Life on Mars: Blood, Bullets and Blue Stratos. Tom Graham

That’s what makes them the bad guys and us the law.’

      ‘I am the law, Bo Peep, and you’ll damn well play this my way.’

      ‘But Guv, there’s a bomb in this building, primed to explode.’

      Gene puffed out his chest and said, ‘You bet your bollocks there is, and he ain’t in the mood to argue. Now – cover me.’

      He strode to the staircase and bounded up it two steps at a time. Sam raced up after him, his nervous system tight and jangling, alert for any hint of the man in the balaclava.

      On the first-floor landing they found empty corridors and silent offices. Gene edged forward, past desks cluttered with bulky typewriters and heaped in-trays of paperwork. He slipped past a set of pneumatic tubes for the ferrying of internal mail and tucked himself against a row of metal filing cabinets. He tilted his head and tasted the air like a jungle cat, his eyes narrowing, his gloved finger tensing on the steel trigger of the Magnum. Then, without warning, he rushed on up the staircase, making barely a sound in his tasselled loafers.

      By the time Sam caught up with him on the second floor, his heart was hammering in his chest. He found Gene striding about boldly, peering into offices, sticking his nose round doors, swinging the Magnum in all directions as if it were an extension of his body.

      Something moved, and Sam and Gene both reacted instantly. They spun round, aiming their weapons along the length of the corridor, just as Balaclava Man appeared, round-lensed glasses glinting blankly, his assault rifle raised military-style with its stock nestling high against his shoulder.

      ‘Freeze! Police!’ yelled Sam, years of police training kicking in automatically.

      Gunfire raked the walls. Gene answered with a shot powerful enough to punch a hole the size of a dinner plate through a door panel. A second shot flung what was left of the door entirely off its hinges. Balaclava Man vanished from sight.

      ‘I said no warnings, Tyler,’ Gene snarled.

      ‘We’re coppers,’ Sam spat back. ‘This is no time to start playing Charles flamin’ Bronson.’

      Gene slammed fresh rounds into the hot breech of the Magnum in a way that suggested that he thought otherwise, then strode briskly through the drifting layers of blue gun smoke. He kicked away the shattered remains of the door, smacked the gun barrel back into the housing and took aim – but the room was empty.

      ‘The four-eyed Murphy’s legged it,’ he whispered back at Sam. ‘Head through them offices and try and cut him off. I’ll go after him this way.’

      ‘Guv, I don’t think splitting up is such a g—’

      ‘For Christ’s sake, Tyler, do you want to play cops and robbers or not?

      And, with that, Gene was gone, striding 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!