The Shadow Project

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Ben hauled the coughing, spluttering woman up onto the shore. In his right hand was the automatic pistol he’d taken from her attacker’s belt.

To come to an idyllic lakeside retreat to talk to a retired physics professor and find a gang of armed killers trying to murder a woman – Ben wasn’t even trying to figure it out. The questions could come later, after he’d got himself and her out of this.

It had been on the approach to the house, the Audi’s windscreen wipers batting away the thundering rain on full speed, that he’d spotted the beige Citroen Picasso parked at the gate. Innocuous enough, but a woman’s scream of terror was a sound that could carry a long way, even through a stormy night. He’d killed his lights and engine and coasted the last few yards to the house, left the Audi hidden among the trees and come in over the wall. He could still hear the screaming as he’d sneaked through the grounds. Crouched behind a flowery shrub, he’d wiped the rain out of his eyes and watched the blond female and the tall man walk away around the side of the house and head back towards their car.

He’d been more interested in the woman. Everything about her cool, imperious bearing said that she was the leader. As she walked, she’d kept glancing at something in her hand. Hard to tell from that distance, but Ben had thought it looked like she was holding a pile of CDs.

Then, as Ben had sat watching, his attention was quickly diverted to the second guy, the squat one with the muscles. It was becoming increasingly obvious that he didn’t have good intentions towards the woman they’d dragged from the house.

In situations like that, it was hard to remain a passive observer.

Wishing there’d been time to conceal the attacker’s body, Ben helped the frightened woman up the bank to the cover of the long grass, laid her down and crouched beside her in the shadows. Any minute now, the other two were going to be wondering what was keeping their friend so long, and they’d be back.

She shrank away from him, fear in her eyes. Water was dripping from her hair, and her clothing was soaked. Ben could feel his own wet shirt clinging to him, and the wind chilling his skin. He knew he had to get the woman inside the house quickly. Even in summer, hypothermia was a dangerous reality.

‘I won’t hurt you,’ he said softly. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Sabrina.’ She wheezed, coughed up lake water. ‘Who are you?’

‘Sabrina, you’re going to have to keep your head down. Don’t do anything unless I say. Understand?’

The sound of car doors. Shouts carrying on the wind, right on cue.

‘Slatan?’ The woman’s voice, harsh and edged with anger. The name and the accent sounded Bulgarian or Estonian to Ben.

He peered up over the long grass. The rain was moving on quickly. The wind tore a hole in the dark clouds and in the pale moonlight he saw the two figures approaching from the path along the side of the house, scanning right and left as they walked a few yards apart. Both had a grim, hard look and moved cautiously. Professional killers, Ben thought. And as they crossed the terrace to the edge of the grass, he saw the stubby black weapons they were holding in their arms that looked worryingly like Israeli Mini Uzi submachine guns. Sound suppressors, extended thirty-round magazines. The bright crimson dots of laser sight beams swept the lakeside. Whatever it was these people had come out here for, somebody wasn’t taking any chances.

He quickly checked the pistol he’d taken from the dead man. Even in the dark, he could tell by touch what it was – a big-framed, old-fashioned Colt .45 automatic, maybe a Gold Cup or a Government model. It was a fancy piece, with an extended beavertail grip safety and a muzzle compensator to control recoil by diverting part of the gas blast from the barrel. But all the buttons and bells in the world couldn’t disguise the fact that he had only eight rounds at best and barely visible iron sights that were next to useless for shooting in the dark, against state-of-the-art laser optics and the high-capacity firepower of two machine guns. It didn’t seem quite fair.

He shrugged to himself. One thing the SAS had taught him was that you did what you could with what you had. And he was lucky he had anything at all. He press-checked the breech. Glanced across at Sabrina and put a finger to his lips. Saw the whites of her eyes in the moonlight.

The woman and the tall man were about fifteen yards away when the woman suddenly stopped and pointed at the lake.

The floating dark shape in the water was exactly what Ben had been hoping they wouldn’t spot. His stomach tightened like a fist as he watched and waited for their reaction.

The woman did pretty much what he expected. She was definitely the leader, and a decisive one. It took her less than two seconds to scan the long grass, jerk the cocking bolt on her Uzi with a ferocious snarl and let loose a ripping spray of gunfire that churned up the ground dangerously close to the grassy clump where Ben and Sabrina were hidden.

The ball was rolling. No choice. Ben could hardly make out his sights against the target but he fired back anyway. The flat punch of the .45 stabbed his ears and he felt the recoil kick back against his palm. Shooting almost blind, but he’d hit something, because the woman cried out and staggered back a step and fell, clutching her arm. The tall man instantly opened up with his Uzi, lighting up the night with his muzzle flash.

The sustained burst of fire drove Ben back down the slope, dragging Sabrina with him as clumps of earth and bits of grass showered down over them. Sabrina rolled in the dirt, wrapping her arms around her head for protection.

Ben scrambled back up the bank just in time to see the tall man helping the woman to her feet and the two of them retreating back towards the side of the house. He chased after them. Saw blood on the ground where the woman had fallen, and a trail of bright red spots along the path.

At that moment the moon was obscured by another black cloud and the grounds were plunged back into darkness. The man and woman were little more than shadows up ahead. Ben broke into a sprint. As he ran he pointed the Colt and let off three more blind shots that he instinctively knew all went wide of the mark. The flitting shadows darted around the side of the house and into the front yard. He heard running steps on the wet gravel. The sound of doors slamming and the Citroen’s engine revving high, the rasp of spinning wheels.

Ben rounded the corner of the house and emerged into the yard just as the car was taking off at high speed. He fired at the taillights as they sped away from the gate and up the road, but they were already out of effective pistol range. He lowered the Colt and watched the headlamps carve through the bends, and then the Citroën was gone and the road was as black as the hills that merged into the night.

He turned away and started running back to Sabrina.