Send Him Victorious: Book 1 by Bart Cline
“I must see the General,” Seargeant Pailing said, still out of breath, “right now!”
Captain Phillips, a stern- and serious-looking soldier, inhaled deeply. “I can’t do that. There’s a chain of command to be observed. Tell me your message. I’ll pass it on to my Colonel, and he’ll decide what action to take. If General Montgomery needs to know, then he’ll be informed.”
The two men were in a small office. Phillips sat at the desk and Sergeant Pailing stood with his fists planted on the surface.
“All right,” Pailing said, “why not? I’ve just come from a union meeting. I thought we were going to take a strike vote, but instead Sir Patrick Blackwell-MacIntyre, our National Official – effectively our president – made a speech that somehow persuaded everyone to rise up against the New Order. He’s created an army, a militia, and London has got to be just the beginning.”
“Incredible,” Phillips said, eyes narrowing. “And they just let you leave?”
“No, I escaped. A few of us wanted nothing to do with any of it, but they took the others prisoner. I guess they’re still looking for me. If I go back out there… I need protection. Can you help me?”
“Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll put you in protective custody for now, while we come up with a more long-term plan.” Phillips picked up his phone and pressed a button. “Hello, Mike. Come to my office right away, please.” He put the handset back on its cradle. “You were absolutely right. General Montgomery certainly needs to know about this.”
A knock sounded at the door. “Come,” Captain Phillips said to the door.
The door opened, and a uniformed police constable entered. “You sent for me, sir?”
“Mike, take Mr Pailing into custody.”
Pailing, sitting in a chair, looked at both of them as they looked down at him. “That’s Sergeant Pailing to you,” he said.
“I think you’ll find,” Phillips said, “your employment with the police is terminated.”
“You’ve caused us a lot of unnecessary trouble, old son,” Mike said. “Still, at least we’ve got you now.”
Pailing looked at the constable’s hip and saw the holstered sidearm. “Looks like I wouldn’t recognise the ‘modern’ police force anyway.”
The constable pulled Pailing to his feet.
Phillips stood as well, looking Pailing in the eye and banishing any hint of camaraderie. “Mike, put him somewhere… peaceful.”
Struggling against the uniformed constable, Pailing held onto the desk. “Why are you supporting this? You should be loyal to the King,” he said, while the policeman wrenched him away and toward the door. “What’s your game?”
“Game?” Captain Phillips motioned to the bobby, who stopped pulling at Pailing. “I’m not under any illusions that this is a game. ‘His Majesty’ may be enjoying his little sport, but he doesn’t seem to realise he’s playing with people’s lives and livelihoods – and with something less than a full deck. I am against him and his schemes. And that’s enough.” Looking at Constable Mike, Phillips cocked his thumb in an indeterminate direction. “Get him out of here.”
This time Pailing did not resist arrest. In a moment the officer and his quarry were gone.
No sooner did Phillips sit down than the phone rang.
“Phillips. Ah, Sir Patrick. We’ve got your man here. Clumsy of you to lose him. Don’t worry. He won’t be talking to anyone where he’s going.”
***
Over the course of the following week, Sir Patrick traveled to selected cities – Birmingham, Edinburgh, and York – proclaiming the same message to their local AS-ONE branches, weeding out the chaff from the wheat to bring more and more police onto his side and into his personal Militia.
In Edinburgh several hundred other public sector workers were brought along by trusted friends, and soon a popular militia movement began, dividing Scotland between loyalists and rebels. Still, word was not out, as secrecy was necessary until the movement went public. Some of those the rebels had deemed trustworthy proved not to be, and a number of disappearances ensued which the police were none too enthusiastic in following up.
The insurgency gained pace, but remained secret and had as yet taken no overt action.
***
Jimmy held his ageing but well-maintained L85A2 assault rifle across his chest, relying on its shoulder strap to carry most of the weight, while he and another soldier maintained their night-time patrol. Leaving the Shambles, York’s famously narrow and picturesque street lined with touristy shops, they kept walking and ignored the sight of the city’s imposing cathedral, York Minster, that eventually greeted them, looking instead at the attractive young women coming and going between the clubs, pubs, and cafes, all of which a university town could be relied upon to have plenty.
Two women, both wearing slinky party dresses, one green and the other blue, turned from their Friday night course and approached the soldiers. “’Scuse me, but do you know where the Adelphi is?”
“What’s one of those?” Jimmy’s companion said.
“It’s a club, innit?” the woman in blue said. The women gave the impression of tottering from tipsy toward drunk.
“I don’t think,” Jimmy said, “there’s an Adelphi ’round here. I know there’s one in Preston. It’s that way.” He pointed west. “About a hundred miles.”
“Oops!” The girls laughed the way people do when they are out with their friends on Friday nights. “Does that mean you won’t walk us there?”
The two soldiers smiled. “It might get us in a little trouble with our CO. There’s loads of pubs this way,” Jimmy said, pointing back up the Shambles. “We’ll walk you there if you want.”
“Sounds good!” The girls moved to either side of the men, linking elbows with them.
Walking on, they laughed and bantered while occasionally glancing at the scenery of the historic street.
“What are your names, anyway?” Blue Dress said.
“Bennett,” Jimmy said, pointing to himself. “Jimmy.”
“And Private Johnny Spragg,” the other said with an exaggerated flourish, “at your service.”
One of the women moved her arm, snaking it through the shoulder strap of Jimmy’s gun.
“Whoa, don’t touch that!”
“Oh, please? I just love your gun. It’s so… manly!”
“Sorry,” Jimmy said with a slight smile. “Could be seen as an act of war.”
The four laughed some more, but Jimmy held back.
Soon they approached a club which looked like nothing special from the outside. “Will this do?”
“Yeah, but aren’t you coming in with us?”
“Blokes with big guns on the dance floor? We don’t wanna intimidate the bouncers.” Jimmy shook his head. “Some other time. Have fun though.”
“Come on, some others of your lot come in and dance with us sometimes,” the young woman said, taking Jimmy by the hand and pulling him toward the entrance.
“Maybe, but they’d be off-duty. At least they’re supposed to be. Sorry.”
“Okay,” she said, letting go of Jimmy. “If you change your minds, we’ll be right here… or somewhere else.” The girls entered the club, laughing and swaying.
The young soldiers slowly, reluctantly, went back in the direction from which they had come.
“Hmm,” Jimmy said.
“Yeah. Hmm,” his buddy said. “Those babes so wanted us. Too bad we’re on duty ’til morning.”
“They’re babes alright. But I don’t know. Something about ’em didn’t seem right.”
“Yeah, right,” he scoffed, “they were leading us into an ambush in that club. I knew it all along.”
“If it don’t feel right, don’t go there,” Jimmy said. “Simple rule.”
“She felt pretty good to me.”
Jimmy smiled at his friend.
The two men shrugged off the situation and continued their patrol in their original heading. Continuing to joke and banter between themselves, they decided t
o circle the cathedral, taking care to observe everything around them – including the many milling people, these drunk, those sober, and many somewhere in between.
Around the back of the Minster the two soldiers observed a fight developing. As they walked toward the two combatants, Jimmy looked over his shoulder, looking beyond the numerous people who were watching the fight develop. He turned his attention back to the conflict as they interposed themselves between the two drunks.
The altercation broken up and the opponents sent their separate ways, Jimmy and Johnny continued their patrol, completing their loop around the cathedral. Jimmy looked behind him again, examining the numerous people coming and going in all directions. “What time is it?”
“Just gone one,” Johnny said, looking at his watch. “Only six more hours to go.”
They followed the route of Stonegate, the several-hundred-years-old shopping street leading away from the Minster Yard. It formed the point of entry to the oldest part of the ancient city, now a network of pedestrianised shopping streets.
Jimmy’s eyes scanned the upper windows and tops of the buildings on both sides, glanced behind him, and looked to both sides. Failing to pay adequate attention to his path, he bumped into someone, and then a moment later tripped on an uneven flagstone.
“Something bothering you?” Johnny said.
“Dunno. Can’t see anything. I guess it’s okay.” Continuing onward, they jostled amongst the crowds in front of several pubs and clubs, receiving jeers and taunts from some, and offers of drinks and friendship from others.
Looking behind them again, Jimmy’s eyes worked to separate the faces in the crowd when a sudden movement caught his eye: a silent smear of dark green in the shadows, a silhouette of a person moving suddenly away.
“Take your safety off,” Jimmy said under his breath, leaning close to Johnny.
Johnny replied in a hushed tone. “What, here? Surrounded by all these people? What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know,” Jimmy said. “Something’s not right.”
Both men tightened their grip on their weapons, flicking the safeties off with a minimum of motion or movement. “Okay. What do you see?”
Jimmy continued looking around him. “Not much yet. Someone in the shadows, slipping away fast once I looked in his direction. Let’s just keep moving and try to look natural.”
Johnny straightened his posture unnaturally. “Look natural. Yeah, right.”
They proceeded through the milling crowd, their darting eyes the only clue to their increased caution – save for their fingers hovering near the triggers.
Before long they came across another fight, this time with two pairs of combatants, next to a single-storey office building. No punches were being thrown – the men were currently grappling with one another, wrestling, though they were on their feet. Next to the wall against which the men were fighting was a small alley, unlit because its lighting fixtures contained only shattered bulbs.
The pair of soldiers approached the scene so that they faced the wall directly; the way they had just come from was on their right and the entrance to the alley on their left. Jimmy glanced backward to see the people going about their business, coming and going, or staying to watch the fight develop. Some of the more properly drunk spectators shouted encouragements at the fighters.
Taking a deep breath, Jimmy nudged Johnny forward and entered the fray.
They kept careful grip on their weapons, pointing them at the wayward men, urging them to break up the fight.
Apparently ignoring the soldiers and their orders, the men continued grappling with one another. One of them threw a left hook at his opponent who sprawled to the right without falling down, and they engaged in a violent clinch. The other pair of fighters, seeing that their counterparts had moved to the right, joined them to form a four-man grapple, all of them keeping their feet.
Turning themselves to face the writhing mass of legs and arms, Jimmy pointed his gun into the air and fired a single shot.
The startled brawlers looked at the soldiers. Johnny had his gun trained on the men, so Jimmy chanced to look behind him back into the crowd. Most of the people were running away to the right, though a few of the spectators continued watching, albeit with more caution.
Their attention now fully focused on the four intertwined men, Jimmy and Johnny failed to see the two armed, uniformed, and leather-gloved policeman emerge from the alley. They did, even through their helmets, feel the pistols at their heads.
The brawlers disentangled themselves and stood in front of the two soldiers. Jimmy and Johnny raised their weapons slightly, visibly tightening their grips and trigger fingers.
“You guys are coppers,” Jimmy said glancing sideways to their reflections in a window, “not trained killers. But we are. We could kill these four easily in the time it would take you just to decide whether or not to pull your triggers.” The four men in the soldiers’ sights began to slowly raise their hands in submission while lines of fear etched their foreheads.
“Now, here’s what’s gonna happen,” Jimmy said.
The leather gloves the policeman wore transmitted a squeaky sound through Jimmy’s helmet as the cop tightened his resolve and his trigger finger.
Jimmy dropped, letting gravity bring him to his knees while twisting around to face his enemy, spraying bullets upward in a sweeping arc the instant the muzzle of his gun was clear of Johnny’s position, the upward angle allowing any stray rounds to fly well over the heads of the bystanders. At the same moment, the one shot the dying policeman succeeded in getting off splintered a brick in the wall, only a moment before both of them fell to the ground.
Johnny turned to look at his partner’s handiwork. While the soldiers’ backs were turned the four men who had previously been fighting reached into the open windows and retrieved guns of their own. Jimmy and Johnny turned again just in time to see the four men bolt down the alley and into the darkness.
Johnny moved to give chase – almost before Jimmy could reach out his hands to grab him – then stopped.
“Hey!” Jimmy whispered. “Don’t you think they’ll be waiting for us, with their four guns against our two?”
“Okay, so what do we do?”
Jimmy pointed to the top of the single-storey building which had been the focus of the action. “Well, you’re a good climber,” he said, his hushed voice not carrying beyond their own ears.
A look of comprehension dawned on Johnny’s face, and he signalled his understanding.
With a running start to take the first few steps straight up the side of the building, Johnny sprinted upward using a drainpipe, window frame, and the interstices between bricks as his foot- and hand-holds. In a moment he was on the roof, moving along the length of the alley in a silent crouch. He stopped at the other end and cupped his hands around his eyes to shield them from the street lamps and other light pollution.
Seeing no sign of anyone lying in wait in the alley, Johnny turned his gaze beyond it, just catching sight of a few people disappearing behind some other buildings in their haste to get away.
An adjoining building of three storeys offered a better vantage point, so Johnny scaled another two stories of sheer wall with only the meanest of handholds. Within a moment he was breathing heavily but standing three floors above ground level. A clear view of a few of the city streets opened below him.
In one direction a street was occupied by numerous policemen in riot gear, backed up by several armoured police vehicles. Into one of the vehicles were being marched two captured soldiers, kept at gunpoint by armed cops.
In another direction were more riot police, accompanied by vehicles equipped with fire hoses, spraying down a crowd who couldn’t keep their feet against the enormous water pressure.
And in yet another area firefights were breaking out between the police and people Johnny could not see.
His mouth opened in amazement as he watched the scenes unfolding before his stunned eyes. He surveyed what
he could see of the city for a few more seconds before lowering himself back down over the edge of the roof, finding the drainpipe with his hands, and shinning down it until he was again on top of the single-storey building. He looked over the edge for Jimmy.
The women with green and blue dresses who had earlier attempted to persuade them into the club, stood in front of Jimmy. Each held in her hand the distinctive shape of Glock 9mm semiautomatic police-issue pistols. Both weapons were trained carefully on Jimmy’s head.
Jimmy, standing to face the girls, was holding his assault rifle in front of himself at arm’s length, gripping it by the strap, and proffering it to the two women.
Johnny listened while he took aim at the women with his own weapon.
“Are all York girls like you?” Jimmy said.
“Not many,” one of the girls said.
“You ladies had better drop those weapons,” Johnny said, “or I’ll take it as a provocative act of violence, and I’ll have no choice but to take both of you out. And I don’t mean for a date.”
“You’d better think carefully about that,” one of the women said, “because we can kill him before you can take both of us out.”
Johnny raised his gun a little higher, double-checking his aim. “Maybe. Doesn’t matter. You’ll both be dead. That what you want? Now, if you don’t drop those weapons by the count of one… then I’ll do what I said I’d do.”
Both of the ladies let their weapons fall from their hands, clattering as they hit the ground, and held their hands up.
“One. Good. Now take two steps back and stand still.” The women retreated two steps from Jimmy.
Reclaiming his dangling weapon, Jimmy readied it, covering the girls.
Johnny took his hands off his own weapon, allowing it to hang at his chest. “That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout.” He picked out a point on the guttering and tested it with his foot, before lowering himself down to hang from it by his fingertips, then dropped to the ground lightly. “We need to get out of here, mate,” Johnny said. “This city’s on fire.”
“You talking about those shots I just heard?” Jimmy said.
“That’s right,” Green Dress said, “those shots mean York is ours.”
“Yours?” Jimmy said. “And who exactly are you?”
Jimmy stepped a little closer to her, holding his gun a little higher, making himself a little more threatening.
Captain Phillips, a stern- and serious-looking soldier, inhaled deeply. “I can’t do that. There’s a chain of command to be observed. Tell me your message. I’ll pass it on to my Colonel, and he’ll decide what action to take. If General Montgomery needs to know, then he’ll be informed.”
The two men were in a small office. Phillips sat at the desk and Sergeant Pailing stood with his fists planted on the surface.
“All right,” Pailing said, “why not? I’ve just come from a union meeting. I thought we were going to take a strike vote, but instead Sir Patrick Blackwell-MacIntyre, our National Official – effectively our president – made a speech that somehow persuaded everyone to rise up against the New Order. He’s created an army, a militia, and London has got to be just the beginning.”
“Incredible,” Phillips said, eyes narrowing. “And they just let you leave?”
“No, I escaped. A few of us wanted nothing to do with any of it, but they took the others prisoner. I guess they’re still looking for me. If I go back out there… I need protection. Can you help me?”
“Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll put you in protective custody for now, while we come up with a more long-term plan.” Phillips picked up his phone and pressed a button. “Hello, Mike. Come to my office right away, please.” He put the handset back on its cradle. “You were absolutely right. General Montgomery certainly needs to know about this.”
A knock sounded at the door. “Come,” Captain Phillips said to the door.
The door opened, and a uniformed police constable entered. “You sent for me, sir?”
“Mike, take Mr Pailing into custody.”
Pailing, sitting in a chair, looked at both of them as they looked down at him. “That’s Sergeant Pailing to you,” he said.
“I think you’ll find,” Phillips said, “your employment with the police is terminated.”
“You’ve caused us a lot of unnecessary trouble, old son,” Mike said. “Still, at least we’ve got you now.”
Pailing looked at the constable’s hip and saw the holstered sidearm. “Looks like I wouldn’t recognise the ‘modern’ police force anyway.”
The constable pulled Pailing to his feet.
Phillips stood as well, looking Pailing in the eye and banishing any hint of camaraderie. “Mike, put him somewhere… peaceful.”
Struggling against the uniformed constable, Pailing held onto the desk. “Why are you supporting this? You should be loyal to the King,” he said, while the policeman wrenched him away and toward the door. “What’s your game?”
“Game?” Captain Phillips motioned to the bobby, who stopped pulling at Pailing. “I’m not under any illusions that this is a game. ‘His Majesty’ may be enjoying his little sport, but he doesn’t seem to realise he’s playing with people’s lives and livelihoods – and with something less than a full deck. I am against him and his schemes. And that’s enough.” Looking at Constable Mike, Phillips cocked his thumb in an indeterminate direction. “Get him out of here.”
This time Pailing did not resist arrest. In a moment the officer and his quarry were gone.
No sooner did Phillips sit down than the phone rang.
“Phillips. Ah, Sir Patrick. We’ve got your man here. Clumsy of you to lose him. Don’t worry. He won’t be talking to anyone where he’s going.”
***
Over the course of the following week, Sir Patrick traveled to selected cities – Birmingham, Edinburgh, and York – proclaiming the same message to their local AS-ONE branches, weeding out the chaff from the wheat to bring more and more police onto his side and into his personal Militia.
In Edinburgh several hundred other public sector workers were brought along by trusted friends, and soon a popular militia movement began, dividing Scotland between loyalists and rebels. Still, word was not out, as secrecy was necessary until the movement went public. Some of those the rebels had deemed trustworthy proved not to be, and a number of disappearances ensued which the police were none too enthusiastic in following up.
The insurgency gained pace, but remained secret and had as yet taken no overt action.
***
Jimmy held his ageing but well-maintained L85A2 assault rifle across his chest, relying on its shoulder strap to carry most of the weight, while he and another soldier maintained their night-time patrol. Leaving the Shambles, York’s famously narrow and picturesque street lined with touristy shops, they kept walking and ignored the sight of the city’s imposing cathedral, York Minster, that eventually greeted them, looking instead at the attractive young women coming and going between the clubs, pubs, and cafes, all of which a university town could be relied upon to have plenty.
Two women, both wearing slinky party dresses, one green and the other blue, turned from their Friday night course and approached the soldiers. “’Scuse me, but do you know where the Adelphi is?”
“What’s one of those?” Jimmy’s companion said.
“It’s a club, innit?” the woman in blue said. The women gave the impression of tottering from tipsy toward drunk.
“I don’t think,” Jimmy said, “there’s an Adelphi ’round here. I know there’s one in Preston. It’s that way.” He pointed west. “About a hundred miles.”
“Oops!” The girls laughed the way people do when they are out with their friends on Friday nights. “Does that mean you won’t walk us there?”
The two soldiers smiled. “It might get us in a little trouble with our CO. There’s loads of pubs this way,” Jimmy said, pointing back up the Shambles. “We’ll walk you there if you want.”
“Sounds good!” The girls moved to either side of the men, linking elbows with them.
Walking on, they laughed and bantered while occasionally glancing at the scenery of the historic street.
“What are your names, anyway?” Blue Dress said.
“Bennett,” Jimmy said, pointing to himself. “Jimmy.”
“And Private Johnny Spragg,” the other said with an exaggerated flourish, “at your service.”
One of the women moved her arm, snaking it through the shoulder strap of Jimmy’s gun.
“Whoa, don’t touch that!”
“Oh, please? I just love your gun. It’s so… manly!”
“Sorry,” Jimmy said with a slight smile. “Could be seen as an act of war.”
The four laughed some more, but Jimmy held back.
Soon they approached a club which looked like nothing special from the outside. “Will this do?”
“Yeah, but aren’t you coming in with us?”
“Blokes with big guns on the dance floor? We don’t wanna intimidate the bouncers.” Jimmy shook his head. “Some other time. Have fun though.”
“Come on, some others of your lot come in and dance with us sometimes,” the young woman said, taking Jimmy by the hand and pulling him toward the entrance.
“Maybe, but they’d be off-duty. At least they’re supposed to be. Sorry.”
“Okay,” she said, letting go of Jimmy. “If you change your minds, we’ll be right here… or somewhere else.” The girls entered the club, laughing and swaying.
The young soldiers slowly, reluctantly, went back in the direction from which they had come.
“Hmm,” Jimmy said.
“Yeah. Hmm,” his buddy said. “Those babes so wanted us. Too bad we’re on duty ’til morning.”
“They’re babes alright. But I don’t know. Something about ’em didn’t seem right.”
“Yeah, right,” he scoffed, “they were leading us into an ambush in that club. I knew it all along.”
“If it don’t feel right, don’t go there,” Jimmy said. “Simple rule.”
“She felt pretty good to me.”
Jimmy smiled at his friend.
The two men shrugged off the situation and continued their patrol in their original heading. Continuing to joke and banter between themselves, they decided t
Around the back of the Minster the two soldiers observed a fight developing. As they walked toward the two combatants, Jimmy looked over his shoulder, looking beyond the numerous people who were watching the fight develop. He turned his attention back to the conflict as they interposed themselves between the two drunks.
The altercation broken up and the opponents sent their separate ways, Jimmy and Johnny continued their patrol, completing their loop around the cathedral. Jimmy looked behind him again, examining the numerous people coming and going in all directions. “What time is it?”
“Just gone one,” Johnny said, looking at his watch. “Only six more hours to go.”
They followed the route of Stonegate, the several-hundred-years-old shopping street leading away from the Minster Yard. It formed the point of entry to the oldest part of the ancient city, now a network of pedestrianised shopping streets.
Jimmy’s eyes scanned the upper windows and tops of the buildings on both sides, glanced behind him, and looked to both sides. Failing to pay adequate attention to his path, he bumped into someone, and then a moment later tripped on an uneven flagstone.
“Something bothering you?” Johnny said.
“Dunno. Can’t see anything. I guess it’s okay.” Continuing onward, they jostled amongst the crowds in front of several pubs and clubs, receiving jeers and taunts from some, and offers of drinks and friendship from others.
Looking behind them again, Jimmy’s eyes worked to separate the faces in the crowd when a sudden movement caught his eye: a silent smear of dark green in the shadows, a silhouette of a person moving suddenly away.
“Take your safety off,” Jimmy said under his breath, leaning close to Johnny.
Johnny replied in a hushed tone. “What, here? Surrounded by all these people? What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know,” Jimmy said. “Something’s not right.”
Both men tightened their grip on their weapons, flicking the safeties off with a minimum of motion or movement. “Okay. What do you see?”
Jimmy continued looking around him. “Not much yet. Someone in the shadows, slipping away fast once I looked in his direction. Let’s just keep moving and try to look natural.”
Johnny straightened his posture unnaturally. “Look natural. Yeah, right.”
They proceeded through the milling crowd, their darting eyes the only clue to their increased caution – save for their fingers hovering near the triggers.
Before long they came across another fight, this time with two pairs of combatants, next to a single-storey office building. No punches were being thrown – the men were currently grappling with one another, wrestling, though they were on their feet. Next to the wall against which the men were fighting was a small alley, unlit because its lighting fixtures contained only shattered bulbs.
The pair of soldiers approached the scene so that they faced the wall directly; the way they had just come from was on their right and the entrance to the alley on their left. Jimmy glanced backward to see the people going about their business, coming and going, or staying to watch the fight develop. Some of the more properly drunk spectators shouted encouragements at the fighters.
Taking a deep breath, Jimmy nudged Johnny forward and entered the fray.
They kept careful grip on their weapons, pointing them at the wayward men, urging them to break up the fight.
Apparently ignoring the soldiers and their orders, the men continued grappling with one another. One of them threw a left hook at his opponent who sprawled to the right without falling down, and they engaged in a violent clinch. The other pair of fighters, seeing that their counterparts had moved to the right, joined them to form a four-man grapple, all of them keeping their feet.
Turning themselves to face the writhing mass of legs and arms, Jimmy pointed his gun into the air and fired a single shot.
The startled brawlers looked at the soldiers. Johnny had his gun trained on the men, so Jimmy chanced to look behind him back into the crowd. Most of the people were running away to the right, though a few of the spectators continued watching, albeit with more caution.
Their attention now fully focused on the four intertwined men, Jimmy and Johnny failed to see the two armed, uniformed, and leather-gloved policeman emerge from the alley. They did, even through their helmets, feel the pistols at their heads.
The brawlers disentangled themselves and stood in front of the two soldiers. Jimmy and Johnny raised their weapons slightly, visibly tightening their grips and trigger fingers.
“You guys are coppers,” Jimmy said glancing sideways to their reflections in a window, “not trained killers. But we are. We could kill these four easily in the time it would take you just to decide whether or not to pull your triggers.” The four men in the soldiers’ sights began to slowly raise their hands in submission while lines of fear etched their foreheads.
“Now, here’s what’s gonna happen,” Jimmy said.
The leather gloves the policeman wore transmitted a squeaky sound through Jimmy’s helmet as the cop tightened his resolve and his trigger finger.
Jimmy dropped, letting gravity bring him to his knees while twisting around to face his enemy, spraying bullets upward in a sweeping arc the instant the muzzle of his gun was clear of Johnny’s position, the upward angle allowing any stray rounds to fly well over the heads of the bystanders. At the same moment, the one shot the dying policeman succeeded in getting off splintered a brick in the wall, only a moment before both of them fell to the ground.
Johnny turned to look at his partner’s handiwork. While the soldiers’ backs were turned the four men who had previously been fighting reached into the open windows and retrieved guns of their own. Jimmy and Johnny turned again just in time to see the four men bolt down the alley and into the darkness.
Johnny moved to give chase – almost before Jimmy could reach out his hands to grab him – then stopped.
“Hey!” Jimmy whispered. “Don’t you think they’ll be waiting for us, with their four guns against our two?”
“Okay, so what do we do?”
Jimmy pointed to the top of the single-storey building which had been the focus of the action. “Well, you’re a good climber,” he said, his hushed voice not carrying beyond their own ears.
A look of comprehension dawned on Johnny’s face, and he signalled his understanding.
With a running start to take the first few steps straight up the side of the building, Johnny sprinted upward using a drainpipe, window frame, and the interstices between bricks as his foot- and hand-holds. In a moment he was on the roof, moving along the length of the alley in a silent crouch. He stopped at the other end and cupped his hands around his eyes to shield them from the street lamps and other light pollution.
Seeing no sign of anyone lying in wait in the alley, Johnny turned his gaze beyond it, just catching sight of a few people disappearing behind some other buildings in their haste to get away.
An adjoining building of three storeys offered a better vantage point, so Johnny scaled another two stories of sheer wall with only the meanest of handholds. Within a moment he was breathing heavily but standing three floors above ground level. A clear view of a few of the city streets opened below him.
In one direction a street was occupied by numerous policemen in riot gear, backed up by several armoured police vehicles. Into one of the vehicles were being marched two captured soldiers, kept at gunpoint by armed cops.
In another direction were more riot police, accompanied by vehicles equipped with fire hoses, spraying down a crowd who couldn’t keep their feet against the enormous water pressure.
And in yet another area firefights were breaking out between the police and people Johnny could not see.
His mouth opened in amazement as he watched the scenes unfolding before his stunned eyes. He surveyed what
The women with green and blue dresses who had earlier attempted to persuade them into the club, stood in front of Jimmy. Each held in her hand the distinctive shape of Glock 9mm semiautomatic police-issue pistols. Both weapons were trained carefully on Jimmy’s head.
Jimmy, standing to face the girls, was holding his assault rifle in front of himself at arm’s length, gripping it by the strap, and proffering it to the two women.
Johnny listened while he took aim at the women with his own weapon.
“Are all York girls like you?” Jimmy said.
“Not many,” one of the girls said.
“You ladies had better drop those weapons,” Johnny said, “or I’ll take it as a provocative act of violence, and I’ll have no choice but to take both of you out. And I don’t mean for a date.”
“You’d better think carefully about that,” one of the women said, “because we can kill him before you can take both of us out.”
Johnny raised his gun a little higher, double-checking his aim. “Maybe. Doesn’t matter. You’ll both be dead. That what you want? Now, if you don’t drop those weapons by the count of one… then I’ll do what I said I’d do.”
Both of the ladies let their weapons fall from their hands, clattering as they hit the ground, and held their hands up.
“One. Good. Now take two steps back and stand still.” The women retreated two steps from Jimmy.
Reclaiming his dangling weapon, Jimmy readied it, covering the girls.
Johnny took his hands off his own weapon, allowing it to hang at his chest. “That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout.” He picked out a point on the guttering and tested it with his foot, before lowering himself down to hang from it by his fingertips, then dropped to the ground lightly. “We need to get out of here, mate,” Johnny said. “This city’s on fire.”
“You talking about those shots I just heard?” Jimmy said.
“That’s right,” Green Dress said, “those shots mean York is ours.”
“Yours?” Jimmy said. “And who exactly are you?”
Jimmy stepped a little closer to her, holding his gun a little higher, making himself a little more threatening.