Red Notice

80

Laszlo dragged Delphine to the buffet car. It was empty apart from Sambor, who was in the narrow galley area adjoining the counter, rifling through the food drawers. With a look of disgust, he dropped sandwich pack after sandwich pack to the floor.

Laszlo pushed her up against the customer side of the counter and zip-tied her to it. She stared across at him, her eyes blazing with hatred, anger and fear.

At last Sambor found a sandwich filling he approved of and threw it to his brother.

Tom had finally found her. And she was alive.

He crouched opposite the buffet car and tried to regain his breath.

He watched, tried to listen to — and even lip-read — what Laszlo was saying to her, while working out how he was going to play this. There were only two of them with her, but they were expecting him.

Sambor had joined Laszlo behind the counter and was using the coffee maker with all the confidence of a black-belt barista.

His brother’s fury had abated a little, and his urbane charm was back on display as he turned to Delphine. ‘Perhaps you would like some coffee? Sambor is something of an artist with an espresso machine. If we had been born into a different universe, he would have been a most famous chef. Maybe he’d have had his own TV show. They have so many on British TV — have you seen them? I have spent so much time lately watching British TV. They must be a nation of cooks, house-buyers and antique-collectors.’

Delphine stared at him, unmoving.

Sambor glared at her, as if she’d personally insulted everything his brother stood for. He poured himself a cup, sniffed its quality, then added four spoonfuls of sugar from a large catering tin.

Laszlo rummaged in the fridge. ‘Then perhaps a glass of wine instead? They have a surprisingly decent selection. You French are remarkable that way. You maintain your civilized lifestyle whatever the circumstances.

‘Sambor and I read about the banquet that your countrymen served during the siege of Paris in the 1870s. They used the zoo as their farmyard, and cooked whatever else the starving guests could scavenge from the streets. “Cat Flanked by Rats” was one dish, I seem to remember, and “Roast Bear”, “Escalope of Elephant with Shallot Sauce” — what elegance you always display, and what a shame you are such weaklings in battle. Do you think the two things go together?’ He held up a bottle for her to inspect. ‘A little sancerre to soothe your nerves?’

She shook her head.

Laszlo poured himself a glass, then picked up the public-address system handset and stretched the lead to its fullest extent so he could be as close as possible to her.

Laszlo tapped the handset. ‘I want to make an announcement,’ he said. ‘But I won’t be telling passengers what delights the buffet car has in store. I have something else I want to say. Not to the passengers at all, in fact, but for your very good friend Mr Tom Alvarez-Buckingham-Leary.’ He raised his glass. ‘Delphine, do take some wine. When our dear mother was pregnant, she drank three bottles of vodka a week. You shouldn’t believe everything the doctors tell you about alcohol damaging an unborn child.’

The little remaining colour drained from Delphine’s face as she realized where this conversation was heading. Laszlo leaned over the counter, the lead tautening as he moved the handset closer to her. He put down his glass. Delphine could smell the fumes rising from the counter. ‘Delphine, my brother and I are perfectly normal.’ He picked up the glass again, then took a taster’s swig and swill before spitting it onto the floor alongside the contents of the food drawer.

‘Neither of us has foetal-alcohol syndrome, and we are certainly not brain-damaged. I was a physics professor before I found a more suitable vocation. And, as I have already said, if it wasn’t for all these wars, my brother would have won Russia’s MasterChef, I am sure of it. So don’t believe all the scary stories.’

He raised a toast to the handset, then pointed towards her stomach. ‘What are you having? A boy or a girl?’

Delphine hesitated, reluctant to tell him.

Sambor clearly didn’t like the idea of his brother being disrespected yet again by this woman. His look was enough for Delphine to answer, and quickly. ‘A boy… It’s a boy.’

Laszlo leaned in so close to her that they could quite easily have touched lips. Delphine tried as hard as she could to control herself, but she couldn’t stop her body shaking. It wasn’t just fear: she felt physically and emotionally violated.

Laszlo sniffed at her mouth. ‘I’ve always had a very keen sense of smell.’ He sniffed again, this time slowly. ‘My mother used to say I could have been a parfumier, not that there are many openings for parfumiers to practise their trade in Russia. I can still smell a little trace of vomit on your breath. There’s nothing quite like the smell of morning sickness on a woman’s breath. It’s unmistakable. You really can’t hide it, no matter how many mouthwashes and breath fresheners you use. Though I can well understand why you would want to try. The whole process is really quite unattractive, isn’t it? And a harbinger of other, even less pleasant things to come: the swollen belly, the varicose veins, the discharges, the mood swings, all those other delights.’

He stepped back from the counter, took a swig from his glass and smacked his lips appreciatively into the handset. ‘So that’s what your man Tom has to look forward to, when the time comes. Tell me, Delphine, how did he react when you told him that you were pregnant?’

She stayed silent, head down, gaze fixed on the floor. But out of the corner of her eye, she could see that Sambor had finally found the contents of a baguette worthy of his attention, and was drinking from a carton of soya milk. He held a carving knife by its blade in his spare hand.

‘Well, well, Miss Delphine Prideux,’ Laszlo continued, a note of even greater triumph in his voice. ‘You haven’t told him, have you? Perhaps you were wise not to. Some men tend to shy away from commitments, and children can be very expensive. That can frighten a lot of them. Especially those trying to exist on a soldier’s pay. Even with a Special Forces bonus…’

She was determined to remain silent, stone-faced, refusing to rise to the bait.

‘He is SAS, isn’t he?’ Laszlo took another sip of wine. Then he put the glass down and took the knife from Sambor. He ran his thumb along the edge of the blade. ‘The calendar on your iPhone contains several appointments at Hereford General. You had a scan only a few days ago.’

Delphine was still trying to hold back her sobs, still trying to contain herself. But silent tears streamed down her face.

‘We are soldiers, too, of course.’ Laszlo waved the blade in the direction of his brother. ‘But before the war we were involved in the property market. In Georgia. We didn’t seem to have many long-standing clients, though. By the time we arrived on the scene, most people had already had the good sense to leave. There were always a few who argued, people who said the price was too low, or superstitious peasants who would rather give up their lives than their land.’

He gave her a chilling smile.

‘And, of course, we were always happy to oblige them. Others were just stupid as well as stubborn.’

He put down his glass and leaned across the counter.

Delphine flinched as he gently pushed the blade against her stomach.

‘Some were invalids. Some were pregnant mothers. Mercy killings and emergency Caesarean sections became a bit of a speciality for us. You’d be amazed at how… skilled I became…’

He pressed a little harder. The knife-point pierced the fabric of her top. She felt her skin resist momentarily before a drop of blood glistened on the steel. She finally lost control and broke down, begging for her child’s life.

Laszlo didn’t have time to react. There was a heavy slap against the safety glass on Delphine’s side of the carriage. Their heads spun towards the light green lump the size of a 50p piece that was now stuck to its left-hand corner.

The two brothers knew instantly what it was. But before they could take cover, it detonated like a gunshot.

Tom crashed through, head first, in a shower of glass, and skidded across the window table. In one fluid movement, he landed on the floor and dived for cover towards the luggage compartment by the doorway as Sambor’s burst of fire ripped into the softer bodywork of the carriage.

Laszlo cut Delphine’s zip-ties and dragged her into the next coach as suppressed ceramic bullets shredded Tom’s cover. He tried desperately to locate her. Before he opened up, he needed to know where she was.

During the next lull in the fire, Tom made his move.

He leaped up and ran forward, weapon in the shoulder, both eyes open. His breath was slow, in control, in auto-mode. His legs never crossed, he always kept a stable platform for the weapon — because that was all he was now: a weapon platform. He passed through the staff entrance into the galley area, past the microwave cookers and ovens, his boots crushing the crinkly, plastic-covered shit beneath his feet. He didn’t care about the noise. They knew he was here.

He heard shouts from the carriage behind him. A target popped up the other side of the counter in front of him. Sambor had finished loading. Tom took aim, both eyes open. Then Sambor dropped again, but keeping his weapon above him, his hands just visible as he opened up.

Tom ducked for cover. As he did so, he felt a blinding stab of pain in his leg. He ignored it. He kept firing into the counter at ground level, hoping the rounds would penetrate the toughened plastic barrier and whoever was firing at him from the other side.

Almost instantaneously, Sambor stopped firing, Tom ran out of rounds, and more of Laszlo’s men burst into the carriage. He had no choice: he sprang up and dropped the weapon. Warm blood ran down his right leg as he looked for an escape route. The other side of the counter was now clear, but gunmen were swarming in from behind him.

He grabbed the safety glass hammer from its clear plastic container next to the kitchen window and flicked on the nearest gas ring. He picked up the large can of sugar and held it there, waiting, waiting… His head was clear. He knew what he had to do. He saw everything around him unfold as if it was in slow motion. He wasn’t flapping, just waiting. Waiting for the right moment…

Three seconds later Tom decided that time had come. As the gunmen passed the galley, weapons in the shoulder, Tom launched the sugar as if it was a bucket of water, creating a fine combustible mist of particles that rained down around him and the men the other side of the counter. It ignited instantly as it made contact with the naked flame.

He slammed the steel-tipped hammer against the corner of the window as the sweet-smelling fireball engulfed them. He could feel his hair singe and the back of his neck blister as the safety glass crazed and he dived against it, ready to accept the landing.