Chapter 15

The colonel must have been prescient because that was the night all hell broke loose. Not that we were involved, at least, not then. I got the story from Niall and, later, Commander Swann. Some of it was published it the newspaper accounts but an awful lot got suppressed by the authorities. The Establishment looks after its own and I reckon there were too many red faces in high places. I doubt even that we ever learned the full extent of the conspiracy.

Niall, Bill and Steve had made their way to Southwold. They had located Brownlock's farm and parked the car about a mile away where it wouldn't readily be seen. They had gone in under cover of darkness on foot. Bill said it was just like the old days, a three-man patrol in hostile territory. The farm was in darkness but they had the feeling it was occupied. They lay up under cover and watched for about two hours. Patience had its reward. A door in one of the barns opened and spilled a patch of light out into the farmyard. Niall was looking through a nightsight and he thought that the man who emerged from the barn was Brownlock himself. He looked furtive, closing the door quickly and hurrying away out of sight behind the house. Moments later, they heard a car start and a large Mercedes crept out of the farm with its lights off. It negotiated the farm track in darkness and only switched on headlights once it was on the public road. Then it speeded up and drove off in the direction of Southwold. They made out only person in the car.

After Brownlock had gone, those who remained seemed to relax and got sloppy. The barn door opened again and this time stayed open. Three men came out. One of them lit a cigarette and Niall could make out the submachine gun he had slung over his shoulder as he stooped over the flame. They had found the Chechens. Niall stayed where he was but sent Bill and Steve to circle the farm buildings. They were better at silent movement than he was and he wanted to keep an eye on the barn. They could make out at least two more figures inside, through the open door. Bill went off to the left and Steve to the right. Niall swears he lost sight of them before they had covered twenty yards. Steve came back first. He'd discovered a Dutch barn - one of those things with a curved roof supported by steel stanchions but no walls - it was full of hay. This struck them as odd because there was no other sign that this was a working farm.

They waited for Bill to come back. He had found a sentry and 'taken care of him.' The three of them then moved around the perimeter to the Dutch barn. The hay concealed a shipping container! Niall said there were no prizes for guessing that this was the shipment of bronze that had disappeared from Felixstowe. The container was still on a road trailer but there was no sign of the tractor unit that had hauled it. The customs seals were broken so it had been opened. They decided to check on the contents before informing Swann. As Niall said, there wasn't much point in sending for the cavalry if the thing was empty.

They slipped inside the container and pulled the door to behind them. Inside, they found the piles of bronze ingots. Nothing appeared to have been disturbed but they started to go through the piles, looking for those with the foundry mark stamped lengthwise. Sure enough, in the second pile they examined, they found four such ingots. Niall decided to pull out then and send in Swann and his men. It was too late. Steve opened the container door and stepped through. The night exploded into violence.

Steve was almost cut in half by a hail of machinegun fire before he was halfway through the door. He was dead before his body crashed to ground. Niall and Bill threw themselves behind a stack of bronze bars and readied their weapons. They couldn't see much so Bill hurled heavy bronze bars at the door until it stood open. Niall called the police on his mobile and got ready to die. He said he was convinced that their 'number was up.' The Chechens tried to rush them. Bill and Niall fired at the gun flashes. They certainly hit a couple and the Chechens withdrew. Someone threw a grenade at the container and it exploded on the roof. It sounded like the clap of doom to the two men inside. Their ears rang and their senses reeled. Bill loosed off a short burst 'to keep the bastards honest.' Niall saw them bringing up some kind of rocket launcher. He shouted a warning to Bill and the pair dived behind the stacks of ingots.

They were only just in time as the projectile struck beside the door and exploded with stunning force. The noise made the previous grenade explosion seem like a tap on a child's drum by comparison. Bill and Niall were completely deafened. The shock would have disabled most people but those two were pros. The Chechens followed up with another wild rush. Once again they had to retreat as the two ex-soldiers poured a concentrated fire into the running figures. Niall signalled to Bill, neither could hear a thing still so they couldn't talk to each other. They made a dash for the door and flung themselves out. One rolled left and the other right, firing as they went.

As Niall told us later, they were fighting mad by now. They got to their feet and ran at the enemy, switching clips as they went. It was over quickly. Bill took a round to the shoulder and another in the fleshy part of his calf. Niall had seven bullet holes in his parka but was, by some miracle, unhurt. Two Chechens remained alive but they were both badly wounded. Much of the damage had been done when one of the terrorists was hit in the process of trying to throw another grenade. It had slipped from his grasp and exploded among his fellows. "Typical bloody amateurs," according to Bill. Niall applied filed dressings to Bill's wounds and fed him a couple of morphine tablets. He then treated the wounded Chechens. After all, they might have something to say under interrogation. Then Niall checked over the farm and the various buildings. The Chechens had obviously used the lighted barn as accommodation for he found two more inside, both badly wounded but having obviously received medical treatment. These must have been hit during the attack on the cottage. The farmhouse itself was almost empty. Only one room was furnished and this looked like it had been their operations centre. Maps of Eastern England hung on the walls and there were a couple of computer terminals. The room smelt strongly of stale tobacco smoke.

Niall then got Bill and the other wounded men into the barn. He made them as comfortable as he could. Bill was in good spirits but light-headed from the combined effects of blood loss and morphine. Niall gathered up Steve's body and laid him out in one of the empty rooms in the farmhouse. Then the reaction set in and he began to shake. He threw up a couple of times and then went outside, breathing deeply to try and clear his head. After a while, he phoned Swann again. The Special Branch man was approaching Southwold by helicopter. An armed response unit had been summoned from Ipswich and they would be there soon. Swann asked Niall to illuminate a landing area. He gathered piles of straw and laid them an out in an 'H' pattern on a large open area of grass he supposed to be a paddock. He doused the straw in diesel oil and set fire to the pattern. He watched the helicopter land by the light of the flickering flames.

Swann hurried from the helicopter, head bent and his coat flapping in the downdraft. A dozen heavily armed Special Branch officers quickly followed him. They rigged up portable floodlights while Swann took Niall into the house. Niall told him everything we had surmised, how we had identified the farmhouse and all that happened since the three of them arrived there. Swann wasn't best pleased and kept demanding to know why we hadn't called him earlier. He'd been wasting his time in South London. Niall got mad at him and him and spat back that it was Swann who had said he couldn't act without evidence. Now he had all the bloody evidence he'd ever need.