Ben had covered nearly two hundred yards when a fresh gust of cold wind ruffled his hair and the mist drifted aside like a cloud to reveal the moor and the starry sky above. He could see the boulder behind him and the ridge a little further ahead.
The seventh rifle shot sounded much closer. The white muzzle flash briefly lit up a stony outcrop no more than seventy-five yards away. Ben heard the bullet whip through the air and strike against the boulder. The shooter hadn’t seen him, but now Ben knew exactly where he was.
Ben moved closer, coming round in a curve to approach the man from behind. His heart beat hard as he saw the black-clad figure among the rocks, lying prone in the classic sniper position, one leg straight out behind him, one crooked, both elbows on the ground. The rifle was a bolt action, mounted on a bipod, with a long fat silencer attached to the barrel. Ben recognised the night vision scope as a piece of Russian military hardware. Expensive. Exclusive. Available only to those with the right connections.
Ben didn’t breathe as he closed in the last few yards. He felt no emotion, no pity. Pity would get you killed. Like remorse, it could wait until later.
The sniper was about to fire again when Ben landed on him from behind and pressed his knee hard into his spine, clapped one hand over his mouth and the other under his chin and jerked his head back violently, twisting it hard left and then right. The man’s struggles lasted no more than a couple of seconds before his neck broke.
Ben let go of the man’s head and it smacked down lifelessly against the rocks. Taking the rifle from the dead sniper’s arms, he rolled the corpse away with his foot, then raised the rifle to his shoulder and scanned the landscape through the scope. As the mist cleared rapidly, the night vision image brought everything vividly to life. He swivelled the rifle back towards the road. And recognised with a shock the black car that had pulled up behind the Mazda.
It was the Range Rover that had followed him earlier.
Two men were standing on guard nearby, both clad from head to toe in black, both wearing night vision goggles over ski masks. The goggles explained how the Range Rover’s driver had been able to follow him in the dark without lights. One of the guards was clutching Ben’s bag, the other the shotgun they’d taken from it. Not good.
One sniper, two guards. Three men. No way, Ben thought to himself. They’d have sent more than three men.
He pointed the rifle back towards the boulder where he’d left Jude, and now saw that he’d made a bad mistake. The sniper hadn’t meant to kill him and Jude, only to pin them down as the rest of the group moved in to take them alive. Two more men in black were working their way quickly through the rocks towards Jude’s hiding place. They wore the same night goggles as their colleagues by the car. The one on the left was clutching a pistol with a long silencer. The one on the right was carrying a submachine gun.
They certainly weren’t taking any chances. Ben had been right about that, too.
In the green-hued image of the scope, Jude’s anxious face peered out from behind the boulder, searching for Ben. He had no idea that the two men were just yards away and about to close in on him.
But neither the two men stalking up on Jude nor their associates down on the roadside guarding the car had any idea that their sniper friend was now lying among the rocks with his neck snapped. Things were a little more even now.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Ben pressed the rifle butt in tight against his shoulder, lined the scope crosshairs up on the man on the left and squeezed the trigger. The rifle bucked in his arms and he saw his target crumple to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Green blood splashed the rocks.
If the two guarding the car had heard the report, they’d assume it was the sniper doing his job. Ben quickly worked the rifle bolt and picked up the second man in his sights. Not quickly enough — before he could get off the next round, the man took off across the rocky hillside. Ben followed his running target ten, fifteen yards, then squeezed off another shot. The man ducked as the bullet passed close by his head, and kept running, clutching his submachine gun to his side. By the time Ben had the sights lined up again, the man had flitted away into shadows so dense that not even the infrared could make him out.
Then he was gone. Still armed and dangerous, still out there. Ben looped the rifle’s tactical sling around his shoulder, scrambled down from the ridge and ran back to rejoin Jude.
‘Where did you get that thing?’ Jude asked in astonishment, gaping at the rifle. He obviously hadn’t noticed the corpse lying just a few yards away.
‘From the sniper up there,’ Ben said.
‘You mean you just took it?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Who are you?’
‘We don’t have time for a conversation,’ Ben said. ‘Grab the dog and let’s go.’
They ran back towards the car, Ben cradling the rifle, Jude clutching Scruffy to his chest. At the top of the slope overlooking the road, Ben caught Jude’s arm and pulled him to a halt.
‘Shit,’ Jude breathed as he saw the Range Rover and the two men standing by the Mazda.
‘Turn away,’ Ben said.
‘What?’
‘Don’t look.’
Jude understood and turned away. Ben dropped to one knee, levelled the rifle and fired. Slid the bolt smoothly back and forth and fired again. ‘Now move,’ he said to Jude. The rifle’s magazine was empty. He let the weapon drop as they ran down the slope towards the car.
‘Are they dead?’ Jude gasped when he saw the two bodies lying in the road.
‘You want to take their pulses?’ Ben said. ‘Then get in the car and stay there this time.’ Jude obeyed numbly as Ben retrieved the things the men had taken from the Mazda. One corpse had the shotgun slung over his shoulder. The other had Ben’s bag, with Simeon’s laptop still inside. Ben quickly tossed the bag and the sniper rifle into the back of the car. He racked the pump of the shotgun and aimed it at the radiator of the Range Rover. There was still at least one guy out there on the moor, but an ounce of solid lead through the engine block ought to prevent anybody following them.
Before Ben could squeeze the trigger, a ripping burst of machine gun fire tore up the road at his feet. He threw himself back behind the Mazda, yelling at Jude to keep his head down. He blasted three shotgun slugs up the hillside, more to cover himself as he retreated to the driver’s door than to hit anything. And he hadn’t hit anything, because in the next instant another sustained burst of gunfire from the hillside punched a line of 9mm holes through the bodywork of the Mazda and shattered the back window. Jude let out a yell from inside the car.
‘Are you hit?’ Ben shouted.
‘No! Get us out of here!’
Ben clambered in behind the wheel, dumping the hot, smoking shotgun in Jude’s lap. He twisted the key. The Mazda’s starter motor turned over but didn’t fire.
Bullets raked the side of the car and shattered the side mirror. The dog was howling in Jude’s arms. Ben threw a glance back and saw two men racing down the hillside towards the Range Rover. He twisted the key again.
This time, the Mazda rasped into life. Ben revved it into the red, popped the clutch and the spinning wheels threw up a tide of mud as the car slewed out of the ditch and went skidding away down the road. But something was wrong. The handling was way off, the car pulling badly to the right. Ben realised that both right side tyres were shredded. He put his foot down and wrestled with the steering wheel.
In moments, the two men had reached the Range Rover and were giving chase, headlights dazzling now that they had nothing more to hide. Ben threw the Mazda hard into the bends, but the car was in danger of sliding right off the road on its flat tyres if he drove too fast, and the Range Rover began steadily overhauling them. Its passenger was leaning right out of his window, the wind tearing at his clothes as he let off several three-round automatic bursts from his weapon. Ben felt a bullet punch through the head restraint of his seat, an inch from his
