He wondered what on earth had just happened. It couldn’t possibly be an earthquake; perhaps an underground gas main had exploded? Surely these explosions couldn’t be connected to the suspect they were chasing. After all, he was a psychopath, not an international terrorist.
Dillon moved to the edge of the pier, looking down into the murky water below. Nothing unusual there, although he’d half expected to find dead fish floating on the surface.
The tiniest sound of gravel being crunched underfoot warned him that someone was trying to creep up on him, and that could only mean one thing: danger. Dillon spun around, lithe as a cat. The sudden movement saved his life. A wickedly sharp blade slashed through the air where his body had been a split second before.
A dark shadow lunged at him, and he caught a flicker of crazed red eyes, glowing in a face that had turned black from exposure to smoke and dust. The killer had lost his Bowie inside the building, but he still had his trusted Finnish skinning knife, and he slashed at Dillon with this, driving him back as its point missed his stomach by millimetres.
The scream that filled the night air was so bestial that, had Dillon not already seen his assailant, he would have believed that it came from a wild animal.
His heart pounding, Dillon quickly retreated towards the end of the wharf. He looked around desperately for an escape route, but there were none available. He was trapped; there was nowhere left for him to go.
The knifeman had systematically closed him down and was now thrusting and slashing furiously as he moved in for the kill. Dillon tried to sidestep the attack but he tripped on the uneven concrete at the edge of the wharf, falling heavily. As Simon Pritchard loomed over him, he realised he had two choices: Stay here and die or get wet.
The tip of the blade struck concrete, sending sparks into the air, but Dillon was no longer there. Rolling frantically, he went over the crumbling edge of the wharf, plunging into the dark waters below.
It was bitterly cold underwater, but he didn’t have time to dwell on that as the deceptively strong current dragged him towards the pier. He surfaced to see the killer peering down.
“Dillon!” Tyler’s voice pierced the silence. The killer’s head whipped around in the direction it came from. With a final snarl at Dillon, he turned and disappeared.
Dillon swam over to a wooden ladder on the pier and climbed up. As his head cautiously rose above the edge of the wharf, he caught a brief glimpse of the killer running back down the path towards the old van. He pulled himself over the edge and stood up wearily, his sodden clothing streaming water.
“Dillon!” Jack’s voice again, nearer this time.
“Over here!” Dillon responded, breathlessly. His expression became grim as he heard the killer’s engine cough into life, followed by the screeching of tyres.
“After all that, he got away,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief.
Just then, he heard the unmistakable impact of two vehicles colliding and, in the distance, just over the horizon, a plume of smoke rose into the air. Dillon immediately started jogging back towards the road. As soon as it came into sight, he saw the killer's van had T-boned a blue car that was blocking its path. Even from this distance, he recognised the hatchback as the unmarked police vehicle that DC Flowers had been driving.
Heart sinking, he broke into an all-out sprint.
CHAPTER 43
WHUMP!
The sound of the first explosion startled Kelly Flowers so much that she nearly jumped out of her skin. “Oh my God, what was that?” she said, praying that the detonation hadn’t come from the warehouse where Jack and Dillon were chasing the killer.
Within moments, a second, third and fourth explosion – each far more powerful than the last – reverberated through the night air, and the sky above the warehouse began to glow orange.
“Oh Jack,” she whispered to herself, “please be okay.”
The first thing she’d done, after Dillon had set of to find Tyler, was remove Sarah Pritchard’s remaining bindings and massaged her aching limbs to get her circulation going again. Kelly had then released her from the rigid handcuffs, having found a key in her bag. It quickly became apparent that Sarah’s collarbone was broken and – after putting her in a makeshift sling and making the poor woman as comfortable as she could – Kelly immediately started trying to contact the emergency services. Dillon had given explicit instructions for her to remain inside the vehicle, but when she couldn’t get a signal on either of their phones she had resorted to walking up and down the road in an effort to acquire one, not that it had done any good. Kelly had just returned to the car, intending to drive further along the road, in case reception was better there, when the deafening sound from the first two detonations shattered the silence around her. She found herself hoping that her colleagues were safe, but she had a terrible feeling that they weren’t.
Two more explosions, which were even more powerful than their predecessors, had followed in quick succession, and as flames lit up the night sky, Kelly Flowers feared the worst. No one could have survived that.
Suddenly, Kelly heard the killer’s van spark into life, and when she saw the dazzle of its headlights bumping towards her over the uneven path leading back to the road, she knew that she had to act, and act fast.
“Get out,” she told Sarah Pritchard.
“Why? What’re you going to do?” Sarah asked, horrified.
“GET OUT!” Kelly shouted. There was no time to explain, and she couldn’t risk endangering a civilian.
Sarah Pritchard opened the door but then hesitated, looking at Kelly imploringly.
“Get out,” Kelly ordered, and there was steel in her voice.
Sarah nodded and reluctantly forced her aching body out of the car, doing her best to ignore the incredible pain from her shoulder. “Don’t
