John Westwood came back to consciousness slowly, squeezing his eyes closed against the pain lancing through his head. He tried to move his arms, to lever himself off the floor, but discovered immediately that his wrists were bound tightly together, his ankles too. He felt the stickiness of the tape on his lips.
He forced his eyes open to register he was lying on the floor of the hallway. The ‘lost traveller’ looking for directions to Browntown was standing right in front of him, aiming a Glock pistol straight at his midriff. As Westwood glanced up, Blake smiled down at him, then kicked him hard in the stomach.
Westwood retched, or tried to, against the tape keeping his mouth tightly shut. Then Blake leaned down and ripped the tape off his face. Westwood choked, vomiting on to the carpet in front of him. His lunch didn’t taste any better the second time around.
‘It’s all over, Murphy – or whoever you are.’ As Blake said it, Westwood knew immediately that Richter had been taken.
Henderson stood to one side, his Uzi covering Richter, as Ridout used a pocket knife to sever the cable ties around Nicholson’s wrists and ankles. As soon as he was freed, Nicholson stood up and glared at Richter.
Since Henderson had entered, the Englishman hadn’t said a word but was figuring the angles and working out what to do next. He had no immediate idea how he was going to retrieve the situation – not unless one of the three Americans made a bad mistake.
‘You want me to waste him?’ Henderson asked Nicholson.
‘You can eventually, but not yet. He has some information that I need. With the aid of his tools here’ – he gestured at the items assembled on the table – ‘I think I can persuade him. Meanwhile, shoot him in the legs and tie him up in this chair.’
Then Richter smiled and shook his head. ‘No,’ he said simply.
The three men stared across the room at him, aware that something had changed, but without knowing what.
Henderson raised the Uzi higher, but Richter just grinned at him. His plan was simple and as risky as hell, but it was absolutely the only choice he had. Otherwise he’d be joining John Westwood at the bottom of Nicholson’s well.
‘You daren’t shoot me,’ Richter said, ‘not while I’ve got this baby.’ He glanced down at the CAIP flask clasped in front of his chest. ‘You and I both know what’s inside it, and what happens to us all if it gets punctured. Do you want me to tell your two boyfriends about it, or would you rather explain it yourself?’
For a long moment Nicholson just stared at him, then gestured to Henderson to lower the Uzi. ‘The flask contains a lethal pathogen,’ he said finally. ‘If it gets opened in here we’ll all die. Nothing else is changed, though. I still want that bastard strapped into this chair. His pistol is here on the table, so put your weapons down and grab him. Just take extreme care not to damage that flask.’
Ridout gave Henderson a warning glance. ‘Watch him,’ he said. ‘He knows martial arts and he’s fucking fast.’
‘So what?’ Nicholson snapped. ‘There are two of you, and you’re both professionally trained. Just grab him and let’s finish this.’
And that situation, Richter realized, was about the best he could have hoped for. He watched carefully as Henderson and Ridout placed their Uzis on the floor behind them, and began to approach him slowly from opposite sides. Nicholson stood watching with a slight smile on his face.
Richter relaxed, watching everything and everyone. Preparing his body for combat, he stood with his feet slightly apart, his right arm by his side, his left still holding the CAIP flask in front of him.
Ridout was on his right, and Richter guessed he’d prove more cautious in his approach because he’d already taken a beating when he’d encountered Richter out in the garden. Also, having had his right arm dislocated, he would still be hurting badly.
Richter waited until the two men were each about four paces away from him, then he moved in a blur of speed and focused energy. He tossed the CAIP flask in the air towards Henderson, and immediately lunged at Ridout. Nicholson called out something and, as Richter had expected, Henderson stepped backwards and reached up to grab the descending flask. Ridout backed away in reflex, and Richter knew he had only a couple of seconds to get the situation under control.
Nicholson had been right about the SIG, which was lying on the table beside the kitchen knife, but what he didn’t know was that the Glock 17 Richter had taken from Ridout was still tucked into the rear waistband of his trousers.
Richter pulled the Glock free, extended his arm towards Ridout, and immediately pulled the trigger. The crack of the unsilenced 9mm weapon filled the room, but Richter didn’t wait to see the result of his shot. He swung round to Henderson, whose arms were extended above his head, clutching the flask, noticed the horrified expression on his face, and fired again.
The impact of the bullet in the centre of Henderson’s chest knocked the man backwards and he crashed to the floor. As he fell, he released his grip and the flask tumbled, spinning through the air, but Richter ignored it. Having examined it earlier, he knew that simply dropping it could only dent it. It was far too tough to rupture through falling onto a carpeted floor.
Instead, he swung further to his right, levelling the Glock now at Nicholson. The Agency man was reaching down for one of the Uzis, but Richter took less than half a second to focus on his target. He sighted carefully, then pulled the trigger. The bullet smashed into Nicholson’s left thigh, smashing the femur about six inches above the knee. The Uzi forgotten, the big man tumbled sideways, screaming in pain.
From the moment Richter had tossed the flask into the air, less than four seconds had elapsed.
In the hallway above, John Westwood heard three rapid shots and a scream of pain. He summoned a smile as he gazed up at Blake. ‘You sure your buddies have everything under control down there?’ he asked.
‘Smart guy.’ Blake kicked Westwood in the stomach again, then picked up his Uzi and headed cautiously down the hall.
Richter moved quickly over towards Nicholson, picked up both Uzis, pulled out the magazines and tossed them and the weapons to one side, well out of the man’s reach. Then he span back to Henderson and Ridout. He knew both were wearing Kevlar vests, so he guessed that at worst the breath had been knocked out of their bodies.
Henderson had already dragged himself into a sitting position against the wall, and was pulling his own Glock from its shoulder holster. Without hesitation, Richter swung the pistol up, sighted and squeezed the trigger. Henderson’s head snapped back as the 9mm copper-jacketed slug punched half his brains through the back of his skull and splattered them onto the wall behind him.
Richter swung his pistol around further, covering Ridout this time. Then he lowered the weapon on seeing that his first shot had missed the Kevlar jacket and had hit Ridout just below the navel. He was clutching his stomach and moaning, and was obviously no threat.
Just then Blake pushed the briefing-room door open and Richter saw the muzzle of a Uzi swinging towards him. He dived sideways, over the top of Ridout, and somersaulted across the floor, landing in a crouch and with the Glock extended in front of him.
Blake pulled the trigger and a ten-round burst screamed across the room towards Richter. Three of the bullets smashed into Ridout, two hitting the Kevlar jacket but the third ploughed into his head, just above his right ear, and killed him instantly. The other rounds pursued Richter’s rapidly moving figure, crashing into the wood- panelled walls. As happens with all submachine-guns on automatic fire, the muzzle of the Uzi had lifted, and Blake was lowering it to adjust his aim, when Richter fired twice with the Glock.
His first bullet hit the Uzi’s pistol-grip, severing Blake’s middle finger, and the second passed over the weapon and hit his neck, half an inch above the protection of his Kevlar jacket, and he fell back, dead.
John Westwood had just managed to struggle to his feet, leaning his back for support against the wall, when he saw the door leading to the cellar swing open. He’d intended hopping down the hall to the kitchen, to find a knife to cut the tape binding his limbs, but as the door opened he realized he needn’t bother.
