Ambush (15 page)

‘For the family he did some bad things to rivals. A spate of killings in London and the south, four or five guys shot in the face, then smashed flat with a spade, and one beheaded with the same tool.'

Santiago winced.

‘No one was ever arrested and the Tasker family did close ranks around him, but the heat was on and they had to cut him loose. Too wild, too uncontrollable, too psychotic, too dangerous, someone who could jeopardize years of careful business building in one blow.

‘So he set up on his own, which is pretty much where we came in.'

It was good to get to bed with Santiago and in the air-conditioned berth they again made very slow love, after which Flynn lay awake thinking about Brian Tasker, Jerry Tope and others.

As much as the cops thought they were being careful that night with regards to transporting Brian Tasker from the hospital to the police station, they were not careful enough. And, of course, a police escort can be very vulnerable.

It was a journey that should have taken five minutes, tops.

Tasker was led out of the A&E unit and shoved into the back of the waiting section van, a Ford Transit. He was locked inside the inner cage, which under normal conditions would have been fine, especially as two police constables sat in with him, one next to him, one opposite. The driver of the van slammed the cage door, which spring-locked automatically with a bar. Neither constable took much notice of the identity of the van driver – the rain was still hammering down, he had his cap peak pulled over his eyes and they had been given instructions to keep their eyes on the prisoner.

The driver hopped in behind the wheel and set off from the awning outside the hospital.

Behind, the two armed officers jumped into their Ford Galaxy, and behind them was Jack Hoyle in the Vauxhall.

The little convoy set off fairly sedately, out of the hospital grounds and towards the town.

In Flynn's cubicle, the doctor said, ‘I saw your name on the computer, thought I'd say hello.'

‘Very nice to see you. How are you doing?' Flynn quickly noticed the absence of a wedding ring, though he assumed that was because wearing jewellery in her line of work was not always wise.

‘I'm good, you?'

‘Good, too.'

It was all pretty banal stuff.

‘Still happily married?'

‘I think so.'

‘You
think
so?'

‘Yeah, yeah … you?'

‘Was, not any more, but two little kids in tow.'

‘Oh, sorry.'

‘No probs.'

She handed him a business card. ‘The number's different.' She smiled, then said, ‘I have to go … left a patient wide open on the operating table … just kidding.'

Then she was gone.

In the back of the van, the two constables were morbidly fascinated by Tasker.

‘You cut out a man's tongue?' one asked in disbelief.

Tasker was staring at the van floor. His eyes did not rise and he remained silent, though a tremor of a smile played on his lips.

‘Fuckin' animal,' the other one sneered – he was the one sitting across from Tasker.

The convoy moved on and reached the traffic lights at the junction of Preston New Road where, when they changed to green, the vehicles would turn right towards Blackpool.

But as they changed the van went left, away from the resort on to the dual carriageway that led to Preston.

It took a few moments for the direction change to register with the two cops in the back.

Behind, the ARV turned to follow, and the driver flashed his headlights at the van, then moved out to overtake.

Jack Hoyle also followed, puzzled, suddenly worried.

Then from a side road on the left a car flashed out and rammed into the side of the ARV. The vehicle was a big Toyota pick-up with bull bars across the radiator. It smashed into the flimsier Ford Galaxy and flipped it over on to its side, then reversed away, slotted in behind the section van with a quick J-turn before slamming on, stopping, then hurtling backwards into the front of Hoyle's car.

Hoyle was already in shock at the speed and surprise of the first impact, though he had gathered his senses enough to begin shouting into his radio for assistance, but the fast-expanding image of the Toyota powering backwards cut off his words as he tried to wrench his steering wheel down to avoid the beast. He knew he was too slow – too many hours awake, too much driving, not enough rest had taken their toll and if he was honest he'd been pretty much daydreaming even though he'd been wondering about the odd change of direction the van had taken. He braced himself for the impact. The huge machine smashed into him and crushed beyond repair the front of the Vauxhall, and the Toyota almost seemed to be climbing over his bonnet.

Hoyle threw himself sideways over the passenger seat.

Had the Toyota actually driven over him like a tank it might have killed him, but the driver had only one mission with two aims, to put the ARV and Hoyle's car out of commission.

No sooner had this been achieved, with the ARV on its side, its wheels still spinning uselessly, and the radiator of Hoyle's car a crumpled, hissing mess, the Toyota disentangled itself with a tearing of metal and sped off behind the police van which was now accelerating away from the scene.

Inside the locked cage, Tasker raised his arms, held out his hands towards the officer opposite.

‘Release me. If you make this difficult, you will die.'

Stripped down to his boxers, bound and gagged, the unconscious police constable who was to have driven the section van was discovered, shivering, wet and cold, an hour later. The story was that he had been flagged down by two men in an apparently broken-down Toyota pick-up while en route to the hospital to pick up the prisoner. He'd been bashed on the head, dragged out of his seat … and after that he did not recall anything until he regained consciousness under some bushes in the hospital grounds.

The police van was found later, abandoned in an industrial area close to the motorway, and subsequently the Toyota was found in a ditch in a field near Kirkham.

The two cops in the van were unhurt, but they were handcuffed together and minus their radios, torches, batons and personal mobile phones.

And Brian Tasker had managed to escape from custody.

As Flynn drifted off to sleep alongside Santiago, he visualized himself standing in the field looking at the burned-out Toyota. Just a fire-ravaged shell, even the tyres having melted. It had been stolen earlier from the resort.

He was with a dithering Jack Hoyle, uninjured but still in shock from the break-out several hours earlier.

‘They were good,' Flynn had said to Hoyle. ‘No messing about. No fear. No qualms about impersonating a cop, either … this helped, though.' It was still raining hard and Flynn looked up into the sky, held his hands palms up.

Just released from hospital with a handful of painkilling drugs in his system now, he felt his anger rise, and with it a determination, no matter what the cost, to bring Brian Tasker to justice.

H
is head pulsing with pain, broken cheekbone throbbing and his eye swollen and pulpy, Steve Flynn stood at the front of one of the conference rooms at headquarters, fighting nausea and exhaustion in equal measures as he surveyed the array of sour-faced individuals at tables arranged in a U shape; Flynn stood alone, feeling vulnerable, at the open end of that letter.

He had just given his version of the events of the last twenty-four hours.

His audience consisted of Lancashire Constabulary's chief constable, the assistant chief constable in charge of operations and the detective chief superintendent in charge of crime for Lancashire, as well as high-ranking representatives from the National Crime Squad, the Metropolitan Police, West Midlands Police and various other dignitaries, most of whom he did not know.

However, they all seemed to have one thing in common: they looked as though they wanted to tear Flynn limb from limb.

‘So let me get this straight,' the chief constable said. His name was Robert Fanshaw-Bayley, known as FB to his friends and enemies alike. ‘You began a surveillance operation based on the say-so of a known drug user, not knowing who you were following and what the implications of that might be—'

Flynn opened his mouth to respond, but FB held up a finger to stop him.

‘Do not interrupt me,' the chief said. Flynn's mouth clamped shut. ‘I get it,' he conceded. ‘Things, events, run quickly and you have to react … I was a detective for many, many years, so fine. I understand. You run things on a wing and a prayer sometimes. It's not rocket science.'

Flynn swallowed.

‘So you find the vehicle you're interested in, in north London, and follow it up the M1, M6?' Flynn was prevented from replying by FB's stubby first finger, still hovering upright. ‘Not actually knowing who was in it?'

Flynn nodded. ‘Correct.' He swallowed again – drily. Few men could intimidate him, purposely or otherwise, but FB terrified him. He oozed authority and did not suffer a fool gladly.

‘They stop for a brew at Corley Services and you and your partner' – here FB flicked a dismissive finger at Hoyle, sitting to one side of Flynn, his head bowed – ‘kept eyeball on them and then you and one of the other surveillance cars set off just ahead of the target in order to get into position, leaving the third car on the services to drop in behind said target.' Flynn nodded again. FB went on. ‘Unfortunately it looks as though this particular car had been spotted by the target and identified as either a police car or, shall I say, a car that was a threat and the target has somehow sneaked up on the two officers in that car and murdered them in cold blood.'

FB stopped there. His words hung like a noose.

Then he ploughed on. ‘You kept following the target but sent your other team member back to check on the whereabouts of the other two officers, after you lost all contact with them. They were found dead.'

‘Yes, boss,' Flynn mumbled.

‘And then you lost the target vehicle.'

‘Yes, boss.'

‘Absolutely fucking incredible.' FB's lips pursed tightly.

‘The weather was … and the motorway was …' Weakly, Flynn tried to explain the loss.

FB waved him to shut it. ‘So you then revisited your informant and forced more out of her than she had previously divulged – something she should have done, anyway. From this, along with some intel from our database, you found the target vehicle and a further bloodbath.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘And Brian Tasker, who had apparently just murdered up to four people and cut the tongue out of one of them. A fight ensued. Tasker fired a gun at you and missed, but you put him down. Unfortunately he ended up in hospital and, with the help of his associates, managed to escape from custody. Incredibly, he did not seriously injure any more officers, though more by luck than judgement.'

‘Sir,' Flynn confirmed.

FB sat back, his eyes half-closed, looking down his nose at Flynn and Hoyle.

‘Two National Crime Squad officers murdered. Two of our local criminals murdered. An escape from custody. A very dangerous madman on the loose. This is a fucking serious omelette in our face,' FB said. ‘But you know what? I don't really care about that. As operational officers you are required to make speedy decisions on the hoof, it's part of what we do. We can't always invoke health and safety regulations and they certainly don't apply to the bad guys. However, I want it on record that the deaths of the two crime squad officers could not reasonably have been foreseen, but the fact remains that a tragedy has occurred, as in the case of the deaths of the two known criminals, Don Braceford and Will Carney.' He paused and his nostrils dilated. ‘I myself shall shoulder the public side of this in terms of the press, media and publicity, and also the private issues of dealing with the grieving relatives of the families concerned. Do not misunderstand this.' He looked pointedly at Flynn. ‘There have been many mistakes here and they will be thoroughly investigated.' Flynn heeded the warning. ‘However, I feel, unless I can be convinced otherwise, that what has happened is one of the risks we run as police officers, and what criminals can expect if things go wrong for them. Any PC could walk out of the police station and meet his or her death.' He paused again. ‘What now remains is for us to bring in Brian Tasker and put him away for the remainder of his natural life. We do not know for certain whether he pulled the trigger on those two officers, but he is the prime suspect since he appears to have murdered the other man he was with. So to that end I am now officially forming a squad to hunt down and arrest this man. It will be a multi-force operation and I will remain its nominal head.' FB glanced at a detective superintendent from the NCS. ‘Mr Rothwell here will be the operational head and I am going to bring in DI Craig Alford from my Serious and Organized Crime Unit to be the tactical head. I fully expect a hundred per cent commitment from all officers concerned and I will authorize any necessary overtime and resources. The operation will last as long as necessary but I expect a result as soon as possible. All officers must clear their diaries of other commitments until it is over because there will be long days and nights ahead until this man is apprehended. Anyone not wishing to be part of this may step down now. That is all … other than to say the operation will be called “Ambush”.'

FB scooped up his papers and stood up. As he went to the door of the conference room he passed close to Flynn and Hoyle. To them, he said, ‘With me.'

In the corridor FB looked at the weary duo.

‘Quick resolution,' he said to them. ‘Bring that man in. Do not make a hash of it.' To Flynn he said, ‘Your cards are marked.'

Then he was gone.

‘Bloody hell,' Flynn said, realizing he had been given a second chance. ‘We need to get working fast,' he said to Hoyle. ‘Get back down to the Smoke, get into people's ribs, find him and fuck him …'