the figure of Spencer, near enough dead parallel standing below on the track, his hand instinctively reached inside his coat to pull the SIG P220 Rail from its holster, but Beaumont’s hand gripped his wrist. David looked around sharply and saw the warning in his partner’s wise eyes. He nodded and pulled his hand out empty.
“Is that him?” The policeman asked.
On the track Spencer steeled himself. Perhaps he could drop and roll under the train he thought. A dive under the train seemed futile, but it might give him time to think. He looked to his left at the train and saw a door open two metres forward. He looked direct left straight into David’s eyes. He read David’s lips.
“That’s him.”
As McKie spoke Spencer swung his right arm round and up aiming straight for the door, two shots sped through the space where the ducking armed officer’s head had been and into the woodwork, David and Beaumont watched stunned as all nine rifles hit their target and jolted Spencer like a puppet; in the bright white light fine mists of blood and ripped skin surrounded him for a second as the Enfield Enforcer sniper rifle rounds tore through him.
After the gunfire there was a brief silence and the two armed police in the doorway dropped out and approached Spencer’s awkwardly felled body machine gun barrels to the fore, fingers twitching.
David watched from the window as they kicked the weapon away and one officer felt the pulse on Spencer’s bloodied neck. He was still. McKie turned and exited the train on the platform side; passengers were being let through without checks and taken through the cordon to waiting coaches. As he walked back to the barrier McKie’s peripheral vision registered one handler and one dog entering the train.
“You shouldn’t have got on the train!” The detective was annoyed.
“What?”
“Not until we’d checked for booby traps.”
David pulled his badge. “Read that. I’m government.” He pulled back his jacket showing the SIG 220 in its shoulder holster. “See that I walk around this country armed. I go where I want. You’re supporting me.” McKie turned to Beaumont. “We’d better call in.”
“I’ll do it David.” Beaumont turned to the detective. 'Sorry my friend’s wound up, but there are three more of these men out there and one of ours is missing presumed dead.”
“Then it looks like it’s one all I’d say.” The detective said flippantly.
McKie heard and turned around. “You think you’re funny?”
The detective blanched and swallowed.
“There are three more like this one and as far as you know that corpse on the track may have notched up other bodies. Now you times that by four because they’re all like this one. I watched him die, but he died trying to kill and escape, against all odds. That’s not natural.”
“Alright.”
“Somewhere out there three more men, who arrived this morning, are armed and ready to murder one person in this country and they’re prepared to kill innocent people and risk death to get to that person. That’s the job we’re on now friend. Pray it’s not anyone you know they come across and need to get out of the way or at least pray our people find them first.”
McKie turned and stared at the train, a movement up the platform had caught his eye. The dog handler emerged from a door on the next carriage up. The dog was excited, barking wildly and it seemed to be leading him down the slope of the platform and away down the track, south.
For a second the handler looked up and his and David’s eyes met. David registered dark blue, almost black eyes, black hair under the cap and a wiry goatee beard and moustache, then the man was gone at a run up the track the dog barking wildly, seemingly distraught. David thought he the saw a gun small chunky, almost invisible in the large hand.
David stared, his senses suddenly alert. Custom gave you pure focus when it came to body language. The shoulder’s were stooped, the cap down, too much shadow. Something from the Inverness ticket footage of Spencer was struggling to make itself known; he frowned and squinted as the figure seemed to disappear up the darkened track. What else bothered him? Yes! There had been a handgun, but it wasn’t a regulation police model. David began striding as quickly as he could along the train up the platform, he heard the dog barking, then there was a pained canine shriek and then there was silence. He stood at the end of the platform staring. Back down the platform there was a shout for help from inside the train.
A voice called “Someone’s killed Mickey and his dog’s gone.”
McKie pulled his hand gun from the holster and faced out into the dark. He called out.
“Up here!”
Seeing him at the end of the platform the detective and two armed men ran to his side.
“A man dressed as a dog handler went up the track… there was a howl and the dog stopped barking.”
They all stared into the darkness.
“I thought we got your man. Who was that?”
“I don’t know, but he’s killed you dog handler right?”
“How did he get the dog to go after he killed his handler” was all the detective could say “they live together. They’re practically psychically linked.”
The detective looked back to the train. A body in white underwear was being lifted off the train.” An officer joined him running to his side.
“Mickey’s dead, shot through the heart and we found this.” He held up a needle.
“He gave the dog a shot of something, LSD or some such. It’s a historically documented way of dealing with watch dogs, not just drugging to sleep, but sending crazy, making them a nuisance not a help, buggering up their senses.” McKie spoke quietly not taking his eyes of the darkness in front of him.
“What kind of psycho would do that?”
“A well trained one and one who came equipped for just such an eventuality.”
“My god and there are three more out there.”
“We’d better get some lights and search that track. You better get a helicopter or two searching this area.”
Beaumont was suddenly by his side.
“What’s going on?”
“It could just be a coincidence, but I don’t believe in them. There was a second one on the train.”
Beaumont looked down the track and back at the train.
“Let’s leave the police to sort this out. The press will be here soon, TV included and we don’t want to be seen. There’s a guy called John McFarlane, he’s DIC Perth for the area round here. Jack gave me his number. I called. He’s just four streets from here. Let’s get our bags and go.”
David stared down the track.
“David!”
“Sorry. There’s a dead dog on that track down there.”
“Okay. Put the gun away.”
“Artillery and ships have guns, this is a pistol.”
“What?”
“It’s what you’re told by an army dad when you were playing soldiers.”
“I see. I need a drink.”
Overhead two helicopters chattered onto the scene, hovering, one with a spotlight, the other using thermal imaging. Armed police moved forward, more dogs arrived and torches slashed at the darkness.
Back up the platform McKie and Beaumont passed the two covered corpses.
Half a mile away, having crossed South Inch Park at a sprint, Stanton squatted by the river, his pistol wrapped in a plastic bag, he waded in and swam down river towards the motorway, a map of the town in his head. His target was the M90 motorway to hitch lift.
TV crews and journalists flooded the town centre as Beaumont knocked on a black door on Wilson Street. It had been a short walk for the two DIC men, but David, couldn’t keep his hand from dipping into his jacket; every shadow and recess held the unnerving spectre of the second assassin.
When John McFarlane finally shuffled to the door, his Scottie dog barking shrilly, McKie couldn’t help but imagine the door being answered by the escaped hired killer. Beaumont showed his badge. John let them in. He
