Chapter 46

Uxbridge, West London. June, the same year.

It was a little thing that started it, but lots of little things eventually become a big thing, and big things have a habit of causing untold consequences. This little thing started in a pub on the edge of Uxbridge, not far from Heathrow Airport.

“Come on folks, almost time to go home,” the landlord was reminding the last of his patrons before the eight pm curfew that had been in place for some six weeks now. It was a lovely sunny evening, and at just a few minutes after seven, no one wanted to move. With the lack of fuel, the size of the airport duty, as well as visa restrictions, so few people were now coming into Britain by air, that rather than a plane into or out of Heathrow going over roughly every ninety seconds, it was now more like every twenty minutes. This made the pub garden a far more enticing place than it used to be, and the pub’s patrons didn’t feel like moving. They would have got up eventually, and in time, but only moments later the Patrol arrived.

The first any of the relaxing patrons knew the Patrol was anywhere near, was the harsh voice of the Patrol leader.

“What are you bunch of fuckin’ layabouts doin’ ‘ere?”

“Piss off copper,” one patron, rather drunker than perhaps he should have been, replied. “We’ve got over ‘alf an hour yet. Get lost and leave us be.” There was a snigger from a couple of the other men in the garden. This was not a pub that women visited often.

The squad leader didn’t like being told to go away, didn’t like being called a ‘copper’, and especially didn’t like the tone in which it had been said. The sniggers just made him furious. He pulled out his club, and advanced, menacingly, towards the speaker.

The riots that had started at the beginning of March, had slowly started to decrease, both in number and size. Since Easter, however, a small number had increased in violence and viciousness, the longer evenings and warmer days had persuaded a few people to stay out. The nearest riot to Uxbridge had been some seven miles away, and that had only lasted a few hours two months earlier. The whole area had been peaceful since. Parts of east and south-east London still had semi-regular nightly rioting, but farther west it had all but died down now.

The slightly drunken man got to his feet, fists balled. At first his friends were inclined to leave him to it, but it had been such a pleasant evening that they quickly decided they didn’t want trouble on their hands. Grabbing hold of him, they towed him, still arguing, out of the pub. The rest left equally quickly, while the pub manager switched off the taps and pumps, and began to clean up.

“Six pints o’ best, bar,” called out one of the Patrollers to the barman, who was washing the last of the glasses.

“Sorry, can’t. The pumps are switched off now and the boss is in the cellar draining the lines. Once we’ve started we have to finish, and then it takes five minutes to re-charge the lines when we switch on.

“Don’t you fuckin’ give me can’t. Just give me six pints.”

“It’ll have to be bottled,” said the barman, softly, hiding his nervousness.

“Whatever,” snapped the Patroller.

“That’ll be eighteen pounds, sixty please,” the barman said a few minutes later, putting down the last of the drinks on the bar.

“Don’t be a fool.” The Patroller picked up the drinks and walked over to the table where his companions were settling down.

“Er, excuse me,” called the barman, his annoyance and anger starting to override his nervousness. “Even you have to pay. Your assault unit leader,” the barman stumbled slightly over the unfamiliar rank, “has told us to make sure of that.”

The Patrollers froze, and turned to look at him. Two of them showed fury, the others just showed cold indifference. “You have been talking to our officers?” one asked.

“No. Not as such.”

“Then piss off.” The Patrollers turned away from him

“He came in to see us.”

Once again the Patrollers turned to glare at him. “You turn us in, and you’ll regret it.”

The barman retreated back behind the bar again, and began to pack up the full bottles and return them to the cellar.

“What the hell?” The landlord asked, staring at his barman as he came down into the cellar with a crate of bottles.

The barman quickly filled his boss in on what had happened.

“Okay, let’s get the rest down here quick and quiet as poss. Leave the non alcoholic drinks for last.”

By the time the Patrollers came back for a second round, the two men had removed all the alcoholic drinks, and about half the non-alcoholic drinks, out of the bar.

“Sorry, we’re out of bottles, and the pump lock is on.” Pump locks had been instituted about eight months earlier by the government. In effect they time locked the main beer pumps, so that they could not be used out of hours. “You do have to pay for your drinks though.” The manager told them with a smile. “Malcolm Handy is my friend.”

Malcolm Handy was the Patrollers local leader. There was a growl and about seven pounds, barely ten percent of the actual bill, was dropped onto the bar.

“You can pay the rest,” one growled. “Count it as your donation to our cause,” and the six stumped off. This particular group was two hours into a twelve hour shift, and resented ‘working’ on such a fine evening. Like the pub’s original occupants, they too wanted to be relaxing.

The following evening, the same patrol came in again, this time a few minutes later so that most of the pubs original patrons had already left. “You didn’t talk to the Senior Assault Leader then,” one said, a little aggressively, but not actually angrily.

“Oh?” The manager managed to look surprised. It was true, he hadn’t spoken to Malcolm Handy, but they weren’t really friends either, merely vague aquaintances. The Patrollers didn’t know that though. “Didn’t he say anything to you? I thought he would.”

The six Patrollers looked at him, a mixture of fear and fury on their faces. “You fuckin’ told ‘im,” one said angrily. Another grabbed a couple of empty, dirty, glasses off a nearby table, and flung them at the manager. “Bastard,” one said, before the six men left.

About eleven o’clock that evening, the fire brigade were called out to a burning house. Not far away, the six Patrollers sniggered to themselves as they watched the pub burn. The pub that they had set alight.

The rest of the junior members of the patrol house heard about the damage before the end of the shift. “What should they expect if they don’t support us?” one asked, to universal approval.

The lovely warm spell of weather was set to continue for some days, and the following evening a number of patrols decided to call in on the pubs they were passing for free drinks. Some got their drinks, others didn’t and trashed the pub in retaliation.

The backlash began on the fifth evening.

A different patrol, in a different, slightly more rural, area of Uxbridge, entered a small pub known locally as a bikers pub. People who didn’t really know, assumed that this meant trouble, but in fact because bikers so easily got that reputation, when they found a pub that would let them in, they were nice as pie, some of the politest customers, and very harshly controlled any incipient violence from within their own group. They rarely responded to taunts from outsiders, but when they did, ensured their response was outside and well away from the pub, and often violent enough that the originator would never come near them again: the violent reputation of bikers wasn’t without foundation.

This was exactly one of those pubs. There were about a dozen men left in the bar, from a high of nearly sixty just fifteen minutes earlier.

“Piss off, go home,” was the first they knew of the presence of the Patrol.

The pub’s patrons ignored the Patroller.

“I told you to fuck off out of here,” said the same Patroller, slamming his club down onto a table, sending a couple of drinks flying.

“An’ if we don’t want to?” asked a very drunk, somewhat older man.

“We’ll fuckin’ make you. You’re all trouble makers in ‘ere anyway.”

Just because it was referred to as a bikers pub, didn’t mean that all the patrons were bikers. In fact none of the few remaining patrons were bikers, but as regulars, they had adopted the practices of the bikers. They ignored the taunt. All except the one drunken man. “Go on then, try it. We’ve got loads’ a time before we hafta go.”

In an aside, he muttered to one of his companions. “Bleeding coppers. All alike, no matter what the uniform is.”

This was too much for the Patrollers, and they advanced menacingly on the men. The patrons, as one, all stood, all of them looked angry, all of them having heard what had happened to other local pubs due to the actions of the Patrol in the previous few evenings. When the remainder of the patrons in the bar, along with a few men and women, all true bikers, from the pub garden joined them; the six man patrol were suddenly outnumbered nearly three to one.

Two of the men were ex soldiers. Unknown to each other, or to anyone else in the pub, both were now also members of local Maquis units. Another was a long distance HGV driver, and a few more were ‘blue collar’ labourers of various sorts. All tough, strong men. All of them suddenly angry and spoiling for a fight. A fight most of them considered long overdue.

It didn’t take long. All six Patrollers were soon rendered unconscious, two bleeding very badly from cuts where they had been glassed. Seven of the pub’s patrons were also injured, one with severe head injuries, and another with a dislocated shoulder. All were conscious though, and they were still very angry. The pub manager got hold of a local nurse and between them arranged for the two worst injured to be taken somewhere for care, while the remaining minor injuries were cleaned and dressed in situ. The six Patrollers were stripped to their underwear and dumped in a ditch that ran alongside the road.

There was another pub about two hundred yards up the road, and the remaining fourteen men walked swiftly to it. Normally they wouldn’t have been seen dead here, too posh: very much a ‘white collar’ pub. The patrons of this pub were all preparing to leave.

“We’re closing,” they were told.

One man looked at his watch. “Still got ten minutes. And we’ve just duffed up the patrol that tried to kick us out of The Nags Head.”

“So now you want to come and cause us trouble instead,” the barmaid asked fearfully.

“Nah luv, if they come here we’ll protect you,” he looked at the pumps. “Good grief,” he muttered. “Better give me a lager.”

“Erm,” began the barmaid.

Enough money was slapped down on the bar for the pub landlord to nod his acceptance of the order. The barmaid pulled the pints swiftly, while the landlord rang up the money into the till.

“Enjoy your drinks, but please be quick.”

“You don’t understand,” one of the other visitors said. “We plan on stayin’ here until regular closin’ time.”

“You can’t. You’ll get into trouble. You’ll get us into trouble.”

“Tha’s all right, just close the doors an’ make it look like there’s no-one ‘ere.”

“You don’t understand,” the landlord said frantically. “Senior Patrol officers come in here. We are forced to stay open for them.”

One of the visitors looked at him. “You serious? They even open the pump locks for you?”

“Yes. Now please, drink up and go.”

“Nah. I think...,” he paused and frowned. “What about your barmaid there? How does she get home.”

“I don’t, I stay here. Nigel lends me a room,” quavered the barmaid. “They won’t let me go home before hand, and I daren’t go home afterwards, just in case.”

One of the other visitors frowned. “Are you sayin’, miss, that they come here, the patrol, to drink, because you’re here?” He pushed his way to the bar and looked at her critically. She was youngish, no more than about nineteen he guessed, pretty, and wearing a low cut top that showed off her large breasts. “They’re here to leer at you?”

She nodded unhappily.

“Do they ever go further than that?”

“They grope me occasionally, but so far that’s the worst.”

The speaker, an ex police officer, looked at the landlord. “And you let this happen?” he asked angrily.

The landlord looked steadily back. “No. Twice now they have beaten me up when I’ve tried to stop them going too far. They broke my arm last year. When I sent her home early, they ordered me to make sure she stays. When I refused, they smashed up my home.” He pointed upwards. “I now live up there. I’ve sent my wife and kids to stay with her mother as it’s too unsafe.” He put his arm around the girl. “Lindsay is my friend, and no,” he said angrily as he saw the looks on some of the visitors faces, “there’s nothing untoward about it, we are not having an affair, or anything stupid like that.”

“I volunteered to come back,” Lindsay whispered. “Nigel looks after me as best he can.”

“I think we should stay and teach those scum a lesson, don’t you?” The ex-policeman asked a couple of his friends. There was general nodding and agreement from the fourteen new arrivals.

“I’ll join you, if you don’t have any objections.” A new voice came from the back of the snug.

“No, John,” said Nigel hurriedly, “please don’t. You know the Patrol already has it in for you.”

John Avison nodded. “And that’s exactly why I have to do this.” He looked at the person he assumed to be the main spokesman for the new arrivals, and stuck out his hand. “I’m John, and anything I can do to help I will.”

“PC Andy Harris,” came the slow reply. John could see that he was being assessed.

“Police? Interesting.”

“Ex. Forced out. You?”

“Computer programmer, unemployed.” He suddenly grinned at Andy. “And gardener and cook. I have some vicious weapons at home. Can I make a suggestion?”

“Go on?”

“Come back tomorrow. Tomorrow’s Friday. There’ll be more of them, there’ll be time to get yourselves organised, and get weapons.”

“We can’t really. That’s another thing I guess we need to tell you. Some of these guys,” he indicated over his shoulder with his thumb, “duffed up a patrol, then dumped ‘em, unconscious and stripped of their uniforms, into the ditch.”

Lindsay giggled and both Nigel and John smiled.

“The patrol will be on us very quickly, you as well maybe.”

“Nah they won’t,” one of the first speakers said. “Doubt they’re there now.”

Andy whirled. “Pat? What’re you sayin’?”

Pat, who Andy knew had once been in the army, just shrugged. “You can be sure those ‘men’ won’t be in that ditch anymore, and they won’t be able to report.”

Andy’s eyes narrowed as he stared at Pat. Pat was known to be a bit of a trouble maker, a bit violent, and drank a lot. Andy suspected Pat was on the verge of becoming an alcoholic.

In fact Pat wasn’t an alcoholic, and drank far less than he appeared to. He only acted drunk to keep up appearances. He had just got off the phone where he had left a coded message to his immediate superior in the Maquis. The Maquis would, if they could, collect those men, along with their weapons and uniforms which had been dumped farther up the road. Pat knew all this, but Andy wasn’t in the Maquis, so couldn’t be let in on the secret.

“What have you done?” Andy asked Pat?

“Ah, just had me mate come out and pick ‘em up. Sure an’ they’ll be gone within the hour.”

“And where’s he going to take them?” Andy asked dangerously.

Pat took no notice of Andy’s demeanour. “Dunno. Somewhere safe I reckon,” he turned away, unconcerned, and moved out of Andy’s reach.

Andy glared at the back of the retreating man’s head, but Pat appeared to be oblivious. “Flamin’ drunkard,” muttered Andy. He turned back to Nigel and John and looked at his watch. “Why are you still here?” he asked John.

“I help Nigel in the kitchen when the Patrollers order food.”

“Ooh. That’s a fuckin’ idea,” one of the others said. “Do you have any decent kitchen knives here?”

John laughed cruelly. “No. But I have a few at home. Some big cleavers and meat hatchets.”

Andy grinned and nodded. He looked at Lindsay. “Miss. Don’t come in tomorrow. Pretend you’re ill or something.”

“They know where I live though.”

“Do they indeed! Well they won’t have time to worry about that. You just stay at home.”

Lindsay nodded, and then looked at her boss.

“Yeah. Stay at home lass. It’ll get ugly, and you don’t need to get hurt. In fact, pretend to be ill tonight, so they’ll understand tomorrow.” He turned and looked at Andy. “Be here well before seven if you can. They occasionally start coming in about then, particularly on Fridays and Saturdays. Most won’t come in until well after eight, but,” he trailed off and Andy nodded his understanding.

Andy turned to the rest of ‘his’ lads. “Go home guys. If you can get back here for half six tomorrow, we’ll have some fun. The sort of fun that we like and they wont.”

The men quickly drifted off. It was almost curfew now, too close really, so they moved quickly.

“Would you object if I stayed and watched? Hidden of course.”

“Er, I guess not, but it’ll have to be upstairs, there’s nowhere else to hide.”

Andy nodded. “Fine.”

Nigel turned to John. “Show him the kitchen. Make coffee’s all round please.”

As Lindsay had said, the Patrollers were rude, crude, even offensive, but apart from a few gropes, some of them quite intimate, she was left physically undamaged, and appeared to take it all in her stride. By the end of the evening though, all three men could see that she was very upset and close to tears.

“Go take a shower,” Nigel told her gently, “and go to bed. We’ll finish up as usual.” She nodded and hurried up the stairs, tears now flowing freely.

“That was a bit worse than usual,” Nigel said softly, so that Lindsay didn’t hear him. “Those people deserve everything you’re gonna give them tomorrow, and more.”

The last couple of Patrollers had just left, at nearly two in the morning, so Nigel quickly locked up and turned off the lights. “If I leave them on too long,” he told Andy, “others might try and come back in for a drink. They won’t bother if it looks like it’s empty and locked up. It does mean I have to leave most of the cleaning for morning though.”

Andy nodded his understanding and the three men went up the stairs to the small flat above it. Lindsay was already in the shower.

“Is she gonna be okay?” Andy asked softly.

Nigel looked at him grimly. “I don’t know. I wish I could help her. I really do. I hate what they’re doing to her, but they now know where she lives, and they’ve threatened to go round there and drag her here if she doesn’t come. And she’s no other family to ‘escape’ to.”

“Bastards,” John muttered from the other side of the room.

Andy looked at him. “What’s your story? Why are the patrol after you?”

“Not the patrol, just one man. Goes by the name Stott. Senior Leader Peter Stott. Luckily he doesn’t come in here. Rumour has it he’s teetotal.”

Andy just nodded and dropped it. Nigel found him a sleeping bag and pillow, and he slept, curled up, on an old arm-chair in the upstairs lounge. John already had the settee, while Lindsay slept in Nigel’s sons’ room.

Curfew was lifted at six am, and Andy left shortly before seven. He helped John and Nigel start the tidy up and clean up after the previous evening. “Thank you,” Nigel told him. “I can offer some breakfast as payment for the help?” The extra body had made a noticeable difference. Nigel, John and Lindsay had it down to a routine, but Andy’s extra hands had been a big help.

“Thanks but I’d better be off. I want to try and organise something extra special for this evening.” He looked at Lindsay. “Don’t come in to work this evening. Please?”

She nodded. “I won’t. I was coughing and hacking all yesterday evening. I’ll just pretend to be ill with flu if they do come knocking. Please be careful? They’re horrible people, an’ I wouldn’t want you getting hurt. Nor Nigel and John neither.”

Andy smiled and left.

By nine he had contacted a few of the men and women he had worked with in the force, and they had spread the word amongst others of his colleagues. Through the few that were in the Maquis, and through the contacts of Pat in particular, but also some of the other thirteen men who had been with him the previous evening, by two in the afternoon it had come to the attention of the Maquis regional leadership.

At almost every level as the messages had gone up, messages were also going down again. “Which pubs do the Patrollers use after curfew? Which ones are used by officers and which by lower ranks? Which ones do we have contacts with? Which ones are, or might be, friendly to us?”

By five a lot of frantic preparations were being made. Organisers of protests that evening, where they could be contacted at all, were asked to try and tone down the riots a little. “We want the Patrollers to be relaxed and less stressed. Think they are getting the upper hand.” Local Maquis units that had no operations that night were put on operational alert, those that did, in some cases had their orders changed. It was all a bit chaotic. Army units in hiding were put on alert just in case. By seven, an hour before curfew, most were ready. Over forty pubs in and around the London area had been identified, all of which were friendly towards the Maquis and the opposition and all of which were kept open by the Patrol. Fourteen were frequented by more senior officers, including Nigel’s pub, and these ones were targetted first, along with others close by. The Maquis were quite deliberately targeting the Patrol’s leadership.

“Where’s the tart?”

Andy’s wife, also an ex-police officer, was behind the bar, standing in for Lindsay. Nigel had given her a fast lesson on working behind the bar, and so far she had dealt with it admirably.

She looked at the speaker. “What!” she said coldly.

“You know. The tart. Blondy with the big tits.” The chief assault leader was drunk already, and didn’t see the cold fury building in the woman’s eyes.

Ann Harris glanced at the clock. It was not yet eight thirty and they had hoped not to kick things off until after nine. “Ill,” she said coldly. “Now here’s your drink. Go sit down.”

Ann, at nearly forty, and with fifteen years in the police before being sacked three years earlier, looked cold and hard. Not the sort of sexy barmaid the chief assault leader had been coming into this pub to stare at. But she was slim, relatively shapely, and not actually that unattractive.

“Now now beautiful,” he slurred, reaching out towards her.

Ann had to resist her inclination to grab his arm and yank him forwards, slamming him onto the bar. Instead she just pushed his arm away without saying anything, and moved along the bar to the next person waiting to be served.

Others were only marginally politer asking where Lindsay was, but so far there was no trouble about it. Shortly after nine, three slightly older men walked in. Ann, along with all the others there, had taken the time that morning to remind themselves of the patrol rank insignia. These were more senior officers: There was a regiment leader, a colonel; a senior assault unit leader otherwise known as a lieutenant colonel; and to top things off nicely, a senior leader or brigadier.

“Oh yes,” whispered Ann to herself. “Jackpot.” She caught Nigel’s eye and nodded towards the three men making their way towards the bar. Nigel moved towards them, while she pressed the intercom button to the kitchen. “Three fried chickens with all the trimmings,” she ordered.

Upstairs, Andy, Pat, John and four other men looked at each other in delight. ‘Fried chicken with all the trimmings’ was code for senior officer on the premises. To have three here at once was a real bonus.

“Good evening Senior Leader Michaels, gentlemen. We haven’t had the pleasure of your company for a while now. What can I get you?”

Senior Leader Michaels looked along the bar. “Where’s Lindsay?”

“I’m sorry to say that she’s ill with the flu. Ask any of your men that were here last night, she was not well. I told her not to come in this evening.”

Michaels looked at him coldly. “You were told to ensure she was here every night.”

“She was ill sir. Ask any of your men. I’m sure you wouldn’t want her passing on her germs to you.”

Michaels’ eyes narrowed. “She’d better be. I’ll be visiting her tomorrow morning to check. Make sure you’re not lying to me again.” Michaels stared at Nigel’s arm meaningfully. “You know what happened last time.”

Nigel shuddered and went cold. “She is ill sir,” he insisted.

Upstairs, Pat’s commander had taken charge of the operation. Andy felt mildly disappointed, but completely understood and mostly accepted the fact. He was ‘only’ a PC anyway, even if a highly experienced one. Pat’s commander had been a lieutenant in the Royal Navy. That was, Andy thought, equivalent to an army captain. For the time being he had kept his naval rank, even though he was now in the Maquis.

“Okay, John?” Lieutenant Vincent Klerk, asked John.

John nodded. “Just a rough estimate, yes?”

Vincent nodded. “Casual as you can.”

John went down the stairs. In theory he was going to get himself a drink. He usually did this at least once an evening, so his presence in the bar wouldn’t worry the Patrollers.

He was back barely a minute later. “Forty to fifty I reckon.”

“More than we were planning on sir,” Pat said.

Vincent nodded.

“All officers?” Klerk asked John.

“Looks that way.”

“Good. Thanks.” He turned to one of the other men. “Sergeant Fox? You okay with that?”

The man so addressed shrugged. “It’ll be tight sir, but yes I don’t see why not.”

“Okay, in that case, tell the men to get into position, please Sergeant; two minute warning.”

“Yes sir.” The sergeant turned away and spoke to another man who was sitting in front of a small radio set.

This pub, unlike the one Andy, Pat and some of the others had started the previous evening in, did not have an outside pub garden area. Instead it had a much larger lounge with lots of little alcoves where people could have a little privacy if they wanted it. It did mean that all of Vincent’s men, along with all the others that had joined this particular escapade, were now out on the street outside the pub, and in full view of anyone on the street, or leaving the pub.

“Did you see where the three senior officers are?” John was asked.

“They’re in that alcove near the front door.”

“That’s a bit of luck,” Vincent murmured, more to himself than anyone else.

“Everyone in position sir,” the Sergeant reported, he suddenly paused, listening. “I think,” he started.

They all heard it then: some shouts outside, followed by the sound of a shotgun.

“Sounds like some of our men have been spotted sir,” said the Sergeant looking carefully out of the darkened window.

“Get the men in, now.” Klerk was already moving quickly but quietly down the stairs to the bar.

“All blue units, go go go!” snapped the sergeant into the radio.

Pat followed Klerk quickly but quietly down the stairs with the sergeant immediately behind him. Andy had wanted to go down early as well, but Vincent had told him and John to stay back.

Downstairs, all the doors to the outside, eight of them, crashed open virtually simultaneously, and armed men poured quickly in. Pat, Klerk, the sergeant and one other of his men stayed behind the bar, both directing, and out of immediate danger. All four seemed to have knuckle dusters on, but they were pointing them. At the same time, Nigel and Ann quickly moved upstairs out of the way.

Although the Patrollers were caught completely by surprise and off guard, it did not all go the way the Maquis had planned it. They were already alert, a few of them had heard the sound of the shotgun moments earlier, and were starting to get up to go and investigate. Eight junior patrol officers managed to get outside, and though six were caught by men stationed outside waiting for this very eventuality. Two men did escape, aided by the fact that the men outside were under sporadic attack from a separate patrol that had come across them unexpectedly.

Inside the pub, two members of the Maquis were killed in the fighting: some of the Patrollers had pistols with them; and three more were injured fairly seriously, either by gunshot, or by other weapons. However the surprise, plus the almost ubiquitous use of Confederacy stingers, rather like stun guns but without the wires, ensured all the Patrol officers in the pub were very quickly subdued.

Fighting outside the pub, however, continued for a while longer. Klerk sent his sergeant out to check what was happening, and to assist if necessary.

“You and you,” the sergeant growled, pointing at two men. The three darted quickly out of one of the doors that seemed to be away from where the noise of fighting was coming from. Andy picked up a dropped stinger, looked at it, and then, having already seen what it could do and how it was used, followed the three out. He stopped and listened carefully. He could see the sergeant and his men off to his left. As he watched, the sergeant and one of his men were hit, the sergeant fell injured and groaning in pain but quickly rolled over and began returning fire. His colleague had just dropped like a sack of potatoes. Dead instantly. The third man dived to the ground, and began firing his stinger. Andy knew the area very well, and instead turned right. It took him a couple of minutes, but soon found himself approaching the pub from a different direction, from, he hoped, behind where the Patrollers might be.