Bruce said, as he stood beside James grabbing stuff out of the next locker. ‘You’d better wear the leg armour too.’
‘I hate that stuff,’ James said.
He’d never worn the lightweight leg armour, which covered his bum and the upper section of his legs with a series of cream-coloured Kevlar plates that made him look like an Imperial Stormtrooper out of a Star Wars movie.
Leg armour is much less common than the chest protection that every serious villain wears nowadays; but it wasn’t out of place because serious young criminals and wannabe drug dealers regard a thousand quid’s worth of body armour as a status symbol to go along with their flash watch, mobile phone and the weapon they tuck inside their designer jeans.
‘I know it makes your arse itch,’ Bruce said, as he pulled his armour up his legs and began tightening a series of Velcro straps, ‘but there’s plenty of places where I don’t want to get shot and this covers several of ’em.’
James felt almost obscenely butch as he led Bruce out of the room with the armour bulking out his clothes, a gun strapped to his leg and a knife tucked inside his Timberland boot. He’d worn similar levels of equipment on training exercises, but never on the streets.
‘We’d better let Chloe know what’s occurring,’ Bruce said, dialling her number as they ambled down the stairs, ahead of schedule but with less than four hours’ sleep to their names.
There was a new staff member on the Zoo reception desk and she was still green enough to try enforcing the rule that you had to sign the book if you came in or out between midnight and 7 a.m.
‘There you go,’ James said, handing back the Biro and clipboard as Bruce headed through a door with its shattered glass panels boarded up. The sun was coming up and the sky was a mix of purple and orange.
‘What did Chloe say?’ James asked.
‘Not much,’ Bruce shrugged. ‘She said to be careful and if it gets dangerous we save our arses first and worry about our cover later. Oh, and she’s been on the blower with the liaison at the police station. Apparently the councillor Sasha stomped has got a dozen broken bones including a fractured skull, but he’s not telling anyone how it happened.’
‘Poor guy didn’t have a hope,’ James said, shaking his head. ‘Sasha’s a complete animal.’
‘I’ve heard that his daughter’s a bit of a tiger too,’ Bruce smirked.
*
After all the fuss to dress and get downstairs quickly, their ride was a quarter of an hour late and the wait was made uncomfortable by a cop car slowing down to check them out.
‘Sasha’s gone on ahead,’ Wheels said, as he pulled up in his Astra, which was now sprayed black. ‘Get in the back: there’s gloves, masks and guns for each of you in the gym bag. I’ll show you how to use them when we get to the flat.’
James and Bruce climbed in the car and Wheels pulled away almost before they slammed the doors. Bruce opened the drawstring on an orange Nike gym bag, revealing two Glock 9 machine pistols. Glocks were amongst the most powerful handguns available. They were rarely seen out of the hands of Special Forces and close protection officers, and were virtually unheard of amongst British criminals.
The two agents exchanged worried looks. The Glocks could fire twenty rounds in a few seconds; and in a kill-or-be-killed situation, the boys might not have any choice about pulling the trigger.
‘Fully automatic, really nice guns,’ Wheels said. ‘But ammo’s rarer than pink dog turds in this town, so you’d better not fire them without good reason.’
‘So what’s going down?’ James asked. ‘Sasha didn’t tell us much on the phone.’
‘I don’t know all the details myself,’ Wheels said. ‘Sasha’s a master of planning this kind of thing and I pretty much go along with what he says. The only thing I know is that there’s a meeting set up and a major drug deal is going down involving the Slasher Boys.’
‘Cool,’ James said.
He’d been surveying the flat for close to three weeks and he knew that most of the dealers who lived and worked in the hard front looked West Indian, but this was the first time he’d heard confirmation that they were linked to Major Dee’s crew.
*
Sasha, Savvas and a black dude were waiting at the flat. James grinned when he recognised Kelvin Holmes standing in the middle of the living-room. Kelvin had recruited James