My air supply was cut off instantly as I was pulled backwards, then a second later the pressure was eased just enough for me to take tiny breaths.
Marco smiled and took a phone from his pocket, while Tracksuit loaded one of the guns on the table with a magazine and pointed it at me.
‘Apologies for this, my friend, but there is a very large reward on your head. Not only that, but a good friend and business partner of mine, who’s invested a lot of money in the country, is also very keen to see you dead. His name’s Alastair Sheridan and he says you two are acquainted with each other.’
I tried to speak but could barely manage a mangled squeak.
‘There’s no need to say anything, my friend,’ said Marco, raising the phone in my direction. ‘But Mr Sheridan would like me to record your death so he can view it later for his entertainment.’
He nodded to the man holding the cord round my neck, and the next second it tightened once again. My would-be assassin forced me backwards, pushing his knee into my back as he applied the pressure. Already I could feel my vision blurring. In a matter of seconds I was going be unconscious.
But I hadn’t come entirely unprepared. The neck knife I’d bought in Paris – small, with a three-inch, razor-sharp blade – was still hanging from a cord round my neck, having not been picked up in the search. I grabbed at the cable throttling me with one hand, just to distract the people watching me die from what I was about to do, then shoved my other hand up beneath my shirt, acting like it was all part of a futile struggle, and yanked the blade free from its plastic holder. It was so small that even when my hand came back out with it I don’t think anyone noticed. At least not until I reached round and shoved it hilt-deep into my attacker’s thigh three times in rapid succession.
The attacker howled in pain and let go of the cable as, coughing and gasping for air, I shoved it in a fourth time and let go, rolling free of his grip.
‘Shoot him!’ yelled Marco at Tracksuit, at the same time shoving the phone in his pocket and making for the door.
Tracksuit squinted and took aim, and straight away I guessed he wasn’t a good shot, but then he didn’t need to be in a room this small with barely five yards between us.
The two most important things to do when someone’s aiming a gun at you are to keep moving and to try to put obstacles between you and them. The guy who’d tried to kill me – burly, bearded and bald – was hobbling around, clutching at his bleeding leg while trying to remove the neck knife. Still coughing, but fuelled by the kind of adrenalin that comes when someone’s trying to kill you, I jumped to my feet. Tracksuit immediately fired two shots, but I was already behind the other guy, and I grabbed him by the shirt and propelled him towards Tracksuit. As he fell into the table, knocking it backwards, Tracksuit jumped backwards too, stumbling into a couple of boxes.
He righted himself quickly but not quite quickly enough. As he raised his arm to fire, I careered into him, knocking his arm to one side, and driving my forehead into his nose.
This time he went straight over backwards into the boxes, his head smacking hard against a shelf, and dropped the gun. I landed on top of him and punched him hard in the face before jumping off him and scrambling on my hands and knees over to the gun.
I grabbed it and turned round, just as he was sitting up.
His eyes widened as I shot him once in the face. They then widened some more, and he toppled over on his side without a word or sound.
I stood up and, ignoring the other guy, whose trouser leg was now completely drenched in blood, suggesting that I must have severed an artery, took off after Marco. He was still running up the corridor, almost at the end now.
‘Marco!’ I yelled, my voice hoarse and painful. ‘Stop or you’re dead!’
If it had been me, I’d have taken my chances and continued running, given that he was only a couple of seconds away from safety, but I was beginning to work out that, for all his talk, Marco wasn’t exactly a brave man. He stopped straight away and turned round with his hands up.
‘Get over here,’ I told him, pointing the gun at his head.
He walked towards me looking worried, as well he should have done. I wasn’t feeling, or I suspect looking, especially merciful.
‘Listen, man,’ he said, stopping a few feet away, hands still firmly in the air, ‘it was only business. I’ve got nothing against you personally.’
‘That doesn’t really make me feel any better,’ I said, conscious that the act of speaking was really hurting my throat. ‘You’re going to have to atone.’
‘Sure, man, sure. Whatever you say.’
His eyes darted towards a door to my left. Just a flicker. But it was enough for me to know that something else was going on.
Then I heard it. A high-pitched moan, partially muffled. It was coming from somewhere behind the door. It also sounded human.
‘If you want Sheridan, I can give him to you,’ said Marco quickly. ‘I can take you to him right now.’
‘Open the door,’ I told him.
He acted confused. ‘Which one?’
The muffled moan came again. Faint but audible to both of us.
‘You know which one.’
I took a step back to give him room, keeping the gun pointed straight at his chest, and watched him turn the handle.
‘It’s locked,’ he said.
‘I know you have the key so open it or
