pay child support and want to be good fathers, but their wives get vindictive. What about you? Have you got kids?’

Sutherland flashed Shepherd a warning look, but Rose didn’t seem perturbed. ‘A daughter. But if my missus ever tried to take her away from me, you wouldn’t find me climbing Big Ben with a banner.’ He stretched and sighed. ‘I hate false alarms,’ he said. ‘All foreplay and no orgasm.’

‘Can’t help you there I’m afraid, Sarge,’ said Sutherland. He looked over his shoulder at Shepherd. ‘Besides, that’s up to the new guy.’

‘Didn’t see that in the job description,’ said Shepherd.

‘Don’t worry, Stu,’ said Rose. ‘You’re not my type.’

The car radio crackled. ‘Trojan Five Six Nine, armed robbery in progress at Speedy Pizzas in Battersea high street.’

Sutherland put the car into gear and switched on the siren and flashing lights.

Rose picked up the mike. ‘MP, Trojan Five Six Nine en route,’ he said.

Cars were pulling to the side of the road to let the Vauxhall through. ‘Hopefully we’ll get you an orgasm this time, Sarge.’ Sutherland laughed as he stamped on the accelerator and tore past an open-topped tour bus. There was still a roadblock leading to Westminster Bridge but the uniformed police waved them through. They sped across the empty bridge and through the road block on the south side.

The controller filled Rose in on what was happening. Two IC3s, black males, had gone into the pizza shop and produced sawn-off shotguns. A customer had decided to have a go and grabbed for one of the guns. It had gone off and the noise had alerted passers-by. Three had phoned 999 on their mobiles, and within two minutes a local ARV had been on the scene with two area cars. They had contained the situation but the two robbers were now holding the customers and staff hostage.

‘Why the hell would anyone stick up a pizza place?’ asked Sutherland. ‘How much cash would they have at this time of day?’

‘Could be druggies,’ said Rose.

‘Druggies with shotguns? They’re more at home with blood-filled hypodermics or knives,’ said Sutherland.

Shepherd felt the blood pounding through his veins and the elation that came from the body’s release of adrenaline. This was no false alarm: there were men with guns and they were prepared to use them. And it was up to him and his colleagues to stop them. He focused on his immediate task, of finding the most efficient route to the crime scene, but his mind was already whirling through the ramifications of a hostage situation. There would be no gunfight while the men were inside the building with hostages. The officer in charge would play it by the book and negotiate for as long as he could. The SO19 officers would be there to contain and control, but to shoot only as a last resort. The hostage-takers would be hoping for safe passage, but Shepherd knew that wouldn’t happen. The police would keep a dialogue going until the robbers realised that the siege would end only one way – with them in custody.

Sutherland cut through the south London streets. A second local ARV called up that it was on its way to the scene, and the officer in charge called in to request a hostage negotiator, then an ambulance. A customer had been hit by the shotgun blast and was bleeding heavily. That changed the situation, Shepherd knew: if the life of a hostage was in immediate danger, there was a chance that the armed police would be ordered in.

Trojan Five Eight One called in that it was en route with an ETA of six minutes. It was one of SO19’s black vans with trained snipers among its eight-man crew. It added to the likelihood that the building would be stormed. Shepherd’s pulse raced. He remembered Major Gannon’s briefing in Hereford. The way armed police took a building was a complete contrast to the SAS method. The SAS went in hard, thunderflash grenades to stun, multiple shots to make sure that the targets went down and stayed down. They stopped only when the object was secured. When the SAS did their business there were usually no cameras around, no witnesses to scream about overkill and human-rights violations. But the police had to follow procedures, many of which had been drawn up by men who had never seen a gun fired in anger, never had cordite sting their eyes, never felt the paralysing punch of a bullet hitting home.

The officer in charge was a chief inspector from Battersea. Sutherland and Rose said they didn’t know him but his voice was calm. He confirmed that the street had been cordoned off and that offices and apartments were being cleared. He suggested that vehicles enter the high street from the east. Shepherd’s eyes flicked over the map and he called out an alternative route to Sutherland.

They powered past an ambulance that was also Battersea-bound, siren wailing. Shepherd wondered how badly hurt the customer was. Sawn-off shotguns were lethal at close range but the shot dispersed so much once it left the barrel that the damage could be superficial beyond fifty feet or so. Shepherd had taken a bullet once and almost died, but he had been a soldier fighting a war. The customer had expected no more than a boring wait in a queue and now he was a victim in an armed robbery. There was an unfairness about crime, the way it struck without warning. If you were in the wrong place at the wrong time you became a victim. At least in a war you knew what to expect.

‘Here we go,’ said Sutherland. Two area cars were ahead of them, their bumpers together across the road. A single uniformed constable in a yellow fluorescent jacket pointed to the left and Sutherland parked. Shepherd was