been carrying in an underarm holster, but Lynch was planning to use the Czech 9mm he’d brought with him. The ten bullets in the clip would be more than enough, so long as Marie kept her nerve. Lynch turned the Mercedes to the right and headed towards the apartment entrance. On the pavement the bodyguard was waving to Cramer and the girl, urging them out of the foyer.
Allan swivelled around, checking the surroundings for possible threats. Most of the parking spaces were occupied by expensive cars, including several Rolls-Royces and a Ferrari. A young woman was sitting at the wheel of a Rover and was preparing to drive out of the car park. She seemed to be alone in the car. Cramer and Su-ming joined Allan on the pavement.
The Mercedes was about fifty feet away and Allan moved to the edge of the pavement, preparing to open the door for Cramer and the girl. The Rover accelerated. Allan frowned. She wasn’t heading for the exit, she was heading directly for the apartment entrance. Something was wrong.
Allan stepped between the car and Cramer, holding his left arm out to the side, ready to push Cramer back. He kept his eyes on the Rover. He half expected to see a man with a gun appear from the back seat but the young woman was definitely alone in the car. ‘Stay back,’ Allan said to Cramer. The Mercedes was still heading towards them and Allan beckoned it with his hand. If Martin put his foot down he’d get in front of the Rover and the threat would be neutralised. The Mercedes continued to crawl towards them.
‘Back in the foyer,’ said Allan, but as he spoke the Rover’s tyres squealed and the car leapt forward. Su-ming screamed. Allan reached for his gun with his right hand and pushed Cramer with his left. His fingers touched the butt of the gun, but before he could pull it out the Rover was upon him. He threw himself to the right but the wing clipped him and he heard his leg snap above the knee. The pain followed a second later as if his whole leg was on fire and he bit down on his lip to stifle a scream.
The Rover veered to the left and sped away. Allan rolled across the pavement in agony, the gun falling from his fingers. The Mercedes accelerated towards them, its engine roaring in the confines of the car park.
The Colonel blew across his coffee mug. The steam condensed on the window pane and he rubbed it away with his hand. Down on the luxury motor yacht, the trooper was washing down the decks with a bucket and sponge.
A grey-haired man in a blazer and white slacks was helping two blonde teenage girls onto a fifty-foot motor launch. The Thames was at its lowest level of the day and the channel connecting the marina to the river was empty, so the man obviously wasn’t planning to take the boat out, not for a few hours at least. The taller of the two blondes stumbled as she stepped from the dock onto the boat and the man put a hand on her backside to steady her. The Colonel supposed the man might just be the girls’ father, but there was no mistaking the predatory gleam in his eyes. They disappeared inside the boat. It was, thought the Colonel, entirely possible that the man was showing them the engine room. ‘And pigs might fly,’ he mused.
The Colonel looked over at the tower block. Vander Mayer’s apartment was almost at the top of the tower. The sun was reflected off the windows so the Colonel couldn’t see inside. He shaded his eyes with his right hand but it didn’t make any difference.
Behind him, his fax machine rang, three times, and then it hummed as a fax began to come through. Down in the marina, the motor yacht began to rock gently. The Colonel shook his head in amazement, then he realised that it made sense. Eyebrows might be raised if an elderly man booked into a hotel with two young girls, so a luxury boat moored close to the city centre made a perfect venue for illicit assignations, providing you had the money. The Colonel wondered how much the boat had cost. A hundred thousand pounds? Maybe more.
The first sheet fell out of the machine. It was a memo from Dan Greenberg saying that he was faxing the notes on the killer they’d spoken about. His name was Anton Madeley, and he’d been held in Marrion Prison for the past nine years, mostly in solitary confinement. The Colonel stood by the machine as the second sheet began to spew out.
It was halfway out of the machine when the transceiver crackled. It was Richards, the young trooper who was sitting in the foyer by the car park. ‘Allan’s been hit,’ said Richards. ‘Allan’s been hit in the car park.’
The Colonel dropped his mug as he turned and grabbed the transceiver. He pressed the transmit button. ‘Move in!’ he yelled. ‘Everybody move in now!’
Cramer and Su-ming dashed over to Allan. He was lying on the pavement like a broken marionette, his right leg sticking out at an awkward angle, blood pouring from the knee. ‘Get back!’ Allan shouted. ‘Get the fuck out of here!’
‘It’s okay, she’s gone,’ said Cramer. As Su-ming examined the damage to Allan’s leg, the Mercedes pulled up in front of them. Cramer looked up, expecting to see Martin at the wheel. He did a double-take as he realised that the man in the chauffeur’s cap wasn’t Martin.
Allan reached along the pavement for his gun. The man in the Mercedes threw open the car door and fired twice at Allan. The first shot screamed off the pavement inches from his hand, the second hit him in the right shoulder, close to the neck. Cramer got to his feet, pushing Su-ming behind him. Allan lay on the floor, gasping for breath as blood gushed around his shoulders.
The man in the chauffeur’s cap pointed his gun at Cramer’s face. ‘No!’ screamed Su-ming from behind Cramer.
Matt Richards didn’t hear the Rover accelerate but he heard the thud as it hit Allan. He yelled into his transceiver as he pulled his Heckler amp; Koch MP5 submachine gun from under his seat, then leapt over the counter. He almost slipped on the marble foyer but quickly regained his balance as he brought his weapon up into the firing position. He ran towards the double doors, slipping his finger onto the trigger. On the pavement outside he saw Cramer and the girl standing in front of Martin, while Allan lay on the ground, blood pooling around his neck. The car that had hit Allan was screeching away, towards the exit. For a second Richards was confused; he couldn’t understand why Cramer and Martin weren’t firing after the car. Then realisation hit him like a shower of freezing water — it wasn’t Martin wearing the chauffeur’s cap, and whoever it was he was holding a gun on Cramer.
The double doors hissed open as Richards got within three paces of the electronic sensor. He saw the man with the gun look over Cramer’s shoulder. The man’s eyes opened wide with surprise as he spotted Richards. Richards stepped to the side, trying to get a clear shot but Cramer and the girl were in the way. ‘Down! Down! Down!’ Richards screamed, the staccato commands piercing the air like bullets.
Lynch had no idea who the doorman was or why he had a high-powered automatic weapon in his hands, but he knew that he was in big trouble. What had started as a straightforward hit was escalating into a full-scale war. He aimed the gun at Cramer’s face and tightened his finger on the trigger, but as he did so the doorman began to scream for Cramer to get down and Lynch knew that if he didn’t react immediately he was going to die there and then on the pavement.
Lynch swung his pistol to the left and fired at the doorman. The bullet whizzed past Cramer’s face, missing him by inches. The first shot hit the doorman square in the chest and it knocked him back, but Lynch could see that there was no blood. The man’s face was contorted with pain but he kept hold of his weapon. Lynch realised he must be wearing a bullet-proof vest under his charcoal grey uniform.
Cramer dived to the side, pushing the girl out of the way. Lynch ignored them. He fired two shots at the doorman in quick succession. The first hit the upper part of the man’s chest and from the dull thud it made Lynch could tell that it had hit the reinforced vest. There was no mistaking where the third bullet went. It hit the doorman in the throat, snapping the man’s head back. Blood poured down the man’s chest and his weapon clattered to the floor. Cramer and the girl were down on the pavement. Cramer was on top of her, shielding her with his body as he reached inside his coat. Lynch grinned and brought his aim to bear on Cramer’s face. He grinned. He had five shots left. More than enough.
Marie Hennessy hit the brakes. She looked over her shoulder, wondering why Lynch was still standing in front of the apartment entrance. His instructions had been crystal clear. She was to take out the bodyguard with the car, Lynch was to pull up in the Mercedes, shoot Cramer, and then run to the Rover. They’d used the street map to work out the quickest way to Fulham Broadway Station, where they would abandon the car and disappear into the
