Instinct by Nick Oldham

of reflective jackets that he always carried, handing one to Rik. Then, keeping to the side of the motorway, he strode up to the traffic officers, the wind in his face, amazed by how strong it was on such a nice day. The fact that the motorway was exposed and slightly raised made it cold and forbidding.
    The man in the Fiesta had not moved. Henry could see his outline in the driver’s seat.
    Henry mentioned the passing traffic to one of the officers who shouted back at him, raising his voice because that was the only way to be heard against the combined thunder of passing vehicles and swirling wind. He told Henry that the gantries had been activated further back down the motorway and blocks had been set up on the slip roads to keep anyone from coming on. The overhead signs were telling drivers to stop because of a police incident. The officer added, ‘No one ever does, though.’
    Henry patted the guy’s shoulder and, crouching low with Rik just behind him, he jogged up to the armed officer using the passenger door of the traffic car as a shield. This was the one with a loudhailer.
    Henry assessed the whole scenario, very unhappy about it.
    â€˜We need to get him out from the nearside door and up to the Armco barrier,’ he shouted.
    The officer nodded.
    Then the driver’s door of the Fiesta opened, the guy swung out his legs, stood up and faced Henry’s direction. Henry saw a young, skin-headed Asian youth, maybe nineteen years old, dressed in trainers, jeans and a big anorak. This was not the man that Donaldson had described to him, the one he’d chased through the streets, who had driven this car at a cop, the one he’d shot. Not the man called Akram.
    â€˜Stand still,’ the AFO with the loudhailer shouted. ‘Do not move.’
    The lad had a blank expression. He seemed to be saying something to himself, mumbling. His hands were down at his sides, fists clenched. He walked between the Fiesta and the traffic car and stopped by the rear offside wing of the Ford as though he hadn’t heard the shouted instruction.
    Henry’s eyes took in everything – including the other firearms officer crouching behind the driver’s door of the traffic car, armed with a Glock pistol, held down in front of him in the classic two-handed grip. This officer had a clear, unobstructed view of the lad.
    Henry thought he saw the twitch of a smile in the corner of the Asian’s mouth. His head rose slightly and he looked at Henry across the gap that separated them.
    Several cars hurtled past in the fast lane.
    Henry spotted something in the young man’s right fist. It looked like the top of a pen. Henry knew exactly what it was. A button. A detonator. Attached to a bomb that was strapped to his chest.
    Henry had been here once before, face to face with a suicide bomber. Last time, in the backstreets of Accrington, he’d been lucky. A mis-connection meant the device failed to explode. Since that moment, Henry knew he never wanted to be in that position again. He knew he would not be so lucky next time. This time.
    The young man raised his right hand.
    Several things happened.
    Henry screamed, ‘TAKE HIM DOWN!’ to the firearms officers.
    The young man shouted something, words that were blocked by the wind, but Henry knew he was saying that Allah was great.
    The firearms officer on the other side of the car stepped sideways, raised and aimed the Glock, bringing it up into the point of an isosceles triangle formed with his locked arms.
    The young man lifted his thumb in a gesture designed to show that he was now going to press the detonator in his hand, blow himself up and whoever else he could take with him.
    Henry cringed and cowered away, as though turning his back to the situation would protect him from a bomb blast.

SEVEN
    S teve Flynn was looking at one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen in his life. He adjusted the peak of his tatty baseball cap to