33. TRAIL
The sun was starting to drop as Chloe parked the Range Rover in a side street a couple of hundred metres from the seafront at Kingswear. She walked down a steeply sloped lane and knocked on the back of a van marked with the name of a sanitation company.
The door swung open and she hopped inside, joining McEwen, Neil Gauche and an array of screens and monitoring equipment.
‘Your majesty,’ McEwen said sarcastically. ‘To what do we owe the honour?’
Chloe smiled. ‘James is in Cambridgeshire, Lauren and Dante are partying at the Führer’s house and there’s nothing on telly, so I thought I’d come along and see if you boys needed a hand.’
‘Cool,’ Neil said.
‘So what’s the state of play?’ Chloe asked.
McEwen answered. ‘Johnny Riggs arrived and went aboard the Brixton Riots about an hour after I fitted the cameras and microphones on the boat. A fuel tanker came by, then he spent some time cleaning up on deck. Paul Woodhead, plus Julian and Nigel arrived just after six. We picked up Nigel asking how long it would take. Riggs said he hoped to be back ashore before nine and all finished by eleven at the latest.’
‘What about the equipment?’
‘See for yourself,’ McEwen said, as he pointed to an LCD screen showing a clear video feed from the rear deck of the boat. ‘We’ve also got cameras set up on the dock, and Neil went out and put recording devices and trackers on Riggs’ car and the van Woodhead arrived in.’
‘Van,’ Chloe smiled. ‘So they’ll load up into that.’
‘I’d guess,’ McEwen said. ‘The coastguard are going to track the boat on radar, just in case it tries to drop the cargo somewhere else. My biggest worry is that none of our equipment is designed for use at sea.’
Chloe nodded. ‘The memory chips will store the video from the deck even if the signal drops out though.’
‘Yeah,’ McEwen said. ‘But what about the weather? Sea, salt spray and all that.’
‘At least the sea’s calm,’ Neil noted, as he dragged a chair across the van’s floor towards the monitors. ‘We’re gonna be here for a few hours, Chloe. You might as well sit down.’
*
By quarter to eight there were about twenty kids in the Führer’s house, mostly Year Nines but a couple who were a year or so either side. The teenagers were past the age for sleepovers and birthday parties, but not yet comfortable with the concept of an evening party with no parents, unlimited booze and a chance of getting your hands on members of the opposite sex.
The result was awkward, with boys drinking cans of lager around a pool table and dart board in the back lounge, while a slightly smaller number of girls colonised the kitchen, mixing cocktail recipes from a book belonging to Joe’s mum, or sprawled over the chairs in the adjoining conservatory gossiping about their lives and in particular the lies they’d told their parents in order to come to an unsupervised party.
Dante was slightly drunk after two beers, and he bumped into Anna at the top of the first-floor stairs as he came out of the toilet.
‘This is dull,’ Anna complained, as she went up on tiptoes and gave Dante a kiss. ‘Everyone down there is brainless.’
Anna’s breath smelled boozy, but Dante didn’t complain as she pushed him against the wall and slid her hand down the back of his shorts while they snogged. A couple of girls giggled and said, ‘Oooh Anna!’ as they walked by and went into the bathroom together.
‘Lesbians,’ Dante sniggered.
Anna took his hand and gave him a tug. ‘Let’s find somewhere private,’ she said.
‘You’re braver when you’re tipsy,’ Dante smiled, as they walked down a corridor covered with a dated turquoise carpet.
The first room they opened was Martin’s. The large space was similar to Joe’s room, but with fewer gadgets and a big map of the world on the wall with pins marking all the places where he planned to travel.
They skipped Joe’s room, then laughed when they opened his parents’ bedroom door and saw Marlene’s giant underwear and the Führer’s baggy Y-fronts lying on the floor.
‘Old people’s bodies are so horrible!’ Anna winced. ‘I want to die young and beautiful.’
A loud cheer came up from the lads playing pool downstairs. As it subsided the two girls came out of the bathroom and Dante and Anna dived through the double doors at the end of the corridor to make sure that they weren’t spotted.
‘Wow,’ Anna said, as she stared along the narrow room towards a bay window draped with heavy velvet curtains. The land dropped away sharply where the house ended and there was a view over orange sky and an expanse of fields and countryside.
The room was the Führer’s study and it reminded Dante of the German officer’s headquarters in a hundred World War Two TV dramas. A painting of Hitler hung over the fireplace, and a shop dummy wore a full Gestapo uniform.
‘Joe’s dad isn’t quite right in the head,’ Anna noted, as she looked around. ‘He’s got guns as well.’
Dante saw the pair of shotguns. He knew that the Führer held a shotgun licence, and the firearms cabinet was fitted with toughened glass and a heavy lock as the law required. Below the case were open shelves containing a selection of crossbows ranging from an expensive handmade bow with an optical sight to a selection of cheap-but-powerful crossbow pistols.
‘No psycho’s home should be without one,’ Dante grinned, picking up a menacing looking crossbow and pointing it at Anna.
‘Don’t,’ she protested, and shielded her face.
‘There’s no bolt loaded,’ Dante smirked, as he put it back on the rack. ‘Silly girl.’
Anna put one hand on her hip and adopted a soppy look. ‘I’m not silly,’ she said.
Her body language said snog me and Dante obliged. Anna ended up on a leather armchair in Dante’s lap, joined at the lips with their hands roaming. But Dante froze when he noticed a picture on the wall above a filing cabinet.
The Führer had dozens of Brigands pictures around the house, including a few of Dante’s dad, Scotty. But this one was different, because Dante’s whole family was there. Everything but a few baby photos had been lost when the Führer burned out Dante’s house and now he recognised faces he hadn’t seen for nearly five years.
Dante recalled the day it was taken outside the old clubhouse. It was the Brigands summer barbecue. Scotty stood proudly alongside the man who would kill him a year later, with the Brigands all around him. Wives stood at the edge of the framed picture, while the kids knelt or stood in front of their fathers.
Holly was a few months old, a bald head buried in her mother’s arms. Dante stood beside Joe, best friends. Dante’s older brother Jordan puffed out his cheeks to ruin the picture and his sister Lizzie squatted on one knee with the expression she always had when she didn’t want to be somewhere.
Dante had seen the expression a thousand times, but he’d forgotten it. He felt like he’d betrayed his family by forgetting so much about them.
‘Are you OK, John?’ Anna asked. ‘Did I do something?’
Dante remembered that he was John and quickly smeared out the tear forming in his eye. ‘It’s the beer,’ he said weakly. ‘You’re pressing down on my bladder or something, I need to pee again.’
Anna hopped off and Dante rushed down the hallway to the Führer’s bedroom, where he bolted himself in the en-suite bathroom and fought off his tears.
*
James had been back at the Brigands compound for an hour, downing more warm beer as he helped to unload firewood and bundles of newspaper from one of the coaches to make a huge bonfire in the centre of camp. It wasn’t necessary for warmth, but the various clubs had a friendly rivalry that would turn Outlaw Hill into a series of giant pyres once it got dark.
Less friendly rivalries put menace in the air and as James hauled wood and newspaper he tried to decipher the rumours. The easiest to understand was the Vengeful Bastards wanting revenge after their surprise assault at the service station had ended in d
efeat. Some said they were planning a second attack. There weren’t enough Vengefuls to confront the Brigands, but they had allies and rumours swirled that several gangs were planning to raid the Brigands compound during the night.
It had also emerged that the London Brigand stabbed in the Flesh Tent had been seriously wounded by a member of a gang called Satan’s Prodigy. The London chapter and some northern Brigands regarded Satan’s Prodigy as enemies, but confusingly South Devon and Cardiff did business with them and wanted the whole thing smoothed over.
Outlaw Hill was a web of shifting alliances and the only conclusion James reached by the time the fire was lit was that it looked set to be a long and violent night. As the flames took hold, James wandered drunkenly through the twilight towards his tent. It was the first time he’d seen Will, Minted and Shampoo Jr since leaving the Flesh Tent more than four hours earlier.
‘Where’d you disappear to?’ Shampoo Jr asked as James lay back on the grass outside his tent and pulled off his trainers.
‘Nowhere,’ James said, as he caught a whiff of his own feet. His hands were black with newsprint and his deodorant had been overpowered inside his motorcycle leathers somewhere before Bristol. ‘I stink like a dog.’
‘This is nothing,’ Minted smiled. ‘You should have been here last year when it was raining. Outlaw Hill was solid mud. Head to toe, covered in filth and we had to walk the bikes through it.’
‘I’m still trying to get to the bottom of our friend’s little adventure,’ Will said. ‘So we saw you come out the Flesh Tent with the chick wearing your T-shirt.’
James shrugged. ‘Yeah, I had to walk to her van so she could get a top and give me my Ramones shirt back.’
‘And that’s it?’ Will said suspiciously. ‘Why were you gone for so long?’
‘Had to get these,’ James explained, as he opened his tent flaps and showed them a newly purchased set of riding gloves. ‘The others were all gashed up where I hit that dude with the chain and the Führer told me to burn ’em.’
‘Really?’ Shampoo Jr said. ‘So how come you’ve got lipstick all over your cheek?’
‘Have I?’ James said, rubbing the cleanest part of his hand against his face.
‘No you haven’t,’ Shampoo Jr roared. ‘But you just gave the game away, didn’t you?’
‘We followed you,’ Will explained. ‘And we waited a good few minutes for you to get out so we know you did more than swap shirts.’
‘I don’t get why you’re so shy about it,’ Minted laughed. ‘If I went into the Flesh Tent and scored I’d be screaming it from the rooftops.’
‘OK, I shagged her,’ James admitted reluctantly as he drained his beer bottle. ‘I can’t help being gorgeous. It’s no big deal, girls throw themselves at me all the time.’
‘Big-headed bastard,’ Will smiled as he offered James a high five. ‘Good on you, mate.’
But before James could raise his hand there was a huge bang near the edge of the Brigands’ camp. Everyone looked around thinking it was early fireworks.
‘Oh shit,’ Will said as he looked over tents at a pair of flaming Harleys that had been doused with petrol. ‘I think World War Three is about to break out.’
Other Brigands rushed forward and wheeled their Harleys away from the flames, while the two London Brigands whose bikes were burning sprinted towards the breakdown truck to grab fire extinguishers.
‘That’s the two whose mate got stabbed in the Flesh Tent,’ Minted said. ‘It’s gotta be Satan’s Prodigy.’
‘They’ve gotta be insane,’ Will said, as the faster of the two fat Brigands reached his bike and began blasting it with white carbon dioxide powder. ‘Satan’s Prodigy are outnumbered ten to one by Brigands.’
‘They’ve teamed up with the Vengefuls,’ Minted said. ‘They must have done.’
James smiled. ‘Unless someone who wants us to start a war with Satan’s Prodigy did it.’
‘Could be,’ Will admitted. ‘There are some sly people around.’
The heat from the flames expanded the air in the motorbike tyres. As the two owners desperately fought the flames, one tyre blew and the two blubbery men jumped back in fright and tripped over each other. It was high comedy, but nobody laughed.
‘Those bikes are wasted,’ Will said. ‘Even if they get the fire out before the petrol blows everything will be warped from the heat.’
As more extinguishers arrived and the flames were finally engulfed by the clouds of white powder, seven Brigands chapter presidents gathered for an urgent fireside conference. The voices were angry and James heard every word from thirty metres away.
Sealclubber was the most vocal, demanding that everyone tool up and immediately attack Satan’s Prodigy. The Führer urged him to calm down and not act until they were sure who was behind the attack.
‘You’re full of shit,’ Sealclubber screamed into the Führer’s face. ‘I’ve got a man stabbed, two of my full-patches’ bikes burned up on the grass and you’re telling me to hold back. I say we move now, and wipe Vengefuls and Satan’s Prodigy off the face of the earth.’
The Führer tried to calm Sealclubber down, but he wasn’t having it. The Führer realised that he was in a minority of one as dozens of inflamed full-patch Brigands gathered around him. The presidents took a vote and the Führer lost five to two.
‘Guns, knives, bats,’ Sealclubber shouted to the cheering crowd. ‘Tool up and ship out, the Brigands are going on the warpath.’
34. BUOY
The sea and moonlight gave Nigel and Julian an eerie sense of calm as they came up from the crew quarters and stepped out on to the rear deck. Rods hung over the side, giving the impression of a boat hired for a night fishing trip.
‘What’s going on?’ Julian asked, unaware that his tall frame and curly hair were blocking the lens of a button-sized camera stuck to the doorframe above his head.
Riggs sat up on the bridge, while Paul Woodhead stood on deck shining a powerful lamp over the sea.
‘The Towmaster SONAR located our packages on the sea bed,’ Woodhead explained. ‘We’ve sent a signal to release the buoys attached to the packages. I need you two to open up the hold and set the ramp.’
The hold was accessed through a hinged metal cover. It took two arms to lift and the stench of rotting fish hit the two seventeen-year-olds as the hatch slammed down on the deck.
‘Sighted,’ Woodhead shouted up to the bridge, as the first of three fluorescent pink buoys broke the waterline thirty metres from the boat.
Riggs gave the engine a blast of power and threw on full rudder.
Woodhead eyed Julian and Nigel. ‘What are you standing there for? One of you get down there and set the bloody ramp.’
Nigel wasn’t keen, but Julian had done him a favour by agreeing to turn up, so it seemed fair that he should take the dirty end of the job. The hold’s metal floor boomed as his trainers landed in a fine layer of silt, with a centimetre of water sloshing about. He was overpowered by the warm fishy air as Julian passed down an inspection lamp that clipped over a hook on the ceiling.
‘You OK?’ Julian asked.
Nigel didn’t answer because he thought he might puke if he opened his mouth. He reached into the dirt and pulled up a sodden wooden board that latched over the sill of the hatch to make a ramp.
The trawler had slowed to a crawl and the pink buoy now bobbed five metres off the port side. Paul threw out a grappling hook and snared the rope attached to the base of the buoy. He then hauled the buoy in, hooked the rope over a pulley above the deck and looped the end around an electric winch.
The rear of the boat dipped as the winch raised the package from the sea bed fifty metres below. It emerged from the water, a sandy rectangle the size of a freezer and wrapped in a rubber membrane sealed with epoxy resin.
‘Give us a hand here,’ Woodhead ordered, as he leaned precariously over the side of the boat and grabbed a rope attached to the bottom of the package to help swing it around on deck. Julian tried to
help and almost got his arm crushed as the boat rocked and the package slammed against the hull.
For their second attempt Woodhead snared the rope on the bottom of the package with the grappling hook, Julian took the top end and the pair managed to manhandle it on to the deck.
‘Jesus,’ Woodhead gasped, groaning from the exertion and wiping the sweat off his brow. ‘You did good. Now start slitting and sliding.’
As Riggs lined the boat up with the second buoy, Julian and Woodhead worked frantically. They slit open the rubber membrane and inspected the cardboard boxes inside.
‘It’s all dry,’ Woodhead grinned. ‘And that’s a lot of shooters.’
The writing on the boxes was mostly in Chinese script, but it didn’t take a genius to work out what was inside. Some were plain cardboard, but others were retail packs, printed in colour and advertising the benefits of the guns or bullets inside them.
Pulling up the packages and stashing the cargo was the riskiest part of the smuggling operation, especially on a calm summer Saturday when the yachts and pleasure craft were cruising and coastguard helicopters had plenty of moonlight to work with. Woodhead and Julian worked fast, carrying the heavy boxes across deck and sliding them down to Nigel who stacked them up in the stinking hold.
*
If you travelled with the Brigands you were expected to fight with the Brigands, so James had no choice as everyone piled out from between the tents, grabbing tent pegs, hammers, bike chains or whatever else came to hand.
Although the Führer had voted against the fight, his reputation as an outstanding leader meant that he was in charge of the attack. Two chapters including London would go after Satan’s Prodigy, four would attack the more numerous Vengefuls, while the Cardiff chapter would stay back to defend the camp. Most hangers-on and puppet gang members would fight with whatever Brigands chapter had brought them, but Cardiff didn’t have much backup so the Führer ordered two chapters of the Monster Bunch to stay behind.