48

More screeching of brakes told me what I really didn't want to know. The station wagon had turned up from the Strand, going the wrong way round the square, aiming to cut me off. Even as it rocked to a halt, doors were opening and black-garbed figures were piling out. One of them raised a rifle in my direction and I ducked back behind the parapet wall beside the steps, reaching inside my jacket as I did so.

I whipped back again, kneeling though, offering a smaller target, and sent off a shot towards them. They scattered, two of 'em taking cover behind a St John Ambulance van, three more scuttling back to the other side of their own vehicle. I broke cover, running low, gun hand pointing in their direction just to give them something to think about. They knew well enough not to take chances, so they kept out of sight, a head bobbing up occasionally to check on me. I sent another bullet their way to let 'em know they were behaving sensibly.

I didn't have much of a plan 'cept to keep moving, using all the cover available to me. A bullet whanged off metal close to my head and I almost dropped to all fours. Another shot shattered the windshield of a nearby taxi. Traffic on this side of the square was thin and I knew I'd soon be running out of cover. Some of the Blackshirts were growing bolder, slinking through metal alleyways like beads of oil through conduits.

A wide expanse of emptiness opened up ahead of me, beyond it the steps to the National Gallery, a museum that at one time had contained some of the world's finest and most valued works of art. Most of the paintings and sculptures had been shipped out to less vulnerable places than a building in the heart of war-torn London, although some had been returned when the battle (or so it was thought) was almost over, and I'd been in and out of there plenty of times, so knew it was a maze of rooms and corridors, just like the palace. I'd thought that one day it might come in handy as a means of escape; it looked like that day had come.

So there was my plan: get inside, lose these neo-Nazi clowns, find a way out on the north side. No problem -as long as I could make it inside without having my legs shattered by enemy gunfire when I sprinted across open ground.

I waited until the Blackshirts had discharged another volley before setting off again, firing back at them just as wildly, but maybe a bit more effectively. They kept out of sight, aware that any kind of wound could prove serious without the right medical attention, and medical attention was just what the whole fucking world lacked.

I pounded road, running towards the flight of steps leading up to the gallery's entrance, which was behind a facade of high pillars (the English liked their pillars). A ragged line of bullets raked the wall ahead of me and I fell back, losing balance and going down on my butt. I swung the Colt round, holding it with both hands, and returned rapid fire, sweeping the area from a sitting position, trying to at least scare the bastards if I couldn't kill 'em. Again, the ploy was effective - they hid, afraid to show an inch of flesh as glass exploded and metal punctured around them. Effective, that is, until the firing pin hit empty.

The clip was all used up and I couldn't reload sitting there in the middle of the road. I had to get into the shelter of the gallery before they realized I was theirs for the taking.

Ears deafened by gunfire, I scrambled to my feet and rushed the last few yards to the steps, stopping dead when I saw the figure watching me from the top.

Hubble had never been handsome, but I guess he had that arrogance of features that had some allure for the weak-minded. Pencil-thin moustache, beaky nose, he could have been a shorter version of his own hero; Sir Oswald Mosley, the leader of England's very own Fascist party, a megalomaniac who'd spent most of the war years locked away in Holloway Prison. No, Max Hubble - Sir Max Hubble - was never handsome, but on this summer's morning he looked a thousand times more unattractive, as though he were only a short distance from death. His stance, once stiff-backed, shoulders squared, chin jutting, was now bent, shoulders hunched, jawline sunken into a loose neck. The swagger-stick he had once used for Field-Marshal effect had been replaced by a stout walking cane, which he used like a third leg, and the uniform - black shirt and jodhpurs tucked into knee-length boots - seemed two sizes too big for him. The smudges beneath his eyes, the drained paleness of his skin emphasized by patchwork areas of broken veins, the swollen darkness at the ends of his fingers, confirmed what I'd already guessed. The disease in him was accelerating.

We exchanged looks but nothing more. I understood the all-out effort to capture me that day.

I was Hubbe's last-chance saloon. His final throw of the dice. His only hope. That is, my blood was his only hope.

One of his men stepped from behind a large poster advertising a Myra Hess piano concert (a regular event at the gallery during the grimmest days of the war), just outside the entrance, carrying with him a portable radio transmitter. I guessed that Hubble had used the gallery as his HQ that morning, directing operations from there, trying to drive me in this direction. Well, it couldn't have worked out better for him.

Others emerged from the entrance and from behind pillars, a ragbag army of the damned. Jew-baiters, nigger-haters, corrupt in their minds and now corrupt in their bodies. These days they had someone else to hate. Me, I was their Jew and their Black all rolled into one.

Okay, I was stunned seeing Hubble standing there, sick and hunched up, but I hadn't lost all sense. I pointed the gun at them and they all ducked, including their leader, who practically sank to his knees. I hadn't forgotten the Colt was empty, but it seemed they had - unless they hadn't even noticed. Waving it in the air gave me the chance to start running again. I managed no more'n three, maybe four, steps though.

Bullets from a Sten gun bit into the road before me, forcing me to leap back, a hasty two-legged hop, arms in the air as if in surrender. I just caught sight of a Blackshirt launching himself from between two pillars of the entrance terrace above me, swooping like a bat from rafters, expecting me to cushion his fall. I sidestepped, but he caught my shoulders, bringing me down with him. He must've winded himself, but even so, he managed to get me in a neck-lock. He squeezed tight, attempting to choke me into submission.

First I used an elbow, driving it hard into his stomach, then, with the same arm, I clipped his face with the gun barrel, bringing it up like a smart salute. Spittle dampened my cheek and neck as he blew a forced breath, and his grip relaxed just enough for me to break free. I twisted, swiping him with the gun barrel once more so that all opposition left him. He collapsed sideways and I scrambled to my feet.

His friends were hurrying through the vehicle alleys and more poured down the gallery's steps, all of 'em hollering banshee-like, eager to get at me and teach me a lesson or two. So what if Hubble wouldn't let them kill me right off? I'd be dead sooner or later, and all in all, I think I preferred sooner. It looked like I'd have to force the issue.

I reached inside my jacket pocket for another clip, ejecting the used one from the automatic in my other hand as I did so. I noticed some of the Blackshirts were already pausing to lift their weapons and take aim. This was it, then, I told myself. The moment had been a long time coming, but I was more than ready. What was so good about living anyway?

A goon had already reached me as my hand came out of my pocket with the spare clip, screening me from the others. I regret to say it was a woman, hair cut nastily short, face and teeth smeared with grime, eyes red with shot blood vessels; regret, because I whacked her hard, fist wrapped around the metal clip, and I don't like hitting women, never have. Hell, I never had.

Her teeth broke under my knuckles and she crumpled without a murmur. Her place was immediately taken by another Blackshirt and I knew it would take more than a punch in the mouth to deal with this mean-looking bruiser. Yeah, we'd tangled more than once before and one time he'd even introduced himself. McGruder was his name and he was Hubble's first-lieutenant or captain of the guard, or whatever fancy and meaningless title Hubble had bestowed upon him. He was tall, six-three or more, built like an ox and, as far as I could tell, a long way off from the Blood Death. Big hands reached for me.

I moved back against the terrace wall, afraid to take my eyes off him, Colt and new clip of ammo still separated because of the previous distraction. By staring into his eyes I seemed to be delaying the final rush; taking my gaze away to reload would break whatever goddamn spell we were both under. He, and the others, drew closer.

The black Ford I'd seen earlier came out of nowhere, tyres squealing, brakes screeching, one of its four doors open wide so that it hit the big man with a force that sent him sprawling. I caught sight of two faces peering out at me from the open car door and a female voice yelled:

'What are you waiting for? Get in, you daft bloody ape!'

The passenger, a man, had already slammed his door shut again but was indicating the rear door through the