The Replacement Phenomenon

  Two men were talking. “I’ll call Ironside and tell him we took care of that guy.”

  “He seemed crazy to me, anyway,” the other man replied.

  “I took him out quite efficiently though.”

  “You shot him twice in the chest. I bet you were aiming for his head.” One of the men laughed.

  “I was not! I'm a good shot.”

  “Prove it. You see that wood in the corner?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Fifty pounds says you can’t hit the very top right corner of that piece on the top.”

  Jake started to sweat now. If this guy wasn't as good a shot as he believed himself to be, he'd likely end up shooting Jake through the wood. Jake hoped that he was either a very good shot, or a very poor shot. He would be safe if this man either hit the piece of wood he was aiming for, or if he missed the wood altogether. Either way, he had no intention of ending up full of holes simply because some guy wanted to prove he could shoot accurately. Jake’s life was entirely in the hands of people who did not even know he existed.

  “You’re on,” the man agreed with a chuckle. A gun cocked, and Jake was scared for his life. He could almost feel the guy’s finger on the trigger with a gun pointed at his head.

  At the very point that Jake was almost certain he would be shot somewhere, the door to the factory opened again.

  “That’s enough silliness. We have a job to do.” It was the timely arrival of Ironside. Jake had been so afraid that he had not heard the approach of another car. “I’ll be setting up in my office. I’ll have open channels of communication with you, as well as my head guard. He’ll be stationed with the rest of my staff at a safe distance from the factory. If anyone approaches they’ll stop them. I also have a police radio scanner so I can hear if they’re coming for us.”

  Ironside seemed to have thought of everything. He had a backup, and then he had a backup for his backup.

  The door to the lavishly furnished office closed, and the two men began talking again. “Is that Ironside?” one asked.

  “I guess so,” replied the other. “That’s not how I pictured him.”

  “Me neither.”

  “When will the others be here?”

  “In just a few minutes.” They had either forgotten about or had given up on their shooting game. That was another lucky escape for Jake, and in an unexpected turn of events, Ironside had unwittingly saved Jake's life.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Having been sitting on the floor for almost an hour, Jake had heard the arrival of everyone involved in this trade. Weapons in crates were stacked in the middle of the floor. Ironside was paying attention to every detail of what was going on from his comfortable seat in the office. Nothing had changed hands yet, but it seemed the deal was about to commence.

  A few seconds later it seemed that the whole place had erupted into chaos for no apparent reason. Something had happened, but no one really knew what had just changed. They could hear footsteps approaching the factory. Lots of footsteps, moving fast. The door flung open and in stormed a crowd of people. The guards had found the police officers.

  Ironside charged out of his office. “Well, this changes things.”

  Jake guessed at what was going on. He could only hear, whilst staring at the dark inside of his chip board hiding place. He was tempted to sneak a look, but he refused to give in to that temptation. Doing so would give away his position to the people around him, and that would not be a good idea. He preferred to picture the events in his head.

  “Who is the officer in charge here?” Ironside asked the crowd of policemen.

  “That would be me. Detective Inspector Arnold,” came the response.

  “Let's have a chat in my office.”

  Jake was listening intently, then unexpectedly his mobile phone rang. He had forgotten to set it to silent earlier, meaning a popular Eighties television theme tune filled the air.

  “Damn!” he whispered, trying to pull his phone from his pocket to switch it off, knowing that every second his mp3 ringtone continued the more people became aware of his position.

  He knew his cover was blown. He turned off his phone and put it back in his pocket. Then he grabbed the gun and stood up, only to find thirty men pointing larger guns straight back at him. Another problem for Jake was that their guns were real. His was not so real. His plastic pellets would be no match for their firepower.

  Ironside turned around and looked at Jake. He appeared angry, shocked, and confused. He did not recognise Jake, of course, but why would he? They had yet to meet. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Jake and I’m here to break your illegal trade ring and stop D.I Arnold getting involved.”

  Ironside laughed very loudly and heartily, just as he had done several times the night before. “I was on my way to discuss a deal with D.I Arnold here, but now I think we should have a little fun first.”

  Knowing Ironside's reputation for crazy death games, Jake did not like the sound of that. “I like the look of that gun. Can I see it close up? I promise no one will shoot you.”

  What could Jake do? With so much heavy weaponry pointed at him, he could not exactly say no. Ironside approached and took the gun gently out of his hand.

  Jake could do nothing to hide the fact that this was a replica gun. Ironside was seconds from discovering that this weapon was in fact a BB gun. Any leverage he might have had was suddenly gone. Ironside smiled, but he said nothing for a few seconds. He just looked very closely at the gun.

  Jake was surprised by the first thing Ironside said. “CAUTION Made in Taiwan,” he read from the underside of the gun. “I guess you’re not supposed to put those two things together, or maybe the Taiwanese can’t make good guns.”

  Ironside smiled, looking at Jake. Jake smiled back nervously.

  “Boris!” Ironside bellowed. One of the guards broke from the pack and almost ran to stand next to Ironside. It was one of the men who would be assigned to murder Jake’s family in a little over a week. He thought he would never see those goons again. “You have a Heckler and Koch, don’t you?” Ironside asked. Boris handed him a H&K P8 handgun – the gun that Jake’s replica was modelled on. “Remarkable. It’s identical.”

  Jake was suddenly very aware that he was unarmed in a weapon-filled room.

  Ironside hid the guns under his jacket for just a second, and then he spun on his heels and walked back towards the middle of the room, holding both guns in the air. The real gun was in one hand and the replica was in the other. He pointed both gun barrels into the air and said, “I have just thought of a game. Let’s have some fun.”

  Jake knew he was about to see the sadistic side of Ironside. “We’re going to have a shootout, Wild West style.”

  Everyone in the room was surprised by that. They were about to be even more surprised.

  Ironside suddenly seemed energised by the prospect of a shootout. He was like a giddy child getting ready to play his favourite game. “Jake and this officer will stand in the middle of the room, back to back. Jake will then walk to that end,” he said, pointing to Jake and the wall behind him, “and our Detective Inspector will walk to the other end." He pointed with his other hand towards the door. The whole atmosphere of the place had changed from one of fear and trepidation to something akin to a lethal game show, with an excited crowd of spectators.

  Ironside volunteered to shuffle the two guns. He was apparently not bothered about the outcome of his latest death game, but his decision would ultimately be responsible for the death of one of these two men. Both guns were similar, but not quite identical. However, one could only tell them apart when seeing them next to each other.

  “Let’s make this interesting,” Ironside added. As far as Jake was concerned, this whole situation was already pretty interesting. This guy obviously got bored very easily.

  “When you reach your respective positions, you both pick up the gun in front of you and fire at the same time. One gun is real, and one is not. I
f you have the real gun, Jake, then D.I Arnold here will be shot. If he has the real gun then you will be shot.”

  Jake had figured that much out already. Ironside turned to D.I Arnold. “If you survive, you and these tiresome police officers can go free. However, if Jake survives, your officers must do a deal with me to save their lives, and he will be free to go.” That sounded fair, or as fair as anything could be in a crazy shoot-out situation such as this.

  Ironside was now standing at the side, between both ends of the factory floor. In the middle of the factory floor Jake and D.I Arnold stood back to back. A gun was placed at each far wall by two men under instructions from Ironside, who considered himself the independent adjudicator. He was close to them, but was far enough away to be out of the firing line between the two of them.

  As Jake stood back to back with this potentially corrupt police inspector, he heard a whisper intended for his ears only. It seemed D.I Arnold had a plan to get out of this. “I suggest we point the guns at each other, and then both divert them at the last moment to Ironside.”

  Jake liked the idea, and he was fairly sure no one was close enough to have heard the whispered instruction. Nothing more needed to be said by either of them. Doing so would likely cause others to realise that they were planning something, and their escape route would be closed off.

  “Detective Inspector Arnold, Jake, walk to your positions. I will say when to draw,” Ironside instructed them. A few seconds of silence followed as they both took the heavy footsteps towards their weapons.

  Jake’s heart was pounding so hard he felt as if it would thump straight out of his chest. He was suddenly feeling light-headed and adrenaline was pumping through his entire body. He felt strangely detached from it all, but in reality he had a fifty-fifty chance of being dead within a minute. Even if he and D.I Arnold decided to shoot Ironside instead of each other, one or more of these heavily armed guards would probably shoot them both for doing so.

  His palms were sweating as he looked at the gun lying on the floor in front of him. He hoped Ironside would never say the dreaded word, but was certain he would. He was not a big fan of the Detective Inspector and what he was likely to become, but he also did not want to shoot him. The only possible way out of this situation was to go along with the new idea.

  The only alternatives on offer seemed to be to kill or be killed. He had to focus on Ironside instead of Arnold. Both had tried to kill him more than once over his past week, but D.I Arnold was about to make amends for a course of action he had not yet taken. Jake had to trust that he was not about to be double-crossed.

  They both reached their own ends of the factory and picked up the guns at their feet. Jake looked over at D.I Arnold again as his heart pounded within his own chest. He made direct eye contact, raised his eyebrows, and flicked his eyes to one side, in the direction of Ironside, as if reminding Jake about his idea. Jake had certainly not forgotten what he was supposed to do.

  As he was wondering if Ironside would ever say the dreaded words, the man shouted, “Draw!” Jake said a quick prayer as he pointed the gun towards the other side of the factory, paused, and then pulled the trigger.

  CHAPTER 19

  Wednesday 21st January, 11:41am

  The moment he picked up the gun, Jake knew which one he was holding. He had picked it up, aimed and fired his weapon in tandem with D.I Arnold.

  His arms shot back as he pulled the trigger and he knew he had fired a real gun for the first time in his life. As his eyes followed the path of the bullet, he was surprised to see how accurate his first shot had been. Jake had changed his aim at the crucial moment in line with the whisper and subsequent non-verbal message from the D.I. across the factory from him. He had aimed and fired at Ironside, and had a direct hit.

  He looked over at D.I Arnold. He had also fired his gun, but not towards Jake. The barrel of the gun was still pointing squarely at Ironside as he stood to the side, near the middle of the floor. Jake had heard a second loud bang that he had assumed to be the echo from his shot. It seemed, however, that he had also fired a real gun. What had Ironside done with Jake's replica, and when had he made the switch?

  Ironside was more devious than he had thought, clearly hoping they would both aim and shoot at each other, eliminating any problems that Ironside might face from either of them. He had apparently not counted on both of them aiming and firing in his direction. With both Jake and Arnold firing real handguns, the chances of him being hit had been greatly increased. Jake had done exactly what D.I Arnold had hoped he would do, and D.I Arnold had done exactly what he had said he would do.

  Jake was some distance away so could not see exactly where his own bullet had hit. All of a sudden Ironside fell to the ground, creating a small cloud of dust in the air around him.

  After a few seconds which seemed to last much longer, everyone began moving slowly towards Ironside’s prone body. He lay perfectly still, not moving a muscle. The place had once again fallen completely silent. No one seemed to grasp what had happened at first, nor did they know how to react to this new scenario. Every other person in the building was waiting to see whether Ironside would be getting up.

  Jake could hear the gasps of shock from everyone. No-one had expected to see the initiator of the illegal trading chain hit the floor, motionless. It seemed that Jake and D.I Arnold had killed him.

  It seemed strange that Ironside would risk so much and stand so close to the participants of his impromptu game when most other people would have stood well back. How had he not seen that coming? He must have expected to be the target in a situation such as this eventually. For someone who had so carefully built a chain of criminal activity which had earned him millions, he had lacked foresight at a crucial moment.

  The bullet which Jake had fired had struck home just below Ironside's left shoulder, at the edge of his chest. He suspected D.I Arnold would have aimed higher, but he could not see the other side of the body to determine where the second bullet had hit.

  The fifty-fifty gamble had somehow worked in his and Arnold's favour, but for how long? It seemed that their plan was now about to backfire on them.

  Panic gripped Ironside's staff. They were struggling to decide on what to do next.

  As one of Ironside's senior henchmen began speaking, everyone turned their attention away from the man lying on the floor.

  “They killed Ironside. Time for things to be evened up,” he said with menace in his voice, raising a gun towards Jake.

  “Not so fast,” came a croaky voice from the floor. Ironside was badly wounded but he was clearly not dead. “Well done, Inspector, well done, Jake. You both found the flaw in my little game.”

  Ironside cleared his throat and spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear. “I made a deal with them that the survivor would be free to leave. Let them all go.”

  There were murmurs of surprise from the surrounding crowd.

  “Excellent shot, Jake. Better than the shot from the Detective Inspector. You and these officers are free to go.” Ironside's voice was becoming weaker. Without medical help he would not live much longer.

  The realisation dawned on Jake that he had just shot another human being. He felt a cold sweat wash over him when he realised that this man was about to die because of him. In about a minute he would have played a substantial part in another man's death.

  Ironside had barely finished speaking when at least thirty men dressed in black outfits charged into the factory. In a couple of seconds the room was filled with heavily armoured police marksmen. They all wore heavy jackets with POLICE in a large motif on the back and either ‘SO13’ or ‘CID Special Branch’ on the left breast. D.I Arnold had obviously called in for some kind of backup, and they had arrived. A medical team accompanied them and they moved straight to Ironside.

  Jake knew a thing or two about police organisation, including the knowledge that a small section of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) was given over to the Special Branch to counte
r terrorism, and mostly to provide security from attacks.

  SO13, so he was about to discover, was the internal code for the Anti-Terrorist Branch under the Specialist Operations part of the police. They were responsible for the same kind of things with more emphasis on intercepting and preventing terrorist activity. These were very specialist groups and Jake was surprised to see their involvement in what seemed to be a relatively minor incident in the grand scheme of criminal activity in the UK. Maybe this was bigger than Jake had thought.

  The first thing any of these forces saw when entering the factory was Jake and D.I Arnold, each still holding a smoking gun, with Ironside lying on the floor in his own blood. The captured officers sprang into action as they seemed to suddenly remember who they were.

  Everyone involved in the trade scattered, as if running for their lives inside this space, which suddenly seemed far smaller. By shooting Ironside it seemed he had cut the head off the beast.

  The trade chain was broken, possibly never to be repaired. Jake had fired the shot that brought down Ironside. D.I Arnold had fired a second shot, wounding the man further. The Detective Inspector would never make that agreement with Ironside. The deal in the shopping mall would never take place. His family and all the other victims over the coming weeks had been saved.

  He had seen movies and TV shows in which someone had accomplished a specific task and a happy ending resulted. He was not sure if this would be the case here. It looked likely that instead of sacrificing his life, he may well have sacrificed his freedom. He had just shot someone, and that carried a punishment, even if the person he shot was one of the worst criminals ever seen in this country.

  Jake looked down at the gun in his hand. He looked ahead of him at Ironside, lying on the floor and now surrounded by paramedics treating him. A grim realisation dawned on him that things could have ended very, very differently. For a minute or two, Jake wondered if any of these officers had actually seen him. Rather than speak to him and get him away, they were all more interested in capturing the thugs who were trying to make a getaway. He continued to stand there, holding a recently fired handgun, in the midst of all the madness.