Right now she felt exposed, and she hated the sensation. Sure, she was armed, but as she watched a family of Asian tourists stroll by, their kids yelling excitedly at the swans that graced the water, she knew drawing her weapon would have to be a last resort.
Decker had arrived at the park fifteen minutes before her and undertaken a patrol of the area where Miles said he wanted to meet, his voice over her earpiece confirming she was clear to proceed.
He’d hidden himself away now, unseen to even her trained eye and despite her attempts to seek him out.
‘Stop it,’ his voice had commanded after less than a minute. ‘Relax. You spot me, you’ll give my position away to anyone watching you.’
‘Sorry.’
‘You’re out of practice, Delacourt.’
Her top lip had curled at the insult, but she knew he was right.
She sighed and began another loop of the Serpentine’s northern curve, crossing the bridge and turning right to follow the path alongside the Long Water.
A chill wind created choppy waves upon the lake’s surface.
Her eyes swept the immediate area, taking in the two landscape gardeners who moved amongst the ornamental gardens, tidying up the detritus that had been cast aside by visitors.
Footsteps approaching from behind her snapped her out of her reverie and she spun around, ready to fight.
A man ran towards her dressed in a long-sleeved top and running shorts. He ignored her as he ran past, the music from the headphones in his ears emitting a slight rhythmic hiss.
She turned back to her route, exhaling. He was no threat – no professional assassin would run in headphones, let alone have the music turned up that loud. It simply deadened the senses, and didn’t allow for evasive action.
A dog barked on the other side of the lake, closely followed by another higher pitched yelp.
She looked where the sound came from, and watched while the owners of the two mutts did their best to pull the dogs away from each other as they strained on their leads. When the attempted fight had been broken up, the lady with the larger dog raised her hand in apology and hurried away.
The path wound between the lake and small copses of trees – not ideal for surveillance, and she forced her shoulders to relax. A statue to her left evoked childhood memories of hiding in the school library as an eight-year-old, her head buried in a fantasy tale that helped dull the reality of her own life.
She saw Miles before he noticed her.
He looked much more worn down than when he’d interviewed her in Berlin after the attack on the compound in Cyprus.
He wore a dark woollen coat, but had left it unbuttoned so that his charcoal grey suit showed, and she wondered also if he’d purposefully done so to enable him to withdraw a gun.
She tried to recall whether he was left- or right-handed, and then forced herself to relax. Both she and Decker were armed, and if Miles tried anything she doubted whether he would survive to squeeze the trigger.
Lack of sleep was etched into his features and as he drew closer, she saw that his eyes were bloodshot.
‘Eva.’
‘Miles.’
She waited, unwilling to start the conversation, knowing her silence would unnerve him. If she spoke first, she would appear weak.
And despite Decker’s comment that she was out of practice, she certainly wasn’t weak.
‘Thanks for coming.’
She acknowledged the comment with a snort. ‘I don’t think I had a lot of choice, did I?’
‘There’s a lot going on, Eva. I won’t lie to you – I think there’s a leak in the Section.’
‘No shit.’
She brushed past him, then stopped as his hand wrapped around her arm. ‘Eva, listen to me.’
She rounded on him. ‘Why should I listen to you?’
‘Because I might be the only friend you’ve got there at the moment.’ He dropped his hand and gestured to the grass next to the path. ‘Let’s walk over here, away from other people.’
Eva glanced over her shoulder.
A woman was walking towards them, her hands laden with shopping bags, her mobile phone tucked under her ear.
In the other direction, the family with children were approaching, the kids’ playfulness now tempered by an obvious tiredness caused by exuberant play, jet lag, or both.
She followed Miles into the shadows under the trees, letting him walk ahead of her.
His whole posture spoke of someone who expected to be under surveillance but he smiled as he stopped and turned to face her.
‘Eva, you can trust me.’
‘I don’t believe you. You were the one who suggested Alex and I stay in the hotel in Berlin. Why was that?’
‘It’s the first place that came to mind. Where are the twins?’
‘Somewhere safe.’
‘They’re six years old, Eva. They need to be cared for properly.’
‘They are. Who’s the leak in the Section?’
‘I’m still trying to gather evidence.’
‘That doesn’t help me. Why did you want to meet?’
‘I want us to stay in contact with each other. It’s the only way I can guarantee your safety.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘I don’t believe you. In fact, I think—’
The tree trunk next to her exploded a split second before Miles barrelled into her, knocking her to the ground.
‘Get down!’
She tumbled underneath him, rolling away and covering her head with her hands as a second shot echoed over the landscape.
Someone cried out, and Eva lifted her head from the soft wet grass to see the woman with the shopping bags sprawled on the path, her purchases spilled around her, and a large pool of blood pulsing from her body.
The family were on the ground only metres away, the mother’s face ashen as she held her son to her chest, her husband cradling their daughter.
‘Are you injured?’ Eva yelled.
The man shook his head.
‘Stay down!’
The family did as they were told, a moment before a third shot rang out, and Eva buried her head in the grass, fuming.
She’d been set up, walking straight into a trap, and the man lying prone next to her had used himself as the bait.
She heard more gunfire, a different tone this time, and lifted her gaze to see what was going on.
Decker emerged from the shadows, firing his gun at a target on the boundary of Kensington Gardens to her left. He ran over to Eva, grabbed her by the arm and began to pull her away.
‘Let’s go,’ he said. ‘I winged the shooter. We don’t have much time to follow his trail.’
She scrambled to her feet and allowed herself to be dragged back to the path.
‘Wait!’
Eva glanced over her shoulder at Miles’s shout.
He raised himself into a crouch, his face stricken.
‘You said I could trust you,’ she yelled, and then followed Decker.
Seven
Decker led the way out of the park and across Bayswater Road, weaving through the traffic that coursed past, the drivers oblivious to the drama unfolding around them.
Eva gasped as she narrowly avoided colliding with a cyclist, and then picked up her pace, tucking her weapon into her belt and pulling down her sweatshirt to conceal it.
Safely on the other side of the road, her heart rate steadying, she matched Decker pace for pace.
Sirens blared as the emergency services converged on the park, pedestrians stopping in their tracks and turning to face the noise, a mixture of surprise and fear on their faces.
Eva pushed past them. She knew they had to get away, to put as much distance as possible between them and the police, but now wasn’t the time.
Now, they had to find the person behind the shooting.
Decker pointed to the pavement under their feet.
‘He’s bleeding.’
Sure enough, a regular spatter of blood stains marked their adversar
y’s escape route.
‘He’s heading towards Paddington Station,’ she said.
‘If he makes it, we’ve lost him forever. We have to find him before he gets there.’
Eva craned her neck until she could look over the heads of the people in front of her.
Ahead, she could see a figure staggering drunkenly, the pedestrians around him frowning and shaking their heads as they passed.
A couple walking towards Eva and Decker were laughing.
‘Christ, if he can’t handle his drink, he shouldn’t have started so early,’ the man said, before the rest of the conversation faded into the distance behind Eva.
‘Samuel Parkes,’ she muttered. ‘You’re right – we were set up.’
She surged forward, but Decker put a restraining hand on her arm.
‘Easy. He’s not going anywhere fast, and we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves. We need to wait until we’re off this main road.’
Eva slowed her pace, but had to agree with the older assassin.
They had to corner Parkes away from prying eyes.
As it was, the pavement was packed, and she checked her watch, surprised to see it was already noon.
A businessman jostled her as he passed, his once impeccable suit crumpled as if he’d been sitting in a meeting all morning, and his phone pressed to his ear as he barked orders.
The aroma of perfume assaulted her senses as they passed a department store, and she slowed her pace to navigate around shoppers exiting the building with bulky purchases and heavy bags.
A squeal of brakes reached her ears as a bicycle courier swerved off the road and onto the pavement with little regard for the pedestrians, and she side-stepped to avoid colliding with him before ducking behind Decker and using his bulk to clear her way rather than take on the crowds by herself.
‘Here we go,’ he said, and picked up his pace once more.
They zigzagged through the crowd, Eva checking her watch periodically to give inquisitive bystanders the impression they were late for an appointment rather than in pursuit of one of the Section’s most dangerous and unpredictable rogue assassins.
As they jostled passers-by, Eva peered around Decker to try to catch a glimpse of their quarry.
Parkes stumbled, clutching hold of his right thigh as he tried to put some distance between himself and his pursuers.
Eva glanced down at the pavement.
The spots of blood had fallen more closely together, and seemed heavier.
‘He’s dying.’
‘Good,’ said Decker.
‘Not good. I want to talk to him first.’
‘You could have told me that before.’
‘Sorry,’ she said, unable to hide the sarcasm in her voice. ‘I had my head buried in some grass while two men were exchanging gunfire.’
He said nothing, but clenched his jaw and forged ahead, weaving between a section of scaffolding poles protruding from a building’s façade while ignoring the warning signs for the construction works above their heads.
Parkes suddenly ducked to his right and disappeared from view.
‘Shit.’
They began to run, quickly closing the distance, and found a narrow alleyway.
There was no sign of Parkes.
‘He’s managed to stem the blood flow.’ Eva checked over her shoulder, but the crowd was moving fast and no-one looked to see what she and Decker were doing.
She withdrew her gun and edged further into the alley, Decker at her side.
A few yards in, the alleyway widened, and split into two.
Tall buildings either side cast shadows over each thoroughfare, while bins and abandoned junk obscured their view.
‘Which one?’ she hissed.
‘Split up. You take the left one. I’ll meet you at the other end.’
‘Okay.’
She began to sidle towards the left-hand spur.
‘Eva?’
‘What?’
‘Be careful, yeah? Answers aren’t worth dying for.’
She nodded, then took a deep breath, set her shoulders, and entered the secondary alley.
A cloying stench of urine and rotten food struck her immediately, the narrow space not allowing much air from the thin strip of sky visible above.
Her feet scuffed through discarded food wrappers and cigarette packets, and she lowered her gaze to check where she was treading.
She couldn’t afford to trip and land on a used hypodermic needle.
Every one of her senses were screaming at her to get out of the narrow space, to run.
She needed answers though, and despite Decker’s advice, she didn’t want to kill Parkes unless it was absolute necessary.
A shuffling sound further along the alleyway reached her ears, and she froze.
The weight of the weapon in her hands gave her a sense of familiar comfort, but it didn’t stop her heart ratcheting up a notch.
A rat scurried out from behind one of the bins, nosed its way through a discarded crisp packet, and then scurried away with its find.
Eva breathed out, but didn’t relax.
In the distance, the sirens stopped and she realised they were rapidly running out of time.
Once the police began to speak to witnesses, especially the family she had spoken to, the hunt would begin.
She wondered fleetingly whether Miles Newcombe had escaped the park before the emergency services had arrived. She quickly discarded the thought – he wasn’t her problem right now. She’d worry about his treachery later.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end, and she slowed as she approached a rusting green-coloured bin on the left-hand side of the alleyway.
Its position created a problem.
The space between its outer edge and the right-hand side of the alleyway was such that she would have to squeeze past, and there was every chance she would be heard.
She swallowed.
Transferring the weight of the gun to her right hand, she crouched and tried to peer under the wheels of the bin, in case Parkes had hidden behind it.
It was no use – there was too much litter that had been shoved and kicked underneath the bin, and it blocked her view.
She checked over her shoulder to make sure Parkes hadn’t doubled back and cornered her.
The alleyway behind her was deserted.
Realising that she had delayed enough, she moved to the right-hand side of the bin and began to sidle past it, careful not to let her clothing snag on the sharp edges.
As she reached the other end, she swung round and aimed the gun at the space behind it.
There was no-one there.
Movement behind her reached her ears, and she swung round, weapon raised.
Parkes emerged from a doorway, the deep recess a relict of Victorian architectural design.
The meagre light gave his features a grotesque mask-like effect, highlighting the manic grin he wore.
‘Eva Delacourt.’
Eva edged backwards until her back was against the opposite wall. ‘Stay where you are, Parkes.’
He chuckled. ‘It’s not like I’m going to run anywhere.’
‘I’d rather not take chances, that’s all.’
‘Your days are numbered. You and me? We’re literally a dying breed.’
‘Unfortunately, Parkes, you have a tendency to return from the dead.’
He choked out a laugh. ‘No thanks to you.’
‘Is that what this is all about – revenge?’
He shrugged, before his face contorted and he clutched at his leg with both hands. When he recovered from the spasm of pain that wracked his body, he glared at her.
‘You were lucky to escape in Berlin.’
‘I wasn’t lucky. You were careless. You were so busy trying to make sure your face wasn’t picked up by the security cameras, you didn’t take into account that I’d see you from the reception area.’
He cursed.
‘Who told you I’d be there?’
He shook his head.
Eva took a step closer, angling the weapon until it was trained on his other leg.
‘Who sent you? Was it Miles Newcombe?’
‘Fuck you.’
She squeezed the trigger.
Parkes collapsed, screaming.
Eva watched dispassionately as he writhed on the floor, his hands moving from his right thigh to his shattered left knee.
She took a step closer, and aimed the gun at his head.
‘Last chance, Parkes.’
He cackled, clutching his side, and then turned his head and spat onto the pavement before glaring at her.
‘You don’t know who you’re dealing with, Delacourt.’
‘Yes, I do.’ Eva squeezed the trigger twice; a double tap to his head and chest, before she stared dispassionately at the man who had tried to kill Alex and his sister.
‘And this time, Parkes, you can stay dead.’
Eight
Miles ran over to the woman who lay spread-eagled on the ground, but it was no good.
She’d died instantly, the sweet scent of spilled orange juice permeating the air around her.
He turned and hurried over to the family who were starting to get to their feet, the mother hysterical.
Raising his hands, he spoke to the man in a calm voice.
‘Are any of you hurt?’
The man shook his head. ‘What is going on? Terrorist?’
‘He’s gone now.’
‘Are you police?’
‘No. I’m not with the police. They’ll be here soon, though.’ He gestured towards the park entrance. ‘You should wait over there for them. Don’t let the kids look back, okay?’
The man nodded, then gestured to his wife and they began to hurry away.
Miles watched them for a moment, then sprang into action.
He jogged away from the scene of the shooting, heading for the fountains that bisected the Basin at its northern end, then swerved left and headed towards a different exit than the tourists had taken, keen to avoid the armed police and military personnel that would no doubt be converging upon the park within minutes.
He lost himself within the throng and kept his head down, while all around him women screamed in terror, their cries blending in with those from the children who were being bundled away from the scene of the shooting by panicked parents.
Assassins Retribution Page 3