The Samsara Project by David Burgess (ebook reader screen .txt) 📖

on John, show me what Liverpool has to offer.”
 
Chapter 21

The next morning John and Tracy arrived back at exactly ten twenty five. Peter was in the main reception waiting for them. He gave them both a hug, “How’s Liverpool’s night life?” he asked.
“We didn’t sample much of the night life,” replied John, still holding Tracy’s hand, “we walked for ages and just talked, finding out about each other, likes and dislikes. You know the kind of thing.”
Tracy moved closer towards John and rested her head against his arm.
“I now know who Tracy is; I know she has a past and what it was. We’ve decided to go away for a week or two, just around the country. Tracy can show me where she was born and brought up. That will be amazing, genuine living history.”
“Then John will take me back to his childhood days,” said Tracy, “he can show me his past.”
“If you don’t mind me asking, what then?” asked Peter, “I know its early days but any plans?”
John and Tracy looked at each other, direct eye to eye contact. “Once we both explored our past then we’ll put that to one side and concentrate on our future.” said John. Tracy nodded and squeezed his hand.
“That’s great,” replied Peter, “I know you’ll both be very happy together. I really wish you all the luck in the world. Now I’m sorry but its work time again and Tracy still has a few tests to take. She’s gone through a lot recently and I want to make sure she’s one hundred percent.”
Nurse Rae was standing over to one side; she called Tracy over to her. “I’ll see you at the weekend,” said Tracy to John. She gave him a kiss and left with Nurse Rae.
“You’re a lucky man John,” said Peter, “there’s something though I have to say, please hear me out. You’ve learned such a lot about me over the past twenty four hours and you’ve asked a lot of questions to me and about me, but there is one question you have never asked.”
“Is there any reason to?” asked John
“I feel I need to tell you anyway,” said Peter.
“Alright then,” said John.
“Pamela and Tracy could so easily have been reversed. It was the luck of the draw, life or not all down to a lottery number.”
“You’ve lost me,” said John.
“The fifteen original samples that we used, each was given a number from one to fifteen, at random numbers were pulled out of a hat. The team thought it was the best way to conduct the experiments. The truth is we only selected fourteen samples; the fifteenth was a sample of Pamela’s blood. I’d had it for ages; it was on a handkerchief when she’d had a nose bleed. I never knew why I kept it, I was just glad I had. Pamela’s number came out of the hat for the third experiment. As you know from yesterday it failed, that was why I wanted to call everything off. If I couldn’t even save my own sister, why should I save anybody else? In the end I was outvoted. Everyone believed we had learned from our mistakes and that number four would be successful. They were right, what we learned from loosing Pamela enabled number four to be a success. You know from yesterday that her name was Rachael, a very scared and confused young woman who grew and blossomed to become Tracy. I really want the two of you to be happy together. It was Pamela, not me, who gave everything and as a result of that she helped give life to Tracy, in my eyes, John, Pamela will continue to live through her as well.”
John was lost for words; he had no idea what to say in reply. He hugged Peter. “Whatever happens don’t ever stop being my brother-in-law.”
“I won’t” he replied.
DCS Hughes had two bags in his hands, unaware of what had been said, he walked towards John, “Glad to see you managed to make it back. I’d have a long walk if you hadn’t”
“I take it were leaving,” said John.
“We are,” replied the Chief, “from now on John, can you just call me Chief. I’d like that.”
“Whatever you say Chief,” John shook Peter’s hand, “that invitation down to London still stands you know. Don’t leave it too long.”
“I won’t, and that’s a promise. Good bye Chief, our talk last night, let me know what you decide.”
“What’s that about?” asked John as they walked out towards the car.
“Oh something and nothing but more something,” replied the Chief with a cheeky grin.
Half an hour later John and the Chief were on the M62 heading towards Manchester. The motorway was fairly quiet and this allowed John to make good progress. They expected the drive back to London would take around three hours, or three and a half if they stopped. The Chief tried to grab some much need sleep but was having no luck at all. “John, do me a favour,” said the Chief, “can you stop at the next service area, in the rush to get away I forgot to take my travel pill.”
“The Chief or Detectives gets travel sick?” said John, “I don’t believe it.”
“We all have our Achilles heel.” He replied, “It’s one of the Mets most closely guarded secrets and, as you have just signed up to the official secrets act it will remain that way.”
“I can just see the headline now,” said John, “Big Chief Sick in Bus.”
The Chief just glared. John chuckled softly to himself. “We’re coming up to Burtonwood Services,” said John, “think you can last another two minutes?”
This was followed by another glare from the Chief. The Jaguar glided along the slip road and into the car park. John parked the car as close as he could to the shopping area.
“Anything you want?” asked the Chief.
“No I’m fine thanks,” replied John “thanks for asking though.”
The Chief out of the car and started to walk towards the shopping area, this meant walking underneath the M62 via an underpass to the West bound carriageway shops. He was half way down the underpass when he heard screams from behind him. He turned around and started to run back towards the underpass entrance. He could see people crouching down or frantically running in every direction. “They’ve got guns,” someone shouted, “get down, take cover.” Instinctively DCS Hughes crouched, just as he did he heard the sound of semi automatic fire, there were more screams. Frantic parents started to shout their children’s names, husbands shouted to wives and vice versa. Panic and chaos quickly set in. There was a second wave of gunfire quickly followed by the sound of shattering glass as the bullets found an easy target.
A few moments earlier John had been sat in his car thinking over the past few days, more specifically yesterday. He was in a daydream state when multiple shouting from outside snapped him back to the present. Out of the side window he could see the terrified expressions on the faces of everyone, parents with children in both arms were running towards the underpass. Others were trying to take cover behind anything they could find; some fell tripped over in their panic to get away and just stayed where they lay, too frightened to move. Survival instinct took over. John looked in the rear view mirror and saw three men, dressed in civilian clothes except for the black full face ski masks, holding automatic weapons. They were fanned out across the car park walking towards his car. They were about eighty yards behind him. All three were carrying their weapons the same way; the butts of the rifles were resting on their hips with the barrels pointing upwards at an angle away from them. From this distance their fingers looked to be covering the trigger.
The man on point, then fired a volley of shots into the air, the people who had been lying on the floor all ran, as one, towards whatever cover they could find. For some this meant crouching behind a bush, their minds telling them they were safe from the automatic fire if they could not be seen. John’s heart sank; he knew it was no coincidence they were here. They had come to finish a mission that their colleagues had failed on. They were now sixty yards behind the Jaguar, and without any sense of urgency continued walking towards John’s car. John turned the key and fired up the engine, he moved the gear shift into reverse, fifty yards. His heart was pounding as he gripped the steering wheel then relaxed it, forty yards. The three men started to move the position of their weapons; they were now starting to take aim on the Jaguar, thirty yards. John floored the accelerator; the Jaguar’s engine screamed into life as the traction control instantly kicked in to counteract the power surge to the four wheel drive system. Without this the Jaguar tyres would have just spun on the spot and generated a lot of smoke from the burning rubber that had once been the car’s tyres. Worst still the car would have stayed still, all the power and energy wasted, but more importantly those wasted seconds would have given the gunmen the time they needed to complete their mission.
The Jaguar’s built in wizardry did its job and the car shot out from the parking bay as John aimed for the point man. The three gunmen were taken by surprise and fired off snap shots towards the oncoming car. Despite the number of rounds fired towards the Jaguar none found their intended target. Ten yards away from the point man John quickly spun the steering wheel to full left lock. The speed of the car plus the speed the steering action made the car start to spin. The front of the car quickly started spinning round to the left. The point man was now five yards away from the car, he tried to take aim as the one and a half tons of British Racing Green Jaguar headed towards him. The car, still spinning, hit him square on. There was a sickening thud as flesh and bone hit high speed metal, the car did not hit him fully side on but on an angle, this instantly knocked him to the ground. The X-Type Jaguar continued on its destructive path dragging the gunman underneath it. A split second later the rear of the car bounced up as the rear wheels, still being driven at their maximum revolutions drove over the now shattered, torn and dead body of the gunman.
John flicked the gearshift into D, the spinning momentum of the car started to stop as the four wheel drive system strained to change the cars direction. Agonisingly slowly the spinning stopped as the traction control again took charge. The Jaguar sped forward, a slight shake of the rear soon corrected. John sped towards the exit road of the service area. All he wanted to do was put as much distance between himself and the gunmen as possible. The two remaining gunmen took aim and fired, a rear side window of the Jaguar shattered as a bullet found its target. Apart from a few cuts on the back of his neck, caused by the flying glass, John was uninjured. To John the whole incident had taken a couple of minutes, to everyone watching it had been less than ten seconds.
Above the mayhem DCS Hughes could hear two male voices shouting to each other, “stop the car; don’t let him get out.” There was more gunfire and everyone there could clearly hear the sound of bullets hitting