--2--
One of the masked men, wearing a leather jacket, turned while his companion covered the startled people and looked out the smashed windows of the café. The Securicor van lay on its side, dented and smoking, back doors blown clear off. A guard lay on the ground from where he had been thrown by the explosion. He was missing a leg. And there wasn't much left of his head.
"Fuck." He murmured.
Duncan stood up, reacting without even thinking. The other gunman, this one larger, wearing a black bomber jacket, pointed his gun at Duncan, stopping him. "Back off."
Duncan moved back, putting his hands up. Behind him he could hear the little girl and the baby crying and their mother's desperate attempts to shush them.
"You too." The man snapped at Mickey, who was still kneeling at Boulton's side.
Mickey looked up. "He's hurt."
The gun poked closer. "You'll join him!"
"Mickey." Duncan warned.
Mickey scooted back.
The leather jacketed man left the window as the sounds of police sirens grew louder. "Pigs."
The other gunman looked around the café, "what's in there?" He demanded, jabbing his gun towards the door behind the till.
"Stock room." The ratty café owner replied nervously. "Freezers and the like."
"Right, get in there!" The large gunman yelled. "All of you!"
The waitress and the owner scuttled in quickly. The builder followed, casting looks at the gunman. Duncan cursed. The last thing they needed was a have-a-go hero getting them all killed.
"And you!" The smaller gunman screamed at the mother. She gave a frightened wail and the little girl's cries grew louder.
The man stormed over to them.
"Shut her up!" He screamed at her mother. He pointed the gun into the pram. "Shut them both up!"
"NO!" The woman cried, lunging forward to grab her baby. She knocked into the gunman.
"BITCH!" He snapped and backhanded her across the mouth.
Mickey started forward but Duncan grabbed him.
The larger bomber jacketed gunman came over. He put out a hand to stop his companion. "Just get in the other room!" He told the woman.
The sobbing mother guided her daughter out, clutching the baby to her.
"Why don't you give yeselves up, ay?" Duncan immediately began, drawing the gunman's attention away. "Police'll have this place sealed off pretty soon."
The gunman exchanged looks and then the smaller man began upturning tables to barricade the door.
Duncan began to wish he'd kept his mouth shut.
---
Kerry was having a good day. She'd woken up to her favourite song on the radio. Her toast hadn't burned this morning and the postman hadn't delivered any bills. In fact, with the sun shining, she felt pretty good.
It started to go wrong the moment she saw the van – white, non-descript – speed past the equally non-descript CID car they were using for the obbo. The van flew down the street, heedlessly. She turned to get the license plate and saw it screech to a halt beside a Securicor van.
She realised what was happening two seconds before two ski-masked men jumped out the van, fully armed and yelling.
"Bloody hell!"
She watched as the Securicor guard coming out of the bank immediately got face down on the ground. One of the masked men placed something against the doors of the Securicor van and the guard shook his head, obviously panicked as the gunman ran back behind their own vehicle.
Then she was yelling into her radio.
She got to the word "assistance" before the semtex exploded.
---
Boulton began to groan. Duncan had to fight the urge to go to his side.
"Let us get him, ay?" He asked.
Bomber Jacket nodded once. Mickey and Duncan quickly went to Boulton. The sergeant moved his legs restlessly, coming too. He didn't seem to be that badly injured. His arm looked odd as if his shoulder was dislocated, or a bone broken.
Mickey looked at Duncan. "Fink we should move 'im?"
"Can't leave him here."
As gently as they could, they rolled Boulton onto his back and with Duncan supporting his top half and Mickey his legs, they heaved him into the backroom. He moaned and mumbled something. It sounded like 'hair.'
Inside the cramped stockroom, they lay him beside the back wall. Duncan shrugged his suit jacket off and rolled it up to place under his head. As he did so, something slipped from the pocket onto the floor, unnoticed.
Duncan sighed as the fabric began to soak up the blood from Boulton's head. "The wife'll kill me."
Mickey's eyes flickered up to the gunmen. "She might not get the chance."
Boulton coughed. His eyes opened, but the pupils looked screwy.
"Sarge?" Mickey asked softly and with a glance at the gunmen, decided that this wasn't the place for rank. "Boulton?"
He grunted. "Mic…"
"You all right?"
A mumble.
Mickey gave him the 'v' sign. "'Ow many fingers?"
"Mickey…You're a…tosser."
Duncan smiled. "I think he's all right, don't you?"
---
The area cars screeched to a halt, Tony and Reg in one and Smithy and Cass in the other. They got out and immediately began assessing the damage. Tony knelt beside the dead guard.
Kerry ran over to them, clutching her police radio.
"They went in the café!" She gasped out. "Mickey, Duncan and Sergeant Boulton are in there too."
---
Mickey watched the gunmen. They were speaking together near the door, arguing about what to do next. The one with the leather jacket on was clearly angry at the turn of events. The other didn't seem so nervous. He was still in control, still thinking. That made him dangerous.
Mickey looked at the waitress. She was sitting beside him, clutching her knees, eyes wide. He realised that she wasn't much older than 21.
Boulton's eyes had flickered shut again. He and Duncan had looked at each other, but there didn't seem much they could do. The DS obviously needed medical help. They could only hope it wasn't urgently.
Mickey realised Duncan, sitting the other side of Boulton, was watching him. "What?"
"What about you?" He said. "Let's have a look at that cut."
"M'OK."
"Look, its not gonnae affect ye manhood for me to take a look, now is it?"
Mickey shuffled around and let Duncan poke in his hairline. He'd already felt along the cut himself, checking for fragments of glass, but the wound seemed to be clean and it was no longer bleeding.
"Won't even need stitching." Duncan decided.
The rest of the occupants seemed OK. The builder, who had been seated close to the window, was sporting several gashes from the flying glass, but for the most part the rest of them were unharmed.
The baby continued to wail, its tiny face going red in its distress. It didn't seem to matter how much its mother tried to rock it, the infant wasn't calming down. Already on edge, it didn't take much for the larger gunman to snap under the piercing sounds.
He stormed over and pointed his gun at the baby. "Shut that bloody thing up!"
The woman cried out and tried to curl around her child.
Duncan immediately came to stand in front of her. "Put it down, ay?" He told him calmly. "The police are gonnae be outside in minute. You start firing off wi' that and they'll be in here just like that."
The man pressed the gun against Duncan's chest, square over his heart. "You Haggis?" He snarled.
Duncan continued, keeping his eyes fixed on the man and not on the gun barrel touching him. "Start thinking, ay? You cannae go anywhere. Gee yeselves up and you'll be doing yeselves a favour."
The man put his face right in Duncan's. "I can't stand Haggis."
Boulton groaned, "…uncan…" and waved a hand, probably trying to call him off.
The other gunman came over and kicked him. Mickey flew to his feet, reacting, only to freeze as the gun came up at his chest. Boulton curled up, moaning. His movements revealed a black square of leather lying beside him where it had fallen from Duncan's pocket. The gunman bent to pick it up. Mickey's blood ran cold when he realised what it was.
The gunman opened the wallet. The Met police badge inside glinted in the light and beside it, Duncan's picture stared out. The gunman's head snapped up, looking furiously at Duncan.
"Pigs!"