It was a Sig Sauer. Great. Not only was Abbott familiar with the weapon, but it suited his favoured tactic. He didn’t have the patience for a Tom Brace-style wait. Never had. He liked to go on the hunt. Search and destroy. Master of your own destiny.
There was a full mag in the Sig, three more mags in the health-food shop bag. He pulled the slider back, put one up the pipe but left the safety on.
Now what?
Presumably the other proxies would be moving around the park. It began to rain. At the same time, almost as though the two events were timed to coincide, there was a general noise of motors starting up, and the attractions – those that were built, anyway – rumbled into life. Lights blinked. Malevolent laughter rang out. Knife hands rose mechanically up and down. There was the distinctive sound of a gallows being sprung, a guillotine and several different species of scream. Not far in the distance was the familiar clanking sound of a rollercoaster beginning its inaugural circuit. Abbott, suddenly robbed of one of his senses, went to full alert, bringing the gun up close to his chest and taking a 360-degree look around himself.
OK, he thought, this changes nothing. You’re still the hunter. You’re still well advised to head for the centre of the park, because that’s where your opponents will also be going. You’re convinced of your combat superiority, but so are they. You think you’re the best, but so do they. We all think it. Now’s the time to find out for sure.
Across the park in the conference room, the Nortons, their assorted assistants and right-hand men, watched each of the proxies begin their game.
‘What’s all this about a video, Mother?’ asked Montana. ‘Something incriminating, is it?’
‘Indeed it is,’ replied Lady Norton. ‘It’s footage that simply cannot be allowed to get out. It would mean the end of our family.’ She looked across at Montana warningly. ‘Our whole family.’
Montana paled slightly. ‘Well, what was it? What sort of footage?’
‘It all happened a long time ago,’ said Lady Norton as though hoping to dismiss the matter. ‘An unfortunate expression of your father’s more base desires.’
And that was it as far as Lady Norton was concerned. Subject closed. Lance nudged Montana, looking at her, whispering, ‘What base desires?’ Montana shrugged, not wanting to go there, no desire to dig into her family’s unspoken and unexplored secrets. Their darkest most disturbing truths.
She thought about Simon, his lifelong history of drug abuse. Her eyes went to the screen where Sergei, the Russian special forces operative, was beginning to make his way through the park, and she willed him on, her thoughts starting to wander. What if she won and were to wield absolute power?
What would she do with her mother then?
‘Well, well, what’s this?’ said Ross, his attention drawn to Clifford’s proxy, Heidi, who wore the bright blue. Except that she was, at that moment, stripping off her overalls.
‘Um . . .’ said Ross, looking towards the lawyer Jeffrey Coombs, ‘invigilator? Is that allowed?’
‘I see no reason why not.’
‘Shouldn’t this have been confirmed prior to the game beginning?’ said Lady Norton.
‘The rules of the game are that I should invigilate as I see fit,’ said Coombs, doing his best to meet the glares of the Norton clan. He was feeling far less secure in this environment than he had before, when he had addressed them from behind the safety of his desk. The presence of all these weapons was making him feel very nervous indeed. ‘If any of the other proxies decides to remove their overalls then the same leniency shall apply.’
Underneath her overalls, Heidi wore a T-shirt with the name ‘Sweaty Betty’ across the front. A short little rah-rah skirt. Never had anybody looked less like an ex-special forces operative.
Clifford Levine leaned towards his security consultant, Monroe, whispering, ‘This is either very clever or very fool-hardy. What do you think?’
‘She knows what she’s doing,’ said Monroe loyally, but concern was etched on his face. Some remnants of his relationship with Heidi remained, clearly.
Below them in the park itself, Sergei moved stealthily, skirting a lake area with a pier that featured an automated crumbling effect. Tethered boats featuring skulls on poles bobbed on water dimpled by raindrops. He felt vulnerable, exposed. He was grateful when he came up on a small, sheltered area below a sign that said, ‘Rest in Peace’.
He heard a voice. ‘Hello? Hello? Is anybody there? Can anybody help me?’
Sergei lifted his weapon. ‘Hello?’ he said. ‘Who is that?’
The voice came again. ‘Who are you? What am I doing here? I was in a bar. I was talking to a guy and the next thing I know, I’m here. What’s going on?’
‘Show yourself,’ demanded Sergei. The voice was coming from the other side of the Rest in Peace shelter. He edged carefully around, only just resisting the impulse to put a round through the side of it. It could be a trap. But then, on the other hand – if this woman was genuine – it could simply be a stunt dreamed up as part of the game, just to make things more interesting for the competitors. What’s more, he could use the girl. Use her as a hostage. He came round the side of the shelter quickly, catching her by surprise. She was crouched and, as soon she saw the gun, put her hands up, trembling.
‘Stand up,’ he told her.
She did as she was asked.
‘Lift the T-shirt.’
She did.
‘All the way,’ he told her, motioning with the gun. She did. Just a bra. Just a bra and the rah-rah skirt.
‘Lift the skirt,’ said Sergei.
‘Please,’ she whimpered. ‘I don’t know what’s going on . . .’
‘Just lift the skirt, lady. I need to check you’re not armed.’
‘What do you mean “armed”? I’m not armed. Do I look like I’m armed?’
‘She’s not armed,’ said Clifford out loud in the conference room. There was a brittle, tense atmosphere in the room, each of them riveted by a spectacle that they had helped to create, a spectacle in which they were so invested, thinking, This was what got the old man’s juices flowing, and now they could see why. The game.
‘She’s not armed,’ Clifford repeated indignantly to Monroe, as though it were somehow Monroe’s responsibility. ‘How the hell is she going to pull the switch on him if she’s not armed?’
‘She’s very resourceful,’ said Monroe, almost to himself.
Down in the park, Sergei said to Heidi, ‘OK, you’re clean. I’ll get you out of here.’
He was trying to sound reassuring, even while wondering how he might best capitalise on his hostage. Was it even prudent to take one? Perhaps he should just put a bullet in her now. After all, she might simply be a liability. On the other hand, he could use her as a human shield . . .
All of which thoughts served to distract him from her, so that he missed the fact that her head had moved quickly from left to right to check that there were no other competitors in the vicinity. How she almost imperceptibly tensed.
And then struck. Launching herself from her left foot, climbing almost impossibly high at the same time, she looped her right leg around his neck, bringing her left up to join it, snatching him into a scissor hold, yanking him to the concrete, and then, as he writhed, rotating from the hips to bring pressure to bear on his neck. Pressure that was impossible to withstand.
That killed him.
He made a sound. A death rattle. His gun discharged. And in the final few seconds of life, he had time to marvel at the skill of the woman who had bested him and realise with regret how completely he had been duped.
CHAPTER 54
From his vantage point, Scolar watched the action unfold. Had it been Trent then he might have needed to step in. He pondered this new development. After all, his understanding of the situation was that combat would be conducted using firearms.
‘Well,’ said Clifford Levine in the conference room, showing an even-more-than-usually-pronounced lack of tact. ‘That went v
ery well.’
In response, Montana Norton glowered. Her fists slammed down onto the tabletop and she stood up, unsure where to direct her anger. Towards her boyfriend – soon to be very ex-boyfriend – for having fixed her up with the games’ worst competitor? Towards her ex-husband for being the one who had inflicted the loss? With her mother, just for being her mother?
All that she could hope for now was that either Ross or Clifford went on to win. Otherwise . . . if her mother won? It absolutely did not bear thinking about.
Clifford, with years of his ex-wife’s tantrums under his belt, remained oblivious. Quietly, he said to Monroe, ‘My God, did you see that? The woman’s a genius. You’re a genius. I’m a bloody genius.’
Beside him, Monroe made simmer down gestures with his hands. ‘We’re a long way from being out of the woods yet,’ he told his employer quietly.
What he kept to himself was the fact that Heidi wouldn’t be able to pull that same trick with either Yellow or Green. As Monroe knew well, she and Trent were acquainted. Ditto she and Abbott.
Meanwhile, down below, Abbott heard the gunshot and scooted for cover, finding it in the shadow of what looked like a wave swinger, except that instead of bearing the usual colourful, carnival colours, it was decked out in black and Murder World’s signature blood red.
He waited for more shots. None came. An accidental discharge, perhaps? One combatant taking aim on another, a pot-shot?
Maybe so. Either way, it was the first real proof he’d had that there were indeed other players in the game. He peered around the side of the wave-swinger base.
In the conference room they watched as Abbott approached the trundling rollercoaster from one angle. Their eyes went from that screen to another, where Heidi and Trent were also making their way towards the park’s centrepiece, but from a different angle. Heidi had retrieved her overalls and gun and was carrying them.
Their breath was held. Even Montana, who had gone from entertaining thoughts of simply storming out to regaining her seat. She no longer had a stake in the outcome and yet remained enthralled by the spectacle.
‘It looks like Heidi and our man will be the next to meet,’ said Ross, who seemed to have lost some of his sardonic demeanour along the way. Perhaps he was thinking what Kennedy was thinking, which was that their man Scolar needed gunfire to act as a cover for his own involvement – and so far the only bullet fired had been an accidental one.
Certainly, that was exactly what Scolar himself was thinking, perched in his bird’s-eye view, watching the woman come together with the friendly, Trent. Which order outweighed the other? he wondered. Should he still save Trent, even if she attacked without her gun?
Getting closer now. There was a half-built structure of some attraction between them. ‘Acid Bath’ it said. Some kind of underground ghost train, where the riders travelled in old-style baths. The building above, mostly constructed though still shrouded in scaffolding, was clearly meant for visitors to queue up in. Small windows, yet to have glass fitted, allowed a view through from one side to the other.
From his vantage point, it seemed almost impossible to Scolar that Heidi and Trent wouldn’t see one another, but he knew that things would look very different at ground level.
And then.
Heidi froze.
‘She’s seen him,’ said Ross in the conference room.
Monroe’s hand went to his mouth. She’d seen him. That was good, wasn’t it? Because if she’d seen him, then she surely would have recognised him.
Sure enough, they watched as Heidi ducked down, moving away so that she could not possibly be spotted, at the same time pulling her Sig from her boiler suit and dropping the bundle.
In the conference room they watched. ‘She’s there,’ said Ross, half-standing. ‘Trent, you idiot, she’s just there.’
‘He can’t hear you,’ snapped Clifford.
Ross bit back. ‘Oh, do shut up, Dad. What are you even doing here, anyway?’
‘I beg your pardon,’ roared Clifford, ‘I am still your father, you know.’
‘Shut up and sit down, both of you,’ roared Juliet, every inch the Norton matriarch, waving a hand at the screens where Heidi was continuing to creep up on an oblivious Trent. They watched as Trent, almost seeming to sense the presence of danger, brought his gun to shoulder level, his elbows crooked, rotating his upper half slowly as he shifted forward in degrees.
Up in his perch, Scolar kept Heidi in his crosshairs and then abruptly shifted his aim slightly to the right, finding Trent.
Careful now. Very careful. He shifted slightly. Just a tiny bit. Finding the correct spot.
And then fired.
‘What was that?’ asked Clifford Levine.
‘What you mean?’ demanded Ross.
‘Your man seemed to jump, like he was startled or something.’
Ross resisted the impulse to glance at Kennedy, both thinking the same thing: that Trent had jumped because Scolar had given him the prearranged signal. And now, suddenly, he was on full alert, crouching, his gun held, swinging slightly to the left and aiming through the structure.
‘Is there something going on?’ said Juliet to Jeffrey Coombs.
‘I have no idea, ma’am.’
She was watching Abbott, who also seemed to have reacted to something.
And indeed, Abbott had heard it. A ricochet, surely. A round coming off the metal of something very nearby. A shot, surely, and yet there was no corresponding report, which meant . . .
Sniper.
But a sniper doing what? Working on behalf of one of the players?
Warning them?
Which was exactly the conclusion that Heidi had reached. Except that she’d reached it more quickly than Abbott, having already spotted Trent. A third party in an elevated position was tipping him off.
She stopped in her tracks, twisting to level the Sig through the empty windows of the Acid Bath waiting area. Where was he? Where was he?
‘Psst.’
It came from behind her, and she wheeled to see Trent grinning in triumph, his finger on the trigger, and threw herself to the side.
Trent fired. A round grazed her side, but she answered at the same time as she called out in pain, a return shot that sent him diving for cover, cursing his hesitancy. It was the rah-rah skirt, he thought. The fucking rah-rah skirt.
CHAPTER 55
‘Christ, he had the drop on her,’ yelled Ross in the conference room. ‘Why the hell didn’t he just shoot her in the back of the head?’
He and Clifford were both standing, like football fans engrossed in a penalty shootout, watching as their two champions exchanged shots by the Acid Bath.
At the same time, Abbott took off towards the sound of gunshots, staying in the shadow of whatever attraction or structure was nearby, painfully aware that any sniper could at this very moment be drawing a bead on him.
And Scolar? Scolar, a mile away in his water tower, remained calm and steady, shifting the scope, trying to find the woman, needing to protect Yellow. Gunfire in the park was constant now, both firing from behind cover, each trying to keep the other pinned down, which meant that Scolar had a free hand to open fire himself.
His finger curled through the trigger guard. His breathing was steady.
Below was Abbott, running towards the gunfire. He saw the woman and recognised her as Heidi Kavanagh. Their paths had crossed briefly in Iraq. And didn’t she once have a thing with Monroe?
He emerged close to the Acid Bath. At the same time, Heidi saw the movement and swung her sidearm towards him, loosing off two rounds quickly, sending Abbott ducking into cover behind a row of ersatz gravestones.
He peeped out, saw Heidi, wounded. She’d realised that she was outnumbered and decided to make a move to regroup at a better defensive position.
‘Heidi,’ he called over to her, hoping that she’d hear him over the bark of Yellow’s Sig. ‘I’m not here to win,’ he tried, knowing it was a useless gambit. Even if he wasn’t he
re to win, then she was. And right now, she thought that the best way to do that was to get her ass to a better position.
She rose, coming out of cover and laying down a suppressing fire. Her mistake was to fire in the wrong direction, towards Abbott. But the threat wasn’t from Abbott, it was from Yellow.
‘No,’ called Abbott, rising from behind the gravestones, loosing off two rounds towards Yellow’s position. He saw Yellow. Christ, he recognised the guy as well. Name was Trent something. He fired back at Abbott’s position and Abbott ducked down as rounds smashed into the gravestone – but not before seeing the back of Heidi’s head blown out.
Her body fell, her rah-rah skirt fanned out around her. In the conference room, Clifford buried his head in his hands and sank back down to his seat. Beside him Monroe looked ashen.
As though playing some new version of musical chairs, Lady Norton had stood, as had Ross and Kennedy. Both were watching events on the ground, Abbott and Trent now exchanging gunfire.
Upon his perch, Scolar found himself the judge in a firefight. He had to make sure there was only one winner, though, and he took aim at Green, who was at that moment using the Acid Bath structure as cover to take shots at Trent. He found him. ‘Au revoir,’ he said, and squeezed the trigger.
Scolar’s head jerked up from the scope. Abbott had moved. The bullet meant for his heart had instead grazed his arm.
And down below, Abbott, who knew that he was fighting not one but two gunmen, that absence of gunfire meaning that it was a sniper based – Christ – it could be over a mile away. Whatever he did, he had to take this inside. He needed to find better cover. Cover with a roof, presumably.
He turned and limped away, ripping at the boiler suit to see the wound beneath. Just a graze, thank God. The pain might slow him down, but he wouldn’t have to worry about blood loss, at least. He turned, needing to find a better vantage point. He felt the warm blood consuming his arm and a slow tingling and numbness starting to take effect, looking down, realising that he was leaving a blood trail for Trent to follow, and then had an idea. He made his way to the darkened entrance of an attraction called Scales of Justice so that the blobs of blood suggested he had entered it. Next, he stripped off his overalls, bunching them hard up against his wound to soak up the blood, and then moved off to cover behind a booth opposite the Scales of Justice. There the position allowed him a view of the entrance, and that was all he needed.
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