by Chris Ryan
Of course.
The embassy must have been following me the whole time, he realised. Of course my friend Terry would look out for me. They must have seen Mohawk and the others lifting me from the car park and moved to intercept as soon as they could.
They’ve rescued me.
Thank God.
He glanced back at Mohawk and his two mates. Ring One had stirred and was coughing up shit from his lungs. Mohawk groaned. Ring Two still wasn’t moving. They were disorientated but from the looks of them, they wouldn’t be for much longer.
The car alarm continued to sound its distress note as Street unbuckled his seat belt. He leaned over and snatched up his jacket, blocking out the throbbing pain in his ribs. Then he half-turned towards the sliding door on the left side of the Caravan. Stopped, remembered the dossier and searched frantically around for it. He found it lying on the floor next to the middle row of seats. Street snatched it up, folded it in half at the waist and stashed it in the inside pocket of his jacket.
He placed his jacket over his wrists, hiding the plasticuffs. His pose looked slightly awkward, but it was the best he could do. Better than letting people see the cuffs and making all sorts of assumptions, none of which would be good for him.
The two civilians were less than five metres from the door now. There was no sign of his rescuers debussing from the Explorer. Street wondered what was taking them so long.
Up ahead, Mohawk winced with pain as he tried shifting his weight. Street figured he had only another couple of seconds before the pair of them realised what was going on. He shuffled forward, leaned over to the left-side door and tried popping it open. The panelling had been warped out of shape. It wouldn’t budge.
Behind him, Ring One was making a deep keening sound in his throat as he stirred. Glass tinkled across the floor as the guy shook his head clear.
Street tried the door again.
Still nothing.
In the next moment the two civilians reached the side of the Caravan.
Street saw them through the window. A woman decked out in yoga leggings and a sweat-drenched halter top, and a heavyset black guy in loose-fitting jeans and a Washington Wizards basketball t-shirt.
The guy in the Wizards shirt stepped forward and wrenched open the sliding door from the outside with a mighty effort. Street did a quick check to make sure his plasticuffs were concealed under the jacket. Then he slid out of his seat and stumbled down to the blacktop. Wizards and Yoga Woman took an arm each and helped him away from the wreckage.
‘Sir?’ Yoga Woman said to Street. ‘Can you hear me? Are you hurt?’
Street shook his head slowly. ‘I’m okay, I think.’
‘What about your friends, sir?’
He said nothing.
‘One of them dudes don’t look so good,’ Wizards cut in, nodding at the wagon. ‘That lady in the other ride neither.’ Street looked over at the Explorer. The SUV had stopped in the middle of the junction box, at a right-angle to the Caravan. The front end looked as if a wrecking ball had taken a giant swing at it. The metal grille hung off the front, exposing a tangle of wires and pipes. Smoke hissed out from under the crumpled bonnet.
A woman was trapped behind the wheel. She was screaming for help, begging them to save her baby.
There was no one else in the car.
No embassy officials. No sign of Terry.
Not my rescuers.
Just a mother and her baby in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
A single thought screamed at Street above the ringing in his ears and the flaring pain in his chest.
You’ve got to get out of here.
Now.
‘Someone’s called for help, sir,’ Yoga Woman said. ‘An ambulance is on the way. They’ll be here any minute.’
Street nodded, thinking fast. ‘Stay here, will you? Help my friends.’
‘You’ll be okay, sir?’
‘I’m fine,’ Street lied. ‘Just need to sit down. Don’t worry about me.’
Yoga Woman and Wizards hurried back over to the Caravan like the dutiful citizens they were. Street watched them for a beat. Then he turned and hurried across the junction.
Dozens more bystanders had gathered at the side of the road, many of them taking out their phones to film the scene. Most of the bystanders had spilled out of the fashionable eateries and pubs lining Connecticut Avenue. They were in a well-to-do part of town. Brightly lit streets, with wide, clean sidewalks and quaint stores selling everything the blue bloods of the area needed. Another pair of good Samaritans rushed over to the Explorer. They were trying to do their best to comfort the mother, but it was clear they couldn’t get to her. Not with the Explorer badly bent out of shape.
Yoga Woman and Wizards were at the side of the Caravan, checking on the three toughs inside.Street quick-walked away from the crash, towards the crowd that had quickly formed outside one of the restaurants. A fancy-looking steak house on the corner of the junction, twenty-five metres south of the shattered vehicles. Street threaded his way through the crowd and continued past the bus shelter. Head down, avoiding eye contact. No one stopped him to ask if he was okay. Everyone was transfixed by the mother trapped in the Explorer, screaming for help.His muscles felt sore and stiff. There was a jarring sensation between his temples and every step caused shooting pains to flare up in his back. But Street forced himself to keep moving.
He knew he had to put some distance between himself and the toughs.
Any moment now they’ll get their shit together.
Another step, and the throated growl of an engine reached his ears.
Street risked a glance over his shoulder. Beyond the crowd he glimpsed a dark blue Impala U-turning in the road, a hundred and fifty metres beyond the junction. The escort vehicle. The car Jogger Guy had been driving. He had swung the Impala around, presumably after seeing the accident in his rear-view. Now he was bombing south, moving at a fast clip towards the Caravan.
There was no chance of Jogger Guy spotting him from this distance, Street knew. The dense throng of bystanders outside the steak house was growing by the minute, shielding him from view.
But he couldn’t afford to stick around.
Once the toughs were out of the Caravan, Yoga Woman and the others would inevitably point out the direction Street had gone. He was on a wide residential avenue, with no obvious alleys to escape down or cover to hide behind. As soon as his captors spotted him, he would become a target.
I need to get off the sidewalk.
He looked ahead. Fifty metres to the south there was a curved glass roof overhanging an escalator and steps leading down to a ticket hall. There was a signpost next to the escalator marked with an ‘M’. The local metro station, Street realised.
It had been twenty years since he had used the DC metro. But he remembered the line that passed through here would take him far north, beyond the city limits.
Into Maryland, and safety.
Street quickened his stride. Forty metres to the station now.
Ahead of him a tight press of passengers was spilling out of the station entrance. Commuters, mainly. Men and women dressed in sharp suits. Lobbyists and government lawyers, returning to their expensive mid-town condos after a hard day at the office. Most of them were looking down at their phones. Several others were wearing huge designer headphones or small white earbuds, zoned out to the scene around them. They were utterly oblivious to the crash over at the junction.
Street kept moving.
Thirty metres to the station now.
Then he heard the screams.Glanced over his shoulder again.
The crowd outside the steak house was breaking up. People were diving for cover or rushing back inside the restaurant. Forty metres to the north, the two Samaritans were running across the junction. Then he saw why everyone was running. Ring One was staggering out of the Caravan, brandishing Ring Two’s semi-automatic pistol in his right hand. Mohawk was a step behind. Street couldn’t see Ring Two anywhere. He was
still unconscious inside the wagon, Street guessed. Which wasn’t a big surprise. He’d looked pretty fucked-up after the crash.
The Impala had skidded to a halt a couple of metres downstream from the battered Caravan. Jogger Guy was launching himself out of the vehicle, looking from the Caravan to the Explorer. Mohawk was shouting at him and pointing furiously at the wagon. Jogger Guy rushed over to the Caravan to help out their friends.
As the crowd evaporated, Ring One caught sight of Street to the south of the steak house.
He raised his gun arm, aiming the muzzle at Street.
Then he squeezed the trigger.
The pistol jackhammered. A round exploded from the snout.
The round missed Street and thudded into the trunk of a tree a metre to his right, at his nine o’clock. Panicked cries erupted across the junction. People across the street bolted in every direction, diving into organic grocery shops or Polynesian restaurants. Anywhere that was still open at seven-thirty in the evening.
Street turned and ran.
He moved as fast as his tired legs could carry him. Which wasn’t all that fast.
Twenty metres from the station now. The gunshot had snapped the commuters out of their phone-trance. Fear and confusion spread through the crowd. A few were quick to respond. Those who had caught sight of Ring One turned and hurried back down the escalators, shouting at the others that someone had a gun.
Others stopped just in front of the station entrance, wearing perplexed looks as they processed the scene in front of them. The fleeing civilians, the screams, the car crash to the north. The rest were taking out their phones and filming Ring One, seemingly unconcerned for their own safety.
Two more gunshots thunderclapped through the air.
The first bullet whipped past Street and struck one of the commuters in the neck. A guy in a pinstripe suit who’d been standing dumbly in front of the escalators, Beats by Dre headphones clamped around his head, his focus completely on his iPhone screen.
He spasmed and made a garbled noise in the back of his throat. Blood sprayed out of the exit wound before he flopped uselessly to the ground. A split second later the second round hit a woman in a pencil skirt, striking her in the calf as she ran for cover. She fell as if somebody had tripped her up, landing on her front outside a vegan food store. Her phone slipped from her grip, the screen shattering as it clunked against the sidewalk.
Street kept moving.
He dropped to a kind of crouch, shrinking low to make himself a smaller target. A fourth round glanced off the row of newspaper vending machines two or three metres short of the metro escalator, at Street’s one o’clock.
A second passed.
Then two.
He heard no more gunshots.
Street was ten metres from the station entrance now. He crouched down by the bus shelter and looked back at the junction, his heart beating fast. The guy in the pinstripe suit was lying face-down on the concrete five metres away, blood pooling rapidly around his lifeless corpse. Still wearing his headphones. A couple of metres further along the woman in the pencil skirt was screaming in agony as she pawed at her rag-order leg.
In the distance, police sirens sounded.Ring One had stopped shooting. He stood next to Mohawk beside the Caravan, sixty metres away. The two of them appeared to be having a heated exchange. Mohawk gestured angrily at the pistol Ring One was gripping.
Jogger Guy was ignoring the argument. He was busy helping Ring Two out of the Caravan, his arm wrapped around the guy’s waist.
The sirens grew louder.
Which told Street the cops were only a few blocks away now. Another thirty seconds until they hit the junction, he guessed.He suddenly understood why the toughs weren’t giving chase. And why Mohawk was so pissed at Ring One. The guy had turned a T-bone crash into a homicide. They would have no choice but to clear off before the cops showed up in force. A foot pursuit was out of the question. There were witnesses who could identify Ring One as the shooter.
Getting off the grid was their priority now. Laying low. They were unlikely to know the city as well as Street, either.Mohawk and Ring One broke off their argument. Ring One hurried over to Jogger Guy, helping him walk Ring Two over to the Impala. Mohawk wrenched the rear passenger door open then stepped aside as Jogger Guy and Ring Two bundled their unconscious comrade into the back seat. Then Ring One rushed back over to the Caravan, dragged Soccer Mom out and shoved her into the back of the Impala alongside Ring Two. He climbed in after her while Jogger Guy dived behind the wheel.
Mohawk stopped beside the front of the Impala. Looked towards Street. Glaring at him as he stroked a finger across his neck in a throat-slitting gesture. As if to say, This isn’t over. You might have escaped today, but we’ll find you again.
Then Mohawk jumped into the front passenger seat.
Jogger Guy gunned the engine.
The Impala fishtailed, burning rubber as the toughs accelerated north on Connecticut Avenue. Heading away from the approaching police sirens.
Street watched them go, relief flooding through him.
Thank God, he thought. I’m safe.
For now, at least.
Ten seconds until the cops arrived.
He turned and hurried the last few metres to the metro station. All around him people were lying flat on the ground, hands over their heads. Others were still filming the action on their phones or making panicked calls. Nobody rushed over to the two victims. Street raced down the escalator leading to the station hall.
He had no intention of hanging around when the police showed up. Homicide detectives in the US were nothing if not thorough. They would take a long hard look at Street if they found him at the scene. They would wonder, inevitably, why a bunch of heavies had been chasing him. Had been so desperate to catch him that they had opened fire in the middle of a well-heeled DC neighbourhood. They might even find out about the dossier.And he wasn’t about to let it fall into the hands of the Americans.
Through the fog clouding his brain a single thought stabbed at Street. The toughs had targeted him because of the dossier. They had made a point of retrieving it from his Corolla back when they’d lifted him at the car park. But he had been careful to keep the dossier a secret. Only a handful of people knew of its existence, including his friend . . .
Which could mean only one thing.
Someone had told Mohawk and his cronies about the dossier.
Right now I don’t trust anyone.
There’s only one thing for it, Street decided. He had to get off the grid.
A plan began to take shape in his head as he paced across the ticket hall, threading his way through the tight press of commuters. Lots of people were hunkered down in the hall, crowding the entrance as they peered anxiously up the escalator at the chaos unfolding at street level.
One or two people gave Street curious looks as he brushed past. He glanced down and saw that one of the plasticuff ties was sticking out from beneath the folds of his jacket.
He carried on towards the northbound platform at a steady trot, intensely conscious of his appearance. The cuts and bruises on his head he couldn’t do much about, but he would have to get rid of the plasticuffs as soon as possible. Apart from making him look conspicuous, they were digging painfully into his wrists.
He would find a hardware or general store somewhere over in Maryland. Ask the store owner to cut him free. He could explain that he was on a stag weekend and his friends had played a joke on him. With his English accent, Street thought, he might just be able to pull it off.
He tried to tell himself that things were going to be okay.
You’ve still got the dossier. More than one party is desperate to get their hands on it. Which could strengthen your bargaining position. You could demand more money. Perhaps insist on protection. A new identity, even.
There’s still money to be made from this thing.
If I can stay alive that long.
But first, he needed a place to hide. His options w
ere limited. He had no phone or passport. A grand total of eighty-seven bucks in his wallet plus change. Hardly enough for a cheap room for a night. Not in a place like DC. Using his credit or bank cards was out of the question, of course. The same for anywhere that required ID. Airports, hotels, car rental agencies. Anything that could be linked to his name. He couldn’t risk leaving a trail. He’d been lucky to escape this time.
He would not make the same mistake twice.
What he needed was a hideout. Somewhere no one would think to look for him. A place his enemies wouldn’t know about.
Street smiled with relief as he boarded the next train.
He knew exactly where to go.
SEVEN
Nine thousand miles to the east, ex-Regiment legend John Bald lifted the cold pint to his lips and took a long pull of his beer.
It tasted good.
Almost as good as the view he had of the Thai girl he was currently shagging.
Kamlai Divine sat on the stool to his left, rocking it in a red leather crop-top and a matching mini-skirt that showed off her stunning curves. Behind her, a projection screen across the back wall of the Drunken Monkey pub was showing the football. His beloved Scotland were playing in a World Cup qualifier, and they were one-nil up versus the Bulgarians.
Bald took another swig of his pint and grinned. Football on the telly, pint of Chang in his hand, and a girlfriend half his age with a cracking arse and small-but-perfectly-formed tits. Life really didn’t get much better than this.
Moving to Bangkok, thought Bald.
Best bloody decision I ever made.
Kamlai set down her bottled beer on the counter and smiled suggestively at him. She had diamonds studded in her teeth. One of the reasons she’d caught Bald’s eye at the club where she was working as a bargirl, seven weeks ago.
‘You maybe want massage?’ she said. ‘Strong man like you need massage. All those big muscles.’
‘Maybe later, love.’
Kamlai licked her lips and ran a hand up his leg until her fingers were lightly brushing against his crotch.
‘We could go back to your flat,’ she said in her sing-song voice. ‘Kamlai show you good time.’