‘We’ll be able to come up with something,’ Bolt promised, taking the turn and accelerating as other units announced that they too were on their way.
‘See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?’ said The Wraith with a smile.
Tina felt sick. Dressing had been applied on the second wound but she was still bleeding from the palm, and a grapefruit-sized bloodstain had formed on her jeans. But her sickness didn’t come from pain, it came from her guilt. She’d betrayed the Brennans, told this monster who they were, and how Steve Brennan had picked up Ray and transferred him to France.
The Wraith finished typing something into her phone, then picked up the drill. ‘Next question. What’s Ray Mason’s phone number?’
‘I don’t know. We both threw away our burner phones.’
‘But you’re communicating with him. I know that. And if you say you’re not, then this is going in your ankle right now.’ She had already removed Tina’s left shoe and sock ready for, as she put it, ‘a quick insertion’. Tina knew the injury would make her lame for life, but also that if she gave out this last bit of information then her life could almost certainly be measured in minutes, if not seconds.
But what choice did she have?
‘Yes, we are.’
‘How?’
Tina took a deep breath, gutted about what she was on the brink of doing, the thought of that drill through her ankle making her do it. ‘Email. We communicate in the drafts section so no messages actually get sent.’
‘Ah, a very useful method,’ said The Wraith. ‘I use it myself sometimes. And what is the email address?’
Tina told her, giving away her final nugget of information.
‘Down to the end and turn right, boss,’ said Mo, holding onto the dashboard as Bolt raced down the road, wondering what kind of undercover operation allowed a UCO to take part in an armed abduction of a civilian without telling his superiors about it. But he had little time to think about that now. If the Kalamans were sending someone to get Ray Mason’s whereabouts out of Tina they would almost certainly have her killed afterwards. Which meant they might already be too late.
He braked hard as he came to the junction then turned right in a screech of tyres.
‘OK boss, we’re on Hartland Road now. Straight down, and it’s just before the railway arch on the right.’
Bolt could see the arch already, a quarter of a mile ahead, and he pushed his foot down hard on the floor, barely slowing as he came to a speed bump, hitting it so hard the car actually lifted off the ground, hoping no one was foolish enough to step out in front of him.
‘This is Beta 1, our ETA is thirty seconds,’ he shouted into the radio. ‘I repeat: thirty seconds. We’re going straight in.’
‘Beta 1, this is Tango 1, we’re right behind you, heading west on Hartland Road.’
Bolt glanced in his rear-view mirror and saw one of the unmarked armed surveillance cars following. He looked at Mo, who’d now put away the laptop and had a hand hovering above his gun holster. He looked utterly terrified, and Bolt felt for him. Mo had never fired a gun before. He wasn’t an action man cop. He was a detective. Bolt was different. It had been a long, long time since he’d fired a gun, but even now, this close to retirement, he felt that familiar buzz at the prospect of action.
‘It’s going to be OK, Mo,’ he said. ‘We’ll resolve this peacefully. No one’s going to do anything stupid.’
The arch loomed up in front of them, and Bolt saw a yellow signpost saying Premier Motors on the wall just in front of it. He slowed the car and swung it into a huge turn, driving straight at the set of locked gates at the end of the alley, just as a train rumbled by overhead.
‘Thank you for that, Tina,’ said The Wraith, putting the phone away in the front pocket of her jeans, and taking off the splash-proof smock, letting it fall to the floor. ‘I’m glad it didn’t have to get too messy.’ She turned round and pulled a short-barrelled pistol from her waistband, chambering a round as she turned back towards Tina.
Tina’s insides did a somersault as she stared down the gun barrel. ‘You lied,’ she said.
The Wraith smiled beneath her mask. ‘You knew I would.’
‘I haven’t given you all the information,’ Tina blurted out, thinking fast. Doing anything to extend these last few seconds. ‘Ray and I have a code we always use. Kill me and you’ll never know it.’
‘Don’t waste my time,’ said The Wraith, still pointing the gun at Tina’s head. ‘You’ve got three seconds to tell me, or I pull the trigger anyway. One …’
A sudden burst of shouting came from the room next door, and seconds later the door to the workshop was flung open from the outside, and a man in jeans and a shirt appeared in the doorway, already in a firing stance.
The Wraith was already ducking behind Tina, using her as a shield, and the man was still in the process of shouting ‘Armed police!’ when she opened fire on him, the noise of the gunshots intensely loud in the room. It was that quick.
He fell backwards, landing on his back, as The Wraith ran behind one of the raised ramps, keeping her gun trained on the doorway.
A second later an arm holding a gun emerged round the frame and Tina saw Mike Bolt’s head appear.
‘Get back!’ yelled Tina as The Wraith fired another shot, the bullet bouncing off the frame in an angry wisp of smoke, narrowly missing Mike.
Tina’s first thought was that The Wraith was trapped, but then she ran towards the other end
