King Solomon's Curse

36

Nina knew the urgency in her husband’s voice from far too much prior experience. She pulled out to overtake the vehicles ahead, tearing down the wrong side of the road at forty, forty-five, fifty miles per hour.

The street was broad enough for oncoming cars to swerve clear of the thundering Routemaster, but beyond them she saw buildings blocking her path at a T-junction. ‘Crap!’ she said. ‘Roy, which way?’

Roy looked up from the laptop. ‘Left!’

The intersection was controlled by lights, cars starting to come around the corner. ‘Hold on!’ she cried, releasing the accelerator and curving right — before throwing the bus hard to the left.

The Routemaster tipped alarmingly. The first oncoming car skidded to a stop as the bus tore past — only for a van behind to ram into it and knock it forward. The bus’s tail ripped off its front bumper and sent it spinning across the junction.

Nina gripped the shuddering wheel. The speedo was falling, but it still felt as if the double-decker was about to topple over. She braked. To her horror, the bus’s list became worse, the street rolling before her—

‘Don’t brake!’ Eddie yelled. ‘Go faster!’

She trusted him to be right. Foot back on the accelerator, hard. The bus lurched, still teetering on the brink of disaster… and then the extra power propelled it through the turn.

It swung back upright as she straightened out, straddling the middle of the road between the lines of traffic. ‘Glad you remembered your driving lessons!’ she called back to Eddie, heart pounding. ‘Where are we, and how do we get to the river?’

The bus’s drunken reel had almost thrown Roy from his seat. He hurriedly checked that the damaged hard drive hadn’t been disconnected before answering. ‘The King’s Road. Keep going, and there’s a turn that takes us to Battersea Bridge.’

‘How’s the computer doing?’

‘Ninety-seven per cent!’

‘It’s always the last little bit that takes for ever, isn’t it?’ said Eddie, looking back. Their pursuers had been forced to slow to round the wrecked car, but they wouldn’t be delayed for long.

The bus raced on. Bangs and screeches of metal punctuated its journey as it swiped off wing mirrors and scraped against cars that had not given it enough space. ‘Ninety-eight per cent!’ Roy announced as they hurtled through another set of lights. ‘Okay, next right for the bridge.’

Nina heard more sirens. ‘Cops are getting closer!’

‘So are the goon squad,’ Eddie warned. The Range Rover was gaining fast.

Roy pointed ahead. ‘Here, go right!’

Nina started to turn — then hurriedly abandoned the move and swerved back on to the King’s Road. ‘Roadblock!’ A police car had stopped across both lanes of the southbound street.

‘Why didn’t they block this road?’ Roy asked.

Eddie had the unwelcome answer. ‘Because Brice doesn’t want the cops to catch us. He wants the Removal Men to get us first — so they can shoot us without anyone asking questions!’

Nina saw a sign ahead. ‘Thank God!’

‘What is it?’ Eddie asked.

‘A bus lane!’ She found a gap in the traffic she was overtaking, which was comprised almost exclusively of big and expensive SUVs, and darted left into the empty section of road. ‘Maybe now we can get somewhere — oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!’ What she had hoped would be an escape route came to a sudden end not far ahead. ‘It’s like two hundred feet long! That’s it? London, you suck!’ There were no spaces in the line of 4x4s to her right, and even with repeated shrills of the horn, none of the drivers were willing to clear one for her. ‘Come on, someone get out of my way!’

‘Welcome to Chelsea,’ said Roy acerbically.

‘Don’t stop!’ Eddie shouted. The Range Rover was gaining.

Nina grimaced, then spun the wheel. The bus scythed into the traffic, sideswiping an Audi Q7 driven by a rail-thin blonde in oversized sunglasses. ‘Comin’ through! Yeah, I learned to drive in New York, lady. Don’t try to block me.’

The Range Rover closed in, its front passenger leaning out of his window. ‘They’re gonna shoot!’ Eddie cried. ‘Roy, get down!’

Roy hurriedly ducked — as the man opened fire with a handgun. Shots tore across the gap, the Routemaster’s back window shattering.

Eddie dived through the open rear doors to land flat on the boarding platform. The Removal Man’s gun swung towards him—

The Yorkshireman had already lined up his sights and pulled the trigger. The other man jerked back as blood burst from his shoulder, his gun falling to the road.

Eddie had no time for relief. The bus jolted with an impact, the shrill of metal on metal rising behind him—

He rolled back inside — as they whipped past another bus, the two double-deckers scraping noisily against each other. Pieces of both vehicles’ mirrors showered over him. ‘Christ! Could you get any closer?’

‘I could try,’ Nina snarked. ‘Roy, are you okay?’

Roy looked up from the floor. ‘Yah, yah,’ he gasped.

‘And the laptop?’

‘What? Wait — you care more about the laptop than me, don’t you!’

‘What I care about most of all is not getting killed! Is it still working?’

He retrieved the machine. ‘Yah, it is. And it’s still on ninety-eight per cent, since I’m sure you want to know!’

‘Just keep it running!’ Nina glanced at the left-side mirror, only to find nothing there. That would make judging her manoeuvring room even harder — but a quick look in the other mirror revealed a more urgent danger. A man was leaning out of the Range Rover’s rear window, holding something larger than a pistol. ‘Eddie, gun! Bigger gun!’

Eddie pulled himself upright to see the Removal Man readying an MP5K, a compact — but still deadly — sub-machine gun. He took aim again, this time at the Range Rover’s driver. Time to end the pursuit—

He fired — but the round glanced off the windscreen. The glass was bulletproof.

The Routemaster’s was not. ‘Roy, get upstairs!’ Eddie yelled, running back up the central aisle. Roy hurriedly scrambled to the forward staircase as the Yorkshireman dived flat—

The SMG blazed, the gunman hosing the bus with gunfire. Bullets ripped through the cabin. Roy shrieked as a round burst through the panel behind him and cracked against the stairs between his legs. He flung himself up the last few steps on to the top deck, clutching the laptop.

Nina heard the bullet strike behind the driver’s compartment. She ducked, but knew she was hopelessly exposed in her elevated position. Her pursuers had realised this as well, the Range Rover reappearing in the surviving mirror and pulling out to overtake.

She threw the wheel to the right. The bus tipped again as it crossed on to the wrong side of the road. The Range Rover dropped back. She straightened — but not quickly enough, clipping a car. The windscreen cracked.

‘Nina!’ Eddie shouted. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yeah!’ Where were their attackers? No sign of them in the mirror—

Another burst of gunfire blew out the left-side windows. Eddie lunged under a seat as glass cascaded around him. Nina gasped and hunched down again. The Range Rover drew level with the Routemaster’s tail. If she swung left again, she could force it to crash—

A thump from behind — and she caught movement on one of the CCTV monitors. To her shock, she saw that the bus had a new passenger. The man in the Range Rover’s back seat had thrown himself on to the rear platform.

He still had his sub-machine gun. Eddie snapped up his own weapon—

The man rushed up the curving staircase. The Yorkshireman fired, but hit only metal as his target ran out of sight. ‘Roy!’ he cried, rising and pounding up the forward stairs. ‘He’s coming after you! He wants the laptop!’

He reached the stairwell’s top, looking over the banister — and hurriedly ducked as the Removal Man saw him and unleashed a burst of bullets. Panels splintered above him. He popped his gun arm around the corner at floor level, sending two rounds down the upper deck. The other man hurled himself on to one of the rear seats, disappearing from sight. Eddie tracked him and fired again, but the bullet didn’t have enough power to penetrate all the intervening seat backs.

And now he was out of ammo—

The MP5K rose above the seats and swung in his direction, the Removal Man blind-firing — but only a few rounds lanced up the bus before the clamour of gunfire was replaced by a dry click.

Eddie knew he only had moments before his opponent reloaded. He charged down the aisle. The Removal Man had already ejected the magazine and inserted a new one, springing up to fire—

The Yorkshireman hurled his empty pistol at him. The MP5K snapped up to deflect it, metal clanking off metal — then the savage little gun came around—

Eddie dived over the seats to hit the other man in a flying tackle, knocking his gun arm away. The MP5K went off, a spray of bullets tearing through the bus’s side and shattering a shop window on the street beyond.

‘Roy, get downstairs!’ he yelled. The younger man hurriedly retreated as Eddie prepared to unleash a headbutt—

His adversary beat him to it.

A piercing pain drove through Eddie’s upper jaw as a tooth cracked. ‘You fucker!’ he roared, anger powering his fist into the other man’s nose. Cartilage crunched, blood spurting. The younger man grunted… but didn’t go down.

They grappled, lumbering into the aisle. The Removal Man twisted to pitch his target down the rear stairs. Eddie kicked out, catching the safety barrier surrounding the stairwell and propelling both men away from it. His opponent staggered, briefly unbalanced. The Yorkshireman spun, grabbing the other man’s gun arm and slamming his wrist against a pole.

The MP5K clattered to the floor. Both men tried to lunge for it while simultaneously forcing the other away. They thumped back and forth against the seats, reeling forward as they struggled for the upper hand…

Eddie realised to his dismay that he wouldn’t win the contest of raw muscle power. The GB63 member had been through the same special forces training as himself, and more besides after joining the ultra-secret unit — and was both younger and stronger.

Instead he shifted position — and kicked the gun. It skittered up the aisle to the front of the deck, well out of reach.

But the action had saved him from one danger only to expose him to another. His movement gave his opponent extra leverage — and the other man took advantage, forcing him forward and driving his head against another vertical handrail.

If the pain of his broken tooth was piercing, this felt more like being struck by a mallet. Eddie staggered, impossible colours exploding in his vision before clearing — to reveal the Removal Man lunging again. A fist rushed at his face. He jerked up one arm to take the blow, but a second strike thumped into his stomach.

He gasped, stumbling into the front stairwell’s safety barrier. Another brutal punch winded him — then a hand clamped around his throat.

The man bent him back over the barrier, fingers tightening like steel cords. Eddie lashed at his head, but scored only glancing impacts. He choked as his enemy’s remorseless grip squeezed his airways closed.

The Removal Man pushed harder, about to pitch him head first down the stairs—

The bus tipped violently, flinging both men away from the stairwell.

Nina had seen on the CCTV monitor that her husband was in grave danger and threw the Routemaster sharply to the right, making a tyre-squealing turn down a side street. Roy yelped as he was hurled sideways. He checked the laptop’s connections. ‘If the cable comes unplugged I might have to start from scratch!’ he complained. ‘By the way: ninety-nine per cent!’

‘Hold it in place with your damn teeth if you have to!’ she shouted back. Another glance at the screen. Eddie had broken free, but the SIS assassin still had the upper hand — and foot, delivering a savage kick to the Yorkshireman’s stomach. Eddie fell back on a seat, his head banging against the window. She gasped.

The Removal Man straightened as if to attack again — then saw something on the floor.

The MP5K was a sinister black shadow at the bottom of the monitor.

Nina looked desperately ahead, but the new street was much narrower than the main road; any turn harsh enough to knock him down would send the bus head-on into a lamp post or parked car. And the Range Rover was still behind them. If they stopped, they would be shot dead…

A large red-brick apartment building rose on the left. A driveway ran to it — and through it, a tall arched passage leading to another road beyond.

The Removal Man snatched up the gun—

Nina was already turning the steering wheel before her conscious mind could object to the crazy plan. The bus demolished the end of a low wall, the Routemaster bounding over the rubble on to the driveway.

She accelerated, foot to the floor. The bus jolted back towards the vertical. On the monitor, the Removal Man had grabbed a seat for support, but was now recovering. He faced Eddie, raising the sub-machine gun…

The archway was just big enough to accommodate the bus — if it went straight through the middle. Nina instead steered to one side. ‘Eddie! Low bridge!’

Eddie heard her and rolled to the floor—

The Routemaster ploughed into the brickwork.

Masonry smashed and metal tore, the entire frame of the heavy front window ripping loose and slamming across the SIS agent’s back. He fell, broken bricks pummelling him.

Eddie shielded his face from flying rubble, then scrambled upright as Nina swung the bus back into the centre of the arched passage. The mangled section of roof crashed to the ground as they burst back into the open.

The Routemaster ploughed through a set of iron gates on to the next street, Nina making another hard right turn. Wind hit Eddie’s face through the gaping hole in the bus’s front. He looked for the Removal Man’s MP5K. It was teetering at the top of the stairs.

The SIS man also saw it. He lunged—

Eddie stamped on his hand. He screeched in pain. The Yorkshireman snatched up the weapon — then twisted to kick him hard in the face with a hideous snap of breaking teeth. The younger man slumped nervelessly to the floor.

Gunshots from behind. Windows on the lower deck shattered as Nina swerved frantically from side to side. Eddie ran back down the bus. Below, he saw the Range Rover pulling alongside, the fourth man leaning from a window with another MP5K. The sub-machine gun blazed again, strafing the Routemaster’s flank—

Eddie’s weapon joined in the staccato chorus. The gunman fell screaming back into the SUV with bloody wounds in his arm and shoulder. The Yorkshireman switched aim, knowing the windows were bulletproof — but gambling that not every part of the vehicle was similarly strengthened…

His shots tore into the roof.

The Range Rover was indeed not impenetrable from above. The rounds hit the driver in the legs and hip. The black vehicle abruptly fell back, weaving — then struck a parked car and cartwheeled over it, smashing down on its side.

Eddie hurried down the stairs. ‘Nina! Roy! You both okay?’

‘I’m fine,’ Nina replied breathlessly. The window beside her had been shattered.

‘Oh my God!’ cried Roy. ‘That guy tried to kill us! What happened to him?’

‘I took him out,’ said Eddie.

‘He’s dead?’

‘No, but I hope MI6’s cafeteria has plenty of soup options, ’cause it’s all he’ll be eating for a while. What about the laptop?’

The young man checked. ‘Well, it’s still working, somehow, but — oh!’ A ping came from the machine. ‘One hundred per cent. Good timing!’

‘It’s finished?’ asked Nina.

‘Yah, yah.’

‘Great — but which way do we go?’

Roy looked ahead. ‘I’m not sure where we are — no, there!’ He pointed. ‘Right, then left straight away. I can see the river!’

Nina braked to bring the battered bus through a junction, then immediately turned again to swing it on to a tree-lined road along the Thames’s northern bank. She saw a bridge crossing the river about half a mile ahead. ‘Can we get to the US embassy from there?’

Roy nodded. ‘That’s Chelsea Bridge — the embassy’s in Nine Elms on the other side.’

‘Still got to reach it,’ Eddie warned. ‘There’s probably another half a dozen cars of goons on the way already.’

‘Roy, check if the video’s there,’ Nina said, blasting the horn and swinging the bus around a knot of dawdling traffic.

He quickly checked the newly recovered directory. ‘The most recent file is… an MP4, about two gigabytes, last changed… four days ago.’

‘That’s got to be it,’ said Eddie. ‘Play it!’

Roy double-clicked the file. Eddie watched as a video started. Nothing but blackness for several tense seconds, making him worry that the file had been corrupted… then lights came into view.

They were inside the ceremonial chamber beneath the Palace Without Entrance, the drone descending towards it. Inside, he saw shadows cast by movement in front of the lanterns — then figures came into view.

Himself, Nina… and Brice.

‘We’ve got video,’ he told his wife, before looking back at Roy. ‘Turn it right up, we need to hear.’

Roy set the laptop’s volume to maximum. Echoing voices became audible. ‘Cosmic rays, maybe,’ said Brice. ‘Something that can penetrate so deeply.’

Eddie looked up from the screen. ‘We’ve got it. We’ve got it — and we’ve got him!’

Nina spotted cars slowing on the bridge ahead — and moving aside to clear a path for something coming up from behind them. ‘Roy, have you still got that flash drive?’ Having seen several USB sticks on his desk, she had suggested he bring one.

He checked his pocket. ‘Yah, it’s here.’

‘Copy the file on to it.’

‘Why?’

‘Because a flash drive’s a lot harder to break than a laptop! Eddie, bad guys on the bridge.’

Eddie hefted the sub-machine gun and hurried up the front stairs. ‘If they stop us, we’re dead,’ he called back to Nina. ‘Keep going no matter what!’

He made sure the Removal Man was still unconscious by kicking him again, then went to the front of the top deck. Another black Range Rover was tearing across Chelsea Bridge. It reached the shore and made a screeching turn through a crossroads to power down the embankment towards them.

He readied the gun, expecting a gunman to lean out — but instead the SUV skidded to a halt across the middle of the road. Other drivers heading in each direction stopped in alarm as a man jumped out and took up position behind it, aiming a gun — an MP5, the full-size, more powerful version of Eddie’s own weapon — over its bonnet.

With traffic halted, there was no way around the obstruction. ‘Eddie, what do I do?’ Nina cried.

‘Go through ’em!’ he yelled. ‘Ramming speed!’

‘Roy, keep down!’ Nina shouted as she dropped as low as she could. The speedometer needle rose again—

The man behind the Range Rover opened fire. Nina screamed as the windscreen blew apart — but held her course, foot jammed down on the pedal. Eddie retaliated, bullets twanging off the SUV’s windows and bodywork. The man ducked as people nearby fled their cars.

But the MP5K had already exhausted its ammo. Eddie dropped it, bracing himself as the bus surged towards the Range Rover.

The gunman sprang up again — to see a wall of red charging straight at him. He broke and ran—

The Range Rover’s driver also realised what was about to happen and threw his vehicle into reverse — but too late.

The bus hit the Range Rover’s front quarter at over fifty miles per hour. The SUV was flung around in a mad pirouette, swatting the running man over an abandoned car before smashing into it.

Nina raised her head, squinting into the wind. What had been the platform inside the bus’s front passenger door was now folded upwards like crumpled paper, mangled bodywork embedded in it. But the bus was still moving, the long overhang having protected the front wheels. ‘Is everyone okay?’ she shouted as she turned towards the bridge.

‘Somehow, yah,’ said Roy, sounding surprised.

‘More of ’em!’ Eddie yelled from above.

There was indeed another 4x4 charging towards them. ‘What, does MI6 have an infinite supply of Range Rovers?’ Nina protested.

Too late to turn back. The oncoming SUV braked hard and angled up on to the kerb at the start of the span to block her way, its nose against the sloping metal barrier separating the roadside from the footpath. A window lowered, another MP5 poking out.

The bus roared towards it. ‘Hold on!’ Nina cried—

The Routemaster smashed into the Range Rover.

The impact slammed the 4x4 up the barrier — and over its top, sending it cartwheeling across the pavement into the bridge’s railings. It burst through them and plunged into the murky waters of the Thames forty feet below.

The bus lurched to a stop. Even braced, Nina had still been thrown over the steering wheel. Pained, she remained still for a moment, thinking she could hear a ringing in her ears — before realising it was the sound of distant bells. She sat up. Pedestrians and people in the stationary cars gawped at her. ‘Eddie? Roy?’

‘I’m still here,’ Roy groaned. ‘I think…’

Footsteps thumped down the stairs. She turned to see her husband carrying the unconscious Removal Man. ‘What’re you doing with him?’

‘Getting rid,’ Eddie replied, going to the open middle door. ‘Don’t need him causing you trouble if he wakes up.’

‘That sounds like you’re not planning to stay around to deal with him,’ said Roy.

Eddie tossed the man out on to the pavement as Nina engaged reverse gear and started to extract the bus from the dented barrier. ‘You need to get to the embassy. Roy, what’s happening with the computer?’

‘The file’s still copying to the flash drive,’ the young man told him as the Routemaster lurched free.

‘Still? Fuck’s sake, is that laptop steam-powered? Okay, I just heard Big Ben — it’s quarter to twelve. If I find Brice before noon, I might be able to stop him. It’s about a mile and a half to the Houses of Parliament, so I can make it in time if I run.’

‘But you don’t know where he is,’ said Nina.

‘I’ll just head for the weird noise.’ He jumped down to the street.

‘It’ll be too late by then!’

‘I’ve got to bloody try! You get that video to the embassy.’

‘I’m not leaving you!’

He looked back at her. ‘I don’t care what Brice says, this is my country — and I’m not going to let him fuck it up. Now go!’ He vaulted over the barrier and raced away.

‘Eddie, wait!’ Nina shouted, but he was already gone. ‘Shit!’ Knowing there was nothing she could do to bring him back, she set her jaw and put the Routemaster into gear.