“Don’t worry, Don,” I said, feeling none of the confidence I was expressing. “We’ll get the girls back safely. Dee will care for Lavender like a mother hen. I certainly wouldn’t want to be the man that tried to hurt Lavender while Dee was around. The woman fights like a demon. She’s also a trained protection officer. She knows what to do in this kind of situation.”
The door burst open. DS Scott came in with a hand held radio.
“You need to hear this! Okay, Charlie two, say again.”
The radio produced a second of static and then a strong male voice came through.
“A female in a leather catsuit came flying out of the fire exit a minute or two ago, and ran barefoot to the road. She stopped a male on the street and he decked her. Two other males ran off searching the area, while the suspect on the street and one of the kidnappers dragged the female back inside.”
“Who were they looking for?” Don Fisher yelled, ignoring radio protocol. The man didn’t hear the question and so Scott repeated it.
“That’s the odd thing. We’ve been watching the place for hours and the female we saw was the first and only person to leave the building. But if the male with the carrier bag full of supplies is one of them, there are now six hostiles counted. Two searching, two dragging the female and two who came to the door to see what was going on.”
“Your woman is definitely a fighter, I’ll give her that. And in these circumstances that has to be an advantage,” Don Fisher said, sounding a little less afraid now.
I hoped that he was right, but I was worried. Dee was obviously trying her best to find a way out of her current predicament, but her plan had failed. The captors now had two hours, during which they might well make her pay for the escape attempt.
Chapter 72
Commercial Road, Tottenham, North London. Sunday Noon.
“Johnny, what the hell is going on here? I thought you had these women chained up?”
“Sorry, Sonny, but the ‘cloggies’ have been looking after the women. They wouldn’t let us near them once they were upstairs.”
Sonny Holloway and Johnny closed the fire door and joined the others, who were all gathered around the chair to which a hooded Dee was tied. Sonny took Rik to one side and kept his voice low.
“I come around to bring you some food and what do I find? A hostage running to me for help, that’s what. I could have been anybody. How did they even get out of the room, let alone the building? Those chains are supposed to be solid.”
“I don’t understand it. They got the handcuffs open, but I’m the only one with a key. But even if they got out of the room, they still had to get down the stairs and past the door, and we didn’t see or hear them.”
Rik knew that he was to blame. It showed on his face. The older woman had beaten up two of his best men as if they were rank amateurs, and she had also escaped from a seemingly secure environment. Rik’s career prospects were looking slim.
“OK, we are where we are. Where’s the other girl?”
“We don’t know,” Rik admitted.
“Go and bloody well find out, then!” Sonny growled through gritted teeth.
Rik turned to Dee and addressed her in a moderated tone. “Diane, we need to know where Lavender has gone. Please tell us, because we don’t want to cause you any more pain.”
“I don’t know,” Dee replied. “I told her to run as fast as she could to get help. I wasn’t going to get far in bare feet, was I?”
“I’m going to give you one more chance. Where is she? We’ve searched the factory, and she’s not here, and we’ve searched the area outside and she’s not there either. Last chance.” Rik waited.
“Look,” said Dee, “I realise that you aren’t English, and so I’ll speak slowly. I.... don’t ....know!”
Gregor had heard more than enough from this woman, who clearly derived pleasure from humiliating them. He stepped forward and shot her.
***
Blood spattered everywhere and Sonny tried to jump out of the way, but he was too late. The woman’s blood was on his coat.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, you lunatic?” Sonny screamed. “This is my place. If the police forensic people get around to looking in here I’ll go down for years. Put the guns away.”
“We haven’t got our answer yet,” Rick said, nodding to Gregor.
Dee had been shot in the thigh. She had no way of knowing whether her femoral artery had been damaged, but she knew that if it had she would have only minutes to live. What she did know was that she had never felt pain like it. She was in shock; she was fighting unconsciousness. She couldn’t give Lavender up. She had to convince them.
Gregor leaned over and pushed the hot barrel of his gun into the wound. Dee screamed and felt herself sliding away. Just before she drifted into the blackness, she heard Lavender’s anguished voice.
“Stop it! Please, no more! Leave her alone!” She started sobbing, but Dee heard nothing more.
“Go and get her down, Johnny. You too, Dave,” Sonny ordered. “And you three can stop this one bleeding all over my floor.”
***
When they had escaped from the chains, Dee had checked the factory floor below and, finding that they were not being observed, she helped Lavender climb onto the flat roof of the two storey office building. Dee handed up the remaining water and said, “No matter what happens, lie flat and still in the middle of the roof and don’t make any noise at all. Someone will come and get you.”
“Can’t I come with you?” Lavender had pleaded, afraid to be left on her own.
“No, darling,” Dee replied, her voice soft and calming. “We won’t make it far and they have guns. We have to make it look as if you got away. OK?”
Lavender remembered that conversation, and the promise she’d made, but she couldn’t let Dee die just so that she could stay hidden. Dee was the closest thing she’d had to a real friend since school.
Dee now lay on the table on the sleeping bag. She seemed to be drifting in and out of consciousness. Sonny had ordered Johnny and Dave to look after the hostages. He didn’t want to leave them with the Dutch thugs. Johnny had cut off the leg of the cat suit to expose the wound. It wasn’t the neat round hole that might have been expected. The wound was ragged. It was black on the edges, and he could see the white fat layer under the skin. It was surprisingly white. He stepped back when he suddenly realised he could see the muscles beneath.
Dave took over. He lifted the leg and placed his hand underneath; he could feel the bullet under the skin.
“It’s not a through and through, mate,” he said to Johnny. “I’m not an expert, but I reckon if it doesn’t come out, by tomorrow night she’ll be in real trouble.”
“What a mess. Can we get it out, do you think?”
“No choice, Johnny. Go and get my toolbox, it’s in the next room.
Lavender listened to the conversation with increasing horror.
“You can’t cut her open! You’re not a doctor. You don’t know what you’re doing!” she sobbed.
“Look, Miss, that isn’t strictly true,” Dave answered. “I was in the army, in Afghanistan, and we often had to do emergency medical on our mates or they would never have made it to the field hospital. I promise I’ll do my best, if you help.”
Lavender shook her head, shrinking back. “I can’t watch you cut her, I just can’t.”
“I know, it’s tough. I’m going to roll her into the recovery position which will protect her if she vomits. It’ll also give me access to the bullet. I want you to roll up some of that leather until it’s about an inch thick and put it between her teeth on top of her tongue. That’ll stop her biting her tongue while I’m working.”
Johnny opened Dave’s bomb making tool kit and wasn’t surprised to see the neatest and most organised tool box in London.
Dave took a Stanley knife, or box cutter, out of the box and took a brand new blade out of its waxed paper. He then picked up a small bo
ttle containing clear liquid.
“This is pure alcohol. I use it to clear residue from the ends of wires before I terminate them. It gives a better connection.”
Dave cleaned the new blade with the alcohol and slipped it into the knife. He swabbed the area around the bullet, which was clearly visible below the surface.
“Right, you both need to hold her down. The squaddies in Afghanistan were doped up with Morphine and they still kicked.”
Lavender took Dee’s head and shoulders, and Johnny took her legs. When he was happy she was restrained, Dave made the one inch cut. The new blade parted the skin with alarming ease. Dee moaned but didn’t struggle.
Dave laid down the knife and picked a pair of alloy pliers with a pointed nose. He had to use non-magnetic pliers when making or disarming bombs, as lots of wires and bomb components would become magnetised during assembly and the last thing you wanted to do was to attract the wrong wire to your pliers.
After dousing the pliers with alcohol and cleaning them thoroughly, he told his helpers to brace themselves. Dave put the closed pliers into the middle of the cut and opened the jaws. The bloody bullet stared out at him. Dee started yelling and trying to move her leg but Johnny held on tight. Realising he didn’t have much time, Dave prayed that his first effort would succeed and fixed the jaws of the pliers around the bullet, then retracted them slowly.
He dropped the bullet on the table and examined it closely. It appeared to be complete. The bleeding was minimal and so, wrapping the jaws of the pliers in a hygienic wipe, he cleaned the wound inside and out. Dee was back to moaning.
Dave would have stitched both wounds if he’d had some means of doing so, but he didn’t have anything close to a needle and thread. Improvising, he securely taped a cotton bud to each side of the wound and had Johnny pinch the sides of the wound together. This caused Dee yet more agony, whilst he taped two more cotton buds across the first two. Satisfied that the framework of plastic cotton bud shafts was holding the wound closed, he reinforced the structure with more medical tape before applying sterile dressings front and back. The task was completed by wrapping a bandage around the leg and tying it off.
Dee was in shock, but there was little they could do about that.
“Will she die?” Lavender asked, her voice trembling.
“No, but she’ll be in bad shape for a few hours. You’ll have to nurse her through it. And make her sip some water. Don’t let her gulp it down, though.” Dave closed the door.
“Johnny, what have we got ourselves into here? We took that girl. We’re responsible her safety.”
“I know, Dave. I felt bad about this from the off, do you remember me saying?” Dave nodded. “Dave, at least one of us stays with the girls at all times, right? When we hand them over tomorrow I want them in good order. I don’t want some mad boyfriend chasing me because we killed his girl.”
“All right, Johnny. Kidnapping’s is one thing, murder is something else entirely. We need to agree to protect these girls, whatever it takes!”
“Whatever it takes,” Johnny repeated, as they closed their fists and touched knuckles.
Chapter 73
398 High Rd, Tottenham, North London. Sunday 1:30pm.
Don Fisher and I had been ushered into a marginally more pleasant meeting room, its walls adorned with posters about the collection and disposal of used needles, child abuse and a particularly gruesome one picturing a victim of domestic abuse. Her face was so distorted with bruises, stitches and swelling that she did not look human. It struck me as a little tactless to sit us under that particular poster when Dee and Lavender were in the hands of brutal criminals.
DS Scott joined us in the room.
“Right, gents, we should be moving into position in five minutes or so, but let me update you on where we are.”
DS Scott looked down at a clipboard that had around half a dozen sheets clipped to it. The clip on the top was blue, the corporate blue of the Metropolitan police. The sheets it held were a mix of printed and handwritten, but all carried the police logo.
“At noon Europol launched simultaneous armed raids in The Hague, Amsterdam, Brussels and Strasbourg. Local police forces were also scheduled to hit targets in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania but they won’t report back any time soon.
In The Netherlands there was some armed resistance and five suspects are being treated for injuries. Van Aart instructed his people to stand down, preferring to fight with lawyers rather than guns. In all over one hundred and fifty arrests were made and sixty two young East European girls were freed from a holding camp in The Hague.
France and Belgium reported little resistance, and were equally successful but in smaller numbers.
Here the Metropolitan Police Armed response units hit Pops Holloway’s known haunts and his house. They have arrested eight people on suspicion of drugs, firearms and human trafficking offences. Pops Holloway is under police guard at the hospital, where he is reported as suffering from the symptoms of a stroke, or else he’s faking it. They’re doing tests to find out. We couldn’t find Sonny Holloway, but guess what? His Range Rover is parked half on the pavement outside a sandwich shop on Commercial Road, less than a hundred yards from Tottenham Press. Any questions?”
Don Fisher beat me to the punch.
“Can we go in, then?”
“Yes, as soon as we’re ready. Listen, this is off the record, you didn’t hear it from me. I just think you have a right to know what’s going on, that’s all.” DS Scott leaned over the table towards us and lowered his voice.
“An hour or so ago one of our observers at the scene heard something that could have been a gunshot, he wasn’t too sure. But there has been no activity as far as they could see, and so we’re assuming that everyone in there is still OK.”
I looked at Don Fisher and wondered whether my face had turned as pale as his. We would have been angry if all emotion hadn’t already been drained out of us.
***
Thanks to the Police psychologist, who said that the girls would need to see their loved ones as soon as possible after being freed, to reduce the post-traumatic stress, we were allowed to watch events unfold from close by. We sat in an unmarked white van in a parking space reserved for deliveries to the sandwich shop, which had closed for the day. We could see the Tottenham Press building through the front windscreen. One of the two plain clothes policemen sitting in the cab of the van was wearing headphones with a microphone curling around in front of his face. He was listening, and occasionally contributing to the radio chatter. The headphones were operated by Bluetooth and were wireless, but they were connected to a secure closed network radio with encryption. Just in case anyone in the area had a police scanner.
Commercial Road was sealed off by a sign that read “Road Closed: Gas Leak” and which was manned by a uniformed officer. There were very few people around the industrial area on a Sunday afternoon, but those that were around were inside the building, which was being observed closely.
The officer with the headphones repeated to us what he had heard.
“Armed response has arrived. Their adrenaline is up after a good result with the Holloway raid. They’re moving into position. The plan is a go. The electrician is kicking us off any time now.”
I had to admit, I felt somewhat useless as a spectator. The police were trained to handle such situations, and in that respect I was happy to leave it to them, but I couldn’t help feeling that I had let Dee down. I hadn’t been able to do anything to help her, and I felt frustrated and perhaps a little bit weak. I was also afraid to think of what might happen if all of this went wrong. I had known Dee for a matter of days, yet suddenly the prospect of life without her seemed inconceivable. I had no idea what I would do if anything happened to her, but I knew that if – when – she did get out of there, I would make damned sure I took better care of her in future.
Fisher and I leaned forward and observed as two men wearing overalls with a logo on the bac
k appeared from the gap between Tottenham Press and the building next door. Their overalls looked bulky and I guessed they were wearing protective vests.
When I looked closely I could see the older man working quickly whilst the younger man was constantly looking around. He was holding a handgun.
The next few minutes were going to seem like an eternity.
***
Ben Tyler should have been at home snoozing on the sofa with a stomach full of Sunday lunch while his grandkids ran wild in the garden, but instead he was in Tottenham working. Ben couldn’t remember when he had been more scared. The presence of an armed policeman, intended to make him feel secure, achieved exactly the opposite result.
Nonetheless, he had to concentrate. This was a tricky job. For a start, the system was live and electrocution was a distinct possibility. Fortunately, the wiring to this unit passed through the steel column that took the weight of the door and the roller mechanism, and would remain concealed until the front plate was completely removed. Whereas house wiring was simple three core cable with a plastic coating, this cable was copper sheathed and mineral insulated. The copper that wrapped the cores, or wires, was packed with magnesium oxide, an inert chalky substance which insulated the wires from one another. In order to keep the chalky substance in place when the cores were exposed, the wires had to be terminated with small aluminium pots. Had this not been the case, Ben would not have been able to carry out this operation on a live system.
Now they were in the third minute and he was just now exposing the cores. He loosened the terminal screws and the switch with its key control came off in his hands. Ben had to ensure that he did not touch either wire on any metal parts of the switches. He also needed to make sure that the two wires did not touch, or the roller door would try to open. The electrician tucked the key operated switch inside his overalls and extracted a much simpler switch. This unit was plastic and had a simple red switch on and off. Very carefully Ben attached a tiny crocodile clip to each exposed core, inserting a plastic spacer between them to ensure they did not touch, and allowed the plastic switch to hang suspended from the copper MICC cable.