“Orders, Guv?” The woman asked, glancing up and down the street. Her fingers drummed against the taser she carried strapped to her vest.
Jimmy looked around, then at me. “What do you reckon, Gareth?”
“No sign of anyone else, and they’d be idiots to hide in the ambulance. I say we go see if our colleagues are OK.”
He nodded. “Agreed. Amanda, right?”
The woman nodded. “Sir.”
“We’ll approach, you cover us. Anyone does anything out of the ordinary and you pop them.”
She nodded again and drew her taser, following us with her colleague.
We hurried towards the ambulance, watched now by dozens of people who had exited their cars, many of whom had phones out to video our approach.
We paused by the back doors, Jimmy and I taking a handle each as he mouthed a countdown. For the third time that day, adrenaline began to flood my system, making my heart pound. When he reached ‘go’, we pulled the handles and stepped to the sides, allowing Amanda a clear look into the back.
“Fuck,” she breathed. “Are they dead?”
Inside, the three police officers and two paramedics who had been accompanying my bear of an assailant to hospital lay on the floor, the yellow metal awash with blood. The gurney the prisoner had been strapped to was empty, the cuffs that had been holding him neatly cut through with some kind of power tool.
Leaping into the back, I leaned down and began checking pulses.
“They’re alive,” I said with relief, although I wasn’t sure how bad their injuries were. Each of them had nasty wounds to the face or temple, and from the shape of the injuries I guessed that they’d been pistol-whipped into unconsciousness. “Get another ambulance rolling, now.”
The radio crackled to life as Jimmy climbed into the back with me.
“Looks like your shooters came back for their friend,” his voice was almost drowned out by the wail of multiple sirens as other units began to arrive. “Who the hell are these guys?”
“I wish I knew,” I said grimly, “but the only person who does is in the wind and after seeing this, I reckon that if he’s sensible he’ll be hiding so deep that we’ll never find him.”
Things moved quickly after we found the ambulance. A little over an hour later I’d found myself in the divisional commander’s briefing room on the second floor of the nick, with Jimmy and an older man in a rumpled suit with a tired face but eyes that missed nothing. He introduced himself as DCI Tomlinson from Major Crimes, but refrained from saying anything further as we waited for the Chief Superintendent to arrive.
Despite my long years of service, I still wasn’t particularly comfortable around the top brass. In my experience, they either had unrealistic expectations or preconceived notions that couldn’t be changed, and neither was good news for someone as low down the food chain as me.
Our new Chief Super was supposedly of a different breed and although I’d only met her once, I’d found her surprisingly pleasant. She had a habit of really listening to whoever she was talking to which, while that didn’t dispel my nervousness altogether, made me think I wasn’t about to be put through the wringer too badly for my inadvertent part in the day’s proceedings.
After a few minutes of waiting in strained silence, Chief Superintendent Claire Striker walked into the room, dressed in a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved top that looked strange when you were used to seeing her in a pristine uniform.
“Gentlemen,” she said without preamble. “Tell me what the bloody hell is happening in my city. I have two officers with concussion and one with a fractured skull. Armed men racing around causing havoc. I have a conference call with Force Gold and the ACC in fifteen minutes, and I want to know everything before I talk to them. Sergeant Bell, you start.”
I was a little more sparing with the details this time, leaving out the personal parts that I’d shared with Jimmy. The Chief Super wanted cold, hard facts about the case, not my personal musings, and so I kept it professional and dispassionate.
Jimmy took over when I finished, detailing which units were assigned and where, and what initial actions were being taken. The DCI remained silent but took copious notes while we spoke.
When Jimmy was done, Striker nodded her thanks to us both.
“Well done gents, sounds like you’ve made the best out of a bad situation. Sergeant Bell, do you have any idea at all where your brother might be? We tracked the lo-jack in your car, and it was abandoned on the outskirts of Hove about half an hour after he left your house.”
I shook my head. “I wish. He’s been gone so long I doubt he knows anyone here now.”
“Well we need to find him. Not only do I want to prevent his murder, I want to stop the people looking for him hurting anyone else. The best way to do that is to bring him, and the drugs he stole, in.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
“So, as you’re uniquely placed to find him, being both his brother and an intelligence officer, I want you to drop everything else and concentrate on this. I don’t care if you have to use every favour and blow out every source you have, I want your brother behind bars before someone else gets hurt. You report directly to me, and if anyone gives you any stick, send them my way.”
“Understood ma’am.”
“Tommo,” she said, turning to the DCI. “Find out who the men looking for him are. We’ve got statements being taken from witnesses to the attack on the ambulance, which should give us a car make and model. From there we can check ANPR cameras in the area and get a hit. Start with that and work outwards. I want this in the bag before the national press start calling, and believe me they will.”
“Ma’am,” he replied.
“That’s all, thank you. I have enough to pass up the chain for now.”
She stood and left, as did the DCI, leaving Jimmy and I looking at each other in silence.
“Well,” he said finally. “That’s my nice peaceful late shift fucked.”
“My heart bleeds.”
“Thanks. Smoke?”
I nodded and followed him out, then down the stairs to the smoking area, tucked away around the corner near the car park. The night air was cool enough to make me shiver, and it was late enough that I cracked a huge yawn before lighting my cigarette.
“Didn’t you quit?” Jimmy asked as he lit his own.
“Yeah, Sally hated the smell. And the taste.”
“You seen her recently?” Jimmy had been my partner when my now ex-wife, Sally, had been our analyst in DIU. We’d been married for four wonderful years and then two terrible ones, finally separating and then getting divorced when we found we couldn’t even talk to each other without rowing. I still loved her, and I like to think she did me, but there was simply something missing from our relationship. If we’d worked out what it was, I had no doubt we would still be together, but instead she had moved divisions and now worked and lived in Hastings. I saw her name on the occasional report, but that was as close as we ever came.
“Christ no, and I’ve got enough past-life issues at the moment, thanks very much. Speaking of which, how in hell am I going to find Jake? It’s all well and good the Chief Super telling me to use my sources, but if he’s smart enough to stay out of sight it’ll be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
“From what you said, he still