Red Station

FIFTY-SEVEN

Harry landed without warning. The breath was dashed from his lungs and his gun fell from his hand. As he scrambled to find it, he heard another burst of shooting and the car lights went out.

He retrieved the gun and checked it over, then did a quick touch-recce of his surroundings. Rocks and grass, but how dense?

He hugged the ground. As far as he could tell, he was lying in a hollow. He must have rolled into a ditch or a depression of some kind — he could feel moisture and soft earth beneath him. At least, he hoped it was earth. It reminded him too readily of the Essex inlet where all his troubles had begun.

It all seemed a long time ago.

He waited, regaining his breath. The lights and the burst of gunfire had been intended to confuse and kill. Latham had succeeded in the former, and Harry prayed Rik and Clare hadn’t fallen victim to any of the shots.

A thin scrape of metal sounded in the dark. Someone brushing against a car body. Not Rik and not Clare; it was the wrong direction. Latham, then… or one of his team.

He was coming for them.

Harry took a deep breath, fighting a rising sense of panic. Time wasn’t on their side. He had to do something. Waiting here for Latham to hunt them down wasn’t an option; the killer had far too many advantages. He braced himself and hoped he was clear of whatever hollow he was in, and not facing a wall of earth or rocks. A ricochet here could be messy. And fatal.

Holding the gun two-handed, he lunged upwards and fired three times in rapid succession towards the other car. He heard the tinkle of breaking glass and the hollow ping of a round hitting metal. A volley of answering shots came back over his head and he crabbed to one side, a snapshot of the area in front of him captured by the flare of gunfire.

The terrain was a mix of dry bushes, scrubby grass and rocks. A nightmare for anyone to move across in a hurry, yet, unwittingly, it might prove to be their salvation. A car — a heavy four-by-four — was parked at the edge of the road, facing down at him.

And a man standing by the front wing.

The image remained clear. He had his legs slightly bent, arms held out before him, the dark shape of a weapon in his hand. Tall, slim, face unclear, he could have been any age. But there was no mistaking his stance.

Harry crabbed sideways, threading among the rocks and scrub. If he had seen Latham in the muzzle flash, then Latham would have seen him, too. And fixed his position.

Another burst of gunfire opened up the night from his left, with more sounds of shots hitting metal. Clare or Rik? He couldn’t tell. The echoes were distorted by the dead ground, their points of origin muted and difficult to pin down.

He risked another try and stood up, letting off another double-tap before dropping to the ground. Too far right and off-target. But close enough when it was three against one.

Then an engine burst into life, followed by the high-pitched whine of reverse gear and the furious scrape of tyres on loose shale.

Latham moving out? They’d surprised him; scared him off.

But for how long?

Ditching caution in favour of speed, Harry scrambled towards the Toyota, stubbing knees and toes on rocks. They’d been given — had taken — one chance to get away from their pursuer, and he wasn’t going to waste it. Cuts and bruises were an acceptable trade-off compared with the alternatives.

‘Clare! Rik!’ he yelled. ‘Back to the car!’

He got there just as the driver’s door opened and Clare reached up to smash the interior light with the butt of her pistol. Rik dived in from the other side, and once Harry was aboard, they took off again.

The headlights revealed a continuation of the gully which took them back on to the road, past a ramshackle wooden pen which a local farmer must have used for housing the goats. Clare pushed the Toyota out on to the tarmac without waiting to see if the other car was coming up behind them.

‘You OK?’ Harry asked. Clare nodded, focussing on the road ahead. She looked determined in the glow of the instrument panel, with a gleam of excitement in her eyes and smudges of dirt showing on her face and shoulders where she had hit the ground after abandoning the car.

He turned to look at Rik, who was watching the rear. ‘How about you?’

Rik shook his head and held up his gun. He didn’t meet Harry’s eye. ‘I’m fine. I didn’t… I couldn’t do it.’ He cleared his throat and looked at the back of Clare’s head. ‘I tried, but… I fucked up the safety catch and it wouldn’t fire. My hands were greasy… I was nervous. Sorry.’

‘Forget it,’ said Harry. Rik was feeling ashamed at not having been able to use his gun. It took guts to admit that in front of a colleague. ‘Let me see.’

He took the gun and checked it over. The safety was on, and a knob of dirt was stuck to the slide. He cleaned it off and ejected the clip, then worked the mechanism. There was nothing wrong with it. Rik had suffered a simple attack of nerves. It happened. He handed the gun back.

‘The safety was jammed with muck. Must have picked it up when you hit the ground.’ He added, ‘Strip out the magazine, make sure you haven’t got a round up the spout and put it back together again.’

He knew the breech was empty, but it wouldn’t do Rik any harm to go through the process. It would give him confidence to know that he could do it when it mattered.

Rik nodded and did as Harry had said. When he straightened up, he looked and sounded calmer. ‘It’s good.’

‘Right,’ said Harry, not looking at him. ‘Next time, you’ll be fine, too. Is the safety on?’

There was a pause, a click, and Rik said, ‘Yes.’

An hour later, they swung sharply left and bounced down a muddy track.

Harry looked questioningly at Clare. She pointed towards a dark mass in the distance showing a single point of light. A farm. It was too remote to be anything else.

‘If you’ve got some of that chocolate handy,’ she added, ‘I could use it to bribe the farmer into letting us stay in his barn.’

Harry nodded and checked the track behind them. There had been no sign of pursuit, and he doubted if even Latham was capable of driving through the dark without lights. They had been pushing hard and were all desperate to stop; it made sense to lay up while they could.

He had debated the wisdom of arriving at the airport in the middle of the night, and dismissed it. The place was likely to be locked up tight until just before the first flight in the morning, which would leave them with nowhere but the terminal and surrounding shadows to hide when Latham arrived. And he was sure to turn up sooner or later.

At least in the morning, with airport security and army patrols, the killer would find it difficult to go on the offensive.

Rik passed Clare two chocolate bars from their supplies. She drew up a hundred yards short of the nearest building, a wooden cowshed with weatherworn slats and a sunken roof. Taking the chocolate, she got out and disappeared into the dark.

The single light had gone out.

Five minutes later, she was back, minus the chocolate. She pointed to the cowshed. ‘There’s a small barn behind that. He says we can stay there, but wants us gone before five. He’s already had two military patrols go through the place.’

Once the Toyota was safely out of sight, they went inside and found a place to settle down. The air was surprisingly warm, and smelled of hay and animals. Movement in a stall at the rear was followed by the snuffle of a horse and a bleat from a goat. Dried rabbit skins hung from the wall and a chicken poked its head out from a pile of sacking.

‘It’s Noah’s bloody ark,’ said Rik, and threw himself down on a pile of hay.

Harry instinctively checked the barn for a rear exit. He found a single door in one corner. Then he did a tour of the outside and stood listening to the night. No sounds. No movement.

He stood for a while, enjoying the solitude and allowing the kinks from the car ride and the rolling around in the dirt to ease themselves from his body. His thoughts turned to Jean, and he wondered what she was doing. He realized with surprise that he’d been doing that quite a bit lately.

The idea of making her smile sounded promising.

Now all he had to do was get back.

He went back inside. The other two were in separate corners, fast asleep.