Ultimatum

Fifty-five

19.49

‘Slow down!’ Tina yelled as they drove on to the residential road of modern townhouses where a thinning pall of smoke still hung over the rooftops. ‘It was fired from down here somewhere.’

The road was too narrow for on-street parking, and all the houses had attached garages, and car ports, but there was no sign of a black Shogun anywhere as they drew level with the properties directly beneath the smoke. But now that it was drifting on the breeze, it was impossible to pinpoint the exact place from where the missile had been fired.

Tina opened her window, looking for some kind of reference point. The sirens were coming from everywhere now, their sound almost deafening, and the car’s radio was alive with rapid-fire chatter as officers converged on the area from all sides. No one, it seemed, could believe what had just happened. She was still in shock herself. They both were, although thankfully Bolt had calmed down.

‘It had to have been fired from one of this group of three or four houses here,’ she said, pointing out of the window, her heart still pumping hard from the tension.

Bolt gave their location to Control and stopped the car as the door to one of the suspect houses opened. A middle-aged woman in a tracksuit stepped outside, looking round with a puzzled expression on her face. Her gaze then fell on the battered Ford Focus that Bolt was driving, and she gave him a suspicious glare.

Bolt opened the window and flashed his warrant. ‘Police,’ he hissed, not wanting to alert any suspects. ‘Get back inside.’

The woman pulled a face and shook her head as if she didn’t believe him.

‘Leave her to me,’ said Tina, getting out of the car.

But she was only halfway across the road when she heard an automatic garage door opening to her left. ‘Get inside!’ she urged the woman. Bolt was gesturing at her to get back in the car but Tina was already walking towards the house next door, wanting to get a look at the car coming out of the garage.

Suddenly she was blinded by headlights as a black Shogun drove out.

Tina’s next move was utterly instinctive. She sprinted over and went for the front door handle.

There was a single shadowy figure in the driver’s seat. He gave her a brief half-second glance, and their eyes met.

Tina grabbed the handle and the Shogun accelerated on to the road, taking her with it. She tried to yank the door open but the damn thing was locked. She saw Bolt drive towards the Shogun, trying to cut it off, and then she let go, hitting the tarmac with a painful thud and rolling over and over.

Looking up, she just had time to see the Shogun slam into the Ford Focus side-on, shunting it round ninety degrees in a crunch of metal, before it reversed back just as suddenly, forcing her to scrabble out of the way on her hands and knees. Tina thought he was trying to kill her, but he wasn’t. He was just getting some extra purchase so he could drive into the back of the Focus and force it off the road. Once again he slammed against it, and as Tina got to her feet, the Shogun made a hard right and sped down to the end of the road. Hopelessly, pointlessly, Tina chased after it, ignoring the pain that seemed to come from every part of her body, as the Shogun made another right at the junction and disappeared in an angry screech of tyres.

Behind her she saw two marked patrol cars drive on to the road, sirens blaring. Turning round, she ran towards them, holding up her warrant card, yelling at the cops in the lead car to continue the chase. And then, as they manoeuvred around the battered Focus and accelerated away after the Shogun, she ran over to where Bolt still sat in the driver’s seat, looking dazed.

‘Mike, are you OK?’ she asked. They may have been on the verge of a real row a few minutes earlier, but the fact was she cared about him far more than she liked to admit.

‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ he grunted, just managing to open the crumpled driver’s-side door and get out.

‘The other cars are on his tail but he’s got a bit of a head start.’

‘Shit,’ he said, leaning against the car and rubbing the back of his head, still unsteady on his feet. ‘We can’t let him get away. Not after what he’s done. I just heard on the radio that they’d already started the evacuation of the observation deck, but that they took a hell of a lot of casualties.’ He glared at her. ‘I thought I told you not to do anything stupid.’

‘I didn’t. And before you start giving me a load more crap, remember this: I got a look at him.’

Bolt’s expression brightened just a little. ‘Would you recognize him if you saw him again?’

‘Absolutely,’ said Tina with a cold certainty in her voice. ‘And if I ever do, I’ll kill him.’