The Final Minute

by Simon Kernick

  ‘How much is she willing to sacrifice for this guy?’ I asked Jack as I finished filming. I still had the gun trained on him but he looked more relaxed now, as if he knew I wasn’t going to shoot him.

  ‘Shit, Sean, I don’t know. I only met these people twice.’

  ‘Take a guess,’ I snapped.

  He shrugged. ‘They’re engaged, and the way she looks at him makes me think they’re pretty close. But she has a reputation as one of the most cold-hearted people in the business.’ He turned to look at me. ‘Listen, acting like this isn’t going to work, Sean. It’ll just get your daughter killed.’

  ‘If she dies, so do you, Jack. Tonight. I will kill you. Do you understand?’

  He glanced at me and nodded. ‘Yeah,’ he said wearily. ‘I understand.’

  I pressed the send button on Jack’s phone and watched as the text containing the film was sent to the number the woman had just called from.

  A minute later the phone rang again, but this time all I could hear down the line was a woman screaming in the background. I recognized the voice immediately as belonging to Claire, my ex-wife, but it was the words coming out of her mouth that caught my attention: ‘Please don’t hurt her! She’s only a child!’

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ I shouted into the phone. ‘Talk to me now, you bitch, or I swear to God I will cut your boyfriend’s nuts off right now.’

  ‘I’m about to cut your daughter,’ she said, coming on the line, her voice calm now. ‘And I’m going to film it for you.’

  ‘Touch her and I kill him now,’ I came back, just as calmly. ‘I guarantee it. All I want’s a straight swap. My family for your boyfriend.’

  ‘It’s not a straight swap, is it? You’ve hurt my man.’

  ‘I shot him with a .22. It’s not a big-calibre bullet, and it hasn’t caused a life-threatening injury. He’ll be as good as new when he’s had the right medical attention.’

  ‘So will your daughter. I’m only going to cut her face. And your ex-wife’s. They won’t be life-threatening injuries either.’

  She ended the call.

  I called back immediately, my fingers fumbling on the buttons, the sweat pouring down my face.

  It rang once.

  Twice.

  My hands were shaking now and I had a sudden, desperate urge to put the gun against my own temple and pull the trigger, just to end all this terrible stress once and for all.

  She picked up on the third ring. All I could hear was terrified screaming. A woman’s. And a child’s.

  ‘You can have me!’ I shouted. ‘You can have me as long as you don’t hurt them!’

  ‘That’s more like it,’ she said as the screaming subsided. ‘And good timing. I hadn’t actually started cutting. Is Mr Duckford still driving the car?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Put him on.’

  ‘No. You can have me, and you can have your boyfriend – exactly what you wanted – but only when I see that my family are free and unharmed. I know you’re holding them at an airstrip and we’re coming directly there now. We’ll contact you when we arrive. Is that a deal?’

  She was silent for a good five seconds. ‘Deal. But if you do anything else, I will hurt them real bad.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, and ended the call.

  Fifty-six

  Tina was following the car that had picked up Sean along the A40, keeping about a quarter of a mile back, when she finally put a call into Mike Bolt. She’d ignored his calls until Sean was safely in the car and driving, knowing that if she got the police involved too quickly then it might compromise the safety of Sean’s family.

  Bolt answered straight away, and he wasn’t happy. ‘Why haven’t you been answering the phone? I’ve just received word that the two detectives watching Egan’s ex-wife’s place are lying in their car with their throats cut and the house is empty.’

  ‘That’s because his ex and kid have been abducted. The deal is Sean’s got to go to a rendezvous where the kidnappers will let the wife and kid go and take Sean in their place.’

  ‘How did they manage to contact him?’

  ‘An NCA man, Jack Duckford, knows Sean from the past. Sean got in touch with him and Duckford set him up.’

  ‘Shit.’ There was a short pause at Bolt’s end. ‘Where’s Egan now?’

  ‘In a car travelling west on the A40, just going past the Swakeleys Road turn-off now.’ She read out the registration number. ‘I’m following them.’

  ‘You should have called me straight away, Tina.’

  ‘I called you as soon as I could,’ she lied. ‘But the important thing is I’m following Sean now and he’s wearing a tracking device. I can give you its serial number and code so you can track it too. You can also track my phone signal.’

  ‘Do we even know he’s still alive? If I were them, I’d kill him straight away.’

  ‘I don’t know. I couldn’t get close enough to check, but he was armed with the same gun he shot the guy in the hotel with, so I don’t think he’s going to go down without a fight.’

  ‘Jesus, Tina, this is a total bloody mess.’ He paused again, and Tina could picture him in his office with a face like thunder. ‘Give me the details of the tracker.’

  She knew the information by heart and reeled it out. ‘We’ve got to play this carefully though, Mike. If the people holding Sean get wind of what’s going on, they’re not going to hesitate to kill their hostages.’

  ‘You don’t have to tell me. I’ve met Claire and Milly. What can you tell me about the people holding them? Do we have any idea of their numbers? The location of the hostages?’

  Tina sighed, knowing she’d put herself in a hugely compromising situation. ‘No, I’ve got nothing, except what I’ve told you.’

  ‘OK, but stay back and wait for us, Tina. And whatever you do, keep your phone on and make sure you answer it.’

  ‘Sure,’ she said, once again agreeing on a course of action she had no intention of following.

  Up ahead, the car carrying Sean accelerated so that it was now travelling at more than eighty miles per hour.

  Tina kept her distance, biding her time.

  Fifty-seven

  The clock on the dashboard said 20:39 as Jack turned into a private road.

  The car was so silent I could hear the hammering of my heart. It had been like that for the past twenty minutes of the journey, ever since the last phone call from the woman holding what was left of my family. I still had my gun trained on Jack while the guy in the back moaned softly in a state of semi-consciousness. His complexion had gone a fish-scale grey, and if he didn’t get help soon, he was going to die.

  ‘This is the place,’ said Jack as he drove us slowly down the access road past a Keep Out – Private Property sign, and another stating that the land was going to be developed for executive and starter homes by some company I really didn’t care about. Thick, overgrown bushes sprouted up on either side of the road, and up ahead I could see a high mesh gate that looked like it had been pulled open in a hurry. It was dark here.

  ‘Stop the car,’ I said, leaning back in the seat, conscious that this was a good spot for an ambush. ‘What’s the layout?’

  ‘There’s a single runway, and a two-storey terminal building with a tower attached across the other side. This road takes us straight up to the runway. The building’s then straight opposite us, about fifty metres away. That’s where your ex-wife and daughter are being held.’

  I thought fast. ‘Drive very slowly up to the runway then stop and kill the lights,’ I said, crouching right down in the seat so I would no longer be visible from the outside. ‘But keep the engine running. And remember this,’ I added as he put the car into gear and moved forward. ‘If this is an ambush, I’ll still have time to kill you.’

  He didn’t say anything, and thirty seconds later we’d stopped again, having driven down a slight incline. He killed the lights. ‘We’re here.’

  Slowly, I sat back up in the seat, half expectin
g to get a bullet in the head from somewhere outside but keeping my gun trained on Jack.

  We were in a wide open space, and in the distance I could see the silhouette of the terminal building and tower. There were no lights on, and no one around, and right then I was the most scared I’d ever been – or could remember being, anyway – because it wasn’t just myself I was trying to save, it was the only family I had left in the world, and I couldn’t see how the hell I was going to do it.

  Still keeping pretty low in the seat, I called the woman.

  She answered straight away.

  ‘Where are you?’ I demanded.

  ‘We’re here,’ she said calmly. ‘I can see you.’

  I felt a flash of fear as I realized she could be right beside us.

  ‘Put Claire on the line.’

  ‘You can see her.’

  I squinted through the windscreen, which was when I saw three figures emerging from the shadows of the building and making their way towards us. I could see that it was a woman and child in front, holding hands, while another person followed just behind them.

  I turned to Jack. ‘Turn the lights on and drive up to meet them. Slowly.’

  Tina stopped her car at the entrance to the disused airfield. The laptop on the passenger seat clearly showed the tracker on Sean moving very slowly across the runway towards the old terminal building. She wished she’d given him some kind of recording device so she’d at least have some idea what was going on, but from the speed the car was moving, it looked like some kind of exchange was going to take place. Which meant Sean was alive.

  She turned on to the access road, switched off her headlights, and slowed her pace to a crawl, before calling Mike Bolt.

  ‘The car Egan’s travelling in looks like it’s reached the rendezvous.’

  ‘Yeah, I can see that too.’

  ‘How far are you guys behind?’

  ‘Me and Mo are probably less than ten minutes, but we’re unarmed. We’ve got six ARVs converging on a rendezvous point directly north of the airfield on the A412, as well as armed surveillance and the locals, but they’re not going to be ready to move for at least ten minutes.’

  ‘Sean may well be dead by then.’

  Bolt sighed. ‘I know, but I still want you to stay back and wait for us. And don’t do anything stupid. I mean that. I will arrest you if you get in the way of a police operation.’

  ‘Understood,’ she said, ending the call. But she kept driving, through the open gates, cutting her engine as she reached a gentle incline in the road. What was it her therapist had said about her once? She had a need for attention, which manifested itself in an unhealthy addiction to dangerous situations.

  Well, she couldn’t argue with that.

  Fifty-eight

  I could see the figures clearly in the headlights now. I focused on the terrified expressions on the faces of the woman I’d once loved and the daughter I’d never met. My daughter … she seemed so small and vulnerable. Only three years old and being put through this. I had a huge and sudden yearning to take her in my arms and hold her, tell her that everything would be all right.

  And then behind her, a figure in a black balaclava, a silenced pistol in one hand, a knife glinting in the other.

  It took every ounce of willpower I possessed to stay calm.

  ‘Stop the car and keep the lights and the engine on.’

  Jack stopped the car and I could see he was as nervous as I was. Sweat gleamed on his brow and his hands were clenched tight on the wheel. ‘What now?’

  I tried to think. All I had to do was make one mistake and we all died. I could feel the pressure bearing down on me.

  ‘We both get out, nice and slowly. You first.’

  Jack started to get out, and I pointed the gun directly at the head of the figure in the balaclava before slowly getting out of the car myself, using the passenger door as a shield, trying to work out my next move. The problem was, as I could remember now from my undercover days, you can never control the situation when there’s only one of you. People react unpredictably; plans can unravel in the blink of an eye.

  My plan simply consisted of keeping my gun pointed at the woman in the balaclava, so that’s exactly what I did. I could see Jack standing by the other side of the car, but I could no longer see his hands, and it struck me that the search I’d given him had been cursory at best.

  The woman addressed him now as she stopped five yards away from us, touching the gun to Claire’s head and keeping the knife far too close to Milly. ‘Is he alive?’ she demanded in her American accent, and I was immediately reminded about what she’d done to Jane only four nights ago.

  ‘Yeah, he’s alive,’ said Jack. ‘But he’s hurt.’

  Claire was staring straight ahead into space, an expression of shock and resignation on her face. I glanced at Milly, careful not to take my eyes off the woman for too long. She looked scared too but she was looking up at me with … I don’t know what it was with. Maybe hope.

  ‘It’s going to be OK, I promise,’ I said, amazed at the confidence in my voice. Then, to the woman: ‘I’m here. Let them go.’

  She pushed the end of the pistol’s barrel against Claire’s temple. ‘You know the deal. Put the gun down.’

  ‘Not until you let them go. You need to give them a head start too. Three minutes. We’ll wait here. I’ll even lower my gun a little.’

  Somewhere in the distance, across the night sky, I could hear a siren.

  The woman cocked her head in its direction. ‘What’s that?’ she demanded.

  ‘That is nothing to do with me,’ I said. ‘I promise.’

  To be honest, I had no idea if this was true or not. I’d given Tina permission to call the police as long as they kept back, but what guarantee did I have that they would? That was when I noticed that the blonde’s knife was a good few inches from Milly. I could shoot her in the face now, just as I’d shot her boyfriend. The gun would probably go off in her hand, killing Claire, and I debated with myself whether I could make that sacrifice, knowing in my heart that I could.

  But then I saw Jack pull a gun from the back of his trousers, and it hit me with a grim finality that there was no way he could afford to let my family go. Claire had just seen his face, thanks to me. So had Milly.

  The siren faded into the distance. It was over.

  ‘Put the gun down,’ said the woman.

  Behind her mask, I could almost see her calculating whether she could take me out with a single shot. With my family as a shield, she’d know I’d hesitate to fire back. If she got me, that was it. We’d all be dead.

  I realized my hand was no longer shaking. I was suddenly, inexplicably, calm. ‘Let my family go or I pull the trigger and take you with me.’ I could see Jack pointing the gun at me now but remembered him telling me he’d never killed anyone, and I could sense his heart wasn’t in it. ‘Are you going to shoot me, Jack? Have you got the balls for it?’

  The knife moved in the woman’s hand. Now the edge of the blade was touching my daughter’s face. Milly visibly cringed. ‘If you don’t lower the gun now, I’m going to disfigure your daughter for life with just one flick of my wrist.’ As she spoke, she crouched lower behind Claire, making herself a near-impossible target. ‘You have three seconds to comply. One …’

  ‘Lower the gun, Sean,’ said Jack urgently.

  ‘She’s going to kill them, Jack,’ I said. ‘You want that on your conscience?’

  ‘Two. Daddy wants you to bleed, baby. He wants you to suffer.’

  ‘Sean, do as she says, for God’s sake!’ pleaded Claire, speaking for the first time.

  I lowered the gun.

  Slowly.

  Then pulled the trigger.

  I was aiming for her right shoulder area, which was partly exposed to allow her to hold the knife to Milly’s face. It was unbelievably risky. But what else was there for me to do?

  The woman stumbled backwards out of view with a yelp and I swung round, already shouting
for Claire and Milly to run, turning the gun on Jack on the other side of the car. He had the gun in his hand and he was staring at me with a startled expression but making no move to fire, so I shot him twice in the chest, then swung back round to face the woman, knowing I’d only wounded her.

  I got a fleeting glimpse of her lying on her back on the tarmac, the knife no longer in her hand, but the gun very much so and pointing at me, then the barrel lit up and I felt a huge weight like a punch hitting me somewhere in the sternum, then another, and another, each one harder than the last, and suddenly I was lying on my back on the tarmac too, staring up into space as the world seemed to wobble and blur around me.

  I tried to sit up but all my strength was gone, and I could just make out the woman getting to her feet, still holding the gun, although her knife arm hung limply down at her side.

  So this was it. She was going to kill me.

  But she didn’t. Instead, she turned in the direction Claire had run with Milly and, as I lay there helpless and defeated, she raised the gun to fire.

  Fifty-nine

  Tina had been watching events on the runway unfold from bushes thirty metres away. She couldn’t hear what was being said but the 4×4’s headlamps had illuminated the scene well enough, and she could guess. From the angle she was at she was able to recognize Sean, and thought she could make out both Claire and Milly. She didn’t know the man on the other side of the car holding a gun but guessed it was Jack Duckford. The figure in the balaclava was definitely a woman, which meant it was almost certainly the one who’d murdered Sheryl Warner in her apartment the previous night, although there was no sign of her Neanderthal sidekick.

  And then, just like that, the shooting had started and suddenly everyone was falling down and a single outsize silhouetted figure – a mother carrying her child – was running in Tina’s direction across the tarmac. Then she saw the figure in the balaclava in the glare of the headlights, aiming her gun at them.

  ‘Keep running!’ screamed Tina, breaking cover. ‘And keep your heads down!’ She’d parked her car about twenty yards further back, behind the wall of bushes lining the access road, and she sprinted for it now, hearing shots ringing out behind her, and praying that the woman firing hadn’t hit her targets.