Pullen eased off the throttle and lined the Astra up behind the articulated lorry.
Quarter of a mile.
Cade’s radio came to life. It was Hazard who was now using the Force radio which was repeating onto Cade’s personal set. His tone changed, more professional now.
“Hello Mike Two November Lima, this is Sierra Two Zero – Airport: On your channel.”
“Sierra Two Zero from NL we are aware of your pending vehicle stop, local units en route ETA ten minutes, continue your commentary, over.”
It was routine procedure.
Cade saw it first. Ahead and to his left was a Sales Representative in an orthodox blue Ford Focus. He was munching his way through a sandwich oblivious to what was happening ahead of him.
Immediately to his front was a white taxi. As they were about to pass the slip road, it accelerated and shot left, causing the Focus driver to spill his lunch onto his pinstriped trousers. His right hand hit the horn and then followed with a familiar hand gesture.
The taxi negotiated the rumble strips, unseen to the patrol cars. Cazaku had made it. Fools!
“Shit! Go left, go left!” barked Cade.
Pullen not wanting to disappoint his newly acquired best friend did just that, throwing the Astra across the median strip and almost off the road. Whatever he used, will power, Jedi Mind Technique or just good, old, fashioned luck he managed to maintain a straight-ahead course and kept pace with the target vehicle as Cade yelled into his radio knowing that he only had a minute to repeat off of Hazard’s main set.
“Sierra Two Zero! We’ve been had. Your vehicle is a Trojan Horse. We are behind the correct car. It has the female in it.”
Hazard and Booth were conducting the stop and were now fully aware that Cade was right.
Hazard shouted above the traffic noise, “You two sort them out, Leicestershire will be here in a minute, let them realise you are armed, I’m off to back up Jack.”
Booth gave the OK sign with his thumb and forefinger and got the driver out of the car and onto the embankment whilst his barrel-chested colleague watched the passenger.
It took less than a minute for them to realise that they would need Language Line, as neither appeared to speak English. Booth suspected otherwise, but sat the driver onto the damp grass and waited patiently.
Hazard was now using all his driving skills and going against everything he stood for by reversing at high speed up the hard shoulder. The Motorway Communications Centre had seen events unfolding and had put a warning up on the preceding matrix boards, but drivers still hurtled by him.
He reached the slip road and put the T5 into first and rammed his foot into the floor well. The 2.3 turbocharged engine catapulted the Volvo along the road and he was soon back in the chase.
He was wringing out every bit of the two hundred and forty-seven brake horsepower available, navigating through traffic whilst trying to track down Cade and the Astra.
His radio sparked into life. It was a distant signal but he was still nearby.
“Sierra…Ashby Road…golf…”
It was enough. He turned left and hurtled along the A512 towards the Leicestershire town of Ashby. It was a single-lane carriageway but with the advantage of speed, warning equipment and training he was soon travelling at over a hundred miles an hour.
As he approached a group of cars, he would place the Volvo into the centre of the road, watch for a gap and accelerate, drifting back to the left and out once more. Doing this he was both safe and making progress. It was how all the best police drivers were taught.
“Snell’s Nook Lane…” It was Cade again, his signals once again clear.
Back on board the Astra Pullen was in seventh heaven. He was driving his ‘Tracey’ harder than ever before and in a sense should have been the pursued, not the pursuer, such was the stereotypical appearance of his vehicle.
“Easy mate, doing well but just hang back, Steve will be on us in seconds” Cade offered advice as well as a warning he knew how quickly things could go wrong. He suddenly laughed.
“Bloody hell Geoff, this is only Day One!”
Pullen was too focused to understand.
“Jack, I reckon it’s gone up there, to the right, towards…”
He read the brown sign.
“…towards the golf course.”
Cade had a good hard look ahead of him, he couldn’t see the Mercedes. It was either travelling far in excess of their speed or it had indeed turned off.
As they approached a set of traffic lights Cade pointed right.
“Go right mate, go right.”
Pullen had been correct, and the fresh traction marks that the Mercedes had left on the road and across the central reservation offered further evidence.
The two cars sat in the middle of the opposing lane with their drivers shaking their heads in shock endorsed the notion completely. One, an elderly lady with a face as white as her newly permed hair, just pointed in the direction that Cade had chosen. It was all she could do.
“Snell’s, towards Nanpantan Steve, think we are heading for the village, possibly via the back roads to Loughborough.”
Hazard heard Cade’s comms this time, nice and clear, he knew he was close.
“You stay down or I will kill you!” Cazaku hissed through nicotine-stained teeth.
He was a proficient driver, but despite his own beliefs he knew deep down that he would not evade the hunter for long. He would head for the golf course where a white Mercedes would not look out of place.
To make things a little more even he threw the first taxi sign from the car which clattered into a young Chestnut sapling, which like all the others on the lane was in full bloom. Having scarred its tender trunk, the sign dropped into the long blades of the grass verge and disappeared.
In the back a terrified redheaded woman hung onto her seat, strapped in and screaming at her captor.
“Let me go. Please. I will tell my boyfriend that you were kind, let me go and you will be OK. Still have job, still have money. Stop the car!”
It was a repeated phrase, and one she had been yelling since they veered off the motorway.
She had leaned forward as he had braked sharply coming off the motorway. She was somehow intending to attack the driver, to force him to stop. Despite the aggression showed by the woman, he effortlessly pushed her back into her seat with a strength that belied his diminutive size.
Now she looked for weapons of opportunity.
Nothing.
Chapter Nineteen
The Astra was flying now, and in the mirror Pullen could see the Starship Enterprise approaching, piloted by Sergeant Steve Hazard.
Cade saw him too.
“Steve, I think he’s ahead of us, there’s nowhere to hide.”
“Received Jack. Let me get by you so I can open the road a little, I think we’ve got local Plod joining us too.”
There were open fields on either side of them which reduced the feeling of speed and made Pullen go even faster. He felt like he was setting the world on fire until a gap allowed the pursuing T5 to pounce, in third gear and turbo spooling it stormed by them, causing them to rock slightly in its wake.
The air crackled and stank of sulphur from the T5’s catalyst, as the low-profile tyres scrabbled and fought with the road surface, propelling the car ever-forwards.
The topography altered now, bramble-filled hedgerows lined the route. Starting to fill with an abundance of autumn fruits, they were complimented by Cow Parsley and Willow Herb. A single telephone wire was strung from pole to pole, and a solitary Skylark left the ground to commence its airborne aural assault.
As they travelled up a slight gradient, the road kinked gently to the left where a two-bar metal fence was peering out from the vegetation, which in turn covered a dried-up stream that normally ran under the road.
Beyond that were signs indicating a speed limit change and another warning of children at play. It was for all intents and purposes indicative of countless E
nglish villages, all it seemed sharing the same glorious summer’s day.
The high-speed, raucous approach of the Mercedes was all that stood between this image and perfection.
Behind it and now leading the way was the first Volvo, followed by the rapidly expiring Astra and a mile behind that a local Leicestershire Police Ford Focus that had seen the circus arrive in their particular town. Unfortunately, as they were monitoring a different channel, the two section staff on board were oblivious to why they were there. However, like any hungry cops, they were desperate to join the pursuit.
The convoy entered the outer margins of Nanpantan and slowed slightly, despite still travelling at seventy. The risks were now much higher.
The local force car was now trying to get the Astra to stop. Somehow the wires had been well and truly crossed. Quite why the airport T5 wasn’t forcing it to stop was beyond the two eager constables.
All three cars thrashed past the green sign for the Longcliffe Golf Club and continued onwards towards the centre of the village, missing the fresh traction marks on the road surface.
The taxi had now entered the outskirts of the course and was being driven at a slower, more appropriate speed, better to avoid detection.
Looking around in the rear, the female knew she had a chance to escape, possibly her only chance, but somehow she needed inspiration.
A song was playing in the background. She asked if he could turn it up. She liked it, she said.
“Ha, I like this song too lady, it’s what I do to you if you try to run. I am fire starter! I tie you to tree, cover you in petrol and burn you alive!”
The Prodigy song was now much louder. For some reason Cazaku felt very much in control, so much so that he started to sing along in his strong Romanian accent. To an English ear it sounded ludicrous, to the singer, pitch perfect. He had taken his eye off of the situation.
She had seen her opportunity. In the carpeted centre tunnel of the car was a console in which was an ashtray and a cigarette lighter. She moved her right knee forward, pressing into the lighter until it engaged in its housing and rapidly started to heat up.
Now she was singing along too.
He laughed. He felt very powerful; he could feel himself becoming aroused. He believed that he could have this woman, the boss would never know and besides, she’d never tell. It was more than her life was worth. With the hunters now pathetically searching elsewhere, he could relax. Maybe she found him attractive? Perhaps he could try his luck?
It had been a long time since he had a redhead. They all said that blondes were more fun, but he knew the truth.
He saw an apparently disused lane to the right leading to a field and about a quarter of a mile away a ramshackle wooden barn. She was his for the taking and with the music playing as loud as it was no-one would hear. no-one would care.
He grinned and made sure the central locking and windows were deactivated. He released his seatbelt and unlocked his door. He eased his trouser belt buckle a few notches.
He turned right and accelerated, causing a trail of dust which whipped away in the breeze, soon erasing all evidence of their journey.
He heard a slight click, somehow his ears were attuned, he wasn’t sure, but it sounded familiar; then another similar noise.
The music played on.
She knew now that one way or another she was going to be harmed, either eventually at the hands of the man she pretended to love – and that would be a brutal and thoroughly inventive ending – or in the short-term at the hand of his hideous agent, a male with evil eyes and sinful intentions.
Not again, she simply couldn’t contend with another lustful male. What sort of signal did she evoke?
She detested the thought of him being within arm’s length, let alone closer and more intimate; closer where she could smell the tobacco on his breath and hear his dominant words mocking her as she succumbed to him, eyes tightly closed but very aware.
She fought back the urge to vomit as she dug deep within her resolve and prepared for the fight of her life.
Contrary to what her heart was telling her, she knew that she had to do everything, hideous though it may be, to allow him to get close enough to carry out his act. In a moment she formulated a plan.
For Cazaku the situation was empowering – the Hawk and the Sparrow. He looked in his mirror and smiled, it was an attempt at seduction but it was so pitifully short of a romantic gesture it was awkward and pointless. It was lust and power, nothing else mattered now.
He heard the clicking noise again. But it was too late. Her seatbelt was undone. She grabbed the metal lighter, now glowing amber-red, and with her left hand arced around his head and rammed it deep into his left eye.
She could smell the burning hair and flesh instantly as the innocuous steel cylinder burrowed its way into the damp, soft tissue.
Cazaku screamed a hideous scream.
The car was out of control and ran along the track towards the barn. The front end of the Mercedes crashed through the outer walls of the building, striking an old cattle trough and bending back the three-pointed star and everything beyond it.
The damage appeared to halt at the door pillars, but despite being a low-level impact it was severe.
It finally came to an abrupt halt after colliding with a stout wooden pole which had held up the building for a hundred years.
Cazaku lurched forwards; his face struck the laminated windscreen with a dull thump, causing it to starburst. A small circle of bright red blood filled the centre of the beautifully symmetric pattern.
He slumped back into the worn driver’s seat, immobile, disfigured and bleeding.
The woman had jammed her seatbelt back on moments before the crash; it had saved her life and her startling good looks.
She had held onto the lighter, possibly as her only weapon. Feeling for the first time like she was in control she engaged the small device back into the housing, letting it heat up once more before leaning over the motionless driver.
With the residual heat, she pushed the lighter into his wrist, burning the indigo ink and disfiguring the tattoo. It burned so deeply that it bled. It brought him to his senses. But he could scream no louder.
no-one would hear.
no-one would care.
The woman got out of the car and ran across the adjoining corn field towards a solitary oak tree until she was physically unable to run another step.
She sank to her knees and fell into the crop, disappearing from view. She wrapped her hands around her head and tried desperately to prevent the escape of any sound that would identify her location.
The tree stood like a sentinel, silhouetted against the field, watching over her, its leaves whispering back to the corn, which danced and hissed a reply in the rising sultry breeze.
A small black bird flitted across the top of the corn and landed skilfully in the tree above her. It strutted up and down the lowest branch, its glossy black feathers running across its head and blending with its lighter, purple-grey nape. Its eyes were clear with deep lustrous black pearls at the very centre.
It was an intelligent bird; gregarious, curious and a natural survivor.
It called out to a mate somewhere in the nearby woodland.
“Chyak, chyak…”
The call gave rise to its name. This particular bird had brought with it a message.
The Jackdaw was telling anyone who would listen that there was a storm on the horizon.
Chapter Twenty
“Steve, something’s not right. My instinct says we’ve missed them,” Cade said into his radio. He was calm, experience did that to you, but he could almost chew the adrenaline.
Pullen looked exhausted.
Cade turned to him, “Well done mate, you did really well, now, please, get out and let me drive this bloody death trap.”
Pullen was too emotionally and physically drained to disagree.
They were swapping when Hazard pulled up alongside them. They were joined by the loca
l car.
The section staff took one look at Cade, armed and very motivated and knew it was best not to ask. Their ASP batons were no match for what faced them.
The introductions were quickly made. Cade gave a one-minute briefing before the larger of the two local staff, a Yorkshireman known affectionately as Brownie spoke up.
“Now boss, call me old-fashioned twat and all that…”
Cade replied, “You are an old-fashioned twat. What have you seen?” He was a step ahead of Brownie or at worst running at the same speed.
“We entered the village a little slower than the Volvo and it was at the point where the speed limit changes that I noticed a set of marks on the road – back at the golf club turn off.”
“And?”
“And they weren’t there this morning, my love.”
There was no accounting for the observation skills of the good old-fashioned British village bobby.
They were back in the Astra in a moment followed by Hazard and Brownie, now looking to get his first collar of the month and if luck was on his side, he could make the arrest and hand it over: all the glory, no paperwork and a nice bit of skilfully created overtime.
Hazard had spoken to Booth. Neither male in the second Mercedes was talking, demanding consular support and feigning a lack of English.
Cade threw the Astra back along the road until they reached the side lane to the golf course; he turned left and gunned it once more. Tracey was an old heap, but somehow he could see her appeal.
They reached the farm track, and instinct took them towards the barn. Hazard continued onwards towards the club, covering all their bases.
Overhead, the distinctive throb of a Eurocopter could be heard.
Pullen looked up and saw that its distinctive blue and yellow livery meant one thing; it was the North Midlands Air Support Unit – call sign Oscar Hotel Eight-Eight.
The observer on board had dialled into Cade’s channel and was now guiding him towards the barn. His idiosyncratic ‘pilot’s voice’ came over the airways as clear as if he was stood next to him.
Seventh (The Seventh Wave Trilogy Book 1) Page 30
