Red Notice

83

Laszlo stared ruefully at his broken watch. The case hadn’t survived his dive for cover, but it was still capable of telling him that the minutes were ticking by.

As Sambor dragged Delphine back towards the buffet car, she gave a sudden cry. Laszlo barged past the hostages. Two of his men stopped tending their burns and jumped out of their seats to follow him. Laszlo burst into the buffet car. The British soldier was standing on the other side of the glass door at the far end.

He was unarmed. His arms were raised. He was delivering himself to Laszlo. The door opened.

‘Tom — no!’

Laszlo wasn’t going to allow himself to be distracted by the woman’s pitiful plea. Neither was his adversary. The man’s eyes were locked on his.

The battery in his hand, and the two leads connected to it, told their own story. The plastic square was still in place, keeping apart the jaws of the crocodile clip that would complete the circuit. He took a step closer, his other hand tightening the wire that would wrench away the plastic insulator. Laszlo saw the greasy, light-green substance bulging from the top of his jacket.

He sensed rather than saw the gunman immediately behind him thumbing down the safety catch of his weapon and lifting it, ready to fire. He raised a warning hand. ‘Don’t.’ He kept his voice slow and calm. ‘Can’t you see what he’s wearing?’ He switched to English. ‘I see that you have found my PE.’

The man smiled bleakly. ‘I’m afraid you’re now a couple of slabs short of a picnic.’

‘I don’t think we’ll miss them.’ Laszlo spent some moments studying Tom. He was wounded, beaten and bruised, totally swamped by the strength of his opposition, yet still he kept coming back. Just like Laszlo did. ‘There’s still more than enough left to do what I need it to do. I’ve bet my brother that the blast will be powerful enough to fracture the rock overhead. The English Channel will suddenly develop a plug hole.’

Laszlo turned to his brother and translated.

Sambor didn’t find it as funny as he did. ‘We kill the country!’

Laszlo patted his brother’s shoulder, then said to Tom, ‘I imagine you’re as intrigued as I am to find out if I’m right…’

The Brit shook his head. ‘I’m much more interested in whether you’ve thought this through.’ He nodded at the explosives strapped to his chest. ‘Are you feeling suicidal?’

‘Of course I’m not. I am a professional soldier, not some cheap street terrorist.’ Laszlo took a couple of steps, grabbed Delphine by the hair and pulled her towards him. ‘But I think your delightful companion might be.’

‘If so, she’ll take you with her. You won’t get out of this tunnel alive — not now. You know that.’

Laszlo tightened his grip on the woman’s hair and gave it a twist. She gasped with pain, but his adversary didn’t even blink. ‘There will be an assault, Laszlo. You will fight, and you will die. Whatever you have planned, you will not live to see it. None of you will.’

Laszlo shrugged. ‘If it were up to certain members of your government, I’d already be dead.’

‘That’s not true. We were sent to arrest you. It was a non-lethal arrest.’

Laszlo paused, intrigued. ‘So you were there, were you?’

‘Only a couple of minutes or so behind you. Your coffee was still warm.’

Laszlo was impressed.

‘But that’s history. You’ve now taken the non-lethal option off the table. Unless you help me. Come with me now. We disarm the device, then we walk out of the tunnel and live.’

Laszlo couldn’t help laughing. He shouted a translation to Sambor, who still didn’t share his amusement. Neither did the men behind him, who looked like they ached to take a shot.

‘If you choose to fight and die, that’s up to you. But these people, the real people, the innocent people, they don’t deserve to go down with you, do they?’

‘You disappoint me, Tom. I didn’t think you’d be so naïve. No one is truly innocent. And nobody cares about real people. Each corpse only costs your government… what? A little over a hundred thousand pounds in compensation. I’m sure that would be a very small price for them to pay for my death. Tom, you are a young man so you do not understand the subtlety of this situation. Some of your people have a strong vested interest in seeing me permanently silenced.’

Tom held his gaze. ‘So what? Set the real people free and we can walk out together. Then I’ll be able to protect you.’

Laszlo gave a mirthless smile. ‘You can’t really believe that. And I certainly don’t.’

‘At least free some of these people. Why do you need so many? You have the tunnel gift-wrapped, after all.’

‘Precisely my point. The tunnel is more precious to them than a million hostages. I will release these people when I am ready. So stop playing at suicide bombers and start being more productive. Go back to Folkestone and tell your lords and masters what you know and what you have seen, and why they must accede to my demands.’

‘Let me take her.’

Laszlo shook his head. ‘If you wish to keep Delphine and your child alive, you should go now, and do what I say.’

Sambor and the two Bears had inched towards the Englishman while Laszlo was speaking, their weapons up. He could probably feel their hot breath on the back of his neck. They’d be itching for a head-shot; they knew as well as he did that a high-velocity round could detonate the PE as easily as the crocodile clip snapping shut. But as their target moved back behind the glass once more, Laszlo lifted his hand and signed to them to back off.

Laszlo watched Tom fix his eyes on Delphine. What message was he trying to convey? That he would be back? That he would try to get her out? Whatever it was, her reply was a small, rather touching smile.

Laszlo gave a smile of his own. How foolish women could be. To side with the underdog; to see hope where there should be only despair. Did they never understand the true dynamics of power?

A moment later, her lover jumped from the train and disappeared into the darkness.