off in pursuit of his quarry.
‘Damn you, Hunt!’ hissed Sam, dashing back along the corridor and through a series of empty offices, trying to keep his bearings as to where Gene and Balaclava Man might be.
Silently, he slipped into a long, drab office and saw the shattered window from which the gunman had first opened fire on them. On the floor, he saw a splattered line of blood leading across the room. But, as he followed it, Sam saw that it wasn’t blood at all but paint – thick, shiny, blood-red paint. The trail led to a far wall, where the crude image of a hand had been daubed, the palm outwards, the fingers spread. The letters ‘RHF’ were sloppily scrawled beneath it.
We’re meant to see this, thought Sam. That’s why he lured us in here. He wanted us to see this emblem. But what the hell does it mean? What the hell is the RHF? Is it some IRA splinter group?
Whatever the truth was, now was not the time to start puzzling it out. Sam heard the harsh clatter of the assault rifle, and the shuddering, cannon-like reply of the Magnum. A door crashed open, and Sam dropped behind a desk, aiming his pistol and preparing to fire. But his trigger finger relaxed at the sight of Gene lumbering into sight, Magnum raised.
‘Where’d he go? Sam, where the hell did he go?’
Gene glared all about him, anger rising like bile at the realization that he had been cheated of his quarry, that Balaclava Man had given him the slip.
‘Bastard!’ he spat, and punched a Britt Ekland calendar off the wall.
Sam stood up from the desk and fished out his police radio. ‘Ray? Are you reading me? The gunman’s got away from us – my guess is he’ll try to make a break for it. Keep the entire building cordoned off. Seal off every street. Set up a “ring of steel”. I don’t want so much as a cockroach being able to make it out of here without being picked up, you got that? … Ray? Ray, are you there? Speak to me, Ray!’
‘I’m here, boss,’ came Ray’s voice at last.
‘Did you hear what I just said?’ asked Sam.
‘Um … Kind of,’ muttered Ray. ‘I weren’t really listening.’
‘Why the hell not?’
‘Because I’m … sort of … looking at Chris.’
‘And what’s Chris doing?’
‘Sitting on a bomb. As in, right on it. Right on it, boss. With his arse.’
Sam and Gene exchanged a blank look, then Gene grabbed the radio.
‘Speak, Raymondo – and this time, start making some chuffing sense.’
They found Ray down on the ground floor, hovering about in a corridor and anxiously chewing his Juicy Fruits.
‘We thought you might need a spot of backup,’ he said, ‘so we followed you in here. And then Chris got nervous – said he needed the khazi …’
‘The khazi? You mean this one here?’ asked Gene. Ray nodded. Gene said, ‘It’s the ladies.’
‘I know. I think he found the idea … exciting.’
Sam opened the door and went in. Chris was in one of the cubicles, sitting on the toilet seat, staring at him with a face sweaty and bloodless from terror. His bare knees were shaking.
Gene pushed his way in, loomed over Chris, and, after a few silent moments said flatly, ‘Explain.’
‘I got caught short,’ Chris stammered. ‘All this running about, it went to me guts. So I came in here for a … you know.’
‘Get on with it.’
‘I’d just sat down, Guv – I didn’t even get a chance to start ’coz, like, I suddenly realized …’
He looked down. So did everyone else. There were wires visible just under the rim of the toilet seat, one black and one red, running away into the bowl.
‘I heard a click,’ said Chris, ‘and then I saw the wires, and that’s when I knew …’
‘Looks like we’ve found our explosive device, folks,’ said Gene. ‘Chris – I never want to have say these words to you ever again, but open your legs for me, nice and slowly.’
Shaking and sweating, Chris nervously obliged. Gene peered into the toilet bowl.
‘What can you see down there, Guv?’ asked Ray.
‘Shipyard confetti,’ Gene replied.
‘That ain’t true, Guv,’ whined Chris. ‘I haven’t dropped anything yet, I’ve kept it all in.’
‘That’s not a euphemism, you pillock – that’s the kind of bomb you’re sitting on,’ said Gene. ‘There’s a wad of explosives down there the size of a house brick; it’s been packed with nails and metal splinters and ball bearings – a little concoction the IRA call “shipyard confetti”. You’ve primed the detonator by plonking your cheeks on the seat, Chris.’
‘Oh my God! Get me out of here, Guv! Please!’
‘You’ll just have to wait for Bomb Disposal,’ said Gene. ‘If you try to stand up you’ll trigger the mechanism and next thing you know you’ll get half a ton of metalwork shooting right up your Fray Bentos.’
‘I really needed to go when I came in here,’ grizzled Chris, ‘and now I really, really need to go, like, urgent, like.’
‘Shit on it, you might defuse it,’ said Gene. ‘Ray, stop standing about like a spare prannet and get this place sealed off. Our gunman’s probably a mile away by now but have the whole area shut down just in case.’
‘Will do, Guv.’
‘And get onto those lazy sods at Bomb Disposal and tell ’em to get their arses down here double pronto!’ Gene called after Ray as he hurried away. ‘I do not intend to lose one of my officers today, even if it is just this dopey doughnut.’
‘Sit tight, Chris,’ said Sam. ‘You’ll be okay as long as you don’t move.’
‘You’re not going to leave me here, are you?’ Chris cried.
‘And give up spending time with you in the ladies’ bogs?’ asked Gene. ‘After all the years I’ve dreamt of this moment?’
‘We’ll stay with you, Chris, don’t worry,’ said Sam, patting Chris’s shoulder. ‘Gene, I don’t get it. This doesn’t feel like the IRA.’
‘It bloody does to me,’ put in Chris.
‘Not their usual way of operating, I’ll grant you that,’ said Gene.
‘We’ve been lured in here on purpose,’ said Sam. ‘This booby trap here, it’s meant to make a point. And that gunman, he wanted us to see what I found upstairs – a red hand, Gene, painted on the wall, and the letters RHF. Mean anything to you?’
‘Sam,
