Outlaws: Inside the Violent World of Biker Gangs (5 page)

Tank couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing: it was as if he was speaking to someone from another planet. Tank may have been young but the events of the past few days had left no doubt in this mind that the Ratae were deadly serious and not the type of gang to simply put on a pointless show of force. But it didn’t really matter what Maz thought. They had covered themselves with the Angels by telling him what was going on. If he didn’t feel the need to act on the information, that was down to him. And if he ended up getting hurt, he’d only have himself to blame.

Back at the house, Boone sat at the base of the stairs and slipped out of his patches. He unzipped and took off his leather jacket so he was wearing only his t-shirt. He put his patches back on and zipped his jacket over the top of them. Dozer, who had been sitting on the beer-stained sofa at the
side of the room, was looking on, his face slowly morphing into a confused frown.

‘What you doing bro?’

‘They’re not getting my fucking patches,’ said Boone.

Dozer shook his head slowly. ‘Really? I’m dying with mine on.’

The words took Boone’s breath away like a kick in the gut. So much had happened so quickly that there had been precious little opportunity to take stock. Now for the first time the full reality of the situation they were facing, of what was about to happen, began to dawn on him. This was serious. This was totally fucking serious.

‘What do you mean dying?’

‘Come on Dog. You don’t think we’re getting out of this alive do you?’

‘Shit. Fuck. I don’t think we are as it goes.’

‘Exactly.’

Boone was surprised to see how steady his hands were as he unzipped his jacket for the second time, removed his patches, replaced his jacket and restored his patches to their rightful place over the top. He then turned to Dozer, a sudden wave of absolute calm washing over him.

‘I’m with you. I’m dying with mine on as well.’

Stationed downstairs at the front of the house, his view of the street obscured by the barricades and boarded-up windows, Boone could only hear, not see, the arrival of the Ratae raiding party. Tyres screeched and screamed as the first vehicles appeared. Dozens of heavy boots stomped up and down the pavement outside; iron crowbars and baseball bats clattered and clanged against the metal grids as the attackers probed for weaknesses. Above it all was Scout’s voice, manically barking orders like an insane general at the head of an invading army.

Throughout the house, each Pagan had chosen his battle station. Boone, armed with a heavy pickaxe handle, was on one side of the door panel that had deliberately been left vulnerable. Opposite him stood Link, grasping the Webley sawn-off shotgun – the only firearm in the house – so tightly that all the blood had drained out of his knuckles. Two more Pagans were at the back of the property and four more in the centre of the living room as a floating backup. The remainder were spread across the second floor, guarding the top of the stairs and manning the windows that overlooked the street. But if all went according to plan, it was Link and Boone who would bear the brunt of the first wave of attack.

As luck would have it, the plan worked like a dream.
After a brief period of eerie silence, a flurry of kicks and clouts impacted against the unprotected door panel and it quickly gave way. Half a dozen hands appeared and frantically tore at the edges of the hole to make it larger, a split second later a head poked its way through. The head turned slowly upwards, just in time to see the twin barrels of the shotgun swing up to meet it. Link fired at point blank range. The face vanished leaving a cloud of red mist and a scream of agony in its wake.

Link immediately dropped to one knee, reloaded, poked the gun through the hole in the door and let rip with a second shot. This time a jet of white-hot flame shot out of the top of the gun and the whole weapon fell apart in his hand. He reeled back, clutching at his scorched flesh as the head and shoulders of a second Ratae came crawling through the hole. Boone swung down on the head of the invader with his pickaxe handle using all his strength. The man’s body went limp, blocking the gap for those behind.

Out in the street, they could still hear Scout screaming at the top of his lungs. ‘Get in there! Fucking get in there!’ seemingly oblivious to the fact that at least two of his men had already been badly hurt. Such was his power that the members of his club would rather risk injury during the attack than face his wrath for refusing to take part.

The Ratae now turned their attention to the large bay window to the right of the front door, frantically trying to pry off the barricades. Link and Boone fought them off as best they could, using their weapons like battering rams to smash into the faces and bodies of anyone who got too close. The other Pagans in the living room joined in but they knew it was impossible to stop them all.

With their attention distracted, Boone and the others did not see the body blocking the doorway being pulled free. Almost immediately, dozens of Ratae began kicking and throwing their weight against the frame again and again until it split and splintered open. Dozens of enemy came streaming through into the building. The first few were taken out by furious hits from bats and bars but more and more followed, clambering over the bodies of their fallen comrades and the Pagans soon found themselves in imminent danger of being overrun.

Everything and anything became a weapon in the desperate battle to hold their ground. Chairs, crash helmets, fire extinguishers, table legs, even hi-fi speakers were all thrown and swung and crashed against the invaders but it was no good, the sheer weight of numbers meant there was nothing they could do. Abandoning their outer posts, the Pagans made a hasty retreat upstairs to their own private Alamo.

The Ratae followed close behind and it was only now that an element of sheer folly in their plan of attack became clear. The narrow staircase on the left side of the living room was only wide enough for one person to ascend at a time, but the landing that overlooked it allowed up to half a dozen Pagans to simultaneously attack anyone making their way up.

The first Ratae managed to use sheer momentum to barge his way past those at the top and did not stop until he found himself in the bathroom that lay directly on from the stairway. Inside and surrounded by Pagans, he realised he was in serious trouble and took desperate measures to get out of there, turning around and making a perfect swan dive headfirst down the stairs in order to escape.

A second wave of Ratae made a charge, led by a man with a shotgun of his own. Link was desperately looking for a weapon and eventually grabbed the first thing to hand – an old manual typewriter – heaving it down the stairs towards the mob surging towards him. The lead Ratae ducked, but not far enough. The metal bottom edge of the machine caught him just behind the forehead and sliced off a neat strip of skin and hair all the way to his crown. The scalped man fell back, eyes wide, screaming in agony. Another headed towards Boone who hacked at him with the samurai sword before kicking him back down the stairs.

Other Pagans closed in around the landing, raining down blows on the fresh waves of Ratae with unmitigated ferocity, driving them back time and again. It didn’t matter how many of them there were: the narrow staircase gave the Pagans a supreme tactical advantage. Like the 300 Spartans defending the pass at Thermopylae, the superior numbers of the enemy made little difference. There was no way the Ratae were ever going to be able to break through.

Scout switched tactics, pulling his men back to regroup so Boone and some of the others moved to the front bedroom, overlooking the street. A sea of Ratae heaved about on the road in front of them, loading shotguns and preparing petrol bombs.

The Pagans had Molotov cocktails of their own already prepared, along with weighty chunks of stone and brick with which they could pelt the enemy. Rabbi lit the fuses of two of the petrol bombs then handed them to Boone before lighting two more for himself. Boone stepped forward but then did nothing, caught in a moment of bizarre illogicality. He couldn’t work out what to do. If he threw the petrol
bomb it would explode inside the room as the windows were closed. He couldn’t open the windows because both his hands were full. At the same time, he couldn’t smash the windows because this was the clubhouse and he’d be pulled up at the next meeting and forced to explain himself. He’d have to pay for the damage and might even be busted back down to prospect.

He felt as though he was standing there forever, but in reality it was only a fraction of a second before the answer suddenly came to him.
Just smash the fucking window, you fucking idiot
. Boone kicked out the glass and threw down the first bottle, sending some of the Ratae scattering. Up until that point the attackers had not paid much attention to the upstairs windows at the front of the building, but all that was about to change.

As Boone and Rabbi rained their liquid fire down into the street, the attackers replied with petrol bombs of their own. Little wonder that confused eyewitnesses would later report that the Ratae were throwing petrol bombs and that the Pagans were catching them and throwing them back.

In truth, the Ratae’s petrol bombs were having a devastating effect. All around Boone and the others, furniture and fittings began to burst into flames. The enemy then began using their shotguns to fire up at the windows. Boone saw one Ratae take careful aim and sidestepped to safety just in time. But Rabbi was too slow. Boone watched as the blast tore through the open window, passed directly through the middle of Rabbi’s body and ripped a massive hole in the plaster of the wall directly behind him. Rabbi had been shot. He was a dead man. He had to be a dead man.

Rabbi stood motionless in the window frame for a
second, his lower jaw hanging down slackly. He slowly turned to Boone and then shrugged. Boone stared at the spot where he had seen the shotgun pellets pass through the body of his friend: there was nothing there. There wasn’t a mark on him. It made no sense. Boone had been so certain that Rabbi had just been shot in the middle of the chest – the mark was still there in the wall behind him – but now he could only assume that somehow he had been mistaken.

There was no time to dwell: two more petrol bombs landed in the room and the fire intensified, flashing over the ceiling and threatening to engulf all those inside. The wooden shelves, chest of drawers and even the state-of-the-art music system were now all ablaze. Boone and the others made a run for the door and once they were all safely through, he slammed it shut to prevent the fire spreading into the hallway. As he gripped the handle, he could feel it pulling away from him as the diminishing oxygen levels in the room created a suction effect. Boone held on even more tightly, well aware that if the door were to spring open now it would create a backdraft that would send a fireball raging through the entire property and kill them all.

But the suction quickly became more powerful and Boone found himself having to hold on with both hands. It was only when the handle started to turn back and forth that he realised what was really going on. He let go of the door and it sprang open and out came Tank who had somehow been left behind when everyone else had made their hasty exit.

Fires were burning everywhere now and the whole of the upstairs of the house was filled with thick, acrid smoke. The Pagans had no choice but to go to the one place the flames had yet to reach – the downstairs living room. As
they cautiously descended they were brought up short by a deafening explosion that echoed around them. It sounded like a massive gunshot but no one could see where it had come from and no one seemed to have been hit. It would only be much later that they would realise the sound had been caused by the intense heat of the fire cracking the entire side wall of the house.

The Pagans gasped when they reached the base of the stairs. It wasn’t just that the room looked as though a tropical storm had torn through it, it was the fact that there was not one single member of the Ratae anywhere. It seemed too good to be true. The Pagans carefully checked around all the corners and alcoves, expecting an ambush to be launched at any moment, but it soon became obvious that their attackers had fled. The battle had lasted a couple of minutes at most and ended almost as quickly as it had started.

A siren sounded in the street outside as a solitary patrol car arrived on the scene. It wasn’t exactly a proportionate response. The attack on the clubhouse just happened to coincide with a major diplomatic event in the Warwickshire area which had stretched the capabilities of the local police force – the smallest in all of England – to its absolute limit. When dozens of terrified neighbours and passers-by began calling 999 to report what was going on in George Street, that single car was all that was available.

The two unarmed officers – one young, one middle aged – who emerged from the vehicle were completely out of their depth: nothing in their experience or training had prepared them for anything like this. The eyewitness reports had described a scene that seemed more suited to the
Lebanon than sleepy Leamington Spa. As well as the shotguns and the petrol bombs, there had also been reports of at least one man running into the street with his hair on fire. But as far as the police could make out, the whole area was now deserted. The officers had no real idea of what had taken place, who had been involved or what had happened to any of them.

Unwilling and unable to enter the still burning building themselves, they gingerly called through the smashed-in doorway for any inhabitants to come out and make themselves known. The thirteen Pagans remained out of sight behind the stairwell until the police officers moved away to investigate the back of the building.