25
The Raid
I was woken up by a car retrieval van reversing into the layby outside. It was the morning of July the 3rd. I had ticked off the day on my calendar. I had been dreading this day! It was a cloudy, wet day and at 5am the dawn chorus started, even the wood pigeon joined in. I managed to roll over and doze until 7.30. I sat up in my bed, and then I crawled up to my TV, switched it on to “stand by” pushing in the button on the side of the television, then I got my TV remote turned the volume to mute and then I pushed three to get “Diggit”, where Des and Fern C were presenting the show for quarter of an hour, then there were cartoons for a further quarter of an hour, like school cartoons just to remind me what I’m missing. When they had finished I turned my TV off. I then got in my chair. I pushed my feet down on my carpeted floor to manoeuvre myself towards the cupboard where I got my “All Weather Jacket” out. I reached down to the drawers at the bottom of my wardrobe and got out my fishing box because I thought it would come in useful at the raid today. I then checked the time on my neon clock. I made my way down the stairs and I crawled to my chair in the dining room. I had my breakfast and then I waited another quarter of an hour for either my Mum or Dad to get up, to take me to Winton’s to meet Jackie Jab and Keith. When Mum had dropped me off at Wintons I waited my usual five minutes for my Mum to go round the corner making my detour in the direction of the cave undetected. It was another five minutes before Jackie and Keith arrived at Wintons. I waited a couple of minutes for them to open up the cave, which I eventually went in.
Since I had last been here it had changed from being a waiting area into a hangar, with a lorry parked in the middle. Or was it that I hadn’t been to this part of the building before? Keith looked tired, as did Jackie; they were now underneath the lorry doing the final checks.
“Lucky you’re here Chris because I’ll have time to show you how to use this monstrosity of a thing and how all the gadgets and gismos work.” Keith greeted me.
Ten minutes later Jackie was in the monstrosity, but then I felt a jolt as Keith had got a crane to lift me up to the cockpit. I got out of my wheelchair and fastened my seat belt in the machine. As the lorry started reversing the hangar doors started to open. We waited then for about thirty seconds for the doors to be fully open, and then the growl of the lorry’s engine started. A green light came up on the side of the main hangar door; a corresponding smaller light came up on our control panel in our “Apache” style cockpit. As we took the left at Ansty and made our way up the long road towards Mannings Heath and under the bridge, I developed these feelings of mixed emotions, some were guilt for what we were about to commit and others were the what ifs. The next thing I was aware of was the lorry shuddering over the bumpy terrain which was Alex’s driveway. We then came to a sudden stop as something seemed to be holding us up. I turned round to Jackie and said –“How was the trip?” Her reply was a disgruntled -
“You don’t half snore!” I took that to mean that I had dropped off during our journey!” There wasn’t anyone out in the farmyard yet. I heard a shotgun go off. Jackie and I both turned around in our seats and looked at the sphere. We then waited about another five minutes for Keith to give the all clear to go, we knew what to do. I was surprised to see that Alex had put some sandbags, a shallow moat round his sphere satellite. Then all of a sudden there were bullets flying at us from every direction, luckily our vehicle was bullet proof, but the machine gun fire still marked the glass quite badly. The explosions increased as we got closer to the sphere. The next thing that happened took me completely by surprise as we suddenly plummeted down what seemed to be twenty feet before finally hitting the concrete floor.
I was shell-shocked for about ten seconds and then I checked to see if Jackie Jab was alright. In front of us Alex C was sitting on a silver metallic seat. Alex, his voice amplified shouted -
“Don’t move!”
Ignoring him I carefully leaned forward to get to my back pocket. I was trying to get at my flip phone. When I had my phone in my hand I dialled 0668 to alert Keith. Next I dialled Alex’s mobile phone number to create the distraction Keith needed to get into position.
“What are you doing Chris?” Jackie whispered.
“Well someone has to get us out before Alex does something he’ll regret.” I replied.
Keith had managed to locate us somehow. He was driving one of Alex’s tractors and had stopped right on the edge of the crevasse. He threw a grenade down to where he thought Alex was, creating a huge explosion. Keith told us later that his hearing went for about ten minutes after the blast.
What looked like Keith came to the edge of the crevasse, in my dazed state. it was Harry Howler, one of Alex’s accomplices that I was worried about as I hadn’t seen him yet. My mind was wondering what next when he came down a concealed ladder into the shrubs. Then a voice came bursting out of the tannoy which I recognised instantly as Mario’s.
“Everyone –evacuate. Evacuate onto the main apron - bombing is beginning in five minutes.” “Jackie I want you to wait here.” I said.
“Why?” She asked.
“Because we’ve got something to do” I replied.
I snuck out of the capsule while Harry was doing up his shoes which went almost up to his knee. That gave me enough time to get out of the capsule. Then I managed to creep past him . I looked around for something to attack him with and when I turned around I picked up a fire extinguisher and managed to take out Harry’s legs with it. Whilst this was going on Jackie had got out of the apache style cockpit and up the ladder. I then went further up the ladder to get out of the sphere to where Jackie was standing. Jackie then walked me over to the field which Mario was talking about, by then I had got mud and mushy grass all over my hands and legs. I heard some really loud engines coming up behind me. It must have been their escape plane. I saw Keith having an argument with one of the guards; I turned my head thinking that Keith would be able to sort it. I heard shotgun fire and turned back round to see that Keith had been shot.