Ultimatum

Fifty-seven

20.01

Voorhess knew he had to dump the Shogun fast. There was no way he was going to drive it back to the airport now.

Somehow the police had known about the Stinger attack before he’d carried it out. It was the only thing he could think of to explain the way they’d suddenly appeared on Mr Butt’s doorstep when he’d driven out. A few seconds later and they’d have had him, and although he’d tried to run them over, that hadn’t stopped the plainclothes female police officer — an attractive, if slightly hard-faced, woman — from trying to get into the car to arrest him. More problematic, though, was the fact that she’d seen his face. With the exception of the old man earlier, no one had ever seen him on a job before and lived to tell the tale, which was why he was still working after more than a decade of being a professional killer.

What was really irritating was the fact that none of this was his fault. He’d done his job, just as he’d promised he would. He should have been warned that Mr Butt had a girlfriend with a key, because that too had almost ended in disaster. Voorhess prided himself on his skill and attention to detail, and he expected the same from those who hired him. And they’d let him down.

Now he was on the run with the police coming at him from all directions.

He saw a small hotel up ahead on the right with parking in front of it, and turned in. There were no spaces so he double-parked in front of two cars, blocking them in, then got out and started walking fast, knowing he’d left DNA traces inside the Shogun that the police would be able to recover, but unable to do anything about that now.

As he stepped out on to the pavement, he spotted a police patrol car, its blue lights flashing angrily, hurtling towards him on the other side of the road.

Where others saw problems, Voorhess always saw opportunities — it had been something drummed into him by his father, along with the importance of decisiveness — and he immediately stepped into the road and waved them down. A physical description of him had almost certainly been circulated by now, but it would be basic, and with no reference to his size since he was sitting down when he’d been spotted, and he was banking on the fact that in the heat of the moment it wouldn’t occur to the pursuing officers that their target would be trying to attract their attention.

The police car veered across the road and stopped next to him, the driver sticking his head out of the window, a sour, accusatory look on his face. Obviously he wanted to get back to chasing terrorists.

‘The hotel! I saw a man!’ stammered Voorhess, approaching the car.

When he was only a foot away, he drew the.22 that he’d used to kill Mr Butt’s girlfriend from beneath his overalls, pressed the barrel against the surprised officer’s forehead, and pulled the trigger. The man gasped and fell back in his seat, and Voorhess leaned down so he had a view of the officer in the passenger seat — a young man in his early twenties with a pallid complexion — and shot him in the face as he went for the door handle, putting a second bullet in his chest for good measure.

Already he could hear another siren coming closer, and he knew he was going to have to move fast. Putting the gun back in his overalls he ran round to the back of the car and opened the trunk, throwing in the holdall containing his possessions. Then, taking a quick look round to check there were no witnesses, he pulled the driver from the seat, hauled him over to the boot and bundled him inside, grabbing his cap in the process.

A second cop car was approaching fast now, coming the other way, barely a hundred yards distant and closing, and it took all of Voorhess’s self-control to put on the cap, jump in the driver’s side and pull away from the kerb and back on to the left-hand side of the road.

The approaching cop car slowed as it came closer, which was when Voorhess heard groaning coming from the seat beside him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the young, pallid-faced cop lean forward in his seat, blood pouring down his face, making a keening sound, and trying to lift an arm, clearly some distance away from being dead.

Slamming his arm into the injured officer’s chest and knocking him back in the seat, Voorhess nodded towards the other cops as the two cars passed each other, blocking the view of their injured colleague as he accelerated down the road.

Only when he’d put a bit of distance between them did he let go of the young cop, who was wriggling and gasping in his seat like a zombie from a cheap horror film. Slowing the car, Voorhess pulled the.22 free, shoved it against the cop’s temple and pulled the trigger.

Which was the moment the radio crackled into life, the caller asking for the current location of the car Voorhess was driving.

‘Bravo Four, do you copy?’ asked an anxious male voice. ‘We have just heard gunshots. Bravo Four. Please respond. Over.’

With a sigh, Voorhess pulled the unit free from its stand and threw it out of the window, wondering if he was ever going to get out of this Godforsaken city in one piece.