Scorpion's Vengeance "Manchester Screwdriver"

It's been a couple of weeks since I last posted an episode, and I want to apologise for that, but the last few weeks I've been busy 'beavering away' finishing the first draft of the novel, and I've just finished it half an hour ago!

I've managed to stay a little ahead of the posting with the writing, which has been good as it's given me chance to sit and think whether things are working out with the story as I posted here, it's resulted in a few changes that have made the story that much better, but chiefly I just enjoy posting the story and seeing people's reaction.

In the last episode, we left Joey about to break into the garage where the Ford used in the shooting was stored to remove the two trackers he shot into the trunk or boot of the vehicle, but here's a dilemma for you, is he tampering with the evidence?

I'll let you think on that one, meanwhile, I'll quit talking and get into the story.

The Mondeo looked out of place, in that it looked so ordinary compared to the others, something just wasn’t right, he couldn’t say what it was, but it just didn’t seem right having an average car in the same garage as the two supercars, also the fact that they were half stripped down gave a strange feeling, there was something else going on here, that he was sure of. ‘Better get my arse into gear, get the job done and get the hell out’ was his immediate thought.

He’d brought a torch, an Army issue one which had the light sitting at a right angle to the handle, the bottom of the battery pack (which was also the handle) was flat so soldiers could stand it up anywhere and still have two hands free to work with whatever they needed to work on. He clipped the red filter on and turned the torch on, it gave him just enough light to do what he needed to.

A quick search of the back of the Mondeo showed where the bullets had hit, they’d passed through the back panel, a couple of seconds later he’d popped the boot open and searched inside. Both bullets were in the back panel, smashed into the back wall.

A pair of tweezers came in really handy, and a little gun oil, dabbing a tiny amount of oil onto a rag he used the tweezers to push the rag into the crevasse the bullet had made, slowly a tiny amount penetrated between the bullets and the car, eventually popping the round out.

The criminals would know that the car had been shot at, and the bullets were still in the boot of the car if they saw the holes but no rounds they’d know something had been tampered with, he was prepared for that.

He’d take the cases off two rounds earlier in the day, now he took the first one out, punched it between the tweezers and pushed it into one of the holes, as soon as it was wedged in he did the same to the second, as soon as both were in, away went the tweezers, out came a rubber mallet and both were hit hard enough to knock them firmly into place.

‘Good use of a Manchester screwdriver’ he smiled to himself remembering what his Dad used to call a Hammer, ‘if only you could see me now dad’ he packed everything away.

“Joey” Smithy’s voice sounded urgent, “Stay put, the security company’ is doing the rounds, car driving down the street.”

Joey was still by the car, he almost froze, then slowly crouched down, an automatic reaction. There were no windows in the room and very few in the whole building, but noise still carries, and that was the main concern, knock a spanner off, or anything over and the latter would be enough to ‘wake the dead’.

Jacko couldn’t see what was going on, it was on Smithy’s side of the building, that didn’t mean he could be careless, one wrong sound, or move and that might trigger an alarm that would have the guard coming over for a look, he stayed perfectly still, then again he was sitting down already.

The gates closed behind the car, but no one moved, they all knew the guard would only be a couple of minutes in the yard, she may be a security guard, but like everyone else they had targets and deadlines to meet, forty businesses a night, minimum of two visits ‘at random’ but at least an hour apart, she’d only a few minutes, five at the max, and she’d be back later in the night.

Three minutes later the car was heading out of the driveway and down the street, unfortunately, towards where Joey was, he could hear the engine and tensed up. The car drove right past, then stopped at another place down the road, car wreckers, this time the guard got out of the car and went in on foot, ten minutes later she was back and away.

“Street’s clear” Smithy reported as soon as the car disappeared, “guard shouldn’t be back for at least an hour.”

“Any chance we can track her?” Jacko asked, he really hated surprises.

“Are you serious?” Sandy cut in over the link, “I’m tracking you folks, and following Mac through London, you think I’m Superwoman or something?”

“Guess it’s a no to that then boss” Joey chipped in, everyone knew he’d have a huge smile on his face as he said it, “humour relaxes the tension” he’d tell them, and he was right, “I’ll be out in a jiffy” he carried on, “Give me five, then call the cavalry”

“The car you and Sergeant Harris are interested in” the voice spoke, it was the same one that sent the first voice message, “is in a garage in Cirencester, a ‘chop shop’ owned and run by the Russians, it was delivered this afternoon and they’ll be dismantling it”

“Now you’ve heard the message” Billie assured Harris, I called you to set this up as soon as I got it, and yes, my source is the first rate” she assured him, “I’m pretty sure they’re linked to the intelligence services, but can’t confirm it”

“And you trust it?” Harris asked.

“It’s the same one who gave me the information about Akbari, the stuff I was almost killed over” she assured him, “so yeah, I trust the source, but there’s more than you need to pay attention to!”

“The garage is known to have weapons” the voice went on, “consider them well armed and extremely dangerous, they have at least one Mac 10 and possibly AK47s though we haven’t confirmed how many, exercise extreme caution.”

“That it?” he asked slightly disappointed, “you want me to get a warrant with that information? We’d have no chance!”

“No” Billie replied, “What we need is a ruse to get in and check the building” she looked slightly sheepish, she knew it was asking a lot, the whole thing was stretching the bounds of credibility, “what we need is to use this” she waved the phone screen in front of his face, “to get your boss to give us a bomb drill, we get that” she put the phone away, “we get in using the excuse of checking the building, no need for a warrant!”

“You want me to go with that?” he was incredulous, “you do realize everything we find would be illegal, we’d be crucified in court” he assured her, “Not with that! I want a warrant, and I want a hard copy”

“How about this then” she slammed a brown envelope about twelve inches long and eight inches wide down on the table, it was about an eighth of an inch thick, she slid some papers out, the top one was a signed warrant for searching the premises, he didn’t know the Judge’s name but it was official, under it were ten or more photographs of cars and what looked like quantities of drugs, “This enough for yer” her Manchester accent coming through, before he could say anything she went on, “and yes, it’s the same garage, taken inside, don’t ask me how, I’ve got no bloody idea, but it’s a drug deal that went on apparently, inside the bloody place!”

How or when the photos were taken she had no idea, but they didn’t look ‘faked’ or at least not to her they didn’t, she had no real idea if they were of the same place, all she knew was someone wanted them to raid the place, and they’d promised the car they were looking for was in there. The photos showed the car entering and they were time stamped as yesterday at 4 pm, less than twelve hours before. Chances were the car was still there.

Harris wasn’t so convinced, he wasn’t stupid, if they got this right it would be the biggest bust of their careers, but if the information was wrong, they’d be lucky to stay out of prison let alone still be on the force, he wasn’t going to throw his career away, but at the same time, he wasn’t going to let this chance get away.

“Look, it’s three in the morning” he began.

“I know that” she shot back testily, “I only got the information last night at eleven, had to check a few things out on the way over, I’ve got a feed set up from the street cameras for us to watch, to see if the car really is there, it’s on my laptop” she began pulling the machine out and setting up.

“Can I see the footage?” he asked, “If it’s legit I’ll set things in motion as soon as it’s daylight if everything pans out” he went on.

“It will, and can you be ready to roll by mid-morning?” she assured and asked at the same time.

“I get it” he spoke again, “It’s a chop shop”

“Right” she cut back, “the car isn’t going to be whole for much longer, less than a day I’d say before they start shipping parts out, and it’d an average family saloon.” she turned the machine on, “Can you be ready by mid-morning?”

“One thing at once” he cut back, “but yes, if we need to”

"Are you two bloody serious?” it was Harris’ immediate boss, the station ‘super’ short for ‘superintendent’ who was screaming at them, Billie tried to intervene, one hand held up silenced her. “Let me finish. Do you have any idea the panic it'll cause? and then when the press gets wind of this”

“That's why we want a drill boss” Harris began, “full bells and whistles, so we can get access”

“You'll have them fawning over a major car theft ring broken” Harris cut him off, “besides”

“Don't give me that crap” the super silenced him, “I know about the warrant, I've already checked, there's no such warrant logged in the flaming system, that's skating on thin ice, you get caught with that and not only kiss your career goodbye, you'll be in jail”

“And if we do nothing” Billie butted in, the super tried to cut her off, she spoke even louder, “a bunch of thugs get away with murder, attempted murder, gunning people down in the streets for God's sake and who knows how many car thefts, YOU REALLY WANT THAT?”

“But”

“If we go with a normal warrant and the shit hits the fan, who's going to explain the civilian casualties? Have you seen AK47 can do? my Intel says they've got at least a couple!” she leaned right in, this made it cost her career, she no longer gave a damn. “These pricks killed a man and dumped his body in the Thames, right under the bloody noses of all our bosses in Parliament, then they tried to gun a man, no make that three people down in broad daylight on your streets, you really want them to walk away?” she sounded disgusted, fact was she was disgusted, not with the superintendent, but the whole system that has politicians and the like cowering in a corner because someone ‘might not like’ what the police might have to do.

“If you want any more convincing” Billie took a brown Manilla envelope out. She took a bundle of things out, they realized they were photographs, even Harris hadn’t seen them before, she spread them out. They were street camera pictures, some from London, others from the scene of the shooting, then following the car from where it was left to the garage, it was there! “How about this, talk about the chain of custody!”

First of all a 'Manchester Screwdriver' is when you use a tool that's not appropriate for the job, yet it seems to do the trick, like using a hammer to fix a screw!

Okay, now that we've explained Joey's language, it's time to ask what is it that's planned? The cops have a plan for something to isolate the garage without letting on what's really going down, but we have no idea what it might be yet.

For that, you'll have to wait for the next episode.

Bye for now, and don't forget to leave a comment.

Lawrence