back over the falling
man and deftly broke his neck. Both
Russians fell to the ground in a muddle, sprawling in an untidy heap.
Meanwhile Little Billy had got to the gun, picked it up with his
left hand and pointed it at Surge. Surge,
not normally showy, performed a spin kick with the heel connecting on Little
Billy’s temple. He dropped dead. In all, just a few seconds had gone by.
Then Surge’s phone started to ring.
. . . . . .
Jonathan grabbed Olivia by the arm .“ Quick,”
he said dragging her up the stairs.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“Help, please” said Jonathan. Olivia could feel his panic.
“Go into the spare bedroom,” said Collins over the phone. “In the corner you will see a run of coat
hooks. Turn the furthest one to the left
and the nearest one to the right. As
Jonathan did this a panel came away from the wall six foot across and two feet
deep. Inside was wall to walls guns, all
sorts and sizes. There were boxes of
ammunition on the floor. Jonathan was
amazed.
He could hear the men in the shop calling out. He turned to Olivia and whispered, “Will you
help?” and she nodded.
He stepped inside the alcove pulling the section of wall behind him
and maneuvered into a tiny space. Olivia
put the hooks back into position. The little
room was hot, pitch black and claustrophobic. Jonathan could hardly move, pushed up against the false wall, standing
on a case of ammunition with guns pressing into his back.
Olivia wondered what she had now got herself into. “Fuck,” she thought. “Nothing for nothing in
this world. How stupid of me to
believe I was getting paid to run the shop for Collins. It must be a front for something.”
The men downstairs were getting louder and Olivia heard a loud crash
as they tipped a display onto the floor. She took a deep breath, ran into the bathroom, flushed the toilet chain
then ran down the stairs.
“Sorry,” she said. “I was
busy upstairs.”
She looked at the two big, powerful, frightening men and thought
they were clearly bully boys used to getting their own way.
“Where is he?” said the biggest man, obviously in charge.
“Who?” said Olivia innocently.
“Jonathan. The
owner’s son.”
“No idea,” said Olivia. “His
dad owns the shop and he comes and goes as he pleases. I don’t know where he is today.”
Keith Poole looked at the little girl, quite pretty in her way and
obviously frightened. He pushed past her
and they both looked all round the shop then down in the cellar. Nothing. He looked at
the stairs to the flat and grabbed Olivia by the scruff of the neck and marched
her upstairs. He sent his opo to look round and sat her at the table in the kitchen.
“Now,” said Keith. “Your
boyfriend owes me a lot of money, you understand and I want it.”
“He is not my boyfriend and I don’t know where he is,” said Olivia
and began to sob.
Keith could see the toddler asleep on the sofa and thought of
threatening to hurt him it to scare the girl more but he could see she was
already petrified. “Sit there,” he said. He started to look round the flat. He wandered into the small bedroom and sat
down on the bed thinking what to do next. He checked his watch. He had no
word from any of the other teams which was very worrying. He wondered what John
Sea would do if it all went wrong. He
hoped it was just a timing issue otherwise he knew he might not last the day.
Jonathan was behind the wall with sweat pouring from him. He had heard the man walking into the bedroom
and he could hear him breathing. He
could also hear Olivia sobbing. Suddenly
he realized he still had his mobile phone on. If he got a text or someone called, he was dead. The irony was , he
was surrounded by weapons but completely defenseless.
Keith
John Jakes
Mark Lamprell
Katie O'Boyle
Chris Longmuir
Alli Sinclair
Denise A. Agnew
Simon Kernick
AnnaLisa Grant
Diane T. Ashley
Kailin Gow