To win.
Also, he was under no illusions about this man’s strength. Even if the muscles were steroid-grown, if Flynn found himself in a bear hug, chances were he would have his ribs crushed slowly, followed by his internal organs, and his spine would be snapped.
It had to be instantaneous. Done with precision.
No hesitation — because what Flynn planned would kill.
His right hand came up between himself and the man, driving upwards in the tight gap between the two bodies. He rammed the heel of the hand under the man’s nose, so the septum would be exactly on that hard part between the soft cushions of his thumb and finger pads.
It was like driving a piston into the man’s nose.
Under normal circumstances — and this was an old, tried and tested move — this would have worked. The septum would have been hammered up into the frontal lobe of the brain, piercing it like a jagged nail and killing the opponent instantly, or at the very least putting him down, making him into a jellied eel and brain-dead for life.
A good plan.
Unless the opponent had virtually nothing left of that piece of gristle that separated his nostrils. Unless years of snorting cocaine had rotted it away and perforated the cartilage making it nothing more than a paper-thin divider. And all Flynn succeeded in doing was grinding the man’s nose to a misshapen pulp.
But there was enough force in the blow to send him teetering backwards with a groan of pain, clutching his mashed face with his left hand, and his right, which was still holding the knife.
Flynn followed up this advantage, lurching after him and bunching his right fist and hitting him as hard as he could in his exposed windpipe, twisting the knuckles on impact, knocking him even further backwards.
The man went backwards, then recovered and dropped into a fighting stance with the knife, despite the blood pouring from the middle of his face and a horrible gagging noise coming from his throat.
And a smile on his face.
He spat out a gob-full of blood and went for Flynn, who jerked side-on, let the knife hand zip past him, then elbowed him right on the nose again, feeling the tip of his elbow sink horribly into a depression in the man’s face.
He did it twice in quick succession. Hard, accurate, but then the man’s left hand crawled over Flynn’s face. His fat fingers dug deep into Flynn’s eye sockets and he began to ease Flynn’s head backwards whilst at the same time Flynn was wrestling with the knife hand.
And the fight was to the death.
Henry dropped as the bullets zinged around him, full length into the stream, face down for a moment in the shallow water, then rolling out of it onto the muddy bank, no idea where Flynn had gone. He slithered and slurped in the mud and came up into a position that resembled a hunted animal on starting blocks.
He glanced backwards and saw two shapes locked together — and realized Flynn had doubled back to take on the gunman. Their terrible fight was illuminated by the car headlights. Henry got to his feet and ran back towards them, just as the man pulled Flynn down onto his arse.
Henry splashed through the water and dived at the man, knocking the knife out of his hand and bundling the mass of muscle off Flynn. The man staggered, but with the strength of a bison he shrugged Henry away. Henry found himself sitting back in the stream, landing heavily on a rock, jarring the base of his spine, sending a shot of pain up to his skull.
Flynn seriously thought he had lost. The man was stronger, heavier and clearly used to fighting and taking punishment. The pain was not having any stopping effect. Flynn had lost his edge. He was fit and lean, but there was too much time separating him from the violent life he had once revelled in and his blade was dull.
It was a good job Henry arrived, barging the man off Flynn. It gave him a chance to reassert himself and go for the kill because he knew that this was ultimately the only way to defeat this person.
As the man tossed Henry aside, he was open. Just for a second. Open. Unprotected.
This time Flynn’s hard-edge blow to the throat was delivered with accuracy and stunning power, driven all the way from the spin of his hips, up through his torso and along his right arm to the blade that was his hand.
He did it twice.
Flynn felt the cartilage crush and crumble.
The man gurgled and sank to his knees, his hands at his throat, gagging, choking.
Still not enough.
Flynn stepped behind him, a ferocious power now inside him, driving him as he put into effect something he had learned many years before and practised for real on two Argentinian soldiers on the Falklands Islands in 1982 whilst a Royal Marines Commando: how to take a man’s head and break his neck with one perfect wrench.
ELEVEN
Eight hours later and exhausted beyond thinking, Henry Christie walked like a zombie through the corridors of Lancaster police station, pushed through the door leading to the rear of the public enquiry counter, lifted the hatch and stepped into the foyer.
Steve Flynn was behind him.
The woman sitting in the foyer with a terrified expression on her face stood up slowly and then rushed to embrace Henry.
‘Oh God, Henry,’ Alison snuffled into his shoulder. ‘You can’t believe how worried I was — am.’
Henry held her tightly for a moment, then she stepped back and looked at him. Suddenly he was a much older man after the night’s events, drawn, haggard, eyes sunken and red raw. It didn’t help that he was now wearing one of those god-awful forensic suits and slippers and looked more like a prisoner than a cop. He realized in that moment how much the age difference between him and Alison mattered. He was almost thirteen years her senior, which seemed a huge gap as he stood there with her.
She glanced at Flynn, reached past Henry and touched his arm tenderly. He too had aged and the scar that stretched from his forehead to temple, still oozing blood through the butterfly stitches, didn’t help matters. Nor did the bloodstained zoot suit, the second he’d worn that day. He was going through sets of clothing like nobody’s business.
‘Steve,’ she whispered. She handed him a pile of clothing that she’d brought for him. ‘These should fit you,’ she said.
He managed a weak smile and a thanks.
Henry fingertipped his face carefully, amazed his broken cheekbone was no worse than before. ‘We need to get some sleep, love.’
Alison nodded.
‘Apparently my car’s a write-off.’
‘I passed it on the way. It’s a wreck,’ she confirmed. ‘But you’re OK, that’s all that matters. Cars can be replaced.’
Henry just shook his head, wanting to cry. ‘Take me home, babe,’ he said, ‘and him too.’ He turned to grin at Flynn, who said, ‘I am never going to help anyone again. That,’ he continued, ‘was one hell of a night, Henry. Thanks for sharing it with me.’
Flynn lowered the dead man gently backwards into the stream, the legs still twitching as the last few signals shot down from his brain. Then he stood up, hands on hips, gasping, looking at Henry who, being older and less fit, was bent forward with his hands on his knees and gasping much more desperately than Flynn, sucking in air like it was going out of fashion.
‘Is he dead?’
Flynn nodded.
‘Good,’ Henry said.
‘Hell, Henry, you must have cut him up real bad to get a road-rage reaction like that,’ Flynn said, wiping the blood from his face.
‘Some people have no sense of humour.’ Henry turned to look at his car and grimaced. ‘And I’ve just lost
