by Adam Hall
'We considered that.' His tone still had its cutting edge. I'd heard it before, in Mandarin, in Northlight, when the mission had gone dangerously off track. He wasn't of course furious with Proctor tonight; he was furious with himself for letting it happen, furious with his own incompetence, as competent people often are when a wheel comes off. 'We also considered that it might have been Stylus von Brinkerhoff who'd shown her a copy of the brief. He was at the party tonight.'
That's possible. She said he was attracted to her.'
'I would think most men were.'
'Where's von Brinkerhoff now?' I asked him. Perhaps we could turn him.
'We're watching for him to take the cutter back to the yacht. Monck suggests that if Cambridge wanted you to meet von Brinkerhoff, he might be ready to back out of the project, or even blow the Trust. We've sent someone to Quay 19 to wait for him and offer your apologies for not being in time to meet him at the Yacht Club, and see what he says, see if he's ready to take it further.'
Treader went through some lights on the yellow and checked the nearside mirror. 'There's a Corvette moving up on us,' he said. 'I've been trying to lose it.'
'It he right behind?'
'No, there's a Buick right behind but the Corvette's buzzing it.'
There is the moment when you are sitting comfortably in a sumptuously-appointed limousine with a telephone in your hand and a cocktail cabinet in front of you and pile carpet under your evening shoes and there is the moment when you are suddenly aware that you have become prey to a hunter not far behind you who seeks your death, and aware also that you cannot hope to run fast enough to escape him, and the contrast between these two moments is so violent as to numb the mind, because in this instant the trappings of civilised life are stripped away to leave you in a different world, a different creature, crouched barefoot on rough ground with the hackles raised and the teeth bared as the terror courses like cold fire through the blood.
Proctor was in this city again and he'd come here to retrieve that brief and he'd asked Toufexis to make the Cambridge hit for him and he knew how close the executive in the field for Barracuda had come to infiltrating his operation and he knew I'd be at the Yacht Club party because he'd bugged Erica's phones and he had not asked Toufexis to hit me too because he wanted to do it himself.
It had become personal. My meeting with him on the day I'd arrived in this town had forced him out of his apartment and sent him straight to ground and he'd used his connections with the Mafia and got Toufexis to put out a contract on me and they'd tried twice and I was still alive and was still a threat to him, and it had hurt his pride and he'd told Toufexis's hoods to hold off tonight because he wanted this kill for himself.
Lights swung in the mirrors but I couldn't see from this angle what Treader could see. 'I want instant replay,' I told him.
'We've lost the Buick. I think he got scared.'
'The Corvette's right behind us?'
'Yes. Close.'
'Ferris,' I said on the phone, 'are you still there?'
'Yes.'
'We're heading north on 22nd Avenue and crossing Coral Way. I think Proctor is right behind us.' I let him absorb that while I spoke to Treader; then I came back on the line. 'He's in a black Corvette with a Florida number plate. You've got that?'
'Yes. I'll do what I can.'
'Thank you. Have you got a second line there?'
'Yes.'
'Then leave this one open.'
He said he would.
Flashes on the roof-lining, quick and regular. Proctor was signalling for us to pull up.
'Treader. Where's Hood?'
'Behind the Corvette. And there's a red Mazda behind the Honda.'
Whole bloody parade, Proctor right behind us and a Toufexis hit man following Hood in the Mazda, light traffic coming the other way, the night clubs still open, this town never sleeps. Proctor was still flashing us and it was the sensible thing to do because he didn't want to make any noise, attract any attention: none of us wanted the police in our way. It would be very nice to tell Treader to put his fist on the horn and leave it there till a patrol car picked us up, officer, this nasty man behind us wants to kill me so you'd better do your duty, so forth, nothing so cosy because it would lead to a lot of awkward questions and making charges and that would stop Barracuda right in its tracks, and in any case there's a strict injunction in the rule book against a shadow executive's calling upon any police officer – it's quaintly written, don't you think – for his assistance, and yes, I take your point, Barracuda is going to get stopped right in its tracks in any case just as soon as Proctor gets into the back of this sumptuously-appointed limousine with his Heckler and Koch P7 9mm and its Wilson sound suppressor and starts tickling the tit, which he is very likely to do for the simple reason that he can outpace this ornate tart trap by a factor of three to one and if you think this looks like a car chase you're dead wrong, it's a funeral procession.
First shot and I slid down against the soft leather upholstery to bring my head below the rear window and saw Treader doing the same thing, settling back against the head-rest, wouldn't help him much because Proctor would be using heavy armament against a car like this or he wouldn't have started firing at all, though Treader could get away with it if the slugs had to plough through the rear panel of the boot and then the back of the rear seat before they hit the head-rest with most of their momentum gone, he was just making things as easy for himself as he could, never say die, so forth, take what cover you can get.
'What do you want me to do?' he asked me, and I liked that, we were having a conference, and if we needed advice from headquarters we had a line still open for signals, you can't say, you can't say, my good friend, that the situation was not under control.
Slug hitting the boot and bursting its way through the seat-back very close to my left arm the bastard, oh the bastard he's going to put the next one straight into the spine and that means a slow death with unbearable pain or six months' rehabilitation and a wheelchair, put it into the head you bastard don't forget your bloody manners, chipping away at the cocktail cabinet with splinters flying up from the woodwork, rattling against the windscreen with not enough momentum left to smash a hole in it.
'Situation?'
Ferris.
'He's firing on us.'
'I've ordered three cars in. Where are you now?'
'Still going north, past Shenandoah Park.'
'You're still on 22nd Avenue?'
'Yes.'
'Then don't divert. I'll route them to intercept.'
I told Treader.
The flashing through the rear window had stopped. Treader wasn't going to pull up because if he did that it would finish me off and it was his job to keep me alive for as long as he could or God help him when it came to debriefing. There was a bit of noise from behind us and I asked him about it and he said he thought Hood was using the Honda to worry the Corvette, ramming it obliquely to burst a tyre. It looked as if Proctor was alone in his car because I didn't hear any shots going off that weren't putting slugs into the limousine.
Proctor had decided how to handle the police thing: the gun was making a noise and it wouldn't be long before we brought a patrol car zeroing in but he was now relying on a quick kill with enough time to get him clear. He -
Pock-pock in quick succession as the next one hit the boot and then the three-ply bulkhead and began nosing through the upholstery and I shifted to the right and felt the bloody thing ripping into the sleeve and saw the starburst on the windscreen as the glass frosted over.
Very close and I crawled across the seat to the other side because he'd shifted his aim six inches to the right every time, feeling for me with his gun. Sweat on the skin and the scalp creeping because the situation was not in fact in control and there was nothing we could do and he was going to get fed up in a minute and pull out and gun up alongside and aim for Treader and send this barouche into a shop window and get out of his car and walk across and kick the glass
in and empty the whole chamber into the side of the head, unless of course Ferris could bring in his interceptors somewhere north of here and do something useful.
By the look of things we were doing approximately sixty mph and Treader was using the traffic lights as best he could, slowing enough to bring him to the next intersection still fast enough to gun up and go through on the green without losing too much speed. We could -
Pock-pock and the thing glanced off the door pillar and buried the last of its momentum into the sun visor on the forward passenger's side and I moved again, crawling across the seat to the right, little tufts of nylon padding lying around like puffs of smoke, torn away from the leather.
Treader saying, 'OK?'
'Yes.'
Quite a lot of noise suddenly from behind us and I saw headlight beams sweeping across the face of the buildings on the other side of the street and the flush of light under the roof didn't change so it must be Hood in the Honda, some kind of trouble.
'He's lost it,' Treader said.
'Hood?'
'Yes.'
Crumpling noise, a roll-over, the headlights flickering across the shop windows and then going out.
'Ferris?'
'No, sir. he's on the other line. This is Tench.'
'Tell him we've lost Hood. He's crashed.'
'Will do.'
Pock-pock and the door of the cocktail cabinet buckled and glass smashed inside it. I got onto the floor and asked Treader, 'What made him crash, did you see?'
'It could've been the Mazda behind him, sideswipe or something.'
Treader couldn't see all that much because he was hunched down against the seat squab and could only use the outside mirrors and from his angle they wouldn't be showing him a lot more than the top half of Proctor's Corvette, but it was logical to assume that the Mafia hit man in the Mazda had got the Honda out of the running because it had been a threat to Proctor.
We were leaving the park on our right and crossing 16th Street as the yellow turned to red but the Corvette and the Mazda came through without stopping and I gave it a minute, another two minutes at most unless Ferris could get his interceptors into the action because we were a sitting target and it was simply a matter of time.
'Listening?'
Ferris.
I said yes.
'Change of plan.' He sounded quietly impersonal. 'My instructions are to call off my people.'
'To call -'
They won't be intercepting. You're expected to deal with the situation by whatever means. Stay in contact.'
Finis.
I told him I understood. It did not in point of fact take a lot of understanding: Ferris was speaking from his base and Croder must be there too and either he'd only just found out that Ferris had ordered mobile support into the area or he'd given the order himself and then changed his mind. The Bureau gives a great deal of licence to the executives and their directors in the field but there are some rather strict guidelines and one of them is that we don't fight a running battle through the streets of any given city and place the citizenry at risk, and – sirens – and that was precisely what we would have started doing if the interceptors had been sent in.
Shot and then a secondary bang that sounded right underneath us and the limo gave a lurch and Treader said, 'Got a tyre,' and we began weaving and then straightened. There was a lot of noise now as the rubber wrapped itself around the rim and started heating up. The sirens were fading in from behind us, I suppose because of the Honda thing – someone had seen it roll and they'd got on the phone.
I said, 'Treader, we're not going to get any help. They changed their minds.'
'I see.' Trying to sound cool. He knew the score now, too.
Stink of burning rubber coming into the car, I hate that smell, gets on your guts, shot and the rear window frosted over as the slug came through and drilled a hole in the roof, he wasn't firing wild, I think, it was just that the limo was lurching about quite a bit, difficult target at sixty mph with the steering affected. Siren again and this time ahead of us, a patrol car picking up the Honda call from the despatcher and turning south, its lights starting to colour the polished surfaces inside the limo and the siren growing louder. I didn't think it would ignore a limo doing this speed with a burst tyre so I spoke to Treader again.
'Listen, I want you to ditch me. Look for an alley between the buildings or the gates of a yard or a car park -' bright lights now as the police car saw us and started a U-turn with the siren howling – 'anywhere with enough cover to let me run, all right?'
He said he'd do what he could and I found the little chrome lever and got the right-hand door unlocked and waited, pulling out my handkerchief and wrapping it round my right hand, waited, watching the coloured lights reflecting from the inside of the windows, waited, holding my breath against the sickening reek of rubber, sweat on the left hand, the phone slippery with it, waited until Treader told me to get ready and I signalled Ferris that I was making a run and pitched sideways against the division as the brakes came on and the tyres whimpered and we lurched once, twice as he lost the front end and dragged it straight again as the burst tyre came off the rim and the metal screamed on the tarmac and I heard Treader's voice in the background.
'Ditching.'
Pulled the door-lever and hit the door and went through as it swung wide and I rolled into the ukemi with the edge of my right hand making contact with the pavement and the arm and shoulder following and then the whole body curving into the roll and coming out of it with my feet to the ground and enough balance to get me running.
He'd found an alley for me and I checked the environment as I ran because I didn't want to present a silhouette against the lights of the street at the far end: it was a mess back there and I didn't know if Proctor or the man in the Mazda had seen me leave the car but if they'd seen me they'd follow me on foot and I wouldn't have more than a fifty-yard lead and there were high walls here and no cover that could shield me if he came close enough to use his gun.
The alley looked endless ahead, the length of a city block, with the lights of the next street making a bright niche in the shadows. I didn't turn my head to look behind me because it would slow me and if I saw Proctor coming there was nothing I could do – he'd have ample time to break his run and go into the aiming stance and make sure of the shot, shadow down, the slug ripping into the back of the dinner jacket and shattering the spine and leaving the nerves in catastrophic disarray, the muscles of the legs cut off from the brain and the body tilting forward, shadow down.
I was nearing the street ahead but the scene in the mind's eye had brought fear with it and I had to look behind me and I saw nothing, no movement anywhere in the whole length of the alley, so I slowed a little as the brightness of the street came flooding against me and a car slid to a stop with its tyres squealing and a door coming open.
Mazda.
Chapter 20: MONIQUE
'You don't trust my driving?'
'It's not that,' I said.
Buckle wouldn't work.
'You know something? I bet I dropped a dime down there in the slot. I'm always doing it.' She leaned towards me, scent of patchouli. 'Hit it. Hit it like this.' A ripple of laughter, 'See what I mean? You can keep it, buy yourself a yacht.'
I got the buckle fixed and sat back and pulled it tight and tried to think.
'Ride around a little?'
'That would be nice.'
She turned left again at the lights, driving cleanly, sitting there in her black leather skirt and tunic, gold belt, rings on her fingers and long gold nails, tiny feet half-naked in gold sandals poised over the pedals, the curve of her body cut like a black crescent moon.
'Monique, I believe it was.'
'That's right.'
'What happened,' I asked her, 'to the Honda?'
I wanted to know where we stood.
'He got him kinda shunting. George Proctor is a real mean man. He got him kinda shunting and then I think the guy in the Honda must
have swung the wheel at the wrong time and he wasn't going too slow and bingo, he went rolling like a barrel. Who was he?'
'A friend of mine.'
'He in drugs too?'
'No.'
'He was trying to look after you, right? Didn't want Proctor to get you.'
'You could say that.'
'Proctor's real mad at you, right? You cut off his supplies or what?'
'I'm not a dealer,' I said.
'Nothing like that.' I watched the flash of her smile reflected in the windscreen. 'That's why Nicko was going to feed you to the sharks.'
'Thank you,' I said, 'for trying to stop him.'
'Usual way,' she said, 'I don't give a shit if a dealer gets his, providing of course he's not working for Toufexis. But the execution thing, I dunno, it kind of involves judgement, right? Kind of coldblooded, different from just some guy gets in the way of an AK-47 and kerboom. You British?'
'Yes.' She still hadn't answered the question. It hadn't had anything to do with judgement.
Is this the guy? Nicko, pushing his flashlight against my face.
No.
Don't give me that shit! Shaking the photograph in her face.
I haven't seen him before.
Well Jesus Christ this is the face of the guy in the photograph!
You'd better take care, Nicko, she said. Don't kill too many.
Her face hidden by the glare of the flashlight, but I'd caught the scent of patchouli.
'So why did you get in the car?' She was watching my face, too, in the windscreen.
'Which car?'
'This one.'
'I didn't have time,' I said, 'to find a taxi.'
'With Mr Proctor right up your ass!'
'That's right.'
'So what's a Britisher doing over here in God's country, muscling in on the game?'
'It's like calling you an Americaner, which sounds awful, don't you think? A British subject is actually a Briton.'
'You real cool cat,' tossing her head back, laughing, the big gold earrings flashing as they swung. 'So what's a Briton doing over here messing around on our home ground?'