Revenger

90

Carver got out of the lift, ran up a short flight of stairs, crashed through a fire door and emerged on to a flat asphalt roof, surrounded by a low parapet. He dropped to a crouch and scuttled across it, keeping as low as possible. Then he raised his head just far enough above the parapet to be able to look across towards the building where Novak was holding Alix. The penthouse level was inset from the rest of the structure. From where Carver was perched there was a drop of about three metres to the terrace that ran right along the side of the penthouse. To his right, at the front of the building, were a set of French windows that led to the living room. Traversing to the left, Carver saw three windows: two bathrooms and a small bedroom, if he remembered the plans correctly. Then came the long blank wall of the master bedroom, whose windows faced towards the rear of the building.

Carver was on the same level as the roof directly opposite him and could clearly see the two glass lanterns that lit the heart of the apartment. Those lanterns were his target.

The phone pinged: another text. It read, ‘Bye-bye baby.’

What the hell did that mean? Was Alix already dead? Had he got there too late?

Then he got the answer. Another text: ‘Did you know she was pregnant?’

The shock hit Carver like a stab to the guts. Alix was having a baby… their baby… his baby.

Move! He had to move, right now.

He scrambled left till he was opposite the blank wall, then vaulted over the parapet and landed with his knees bent on the roof next door. He sprang forward taking three long strides and then jumped up the wall of the penthouse, grabbing the top and pulling himself up on to its roof.

Novak had to have heard that. Now she knew he was coming. He sprinted across to the far side, above the other, smaller flat, expecting at any moment to hear the sound of gunshots being aimed up through the ceiling at him.

None came. Novak was smart. She was holding her fire, not wasting rounds on shots that had a minuscule chance of a hit. Carver took his pack off his back, removed the Ultimate Fear and lit the fuse. It flared up in a dazzling geyser of white-hot sparks. He crept much more carefully across to the rear lantern — the one above the hall — and put the blazing cardboard cylinder down on the roof next to it.

By now it had been burning for twelve seconds.

Carver took the axe from the pack, holding it with the blunt end down. That took another four seconds. He counted to three, then smashed the axe down using all his strength. As the glass shattered, he could see two male bodies lying on the floor below him. One of them belonged to Jack Grantham, and Carver was pleased to see that it was twitching. The other lay quite still with its head like an island in a lake of blood. Novak was coming out of the door of the master bedroom. Her eyes were raised towards him, but she was looking from a brightly lit room towards the dismal grey murk of a November afternoon.

Carver slung the open, half-empty pack over one shoulder, picked up the firework and held it away from his body, over the hole in the lantern.

Novak saw that all right. She brought her gun up towards the blazing light and fired just as Carver let go and ran like hell towards the side of the building.

Twenty-three seconds after it had first been lit, exactly on schedule, the Ultimate Fear produced an explosion of scorching glare and brutal noise that made everything that had come before look like a child’s sparkler. The bang was so loud that it literally shook the building: Carver could feel the vibrations through the soles of his shoes as he ran, jumped back down on to the terrace and turned towards the French windows.

Carver needed to punch a hole big enough for him to get through. It required five hits with the axe this time: one in each corner to weaken the integrity of the glass, and the fifth smack bang in the middle to complete the job.

The window gave way with a smashing of fragments on to the living room’s parquet floor. Carver charged through the shattered glass and raced towards the hall through the thick, acrid smoke created by the detonation of the Ultimate Fear. The effects of the blast would be significant — there was a good chance that Novak’s sight and hearing would both be seriously impaired — but that would only be very short-term, and she was a tough, experienced operator. Carver had to get to her before she regained full possession of her senses, and every second counted.

They practically collided in the middle of the floor as he dashed over from the window and Novak stumbled in from the hall, her stride still unsteady and her eyes screwed up as she struggled to regain her vision and peer through the billowing grey fumes. She still had the gun, though, and she fired blind: three quick, wild shots that went nowhere near him. Then she stood there waving the gun helplessly, not knowing where to point it next. She was helpless, Carver realized. She had no way of defending herself.

Good.

He stepped right up to Novak and swung the axe with all his strength into the centre of her chest, between her breasts, right below the throat. It smashed through her sternum, and she didn’t even have the power to scream. Amazingly, though, she was still alive. She staggered forward a couple of paces, with her hands feebly grasping the handle of the axe, trying to pull it from her body, and Carver had to step back to stop her crashing into him.

So he reached into his bag, pulled out the nail gun and started firing. He put a dozen nails into her throat and head in under four seconds, keeping firing even as she fell to the ground. He had the gun set to maximum power, so many of the nails went straight through, punching their way like bullets out of the back of her neck and skull before embedding themselves in the walls and floor.

Now Celina Novak was categorically dead.

In the flat below, an Italian woman called Maria Donatelli was racked by indecision. Signor Peck was normally a very good, quiet neighbour. He liked to have a lot of lady friends over, but he was a man, so what else was one to expect? But this afternoon there had been strange sounds: scurrying feet, thuds on the floor and then a blast, like a bomb, so powerful it had made her whole apartment shake. Then more thumping on the floor that sounded almost like people fighting.

She felt she should call the police, but she did not want to get Signor Peck into any kind of trouble. On the other hand, what if his apartment had been raided by burglars, or worse, terrorists? He was an American. He could easily be a target. But then, if she called, she might put herself in danger, too.

What should she do?

Maria Donatelli wavered this way and that. But in the end, she decided to behave like a good citizen and she dialled 999.

Carver laid the nail gun on the floor, picked up Novak’s Ruger and made his way through the flat, looking for Alix in the spare bedroom and its bathroom, even though he was certain she would not be there. He desperately wanted to discover her, and yet at the same time he dreaded what he would find so much that he was almost trying to delay the moment as long as he could.

Carver was in the hall now, right by the two bodies. The dead one had to be the owner, Peck. Grantham was lying next to him. He had been right by the firework when it went off and was looking around him with the wide, sightless eyes of the blind, trying to call out through the gag around his mouth.

From the moment he had seen Novak in that construction site, Carver had known that Grantham had been behind the riot. Who else could have tipped the police off to his presence in the MI6 flat? Who else knew enough about Celina Novak to choose her for the job of tidying up the loose ends?

He would deal with Grantham in due course, but now he kept going to the door of the master bedroom, the same door Novak had come through less than a minute before. He took a deep breath. He turned the handle. He walked in.

And he stepped into a charnel house.