The Shadow Project

downwards away from road level, with a steep earth bank snarled with brambles. Nature’s barbed wire, cutting off the kidnapper’s access to the road.

The guy was lightly built, and a fast runner. Ben had to sprint hard to keep up with the flitting black figure. As he ran he levelled the gun out in front of him and considered trying to take him down with a shot to the lower leg. Tactically dangerous. You couldn’t run and shoot accurately at the same time, and if the shot went high he might hit a vital organ, open up an artery. He wanted this one alive.

The van was now a fleeting white shape behind the trees. More shots cracked out from its open side door, but went wide as though the shooters were nervous. Nobody wanted to hit their own man by mistake.

The kidnapper vaulted a fallen trunk and crashed right into the heart of a thorn bush that slowed him down as he stumbled and wrenched his way through it. Ben was close now. Still clutching the pistol in his right hand, he threw out his left arm to grab a fistful of the running man’s combat jacket, but the guy dodged and Ben’s fingers closed on empty air. He could hear the man’s rasping breath as he darted left and right through the undergrowth, zigzagging like a rabbit trying to shake off a fox. Then the ground became more uneven and they were running into what looked like an old river bed. The kidnapper took the lower path through the middle and Ben found himself running alongside him on higher ground. He timed it, estimated distances, then went for it and launched himself into the air.

A moment’s weightlessness, and then a jarring impact as he slammed into the kidnapper and brought him rolling down in the dirt in a tumble of flailing limbs. Ben’s arm whacked painfully against a root and his pistol spun out of his grip. The kidnapper might have been slender, but he was strong and determined, fighting like a wild animal. A knee slammed up and caught Ben’s cheekbone, snapping his head sideways long enough for his opponent to scramble to his feet. Ben jumped up after him, ducked a punch aimed at his face, grabbed the fist and twisted it hard. The kidnapper let out a sharp yell of pain.

It was at that moment that Ben realised he was fighting a woman.

She twisted like a snake out of his grip as he dragged her to her feet, and threw another well-aimed punch that would have smashed his nose if it had landed. He made a grab for her right arm, misjudged it and got a fistful of her sleeve, ripping the black material from wrist to elbow. She danced away like a boxer, then came back in and fired a kick at his groin, and he ducked back out of the reach of her combat boot. The arm with the ripped sleeve came slicing towards his throat, the hand stiff like a blade. Fast, but not quite fast enough. His fingers closed on bare flesh, and now he had her. He could see the tight muscles in her forearm as she struggled against his grip. The fight was just about over. Then they’d find out who was trying to kidnap Steiner. Ben prepared to deliver an incapacitating blow to the neck.

And he saw something that made him stop.

He let go of the woman and took a step back, stunned, disorientated.

The eyes in the combat mask were narrowed, watching him fiercely like a panther’s. His gaze locked on hers – maybe three-quarters of a second, but it felt like minutes. He was lost, unable to move.

Then she whirled towards him and her boot lashed out in a straight kick that caught him in the pit of the stomach. His breath burst out of his mouth and he staggered back and fell.

There was a report like a shotgun, and a heavy projectile flew through the air with a low thrumming sound and smacked off a tree trunk next to where the woman was standing. Ben heard Woodcock’s voice yelling ‘Take him down!’ and twisted round in the dirt to see the rest of the bodyguard team approaching through the trees. A ragged series of blasts as the team let off their Flash-Balls. The humming whoosh of rubber bullets flying through the air. One snapped a branch, the rest ploughed harmlessly into the undergrowth.

The woman’s gaze lingered just a fraction of a second on Ben, and then she took off like a deer. Grabbing a fistful of ivy, she scrabbled up the earth bank and made a dash for the road.

The van was just twenty yards ahead, waiting, revving. The driver threw it into reverse and floored the pedal. Yells of ‘Come on! Move your arse!’ Hands reached out of the sliding door and hauled her in, then the diesel roared, the exhaust kicked out a black cloud of smoke, and the van sped away, weaving down the road.

Ben slowly clambered to his feet as the men gathered round him. Spotting the fallen pistol in the leaves, he picked it up and slipped it absently into his belt, under his jacket. Nobody spoke. Burton and Powell appeared, and Ben suddenly wondered who the hell was looking after the principal.

His question was answered just a moment later when he turned to see Steiner walking towards them through the trees, his chest heaving with exertion. He didn’t look happy. Dorenkamp was a few feet behind, pale and sheepish.

The billionaire stormed over. His face was a mottled purple-red, eyes almost popping, hair in disarray.

‘We all saw what happened,’ Neville said.

Steiner came right up close, toe to toe, so that Ben could virtually smell his rage.

‘That was a very fine display, Major Hope.’ His voice rose to a shout as he went on. ‘Not only did you completely fail to protect me and then point a gun and threaten to kill me – me, your employer, your client – you then allowed that kidnapper to escape.’

Ben didn’t speak, but Steiner ranted on as if he’d tried to protest.

‘If I had not insisted on following, I would never have believed it. But I saw you. You did nothing. You just stood there, staring at him. Have you gone completely out of your mind?’ Steiner virtually screamed the last word. There were flecks of spittle on his lips. He stared in disgusted, trembling fury.

Ben still didn’t speak. There was nothing he could say, except maybe ‘Don’t spit in my face like that’ – but he didn’t have the energy.

‘Don’t even try to answer,’ Steiner yelled. ‘I don’t wish to hear excuses. I have been almost kidnapped, threatened with a gun by my own bodyguard, and I have missed my meeting. What utter, unbelievable incompetence is this?’ He paused, as if searching for more accusations but running out of things to shout in Ben’s face. ‘You’re fired,’ he added simply. Turned to the rest of the team. ‘All of you. Dismissed. You hear? You are all going straight back home where you came from and I will hire a proper team to protect me.’

Then Maximilian Steiner turned and stormed away, back towards the choppers, his assistant following behind him.

Chapter Nineteen

The battered white Fiat Ducato van sped down the country lanes, skidding and weaving on the bends. There was chaos inside, bodies crammed together in the back and falling over each other, discarded weapons sliding around on the metal floor. The van was filled with shouting as frayed nerves spilled over into adrenaline-fuelled hysteria.

Of the van’s eight occupants, just one was silent. The woman with the ripped sleeve sat quietly on the hard rear wheel arch, combat boots braced apart to steady herself against the wild rocking and bouncing of the vehicle. She peeled off her ski mask, let it drop to the floor. Ruffled her cropped blond hair and closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the side wall of the van.

The shrill arguing and jabbering went on all around her.

‘And once again it’s all fucked up,’ the chopper co-pilot was complaining loudly from the passenger seat.

‘Yeah, and who let the guy have the gun, Ernst, you stupid bastard?’

‘I’m a pilot. I’m not trained to go up against some maniac. Look at my hand. I think he broke my fucking fingers, man.’

‘Who the fuck was that guy?’

The driver glanced at Ernst. ‘What guy are they talking about?’ he yelled.

‘The fucking bodyguard guy, Dominik,’ said Thomas in the back. ‘He was threatening to shoot Steiner.’

‘He was what?’ Dominik exploded. He took his eyes off the road for a second as he twisted round in his seat, and the van veered a little off course.

‘Drive properly, cretin,’ screamed Helmut, the chopper pilot. He was wiping blood off his face from where the