He looked Gray in the eyes, and at that moment, he knew.
He’d tried to kill this man twice, but this time he wouldn’t delegate responsibility to someone else. He gripped the handles of the knives until his knuckles turned white and took a step towards his opponent, expecting him to move backwards.
Gray held his ground.
The attack, when it came, was lightning fast. Mansour raised his right arm and brought it down hard, aiming at Gray’s head. That blow was easily blocked, but the simultaneous jab with the left punctured a one inch hole in Gray’s side.
Mansour danced back, bobbing on the balls of his feet, while Gray put a hand to the wound. It came away covered in crimson.
“You’ll have to do better than that,” he said, adjusting his position to move closer to a street light.
Mansour came again, this time thrusting at Gray’s face, but he was ready and caught the knifeman’s forearm in a vice-like grip before slamming Mansour’s knuckles against the steel lamppost. The blade clattered to the floor, but Mansour brought up the other one, aiming for Gray’s kidneys. The move was telegraphed and Gray easily avoided further injury by backing into his enemy and switching his attention to the knife hand.
Mansour tried to bring the blade up to Gray’s neck but his strength was no match for the ex-soldier, who held his wrist tightly while slowly pivoting so that they were once again face to face, the knife poised delicately between them.
Both men heard the sirens approaching, and Mansour knew his time had run out.
But there was still time for one last, defiant action.
He brought his knee up sharply into Gray’s groin and pushed him away, sending him sprawling to the ground. Instead of stepping in to deliver the killer strike, though, Mansour put his hands into his pockets and brought out the inhalers.
“The difference between you and me,” he said to Gray, as he pressed both canisters into their housings and held them in position, “is that I am willing to die.”
The crowd, thinking he was holding a detonator, scattered in all directions, screaming incoherently and trampling each other in their bid to clear the area.
...two, three, four...
The first of the armed response vehicles pulled up and two officers decamped, shouting for Mansour to get to the floor as they aimed their single-shot MP5 rifles at his chest.
...five, six, seven...
“Allahu Akbar...”
“Drop it, now!”
...eight, nine, ten.
Mansour closed his eyes just as the rifles spat, and the inhalers fell from his dying grasp. One of them rolled towards Tom Gray, and he felt a breeze on his face as the canister dispensed its entire contents.
Epilogue
Monday June 17th 2013
“Push!”
Vick Phillips screamed and dug her nails into Tom’s hand, hoping to cause him as much pain as she was experiencing.
“You’re doing well, darling,” Tom said through gritted teeth. In truth, she’d been in labour for over thirty hours, and neither was at their peak.
Vick did her breathing exercises as best she could, but all she could focus on was the seven pounds of human trying to navigate a four centimeter passage.
“Do you know the sex of the child?” The nurse asked, trying to take Vick’s mind off the pain.
“No,” Tom told her. “We wanted it to be a surprise.”
“What about names?”
“Vick wanted to do the celebrity thing and name it after the place it was conceived, but there’s no way I’m calling a kid Machu Picchu.”
The joke was lost on the nurse, but Vick showed her appreciation by squeezing his hand with enough force to draw blood, and Tom wondered if she’d had her nails sharpened just for the occasion.
“Just kidding,” Gray winced. “We chose the names weeks ago.”
The obstetrician, sitting at the foot of the bed, saw the crown of the baby’s head appear.
“One more big push,” he said, and Vick obliged, her face contorted as beads of sweat coursed down her crimson forehead. She produced a scream befitting a horror movie, and then it was over.
A nurse cut the umbilical and took the baby away to be weighed and checked over. A minute later it was wrapped up and placed on its mother’s chest. Vick looked down at the screaming, purple bundle and thought it the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
“Congratulations, you’ve got a beautiful little girl,” the nurse told her, and Vick cooed over her daughter.
“Hello, Melissa.” Vick shed a tear, but finally one of joy rather than pain.
Tom Gray gently traced a finger down her tiny wrinkled face and his thoughts turned to little Daniel, stolen from him at such a tender age. His son may be gone, but he would never be forgotten, and Gray made a silent promise to give his daughter enough love for two.
The one thing he was truly grateful for was that she could at least lead a normal life.
The political fallout hadn’t been as bad as some commentators had predicted, with just the Home Secretary and a couple of his minions giving way, awaiting a decision as to whether or not they would face criminal charges. Farrar, for his part, had already been charged with multiple counts of murder and attempted murder and was awaiting trial, along with the remnants of his team.
While those bad guys had been taken off the streets, Gray was pleased to know that there were still many more out there. Viking Security Services had nosedived since he’d sold it to the venture capitalists, who had increased their prices and lowered salaries to the point where those staff who hadn’t fled to sign up with Timmy Hughes had been demoralised. The effect on the company’s reputation had been quick and harsh, with contracts drying up. They’d been at their lowest point when Gray walked into the office and made them a generous offer, which had been readily accepted.
With Gray back at the helm and Hughes gone, his staff had come back in droves, as had the customers, and he knew he would be able to give his daughter — not to mention his new wife — a more than comfortable life.
Melissa wouldn’t be spoiled by any means. At least, that’s what Gray told himself, though he knew it was going to be hard to say no, just as it had been with Daniel. All he wanted was for his daughter to grow up with the same morals as her father, and he’d consider that the perfect foundation on which to build her life.
The obstetrician checked mother and child over, and happy that they were doing well he left to complete the paperwork.
He also decided to check with the Department of Health to see if any other maternity hospital had gone a whole calendar month without delivering a single male child...
THE END
If you enjoyed this series and want to know when Alan McDermott releases his next book, just send an email to [email protected] with Next Book in the subject line.
Gray Redemption (Tom Gray #3) Page 22
