‘Chief Superintendent McKay to Armed Response Units, that’s a Go. Repeat Go at your command. You have the authority to use lethal and deadly force if necessary. Good luck gentlemen.’

The skippers and crews of the two Response vehicles had been anticipating their green light and had very quickly devised their attack plan. The transit van was approximately one hundred yards away from the two assault vehicles. The side of the van was facing their cars and it was decided that they would both drive at the van at speed and with about 30 yards or so to go, they would peel off in a ‘Y’ formation so that one ARV was stopped about ten yards from the front of the van whilst the other  would take up a similar position at the back of the van.

The plan would ensure that the occupants of the two Response units could be quickly out of their respective vehicles, take cover behind their own cars and, most importantly of all, make sure that if and when they had to shoot, they were not in each others line of fire. The ARV at the front would take out the two front tyres; likewise, the other would do the same at the back of the van. Speed, aggression and surprise was the essence of a successful operation and they both realised that there would be no turning back or second chances once the decision had been made.

Lee Evans was the senior officer on the ground and it would be his decision as to when to go. The eight officers were in direct communication with each other and all dialogue would be recorded as a matter of course for the de-brief after the incident was closed. If it all went well, there would be plenty of ‘well dones’ all round. If it didn’t, well. They weren’t going to contemplate that. They’d practised this type of scenario many times before. The next few minutes would determine if it was a job well done or not.

‘Ready Jos?’

‘As ready as we’ll ever be Skip.’

The relative quietness of the control rooms suddenly erupted as the adrenaline of the two crews kicked in.

Go Go Go,’ shouted the ground commander as the two powerful Range Rovers rapidly gained speed and hurtled across the gap with headlights blazing. The driver of the Motor Home just about to drive across the front of Romeo Victor One stood on the brakes as he looked open mouthed at the black flash that almost took his front bumper off. The two vehicles ate up the gap. Seventy, fifty, thirty yards to go, one swerved left, the other right. Screeched to a halt. Four officers near to the back of the transit, four at the front. Four flat tyres on the van.

The whole incident had taken about forty five seconds from start to finish. As the last of the tyres deflated, the helicopter lit up the van from above and the sky shout operated once more.

‘You in the van, you are surrounded by heavily armed police officers. Throw out your weapons and release your hostages.’

Suddenly, a head came into view from the drivers’ position in the van. The person had been laying across the front seat and could not be seen initially. The transit van was lit up like Blackpool Illuminations from the full beam headlights of the ARV’s and the searchlight from above. There was a few moments silence.

The two messages came into the control room almost simultaneously.

‘Hotel Charlie One to control, The infra red on the camera is picking up only one heat source from inside the vehicle. Repeat, the only heat source in the van is from the driver’s position. Not picking up any images from the back of the vehicle.’

‘Excuse me Chief Superintendent McKay,’ said the control room operator manning the telephones. ‘I’ve got the Force Incident Manager for Cheshire Constabulary on the line sir, says that one of their Traffic patrols has just picked up a distressed female on the North bound hard shoulder of the M6 near to Keele Services. She had her hands tied behind her back with a cable tie and tape across her mouth. She’s in quite a hysterical state. The only thing she has been able to tell them so far is that she was bundled out of her car by a man and there was somebody else who was holding a shotgun to the head of another man. There were three men altogether, one of them dressed in green overalls and trainers.’

Where a few moments before there had been nervous anticipation that the crisis was about to be brought to an end; now, the control room was silent. All eyes were on Chief Superintendent McKay as the implications of the two messages began to sink in. He slowly sat in his chair and brought his hands up to his chin in a prayer like manner. It was only seconds, but it seemed a lot longer before he spoke to his second in command.

‘Paul, three things. One, get the ARV’s to confirm as quickly as possible whether there is any one else in that transit van other than the driver. Two, get as much information from Cheshire as to where and when this took place and Three, get someone to the petrol station at Keele. View their CCTV and find out what the fuck went wrong. As of this minute, we’ve got our armed officers fifty miles away and we haven’t got a fucking clue as to where our hostages and that bastard of a madman are.’

He knew. The Inquisition was about to commence. He walked over to the window and stared out. His career might well be finished. That in itself didn’t bother him. His thoughts now were with his colleagues. He didn’t know the young officer. He did however know John Walsh. He knew him very well indeed.

‘I’m sorry john,’ he said quietly to himself. ‘You’re on your own old friend. I’m sorry I’ve let you down.’ He took a deep breath and turned to his colleague.

‘We might have fucked this one up Paul, but at least it appears that he’s still only got our two officers. I hope to fuck there was no on else in that car when he let the woman go.’

At the very moment that Chief Superintendent McKay was feeling the almost physical pain of serious failure, so Johnson was feeling very smug and happy.

‘What a clever bastard I am’ he said to John as he sat back in the plush seats of the silver coloured BMW X5. ‘I do like these tinted windows Mr Walsh. Gives me a certain feeling of comfort and security. Nice to know that I can look out without any nosey bastard looking in. No police radio’s, no shitty little contraptions to eavesdrop on our polite conversation. Yes I must say; I do like our nice new motor.

Now, home James. Nice and steady. I’ll tell you a little later where we’re going next.

Chapter 18

Chief Superintendent McKay was as stunned as everyone else in the control room. He was thankful for the hot sweet tea put in front of him by one of the civilian support staff. He looked up and smiled at her. She smiled nervously back and turned away.

‘Tell me Paul, what the fuck went on back there. I don’t understand how I got it so badly wrong. Why did the driver of the van go haring off at such a speed from the petrol station, why was he driving round the car park at Stafford looking so guilty? It just doesn’t make sense. What on earth was the guy playing at?’

‘Lee Evans has just reported back Boss; they couldn’t get much sense out of the driver at first. Poor bloke was scared shitless. When he got nearly blinded by the lights and heard the chopper shouting to throw out his guns, he thought he was about to be shot. He couldn’t speak properly. Turns out, our man is just a normal delivery driver. He drove away from the petrol station like a bat out of hell because he was supposed to be meeting his opposite number at Stafford services to swap over some delivery boxes and paperwork. The company has a couple of vans and the Service’s is the central meeting point. One van, the one driven by our guy, does the North part of the run while the other one does all the stuff from Stafford down South of the country.

He thought he was running late and so shot off quick from Keele, likewise, he thought he had missed him when he got to Stafford, hence his suspicious run around the car park. In fact, his oppo phoned him a few minutes after he got to the meeting point, told him he was running late and that’s why he settled over in the corner of the lorry park out of the way to get a bit of shut eye. He told his mate on the phone where he would be and so settled down for a bit of a bit of shut eye until Skip Lee and boys introduced themselves to him.’