waving the other car on. The 7 Series mounted the opposite verge, its bumper shoving the inverted car deeper into the bushes, before dropping back on to the tarmac and pursuing again.
‘This might be a bad time,’ said Mitchell, ‘but I’ve only got two bullets left.’
Nina remembered how the Grand Cherokee’s pursuit had come to a sudden end in Bournemouth. ‘Are there any bottles back there? We could throw them in the road, blow out their tyres!’
Mitchell pulled open the little cupboards beneath the table and under the bed. ‘Plastic, plastic, metal,’ he said as he tossed items aside. ‘No glass, dammit!’ He yanked the covers from the bed, more feathers flying. ‘Nothing!’
Chase now had greater concerns. ‘Shit,’ he gasped, seeing a T-junction coming up fast. ‘Hang on!’
‘To
Chase had no choice but to brake, the corner too tight. The VW rolled like a ship in heavy waters as they screeched through the junction. Branches thwacked the van’s side as it skidded on to the verge before Chase managed to straighten out. Ahead, he saw a car - no, a line of cars, crawling along behind something out of sight round a long bend.
No traffic coming the other way - yet. He crashed down through the gears, foot to the floor. The camper van’s engine buzzed like furious wasps in a tin can. Forty miles an hour, fifty, the speedometer needle rising agonisingly slowly as they caught up with the dawdling traffic.
‘Here they come!’ Mitchell warned, raising his gun again. The BMW slid round the corner, tyres smoking.
The cars ahead were doing less than thirty. Chase pulled out to pass them, sounding the horn. The VW was at fifty-five, and struggling to go any faster. The 7 Series was already catching up.
The curve straightened out - to reveal an oncoming car rushing straight at them.
The BMW pulled out as well, trapping them—
Still sounding the horn, Chase desperately swerved the VW to the left, slicing into the line of traffic and side- swiping a Renault Megane with a crunch of metal. Nina shrieked as the passenger window broke with the impact, showering her with glass. The oncoming Fiat missed by barely an inch, the force of the car’s slipstream rocking the Volkswagen.
Chase grimaced, foot still pressed hard on the accelerator as he turned back into the right-hand lane. The Megane braked hard - and the car behind smashed into it.
The Fiat skidded as its driver panicked, blocking the road and leaving the BMW with nowhere to go except into the suddenly braking traffic.
It body-slammed another car, sending it crashing through a hedge. The Fiat clipped the 7 Series and tore off its rear bumper. The Russians spun out, coming to rest almost sideways-on to the traffic.
‘Jesus!’ Nina gasped. At the relatively low speed at which the line of cars had been travelling she doubted anyone would have been seriously hurt, but there would still be several badly shaken people.
Mitchell didn’t share her concern, however. ‘Got ’em!’ he whooped.
‘Yeah, but for how long?’ Chase asked. Unless the BMW had been crippled by the collisions, its driver would be able to restart and straighten out in ten seconds, twenty at most.
He looked ahead. The front of the line was coming up fast, the cars held up behind a trundling Vauxhall Vectra, its elderly driver hunched over the wheel resolutely denying the existence of anything beyond his narrow cone of vision. Despite not wanting to involve innocent bystanders, Chase still swept the van back into the left-hand lane just inches in front of the Vauxhall, hoping to shock the old man into checking his mirrors once in a while.
The road ahead was clear and straight - and had no exits, being hemmed in by fences and trees on both sides.
The camper van was still stuck at fifty-five. The BMW was moving again and gaining rapidly, a black panther about to pounce. The man who had been burned at the Tor leaned out, aiming—
Mitchell fired a shot. The bullet hit the BMW’s windscreen, cracking the glass, but missing the men inside. The Russian returned fire. Mitchell dropped flat on the bed as more holes ripped through the van.
The firing stopped. Chase checked the mirror. The gunman withdrew into the 7 Series, reloading.
And the car itself grew larger, leaping forward to ram them—
The VW’s occupants were jolted by the impact. The van swerved towards a fence, Chase barely managing to straighten out before being hit again - the 7 Series was pushing them from behind.
The speedometer needle whipped past sixty, rapidly heading into unknown territory as the snarl of the BMW’s engine filled the cabin. The steering wheel shuddered in Chase’s hands, the vehicle starting to snake. He fought to keep it in line. If he lost control, the van would flip over.
He looked ahead - and saw the end of the road approaching rapidly, the brick wall of a farm building on the other side of a T-junction directly ahead. ‘Shit!’
Only the roof of the 7 Series was now visible in the mirror, the driver still barging them along like a locomotive—
‘Jack!’ Nina yelled. ‘Do something!’
‘I’ve only got one bullet left!’ Mitchell protested. But he still got to his knees, and was about to shoot at the driver when a burst of gunfire from the other Russian forced him back down. ‘Dammit!’
They were running out of road. Nina glanced back and saw the camping stove lying on its side. ‘The stove, throw the stove!’
Mitchell was lost. ‘What?’
‘Throw it - and shoot it!’
Realisation flashed across Mitchell’s face. He snatched up the fallen stove and hurled it through the rear window.
The gunman was about to shoot him when the gas cylinder slammed into the bullet-damaged windscreen, hanging partway through the cracked glass like a fat blue fly in a spider’s web. His eyes instinctively flicked towards it—
Mitchell fired.
The last bullet punched through one side of the cylinder and out of the other as it drove the cylinder through the windscreen, hot lead igniting the gas in its wake.
It exploded directly between the two men, shrapnel ripping their flesh like a shotgun blast before they were incinerated. The car swerved sharply before hitting a tree and flipping over, bowling along the narrow lane in a shower of flaming debris.
Chase slammed on the brakes. The tyres screamed, as did the occupants of the Volkswagen as it hurtled towards the farm wall, smoke belching from its wheels—
They hit.
But at barely five miles per hour. There was a muffled crunch as the camper van’s bowed nose was flattened against the unyielding brickwork, then it rolled backwards and came to a stop.
Chase found himself bent over the steering wheel, one foot still jammed on the brake. He looked across to see Nina blinking at him from the passenger footwell. ‘So . . . we
Mitchell was flattened against the back of Nina’s seat. ‘More or less,’ he said, coughing as acrid tyre smoke wafted through the broken windows. He sat upright and looked back. The burning hulk of the 7 Series lay on its side about fifty feet away, blocking the road. ‘Don’t think they are, though.’
‘Great.’ The engine had stalled, but to Chase’s surprise it restarted when he turned the key. ‘Okay, now what?’
Mitchell searched for his phone. ‘First thing, clear the area, in case Kruglov’s found another car. I’ll call the embassy again, guide a chopper to us.’ He located his phone, but kept looking round, growing worried. ‘Shit! Where’s the sword?’
‘Here,’ said Nina, pulling herself back on to her seat. Excalibur had slid under it into the footwell. She picked it up. ‘Hey, it’s not glowing any more.’
‘Maybe we’re not on a ley line here,’ Mitchell suggested as he pushed the redial button. ‘Earth energy seems to follow natural lines of flux; we might be too far away from one to channel any.’
‘Well, whatever,’ said Nina, too exhausted by the chase to care about his theories. ‘We got it.’
Chase put the Volkswagen into reverse. The legendary sword of King Arthur in Nina’s hands, they drove away down the country lane.
