Red Eye - 02 (40 page)

CHAPTER

FORTY-ONE

B
ERGER WAS PANTING
hard and, in spite of the cold, perspiring freely. The butt of the Cindermaker was drippingly slick with Redlaw’s blood.

“You want I should take over?” Child asked.

“Just need a breather, sergeant. I’ll be back to it in a moment.”

“How about me?” said Tina.

All three soldiers—Berger, Child, Abbotts—looked at her.

“What you on about?” said Child.

“Well... Can’t I have a go?”

“Beating him?” said Berger.

“Yeah,” said Tina. “I’ve been through a whole heap of shit this past couple of days on account of Redlaw—literally, when we were in that sewer. Thanks to him I’ve been close to getting killed, more than once. I figure I owe him for that. Let me get in a couple of licks while you’re catching your wind.”

Berger was unconvinced. “I don’t think it’s appropriate.”

“You don’t, huh?”

“You’re a civilian.”

“And you’re soldiers, therefore it’s all right? That doesn’t stand to reason.” She turned and appealed to Farthingale up on the terrace. “Mr Farthingale. What do you think? You think they should have all the fun?”

Farthingale deliberated. “My view, is Tina, you’re currently a witness to these events. If you join in, you become an accessory.”

“So that’s a no, then.”

“On the contrary. As an accessory, you’re more deeply involved. You’re complicit. That ensures your loyalty and your silence. Look on it as an expression of your commitment to me. After this, we’re bonded, you and I. You know about me what I know about you, so neither of us can incriminate the other without incriminating themselves.”

“A stalemate, kind of.”

“More of a mutual insurance policy. It’s perfect.”

“Great.” Tina held out a hand to Berger. “So give me that, please.”

Berger was reluctant to hand the Cindermaker over.

“Give her the gun, warrant officer,” said Farthingale.

Grudgingly she complied.

Tina hefted the Cindermaker by the barrel. She approached Redlaw, who was doubled over, his ribcage heaving. The snow around him was a mass of crimson spatters.

“I wondered how long it would take you, Tina,” he said thickly, head still bent. His whole body shivered uncontrollably. Droplets of his own blood were freezing to his skin. “To finally get stuck in.”

“Just waiting for an opportunity,” she said, moving round him. “Jeez, you’re a mess.”

“I can take punishment. It’s one of the things I do best.”

“Maybe you even like it.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

She was behind him now, between him and Child. She had the air of someone gloating, relishing the humiliation of another.

“When is enough enough?” she said.

“When it’s served its purpose.”

“And has it?”

“Not for me to judge. But I’d like to think so.”

Tina paused, then continued her circuit of Redlaw until she was in front of him again.

“Don’t hold back,” he said to her, finally looking up. His face was hideously distended. One eye was almost completely closed, while the other had been damaged internally so that the white of the sclera was now red.

She struck him with the gun, nowhere near as hard as Berger had, but it sent him reeling. Redlaw collapsed onto his back. He rolled and writhed in the snow.

Child stepped forward to get him back on his knees. As he yanked Redlaw upright, he noticed two things.

Redlaw’s wrists were no longer zip-tied.

Redlaw had a knife in his hands.

It was Jacobsen’s combat knife. Child couldn’t have known this, just as he couldn’t have known that Tina had been secreting the knife up her sleeve and had dropped it into the snow when she walked behind Redlaw, or that Redlaw, flat on his back, had retrieved it and used it to cut through the zip tie.

All Child knew was that, somehow, he and his teammates had been suckered.

And then the knife was embedded in his inner thigh, and Redlaw twisted it and pulled it out, and all at once blood was jetting from Child’s femoral artery, and he clamped a hand over the wound but the blood spurted between his fingers, unstoppable, and he sank to his knees with a horrified groan.

Next second, Redlaw was making a dash across the snow to Abbotts, and the knife whipped through the air, low to the ground, and—
snick
,
snick
—both of Abbotts’s Achilles tendons were neatly severed and he collapsed like a broken chair.

“Tina! The gun!” Redlaw yelled, and Tina tossed the Cindermaker to him.

At the same moment, Berger went for her own sidearm. She had been startled by the abrupt reversal of fortunes, the shift in the status quo. The girl and Redlaw—in cahoots all along? The whole thing just a charade? A feint?

Her pistol came up out of its holster.

But the Cindermaker was already levelled, Redlaw up on one knee, holding the bloodied grip with both hands.

Sighted.

Steadied.

Cocked.

“Guess you’re not interested in a fair fight?” she said.

Redlaw fired.

“You guessed correctly,” he said.

CHAPTER

FORTY-TWO

T
HE THREE SOLDIERS
were on the ground. One was dead—Berger, the back of her head now a ragged cavity, her brains strewn across the hillside. One was dying—Child, sitting ashen-faced and helpless in a pink slush of snow and blood. One remained alive but was crippled—Abbotts, his legs useless.

Redlaw got trembling to his feet, covering both Child and Abbotts with the Cindermaker in case they tried anything. He reeled, swayed. Tina went to his side.

“Easy there, old man,” she said, lending him a shoulder to lean on. “I don’t know if you’re ready for walking yet.”

“Farthingale?” said Redlaw, searching around. “Where’s Farthingale?”

Tina checked the terrace. “Gone. Big surprise. Must have hightailed it the moment you started hurting people.”

“I need to...” Redlaw tried to move, but his body didn’t seem ready to obey his thoughts just yet. His head was thrumming as though the bass pipes of a cathedral organ were playing inside it.

“You’re in no shape to be doing anything.”

“But he’s...”

“Getting away? Where’s he going to go? This is an island.”

“He can get off it the same way we got on.” Redlaw steeled himself. The pain threatened to crush him completely. Darkness beckoned—the sweet oblivion of unconsciousness. But he refused to give in to it. He would not pass out. He would keep going until he had done what he came here to do.

“Redlaw! Shtriga!”

Vampires were running up from the shoreline—Diane, Denzel, Anu, Patti, Mary-Jo—all of them soaking wet with seawater, but their faces exultant, alight with triumph.

“We got them,” said Denzel. “Two soldiers. Down through the ice. Nice as you please.”

“Are you okay?” Patti asked Redlaw. “Dear Lord, your face. What did they do to you?”

“They did what I needed them to do so that you lot had time to get into position,” said Redlaw. “Good work, all of you. Well done.”

At that moment, Child slumped sideways with a moan. The life had almost left him.

Abbotts, meanwhile, had begun crawling away. He propelled himself through the snow with just his hands and elbows, his legs trailing limply behind.

“Some unfinished business here,” Redlaw said to the vampires. “Perhaps you’d do the honours...?”

The vampires accepted the invitation gladly. Two of them fell on Child. The other three made after Abbotts, who saw them coming and accelerated his clumsy progress, arms flailing desperately, but in vain.

“No,” he whined. “No, this is not right. Not fair.”

“Drain them,” Redlaw said. “No comebacks.”

Abbotts shrieked as the vampires caught up with him and pounced. His cry was high and keening, indignation mixed in with the terror.

Child, by contrast, acquiesced to his fate manfully. So much blood had pumped out of him already that he was barely conscious. As the vampires drank the rest of it and hastened his end, he looked resigned, even relieved.

“I didn’t know if we could pull this off,” Tina said to Redlaw. She wanted to talk, if only to blot out the sound of the vampires feasting—the chomping, flesh-rending teeth, the slobbery lip-smacks and tongue-slurps. “So much could have gone wrong.”

“We did it, that’s what counts. You acted your part well.”

“I was making half of it up as I went along.”

“It didn’t show.”

“Guess I’m a champion bullshitter. And you’re a champion get-the-shit-kicked-out-of-him guy.”

“When it’s in a worthwhile cause. I’m glad you came round to our side, Tina.”

“You guilted me into it. I’m not a bad person. I do have a conscience. Buried deep, but it’s there. I thought it wouldn’t be a problem, selling you out to Farthingale, but it turns out it was. He offered me the world, and I can’t say I wasn’t tempted...”

“Everyone’s tempted. Nothing to be ashamed of there. As long as you don’t give in.”

“Besides,” said Tina, “it’s a better story this way. Now I don’t become the weaselly villain of the piece. I retain my integrity.”

“Which is a far better thing to have than worldly wealth.”

“Sure. If you say so.”

“Now...” Redlaw was feeling marginally better. Or rather, marginally less awful. “He’ll be in the house somewhere. Farthingale. Grab me my coat. Let’s get this over with.”

CHAPTER

FORTY-THREE

F
ARTHINGALE SPRINTED FOR
the safe room.

Just a few seconds. That was all it had taken for victory to turn to defeat, for gold to turn to shit.

Redlaw and Tina had, between them, pulled off a hell of a con. He couldn’t get over the audacity, the sheer
nerve
of it. If this had been some kind of devious boardroom coup, he might have seen it coming and been able to prevent it. As it was, he had been hoodwinked good and proper. Tina in particular. He’d been so certain he had her in the palm of his hand. So certain she was his thrall. How could she have resisted? Who in their right mind could turn down an offer like the one he had extended to her?

This wasn’t over, though. Not by a long shot. As he covered the last few yards to the safe room entrance, Farthingale was already plotting how he might regain control of the situation. He could hunker down in the safe room for days, weeks even, and they wouldn’t be able to get to him. In the meantime, he could communicate with the outside world, summon help, call in favours, get the police on the scene, the rescue services, the National Guard, anyone and everyone he needed...