The Final Minute (37 page)

We were in a wide open space, and in the distance I could see the silhouette of the terminal building and tower. There were no lights on, and no one around, and right then I was the most scared I’d ever been – or could remember being, anyway – because it wasn’t just myself I was trying to save, it was the only family I had left in the world, and I couldn’t see how the hell I was going to do it.

Still keeping pretty low in the seat, I called the woman.

She answered straight away.

‘Where are you?’ I demanded.

‘We’re here,’ she said calmly. ‘I can see you.’

I felt a flash of fear as I realized she could be right beside us.

‘Put Claire on the line.’

‘You can see her.’

I squinted through the windscreen, which was when I saw three figures emerging from the shadows of the building and making their way towards us. I could see that it was a woman and child in front, holding hands, while another person followed just behind them.

I turned to Jack. ‘Turn the lights on and drive up to meet them. Slowly.’

Tina stopped her car at the entrance to the disused airfield. The laptop on the passenger seat clearly showed the tracker on Sean moving very slowly across the runway towards the old terminal building. She wished she’d given him some kind of recording device so she’d at least have some idea what was going on, but from the speed the car was moving, it looked like some kind of exchange was going to take place. Which meant Sean was alive.

She turned on to the access road, switched off her headlights, and slowed her pace to a crawl, before calling Mike Bolt.

‘The car Egan’s travelling in looks like it’s reached the rendezvous.’

‘Yeah, I can see that too.’

‘How far are you guys behind?’

‘Me and Mo are probably less than ten minutes, but we’re unarmed. We’ve got six ARVs converging on a rendezvous point directly north of the airfield on the A412, as well as armed surveillance and the locals, but they’re not going to be ready to move for at least ten minutes.’

‘Sean may well be dead by then.’

Bolt sighed. ‘I know, but I still want you to stay back and wait for us. And don’t do anything stupid. I mean that. I will arrest you if you get in the way of a police operation.’

‘Understood,’ she said, ending the call. But she kept driving, through the open gates, cutting her engine as she reached a gentle incline in the road. What was it her therapist had said about her once? She had a need for attention, which manifested itself in an unhealthy addiction to dangerous situations.

Well, she couldn’t argue with that.

Fifty-eight

I could see the figures clearly in the headlights now. I focused on the terrified expressions on the faces of the woman I’d once loved and the daughter I’d never met. My daughter … she seemed so small and vulnerable. Only three years old and being put through this. I had a huge and sudden yearning to take her in my arms and hold her, tell her that everything would be all right.

And then behind her, a figure in a black balaclava, a silenced pistol in one hand, a knife glinting in the other.

It took every ounce of willpower I possessed to stay calm.

‘Stop the car and keep the lights and the engine on.’

Jack stopped the car and I could see he was as nervous as I was. Sweat gleamed on his brow and his hands were clenched tight on the wheel. ‘What now?’

I tried to think. All I had to do was make one mistake and we all died. I could feel the pressure bearing down on me.

‘We both get out, nice and slowly. You first.’

Jack started to get out, and I pointed the gun directly at the head of the figure in the balaclava before slowly getting out of the car myself, using the passenger door as a shield, trying to work out my next move. The problem was, as I could remember now from my undercover days, you can never control the situation when there’s only one of you. People react unpredictably; plans can unravel in the blink of an eye.

My plan simply consisted of keeping my gun pointed at the woman in the balaclava, so that’s exactly what I did. I could see Jack standing by the other side of the car, but I could no longer see his hands, and it struck me that the search I’d given him had been cursory at best.

The woman addressed him now as she stopped five yards away from us, touching the gun to Claire’s head and keeping the knife far too close to Milly. ‘Is he alive?’ she demanded in her American accent, and I was immediately reminded about what she’d done to Jane only four nights ago.

‘Yeah, he’s alive,’ said Jack. ‘But he’s hurt.’

Claire was staring straight ahead into space, an expression of shock and resignation on her face. I glanced at Milly, careful not to take my eyes off the woman for too long. She looked scared too but she was looking up at me with … I don’t know what it was with. Maybe hope.

‘It’s going to be OK, I promise,’ I said, amazed at the confidence in my voice. Then, to the woman: ‘I’m here. Let them go.’

She pushed the end of the pistol’s barrel against Claire’s temple. ‘You know the deal. Put the gun down.’

‘Not until you let them go. You need to give them a head start too. Three minutes. We’ll wait here. I’ll even lower my gun a little.’

Somewhere in the distance, across the night sky, I could hear a siren.

The woman cocked her head in its direction. ‘What’s that?’ she demanded.

‘That is nothing to do with me,’ I said. ‘I promise.’

To be honest, I had no idea if this was true or not. I’d given Tina permission to call the police as long as they kept back, but what guarantee did I have that they would? That was when I noticed that the blonde’s knife was a good few inches from Milly. I could shoot her in the face now, just as I’d shot her boyfriend. The gun would probably go off in her hand, killing Claire, and I debated with myself whether I could make that sacrifice, knowing in my heart that I could.

But then I saw Jack pull a gun from the back of his trousers, and it hit me with a grim finality that there was no way he could afford to let my family go. Claire had just seen his face, thanks to me. So had Milly.

The siren faded into the distance. It was over.

‘Put the gun down,’ said the woman.

Behind her mask, I could almost see her calculating whether she could take me out with a single shot. With my family as a shield, she’d know I’d hesitate to fire back. If she got me, that was it. We’d all be dead.

I realized my hand was no longer shaking. I was suddenly, inexplicably, calm. ‘Let my family go or I pull the trigger and take you with me.’ I could see Jack pointing the gun at me now but remembered him telling me he’d never killed anyone, and I could sense his heart wasn’t in it. ‘Are you going to shoot me, Jack? Have you got the balls for it?’

The knife moved in the woman’s hand. Now the edge of the blade was touching my daughter’s face. Milly visibly cringed. ‘If you don’t lower the gun now, I’m going to disfigure your daughter for life with just one flick of my wrist.’ As she spoke, she crouched lower behind Claire, making herself a near-impossible target. ‘You have three seconds to comply. One …’

‘Lower the gun, Sean,’ said Jack urgently.

‘She’s going to kill them, Jack,’ I said. ‘You want that on your conscience?’

‘Two. Daddy wants you to bleed, baby. He wants you to suffer.’

‘Sean, do as she says, for God’s sake!’ pleaded Claire, speaking for the first time.

I lowered the gun.

Slowly.

Then pulled the trigger.

I was aiming for her right shoulder area, which was partly exposed to allow her to hold the knife to Milly’s face. It was unbelievably risky. But what else was there for me to do?

The woman stumbled backwards out of view with a yelp and I swung round, already shouting for Claire and Milly to run, turning the gun on Jack on the other side of the car. He had the gun in his hand and he was staring at me with a startled expression but making no move to fire, so I shot him twice in the chest, then swung back round to face the woman, knowing I’d only wounded her.

I got a fleeting glimpse of her lying on her back on the tarmac, the knife no longer in her hand, but the gun very much so and pointing at me, then the barrel lit up and I felt a huge weight like a punch hitting me somewhere in the sternum, then another, and another, each one harder than the last, and suddenly I was lying on my back on the tarmac too, staring up into space as the world seemed to wobble and blur around me.

I tried to sit up but all my strength was gone, and I could just make out the woman getting to her feet, still holding the gun, although her knife arm hung limply down at her side.

So this was it. She was going to kill me.

But she didn’t. Instead, she turned in the direction Claire had run with Milly and, as I lay there helpless and defeated, she raised the gun to fire.

Fifty-nine

Tina had been watching events on the runway unfold from bushes thirty metres away. She couldn’t hear what was being said but the 4×4’s headlamps had illuminated the scene well enough, and she could guess. From the angle she was at she was able to recognize Sean, and thought she could make out both Claire and Milly. She didn’t know the man on the other side of the car holding a gun but guessed it was Jack Duckford. The figure in the balaclava was definitely a woman, which meant it was almost certainly the one who’d murdered Sheryl Warner in her apartment the previous night, although there was no sign of her Neanderthal sidekick.

And then, just like that, the shooting had started and suddenly everyone was falling down and a single outsize silhouetted figure – a mother carrying her child – was running in Tina’s direction across the tarmac. Then she saw the figure in the balaclava in the glare of the headlights, aiming her gun at them.

‘Keep running!’ screamed Tina, breaking cover. ‘And keep your heads down!’ She’d parked her car about twenty yards further back, behind the wall of bushes lining the access road, and she sprinted for it now, hearing shots ringing out behind her, and praying that the woman firing hadn’t hit her targets.

Switching the headlights to full beam, she gunned the engine and drove on to the runway, relieved to see Claire and Milly still running towards her. She accelerated past them, bearing down on the woman in the balaclava, who’d taken up a crouched one-handed firing position a few yards in front of the 4×4. Tina could see she was hurt by the way one arm hung at her side, but she still ducked her head as the woman fired at her. A bullet flew through the middle of the windscreen, missing her by inches, and then the woman was jumping up and darting to one side, clearly hoping to take Tina through the passenger window when she came past and hit the 4×4, which was an inevitability on her current course.

Tina swung the wheel hard, braking at the same time, chasing down her target. The woman’s gun arm flailed as she tried to get out of the way and a second shot rang out, but this time it didn’t even hit the car and Tina kept driving, clipping the woman’s legs with the edge of the bonnet and sending her flying out of view. She kept spinning the wheel in a screech of tyres until she’d turned round 180 degrees.

The woman in the balaclava was getting to her feet, unsteadily. She’d lost the gun and was trying to shield her eyes from the glare of Tina’s headlights with her one good arm. She looked disorientated and, as Tina watched, she staggered over to the 4×4. Tina saw the gun lying on the tarmac and she drove forward, putting the car between it and the woman, then jumped out and picked it up.

The woman had opened the back door of the 4×4 and was leaning inside with her back to Tina.

‘Put your hands in the air!’ Tina called out, coming round the front of her car, holding the gun.

But the woman didn’t seem to be listening. Instead Tina could hear her talking softly to someone inside the 4×4.

Tina repeated her command. Only three or four yards separated them now. She needed to neutralize the woman but had no idea how she was going to do it. She could hardly shoot her, even though she was sorely tempted, and she had no handcuffs, nor any sign of assistance.

And then the woman yanked off her balaclava, revealing her long blonde hair, and cried out – a terrible keening sound, like that of an animal in distress. She turned towards Tina, her face twisted in anguish, and for the first time Tina saw the prone body of the Neanderthal in the back of the car, his head hanging over the end of the seat.

‘No!’ screamed the woman, her voice echoing across the vast emptiness of the airfield, and, almost as if in answer, a siren wailed, followed by a second, close by, and coming closer.

Something flashed in the woman’s gloved hand. A blade of some sort. Then she was running at Tina, the anguish transformed in an instant to pure white rage.

Tina pulled the trigger and fired two shots into her heart, stopping her in her tracks.

The woman wobbled on her feet, looking momentarily surprised, and it struck Tina for the first time how beautiful she was – a woman who could have had everything yet who’d ended up like this, dying young, violently and alone in a foreign land.

She fell to the tarmac with a dull, empty thud, leaving Tina the last person standing.

One Month Later

Sixty

Somehow I survived that night.

The blonde woman shot me three times in the upper body causing extensive internal damage. I suffered a collapsed lung, lost three inches of my small intestine, two of my ribs were shattered, and I no longer have a spleen. But somehow my most important organs were missed, and I’ve been told I’m likely to make a full recovery. I understand that Tina Boyd, who turned up like a slightly tardy version of the Seventh Cavalry, administered emergency first aid until the ambulance crew arrived. She also killed the woman who shot me and saved Claire and Milly, so I guess we’re evens now. In fact, I probably owe her. I’d have liked to thank her personally for what she did but she hasn’t been to see me here at the hospital, where I remain under police guard. And sadly under arrest. As soon as I leave here I’m being transferred to prison to await trial on a number of charges.