‘He’s a mercenary,’ the associate protested. ‘He believes in nothing.’
‘What does it matter what he believes in? The fucker could be a Satanist for all I care.’
‘That’s not what this is about.’
Slater looked at him levelly. ‘Oh, you think this is about doing God’s work? Let me tell you, this is business, first and last. Herzog gets the job done, and he doesn’t leave tracks that a blind man could follow.’
The associate was about to reply when his phone rang. He turned away from Slater and answered, talking softly. His eyebrows rose. ‘You’re sure?’ he said. ‘OK. You know what to do.’ He shut the phone and turned back to Slater with a grin of triumph.
‘Well?’
‘That was Jones. He got Hope.’
Slater smiled for the first time in the conversation. ‘That’s more like it. Good. Now bring this bastard in, and let’s get him talking.’
‘You know I can’t be there,’ the associate said. ‘I can’t be seen.’
‘No, but I sure as hell will. I want to meet this character.’
‘I’m not sure you do.’
‘Oh, I do,’ Slater insisted. ‘And then I want to finish him.’
Chapter Thirty-Six
The flat punch of the explosion ripped through the air. The cop’s face disintegrated in a mess of red, and he was sent sprawling backwards with the impact of the heavy bullet. He flopped down into the dirt, legs kicking.
Then Jones cocked the.475 revolver a second time and shot the other cop before he had time to react. The bullet caught him in the chest, blowing his heart and lungs out through his spine. Blood spattered against the windscreen of the police cruiser. The cop crumpled into the dust without a sound.
For a moment nobody moved.
The report of the gun rolled around the open countryside. The two cops lay motionless. Jones turned his back on them.
Ben stared at Jones, and then at the other agents. One of them was grinning. Two were impassive. Then he saw the expression of horror on the woman’s face. She hadn’t been expecting that.
‘Hell of a kick these things have got,’ Jones mused, weighing the big revolver in his hand. He took off his dark glasses and fixed Ben with a wry look. ‘Looks like you’re in deep shit now, Mr Ben Hope.’
Ben stood away from the Chrysler. He pointed at the two dead cops. ‘Why did you do that?’
‘I didn’t,’ Jones said. ‘You did. We all saw you do it. It’s your gun, your prints all over it.’
‘What do you want from me?’
Jones smiled. ‘Answers. But not here.’
He walked up to Ben. The smile was gone now. He cocked the pistol again and stuck it in his face. ‘You’re under arrest, cop-killer.’
Ben looked around him at the agents. Five on the ground, at least two more behind the tinted glass of the cars. He evaluated distances, positions, body language. His eyes flicked from Jones to the muzzle of the gun and then back again. This was the second time in a few minutes that someone had pointed a pistol at him like this. He’d let the young cop do it to him, but there was no way he was going to tolerate it from this guy.
Besides, Jones had just made a big tactical error. Maybe he was too used to pointing a short, stubby Glock or SIG in people’s faces. Or maybe he was just cocky and showing off in front of the others, like some kind of movie hero. But the long barrel on the hunting revolver meant that its muzzle was just four inches from Ben’s head.
One of the first lessons he’d been taught, many years before, was never to hold a gun too close to the other guy. It was just asking for trouble. An expert military shooter would stand back and keep some distance between himself and his enemy, precluding any attempt at a disarming move. And disarming moves were something that had been instilled in Ben through endless training. They’d saved his life more times than he cared to remember.
He debated it for an instant. Could he do it?
He hesitated.
The move took less than a second. He grabbed the end of the barrel and jerked it sharply back towards Jones’s face. The curved edge of the revolver’s ebony butt caught the agent right in the teeth and smashed through them into his mouth.
Jones screamed, blood spraying from his lips. Ben yanked the gun back the other way, tearing it out of the man’s fingers. Jones went down onto his back in the dirt, writhing and clutching his face, pieces of teeth spilling out from between his fingers.
Then before anyone could react, Ben was hitting the deck, rolling fast in the dust, grabbing his bag, reaching for the latch on the Chrysler’s door. He ripped it open and threw himself behind it, using it as a shield, just as the agents pulled their guns.
There was a ragged volley of gunfire. Bullets thudded into the door.
He cocked the gun and was about to shoot back, but then hesitated. Did he really want to do this? Getting into a gun battle with government agents was a lot more trouble than he’d reckoned on. He didn’t want to hurt anyone unless he had to.
But something was telling him he had to. One of the agents was in his sights. No point in shooting to wound with a gun like this. Going for the shoulder would tear off an arm and kill the guy anyway from blood loss and shock. He fired, dead centre of mass. The gun boomed and kicked savagely, and the target went down like a tree.
More gunfire tore through the bodywork of the Chrysler. Ben half stood up behind the bullet-riddled door. The woman had her pistol levelled at him. She was looking right down the sights at him. Only had to pull the trigger.
But something told him she wouldn’t shoot. So he shot the agent next to her instead. The bullet sent the guy spinning violently back against one of the big black SUVs.
Two more agents had spilled out of the black Chevrolets and were tearing guns from holsters.
Ben leaped into the Chrysler, threw himself down into the footwell. He twisted the key, threw it in drive, one hand on the wheel and the other punching down hard on the gas. The big car lurched violently forward, wheels spinning, door flapping open. He drove blind for twenty yards, staying down as bullets smashed through the bodywork and shattered windows sprayed him with broken glass, then hauled himself up into the seat as the Chrysler swerved wildly down the road.
The agents were running back to their cars. The woman was helping Jones to his feet. Then the black SUVs were spinning their wheels in the dust and coming after him.
The twisting country road was empty and Ben used all of it, clipping the apex left and right as the heavy car slewed on soft suspension. The windscreen was an opaque web of cracks. He used the barrel of the revolver to knock away the shattered glass. Wind roared into the car. A straight opened up ahead of him. The needle climbed. Eighty. Ninety.
They were still right behind him. The revolver had one round left. It wasn’t a gun he could reload on the move, like any modern automatic. It was a hunter’s gun. A gun for a patient man. Every cartridge case had to be hand- ejected and reloaded one at a time. No good at all.
A shot boomed out and Ben ducked as the wing mirror and most of the window pillar was torn away in a storm of plastic and metal fragments. He threw a glance over his shoulder and saw the agent hanging out of the window of one of the SUVs, the wind tearing at his hair and clothes, bringing a stubby shotgun back to aim. Another shot, and a wad of lead pellets ripped through the Chrysler and took a bite out of the seat next to him.
