A Shot In The Night (John Harper Series Book 2) (26 page)

The shots stopped nearly as soon as I got out of the
car.  It didn’t take me long to realise that I was not being specifically
targeted, which was a blessing considering the accuracy I had seen from the
shooter up to that point.  Part of me was a little offended that I wasn’t
deemed worthy enough of being attacked but once I deduced that the shots were
random, this thought disappeared from my mind.  With that realization I dived
back into the car and pulled out the parcel from the glove compartment.

Ripping it open, I revealed a small dull grey
handgun.  I recognized it immediately from my time in Ireland.  The Browning,
or L9A1 as it was designated in the Army, had been around since before the
Second World War and was durable and reliable.  I’d fired a number of them on
the practice range when I was younger and had even carried one on a couple of
assignments.  Rich was right to go with something I would be comfortable with
and having come under gunfire upon arriving at the scene I was feeling happier
with its presence. Before anyone could see, I hid it in the waistband of my
black trousers beneath my suit jacket and longer charcoal grey coat.

The two police officers huddled behind their car
shouted to me to stay down but I ran over to them nimbly jumping over some
metal and glass that lay in the road, “What the hell do you think you are
doing?” asked a red headed mustachioed copper.

“No idea, just ran into some gunfire, as you do,” I
said as glibly as I could, I also flashed my police badge at them briefly, “DI
Harper, what’s the situation?”

It took them a second to gather themselves and
neither one of them called me out on being retired, not that they would
necessarily know that since I didn’t work in Merseyside, “We were responding to
the emergency call from the van when we came under fire.  Next second the tires
went out on the car.  It was a double whammy.  We’ve been behind here ever
since, sir,” the other officer, a younger man, rattled off with fear evident in
his voice and eyes.

“Any idea where the shooter is?”

“Last we heard the chopper had a heat signature on
the roof and then another closer to the station.  To be honest things got a
little confusing when the tires went and the bullets started hitting the car,”
said the experienced officer.

I looked at the tires on the front of the police car
and noticed how they were shredded.  Stuck inside the nearest one was a series
of small metal objects.  Pulling one out of the tire I held it up to see the
sharpened edges of what appeared to be a number of nails fused together.  The
younger officer intently watched what I was doing and asked “What are those?”

A snort of laughter escaped me as I looked back
towards my car and realized my good fortune.  The detritus I had leapt over
earlier made more sense now, “This guy is bloody clever.  These are homemade
caltrops, not that I can imagine you can buy them in stores these days.”

“Cal whats?”

“Caltrops they’ve been used for hundreds of years to
hinder movement on the battlefield,” answered the ginger man, “Could hobble a
horse or in our case, Hiddleston, the tires on our car.”

Nodding I pointed at the others still on the road,
“He made his own set of stinger lines with these.  You can see a couple of them
taped together plus others scattered across the road.  Makes it bloody
difficult for us to get anyone down the road to help.  Also means that we are
pinned so he can keep us in his target range.”

“So what are we going to do now then?” another
question from Hiddleston.

I took my phone out of my pocket and switched on the
camera, I pressed one button and then held the screen up above the car bonnet
and slowly scanned around, occasionally taking photos, “Sorry I just wanted to
have a quick look.  I can’t see down the street because of the smoke but that
fire doesn’t look like it will last much longer.  There's no movement or sign
of him but just because he didn't shoot this thing out of my hand, doesn't mean
he's not looking at us.”

“We’ve got to get to the station or the van.  Our
people are hurt out there, the last report was not good,” the older constable
said.

“Listen to me, there is a trained long distance
serial killer out there so we need to be clever about this.  If anyone is going
out there they have to take cover.  I’d suggest waiting for the armed
response.  I'm sure the gold commander has taken charge by now.  However if you
are insistent on going to their aid, I'd move through the trees,” I said,
pointing towards them, “Go further back down the road, try and use the houses
for cover and then go across the park.”

The less experienced officer looked towards my car
before asking, “Why, where are you going?”

“The gunman is down that road somewhere.  If I can
give you guys a better idea of where he is then it will help the armed response
unit.  I look like a civilian, hopefully that will be enough to stop him
pulling the trigger on me.  If one of you can give me a radio, I’ll try and
locate the sniper.”

The two men nodded slowly but before we could move
we were forced to the ground as a deafening explosion ripped through the air. 
A plume of fire and smoke rose from behind the trees close to the station.

“Oh my God, the station.  I’ve got to get across
there,” PC Hiddleston said as he stood up and ran towards the explosion only to
trip and then a gun shot rang out.

The two incidents were so close together that if I
hadn’t looked up trying to stop him I would have said he was shot down to the
ground.  Instead I saw his leg catch on piece of wire and a muzzle flash from
the shadows cast by the trees.  He lay on the ground and screamed in pain
holding his leg.

The other officer shouted out, “Tim!” as he went to
run across the road but I held him back.

“Stay here, there’s a tripwire across the road and
there might be more traps.  I’ll go cut it and you grab Hiddleston, get him to
the treeline.”

“Okay, be quick, he looks hurt.”

I nodded and rolled my way across towards the car
boot.  The ginger officer gave me his radio which I clipped to me belt before
running out across the pavement and leaping over a garden wall.

I lay flat on thankfully wet grass, since I made the
jump not knowing what my landing surface would be.  I took a second to catch my
breath and caught sight of a family in the window to my left.  Waving my hand
at them to get down and away to safety I stood and vaulted a waist high wooden
fence.  I landed in a crouch this time on a frozen flowerbed before running low
to the next fence.  It would offer me no protection from a sniper’s bullet but
hopefully it would keep me out of his line of sight long enough.  Moving across
to the gate I gingerly opened it and swung it inwards.  I scurried across to
the lamppost and with my trusty knife gently cut the wire without putting
tension on line.  Rolling back into the garden I put my back to the fence and
called out, “Get him out of there.”

With the worry of the sniper I didn’t want to reveal
my location again just for a better view but I could see the police officer run
towards his friend through the opening of the gate.  They were out of my line
of sight but I could hear their groans and a yelp of pain from Hiddleston as
the police struggled across road.

It was a terrible thing to think but since they were
moving they presented a distraction in the form of an easy target so I went
over to the petrol station wall and put my back to it.  I watched Hiddleston
and his partner disappear into the trees.  It allowed me a sigh of relief that
they were relatively safe if the gunman had not stayed within the wooded area. 
My opinion was that he had moved back across the road because I very much
doubted he would have wanted to be close to whatever had exploded.  The problem
was that I now had to find wherever he was hiding before he hurt anyone else.

The reports of two heat signatures was conflicting
with the previous attacks, although it would explain why there had been a
change from shooting just drug dealers to murder of
Megan Reed and Craig
Tunney
, the two
civilians.  Since my only lead was the roof of the petrol station, I thought I
could finally get a drop on the man; hopefully the sniper had not seen my mad
dash for cover.  To my left hand side there was a new silver ladder; it stood
out and was the only obvious access to the flat rooftop.  Aware that the
shooter could be waiting for me at the top, I pulled my leather gloves tight
and took out the pistol from the small of my back before slowly climbed, hoping
to be as silent as possible on the creaking metal.

Just before the edge of the roof, I took a quick
photo with my phone to see if there was anyone on the roof, modern technology
providing me with a handy periscope.  Even in the low light of the fading
winter’s day I could make out the mound that looked suspiciously like a man
lying down in the prone shooting position.  If I was quiet enough I could sneak
up on the man, however with the tricks the shooter had shown so far I doubted
that it would be that easy.

I put my hand on the loose gravel and slowly came to
my feet. I remained in a low crouch with my hands raised, the pistol in a firm
grip.  Stalking forward, I saw the long barrel of a rifle from underneath a
camouflage net.

My movements were surprisingly silent even to myself
and I got close enough to put the pistol to the back of the person’s body,
“Remove your finger from the trigger and then place both of your hands on the
ground at your side.”

There was no movement so I jabbed my gun into the
man again but this time it sank deeper than I expected.  With my left hand I
pulled the netting clear to reveal a long rifle bag which was open and filled
with pillows and small hand warmer bags, their bright orange colour contrasting
with the white of the pillows, “Crap.”

I also briefly noticed a thin wire of high tension
metal, which was enough for me to dive clear to the side.  Thankfully it wasn't
the most deadly of explosives; it was a flashbang, a weapon designed to
disorientate the senses with a blinding flash of light and a loud detonation. 
My luck only went so far as I was nearly completely deafened by the explosion. 
I'd covered my eyes which saved me as much as possible, luckily because I was
aware of what was going on I rolled to the side enough to miss getting hit by a
rifle bullet.  I was up as fast as possible and although disorientated, I
managed to place my pistol back where I had been carrying it as I sprinted for
the ladder.

Feeling my coat whip around my legs I dived across
the ground grabbing the two ends of the ladder and sliding my chest on the
gravel.  The impact knocked the wind out of me which was a good thing since I
didn't have the breath to yell as the ladder pitched forwards over balancing
and went crashing towards the house next to the petrol station.  There was a
split second where I thought my hands were too high up the ladder and would be
crushed before the ladder slipped backwards.  The plastic feet of the climbing
apparatus slid back till it hit the base of the petrol station wall and I was
left dangling above the ground as the ladder was propped between two buildings.

Since it wasn't the sturdiest of platforms to be
resting on I took the briefest of moments to catch my breath before rolling off
the metal frame and landing heavily on the pavement below.  I sat there for a
good minute and tried to collect my senses.  My balance was off and although I
had covered my head, my vision was not completely clear.  The worst of my
symptoms was the deafness, the explosion was well over one hundred and fifty
decibels and made sure I would have the ringing in my ears and problems with
hearing for the rest of the night.  It had also affected my balance which was
probably one on the reasons I managed to avoid getting shot on the roof since
although I was sprinting, it was not necessarily in a straight line.  All it took
was one look at my coat to realise that the whipping sensation I had felt was
not due to my speed across the rooftop but a bullet that had left a sizable
hole in the material.

This sniper was planning everything out to a fine
degree.  Everything he had planned was to hinder help or create more targets. 
However the fact he had not used high explosives or even a grenade for the
rooftop decoy suggested that maybe his weapon supplies were limited somewhat. 
I was trying to understand the logic in just incapacitating someone to then
open fire.  It did not seem the best use of his resources nor was it, in my
opinion, what someone trained to kill for a living would do.  I also felt that
although there had been some obvious planning on behalf of the sniper, if he
was more experienced then he would not have assaulted the police station.  It
would be much easier picking off individual targets around the area than making
a statement like this.

That was what it was though, a statement, something
that would be played on television for the world to see.  No doubt there would
be press helicopters racing to the scene as I sat there, brushing gravel off my
jacket and gingerly touching the grazes on my chest and thighs.  I still didn't
feel like he wanted to be recorded for the world to see, but what was the end
scenario to this?  The likelihood was simply that the armed response team would
move in trap him and he would either go down shooting or turn the gun on
himself.  I didn't really want to see another suicide by cop.

However all this planning, and everything that aimed
to delay or hinder capture, suggested that the man had a way out, that he had a
plan.  If he intended to drop off the radar then he would have to fake his
death or at least hinder an investigation long enough to disappear.  Problem
for him was that he had shown himself tonight and from the gunfire directed at
me it suggested that he was still in the area.  So the only thing I could do
was stop him before he managed to blend back into the shadows or focus the case
on someone else.