she said, spitting out the last word. She stabbed a finger to her own chest. “At least I earned my rank, I didn’t cheat my way into it!”
Gilby eyed her calmly, but didn’t speak. His silence only seemed to inflame her further.
“I could have you shot here and now for your treachery, Gilby,” she said. That didn’t raise a response, either, even though Jan looked as though she was seriously considering such an act.
I climbed slowly to my feet. Two of Jan’s men were standing over me, but they didn’t make any attempts to keep me down. They were too busy eyeing their commanding officer with something approaching concern.
“I am taking command of this operation,” Hofmann said then, loudly, in German. “Major Konig, you are relieved.”
Jan didn’t have much colour to start with, but now what little she had was driven out of her face by a clenched fury. The last thing she looked was relieved.
“You can’t fucking do this to me, Hofmann,” she flared. “I outrank you. I’m not the one who’s removed a suspect from custody and helped him to escape. You’re a fucking traitor!”
Hofmann regarded her rather sadly and as her eyes slipped past him to the faces of her own men, the realisation of who they were prepared to follow must have hit her like a smack in the mouth.
“Oh, I might have expected that,” she said bitterly. “You’re nothing but a brain-dead bunch of chauvinistic morons.” She nodded to Hofmann, her disgust plain. “He’s the man, so he’s got to be right. Is that it?”
“Major Konig, you have overstepped your authority and you
He stepped forwards, peremptorily holding out his hand. Jan yanked the P7 out of its speed-draw holster again, tight-lipped and livid, and started to surrender it.
And that’s when Hofmann made his big mistake.
He allowed the faintest hint of a patronising smile to creep across his mouth.
Jan saw it, and snapped.
I saw the change come over her. Her eyes went wild, opaque, her grip shifted slightly, her stance hardened. The means of retribution was in her hand and all logical thought had fled in the face of fury.
I don’t know how Jan was planning on getting away with shooting Hofmann in cold blood in front of so many witnesses, but maybe she just didn’t give a shit any more.
I had a sudden almost subliminal flashback to the day when my four attackers had been acquitted and had smiled at me with gloating conceit as they’d left the courtroom. If someone had handed me a gun then, I would have pulled the trigger without hesitation and kept pulling it, rage-blind, until there was no one left standing.
Something bumped against my hip and I suddenly remembered the SIG I’d dropped into my jacket pocket outside the apartment in Berlin. I’d left the Lucznik behind the FireBlade, but no one had thought to check me for any other weapons.
The nearest of Jan’s men was standing less than a metre away from me. He caught the sudden flurry as I wrenched the pistol out of my pocket, the first round already sitting snug in the chamber and no safety to delay me. I started to bring it up level all in one move.
For all his apparently careless lapse in not searching me, he was a trained man and his reactions were damn near instantaneous. He was already turning before I’d got the barrel clear of the fabric. Already launching himself towards me in a ferocious tackle as my target fell between the sights.
I fired.
I got off one clean shot before the guy’s momentum took me straight off my feet. He was big and heavy and we landed solid enough to crack the air right out of my lungs, leaving me gasping.
He recovered first, viciously twisting the gun out of my unresisting grip and jamming the business end of it hard under my right ear, the still-hot muzzle burning my skin. He dragged me up as far as my knees.
Everybody seemed to be shouting at once. I closed my eyes, waiting for it all to end. Either way.
Nothing happened.
The gun eased away from my skull, the hand on my jacket relaxed its hold. When I cautiously opened my eyes again I found Hofmann was crouching in front of me.
He put a meaty hand on my shoulder. “Thank you,” he said solemnly, and stood again. Uninjured, I noticed. Unharmed.
When he moved aside I found myself staring into Jan’s shock-glazed eyes. The rage that had transported her to the edge of madness was dissipated, spent. She was sitting hunched on the ground half a dozen metres away, breathing quick and shallow, with her right hand curled lifelessly in her lap. I don’t know what happened to the P7 she’d been holding.
Even so, two of the men so recently under her command were standing close by, their MP5Ks trained on her. Another had a medical kit open on the ground and was dealing efficiently with the wound. I’d managed to plant the shot high through the fleshy part of her right arm across the swell of her bicep and despite his best efforts she was losing blood in a steady stream down the sleeve of her jacket.
Hofmann ordered the release of Gilby’s men and Sean. The squaddie who un-cuffed Sean moved back from him quickly when he’d done it, as though afraid of reprisal. Sean merely dropped the handcuffs contemptuously at his feet and came straight over to me. He skimmed his gaze over Jan as he passed, coldly expressionless, but she was unaware of his presence.
“Can you get up?” he asked me. When I stared at him stupidly he grasped my upper arms and hoisted me gently to my feet. I doubt I would have got there without his help. Once I was upright I found I could stand of my own volition, providing I didn’t try doing anything absurdly athletic. Like breathing deep, or walking.
Sean continued to hold me steady even when there was no longer any need to do so, head bent close in to mine so I could see the individual tiny flecks of colour in the irises of his eyes. His thumbs were unconsciously brushing circles against my arms.
He was watching me with that darkly brooding frown on his face, the muscles bunching under his jaw. It took him a while before he was in control enough to speak.
“Don’t
“Sean, go easy,” I said, but my voice wasn’t as steady as I would have liked it to be.
He almost shook me. “Christ, there you were on your knees with your eyes shut like you were waiting calmly for your own execution, and you tell me to go easy!” He stopped, lips compressed, eyes skating over my face. “Jesus, Charlie,” he said, softly now, “sometimes you terrify me.”
“What did you want me to do? She would have killed him,” I protested, shaky. “I’d have stood a better chance of reasoning with a shark than of talking her out of it. You saw how she was! Besides, you were the one who walked up and stuck a gun in her face. And that wasn’t supposed to frighten me?”
“I know,” he said, and being forced to admit it made him glower even more, “but I didn’t actually try and kill her. Governments take a very dim view of foreigners who shoot their security services personnel – however crazy they’re acting at the time. For God’s sake – they would have thrown away the key.”
I looked at him blankly for a moment, then shrugged out of his grasp and backed away from him. Suddenly cold, I rubbed at my arms where he’d been touching them, whispered, “Just what exactly did you think I was trying to do, Sean?”
He stilled, but before he could speak Gilby came over. “Venko got away,” he said quietly. His eyes flicked to me. “I hope you realise what you’ve done, Charlie.”
“I gave him my word,” I said, unrepentant. “If I’d gone back on it he would have murdered all of us, then gone after our families. You were there, Major. You heard him say it.”
I glanced across to where Romundstad and Declan were standing with Heidi Krauss, looking faintly embarrassed. She was still clinging to Romundstad, crying inconsolably into the front of his jacket, hands meshed into the fabric like she was never going to let him go. I remembered Dieter’s hysteria, that day in Gilby’s study. They’d both suffered more than they could bear. More, probably, than they would ever completely recover from.
“He may still try,” Gilby pointed out now, “but if the Germans had got him, Venko wouldn’t have had the chance to carry out any threats.”
