Blackout - By Tom Barber Page 0,5

the quartet typically charged with the most important tasks in the field. Porter and Fox were both in their mid-thirties, experienced guys and as tough as they were professional, Porter solidly built and dark-featured whilst Fox had a more wiry build and sandy hair. Both men had been policemen for over a decade, and they were at that stage in their careers where they were in their physical and mental prime, experienced and seasoned officers.

Archer and Chalky were both still twenty seven, ten years younger than the other two but just as deserving of their spots. In the United States, an FBI agent could be as young as twenty six, and it was much the same in the UK for the counter-terrorist police force. They had both been with the Unit for over two years and in that short time had proved themselves to be invaluable members of the squad, quick-thinking, fit and decisive. They were similarly built, both six feet and about a hundred and eighty five pounds, but Chalky had dark features whereas Archer had blond hair and blue eyes. The two friends were pretty evenly matched with the pistol and sub-machine gun that the Unit used in the field, but the recent arrival of the sniper rifle had seen Archer take not only a considerable amount of Chalky's money, but serious bragging rights in their contests.

Just before Christmas last year, the head of the Unit, Director Tim Cobb, had ordered every officer in the squad take a sniper course with the newly- arrived PSG1A1, at this range. A siege and hostage situation at a townhouse in Tottenham earlier in the year had left Cobb with the realisation that the task force was only really equipped for close-quarter confrontations.

In the field, each officer was armed and proficient with an HK MP5 sub-machine gun and also a Glock 17 pistol, but Cobb had requested and been given official authorisation for the use of two PSG1A1 sniper rifles. In the army, snipers were the ultimate force-multiplier. One sniper could hold down an entire area for days at a time. In the U.S, their forces and statisticians had come up with the estimation that snipers in their army averaged 1.3 rounds per kill. But in the police, sharpshooters gave them the distance advantage. Any emergency that called for a sharpshooter normally meant the enemy was at a single location, usually a bank or a hostage situation, and meant the shooter could engage the enemy unawares from a distance, not coming in through the front door. The arrival of the rifles had taken a real weight off Cobb's mind. He didn't want to get caught short as the German Police had.

Over a week-long period during the Christmas holiday four months ago, the entire team had become accustomed with the weapon under the tutelage of three snipers from the SAS, the British Special Forces squad. Each officer had fired hundreds of rounds with the weapons and all had quickly improved, learning the intricacies and technicalities of precision marksmanship. Archer in particular had proven to be particularly proficient, despite being the youngest man on the team. He was a natural, having taken to sharpshooting as he had to the pistol and sub-machine gun work in previous years, and by the end of the week he was the stand-out shooter in the Unit. The three SAS guys training him had been impressed. He had even ended up outshooting one of them in a final challenge, much to the delight of his team-mates. However, the ARU’s First Team were typically the go-to squad in operations, the first guys through the door, so Archer needed to be there on the ground and not far away from the action and up high with a rifle. As a consequence, the two best shooters of the six-man Second Team were assigned sharp-shooting detail if it came to it, but Archer was always there as immediate back-up if they needed him.

Fox and Porter stepped forward to take their turns with the weapon whilst Archer and Chalky walked through to the back of the range, headed towards a drinks stand to their right where there were a couple of tables and some empty chairs. The range was about a twenty minute drive from their headquarters and was a second home to the Unit. North of the city up past Stratford, the range had separate areas for short-arms and long arms fire. The entire team were officially required to retest on handguns and