Closer Than Blood. Paul Grzegorzek

a Hotel Foxtrot unit making from Lewes, short ETA. Can you hold out?”

      “I fucking hope so.”

      “OK Gareth.” He spoke to me the way you would a wounded animal, a soothing voice in the middle of what could be my final moments. I realised then how scared I was. This wasn’t a scrap, something that would result in broken bones at worst. No, this was someone determined and well able to kill us, and that thought was enough to make my knees shake.

      Nothing we could do would stop these men from shooting us if they got through the door. No amount of training was enough to guarantee taking a gun off someone, and all it would take was for the second shooter to stand back and pick me off no matter how lucky I might be with the first.

      A noise from the back of the room made me look up to see Jake opening the skylight window and hauling himself up on the sill.

      “Jake,” I hissed, covering the microphone with my thumb. “What the fuck are you doing?”

      “It’s me they’re after,” he whispered back. “I’ll get out and draw them away.”

      “No you bloody won’t,” I growled, taking a step towards him.

      The moment I took my weight off, the door opened a crack and the wardrobe threatened to topple. A pistol poked through and fired shots at random into the room.

      Throwing myself against the wardrobe, I was rewarded with a grunt of pain and the hand withdrew. The door slammed shut again, giving me a chance to look back at Jake, or rather the space where he’d been. While I’d been saving our lives, my brother had taken the chance to run away.

      Part of me hoped that he would draw them off, but long seconds passed and the shoving from the other side of the door didn’t lessen. Then, I heard the sound of an engine starting outside and patted the pocket where I kept my car keys. Where they had been until moments ago.

      I closed my eyes. Somehow, in the midst of everything that had happened, Jake had managed to pick my pocket and was now escaping in a job car. The only way the day could get worse was if my assailants actually managed to shoot me.

      As if on cue, both men began firing, rounds punching through the door and slamming into the wardrobe. Wood began to splinter, and I turned myself to one side to narrow my profile as much as possible, still leaning against the doors to keep them out.

      Then, faintly, I heard the sound of approaching sirens echoing off the hills.

      “The cavalry are coming!” I yelled. “Hear that you bastards? They’re coming for you!”

      The shots stopped. Feet pounded down the stairs. A moment later I heard another car start, then pull away with a squeal of tyres.

      Exhausted, I slumped down against the wardrobe, not daring to move it in case they’d left a shooter behind. I was still sat there, shaking with the aftermath of the adrenaline, when the world turned strobing blue and booted feet ran towards the house.

       Chapter 8

      “Jesus, Gareth, what the fuck have you gotten yourself into now?”

      I looked up from where I sat, huddled under a blanket on the wall outside the bungalow, and grinned despite the circumstances. In amongst the flurry of uniforms and SOCOs milling around, the newly minted Inspector Jimmy Holdsworth, my old partner, was making his way towards me with a look that was half concern, half relief at seeing me in one piece.

      “Inspector Holdsworth.” I threw a lazy salute. “What are you doing here?”

      “I’m Charlie Golf nine-nine,” he replied, giving the call sign for the inspector in charge of the division. “So they’ve called me in to sort your mess out. What happened?”

      “Jake.”

      “Your brother? Don’t tell me he did this?”

      “No,” I shook my head and began patting Jimmy’s pockets until I found his cigarettes. “But the guys who did were after him.”

      I took two cigarettes from the packet, then slipped one back when Jimmy shook his head and passed me a lighter. I lit mine and coughed, it had been almost a year since I’d last smoked.

      “So,” Jimmy continued. “What actually happened?”

      I glanced at the still form of the man I’d knocked out as he was carted off on an ambulance gurney. He was still unconscious, but as a precaution they had handcuffed him to the metal arms of the trolley and had three officers with him, two of them armed with tasers. “I had a bad day.”

      “No shit. I could do with some details though. Come on, I’ll give you a lift back to the nick to write your statement and you can tell me on the way. They’ve got it in hand here.”

      And so, as we drove back into the city, I relayed the entire day’s events to my old friend, leaving nothing out. If there was one person in the world aside from my dad that I could trust with anything, it was Jimmy. His stabbing was the reason I went off the rails all those years ago, that and his subsequent kidnapping by the same people. I got the impression that he felt he still owed me somehow.

      “What are you going to do?” he asked as we pulled into the back yard of John Street Police Station.

      “Nothing stupid. I reckon my best bet is to go and write a bloody good statement, then go home and get some sleep. It’s been a long day.”

      I was about to open my door and clamber out when Jimmy’s radio blasted, a flat, ugly sound that meant an officer was in distress. Half a second later, a panicked voice began screaming over the airwaves.

      “1020, 1020, urgent assistance! They’re attacking the ambulance!”

      Jimmy and I stared at each other in shock as the controller’s voice came over the radio, her tone calm but words fast.

      “CC106, message received. What’s your location? Units are coming, but we need to know where you are.”

      “I don’t know, we’re in the back of the ambulance. Near the hosp … Oh shit, they’ve got guns!”

      The transmission cut off abruptly with a pained grunt. Jimmy spun the car, flicked the lights on and shot out of the car park as the back doors to the police station began to disgorge a steady stream of officers running towards any available vehicle.

      We came out of the car park so fast we almost took off, Jimmy hunched over the wheel as we screamed up the steep incline of Carlton Hill towards the hospital.

      The radio began flooding with messages as units assigned themselves, until Jimmy found a break in the calls and sent his own message.

      “All call signs, this is Charlie Golf nine-nine. No divisional units are to make an approach until Hotel Foxtrot have cleared the scene. Locate the ambulance, but do not approach. Confirm last received.”

      I looked over at Jimmy approvingly as the controller picked up his message and repeated it. He’d not been an inspector long, but already he was thinking strategically, even when involved in something himself. Most officers, myself included, would likely have thought of nothing more than finding their endangered colleagues.

      “Control, this is CC109,” an excited voice called up. “I have sight of the ambulance on Wilsons Avenue. Doors are shut and no sign of any hostiles. Permission to approach?”

      “Negative,” Jimmy called up before anyone else could speak. “I have a short ETA, keep any public back and stand by.”

      True to his word we were there in less than two minutes, fighting through the traffic that was building up in both directions. Wilsons Avenue was on the very outskirts of Brighton, with houses on one side and fields on the other, but it was a major road. Jimmy ended up driving onto the pavement to get us past, lights and sirens still going until we reached CC109.

      As we leapt out I could