Crash Course by Derek Fee (freenovel24 .TXT) 📗

would have to brave it out with Hackett and his boys for more than a few minutes before the cavalry would arrive. Chester inhaled deeply before putting on his gauze mask. Hackett headed for the rear of the house. What had been the kitchen and the living room had been knocked into one large room. Two of Hackett’s ‘chemists’ were cooking crack from a gummy cocaine base. Hackett dipped his hand into a plastic pail and came up with a handful of small white crystalline rocks. This was the crack that took over people’s lives and turned them into slaves to their next high. Hackett held out his hand towards Kane who took the crystals.

Davenport had given the ‘go’ instruction as soon as Kane had stopped the car outside the crack factory. The eight sullen officers in the van donned helmets and began shouting and slapping each other. This was the wind-up of nervous men. Davenport remembered Kane’s instructions as he watched the hyped-up policemen. Anything could happen when these guys went through the front door. It was about to go down, Davenport thought as the van moved off quickly into the estate. The other two units in their operation would hit the crack houses but their target would be the factory and Hackett. They dashed through the streets with the ghostbusters’ van close behind.

Kane was still examining the rocks when the hydraulic ram hit the front door. A phone rang somewhere but nobody moved to answer it. Hackett’s dark eyes hardened as both he and Chester looked at Kane.

“You fuckin’ motherfucker.” Hackett’s shout was muffled by his mask.

Chester raised the Uzi. Kane had already dropped the rocks and launched a karate strike into Chester’s windpipe. The big West Indian groaned through his mask before hitting the floor. Hackett’s chemists stopped cooking as the ram struck the door for the second time.

Kane heard Hackett shout through his mask and saw him go for the gun at his waist. He drew as quickly and both men brought their guns to bear at the same moment. Neither man fired but simply stared into the eyes of the other.

Veeral Hackett heard the hydraulic ram strike the door for the third time. The sharp report was followed by a splintering of wood. He looked into Kane’s eyes and what he saw there left him in no doubt that if he fired so would Kane. He might get the bastard but he would die and there was no percentage in that. He quickly calculated the odds. He might go down for drug dealing but he could probably cut a deal. Any which way he would still be alive and he would be on the streets again before too long. The bastard who had sold them down the river would still be there and he would have plenty of time to deal with him.

“Go on, you bastard,” Kane said. “Fire.”

Hackett thought that Kane’s eyes had a tranquil appearance as though he were observing the events in the room from afar. Then it dawned on him. The bastard wanted him to fire. He wanted to die. The realisation of who and what he was dealing with caused Hackett’s stomach to contract. He slowly lowered his gun.

A loud splintering noise from the hallway told both men that the front door had finally surrendered to the battering from the ghostbusters. Kane reached his hand out for Hackett’s gun.

“You one crazy mother.” Hackett’s eyes smiled above the mask. “I’m goin’ to be dealin’ with you, Whiteboy. I don’ know where and I don’ know when but I goin’ to deal with you.”

Eight bomber-clad screaming idiots came bursting through the front door. They clambered over the prone body of the guard. Confusion reigned as Davenport’s men spread throughout the house roaring ‘Police’ at the top of their excited voices. The chemists were quickly rounded up. During the confusion, the gun in Kane’s hand never wavered from Hackett’s sweating face.

By the time Davenport entered the house, it was all over. The guard who had been at the door was being helped to the police van and Chester was being half carried, half dragged through the hallway by two stout police officers. Kane still held Hackett at gunpoint in the back room of the house.

“I think you can put that away,” Davenport said as he entered the room. In his world coppers didn’t need guns. He turned to one of the constables holding Hackett. “Why don’t you inform these gentlemen of their rights while you escort them to the local nick.”

Hackett smiled at the newcomer. He nodded towards Kane. “You know, mon. I’d have dat bastard killed if he wasn’t already dead. I not goin’ to do him the favour of puttin’ him in the ground. I be out tomorra and I be back in business before you know it. But next time I not goin’ to trust no honky dealer.” One of the constables recited Hackett his rights as they bundled him out of the room.

“Not a bad night’s work,” Davenport said, watching Kane put his gun away. “I’m glad you didn’t have to use that. We’re not like our American cousins. All shoot-outs and the like. The British press can be messy about coppers shooting suspects. Even scum like Hackett have rights.”

“He’s probably right, you know.” Kane pulled off the mask which hung around his neck and tossed it into a pot of cooking cocaine. There was probably more money in that pot than he earned in a year. What the hell was he thinking of? More than he earned in five years. The money to be made from drugs would mean that Hackett could afford to buy the best legal brains in the city. His mind sometimes boggled at the lottery-type sums of money that Hackett and his posse dealt with. He could feel himself coming down from the adrenaline high. “He’ll be back on the streets before we can say ‘Jack Robinson’. He’ll have the best brief money can