The Last 10 Seconds

Five minutes passed. She became frustrated. Unsure of herself and her lead, knowing that every minute she stayed away from the Gore residence was another nail in her career coffin, the realization that she was finally finished as a police officer looming larger and larger in front of her.

She noticed that her hands were shaking, her breathing getting faster and faster, and she pulled over and got out of the car, lighting a cigarette and willing herself to calm down.

And that was when she heard it. Coming from the building site behind her.

The unmistakable sound of gunfire.

Fifty-five

There was no pain, just a thick, dull sense of shock. A numbness, from my thighs to my chest. I’d been hit twice that I could see, both times in the initial burst of fire. One round had struck me in the thigh, the second in the gut. The thigh wound was bleeding less which told me that it hadn’t severed any of the major blood vessels, and there was an exit wound just above the back of my knee. The gut wound, though, was bad, the exit wound the size of a golf ball, and spilling a lot of blood on to the dusty concrete.

I’d managed to prop myself up against the wall and, amazingly, still had hold of the gun. Opposite me across the room, lying on his belly, was Tommy. I’d caught him in the face or head with my last shot, I wasn’t entirely sure which, whereas he’d missed me with his, so we were evens now. For a while he’d made weird rasping noises, coupled with low moans of pain, and had even tried and failed to get up, but he’d stopped moving completely now, and I could no longer hear his breathing.

So there I was, trapped in this cavernous hellhole that would very likely become my grave. I couldn’t move properly and no one would have been able to hear my cries even if I’d had the strength to make them. There were no sirens, so it seemed no one had even heard the gunshots.

I had a terrible thirst and I was shivering like a wet dog, but incredibly I wasn’t panicking. I was too exhausted for that, and, even after everything that had happened, I felt this weird sense of achievement. I’d gone out alone to avenge my brother’s murder, and I’d managed it. The gang responsible for leaving him dead on that street were now dead themselves, and by ridding the world of Andrew Kent I felt I’d done humanity a favour. And if it was my parting gift, then so be it.

But as I sat there, wounded and helpless, wondering how I’d got myself into this terrible tomb-like place, I could hear death’s steady, inevitable approach and knew there was no escape. That was the hardest thing to accept, the fact that my life was finally coming to an end, and I wondered briefly in those last few seconds, as the pain and the shock squeezed at my insides, whether there was anyone left to mourn my passing. Whether I’d even be remembered in ten years’ time.

Then I heard it. A sound directly outside the door. The scrape of a foot on the floor.

Jesus. Was this nightmare still not over? Was there a final act to come?

I clenched my teeth and slowly raised my gun arm, just as a dark-haired woman in casual clothes appeared in the doorway, a warrant card in one outstretched hand and what looked like a can of pepper spray in the other.

‘Police!’ she shouted. And then, as she took in the chaotic scene before her and her eyes alighted on me, ‘Sean?’

‘Hello, Tina.’

‘What the hell’s happened?’

Which was the moment when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tommy lurch upwards from his position, the pistol in his hand, his face and neck a mask of blood, and start shooting, his bullets pinging angrily round the room.

With a yelp of fear, Tina leaped out of the way, hitting the deck with a thud as she tried to belly-crawl out of the door.

Tommy swung the gun round in my direction, while I took aim, concentrating all my efforts on keeping my gun hand steady, knowing that I had only one bullet left and this time I had to finish the bastard, and allow my brother finally to rest in peace.

He fired first, but missed, the round chipping the wall beside my shoulder before ricocheting away in a cloud of brick dust. He fired again, but this time nothing happened. He’d run out of bullets, and I saw his eyes widen as he realized he’d failed.

And then I pulled the trigger and blew the top of his head off.

Fifty-six

Tina leaned against the bonnet of the hire car and lit a cigarette with shaking hands as another of the ambulances drove out of the building site through the open gates with an angry wail of sirens. Squad cars and SOCO vehicles were turning up at the scene in numbers now, and a perimeter had already been set up at both ends of the street, behind which the first of the onlookers had gathered.