and towards him, while simultaneously bending forwards.
The momentum of his strike had slightly unbalanced the guard and Richter’s move did the rest. The man stumbled forward, then somersaulted over Richter’s bent back, but the Englishman didn’t let go. He held on to the man’s arm, hauling it backwards as the guard’s body hit the ground hard, instantly dislocating his shoulder.
He screamed briefly but Richter hadn’t finished. He released the guard’s arm, leaned forward and hit him hard in the stomach, driving the breath from his body. Richter reached into his own pocket, pulled out a roll of brown adhesive tape and a couple of plastic cable ties. He rolled the guard onto his front, pulled his arms roughly behind him and lashed his wrists together with the ties, then pulled a length of tape off the roll and gagged him. Richter half-carried, half-dragged him across to the wall of the house and dumped him beside it. Then he stood up, surveyed his work and nodded in approval.
Richter crossed to the gravel path, picked up the Glock and stuck it into his rear waistband. Then he retrieved the SIG and began walking cautiously around the house towards the main door, keeping close to the wall and, hopefully, out of view of the security cameras. Halfway there he glanced at his watch. Three fifty-three. Just about right.
John Westwood just stared at Nicholson silently, then looked down to sneak a surreptitious glance at his watch. Eleven minutes to go.
‘Late for something?’ Nicholson demanded, his pistol still holding Westwood captive.
‘No,’ Westwood replied. ‘I was just wondering when you’d get around to telling me how clever you’ve been, and what you’re planning to do next with whatever’s contained in those sealed vacuum flasks. What have you done – sold them to al-Qaeda or some other bunch of deranged lunatics?’
For the second time since Westwood had been pushed inside the secure briefing-room, Nicholson just stared at him. ‘You have,’ he said eventually, anger flaring in his eyes, ‘absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. You think I would sell out the Company? Fuck you, Westwood, I’m a patriot, and I’m doing everything I can to protect the Agency, and our country. Once I get my hands on that stuff it’s going straight into an incinerator.’
Westwood affected incomprehension, although he had guessed that Nicholson’s intentions had been something like that. ‘I don’t understand. Why go to all this trouble to recover the flasks if all you’re going to do is destroy them?’
‘You don’t understand, Westwood, because you’re stupid and ill-informed.’
‘I’m only ill-informed because you destroyed all the files,’ Westwood snapped.
Nicholson nodded impatiently. ‘Yes, but if you’d done your job you’d have seen that those files were destroyed with the highest possible authority.’
Westwood nodded. ‘And why would the President of the United States himself have gotten involved in sealing a bunch of CIA files?’
‘That remark just shows the pitiful depth of your ignorance.’
Nine minutes to go.
The main door of the house was unlocked. Richter pressed his ear against the wood, listening for any sound of movement inside. He wasn’t entirely sure that he would be able to hear anything through its thickness, but he had only lived as long as he had by taking care to check everything twice.
He double-checked the SIG again – full magazine, a round in the chamber and the decocking lever up – then reached out his left hand to turn the handle and open the door. As he had hoped, certainly half-expected, the hallway was empty. Their fly was already caught in the web: now closeted with Nicholson, Westwood had been the only visitor they were expecting, so the guards had clearly relaxed. The building alarms were switched off because of their frequent comings and goings: the most they would be likely to have left switched on was the driveway sensor, and Richter hadn’t approached down the drive.
He headed down to the inner hall, stopped close beside the wall and listened. A faint murmur of voices was audible from a short corridor leading to his right, so he followed the sound, treading slowly and carefully. At the end was a half-open door, and Richter could see from the corner of a wall cupboard inside that it was the kitchen.
He brought the SIG up into combat stance position, kicked the door fully open and stepped inside the room. Like a snapshot, the action there had been suddenly frozen. Two men sat facing each other across a wooden table, coffee pot on the stove behind them. One man’s hand had arrested its movement halfway to his mouth, a piece of buttered toast clutched in his fingers: the other guard had his right forefinger thrust through the handle of a coffee mug. Both their mouths hung open in shock, their eyes now fixed on the SIG P226 with its long silencer.
‘Afternoon tea, is it?’ Richter observed contemptuously. ‘Now’ – the silenced muzzle of the SIG moved gently from one man to the other – ‘in this kind of situation there’s always a hard way to do things, and an easy way. The hard way is you both stop filling your faces and reach for your weapons, then I shoot you. That’s easy for me but hard for you, and it also makes a lot of extra work for the caretaker here who’ll have to clean your blood and intestines and stuff off the wall behind you.
‘That’s not a good option for you, OK, so let’s work on the second alternative. I’ll talk you through it, but to make things easier, let’s have some names. You first.’ He gestured to the man sitting on the right.
‘Blake,’ the guard replied shortly.
‘OK, Mr Blake, just keep that piece of toast in your hand in case you get hungry later. Now, with your left hand take your pistol out of its holster, finger and thumb only on the butt.’
The guard nodded agreement, his eyes still fixed on the SIG. Moving carefully, he pulled back the left side of his jacket and reached awkwardly for his pistol. He tugged it out of the holster and put it on the table in front of him.
‘Very good,’ Richter said. ‘Now finish your toast, then lace your fingers together and put your hands on your head.’
He watched carefully as the guard complied. ‘And you are?’ he asked, moving the SIG slightly to point directly at the other man.
‘Henderson.’
‘Same routine, Mr Henderson. Move slowly and carefully.’ He didn’t need to add any kind of a threat: the SIG did that for him.
‘Now,’ Richter said, ‘perhaps one of you is carrying a back-up piece – a small revolver in an ankle holster or something. If you are, now’s the time to tell me, because if I find out later, it’s back to the hard option. I’ll only ask you once: is either of you carrying a second weapon?’
He was rewarded with two shaking heads. ‘OK, now, on your feet, both of you. There are two things I want you to do, both of them easy. First, where are the television monitors and control panel for the security system located?’
‘In the den, just off the inner hall,’ Blake replied.
‘That’s good,’ Richter said. ‘Now we’ll just walk down the hall and open the main door.’
‘What then?’ Henderson asked, a quaver in his voice. ‘You’re going to shoot us somewhere once we’re outside?’
‘No,’ Richter said. ‘I’ve got no quarrel with either of you. At present you’re just in my way. The second thing I want you to do is climb into the car you arrived in, drive away and forget you ever came here. Oh, and collect the remains of your buddy before you go. He’s around the left-hand side of the house, trussed up like a turkey for Thanksgiving.’ Richter realized he was getting the hang of the language. ‘I’ll be watching you on the CCTV system, so just make sure you do what I’ve told you. OK? If I see either of you here again,’ he added, ‘I’ll kill you immediately.’
The small procession reached the front door. Henderson opened it cautiously and stepped outside, glancing behind him and still unsure of what would happen. Blake took a step forward, then span round in the doorway. He dropped his arms and lunged for Richter’s gun hand.
It wasn’t the brightest of moves, given that Richter was at least two paces behind him and carrying a pistol. Richter stepped back, easily avoiding the outstretched hand, then stepped forward and rammed the end of the SIG’s silencer into Blake’s solar plexus. The man fell gasping to the floor and for good measure Richter kicked him
