Suddenly, from beyond the crane, two shots rang out in quick succession and then someone screamed.
Chapter 37
As soon as Louise radioed through that she had a visual on the black man, Newman led his section forward to confront the meathead standing by the jetty that led down to The Eclipse.
Pump-action shotguns are particularly nasty weapons to go up against. Unlike a double-barrelled shotgun, which only holds two rounds, pump guns usually contain anything from five to seven, and they can be fired as rapidly as the holder can rack a new round into the breech. The two most common gauges are twelve-gauge and twenty-gauge. The significance of this, in layman’s terms, is that the smaller the gauge, the larger the round, and the more damage it can cause.
There are three different types of ammunition: birdshot, buckshot and solid rounds, sometimes referred to as slugs. These were basically bullets designed for a shotgun, like the Hatton rounds used by SFOs to take out door locks or tyres.
Birdshot is the smallest type of shotgun pellet, mainly used by hunters to shoot birds and small animals like rabbits or squirrels. Buckshot uses much fewer, but far larger, metal pellets. When fired, buckshot pellets disperse outward in exactly the same way that birdshot does, the only difference being that buckshot causes considerably more damage.
As they broke from cover, the man on the jetty caught sight of them and, after a moment’s hesitation, he started to raise the shotgun in a threatening manner.
“ARMED POLICE! DROP THE WEAPON. DROP THE WEAPON NOW!”
Ignoring the frenzied police shouts, the bald-headed man placed the stock into his right shoulder, dropping his weight in readiness to absorb the recoil from the shotgun when it was fired.
“Fuck you,” Newman heard him respond.
“ARMED POLICE! DROP THE WEAPON. DROP THE WEAPON NOW!” the shouting continued from the SFOs as they took up their firing positions.
Stepping forward, Newman slid the selector of his GS36 from safety to fire. “DROP THE WEAPON!” he shouted, taking aim at the target’s centre mass.
There was a loud boom as the shaven-headed man squeezed the trigger, and the man to Newman’s right staggered back and fell to the ground. The shooter immediately racked another round into the chamber and fired again, thankfully missing this time around.
With no time to check on his fallen comrade, Newman focused all his efforts on nullifying the gunman, who was already racking the shotgun in preparation for firing a third time.
Newman returned fire. Two rounds, one after the other. He heard other carbines open fire as his colleagues did likewise. The bald man staggered back, dropped the shotgun and fell to his knees, before keeling over sideways and lying still. Newman and two others immediately rushed forward with their weapons unerringly trained on the unmoving figure of the gunman. One of his officers cautiously stepped forward and kicked the shotgun aside, and then shouted, “Clear.”
There was movement on the boat. Leaving one officer to perform emergency first aid on the suspect, Newman and the remainder of his section ran along the jetty towards the boat, fully expecting to come under fire again at any second.
The two men who had been inside the wheelhouse had run out onto the deck. One of them, the white male, appeared to be holding a carving knife, but there was no sign of any firearms. When he saw the officers coming at him with carbines, he tossed the knife over the side.
“ARMED POLICE! STAND STILL AND SHOW ME YOUR HANDS!” Newman shouted; a call echoed by his companions.
For a moment, neither man moved, and then, as though the spell had suddenly been broken, both men turned around and bolted towards the bow, vanishing from sight almost immediately.
“Fuck sake,” Newman growled, breaking into a run.
As they boarded The Eclipse, weapons held at the ready, his team fanned out around him and began slowly advancing towards the wheelhouse.
“Did anyone see where they went?” Newman asked.
No one had.
With Newman in the middle, the three men continued to move forward, ready to open fire in an instant if they had to.
“In the water,” the man to Newman’s left suddenly shouted, rushing towards the prow. Sure enough, both of the men who had been on the boat were now swimming across the River Brede towards the far bank.
Newman keyed the throat mic. “Newman to Tyler, come in.” He had left the detective one of their hand-held radios to monitor proceedings. If he could get word to him that there were swimmers in the water, there was a good chance that Tyler would be able to get units over to the other side to start searching for them. “Newman to Tyler, urgent message, please come in.”
Nothing.
“Newman to Richards. Status report, over.”
“Chasing suspect… heading back towards the van…” she replied breathlessly.
“Oh, for fuck sake,” Newman cursed, turning and running back towards the shore.
“You two, stay here and clear the boat,” he hollered over his shoulder. He was fairly confident that it was empty, but it still needed to be thoroughly checked out.
As he sprinted along the jetty and back to the quay, he saw his colleague standing over the fallen suspect. The fact that he wasn’t working on him could only mean that the man was already dead. The officer shook his head as Newman ran past, seemingly confirming this.
The SFO Newman had seen go down at the beginning of the deployment was now back on his feet, looking winded but otherwise okay. There was a close-cropped cluster of impact holes in the centre of his vest, but its integrity hadn’t been breached.
“Are you okay?” Newman called as he ran towards him.
The constable had pulled off his goggles and balaclava and was grimacing.
