by Tim Stevens
The Jaguar fell into a steady pace, maintaining a fixed distance behind them.
Venn had two options, as he saw it. He could continue as he was, cruising, making like he hadn’t spotted the car on his tail.
Or, he could put his foot down and try to outrun the Jaguar.
He wouldn’t achieve this, of course. And by giving the Impala full throttle, he’d reveal to the driver of the Jaguar that he was on to him. That he knew he was being followed.
On the other hand, it would force the other driver to reveal himself. It would strip away the subterfuge and put them on an open footing.
Venn chose the second option.
He muttered to Beth, ‘Hang on,’ and floored the accelerator pedal.
Chapter 49
Lesser men would have cursed in frustration.
Marcus Royle instead acknowledged quite an admiration for Venn’s powers of observation, instinct, and self-preservation.
Royle had kept a steady speed just under the legal limit for most of the ride up the interstate through upstate New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. All the time he’d glanced repeatedly at the phone in its holder on his dashboard. And at the tracking beacon on the display, which showed Venn’s position.
Which remained stationary.
Impatience threatened to get the better of Royle at times. But whenever he felt the urge to put his foot down and make the most of his advantage, make the most of the fact that Venn and presumably Dr Colby seemed to have stopped and were therefore giving Royle a precious chance to catch up with them, he reined himself in. Attracting the attention of some zealous highway patrolman was the very last thing Royle needed right now.
Eventually, after almost two hours’ journey, Royle had observed that he was drawing close to the beacon representing Venn’s tracked phone. And finally, he’d seen his own phone’s marker appear on the screen, pulsing steadily towards the target.
He overshot at first, heading down the interstate before realizing he’d gone past. Doubling back wasn’t much of a problem, and soon Royle was on the offramp and heading toward the motel from which Venn’s signal was emanating.
Royle parked up on the road near the entrance and looked down at the parking lot. A couple of pickups, and a Chevrolet. That would be Venn’s. A rental, no doubt.
The satellite tracking system which had been so invaluable in pinpointing Venn’s location had now outlived its usefulness. It wasn’t precise enough to tell Royle exactly where in the motel Venn and the woman were. Royle assumed Venn would be hypervigilant, given all that had happened to him recently. Therefore Royle couldn’t just waltz in, knocking on the doors of the rooms until he found the one he wanted.
For a moment Royle considered smoking Venn and Dr Colby out. Heading back down the road to the service station he’d passed, loading up with several gallons of gas in containers, spilling a trail of the stuff from the motel outwards, and dropping a match. If the resulting conflagration didn’t kill them, it would drive them out into the open, where they’d be sitting ducks.
But that was too crude. It was using a howitzer to destroy a bug. Royle didn’t work that way.
Instead he decided to wait.
If Venn and Colby were sleeping, or eating, or even having sex together, they’d eventually tire. Would eventually decide they had to keep moving. That was when they’d show themselves.
And Royle had all the time in the world.
In the event, he didn’t have to wait very long. Before he’d been seated there fifteen minutes, the door to one of the first-floor rooms opened and a man peered cautiously out. Then emerged fully.
A woman at his heels.
Venn and Colby.
Royle was far enough away, and the windows of the Jaguar were darkly tinted enough – Royle had checked on that when he’d rented the car – that he wasn’t worried about being recognized himself. Nevertheless, he thought Venn would become suspicious of a sports car parked up there on the road, here in the middle of nowhere.
And he was right.
He watched the woman get into the Chevy and Venn head for the motel office. Idly he considered driving down and taking out the woman, but he knew he wouldn’t get there before Venn came running out.
Instead, Royle waited for Venn to come back to the car, get in and wheel it out, heading up the driveway.
Did he pause momentarily at the entrance? Possibly. But as soon as he was out on the road again, and heading away from Royle, he took off at speed.
So it was a show of defiance. Well, Royle thought, there was no point in pretending the situation was other than what it was.
He drew the gun he’d taken off the policeman in the ambulance, the Smith & Wesson 9 mm. Along with his stashes of cash around the city, Royle kept several spare supplies of Parabellum bullets. The gun was fully loaded. Royle laid it across his lap. He was right-handed, which made it a little more awkward to shoot than if he’d been driving a car in his native Britain, with the wheel on the right-hand side.
No matter. He was a professional.
The Jaguar began gaining on the Chevy, which sent up a cloud of dust behind it. The road hurtled though recently sown fields that might have been growing anything – Royle wasn’t an expert on New England agricultural practises, nor did he especially care about them – until a T-junction loomed ahead. A right turn would take them back toward the interstate, and Royle fully expected Venn to choose that road. To get back onto a freeway that would give him the relative protection of traffic, and possibly police patrol cars.
Instead, the Chevy swung sharply left, and Royle followed, onto a road that plunged deeper into farmland.
So it was going to be a showdown. Royle against Venn. That was the way Venn wanted it, and to be honest that was what Royle wanted, too.
Royle kept up, easily, but he took care not to approach too closely. Venn might decide to slam on the brakes, an old trick that took amateur pursuers by surprise and often ended up with them pitched through the windshield.
Royle had to admit he wasn’t fully prepared for what Venn did next.
He leaned back out through the open window on the driver’s side, and fired at the Jaguar’s tire.
Because of the angle of the shot, and because he was driving the car at the same time, Venn missed. But the shot was close enough that Royle instinctively spun the wheel to the left, even as the bullet smashed off the front fender and whined off into the fields.
The movement of the Jaguar sent the left fender of the Jaguar caroming off the hedge running along the side of the road. The thick gorse crackled against the car’s metal, the mild impact slowing the vehicle and juddering through Royle’s body.
Worse, he was now at an impossible angle to fire back, the passenger side of the car nearer the front.
Royle got control of the car again fast, swinging it back on course, but not before Venn managed a second shot. This one shattered the side passenger window, glass fragments spraying across Royle as he ducked.
Gritting his teeth, determined not to let the man ahead get the upper hand, Royle flattened the accelerator, closing in on the Chevy.
It grew rapidly larger in the windshield.
Twenty yards ahead.
Ten.
The Jaguar smashed into the rear of the Chevy, shunting the front vehicle forward and sideways, metal shrieking against metal, more glass showering upward and outward, from the headlamps this time.
Because Royle had been expecting the crash - had caused it - he was ready for it, and managed to avoid being flung against the dashboard or windshield even though he didn’t have his seatbelt on. Even as the hood of the Jaguar buckled, Royle was out the door and rolling and coming up at a crouch, the Smith & Wesson in his hand.
Chapter 50
Surprise was the most effective weapon Venn had, and he decided to use it wisely.
He yelled ‘Get down,’ at Beth, at the same time putting his hand on the back of her head and shoving her so that she was bending forward. It would
n’t provide cover for very long, but if their assailant opened fire at the windows then at least Beth’s head wouldn’t be a clearly defined target.
Venn fired blindly out the window on his side, not expecting to hit anything unless he got really lucky, but guessing the other man wouldn’t expect the first shot to come so quickly. Without looking to see if his bullet had struck home, he kicked the door of the Impala open and dived out, staying low and hitting the tarmac.
There was nobody there.
Venn twisted and fired upward just as the shot came from above, and just an instant before his conscious brain told him what his reflexes had already gauged.
The guy’s on the roof of the car. Just like I was, last time round.
The bullets, one, two of them, spanged off the blacktop close to Venn’s face. Venn’s returning shot had put the man off his aim. As Venn tried to draw a bead on the man from where he was lying on his back on the road surface, the guy fired again.
It was both a lucky and an unlucky shot. Venn felt an awful impact against his hand and saw the gun wrenched free to go clattering across the road surface. His hand hurt like crazy, as if somebody had taken a sledgehammer to it.
But he wasn’t shot. The bullet had struck the gun.
And now Venn was a sitting duck.
The man took his time, bracing his legs on the roof of the car with his knees slightly bent, aiming his gun with both arms outstretched. For the first time Venn got a good look at him, in bright sunlight rather than shadow. He was surprisingly older than Venn would have believed. Approaching fifty, maybe, or even on the wrong side of it. His face was mild. A scholar’s.
Venn drew his arms across himself, flinching against what was coming. There was nothing he could do. Nothing. He’d never make it to the car to crawl under or alongside it before the guy fired. Nor would he have time to reach his gun, where it lay several yards away on the road surface.
Maybe he could keep the guy talking. But for how long? And till when? Till a helpful highway patrolman cam cruising by, in this godforsaken lane off the beaten track?
The Impala lurched, then, like a car being started up by an inexperienced driver who immediately stalls the vehicle.
The man on the roof was thrown off his feet, quite literally, so that Venn saw the soles of his shoes. His gun went off, the shot singing off into the blue, and he landed hard on his ass on the roof and slid off.
Beth, thought Venn. She’d realized the man was up there, and started the car. Bless her.
Even now, with the guy on the ground, Venn knew he wasn’t going to get to his gun in time. So instead he scrambled toward the guy, leaping the last few feet until he was on top of him before he could bring his gun up.
He knocked the guy back, slamming him down hard on the blacktop, his hand gripping the wrist of the man’s gun arm and twisting it hard, twisting until he could feel the bones creaking. Venn took car not to focus all of his strength in his grip, however, because the guy was already trying for access elsewhere, his free hand clawing at Venn’s face as his knee came jabbing up, seeking Venn’s groin.
Venn kept his legs closed but the man’s claw-hand got his face and Venn felt fingertips hook just shy of his eye sockets. He arched backward, the movement allowing the man to surge forward off the ground and bring his forehead crashing into Venn’s face.
It wasn’t a perfect head-butt - that would have broken Venn’s nose, and probably stunned him long enough that the guy would have brought the gun up and finished the job - but it connected with Venn’s own forehead. Stars, whole nebulae, exploded behind his eyes and he felt his teeth jarred together. He staggered back on his haunches.
Despite the pain, despite the wooziness and nausea the head-butt had caused, Venn understood on a dim and distant level that this was it, his only chance. He landed on his butt and with one leg lashed out at the man’s gun arm.
His foot connected hard with the man’s wrist, and the man gave a hiss of pain as his hand opened and the gun spun away.
No guns. They were on a more equal level now.
Both men sprang to their feet, Venn reeling a little. At a crouch, they circled one another.
The other guy was a fighter, Venn could see. The stance, the way he held his hands in front of him, protective yet ready to attack. He wasn’t somebody overreliant on guns. Somebody who felt naked without the protection of one.
This was a man who’d killed with his bare hands.
‘Mr Venn,’ the man said. His voice was soft, educated. British.
And he knew Venn’s name.
Just as Venn realized the whole point of it, the familiarity, was to disorient him momentarily, the guy launched his attack.
He came spinning on the ball of one foot, his other leg sweeping across at head height, Venn’s quickly-raised arm lessening the impact but not stopping the blow. Again white light exploded in his vision and he stumbled aside.
But Venn countered swiftly, with his own leg, a piledriver of a kick that pistoned out sideways from the hip. His foot connected with the man’s abdomen. Venn heard the breath sigh out of the man like compressed air.
The guy was tough, though, and although he must have been winded, he came after Venn. For a few seconds they matched one another perfectly in a flurry of blows, blocks and counterstrikes. It was like a superbly choreographed fight scene from a movie, one to which rapid-fire editing had been added.
Suddenly the man got in with a sword-hand to the side of Venn’s neck, and the world grayed out again. Venn swayed, dimly aware that the other guy was behind him now and had an arm tight across his throat. As the pressure mounted, Venn struggled to throw the guy over his shoulder, but it was an obvious move and the man resisted it easily.
The gray was darkening in front of Venn’s eyes now as his consciousness ebbed. He felt the man’s free hand clamp over the side of his skull.
Which he knew was the preparation for the killing twist that would sever his spinal cord at the neck.
Venn was facing the Impala. Through the veil of haziness he saw Beth standing by the side of the car, both arms outstretched. She’d picked up one of the guns, and was trying to aim. But the assailant was holding Venn in front of him.
Venn tried to yell at her to shoot, to keep blasting away until one of the shots hit the man somewhere fatal. He didn’t care if Beth shot him in the process.
Because suddenly, there was something more important to Venn than finding Professor Lomax. More important to him than saving his own skin and getting out of a life sentence for murder.
But his voice wouldn’t come, because of the arm locked across his throat. And he knew that even if he had been able to call out to Beth, she wouldn’t have pulled the trigger. Not when there was a good chance of hitting Venn.
Something rose up inside Venn, like a long-imprisoned demon bursting free from the depths of hell. He’d kept his temper under control, ever since the episode with the drug dealer which had cost him his career with the Chicago PD.
But there was no stopping it now.
With all his strength, with the full force of his weight, Venn stamped his bootheel down on his attacker’s foot, raking the shin along the way.
It wasn’t the most effective use Venn had ever made of the technique, because he was weakened by the restricted blood flow to his brain caused by the man’s stranglehold. But it did the trick. The guy cried out, and for an instant the grip across Venn’s throat fractionally slackened.
Venn slammed his head backward into the man’s face, feeling the nose give way and spread. He slammed his head back again, and this time the guy recoiled away, releasing Venn.
Venn spun and, without pausing to survey the damage he’d done, laid in with his fists. Great haymaker blows from left and from right, the skin on his knuckles splitting where they made contact with bone.
Still, the guy managed to put up something of a fight, but he was on a downward curve. He got the stiffened fingers of one hand up under Venn’s breastbone, into the sola
r plexus. The pain was a flash of excruciating light, but it only served to enrage Venn further.
He kneed the man in the abdomen, caught him as he doubled up, and slammed his head against the side of the Jaguar, again and again, seeing nothing but red. Even when he felt Beth tugging at his arm, begging him to stop, he shook her off and continued bouncing the guy off the bodywork, as the dented metal surface began to stain a blotchy crimson.
Finally, when his arms and shoulders were fatigued to the point of utter exhaustion, Venn dropped the man, who hit the blacktop face-first. No attempt to break his own fall.
Venn leaned against the side of the car and stared up at the azure, cloudless sky, breathing heavily. He was aware of Beth a few yards off, regarding him.
He thought he’d crossed a line with her, now. Driven her away forever.
Then she was at him, her head buried in his chest, her arms clinging to him. He couldn’t tell if the sobs that wracked her body were those of relief, or fear, or both.
Chapter 51
The word spread through Rosetti’s networks like the tremors down the fine strands of a spider’s web.
From the central hub, her command center in Manhattan, the message went out: find that Chevy Impala. Full details of the car’s license plate number, color, distinguishing scratches and dents (courtesy of the car rental shop owner), and likely occupants, were supplied along with the order.
And the responses came flickering back up the web.
A gas station attendant near Hartford, Connecticut, had checked his CCTV footage and observed a car of that exact description gassing up at nine-twenty that morning. The driver, a large, tough-looking man who appeared a little worn out and beat-up, had paid cash. It wasn’t possible to see from the footage who else was in the car, but there looked to be somebody in the passenger seat.
A helpful connection at a toll booth on the New England Thruway section of Interstate 95 reported in that a Chevy Impala had passed through. The guy remembered it because he was a Chevy geek. He couldn’t recall the time, nor did he get the license plate, but he did remember the driver, a surly-looking guy with a goatee. There was a girl beside him. The toll booth guy didn’t see her face, because it was turned away like she was asleep, but he did notice she had nice legs.