The shooters had reached the fence. As Ben watched, they each aimed their weapons at the padlock on the gate and let off a flurry of gunfire that sounded like a lump hammer clanging against an anvil at impossible speed. The wrecked padlock dropped away, the chain parted and jangled loose. The men kicked the gates open with a metallic clatter and strode into the building site.
Theyre coming, Ben said quietly.
Oh, my God. Who are they?
We can talk about that later, Ben said. For now its time to move on. Can you stand?
She nodded. He took her hand. Put a finger to his lips and then pointed it through the house at the back door. That way, he whispered.
Roberta hobbled after him as he exited the building. They skirted a low adjoining wall and crossed a patch of rubble-strewn ground to the house next door, which had its roof A-frames, beams and battens already mounted under a plastic covering that crackled in the soft breeze and darkened the skeletal rooms in shadow.
Ben thrust Roberta into a dim corner with a look that said, Stay there, and let go of her hand. He trotted to the window. Twenty yards away, the two shooters were stalking through the site with their weapons shouldered and ready, glancing left and right for any movement, any trace of their quarry. Their faces were steely and predatory. The older one signalled to his colleague and they split up out of sight among the buildings and construction machinery.
Ben glanced quickly around him, taking in the layout of their cover. Front door, back door, patio window, garage, other points of entry. Too many possibilities and not enough hiding places. The unfinished home reminded him with sharp discomfort of the dedicated killing house that he and his SAS squads had used for live-fire room assault, hostage extraction and anti-terrorist combat drills at the regimental base in Hereford, back in the day. Nothing could escape the killing house without getting drilled full of bullets and buckshot by the Special Forces tactical teams.
If these two guys were even half that proficient at their job, this wasnt a good place to be. Not a good place at all.
Chapter Seven
Ben! came a hoarse whisper. Roberta was peering at him worriedly from the shadows. What are we gonna do? she hissed.
Stay put, for now, Ben replied softly. You keep out of sight and keep quiet.
I still know karate, she whispered. I can fight.
Now that the initial shock of the attack had passed, her expression was alert and focused. Ben remembered well enough that Roberta Ryder had always been a lot less squeamish about violence than the average female science academic. During their escapades together in Paris shed used her Shotokan black belt skills to lethally defend herself against a knife attacker, wrecked cars, been drenched in blood and gore during a gunfight on the banks of the River Seine and later shot a man in the thigh with an automatic pistol. On that occasion shed saved Bens life, not for the first time.
But here, today, they were going to need more than karate moves to evade the two men who were coming after them.
Ben retreated quickly out of sight as a figure edged past the window. It was the younger of the two men. He paused for an instant to squint into the murky building, scanning left and right with the detached, professional air of a rat catcher hunting for vermin. The muzzle of his Beretta was pointing right at Ben, but he couldnt see him standing there perfectly immobile in the shadows.
Ben didnt breathe. After what seemed like an agonizingly long time, the man moved on. Ben could hear his steps padding around the side of the house.
The mans footsteps were treading closer to the door. Ben glanced towards Roberta and saw the flash of her frightened eyes in the dark corner.
Something else was standing half-hidden in the shadows. One of the building crew had left a long-handled shovel propped against a wall. Ben moved silently across to where the shovel was leaning. Careful not to let its blade scrape on the concrete floor, he picked it up. The long wooden shaft was crusty with dried cement. He took a strong two-handed grip on it.
The figure of the man appeared in the doorway, silhouetted against the bright sunlight outside. With his weapon to his shoulder he took a careful step inside, then paused, head slightly cocked to one side as though listening intently for the tiniest movement, blinking to adjust his eyes to the low light.
Nothing stirred inside the building. The only sound was the gentle crackle of the wind on the plastic sheeting stretched over the bare roof beams.
The man took another stealthy step into the house. Then another.
Then the shovel blade swung humming through the air faster than the man could react.
If Ben had hit him with the blade edge-on it would have separated the top of his skull above the eyes, like taking the crown off a boiled egg with a knife. Instead, the flat of the blade caught him just over the bridge of the nose with a resonating clang and laid him on his back. The MX4 spun out of his grip and fell to the ground.
Ben stood over him with the shovel poised in his hands like an axe. The mans face was a mess of blood. He was moaning incoherently, disorientated and only about half conscious until two swift, harsh kicks to the head knocked him out entirely.
Still got the soft touch, Roberta muttered from the shadows.
He can take it, Ben said, snatching up the fallen weapon. The submachine gun was bulky with the big sound suppressor screwed to the end of the barrel. There were still twelve or thirteen rounds in the pistol grip magazine and one in the chamber. Ben set it aside and quickly checked the unconscious mans pockets. He had no ID, no wallet, no phone, not even loose change. Nothing on him but a car ignition key on a leather fob and, clipped inside a belt pouch, two spare steel thirty-round magazines for the MX4. There wasnt time to wait for the guy to come round to interrogate him and Bens first priority at this moment was to get Roberta to safety.
He grabbed the two spare mags and the keys and thrust them deep into the left pocket of his borrowed trousers. Picking up the submachine gun, he stepped over the comatose body and checked from the doorway that the coast was clear. He signalled to Roberta. Lets move, he whispered.
Ben wasnt one of those guys who loved weaponry for its own sake. Hed handled just about every variety of small arms ever made, witnessed with his own eyes the butchers-shop carnage they could be used to inflict on the human frame, and at times had wished hed never see another. Yet there was no denying the deep sense of comfort in going from being totally unarmed and vulnerable to cradling something in your hands that helped even the odds against a dangerous opponent. The Beretta felt like an old friend whod come to the rescue.
With his finger on the trigger, Ben took a winding path between buildings and pieces of construction plant machinery in the rough direction of the site gates. With any luck, they could be through them and heading back over the field towards the park before the second shooter realised what was up.
Every few steps he glanced behind him to check that Roberta was still following close behind. She was still limping slightly on her twisted ankle, but keeping pace. They cut across a ploughed-up dirt patch that would eventually become a row of neat little back gardens, and then cut through another narrow alley between two scaffold-covered houses. Approaching the corner of the house on the left, the unchained gates came into view just twenty yards across a piece of open ground. Ben slowly, carefully peered around the edge of the wall. To the left he could see only empty buildings and a half-built wall. To the right, nothing moved among the stacks of concrete blocks. The coast seemed to be clear.
Every few steps he glanced behind him to check that Roberta was still following close behind. She was still limping slightly on her twisted ankle, but keeping pace. They cut across a ploughed-up dirt patch that would eventually become a row of neat little back gardens, and then cut through another narrow alley between two scaffold-covered houses. Approaching the corner of the house on the left, the unchained gates came into view just twenty yards across a piece of open ground. Ben slowly, carefully peered around the edge of the wall. To the left he could see only empty buildings and a half-built wall. To the right, nothing moved among the stacks of concrete blocks. The coast seemed to be clear.
Lets go, he said to Roberta.
Hed taken half a step out into the open when masonry chips exploded from the wall inches away. A hard impact to the left thigh almost knocked his leg out from under him.
Chapter Eight
Ben staggered backwards under cover of the wall and almost fell over, his whole body jangling with shock as he expected to see the first fountain of blood spurting from a ruptured femoral artery.
Roberta cried out. Ben dropped his weapon and clasped his hands to his leg. It felt numb from hip to knee. He saw the bullet hole through the black fabric of his trousers.
His trembling fingers connected through the material with the Beretta magazines in his pocket. He pulled them out, saw the huge dent and the strike mark in one of them where the bullet had hit it dead on and crushed the pressed steel box almost flat. Nothing had passed through. The magazine had absorbed the full force of the impact. Ben felt something burning hot against his flesh, dug deeper into his pocket and found the jagged, squashed lead and copper disc that was all that remained of the 9mm bullet.
His heart began to beat again as a mixture of relief and ferocity welled up inside him. He tossed the ruined mag away and snatched up his fallen gun.
I thought you were hit, Roberta gasped.
Ive always been lucky with bullets, Ben said. He stepped quickly back to the corner and darted a cautious look round it. The shooter was out there, and he wasnt far away, maybe twenty or thirty yards, hidden behind cover with his sights trained at his mark and just waiting for Ben to step out again. Where was he? Behind that low wall? Those cement bags, or that stack of bricks?
Ben poked the barrel of the submachine gun around the corner of the house and let off a sustained blast of return fire at his unseen enemy. The row of cement bags burst apart. The tape holding together the stack of bricks parted, and it toppled over in a cascade onto and behind the section of low wall. There was a yell. The shooter scrambled out from behind the wall and started scurrying towards the houses behind him. Ben chased him with a stream of bullets, but then his magazine was suddenly empty. The man darted out of sight.
Ben swore and rammed in his last mag. He scanned the buildings where the man had disappeared. There was no sign of him.
Silence.
Bens mind worked fast. Having been caught out once, there was no way he was about to try again to cross the open ground to the gates. But he was just as reluctant to retrace their steps in the direction theyd come, and find out the hard way that the shooter had doubled back on himself to head them off.
Ben had a decision to make. And the wrong choice could kill them in a second.
He chose a third option. If in doubt, head for higher ground. That way, he said to Roberta, pointing up at the scaffolding attached to the house. Most of the feeling had returned to his left leg now, and with it the ache from the bullet impact. Ignoring the pain, he guided Roberta to the vertical ladder that led up to the scaffold and stood guard as she clambered up to the first level, then climbed up to join her on the rickety planking. A second ladder led to the next level up, where the builders had been fitting the A-frames for the roof.
Ben led the way as they skirted around towards the back of the house. The scaffold was enclosed with a wire mesh safety barrier. Through it Ben could see where the builders had poured the footings for the neighbouring house. Judging by the slick, shiny surface of the wet concrete, like grey porridge that had been scraped smooth with the back of a knife, it had been their last job of the day.
Did I ever tell you how I feel about heights? Roberta said, clutching the railing and not looking down.
Ben said nothing. He surveyed the ground below. Thirty feet up, there was a much better view of the building site, but still no sign of their opponent. He moved silently along the planking, his eyes picking out every possible hiding place among the houses and garages and construction equipment. Nothing.
Robertas sudden gasp made him wheel round in alarm.
The man hadnt doubled back to flank them. Hed done exactly the same thing Ben had done, move to higher ground and work his way around the back of the house to creep up on them from behind. He had one arm around Robertas throat, his squat, muscular body pressed up against hers to use her as a shield and the fat tube of his MX4s silencer pressed hard into the side of her neck below the ear.
Ben froze with his gun half-raised.
Drop it, the man said in a flat voice.
Shoot him, Ben! Roberta yelled. The man clamped a hand over her mouth and ground his long submachine gun barrel harder into her flesh. She wriggled wildly in his grasp, but it was tight. His expression said clearly, Im not messing about.
Ben already knew that. He held his Beretta out at arms length, pointing down at the planking. He let it slip from his fingers.
Kick it over the edge, the man said.
Ben nudged the weapon with his toe. It tipped through the gap between the planks and the safety rail and disappeared. He heard it glance off the scaffolding poles, then clatter to the ground thirty feet below.
Nice one, father, the man said with a crooked grin.
Ben could see the guns fire selector switched to single shot. Could see the mans finger tightening on the trigger, and the angle of the muzzle that would direct the bullet under her ear and upward through her brain.
You pull that trigger, you die, he said.
The mans grizzled features broke into a grin. Better say a prayer.
His grin evaporated into a look of surprise as Roberta gave a sudden heave that ripped her free of his grasp. With practised speed she raked the heel of her shoe down his shin and onto his foot in a hard stamping kick and simultaneously twisted his gun arm away from her in a painful lock that made him cry out.
The gun went off. The bullet went wide of her body and ricocheted with a howl off the wall behind the scaffold. As Roberta was about to knee him in the groin, still grasping his gun-arm, he head-butted her savagely and she sprawled down to the planking, almost falling through the gap below the safety barrier. With bared teeth the man thrust the gun down at her to shoot point-blank into her face.
But by then Ben had raced along the scaffolding and was on him. He drove the mans arm violently against the safety barrier, knocking the gun out of his hand. Before it had splashed into the wet concrete thirty feet below, Ben delivered a vicious elbow strike to the mans throat, then another. The man reeled, but he was tough, and within seconds the two of them were grappling violently against the railing. Roberta was trying to scramble to her feet, but the blow to her face had dazed her.