69
* * *
CARVER WAS NOT, for once, pleased to see Alix. ‘What is it?’ he asked her impatiently.
She smiled flirtatiously and kept the happy, carefree look on her face as she said, ‘Zorn just said he was about to leave.’
‘Couldn’t you just text?’ he said, smiling back.
‘It was easier to say I needed the bathroom. And you’re better placed out here. When he goes, he will come out of this door, right there, and you will see him. Besides,’ and now the phony flirting gave way to a much more serious emotion, ‘I wanted to be with you. Just for a minute or two …’
Carver was about to reply when he saw her frown. She stepped closer to him, nuzzled her lips against his ear, and, making it look as though she was giving Carver her full attention – even though her half-closed ice-blue eyes were focused at a point beyond his left shoulder – she said, ‘There’s a man by the bandstand looking at you. He looks Chinese: quite tall, slender build, black designer jeans, black jacket, dark glasses …’
‘Chinese?’ Carver asked quizzically, wondering what interest anyone from the Far East might have in him. He’d made some serious enemies in Thailand, but that had been a long time ago. And they’d all been dead when he’d left them.
‘You’re sure he’s not just looking around, watching the world go by?’ he asked.
‘No. This looks like surveillance.’ She frowned. ‘There are two other guys with him, very similar style of clothes – jeans, jackets, but more casual – he’s talking to them. They both looked this way, too. OK, now they’re moving towards us, fanning out.’
‘Are they armed?’
‘I can’t be sure, but they certainly could be. Under those jackets … sure.’
‘Take my hand,’ Carver said. ‘They could be coming for you, not me. Let’s see how interested they really are.’
Gripping her tightly, he turned on his heel and started walking towards St Mary’s Walk, the path that cuts right through the Wimbledon site from north to south. It begins at the top of Aorangi Terrace, and plunges downhill all the way to the far end of the club grounds, passing virtually every court and building of any significance as it goes.
Carver and Alix moved quickly, with the purposeful strides of people with an urgent appointment to keep, forcing their way past slower movers with brusque words of warning or apology. They reached St Mary’s Walk at a point about two-thirds of the way along it. To their left, it continued down past the new mini-stadium of Court Number Three, and a gaggle of outside courts, to a tented village of shops and eating places. Carver went the other way, up a steep flight of stairs. Here the path ran like the floor of a canyon between the looming bulk of Centre Court on one side and the zigzag facade of the Millennium Building on the other. This was where both the press and the players had all the facilities they needed to work and relax, and the mini-theatre where both sides met for pre- and post-match interviews.
Carver stopped at the top of the stairs and looked back. The three Chinese were heading his way, forcing their way past the people at the foot of the steps thirty or forty metres away. He tightened his grip on Alix’s hand. ‘Let’s go.’
Ahead of him the crowd became even thicker. A knot of fans stood immobile in the middle of the path, clutching cameras, video recorders and phones, and gazing up at a covered footbridge that ran over their heads between the Millennium Building and Centre Court. They were waiting to see a star player walk along it, going to or from a match, and they glared crossly at Carver as he forced his way through.
He heard a gasp from Alix.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘Up the hill … more of them.’
Carver grunted to show that he’d spotted three more Chinese, one of them female. They might be completely innocent, but he couldn’t afford to risk it. He and Alix were caught almost exactly halfway between the two groups. He glanced at one, then the other, before giving a sharp tug on Alix’s hand.
‘Change of plan,’ he said.
He turned towards the Millennium Building and made for a gap in its facade, past the plate-glass windows behind which the world’s tennis journalists were sitting at their desks, splitting their attention between TV and computer screen as they filed their latest reports. Now Carver came to a small courtyard, hemmed in on all sides by high white walls. He felt Alix flinch as she took in their claustrophobic surroundings. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘Through here.’
He made for a door in the far corner of the courtyard, that opened on to a stairwell.
‘Down,’ he said. ‘We’re going underground.’
70
* * *
ONE GOOD THING about looking the way Schultz did: if you sat down at one end of a park bench, no way was anyone else going to sit at the other. Certainly not without asking very politely.
He heard a voice in his ear. It was Cripps. ‘You need a hand with the fireworks, boss?’
‘No worries, Kev, I’ve got this f*cker well sorted.’
Schultz had delved into the B&Q bag and taken out the squat grey plastic tube, the shallow copper cone and a locking ring. He placed the cone at one end of the tube, the point facing inwards so that the external surface was concave. Then he screwed the locking ring on to the tube until it pressed tight on the copper, to keep it securely in place. Then he turned the tube over so that the open end was facing him.
Next Schultz got out the bag of Polyfilla and undid the clip that had been placed over the open corner. He then held the bag upside down, over the grey tube, and poured out the contents of the bag – in actual fact, high-explosive RDX powder – tamping the floury white particles down as he went, to make sure they were tightly packed into the tube. When the bag was empty, he placed the plastic disc over the open end of the tube as a backplate, and secured it with the other locking ring. The looped wire was now on the outside of the backplate.
Schultz now had a closed canister, not much bigger than a beer can, filled with explosives, with a fuse wire at one end and copper at the other. This was a Krakatoa, a weapon that arguably produced more bang per buck than any other on the planet. It struck Schultz that this was essentially a smaller, smarter version of the mortars that had been used to attack the refinery. Good to think that the man behind the attack would be getting a taste of his own medicine. It was just a pity Carver’s orders had been so specific: hit the engine, not the passenger compartment. Schultz would have liked to atomize the bastard. But orders were orders, even when they were crap.
There were four small open tubes on the side of the newly formed canister. Schultz took the four plastic sticks from the bag and inserted them in the tubes. Now the canister had legs to stand on.
Schultz undid the wire tie holding the loops of the fuse wire together, and unwound it. Holding one end of the wire in his hand, he placed the canister on the ground, lining it up with the pegged string.
‘Oi, Crippsy! Wake up, you idle bastard!’ Schultz said.
There was a laugh in his ear. ‘What do you want, boss?’
‘Take a look out your passenger window. Can you see the Krakatoa?’
Cripps grunted as he shifted his position. ‘Hang about … Yeah, if I look for it I can see something through the grass, and obviously I know what it is, right? But no other f*cker’s gonna have a Scooby.’
Schultz chuckled. ‘No, not till they get it right up the Aris. Then they’ll f*cking know all about it.’
71
* * *
ONE THING YOU can count on in any combat situation is that nothing will go exactly according to plan. The ability to adapt to changing circumstances, and improvise accordingly, is therefore vital. Derek Choi was no soldier, but he was well versed in the need to think on his feet. Carver had slipped his original trap. But now he might have run right into another.
For Choi, too, had been studying plans and photographs of the All England Club and its surrounding area. When he saw Carver disappear into the media centre stairwell, and then take the stairs heading down, he knew exactly where he was heading. He snapped out a series of orders to his most trusted subordinate: a thickset, shaven-headed tough called Lin Zhuang. ‘You and the others will be the hunting dogs and I will be the hunter. Follow Carver and the woman. Drive them towards the unloading bay. I will be waiting to snare them. If you kill them first I will not be displeased. Understand?’
Lin nodded.
‘Then go.’
Lin and the other four agents raced away down the stairs. Choi turned on his heels and went the other way. He ran about a hundred metres, and then he, too, headed down into the depths of the earth.
72
* * *
THERE WAS A small landing at the bottom of the stairs, with a single, duck-egg blue door, which had a round glass porthole. Carver took a look through it, then pushed it open with his shoulder, glancing back up the stairwell as he did. The sound of scurrying footsteps was clearly audible, coming from above them. The Chinese were on their way.
Carver raised his gun to cover the stairs as he gestured for Alix to go through the door. He followed her into one of Wimbledon’s underground service tunnels. The door was positioned close to a right-angled bend, so that the tunnel ran away straight ahead of them and to the right. The concrete floor was shiny and slick from the constant passage of feet and wheels. The walls were made of bare breeze blocks. A couple of doors, painted in the same duck-egg blue, were set into the right-hand wall. The nearest one had a sign next to it that read, ‘Ball Boys and Girls’. The one beyond it displayed one word: ‘Pilates’.
On the left, two massive black pipes ran all along the bottom of the wall, with metal racks above them that were used to carry countless, loosely hung strands of multicoloured wire. A number of smaller red-painted pipes were suspended from the ceiling, along with yet more wires. They were all held in place by metal frames like horizontal ladders, from which hung a line of harsh white neon strip lights that ran as far as the eye could see.
‘Let’s go,’ said Carver, running down the tunnel up ahead.
Alix followed him, her heels clattering against the concrete floor. As they rounded a left-hand corner Carver gestured at her to stop and get to the side of the tunnel, just behind him. He took up a position by one of the pipes, wishing that Schultz were down in the tunnel with him, instead of sitting on a bench by Wimbledon Common. Give the two of them a couple of sub-machine guns and a bunch of grenades, and they’d have the Chinese sorted in no time. Doing it solo was a little more complicated.
Carver was as close as he could get to the angle of the corner, leaning slightly out into the tunnel to get a view of the door from the stairs. It opened and one of the Chinese stepped through it, holding his gun out in front of him. He stopped for a moment, saw no one else in the tunnel, and lowered his gun as he relaxed a fraction, and that was when Carver stepped out and fired the two shots that killed him.
Carver put another two rounds through the porthole to discourage the men waiting the other side, then immediately turned – and almost ran right into a squat, white, open buggy that was coming down the tunnel towards them. Thanks to its electric motor the buggy was virtually noiseless. In fact the loudest sound coming from it was the music seeping from the earphones of the skinny, acne-faced lad at the wheel. He seemed lost in what he was hearing, his attention long since dulled by the constant repetition of trips up and down the same stretch of tunnel. He barely registered Carver’s presence until he was two metres away, and then his dull working day suddenly got a whole lot more exciting. He slammed on the brakes and came to a halt within a few centimetres of Carver, who simply put a foot in front of the buggy, leaned forward, and used one hand to shove his gun in the young driver’s face, while the other ripped the earphones from his head.
‘Get out, now,’ said Carver. ‘That way.’
The driver nodded frantic agreement, then scrambled across the seat towards the wall where Alix was standing.
‘Now hold out your hands in front of you,’ Carver told him.
From round the corner came the sound of the door to the stairs being kicked open.
Carver pulled a pair of the yellow plastic handcuffs from his trouser pocket and gave them to Alix.
Now a voice could be heard barking out orders in Chinese.
Carver nodded at the wall and said, ‘Tie him to those racks.’
There were distant footsteps, getting fainter – men running down the tunnel in the wrong direction. Then more commands.
Alix nodded and slipped one of the handcuff loops around the driver’s left hand, tightening it hard enough to make him wince.
More footsteps, coming in their direction.
Alex passed the cuff around the back of one of the upright struts that supported the wire racks, then took the driver’s right hand and secured it.
As she did so, Carver got behind the wheel of the buggy and executed a quick three-point turn, so that it was facing back the way it had just come. He slid across the seat so that Alix could get behind the wheel.
‘Floor it,’ he said.
The buggy trundled away, gradually picking up pace towards its top speed of sixteen miles per hour. Carver turned around in his seat so that he was facing backwards, half-kneeling with one knee on the seat, his weight pushed forward so that his thigh was braced against the vertical seat-rest. He reached around to the small of his back and took out his gun. Then he held it out in front of him, sighting at a point in the middle of the corner round which the Chinese were about to appear.
The footsteps got louder.
The kid tied to the wire-rack was darting his head from side to side like one of the spectators on the courts up above them, staring with terrified wide eyes at Carver, then back towards the sound of the approaching footsteps. He started desperately trying to clamber up and over the pipes to give himself a little cover.
‘OK,’ Carver told Alix, ‘hit the brakes.’
The two fastest Chinese came racing around the corner. The first almost skidded to a halt as he spotted Carver up ahead, aiming a gun directly at him, and there was almost a touch of slapstick about the way the next runner crashed into him, nearly knocking him off his feet. But that comedy moment saved the first runner’s life. It meant that Carver’s first shot missed him, and the second hit him high on his right shoulder, smashing into the joint between the shoulder blade and the upper arm. The impact knocked him backwards. He screamed in agony and his gun dropped from his limp, useless arm. But he was still alive.
Carver didn’t have time to finish the first target off. The second was already steadying himself and bringing his gun to bear on the buggy. Carver went for a head shot. Two more quick-fire rounds hit their target, splattering a mess of scarlet blood and grey brain matter against the stark, bare breeze blocks.
Eight rounds used, seven left in the magazine. Three men down …
No, make that two.
The man Carver had wounded was struggling to his feet. He switched his gun to his left hand, and staggered forwards.
Carver winced as he killed him with a pair of shots to the chest, almost resenting his victim for forcing such a clinical execution rather than being smart enough to count himself lucky and stay down.
He pointed his gun up at the neon strip lights and fired off the rest of his rounds, throwing that section of the tunnel into semidarkness. Then he released the magazine, slammed in a new one and passed the gun to Alix. ‘Get round the next corner, then wait for me,’ he said. ‘If I don’t come for you, shoot whoever does.’
Carver got out of the buggy and she drove away. He jumped up and grabbed hold of the framework that ran along the ceiling, carrying the red pipes, wires and shot-out neon lights. Then he swung his legs up into the framework, and pulled his body up until he was lying flat alongside the pipes and wires, hoping that the thin metal struts that supported them would take his weight as well; hoping, too, that he had taken out enough lights to hide his presence from the other Chinese, who must now have realized that they had gone in the wrong direction, and be doubling back his way.
Carver reached down to his leg and slipped the knife from his ankle sheath.
More voices came, two of them, one higher-pitched than the other. Their words were indecipherable, but the questioning tone was clear. They were calling out for their mates, and wondering why there was no reply. Seconds later the owners of the voices came into view: a shaven-headed, thickset guy who looked like he could handle himself, and a slip of a girl in a sexy little mini. They both glanced at their dead comrades. The girl visibly flinched, then pulled herself together, advancing down the tunnel at a slow, steady pace beside the man. They had their guns in front of them, alert to the slightest sound or movement.
They were almost directly under Carver now.
Then there was a strangled cry for help, the sound of a man too terrified to be able to raise his voice. The buggy driver slid back down the pipe towards the tunnel floor and the two Chinese turned in his direction, presenting their backs to Carver. The girl swung her gun until the barrel pointed directly at the wide-eyed screaming driver, her face clenched into flint-eyed immobility as she put three shots in a tight grouping right in the centre of his skinny torso. They blasted bloody chunks out of his back as they passed right through him.
The sound of the firing was still echoing around the tunnel as Carver slipped down from his hiding place, his feet hitting the concrete directly behind the shaven-headed man. His left hand clamped over the man’s mouth as the knife in his right cut into the flesh of his neck and, in a single sweep from left to right, severed the windpipe and the carotid artery, sending a spray of blood pluming through the air in a downward arc. The man fell dead at Carver’s feet.
The young woman turned round to meet this unexpected threat, and Carver threw himself at her, reaching out for her gun with his empty hand and stabbing the knife up towards her guts.
The knife never got there. Carver felt the woman’s slim hand clamp against his wrist, her grip surprisingly powerful, crushing enough to cut off the supply of blood to his hand and weaken his grip. So now they were locked in a stalemate, each able to prevent the other from using their weapon, but unable to make an attacking move without releasing the grip that was keeping them safe. They stumbled into the centre of the tunnel, turning around in a fatal dance in which each partner was trying to kill the other. The woman was the first to make a move, bringing her right leg round in a scything kick towards the side of Carver’s left leg.
Carver evaded the kick, pulling the woman’s much lighter body with him and taking advantage of her fractional loss of balance to spin her around and then hurl her at the far wall. The woman’s skull hit the breeze blocks with an audible crack, stunning her so that she stood groggily, leaning back against the wall and presenting her body to Carver front on.
A second later the knife that Carver had thrown was embedded in the woman’s delicate, slender throat, and her body was sliding, stone dead, to the hard, cold floor.
Carver waited for a second to see if anyone else was coming, but there was only silence. He stepped across to the corpse and took the gun from the lifeless right hand. Then he sprinted down the corridor toward Alix. Less than a minute had passed since they’d entered the tunnel, and the only un-silenced shots had been the ones that had killed the buggy driver. They would actually serve to keep anyone else away: nowadays no unarmed security men, or even police officers, would advance towards a suspected gunman. The health and safety culture that put the reduction of risk far ahead of the doing of duty would see to that. But that would not prevent the authorities from setting up a security cordon. Unless he and Alix got out fast, they’d be trapped underground like rats in a blocked drain.
He was going flat out round the bend: so fast, in fact, that he slipped and went skidding and scrambling to the floor, accidentally saving his life as the bullets intended for his upright body slammed into the breeze blocks behind him.
Carver tucked his head into his shoulders, turning his fall into a roll, then got straight to his feet, his gun in front of him. He was just about to fire in the direction from which the firing had come when he caught sight of the shooter.
It was the sixth Chinese, the one in the black designer gear: the leader.
He was standing behind the buggy.
He was not pointing his gun at Carver.
He was holding it against the side of Alix’s skull.
73
* * *
DEREK CHOI COULD hear more voices echoing down the tunnel, British voices, getting closer. Yet he made no attempt to escape, nor did he bother shouting threats or demands at Carver. As long as he had the Petrova woman at his mercy, Carver could do nothing. In the meantime, Choi was happy to let the time go by until they were all discovered. Carver’s death was really only a means to an end. The ultimate objective was to prevent him getting out of Wimbledon, so that Malachi Zorn could escape. If Choi and Carver both ended up in custody, that aim would be accomplished. Choi carried a diplomatic passport, and his immunity would keep him safe. Carver, though, would have a lot of explaining to do. He might have powerful friends, but they would not help him if the police were conducting a multiple murder investigation. Carver would be left alone to face his fate: the bizarre British obsession with correct procedure would see to that. He would be rotting in jail for the rest of his life.
Carver could see that Alix was looking straight at him. She glanced down for an instant at her feet, then straight back at Carver with a look on her face that said, ‘Shall I?’
He gave a fractional nod of the head, then switched his eyes back to the gunman, stared at him hard and shouted out, ‘Oi! You!’
That got his attention.
At that moment Alix brought up her right knee and then slammed it down again, driving the point of her heel into her captor’s foot, then, as his grip on her loosened, throwing her body down too, and leaving him exposed.
Carver finished the job with two more kill shots.
He ran to Alix. ‘You OK?’
She nodded angrily, furious with herself. ‘I’m sorry. I wasn’t looking behind me and—’
‘Doesn’t matter. Let’s get out of here.’
They ran back up the tunnel, past the corpses strewn across the scarlet-smeared concrete, till they got to the door marked ‘Pilates’.
Carver stopped beside it. He wiped the handle of his gun, then threw it away. He took a deep breath to settle himself. He looked at Alix. ‘We’re drunk. We’re idiots. All right?’
She gave him a wry smile. ‘Whatever you say …’
He pushed open the door and as they went through put his arm around her and slurred, ‘You really are bloody shexy. You’re worth every penny.’
Alix gave him a dig in the ribs with her elbow, and then in a heavy Russian accent giggled, and said, ‘You English men. So funny. But so small.’
They had found their way into a large treatment room. A track-suited female instructor was giving instructions to a pair of male players, who were lying face-down on mats.
‘Lift your heads and your feet and hold the stretch …’ she said. Then she saw Carver and Alix and snapped: ‘Who are you? This is not a public area.’
‘We’re looking for the bogs,’ said Carver with drunken amiability. ‘My friend Natasha.’
‘Oksana,’ said Alix.
‘Well, whatever she’s called she’s bursting for a piss.’
‘Get out!’ shrieked the instructor. The players were getting to their feet, looking as though they were ready to remove these drunken intruders personally.
Carver raised his hands palms out, appeasingly.
‘S’all right,’ he said. ‘We’ll be moving along. D’you happen to know the way to Centre Court?’ He grinned stupidly. ‘We have ama-a-azing seats.’
‘That’s the way out, mate,’ said one of the players in an Aussie accent, pointing at a door on the far side of the room. ‘Up the stairs. Out the door at the top. You’ll be right opposite the court. Time to go.’
‘But you can stay,’ said the other player, giving Alix a cheeky grin.
She gave him a withering stare.
Carver took her hand and said, ‘Come on, darling. I need another drink.’
They followed the tennis-player’s instructions and found themselves back out on St Mary’s Walk, just another couple in the crowd. It took a few minutes to make their way round to the debenture holders’ entrance.
‘I’ll see you later,’ Alix said, giving Carver’s arm a squeeze.
‘I’ll call you,’ he said.
Carver followed her as she went off towards Zorn’s seats. Ahmad Razzaq was still there. Dmytryk Azarov was still there.
Malachi Zorn, however, was gone.
74
* * *
CARVER RAN LIKE hell, racing back down the stairs, out of Centre Court and back across the Tea Lawn to the nearest exit gate. As he came out on to Church Road he heard police sirens in the distance, but getting louder. By now the carnage in the tunnel must have been discovered. He could imagine the panic as Wimbledon’s officials tried to work out how to respond. Should they carry on as normal, with the possibility of a gunman on the loose, or terminate proceedings for the day, risking panic as tens of thousands of fearful spectators tried to leave the grounds?
Not his problem. And at least it would keep the police fully occupied while he got on with his business. If he could get on with it.
He speed-dialled Schultz as he ran across Church Road between the crawling lines of departing spectators and homeward-bound commuters and dashed into the car park.
‘Any sign of Zorn?’
‘No, boss.’
‘Let me know if you see anything.’
‘Haven’t you got him in view?’
‘Lost him … long story.’
The fractional silence before Schultz next spoke was enough to tell Carver how unimpressed the big sergeant major was by that news. ‘So what do you want us to do?’
‘Nothing. Just keep your eyes open. The moment you see anything, let me know.’
‘Right, boss.’
Carver could see his Transit up ahead. But there was no sign of Zorn’s Bentley. ‘What’s the traffic like there?’ he asked.
‘It’s moving,’ said Schultz. ‘I mean, it’s not going quick, but it’s moving.’
‘Shit.’ He didn’t want Zorn in a moving vehicle. He wanted him stuck in a traffic jam, going nowhere.
‘OK. Keep this line open. If you see anything, shout.’
Carver did a quick calculation. From the moment he met Alix outside Centre Court to the time he saw Zorn’s empty seat couldn’t have been more than five minutes. Unless Zorn had decided to leave at the precise moment Alix saw the Chinese, he was unlikely to have had more than a two- or three-minute head start. Unlike Carver, he would not have run to his car. Nor could Zorn have done what Carver did next.
He opened up the rear doors of the Transit and leapt up into the cargo bay. A Honda CRF250X trailbike, a skinny, long-limbed red whippet of a machine capable of racing over virtually any terrain, from the wilderness to the urban jungle, was standing there with a helmet hung from its handlebars. A gun was clipped to its body, just ahead of where Carver’s right knee would be resting. A grenade was clipped to the left.
Carver pulled on the helmet, released the clips that held the bike to the floor of the van, pressed the ignition button, and drove the bike straight out the back of the van. Its shock-absorbers easily handled the impact as it landed on the grass outside, and then it spun on a sixpence as Carver pointed it towards the direction in which his quarry was travelling. But he didn’t head for the car park exit on to Church Road. Instead he revved the engine to a furiously loud chainsaw buzz as he steered between the lines of parked vehicles, racing over the grass, dodging pedestrians, squeezing so tightly between cars that his handlebars seemed to brush the paint-work on either side; all the time following the line of the road and keeping one eye out for any sign of Malachi Zorn.
Next door to the debenture holders’ car park was an area given over to the marquees used for corporate hospitality. Carver kept going, ignoring the outraged shouts of drunken businessmen as the nimble Honda zipped between the huge white tents. A man in a waiter’s uniform emerged from one of them, pushing a trolley laden with crates of empty wine bottles. He looked up in wide-eyed terror as Carver bore down on him, and let go of the trolley, which tipped over, spilling crates and bottles across Carver’s path. He slalomed and skidded through the sudden avalanche of glass and plastic, fighting to retain control as the rear wheel spun against the grass, before rocketing forward again as it regained traction.
He passed the last tent and headed into another one of the giant car parks, turning towards the exit this time and riding past a line of cars patiently waiting to leave, before forcing his way through the exit and left on to the road. As he passed the end of the tournament grounds, the road rose again up towards St Mary’s Church. The traffic was beginning to move a little faster. Carver swept past the church on to a road that ran between ranks of large suburban houses – hiding behind high brick walls, thick shrubs and trees, as if concealing their cosy, complacent prosperity from the passing hordes. He peered ahead, trying to spot the dove-grey Bentley. No joy. Then he heard a voice in his ear: ‘I’ve got visual contact, boss. He’s turning into Southside Common. Got to be less than two hundred metres away from me, maybe one fifty. What do you want me to do?’
‘Let him get closer. Jam the road. Then wait for my signal. On my way …’
‘Got it, boss.’
By Carver’s reckoning he was about four hundred metres from the turn into Southside Common. He needed to be there fast: fifteen seconds, twenty at most. He upped his pace still further, running flat out between the lines of traffic. Up ahead a bus had stopped, blocking the cars behind it and bringing the traffic to a crawl. Carver didn’t hesitate. He mounted the opposite pavement and kept moving, dodging metal bollards, waste-paper bins and another bus stop, muttering, ‘Sorry,’ as a mother pushing a stroller screamed and scrambled herself and her baby out of his way. On the far side of the bus the road was a little clearer, and Carver swung back down on to the tarmac. The houses on either side of the road were getting much smaller: little terraced cottages with lines of shops, galleries and estate agents scattered between them. He swung right, across a mini-roundabout and on to the crowded high street of Wimbledon Village, cutting up a yummy mummy in a BMW X5 and receiving a loud blare of the horn in exchange.
Almost there. He could yet make it. But only if Schultz and his mate did their bit.
75
* * *
SCHULTZ SPOKE TO Cripps. ‘You hear that, Kev? Get to work, son. Just act like a twat. Shouldn’t be difficult.’
‘Ha-ha! I’m on it.’
Southside Common is a two-way street. For much of its length parking is allowed on either one or the other side of the road, but never both. So the traffic is inevitably slowed somewhat, as it has to swing first one way and then the other to get round the parked cars which form a series of bottlenecks. Cripps was halfway along one of these bottlenecks. And now he was going to put a cork in it.
Cripps looked in his rear-view mirror at the line of traffic coming towards him from behind. He could just see the Bentley, five cars back.
Another line of traffic was coming towards him in the opposite direction, slowing down to allow for the narrowed road where Cripps and the other cars were parked.
There were no obvious gaps in either line.
Cripps started his engine and signalled right. Without waiting for any response, he then swung the Mazda out into the traffic. The two cars nearest him slammed on their brakes. They came to a halt, barely a hand’s breath away from either side of Cripps, who had now got his car almost broadside across the road. The cars behind them braked, bumped into one another, blew their horns and flashed their lights. In a matter of a few seconds, a calm and steady flow of traffic had been reduced to chaos. Cripps grinned sheepishly at the drivers on either side of him and mouthed the word, ‘Sorr-eee …’ Then he put the car into reverse and attempted a three-point turn. Except that the road was too narrow and the cars around him too close to allow it.
So now he started shuffling the car back and forth, nodding idiotically at the driver in the car closest to him, who was screaming, ‘Turn the f*cking wheel!’ through his windscreen and miming extravagant turning gestures. Cripps just ignored him, shuffling his car back and forth so that neither he nor anyone else could get anywhere.
In the Bentley, the chauffeur turned round to Malachi Zorn and said, ‘Sorry about this, sir. Some idiot’s trying to turn round in the middle of the road. Shouldn’t be long, and we’ll be on our way.’
Carver sped past dinky little restaurants for ladies who lunched, and fancy fashion boutiques for those who shopped. He ignored two red lights on pedestrian crossings and left a trail of startled, angry citizens in his wake. Up ahead he saw the Wimbledon war memorial, an obelisk topped by a cross that stood by the left-hand turn on to Southside Common. A line of cars was waiting to make the turn, but no one was moving. The traffic had come to a grinding halt. Carver kept going past the cars, barely slowing at all. He bore left past the memorial. The common was almost upon him. Time to get things moving.
One of the drivers being blocked by Kevin Cripps had got out of his car, and was walking angrily towards the Mazda. Cripps watched him come, smiling at the thought of the shock the man would get if he tried to pick a fight. Then he heard a voice in his ear.
‘This is Carver. Move!’
Now Cripps turned the wheel. In a couple of seconds he had floored the gas, turned hard right, and was racing away down the road, missing Carver by millimetres as he came the other way, gunning his bike down the middle of the road.
Schultz narrowed his eyes as the traffic started to move. In his hand he held a detonator switch, connected to the wire that led to the Krakatoa. One car came past the empty space where the Mazda had been. Then two … three … four … now he could see the Bentley. It was nosing forward cautiously, the chauffeur conscious of both the bulk and value of the car he was driving. The last thing he wanted to do was scratch the bodywork.
Now the Bentley was almost filling Schultz’s line of sight.
Schultz pressed the switch.
The high-explosive powder blew, destroying the grey plastic canister. At the same time, the intensely focused heat and power of the blast worked a terrible magic on the copper disc, transforming it into a slug of near-molten metal that speared through the air and hit the front of the Bentley with the force of an artillery shell. It punched a hole the size of a fist in the car’s side-panel, then smashed into the engine with a brutal power that instantly reduced a marvel of precision engineering to mere shrapnel and scrap metal.
The shock waves from the blast ripped through the car, shattering every window.
The Bentley was stopped dead in its tracks. The car behind ran straight into it, causing a slow-motion pile-up as it, too, was rear-ended. The cars coming the other way had also stopped again, to the sound of more screeching brakes and crashing metalwork.
Schultz gave a nod of appreciation at the effect of his work. Then he got up from the park bench and calmly walked away. As he went he switched calls to another line.
‘Ambulance,’ he said. ‘Now.’
*
Carver reached down and released the gun that was clipped to the side of his bike. His eyes were fixed on the Bentley just a few metres away. The chauffeur was slumped over the wheel, unconscious, but there was movement in the back of the car. Carver slowed, then braked to a halt as he came alongside the Bentley’s passenger compartment. He could see Zorn quite clearly through the shattered window. He looked dazed, but he was pulling himself together, shuffling along the rear seat, reaching for the door handle, trying to get out of the car. Carver stuck his gun-hand through the window. He took careful, considered aim. And then, as Zorn shouted, ‘Please! No! Don’t!’ he fired.
And then, for good measure, he unclipped the grenade, pulled the pin and threw that in as well.
The bright yellow emergency ambulance had been waiting at the far end of Murray Road, about five hundred metres from the crash. The moment the driver got the signal from Schultz, he turned on the siren and flashing blue lights and sped away up the road, across the Ridgeway towards Southside Common. Estimated time of arrival: a little over thirty seconds.
Carver had the bike moving before the grenade blew. The blast went off behind him as he gunned the bike across the road, between the trees that bordered the common and on to the open grassland beyond. The terrain was made for a trailbike, and the Honda sped away with the enthusiasm of a racehorse given its head and pointed at the finishing line.
For a good fifteen seconds, no one dared get out of their cars. Then the first door opened and a balding middle-aged man climbed out. Tentatively, looking from side to side as if he feared some new threat might suddenly appear, he made his way towards the crippled Bentley. With nervous darts of his head he looked at the mangled bonnet and engine compartment, and the driver still motionless at the wheel. He bent down to peer at the back passenger seats. He took one look at the blood-drenched body and the gore that the grenade had spattered all over the creamy leather seats. And then he wrenched his body to one side, bent almost double and threw up all over the road.
The man was still standing by the Bentley, dazed by the shock of what he had seen, when the ambulance arrived. He was ushered to one side by paramedics, who immediately forced their way into the car and removed Zorn’s inert, blood-soaked body, placing it on a stretcher and wheeling it to the ambulance. The driver came next.
The paramedics worked very fast. They did not seem to be too interested in the finer points of patient care. They just got the two victims into the back of their ambulance as quickly as possible and then set off again – lights flashing, siren wailing – so that they had been and gone within little more than a minute of the crash taking place. By the time the fire and police teams got there, the car was empty.
Malachi Zorn had just vanished from the face of the earth.