‘Oh my God!’ she screamed. ‘What is that?’
Lumbering towards her, tongue flickering, was a monster, jaws dripping, saurian eyes refocusing in the sudden light.
Twenty
Gemma slowly backed away, no longer caring about the danger that Steve posed. The dragon raised its lowered head and stood right up against the partition, towering horridly above her. If that glass screen suddenly dropped, thought Gemma . . .
‘Now will you get out?’ said Steve, jumping forward and grabbing her arm. ‘Or do you want to be eaten alive by the time the cops break through?’
He jerked her backwards and the two of them stumbled out into the corridor, Steve slamming the door shut. Gemma huddled against the wall, feeling sick to her stomach.
‘I had to play along with them,’ said Steve. ‘Fayed never trusted me. If I’d shown the slightest sort of interest in you, we’d both be dead, sweetheart. I had to let him think I was happy to go onto his payroll, that I only wanted to save my own skin.’
‘And so you were!’ Gemma screamed. ‘Don’t you dare sweetheart me, you arsehole!’ She leaned back against the wall. Screaming at Steve had taken the last of her diminishing energy.
‘You were brilliant,’ he said. ‘Because of you, I’m armed and dangerous.’ He patted the Glock. ‘But how are you feeling, after that jab?’
She felt groggy, weak from fright and the pharmaceuticals were fighting it out in her system. Then she remembered the closed circuit cameras. She looked up and, sure enough, there it was, a little hooded camera watching the corridor, sending back all the details of her escape and Steve’s actions to Fayed’s central control room. In a minute the place would be crawling with his stooges and she’d be dead. This time, there would be no reprieve.
‘They’ll be watching this,’ she said, indicating the camera. ‘You’re stuffed, you treacherous, double-dealing prick.’
As Steve looked up, Gemma gathered her remaining strength, knocked him off balance and barged past him, back into the underground parking area and the workshop. Around her, the building was exploding like a war zone. Voices shrieked incomprehensible orders upstairs. Shouts from the street were drowned by a crushing noise. Gemma could hear the labouring tracks of an earthmover outside. The metal roller door bulged from the pressure. She realised now why the cars she’d heard starting up earlier had stopped. There was nowhere for them to go, except straight into the arms of the waiting Special Operation officers. At least Steve was telling the truth about this; Fayed and his people sure had other things on their minds.
Ducking between the parked cars, she searched for a safe hideout. She could hear Steve calling her, her name echoing around the car park, punctuated by the crash of metal and the screaming and shouting from upstairs. Now a deafening noise shook the car park area and the whole building trembled. Gemma spun round, trying to work out what was happening. The earthmover had given up on its attempts to move the roller door and now seemed to be battering the very walls of the building. She saw Steve weaving his way through the cars, calling to her. Another mighty crash and great cracks appeared in the wall near the staircase, zig-zagging as she watched. Another surge of gears from the earthmover and the first of the bricks near the frame of the roller door started crumbling. She saw Steve crawling towards her.
‘Gemma!’ he yelled through the din.
‘Piss off!’ she shouted. ‘Get out of here and start running now. There’ll be a hole in that wall any minute.’
‘Will you listen to me?’ he yelled.
‘The whole place is going to be overrun with the people you’ve sold out,’ she yelled back at him. ‘I’m giving you one chance to get away.’ She tightened her throat against the tears she could feel. Go away, tears, she ordered.
‘Gems,’ he pleaded. ‘Will you see reason? I set this raid up, for Chrissakes.’ He pushed his dark hair back from his eyes in a gesture that once used to make her heart stop. ‘How do you think the guys out there knew to come here now? They’re acting on information received. Received from me!’
‘You lying bastard!’ she shouted. ‘This is my raid. With Ian Lovelock and Angie. I told Mike to send live video feed!’
‘We haven’t got time to argue,’ he said, making a move towards her.
‘Steve,’ she warned, ‘don’t touch me. I never want you to touch me again. If you run now, you can get lost in the confusion. Get your cheating arse out of the country. Do it now. Because I swear I’ll do everything in my power to haul you in once I’m out of here.’
Steve continued to stand in front of her, hands helplessly beside him, palms out-turned, beseeching. A frightful sound made her look around. Huge cracks appeared in several of the wide pillars supporting the centre of the car park area. Smaller cracks radiated from the larger rifts. The damage was spreading fast, no longer confined to the side of the building being charged by the bulldozer.
‘Where am I supposed to run to?’ Steve bellowed. ‘The whole joint is collapsing!’
Ahead of Gemma, one of the large central pillars seemed to tremble. She pivoted round. This is crazy, she thought. A hole punched in a downstairs wall can’t do this sort of damage. What the hell’s going on? For a wild moment she even wondered if an earthquake could be happening simultaneously with the raid. And Steve was right: there was nowhere to go.
The roller door buckled and sagged, bending under the weight of walls that could no longer support themselves. She stopped thinking about Steve, her only thoughts now on survival. Raised voices and racing footsteps alerted her to the arrival of people down the cement staircase. Steve dropped out of sight and Gemma did the same. But she wasn’t quite fast enough. One of the two leading bodyguards saw Gemma and raised his weapon, taking aim on the run. She jumped with fright when the Glock fired nearby. The first bodyguard fell. Good shot, Steve, she thought, in spite of everything. The second man disappeared from sight as the sound of the shot reverberated around the disintegrating car park. Maybe he got both of them, she thought. More likely he’s dived for cover.
She glimpsed the heavy figure of George Fayed turning the corner of the stairs as she ducked back into her hiding spot. Further shots rang out. The roof started to fall, small chunks crashing around her from the rippling ceiling. I don’t want to be buried in here, she prayed, scrambling along the ground. She started crawling away, using the cars as cover, aiming for the collapsing wall near the roller door. Behind the tumbling brickwork, she could see bright light.
This was no earthquake, Gemma realised. The building had been structurally damaged. She remembered Angie telling her how the first floor had been opened out in a continuous space for a wedding reception. And you do that, Gemma thought, by removing the weight-bearing pillars. A thousand people jumping around at the party would have further weakened the structure, and now a D12 battering at the walls and garage door is the last straw.
Fayed’s fortress is coming down like the walls of Jericho.
She scrambled past another parked car, making her way to the roller door. Maybe I’ll be able to hack my way out, she thought, looking around for an implement. But she knew she wouldn’t have the strength. I’m going to die down here, she thought, crushed to death in a drug lord’s fortress.
She was aware of more brilliant light and lifted her head cautiously. Someone with oxy gear was cutting through the metal door. Had the raiding party realised the imminent collapse of the building and now changed their mode of entry? Please don’t fall down on me now, she pleaded. It was then she noticed George Fayed edging his way towards the workshop, a 9 mm Browning double-action automatic in his hand. She saw Steve crouched underneath a car near the workshop and as she watched, he positioned himself at the end of the vehicle, closer to the workshop’s entrance as Fayed circled the area, wild-eyed, sweeping his gun before him. More of the screeching, blinding oxy light now showed as the torch cut through the steel garage
door. In a few moments, Gemma realised, there’d be a hole big enough for entry. That’s if the whole building doesn’t fall down first and crush us all to death. Almost as she thought this, several more chunks of concrete fell from the ceiling, crashing through the windscreen of the car she was beside. I want to be out of here, she prayed, back home with my Taxi cat, licking my wounds, safe in my nest.
The shocking sound of further gunfire in a closed space startled her into red alert. She peered out. What she saw both took her breath away and made her heart start to question her judgment of the man who now had George Fayed pinned down, kicking and cursing, on the oily ground near the workshop. Steve had straddled Fayed and was trying to secure his firing arm, still free and dangerously equipped with the Browning automatic. The Glock was nowhere to be seen.
‘Steve!’ she screamed, scuttling like a crab towards the struggling pair. The frightening whine and skid of ricochet a nanosecond after a bullet shot, made her swing round to see the second bodyguard coming for them, firing as he weaved between the cars. He disappeared, then jumped out to take aim. Gemma dived between two cars. Steve had all the trouble he needed trying to control the powerful and desperate drug lord. She would deal with his offsider. A piece of concrete the size of a small fridge crashed almost on the exact spot she’d just vacated. She peered around it, trying to pinpoint Fayed’s bodyguard. The blaze and glare of the oxy-cutting and the sound of the building above her folding in on itself, distracted her for a second and in that moment, the bodyguard was suddenly in front of Steve, blocking Gemma’s view. She saw the Glock lying on the ground out of Steve’s reach. He’s going to kill Steve, she thought. Without thinking, she grabbed the gun and fired it directly at the bodyguard. Down he went, and an arc of blood painted the cracking pillar nearby as he knocked Steve down, then rolled to a standstill. Gemma executed the best combat roll of her life, flipping right side up with the Glock in her hand again. Steve bellowed something which Gemma couldn’t understand. Fayed scrambled to his feet while Steve, stunned, tried to regain control of his adversary. She swung the weapon at Fayed.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ he said. Gemma slowly lowered the Glock. Fayed’s Browning was now just inches away from Steve’s face. ‘You’re going to get me out of here!’ he said to Steve. He kicked him. ‘Dirty’—kick—‘lying’—kick—‘copper bastard’—double kick.
Gemma could hardly bear to watch.
‘Stop it!’ she yelled uselessly. Fayed didn’t bother turning towards her when he spoke. ‘We’re getting out of here—you and me. Get in the car. Your bitch girlfriend can negotiate with the police. Now!’
Fayed had slowly stooped until he’d picked up the other automatic dropped by his dead bodyguard. The sight of the Browning’s square profile so close to Steve’s half-closed eyes was horrible. One of the Browning twins was trained on Gemma as she froze midstep. ‘Okay, okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll get you out of here.’
Another shout from Fayed and she started moving towards the roller door.
A terrible ripping sound made Gemma turn her head to see the staircase down which Fayed and his now dead bodyguards had run start to buckle, folding in on itself as the corner around which it turned started to collapse. The treble crash of glass smashing accompanied clouds of choking cement dust. Tiny stones stung Gemma’s face.
‘Get me out of here now or your boyfriend’s dead!’ Fayed shrieked through the dust.
Gemma stumbled round fallen debris, past the cracking pillars towards the roller door. Three sides of the square had now been cut in the door and the torch was just starting to eat its firey way through the fourth side of the armoured steel. She flinched as another chunk of ceiling fell down, revealing the underlying criss-crossed steel reinforcements.
Through the dust, Gemma saw something move. At first she thought it was one of the bodyguards, recovering from his wounds. But then she realised that the large, low-moving shape darting among the debris was not human. It was the huge, dinosaur-like reptile, its drooling head swinging fast from side to side, long tongue flicking, rearing up against a pillar. She turned and ran and was about to yell a warning, but the sound of the oxy-grinder rendered her voice useless. And yet a terrible scream penetrated even that. Gemma swung around. A huge torpedo-like weapon struck Fayed, smashing him to the ground. She couldn’t comprehend what was happening. She was aware of Steve rolling to one side, away from the flailing arm that held one of the Brownings. Then he vanished in the gloom. Another frightful shriek, cut off by a choking gurgle, was the last sound George Fayed ever made. Transfixed with horror, she screamed as something loomed up out of the dust and grabbed her. It was Steve. Gemma couldn’t believe her eyes. Despite the imminent collapse of the building around it, the beast continued to disembowel George Fayed, shaking the body from side to side, entrails and shredded flesh flying in ribbons.
‘C’mon,’ Steve shouted. ‘We’re getting out of here!’
In the midst of all the carnage and filth, the din of the oxy gear, the crash of falling masonry, Gemma was aware of the heavy scent of his cologne. Then it all came together in a sickening crescendo—the heavy fragrance, ribbons, shredding, her attacker. Out of the confusion, she tried to grasp something, some insight. Then the roof fell in.
•
Heather Pike’s was the first face that swam into view as Gemma woke up. She looked around, taking in her surroundings: pastel shades, hospital bed, drip posts nearby, and a huge arrangement of late roses in a vase near the black screen of a television. Gemma struggled to get up.
‘It’s okay,’ said Heather. ‘You’re okay, and so is Steve. Mostly. The surgeon just cleaned you up and I think you should stay in for observation. We don’t know how hard you hit your head.’
A young nurse hurried into the room. ‘Your sister’s on her way,’ she said.
Gemma took a deep breath. ‘What happened?’
‘The building you were in collapsed. You and Steve were pulled out. Others weren’t so lucky.’ There was a pause. ‘Do you remember it?’ Heather asked.
Gemma nodded. ‘I just hope the dragon made it,’ she said and started to laugh when she saw the glances exchanged by Heather and the young nurse. She stopped as suddenly, as a spasm of pain hit her flank. ‘I need to make a phone call.’ She reached over and picked up the phone.
As she did, Angie walked in.
‘Speak of the devil,’ said Gemma as Angie leaned over and kissed her. She’d brought an early bunch of jonquils.
‘Ange,’ she said, ‘I was just going to ring you and tell you. His jacket was slashed to ribbons. The night I was attacked. His jacket was cut into strips.’
Angie whipped out her notebook and noted this. She looked up, a puzzled frown on her face. ‘Why does a man wear a slashed jacket?’ she asked.
Twenty-one
The doorbell sounded and Gemma peered sideways out the window. Minkie Montreau was on the doorstep, no longer dressed in her usual black elegance but glowing in a dark red velvet suit over a figure-hugging leopardskin print sweater, a little black hat, iridescent feathers curving round one subtly rouged cheek. Gemma opened the door and was wondering whether or not she should ask her visitor in when Minkie resolved it herself.
‘I’m not staying,’ she said. ‘I won’t come in. Anthony and I are about to leave on a nice cruise together. Courtesy of the Stanford Macquarie Prize.’ She winked. ‘You didn’t know he won? Isn’t that wonderful?’
‘Art prizes have not been uppermost in my mind lately,’ Gemma said.
Minkie continued. ‘Patricia Greengate has been entering the Stanford for years and years. And many other art competitions. Patricia Greengate has never won a sausage.’ Minkie waved the envelope she was holding to make her point. ‘But Anthony Love wins the first major prize he ever enters! Just you wait till the time is right and I ring my contacts in the industry Can you imagine what sort of furore this w
ill create in the so-called art world? Art snake pit, more like it.’
She almost handed Gemma the envelope she was holding, but pulled it back to flutter it around a little more.
‘Your account,’ she said. ‘I’m settling it in person to say thank you. I’m so grateful to you for not saying anything about that little matter on the video you sent me.’ Gemma took the envelope next time it came near, fearing Minkie might never relinquish it.
‘It doesn’t matter now what Patricia’s tiresome husband says or does anymore. She’s divorcing him. I presume it was he who procured your services?’
‘I took myself off the case,’ said Gemma, ‘as soon as I realised there was a conflict of interest.’ Not to mention the fact that my business has collapsed, she didn’t say.
‘It’s a small world, isn’t it?’ laughed Minkie as she trotted off with a wave.
It sure is, thought Gemma, when you’re engaged to work for two parties who happen to share a spouse. Especially when that spouse creates a whole new identity.
She was about to close the door when she saw Mike’s van pulling up. Minkie and Mike passed each other on the top step, Mike turning to take a second glance at the extraordinary feathered figure. Gemma was reminded of some strange mythological beast, half-bird, half-woman. But not, after all, a harpy, she thought. She stood in the doorway, waiting for Mike to come down. He was looking much better than when she’d last seen him, tense and exhausted. She stepped back to let him in, closing the door after him. She looked up at him and he paused on his way down the corridor.
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