I looked out the window, it was a mild night, the moonlight dimly illuminated the sky, there was not a single person in sight and there was not a sound to be heard.  Across the street, I could see two houses, which had a TV flickering in their living room windows.  I was waiting patiently for the call, with Limp Bizkit mission Impossible II theme, quietly playing in the background.

Where was he, what could be taking him so long, I wondered.  Had he fucked up already, had he been caught, did something go wrong, all sorts of thoughts were rushing through my mind, when suddenly I heard the knock, thump, thump, thump, I almost leapt out of my skin, it was him I just knew it.  The time had come, payback was due and I was ready to take the law back into my own hands again.  I answered the door, the large burly figure of the night swiftly handed me a shape.  It was a weapon which I had earlier requested.  I handed him the wad and he promptly left just like he was a Pizza boy, only a very burly one.  I closed the door and went back inside.

Once safely inside,I unpacked the pistol, I had no idea what it was, but going by the markings, it was made in China.  I looked in the mag.  The rounds were 9mm.  This Chinese thing looked quite good.  If total silence was required, there was a catch that would keep the working parts in place when you fired.  You then had to manually unload and then reload.  If not and you could get away with a suppressed weapon on semi-automatic, all you had to do was take the catch off and the working parts would move and feed another round to fire.  The baffling would still do its job in stopping the weapon report; you'd just hear the working parts moving.  With my thumb I pulled down on the catch, safety on, then jammed it into my jeans.

I went to my room and retrieved my old trustworthy knife, the same one which had saved my life before countless times.  I was bringing it too, it had never let me down before and I firmly believed it never would.  I regarded it, as more of a good luck charm than a weapon, except the fact that it was one of the most deadly good luck charms, that any normal person, walking the streets would carry about with them.  I slipped it down my leg sheath grabbed and pocketed my mini maglite and my leatherman (all purpose weapon) and I was ready to go.

I arrived at the suspects meet-up house and my Accurist told me it was 1:30am.  The garage doors were only semi-closed.  I could see the back of an Explorer and the pitch-dark beyond.  I was staring into darkness and contemplating my next move when a light came on to my right, spilling through the gap in the doors.  It came from the rear of the garage.  My heart skipped a beat, then started to pump at warp speed.  If I'd been discovered already there wasn't much I could do.  

I gripped myself: Stop, calm down, watch.  Almost immediately another light came on, this time on the other side of the garage.  through the gap I could see what was happening.  Someone had opened the lid of a chest Freeze; the glow from the interior light showed the face of a man, as if he was shining a torch under his chin, like we used to do at Halloween.  It was one of them.  The same bastard that had previously broken into our house and interrogated us, a year ago.  He rooted around for a moment, pulled out some boxes of food and then with his arms full he walked away. I tried to count how many cartons he had.  There seemed to be 7, did that mean 7 people were still awake and about to have a meal, or was it just a big bastard of a snack for one very hungry man?

I heard a door close and the light went out.  I waited a few moments for everything to calm, including me and then proceeded slowly towards the garage.  It was totally dark inside.  I checked my gun was in place cocked and ready to go, my knife was still there, I could feel it against my leg, then I moved inside the garage, it was time.

Once inside I became aware of a different ambient noise, coming from above me.  I stopped by the 4x4, looked up and listened; there was a vague mumbling, which at first I took to be talking, then I heard a shout, gunfire and a burst of music.  They were watching TV.  The mumbling went on, then there was a metallic rattling within the garage as the freezer motor kicked in, followed by a low buzz.  A floorboard creaked above me, over to my right.  Maybe someone getting up of a chair, the noise didn't move anywhere he must have sat down again.

I moved over to the door, an inspection of the lock told me it was an ordinary lever type.  I gently pushed on the area of the door by the lock, then pulled it forward, to see if there was any give.  There was about half an inch.  Then, with my hands down at the bottom of the door and still on the same side as the lock, I pushed hard and slow to see if it had been bolted.  It gave way an inch, then moved back into position.  I did the same at the top of the door.  That also gave way, this time just over half an inch and I gently eased it back into position.  It seemed there were no bolts on the other side, just the lever lock to deal with.

Holding my breath, I slowly twisted the handle to check the door was locked.  you could spend hours picking the lock only to find the thing was already open; best to take time and check the obvious.  I'd always found that holding my breath gave me more control over slow movements and it made it easier to hear if there was any reaction to what I was doing.  As I'd assumed the door was locked.

The next move was to check all the likely places where a spare key might be hidden.  Why spend time attacking a lock if a key is hidden only feet away?  Some people leave theirs dangling from a string on the other side of the letterbox, or on the inside of a catflap.  Others leave it under a dustbin or just behind a little pile of rocks by the door, under a mat or in a spouting.  If a key is going to be left it will nearly always be on the normal approach to the door.  I checked the shelving above the freezer, under the rusting paint tins by the door and along the top of the door frame and all the obvious places.  Nothing.  I would have to work the lock.

I got down on my knees, listening all the timeto the TV show and looked through the keyhole.  I could see nothing but darkness. I pulled out my mini maglite, shone it through and had another look.  There was a glint of metal.  I smiled; piece of piss.  They'd left the key in the lock.

With the Maglite in my mouth, I opened the screwdriver part of my Leatherman and worked it into the keyhole.  When it had a firm purchase I started to turn the key along its natural line to unlock the door, at the same time pulling the door towards me to release the pressure on the bolt as it lay in the door frame.  the key turned until it hit the lock; it would need a lot more pressure now to open it, but that would make noise.

I waited whoever was pissing off the cops on TV would be doing it again soon.  Thirty seconds later, it happened shouting, gunfire and sirens.  I gave the key the final necessary twists and switched off the torch.  With the door ajar a couple of inches I could hear the TV much more clearly.  Going by the intensity of the shooting, screaming and shouting, the whole State Police force was out trying to get the bad guys.

I checked that nothing was about to fall out of my pockets, then gently pulled the door towards me, ready to stop at the slightest creak, holding my breath so I could hear it happen.  I was facing a flight of worn, bare stairs which climbed directly to the first floor.  There a wall on either side.  Anyone standing at the top could easily look down and see me.

Beyond the top of the staircase and facing me, was another wall and just off to the right hand side was a door that was closed.  Apart from that all I could see were flickering images, composed of different tones of light from the TV screen as they flashed on the wall and the closed door facing me.  I was happy about that; if the TV was facing the top of the stairs, it meant that tyhe fuckers would have their backs to me as I went up.

I retrieved my pistol from my jeans, cocked it and took the safety off, I had to be ready in case something unexpected happened.  Focusing my eyes and the weapon on the top of the stairs, I placed my left foot very carefully on the bottom step, then my right.   stopped and listened.  
I lifted my left foot again and put it down on the second step, easing my weight down gently hoping there wasn't going to be a creak.  I continued towards the top of the stairs.

When my eyes got level with the top stair, I lay down with my head against the end of the bannister.  Then easing myself up on my toes and the heels of my hands, tilted forward and looked around.  I could see at once the TV was in the far-right corner of the room, facing me.  On the screen someone was getting a doctor to patch his gunshot wound.

Three men were watching; two on the sofa with their backs to me, one of them swigging back on his can; the other guy was in an amchair and at an angle, so that he half faced the kitchen wall.  I wanted to check behind the closed door first, in case something happened.  This wasn't going to be easy.  I'd have to cross over about 15 feet of open floor space.  I lay there and thought for a while and felt the blood pumping in my neck.

There was only one thing I could do and that was to try to cross the room without being seen.  If I got pinged I'd just have to deal with the situation as it developson the ground.  I pushed myself away from the stairs with the heel of my hand and slowly stood up.  I edged out and was in the room.  With my back pressed against the wall, I started to move towards the closed door, moving one leg in front of the other, eyes riveted on the three watching the TV.

All three were totally absorbed on the TV.  I was maybe 20 feet from them.  Suddenly a bright graphic appeared, accompanied ny machine-gun fire.  "Back soon with movies for guys who..."  I had fucked up big time.  I hadn't taken into account the commercial break.  A pain hit me in the throat and shot down into my stomach.  Armchair dude, gobbled something off to the others and moved his head a bit to the right - just a bit too much.

He must have seen me, but these things take a while to sink in when you're not expecting them and especially when you've been concentrating so intently on something else.  But he had detected movement in his peripheral vision and I knew what was coming.  It would take him maybe two seconds, no more, to register that something was wrong.  I had just two seconds up on him.  It was all going to be over soon, one way or another.

To me it was all happening in slow motion.  As I brought the pistol up, Armchair dude jerked his head further to the right, did a double take and stared straight at me.  I could see his eyes widening with both shock and fear.  He shouted something, but I did'nt know what.  Everything closes down in a situation like that.  All I could hear was the voice in my own head and as my knees started to bend automatically to make me a smaller target, it was screaming, Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

Thump, thump, I shot two rounds into Armchair dude, as he attempted to dive for cover.  He took the hits with a dull thwack and went down.  I turned the gun sharply towards the other guy on the sofa closest to me, he had somehow managed to run towards me and took me by surprise, I unleashed two bullets into him also, but he kept coming.  He fell towards me and grabbed me with his large arms wrapping them around me so i could hardly move, simultaneously he managed to accidentally knock the gun out of my hand...  "Shit I'm in trouble I thought"  However the two bullets had done their job as he clambered on down towards the floor.

By this time sofa guy number two had managed to jump behind the sofa, I could see him reaching for a Magnum 22 on the floor... where the fuck had that came from I thought.  There was no time,  I took a brief few quick steps and launched myself towards him.  Whilst in flight pulling out my knife, gripping it firmly, making use of the extra blood now pumping through my hands.

As I fell on top of him my weight pushed him down on top of the Magnum.  We both grunted with the impact.  While trying to cover his mouth with the crook of my left arm, I jammed the knife blade into his neck with my right.  Only one of these actions worked.  I had managed to cover his mouth, but as I thrust the knife, it skimmed off his neck and I'd done no more than rip his skin.  He was screaming big time beneath my arm.  I increased the pressure to try and get better coverage of his mouth.

I raised the knife and rammed it down hard, this time it lodged into his neck.  I felt him stifen, his muscle tensing up to resist the penetration.  I pushed harder, twisting the blade to maximise the damage.  I was hoping to cut into his carotid artery or spinal cord, but instead I ended up severing his windpipe.  Now I just had to hold him as he asphyxiated.  I put all my weight on him, trying to stop his body-jerking from getting out of hand and becoming noisy.  

Once I knew I was in control,  looked quickly around me to make sure no-one else had arrived on the scene as I waited for him to die.  Finally he was going down.  His hands started to scrabble behind him, towards my face.  I bobbed and weaved to avoid them and his movements gradually subsided to no more than a spasmodic twitching in his legs.  The last reserve of strength he'd found as he saw his life slowly get darker was now exhausted.  By the flicker of the TV I could see dark blood oozing out of the wound; it followed the shaft of my knife to my hand and dripped onto the floor.  When I moved my arm away from his mouth he made no sound.

Still on top of him I turned around to assess the situation.  I started to shake.  I'd never been so scared in my life, nor so relieved that something was over.  Armchair dude was still alive; blood was gurgling in his throat as he tried to breath.  I lifted myself off sofa guy number 2, guiding his body as it slumped onto the floorboards.  I retrieved the Magnum and slid the barrel down the waist of my jeans.  I collected my pistol that I had dropped earlier, went over to Armchair dude and checked him.  His glazed eyes turned to follow mine as I moved my body around him, feeling him for any hint of metal.  amazingly I found another Magnum on him.  I was lucky to still be alive.  His eyes were reflecting the TV screen as they pleaded with me for help.

I got hold of his arms and pulled him up against the settee and as I did so, I could see where he's been hit.  The two bullets had entered his stomach.  I got him so that he was sitting on the floor with his head lolling over to the left-hand side, resting on the seat.  His eyes still begging me as I placed a cushion under his head.  I stepped back and asked him "Remember me?"  then drew back my boot and gave him a swift blow to the groin.  "Mess with me and you will pay, you've learned this lesson the hard way" I said.  Then I raised my pistol and gave him a round in the head.

There was a noise just like someone tapping the edge of a wooden table with their finger.  The cushion and settee helped to suppress the round completely as it came out of the back of his head.  He just lay there, eyes still open, blood shining in the TV light.

As I remembered it, there were five guys that had entered our house last year.  So far I had taken out only three of them, where were the other two?  Well that's another story...


(If you want to know send me an e-mail)
also please note this was based on an Andy McNab tale (applied to a real life situation); c'mon you didn't honestly think I'd taken the time to make all of it up and type it out...did you?