Assassin

94

The speedboat flashed under the Clifton Suspension Bridge and headed for Avonmouth, where the river met the sea, roughly six miles away. With the engines at maximum power they would cover the distance in under four minutes. Off to the west, the Daring's Lynx was now airborne, aiming for a position offshore, directly in line with the river.

'How does it feel?' asked Tyzack. 'Confronting your death?'

'I wouldn't know,' Carver replied. 'I'm not planning to die.'

His earpiece burst into life again. The words that followed were barely audible over the engines, the wind and the slamming of the hull against the water, but 'barely' was enough to get the point.

'Carver, this is Manners. Don't know if you can hear me. If you're on that boat, get off it. The PM's given the order. The moment you reach open water, the Navy's going to take you out… Good luck. Out.'

'You're right,' said Carver. 'It's the Navy. For God's sake, for once in your life, do something sensible and stop the bloody boat.'

Tyzack turned and his blood-caked lips cracked into a leering smile below eyes that now burned with a feverish intensity. 'Now you're confronting it,' he cackled.

'Look out!' Carver shouted.

Immediately ahead, the river made a dogleg turn to the left. Tyzack did not slow the boat at all, hurling it around the bend with such abandon that Carver thought they would capsize. For a second, the sheer force of the turn unsettled Tyzack and he began coughing again, even more violently than before, the blood now gushing from his mouth. Carver was working out when to make his move when the river swung again, this time to the right, shaking him so violently that he was for the first time glad Tyzack had forced him to strap himself in.

But that was the last of the turns. The bows were now pointing directly down a final, almost dead-straight stretch of river that ran under the brutalist concrete span of the M5 motorway bridge. Carver could see one final, relatively innocuous kink in the river and ahead of that the open sea.

Death awaited on that choppy brown estuary water, but Tyzack wasn't slowing down to avoid it. He was charging gleefully, exultantly, onwards. Hardly turning his head, he pointed his gun in Carver's direction.

'Shall I put you out of your misery now?' he asked. The crew of the Lynx had been tracking the speedboat's progress on their radar. Now, as it emerged into the mouth of the river, they had visual contact. The pilot's orders were clear. Ensure that the target was well clear of any civilian water traffic, then shoot at will. He was planning to let it go a mile out to sea. At that point it would be two miles from where his helicopter was waiting. Then he would fire. His Sea Skua missiles travelled at close to the speed of sound. Less than ten seconds after their launch the speedboat would be blasted from the face of the earth. There was a manic glee about Damon Tyzack as he sped towards oblivion. His head was held high, his hair blown back by the wind rushing in through the shattered screen. His arms stuck straight out from his shoulders at right-angles, like the arms of a clock at nine: one hand on the wheel, the other holding the gun. His bright blue eyes were fixed in a fevered stare and his blood-smeared lips were twisted into the wild grin of a man embracing his own damnation.

Carver was waiting, calculating, praying that he still had time, knowing that there were just seconds in it. He could see the helicopter in the distance, hovering just above the horizon. How long would it wait?

And then he saw something else, much closer; the prospect of salvation.

The XSR hurtled out of the river and hit the first waves coming in from the sea. The bow reared up into the air, hurling both men back in their seats, off balance.

Tyzack's gun was jolted upwards by the impact. Carver yanked his arms out from under his legs and lashed the side of his right hand into Tyzack's left wrist. The blow sent the gun spinning from Tyzack's hand. It fell to the deck and skimmed away over the bucking, rearing wood surface.

Carver unclipped the buckle of his safety harness then clambered upright. Tyzack made no attempt to stop him, or to resist in any way. His chest heaved in a convulsive hack, spraying Carver in a deep pink spume of foaming blood. Then he let go of the wheel, spread his arms wide as the boat started veering round in a circle and wheezed, 'Go ahead. What's the worst you can do?'

Carver didn't punch Tyzack. He wasn't worth breaking a knuckle over. He just slapped his head three times, left-right-left with great swinging blows that left Tyzack slumped barely conscious in his seatbelt.

'This is for Thor Larsson,' said Carver, pulling the plaited leather belt from his jeans and tightening it around Tyzack's neck. He pushed the pin of the buckle between two strands of leather and wrenched the buckle round behind Tyzack's head.

Carver undid Tyzack's harness and pulled on the belt, yanking his head forward until he was doubled up. Then he began tying the loose end of the belt to the blood-spattered rim of the boat's steering wheel.

Tyzack was coming to. He turned his head and looked up at Carver through unfocused eyes. He tried to speak, but all he could manage was a feeble, wordless croak.

Carver bent down and asked, 'How's it hanging?' In the Lynx the pilot watched the sudden apparently random change in the speedboat's course with alarm. He wasn't sure if the pilot had lost control or was trying to escape. And he wasn't going to wait long enough to find out.

'Fire!' he commanded.

The Sea Skua missile scorched away across the sky.

Carver caught a quick flash of light in the corner of his eye as the rocket engine ignited.

He took one last look at Tyzack, suspended from the steering wheel like a discarded puppet. Then he raced back towards the stern, grabbing hold of the passenger seats and physically dragging himself through the cabin as it juddered with the impact of each fresh wave. A mile away, the Skua acquired its target before plunging into its final death dive. Carver reached the stern and flung himself into the water, diving away from the thrashing propellers then staying underwater as the missile hit the boat. The shock waves from the blast punched Carver in the back, driving the breath from his lungs and pushing him still deeper, fighting for control until he was finally able to kick upwards again and emerge, gasping for air, on the surface.

He took one quick look to get his bearings and struck out for the shore.