Ultimatum

by Simon Kernick

  He squinted, frowning, then opened his mouth to say something.

  But the next second there was a single burst of fire, and he fell back into a sitting position, a hole in his forehead above the right eye leaking a long line of blood that pooled on his top lip before running over his mouth and on to his neck. Then he toppled sideways and lay on the ground.

  Dead. Just like that.

  And suddenly Tina was on her own.

  Seventy-three

  21.31

  THERE’S NOTHING LIKE the element of surprise. It’s particularly effective against people who’ve never been shot at before, and who have no experience of a bullet’s ability to change things in an instant.

  As soon as the initial burst of gunfire crackled across them, Fox hit the floor. He knew the first shots fired at the van would be aimed at the tyres to disable it, so there was no danger of him being hit. Even so, he was still the first one down, just in case his rescuers had a change of plan and decided to kill him. Fox was no fool. He knew he was a lot more use to the people he’d once worked for dead than alive, and it was going to take all his natural cunning to get out of here in one piece.

  The second burst of fire hit a couple of seconds later, shattering the windows, but it didn’t hit any of the cops, who were on the floor as well, several of them directly on top of Fox, crushing him into the van’s cold floor.

  The loud blast at the front of the convoy that Fox identified immediately as a grenade, followed by frightened shouts from the front of the van, seemed to galvanize the men in the back of the van into action. In a cacophony of yelling and shouting, they jumped up into firing positions and opened fire through the windows in all directions like cowboys trapped in a circled wagon – which was pretty much what they were.

  ‘Out! Out! Out!’ screamed one of the cops, reaching over and unlocking the rear doors. ‘We’re sitting ducks in here! That was a fucking grenade!’

  No one needed asking twice, and they all started scrambling for the doors. This was all about survival now and, as the adrenalin pumped through the cops, they momentarily forgot about Fox. Which was a bad move.

  Reaching up with his cuffed hands, which thanks to Tina Boyd were now in front of him, he grabbed the gun from the holster of the nearest cop – the big cockney one who’d dared Fox to give him an excuse to put a bullet in him – in a movement so quick that he had no time to react.

  As the cop swung round, Fox leaned back against the van’s metal partition and, with a cold smile, shot him twice in the face, swinging the gun round immediately and taking a second cop in the side of the head. Realizing what was going on, the other two made for the exit as Fox kept firing at them, not caring who he hit, or where, banking on the fact that as they spilled out of the van they’d run straight into the line of fire of his rescuers. He got one cop in the leg, sending him sprawling into the car behind, which had come to a halt at a forty-five-degree angle, its driver dead behind the wheel. But the other cop proved a more difficult proposition. He swung round fast, unleashing a volley of MP5 fire into the van at exactly the same moment that Fox hit him in the chest with a nine-mill round.

  Luckily the shot knocked the cop off balance, but he didn’t go down. He readied himself in the space of half a second and started firing again as Fox’s last bullet, now aimed at the guy’s head to avoid the body armour, missed him. Only then did a burst of automatic gunfire from somewhere out in the woods finally send the cop sprawling to the ground.

  Scrambling to his feet, Fox grabbed the key to the handcuffs from the second dead cop and unlocked them with a remarkably steady hand.

  He was free.

  As the van’s rear doors flew open, Tina saw two armed officers come stumbling out amid a series of gunshots from inside. One of the officers grabbed his leg as he was hit, and fell against the bonnet of the car Tina had been travelling in before falling to the tarmac so that he was facing her, his face etched with pain as he tried to wriggle round the front of the car to safety. The other officer turned round so he was facing the van and managed to get off a few shots before he was hit by a stream of automatic gunfire from somewhere in the trees. He dropped his weapon and fell to the ground too, momentarily disappearing from view.

  Tina braced herself. The good guys were dropping like flies, and soon she was going to be the only one left.

  Seventy-four

  21.31

  MIKE BOLT HAD a cold feeling of dread in his gut that momentarily stopped his nausea. He’d definitely heard shots before Tina’s phone went dead, and he had no idea whether she was alive or dead.

  He called Commander Ingrams but his line was busy, forcing him to stagger back towards his car in the hunt for the police radio. He could hear the sound of a helicopter approaching, and as he looked up he saw an air ambulance coming in low over the horizon. His vision blurred again and he suddenly felt very faint. Grabbing the back of his car for support, he speed-dialled Ingrams’s number a second time, knowing he had to hold on until he’d talked to someone at Scotland Yard.

  ‘Mike, what the hell is it?’ demanded Ingrams, picking up this time. ‘I told you to go home.’

  ‘The convoy carrying Fox has been ambushed. I just heard shots down the phone.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Bolt could hear the shock in Ingrams’s voice.

  ‘Hundred per cent. They’re near the safehouse. Get reinforcements there now.’

  The noise from the air ambulance’s rotor blades drowned out the end of the call as it hovered directly above the car park.

  Bolt pushed himself backwards, away from the car, dropping his phone in the process, waving up at the crew to try to attract their attention. A wave of pain, so intense that it made him cry out, surged through his head, culminating just behind his right eye. He lost his sight; he lost his balance; he lost every sense he had. All in that single, agonizing moment as he fell blindly into darkness.

  Seventy-five

  21.32

  POKING HER HEAD just above the bonnet of the ARV, Tina saw the muzzle flash from the shooter’s gun up in the trees, but she still couldn’t see the shooter himself. It did, however, look like he was the only one firing. As she watched, a silhouette seemed to rise up from the ground twenty yards away and come jogging down the incline towards the convoy, keeping close to the undergrowth for cover, his assault rifle outstretched in front of him.

  It was clear he hadn’t seen her. She could have stayed where she was but she wasn’t that kind of person. She didn’t turn her back on trouble. This was a chance to even the odds, and she knew it. But she was scared. Damn scared. She could see at least two corpses of police officers only feet away, their blood leaking on to the tarmac, and knew full well that could be her in a few moments’ time. Her whole body ached with exhaustion, and a heavy tension that made it hard to move.

  A voice in her head told her to hide. It was a sensible voice – a voice of reason. To do anything else was madness.

  But then she was jumping up and opening fire with the Glock, acting entirely on instinct.

  Handguns are never the most accurate of weapons – a fact that’s not helped when the person firing them hasn’t fired one for a while, and is shooting at a moving target in near darkness – but Tina kept her hands steady and aimed low, cracking off five shots in rapid succession, before the gunman had even reacted to her presence.

  But, crucially, she didn’t hit him, and she was forced to dive for cover as he returned fire, his bullets spraying the spot where she’d just been standing. She landed painfully on her shoulder, knowing that she’d missed her chance, and would probably not get another one now.

  At that moment, the cop who’d been shot in the leg, and who’d been lying on his side, rolled round so he was facing the gunman and let loose a burst of automatic fire from the MP5. Tina immediately got to her feet and peered back over the bonnet, seeing the gunman now running towards them, barely ten yards away, firing as he went as he tried to take out the firearms cop.

  Smoke flew
up from the cop’s body armour as he took rounds to the upper body, causing him to buck and jerk on the ground. Taking advantage of the distraction, Tina jumped up again and cracked off another three shots. She didn’t know if it was her or the other cop who’d hit him, but the gunman suddenly went down on his side, dropping his weapon in the process.

  She felt a surge of hope then that lasted the space of a second before suddenly Fox appeared in the van’s doorway, a gun in his hand. He raised the gun, looking straight at her. She just had time to react by throwing herself backwards, firing as she went, as he pulled the trigger, narrowly missing her.

  As she landed, she fired again, but Fox was already out of the van, moving fast. Keeping low, he jerked round and shot the injured cop in the face, then fired another shot at Tina. It bounced off the tarmac behind her as she kept firing back at him, but then he disappeared from view around the front of the car, and suddenly everything fell silent.

  Seventy-six

  21.33

  FOX RAN ROUND the side of the van, then made for the cover of the trees. He hadn’t run properly in a while, and his legs felt stiff. But adrenalin was keeping him going. Adrenalin and excitement. This was what it was all about for him. The hot joy of battle. God, he’d lived for those moments in the army, and in his time as a mercenary since.

  And now here he was again, having planned his escape from prison down to the last detail.

  The ambush had been perfect. All the cops were either dead or too badly hurt to offer any meaningful opposition. He didn’t think he’d hit Tina Boyd, which was a pity. He’d like to have put a bullet in her. Not so much because of what she’d done to help scupper the Stanhope siege, more because it would be good sport to take out such an iconic figure, a woman who was a born survivor, and good at her job. But he’d defeated her. That was what mattered. He’d defeated all of them.

  Ten yards away he could see the black-clad figure of one of the ambush team. He was lying on the ground clutching his leg, his face covered in black camouflage paint. Fox had been told that there’d be a minimum of three of them in the team, but this was the only one he could see right now.

  ‘Help me, for Christ’s sake,’ hissed the shooter as Fox ran towards him, keeping to the undergrowth.

  He recognized the Northern Irish accent immediately. It was Cecil Boorman, the man whose name he’d given to Tina earlier. He was no good to any of them, not now that he’d been shot.

  Cecil sat up and put out a hand as Fox reached him.

  Fox grabbed the hand to lift him up. ‘Good shooting,’ he said. ‘Thanks for that.’ Then he brought up the police-issue Glock and shot Cecil through the eye with his last bullet.

  As Cecil fell back down, Fox grabbed his pistol – a Browning semi-automatic – from his waistband and turned and ran through the woods towards the front of the convoy. In many ways, this was the most dangerous part of the whole operation. If his rescuers were planning on killing him, then they were going to make their move now.

  He heard movement to his left, and a silhouetted figure shot out of the darkness. His face might have been painted black, but Fox could see that the man coming at him out of the darkness was Cain. He’d recognize those pale, dead eyes anywhere. They’d known each other a long time through their association with The Brotherhood, but had always been rivals rather than friends, and Fox knew Cain wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet in him if it came to it.

  But Cain’s gun was down by his side, which had to mean that, for the moment at least, he didn’t mean him any harm.

  Even so, Fox kept his finger tight on the trigger of the Browning as the two men stopped in front of each other.

  There was a moment’s pause, and then Fox grinned. ‘I knew you’d make it.’

  ‘I don’t make promises I can’t keep,’ said Cain, with a humourless self-righteousness that instantly reminded Fox of why he didn’t like him. ‘Have you seen Cecil?’

  ‘He took a bullet in the leg. I had to finish him off.’

  Cain nodded grimly. ‘We’ve got to go. This place is going to be crawling with cops soon. Our car’s over here.’

  He turned and started running through the trees, with Fox following close behind.

  ‘Haven’t you got anyone else in the team?’ Fox asked him.

  ‘No. It’s just you and me now,’ answered Cain as they emerged on to a narrow single-lane track where a black BMW 5 Series was parked. He ran round to the driver’s side and jumped in.

  Fox could hear no sound of sirens or approaching helicopters and, as he got in the passenger side and Cain started the engine and pulled away, he briefly considered shooting the other man then and there, chucking his corpse out on to the road, and simply driving away himself. It would be a clean break and save any problems later if Cain chose to double-cross him. But he decided against it. It was best to put a few miles between him and the massacre here without complicating matters.

  Cain roared on to the road and made a hard right away from the convoy. Behind them, the flames shooting up from the lead car dominated the view, illuminating the bodies of two cops lying nearby, one of whom was still on fire. As Cain hit the pedal and the BMW accelerated away, Fox felt a huge, all-consuming elation. For the first time in over a year he was getting a taste of freedom, and by God it tasted good.

  And then the rear windscreen exploded in a hail of gunfire, and suddenly the BMW was veering out of control as Cain desperately turned the wheel. But the tyres had been blown out and he no longer had control as the car left the road and mounted the bank, giving Fox only a couple of seconds to brace himself before it smashed headfirst into a tree.

  Seventy-seven

  21.34

  TINA SAW THE whole thing.

  Having radioed Control to call for urgent assistance, she’d reloaded the Glock and was walking along the side of the road towards the front of the convoy, holding it in both hands as she tried to locate Fox and his rescuers, when a black BMW saloon lurched out of the woods twenty yards in front of her in a screech of tyres and accelerated away in the opposite direction.

  She’d known straight away that Fox was in the car and that she was too late to stop him. Even so, she’d assumed a firing position, aiming at the rear windscreen, when from somewhere to the left of the burning armed response vehicle she heard an intense burst of automatic gunfire that sent her diving to the ground.

  When she looked up, the BMW had left the road and was heading straight for a tree. It struck it with a loud bang, and she could see the airbags deploying inside. The engine stalled, and an eerie silence descended on the woods.

  Tina was on her feet in a second. Through the smoke and flames, she saw one of the armed officers emerge from behind the lead car and advance on the BMW, holding his MP5 in front of him. He looked shocked but unhurt.

  Tina shouted over to him, and he turned round, recognizing her instantly.

  ‘I’ve called for help, but for the moment we’re on our own,’ she told him as they walked slowly towards the BMW, weapons at the ready, keeping a few feet apart so they wouldn’t make such an easy target.

  ‘Jesus,’ he said, and she noticed that he was very young, mid-twenties at most. ‘Is everyone else down?’

  ‘I think so. Look, I know this is going to be hard, but we’ve got to try to take Fox alive. He has information we need.’

  ‘If he tries a damn thing, I’m going to take his head off,’ said the cop, keeping his eyes fixed straight ahead. ‘He’s just killed some very good friends of mine.’

  Fifteen yards ahead of them, the BMW’s front doors slowly opened, and Tina’s finger tensed on the trigger. She had no idea how many gunmen were in there, or what they were armed with, but she knew they weren’t going to come quietly. The adrenalin was making her hands shake, and she had to fight to stay calm as they continued to advance on the car, step by slow step.

  The first sirens cut across the night sky, still some distance away.

  Nothing moved inside the car.

  Tina
and the cop exchanged glances, stopping five yards short of the vehicle.

  ‘Stay calm,’ she told him. ‘We can stay like this until help gets here. It’s not far away.’

  Before the cop could answer, there was movement from inside and two men slowly rolled out of the car, one from either front door.

  ‘Get your hands where I can see them!’ yelled the cop, who was covering Fox.

  Tina was covering the man who’d rolled out the driver’s-side door. He was now lying on his side facing her, one of his arms squashed beneath him. He was dressed entirely in black, with black face paint covering his features, and even from some distance away she could see that his eyes were cold and alert. She didn’t like the fact that she couldn’t see the hand that was squashed beneath him, and she shouted at him to bring it out from under his body, working hard to keep the tension out of her voice.

  He didn’t move. Just stared at her with those cold eyes.

  ‘Do it!’ she snarled, aiming the Glock directly at his chest.

  The sirens were getting closer now.

  The man smiled at her.

  And then, in one whip-like movement, he brought the gloved hand up from beneath his body, already pulling the trigger.

  Tina fired back twice, hitting him in the chest, leaping out of the way at the same time as his bullets whipped past her, conscious of the sounds of automatic weapon fire and shouting coming from the other side of the car.

  As she hit the ground, landing on one shoulder, the man was already bringing his gun round to fire again, the two bullet holes in his chest smoking from where they’d struck his body armour. There was no fear on his face, simply a look of contempt, as if she was little more than a fly to be swatted away.