55
The impact didn't happen.
Everything owed exceptional luck and nothing to proper governance. Mark Wheatley pulled up less than five feet from the vehicle, in the middle of the road, and slewed to the left. I straightened and strode to the side of the BMW. Eyes shut against the glare of the car's beams.
Outlined in that blinding wash of light, I doubted whether the occupants of the motor could see. The constabulary spotlight was powerful and shone through Sheena's windscreen.
A couple of quick shots and the headlights died. I walked in front of the BMW; the others followed as the pursuing police car pulled up behind Ryder's. Two right hand doors flung wide open, and Mark Wheatley and Sheena Ryder scrambled out.
For a second, I had the game. Could have shot both where they stood. Shoot one, in the back, but that didn't worry me. But, I hesitated and was slow in bringing up my gun, and the last chance disappeared.
Wheatley jerked Clarissa out with a brutal violence that made her gasp in pain. He kept her in front of Wheatley, while his revolver pointed at me over her right shoulder.
Ryder stood beside him, with a pistol the size of a sawn-off cannon carried in her left hand. Mia Malkova, was a trained killer. When you've seen enough of them, you recognise one straightaway. Might look as normal. Innocuous. As the next individual. But far back in the eye lies the glint of empty madness. It's not something they have. More what they don't have. Sheena was such a woman.
And Wheatley?
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
Standing there. A different man with a quizzical expression.
"Well." The voice was soft, colourless, conversational. "Britain's answer to Jason Bourne or Jack Reacher. A drifter roaming the country with no fixed abode, still believing this nation is worth something. I've known a long time. Warned me of you. I didn't listen."
"The girlfriend," I said, gun hanging at my side, and I stared at the barrel in Selena's hand: it pointed straight at my forehead. "I take it you hired her so that you had someone in place to execute the agreement with the Russians?"
"Indeed." Wheatley tightened his grip around Clarissa. Her hair was shabby, her face streaked with mud, and there was the start of an unpleasant bruise above her right eye. She must have tried a breakaway on the walk between the abandoned automobile and garage. But they did not scare her much or if she was hiding it. "She is good, you know. Met her a long time ago on a trip to the Baltic states. Took me in hook, line and sinker."
"Hope fucking her was worth it!"
Wheatley glanced at the law enforcement officers. Gave Sheena a quick jerk of the head. She swung her hardware and lined it up on them. They stopped. I lifted my pistol and continued a pace nearer.
"Don't do it," he announced, pressing the muzzle into Clarissa's side with such violence that she moaned with the pain of it. "I will shoot."
Moved another step forward. Four feet separated us.
"If you harm her, I'll kill you. You know that. God only knows what you have at stake. But it's something almighty big. To justify everything you've done. The killing you did. Whatever that is, you haven't achieved it yet. You'll hardly throw it away just by shooting a member of the Ukrainian secret service?"
"Save me," Clarissa murmured, voice low and unsteady. "Please help."
"He won't do it, Mila," I whispered. "He doesn't dare. And he knows it."
"The little psychologist, aren't you?" he said in the same conversational tone. Braced against the wing of the car, he sent her catapulting towards me with a vicious thrust of both arms. I broke ground to lessen the impact, staggering backwards two steps. Once she was safe, I raised my gun, but Wheatley held something in his outstretched fist.
A Russian F-1 grenade.
It contained a 60-gram charge of Trinitrotoluene. The total weight of the explosive with the fuse is 600 grams. Because of its shape and yellow-green colour, they nicknamed it the limonka, meaning lemon.
I looked at Wheatley's impassive face. Then back to the bomb. The sudden moisture between my palm and the butt of the gun, cooled.