Renegades

by Hutson, Shaun;

  ‘We’ve got company,’ she told Doyle, who checked his rear-view mirror.

  ‘Police?’ he wondered aloud, catching sight of the headlamps.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said quietly, holding on to the seat as the Datsun ran dangerously close to the edge of the roadside ditch. She squinted through the gloom, trying to see how many people were in the car, but it was impossible; the glare from the pursuing vehicle’s head- lights made it a futile cause.

  Up ahead the Orion turned a comer, crashing through a wooden gate and skidding across a field.

  Doyle followed without hesitation.

  The Mazda followed too.

  ‘Who the fuck are they?’ he said, glancing once more into the rear-view mirror.

  A burst of fire from up ahead interrupted his musings.

  Bullets struck the front of the Datsun, two of them blasting out a headlamp. Doyle swung the car back and forth to make it a more difficult target to hit. Simultaneously he fired another burst from the MP5K, his hand numb from the prolonged and powerful recoil. The stench of cordite filled his nostrils despite the gust of cold air pouring through the side window.

  ‘Could they be more of Maguire’s men?’ Georgie mused aloud, peering over her shoulder again at the oncoming car.

  ‘They’d have taken us out by now,’ Doyle said with an air of certainty. ‘Probably have been sitting there with a fucking rocket-launcher waiting for us.’ He glanced into the rear-view mirror, frowning. The Mazda didn’t appear to be making any attempt to catch up with them, but was maintaining a steady distance. Tracking it as well as following he thought.

  The cars were bumping over deep ruts in the ground now, bouncing and skidding every few yards, yet they didn’t reduce their speed but roared on through the night, across the field, the occasional shot flying back and forth between the two vehicles.

  There was a hedge on the far side of the field. Dolan put his foot down and sent the Orion crashing through.

  Doyle followed suit.

  So did the Mazda.

  The road they found themselves on was wider now and Doyle saw his chance to get up alongside the Orion. He floored the accelerator, slamming into the rear of the escaping vehicle, dropping back immediately. Then he repeated the move, smashing the other taillight of the Orion, smiling to himself as he saw the vehicle skid. He drove up alongside it, twisting the wheel, slamming the Datsun into the other car.

  He could actually see Billy Dolan’s face, the Irishman yelling at him angrily as the two cars collided once more.

  Dolan raised the Ingram and fired.

  Doyle hit the brakes a fraction too late and bullets ripped into the side of the Datsun, punching holes in the bodywork. He dropped back then shot the car forward again, coming up on the other side of the Orion, bringing his own sub-gun to bear on the vehicle.

  He’d fired half a dozen shots when the hammer slammed down on an empty chamber.

  ‘Shit,’ Doyle said, tossing the weapon to Georgie. She reloaded it, punched open the sun roof and stood on the passenger seat, her head and shoulders through the top of the car. She took aim and fired, the spent cartridge cases flying back at her, hurled by the wind. Red hot, they singed her skin and she winced.

  Both side windows were blown inwards, bullets drilling across the side and roof of the Orion.

  Dolan twisted the wheel and sent the vehicle crashing through another hedge into another field.

  Georgie dropped back into her seat as Doyle followed, glancing once more at the ever-present Mazda behind.

  Doyle felt like telling Georgie to riddle the fucking thing with bullets, just to get it off their tail, but for now his attention remained locked on the fleeing Orion.

  The burst of fire which took out his windscreen was lethally accurate.

  The glass was blasted inwards as surely as if a maniac with a sledgehammer had been standing on the roof of the Datsun swinging wantonly at the screen. Pieces of glass flew back at Doyle and Georgie, cutting them and causing Doyle to swerve.

  Another shot caught him in the fleshy part of the shoulder.

  The pain was sudden and unexpected and Doyle felt a dreadful numbness spreading rapidly through his left arm. His hand slipped from the wheel for precious seconds, long enough for him to lose control of the car. It spun round, fish-tailing suddenly. With a feeling of rage and apprehension he realized that it was going into a roll.

  It spun viciously, twisting over more than a dozen times, finally ending up on its roof.

  The Orion sped off into the night.

  The Datsun lay still like some stricken beast, its occupants unmoving.

  The Mazda pulled up a few yards behind, headlamps pointed at the upturned car. Slowly both its occupants clambered out and walked towards the Datsun, watching for any sign of movement.

  Both men carried guns.

  Seventy-Nine

  As she stared out of the window, Catherine Roberts’ reflection looked back at her, mirrored against the blackness of the night sky.

  The plane moved silently through the low clouds, its engine apparently muffled by the darkness which seemed to envelope it like a velvet glove. Every so often it would judder slightly as it passed through an air pocket.

  She looked down at the papers and notes spread out on the table in front of her.

  In that maze of jottings and jumble of papers lay the answer to the riddle she and Channing and probably hundreds more before them had sought to find.

  She had the riddle of the window solved.

  Cath glanced at her watch, wondering how much longer it would take to reach Dublin. Once the plane set down she still had to reach Callahan’s estate.

  He had to know about the window. Had to know everything.

  She sighed wearily and glanced out of the window again. There was nothing to see but blackness. Cath looked down at her notes, eyes flickering over the scrawled sentences and drawings: There was a page of Latin, a sketch of the window with arrows drawn to point out meanings in the different panels.

  Callahan would have to see these.

  The child sitting in front of her peered over its seat and looked at her again. The man next to her was still smoking, wreathing both of them in a cloud of bluish fumes.

  Cath tried to ignore them and concentrate on her notes. She pulled a pad from her bag and began transcribing some of the less legible sentences onto a fresh sheet of paper, aware all the time of the child’s gaze upon her.

  How much longer before they reached Dublin?

  As if in answer to her unspoken question, the voice of the Captain suddenly filtered over the radio and told the passengers they would be landing in approximately thirty minutes.

  Cath glanced at her watch.

  She had to reach Callahan as quickly as possible.

  The child tired of staring at her and slipped down into its seat. Cath continued writing, stopping every now and then to re-read what she’d written, wondering perhaps if there had been some mistake.

  Wondering?

  Could she have been wrong somewhere along the line? Wrong with her translation of the words? Wrong with her understanding of the window? Wrong, perhaps, in her reading of the stained glass? But the more she looked at the findings before her, the more she re-checked her work, the more certain she was that there had been no errors. Her findings were correct. She had found the secret, of that there was no doubt.

  As she looked at her watch she realized she was not wondering if she’d made a mistake.

  She was hoping.

  At Dublin Airport she rented a car. The drive, she knew, was not going to be easy, her speed hampered by little knowledge of the roads and also by the need constantly to consult a map.

  She felt tired, both because of the lateness of the hour and the incidents of the past week or so. She felt as if all the energy had been drained from her. She had to fight to keep her senses alert; winding down her window to allow cold air to sweep over her face.

  Beside her in a briefcase on the pas
senger seat were her notes. Answers to questions.

  Twice she had to stop and consult the map given her by the rental company, pulling into the side of the road and tracing the routes with her index finger, conscious all the time of her own slow progress. If only she could pull into one of the hotels and book a room for the night. Sleep. She could continue with her journey in the morning refreshed. But Cath knew that she could not do that. She had to keep driving, despite the crushing weariness.

  She had to reach Callahan, and the window, no matter what.

  He had to know.

  Cath tried to coax more speed from the car.

  She hoped she wasn’t too late.

  Eighty

  There were pieces of bone protruding through the pulped flesh.

  Mick Black looked down at the savage wound in his left leg and howled in pain again. Blood was still oozing from it, running down to stain his sock. It was matted in the hairs on his leg. On the back seat beside him, still unconscious, was Laura Callahan, her bathrobe dotted with blood. Her own and Black’s.

  ‘What the fuck was that bastard firing out of that gun?’ Maconnell wondered aloud, looking down at the massive destruction Doyle’s shell had wrought on his companion’s leg.

  Maguire didn’t answer.

  Black continued to moan softly, his pain intensifying.

  ‘We’ve got to change cars quick,’ said Maguire, glancing over his shoulder. ‘If we run into any Garda we’ve had it.’ He looked at Dolan. ‘Dump this fucking thing as soon as you can. Find something else.’

  The driver nodded, his youthful features sheathed in perspiration. There were flecks of blood on his face too from a couple of slight gashes he’d sustained when flying glass had exploded into the car.

  ‘Who the fuck were they?’ he wanted to know.

  ‘How do I know?’ Maguire said irritably. ‘Probably the same ones who were after us in Belfast.’

  ‘We’ve lost them twice. We might not be so lucky the third time,’ Damien Flynn offered.

  ‘There won’t be a third time,’ Maguire said.

  Black’s teeth were gritted against the waves of agony that racked his body. He had lost a lot of blood. He felt sick. The back window was open and the cool night air washed over him, yet still he felt nausea sweeping through him in unrelenting waves.

  ‘We’ve got to get him to a doctor, Jim,’ said Maconnell, glancing down at Black’s wound again. The other man was slumped back in his seat. Even in the darkness his features looked waxen. ‘That bullet nearly took his fucking leg off.’

  ‘We’ll dump her first, then see to Mick,’ Maguire said, nodding in the direction of Laura, sprawled unconscious across Flynn’s lap. ‘I want to get rid of this car.’

  They passed a sign that proclaimed:

  KINARDE 2 MILES.

  ‘First car we see, we take it,’ Maguire continued. The road curved around to the right, flanked on both sides by trees and hedges which looked as if they had been formed from the night itself, so dense and impenetrable were they. About two hundred yards ahead a car was parked in what passed for a lay-by.

  ‘Kill the lights,’ said Maguire and Dolan obeyed, cruising up to within ten feet of the stationary Citroen Estate. He pulled up.

  The car was in darkness, with no tail lights on, no hazard warning lights. Nothing. Of the driver there was no sign.

  Maguire got out of the Orion; sliding the Browning Hi-Power from its shoulder holster, keeping it low by his side as he approached the car. He moved around it, saw that the dashboard was illuminated, tried the door and found that it was open. Movement in the hedge behind him made him spin round.

  The man, who Maguire took to be the driver of the car, was still doing up his flies as he emerged from his position behind the hedge. He raised his hands in an attitude of surrender, the colour draining from his face. Despite the fact that he’d just relieved himself, urine suddenly darkened the front of his trousers as he saw the automatic in Maguire’s hand.

  Maguire fired once.

  In the silence of the countryside the sound was thunderous. The 9mm bucked in his fist as he pumped the trigger, the bullet catching the man in the face just below the right eye. The impact propelled him back through the hedge, where his body lay twitching. Maguire stood over him, watching as the last muscular spasms racked the body, then prodded the corpse with his toe and turned back towards the Orion. His companions were already scrambling from it, Maconnell supporting Black, Flynn carrying Laura bodily. Maguire watched as he laid the woman across the back seat and slid in beside her.

  Black was burbling incoherently as Maconnell half-dragged, half-walked him to the waiting Citroen.

  ‘I’ll take him,’ said Maguire. ‘You get in the front.’ Maconnell nodded and eased his companion towards Maguire who snaked one arm around Black’s shoulder, supporting him. ‘It’ll be ok, Mick,’ he said. ‘We’ll get that leg sorted out.’

  Black nodded and groaned, afraid he was going to vomit. The pain from his leg was intolerable.

  Maguire looked down at the wound and saw the portions of bone poking through the torn flesh.

  ‘It’s bad,’ he said, shading his head.

  With that he pressed the Browning to the base of Black’s skull and fired once.

  Again the sound reverberated in the stillness, the harsh blast mingling with the wet slop of exploding brains as the roof of Black’s skull was blown away, the skull resembling a volcano as it spewed blood, fragmented bone and grey matter into the air. Maguire stepped aside, allowing the body to fall into the grass at the roadside, then slipped into the back seat and slammed the door.

  ‘There was nothing we could have done for him,’ he said.

  Silence greeted the remark.

  The reaction was a combination of shock and acceptance. There was a cold logic to it.

  Maconnell nodded thoughtfully.

  ‘Let’s get out of here, Billy,’ said Maguire.

  Dolan nodded and started the car, pulling out of the lay-by, leaving the two bodies where they had fallen.

  Eighty-One

  Doyle heard the soft footfalls drawing closer but lay still.

  Next to him in the overturned Datsun, Georgie had her eyes closed. As he swivelled his eyes, he could see a thin ribbon of blood coming from beneath her hair, some of the crimson liquid dripping onto her cheek. There was a dull pain in his left shoulder where the bullet had clipped him and his neck was throbbing. The ache was beginning to fill his skull. When he tried to draw in a deep breath it felt as if his chest was constricted but there was no pain. He concluded that he had no broken bones.

  The footfalls drew nearer, muffled by the grass in the field.

  Doyle reached with infinite slowness across his body, allowing his fingers to touch the butt of the .44, ensuring he could reach it if he had to.

  Right, you bastard, keep coming.

  He allowed the arm to rest across his chest, then lay still again.

  A torch was shone into the car.

  ‘Get them out.’

  The voice was English.

  He heard hands scrabbling at the doors, tugging open the buckled panels. Then he felt himself being hauled from the upturned vehicle and pulled onto wet grass, which soaked into his sweatshirt and jeans as he lay on the ground. He could smell petrol, and wondered if the Datsun’s fuel tank had been ruptured in the spin.

  Is she alive?’

  The same voice.

  ‘Yes, she’s just dazed.’

  The second voice was English too.

  Doyle smelled tobacco smoke, felt himself being pulled upright, pushed back against the car.

  ‘Doyle.’

  The sound of his own name surprised him. Startled him into opening his eyes.

  ‘Doyle,’ the man said again, shaking him slightly.

  The counter-terrorist blinked myopically, exaggerating the extent of his confusion.

  He didn’t recognise the man who stood before him glaring into his eyes.

  A han
d crashed against his cheek.

  ‘Come on, snap out of it,’ the first man said, shaking him again.

  Doyle groaned and allowed his head to drop forward onto his chest. The man gripped his chin and raised it so that he was staring into his face again.

  ‘Where did Maguire and his men go?’ the man asked.

  What the fuck was going on here?

  They knew Doyle’s name, they knew who he was chasing.

  Garda? No, the voices were English. And they were in plain clothes.

  ‘Come on, you bastard, wake up. Talk to me.’

  Doyle was slapped again.

  He gazed at the man blankly, satisfied that his pretence was working.

  ‘Where’s Maguire?’ the man insisted angrily.

  Doyle was pushed back harder against the car, the man bringing his face closer. The smell of cigarettes was strong on his breath.

  ‘Talk,’ rasped the man.

  Doyle opened his eyes wide and, for a fleeting second, the man who held him realized that the counter-terrorist was vividly conscious.

  Doyle drove his head forward with terrific force, the snake-like speed catching the man unawares. There was a harsh crack as his nose was broken. Blood burst from the shattered appendage and now it was Doyle’s turn to grab him. He butted him again, this time letting his body fall as he reeled from the impact, sprawling on the grass. Doyle reached for the Bulldog and pulled it from the holster, aiming it at his fallen foe. The man tried to rise but Doyle drove a foot hard into his crutch. The man doubled up in agony and lay writhing on the grass, clutching his throbbing genitals.

  The counter-terrorist spun round to see that the second man was approaching him from the other side of the car. He held Georgie in front of him. Doyle could see that she was conscious but still groggy.

  ‘Drop the gun, Doyle,’ the second man said, pointing his own Beretta automatic at the younger man.

  ‘Fuck you,’ Doyle said, steadying himself. He raised the pistol until the barrel of the .44 was aimed at the man’s head.