Critical Threat by Nick Oldham

squishing his face up, as required by the Health & Safety risk assessment. It hurt his ears as he forced it down over his skull, making him suspect that the size of his head had also expanded in line with his body.
    Fortunately the journey was over quickly. They stopped outside number twelve. Henry shouted, ‘Go!’ whilst dropping out of the carrier at the same time, closely followed by the sergeant. Henry stood to one side as the well-trained and regimented team descended on the front door. He glanced at the house, only ever having seen photographs of it in the operational order. He took in the door and windows, saw curtains drawn upstairs and down, no lights visible.
    The two leading officers brandished sledgehammers, the one behind them wielding a one-man door-opener which was basically a heavy tube of iron with a flattened end and handles used as a mini battering ram. Behind these three officers came the remaining four, all in a disciplined line. Their job, once the door had been battered down, was to tear into the house. Two would go for the stairs and two would go for the ground floor, with their remaining colleagues piling in behind them, just to ensure the house was unoccupied as promised.
    They crossed the pavement in two strides. They were then at the front door, which they attacked without mercy but with great accuracy, their movements practised and choreographed by months of training and other ‘live’ entries, mainly into drug dealers’ houses.
    For a few moments it was sweet to watch.
    The sledgehammers swung at the door hinges at the right-hand side of the door, one high, one low. Henry marvelled at the precision and the fact that the officers didn’t smash each other’s heads in; at the same time, the third officer swung the door-opener at the mortise lock. All three implements whammed simultaneously into the flimsy-looking door.
    Henry braced himself, expecting the door to burst off its hinges, readying himself to follow the sergeant in. He’d seen it happen dozens of satisfying times.
    Except in this case.
    The door remained intact. Didn’t even shudder in its casing. From the blows it received, it should have been halfway down the living room, and Henry realized immediately that it must have been reinforced, otherwise it would have been on its way to matchstick city.
    Undaunted, the officers raised and aimed their battering tools again.
    â€˜
Movement, rear door
,’ came a shout into Henry’s earpiece from one of the constables around the back.
    A horrible, nauseous dread coursed through Henry, and a feeling of panic.
    â€˜Not good,’ he breathed to himself as the sledgehammers reconnected with the door – and still it held. ‘Situation report,’ he said into the mouthpiece of his PR, which was attached to his helmet.
    â€˜
Rear kitchen door opening … one male at the door … Asian
,’ the officer said. ‘
Pistol in hand – armed!
’
    Henry whacked the sergeant’s shoulder. She turned and looked at him, her face a mask of consternation.
    â€˜I thought this was supposed to be an empty house,’ she shouted.
    Henry did not have time to get into discussion. He yelled, ‘Tell ’em to stop’ – he pointed at the officers by the door – ‘stay here and watch the door and don’t try to go in. I’m going round.’
    She nodded and turned to yell some orders.
    Henry ran up the road, hearing the word, ‘
Shit!
’ come through the earpiece from the officer at the backdoor.
    His kit was extremely heavy, topped by the riot helmet, and he felt like he was running in slow motion. He skidded at the gable end of the terrace, then into the cobbled back alley, high brick walls either side of him and a paved drainage channel running down the centre. The three officers who had gone to the rear of the house were standing in the alley, looking through the door into the yard of number twelve,