My training and experiences over the years have taught me, sometimes at great cost, that underestimating possible threats and dangers can be disastrous. This is not going to happen when my family could be at risk.
Chapter 5
Stacey comes back into the kitchen from the garage, looking very worried; who can blame her? She sees me and attempts a smile. I give her a reassuring smile back and ask her if she has got everything into the Discovery or Disco, as Emily likes to call my car. She has, so I ask her if she can go and check on Emily and help her get her bag sorted? She hands me the car keys and goes upstairs, all the while looking down at her phone.
Walking across the kitchen, I go into the garage myself.
The garage is a big double one with plenty of storage space, my black Discovery with privacy glass on all the back windows parked in the middle, and tall steel storage racks surrounding it. Turning on all the lights so I can see easily, and moving to the back of the car, I open the boot and see all the food and bottles of water where Stacey has put them; there needs to be more space, however, so the provisions are re-stacked. Then I turn to the racks and start stacking other equipment into the boot alongside the provisions, a holdall of general equipment, two sleeping bags, tent, rucksack, stove and shovel to name a few.
Turning again, I finally grab mine and Emily’s waterproof camping jackets and place them on top of the other stuff, keeping the pile low enough to give me a clear view out of the back window. Most of the equipment is brand new; the farthest we have gone camping so far is, I’m afraid to say, our back garden on a warm night earlier in the summer. Civilian life does take over very quickly, especially when you have to raise a little girl and balance working full time!
Checking my watch, time is moving quickly; it’s already 9.35 a.m. and we need to get on the road to Orion. Going back into the house and straight upstairs, I go to see how the girls are getting on.
They are both sitting on the floor looking at Emily’s pink bag in front of them, its top open and full to bursting.
“Dad, we can’t get my bag closed,” Emily says, frustrated.
“I am not surprised,” I reply, “what you got in there, the kitchen sink?”
Kneeling on one knee next to Emily’s bright pink bag, its open mouth laughing at me with its pink teeth challenging me to shut that gaping void, the bag is messing with the wrong man at the wrong time; that mouth is soon shut. With that, I ask the girls to take the bag downstairs and wait for me while I get a few last things together.
Going into my bedroom, I again reach into my pocket for my phone and sit on the end of my bed checking to see if there is anything from Josh. There isn’t. This is getting very worrying, so deciding to deviate from our usual protocol, I decide to try and phone him.
His phone starts to ring and while waiting to see if he answers, my eyes wander to the TV still playing away to itself in silence. Just as my gaze hits the screen, the news programme switches from the studio and back to the reporter from earlier, the man still in the same position across from Oxford Street. But he now looks like he’s having an argument with a police officer. Josh's phone goes to voicemail and I leave a message asking him to phone me as soon as he can.
While looking at the two men arguing on the screen, I see that behind them, thick black smoke now billows from several buildings farther down Oxford Street, obscuring most of the street from view. In front of this, about five meters inside the barrier in the middle of the road and each about a meter apart in formation, there is another perimeter. Here, soldiers all lie on their fronts and face inwards, their weapons aimed directly down Oxford Street.
Turning up the volume on the TV, the first thing I hear is gunshots, high-velocity gunshots. And down Oxford Street, in amongst the smoke from the burning buildings, I’m sure there are shadows moving. Suddenly, the soldier directly in the middle and lying on the road releases his weapon, firing into the smoke.
Fuck me, the world-famous Oxford Street, the shopping capital of the country is now literally a full-scale war zone. The screen is then blocked momentarily by the reporter and the policeman who are now having a full-blown argument rapidly turning into a scuffle.
All I can make out of what they are saying, is the reporter shouting at the policeman that he is live on air and well within his rights to stay exactly where he is and do his job.
The officer is having none of it. He beckons one of his colleagues over and they both start to restrain the reporter, who is going berserk. Now, he is trying but failing to fight his way out of their grip. But it is what I can see in the background that has my stomach churning; dark shadows stand in the smoke swirls around and in between the buildings. They’re growing bigger and darker, and seem to be massing.
The soldier directly next to the one who shot his rifle has lifted his comms radio to his mouth and frantically shouts into it, obviously reporting the situation developing in front of him to get further orders. He then drops his radio, turns
