Authors: Andrew Snadden
BOOM, BOOM the percussion of the explosions echoed out into the distance. The combined flash of the charges making the lane momentarily appear as though it was day, lighting up each and every one of the black clad, respirator wearing officers smashing their way inside.
Inside, Jennings fell to the floor clutching his throbbing ears that were suffering with ringing akin to an extreme bout of tinnitus from the explosions. In the front room the four middle eastern men cowered down low in fear. Collins joined by Jones and Palmer entered the room after throwing yet another stun grenade, the ear drum bursting bangs sent the four men reeling to the ground, unable to deal with the hardcore assault on their senses. With the room spinning, the men opened their eyes just in time to see two large, blurred shadowy figures flying into the room.
“POLICE, DOWN ON THE FLOOR NOW, GET DOWN, GET DOWN!” Collins and Palmer screamed at the four men who were in no position to do anything else.
Semi-blind, with their ears still ringing, the four men laid face down on the floor with their hands on their heads. Any remaining fight they may have had (if there had been any in the first place) was now completely gone. Jones stood in the door way, covering the hall whilst being ready to move in and assist them should they have required it.
Above their heads, the two sections of Red team barrelled into the house through the destroyed windows, guns raised up as each and every one of them jumped off their ladders and into the rooms, preceded by more stun grenades. Once inside they progressively began smashing their way through their respective pre-determined 'limits of exploitation', a term used by firearms officers to describe a designated area where a team would work within, and not beyond, preventing them from running into each other.
Mahood fell against the bathroom wall, startled by the sudden explosions. He knew what was going on from the very second it had started. There was no way he was going to spend the rest of his life in a cell, so he composed himself and burst out of the bathroom into the hallway looking for a safe route to escape through. As he paused to quickly weigh up his options, he could just about hear the voices of Simpson, Allen and Evans calling out to each other from inside a bedroom to his right through his dulled hearing. This was definitely not the way he was going to go. Mahood turned on his heels and ran back towards his bedroom at the front of the house, he would jump clean through the window if he had to.
As Foster moved inside the room, the torch on his MP5 lit up the corners of the large bedroom, revealing a king sized bed, sofa and walk in wardrobe, all of which would need checking. Knowing full well that O'Keeffe and MacNeil would carry out a swift search behind him, Foster moved towards the door whilst trying to recall the floor plan in his head as to what lay beyond it. With less than ten feet to go, Foster raised his MP5 up so that it was ready to cover the door in preparation of O'Keeffe and MacNeil joining him to move into the hallway.
Just before he reached it, the door abruptly and without warning burst open, startling Foster in the process. His huge, surprised eyes locked on the dark figure marauding into the room. In the split second that he caught a glimpse of the figure, Foster knew it was Mahood.
BANG, BANG the sound of the MP5 discharging two 9mm rounds reverberated around the room. Mahood who was still in full flight was sent tumbling into the dresser adjacent to the bed, sending photo frames and ornaments smashing through the air in his wake. He crashed to the floor with a thud, making no effort to break his own fall and came to a rest face down.
The first 9mm round had torn through Mahood's jugular causing the large artery to blast a large volume of blood equal to the English channel across the floor. The second had entered his chest cavity, deflating his right lung in the process and inducing a catastrophic bleed inside his chest cavity that would have been impossible to stem.
Foster instantaneously felt a deep sinking feeling as he realised what had just happened; he had shot a man, and perhaps killed him. MacNeil ran past him and covered the door as O'Keeffe started carrying out first aid on Mahood's motionless body. They could have had all the equipment necessary to carry out open heart surgery but it still wouldn't have saved Mahood. He was now nothing more than another dead terrorist.
“Where's the gun, where's the gun?” Foster desperately asked O'Keeffe who unable to see the gun, didn't answer.
“I know I saw a gun, I'm sure I saw a gun!” Foster repeated again and again.
But there wasn't a gun! As a result of the door unexpectedly flying open in the darkness, a surprised Foster had reacted to movement and instinctively fired off two shots in a panic at the emerging figure of Mahood who was dead before he hit the floor.
“I've screwed up, shit what am I going to do. He wasn't armed!!” Foster continued.
Downstairs, Marriot with PC Alex Moore, an officer in his twenties, and Conan were rapidly clearing the remaining rooms without a sign of the other suspects. Until all six men were accounted for and the building was declared a hundred percent clear, there was still a threat. The three officers reached the kitchen which was the last room to be searched, still totally oblivious to the situation unfolding upstairs only feet above their heads. Marriot checked the door.
“It's locked Conan, sort it out” Marriot commanded.
Conan moved up to the door and aimed his shot gun at the top hinge, waiting to blow it off when his two colleagues were ready in position to move in neutralise whoever was inside. However, Jennings who was on the other side of the door had other ideas and like Mahood, he was not going to come quietly. He grabbed the AK47 that he had been cleaning, loaded it and cocked it, placing a round into the chamber ready to be fired at anyone or anything that showed itself through the door. From his training with the Taliban and rebels, Jennings knew that a stun grenade would come crashing into the room first, so he trained his rifle on the doorway and closed his eyes to prevent him being blinded by the flash. He would then wait a split second before pulling the trigger, knowing for a certainty that the officers would be entering straight onto automatic gunfire. There wouldn't even be a need to aim.
BANG, BANG, BANG, Conan blew the hinges off the door and stepped to one side to allow his colleagues unobstructed access to the room. Watching the last hinge fly off, Marriot and Moore braced themselves before charging into the kitchen. As they did, Jennings pulled the trigger on his assault rifle and sprayed a wall of bullets at the doorway, timed to perfection.
The first 7.62 round went straight into Marriot's left leg and tore through his femoral artery whilst the second, third and fourth sliced through his protective ballistic vest. Stumbling for a couple of footsteps, he then fell lifelessly to the floor. Directly behind him Moore felt a searing pain as a bullet entered his right shoulder and came out of his back. A split second later he felt another huge impact as a second bullet hit him square in the chest, smashing the extra ceramic plate that was housed inside his ballistic vest. Moore's MP5 dropped to the ground as he landed on his side with 7.62 rounds peppering the walls above him, covering his face and body in plaster and brick dust. Outside the room Conan stood frozen as he hugged the wall, trying desperately to shield his huge body from the hail of bullets coming towards him. Inside the room there was a sudden silence. Jennings opened his eyes and looked down at his rifle which had ceased firing after running out of rounds.
There was no way Conan was going to let him reload to finish off him or his downed colleagues. As Jennings hurriedly to grab another full magazine clip, Conan spun on the door frame so that he and his Benelli shotgun were pointing into the room and fired one shot from it; it was all that was needed. The solid Hatton slug exploded out from the barrel of the shot gun, leaving in its wake a mixture of flame and smoke as it hurtled rapidly towards its target.
The solid metal slug slammed into Jennings right arm with a force akin to a freight train, dumping all of its kinetic energy into him and sending a huge chunk of bloodied flesh into the air. Jennings fell to the floor letting out a banshee like scream of pain. Conan charged into the room, stepping over the strewn out bodies of his colleagues towards Jennings who was prostrate behind the kitchen table crying and clutching the shredded flesh that was his right arm. Conan squeezed the handle of shotgun with his right hand at the same time ripping off his helmet and mask with his left. This little bastard had just shot his friends, and maybe killed them, he needed to pay.
Collins, after hearing the sound of automatic gunfire followed by screams, yelled at Jones to locate and support Marriot as he and Palmer continued to cover the four prostrate and terrified terrorists in the front room. Jones nodded and then moved through the downstairs as quickly as possible whilst still scanning for danger, if he missed a threat and was taken out he wouldn't be able to help anyone. He arrived outside the kitchen and was met by what looked like a hundred bullet holes in the wall opposite and screams from within.
Jones stacked up against the door frame, took a deep breath and rapidly entered the kitchen. As his eyes scanned for threats he saw the sight of Marriot and Moore covered in blood and lying perfectly still six feet into the room. Remaining as professional as he could, Jones continued to assess the rest of the room in less than two seconds before his focus fixed onto Conan who was towering over a whimpering Jennings.
Seeing that Conan had Jennings covered, he peered down at his fallen colleagues once again. Unable to deal with the shock of the sight that greeted him, he vomited inside his respirator. Struggling to breath and see, he ripped of his mask and fell to his knees as he sucked in a massive lungful of air before composing himself; it was time to man up and help them.
“Check them! Please, please check them!” Conan said with a trembling voice that soon switched to pure venom as Jones pulled Marriot onto his back and away from the horrifying pool of blood that he had been face down in. Moore started to moan as he became semi-conscious again, however he would have to wait as Marriots silence indicated a bigger problem. Jones reached forward and touched the Sergeant's pale, clammy face; it was frozen. If the amount of blood on the floor wasn't categoric enough, his pallor and lack of pulse was, Marriot was beyond help. Only feet away Moore began to open his eyes so Jones swiftly moved across to him. He could see that blood was trickling from his overalls by his right shoulder. Jones tore into the material and applied a field dressing directly over the gaping wound, feeling relieved that it had been a clean entry-exit type of wound. With the bleeding stemmed, he carried out a search of Moore's body for further injuries. Amazingly there weren't any, only the remnants of the disintegrated extra ceramic chest plate that had saved his life.
Jones looked up and told Conan that Moore and Marriot needed to be medically evacuated out of the scene as soon as possible. Conan took a moment before enquiring how bad Marriot was. Jones looked down at the floor fighting the urge to break down with emotion.
“Fuck! I think he's dead Conan” he replied in shock.
Conan started to breath heavily with anger as his finger moved towards the trigger, prompting Jennings to plead with Conan not to shoot him. Jones yelled at Jennings to shut up, knowing full well Conan was about ready to explode.
“Don't do it Conan, don't give him the easy way out” Jones said calmly, hoping and praying that Conan wouldn't do anything crazy.
“This little prick should die for what he's done. Prison's too good for this piece of terrorist shit” Conan replied through his tears.
“You're wrong mate, prison will be hell for him, he's a British terrorist, in a British prison, he'll be brutalised daily for being a traitor.” Jones stated looking directly at Jennings who looked back at him with an expression of disbelief on his face at what the officer had just said.
Conan lowered his shotgun and Jones let out a sigh of relief. A solid slug from a Benelli would have blown Jennings' head clean off making it obvious that it had been an execution; hardly something that would be seen as proportionate.
Jennings realising that he was now safe, grew a pair of balls and started shouting loudly with audacity about how Conan had tried to kill him. Jones interrupted him and explained that he'd not seen anything and to keep his mouth shut, otherwise he would put the word out in the prison community that he liked spending his spare time on his knees, servicing naked men. Jennings laid back down without saying another word. Conan may have wrestled with the idea of killing him, but he had still made sure that his size twelve boot was crushing Jennings arm pit to stem the flow of blood, paradoxically saving his life whilst he weighed up whether to execute him or not.
Jones picked up his radio transmitter and requested urgent support and an immediate medical evacuation for Marriot, Moore and Jennings. Unfortunately though, Marriot's body would be left in situ for the Paramedics to officially confirm he was dead (something which police officers could not do, as obvious as it may have been) before it became part of the crime scene.
Simpson responded over the radio that the upstairs was clear and that he would be sending Allen and Evans down to assist while he supported O'Keeffe's team. Jones copied his update, followed by Murray who sheepishly called over air that he and the Gold commander required an urgent situation report.
O'Keeffe from his knelt down position next to Mahood, looked up at Foster whilst maintaining constant eye contact with him, and slowly updated Murray that Mahood had been shot and was believed to be dead. Downstairs, Jones glanced up at the ceiling and took a deep breath, before levelling his head and updating that Moore and Jennings were in a serious condition and needed urgent medical attention.