Tracers

He went to the front of the building and checked the street in both directions. It was a waste of time; if Joanne had decided to run, she would have done just that. And with her skills, there was no guessing how far away she was by now.

He was about to go back for the car to make a tour of the area, when he saw a brief flicker of movement. It came from inside a vehicle halfway down on the other side of the street. He continued turning away, careful not to betray the fact that he had seen something. When he looked at the spot again, there was no sign of anyone.

He knew he hadn’t been mistaken. There was a person in the car. But was it significant?

Then he spotted Joanne.

She was walking along the pavement towards him, fifty yards beyond the car where he’d seen the movement and on the same side of the street. There was something odd in her stance, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. The rucksack, maybe, which never left her side? Her attention seemed to be focussed on a spot on or near the same vehicle where he had seen the movement.

In the same instant, he realized what was unusual about her stance: she was holding her gun down by her leg.

He felt the back of his neck go cold. It was a classic approach to a suspect vehicle, remaining carefully in the driver’s blind spot while keeping him in sight and holding your weapon ready. The next move would be to tap on the window right behind his ear and-

Harry turned and ran back to his car at the rear of the building. It was pointless shouting a warning; Joanne had obviously spotted the watcher on her way out and had reacted in the way she’d been trained. If the person in the car, innocent or not, showed the slightest sign of resistance in the next couple of minutes, it would probably be the last thing they ever did.

He tore out of the car park, hoping nobody chose that moment to drive by. By the time he was out in the street, Joanne was already within ten paces of the suspect vehicle and bending forward slightly, beginning to bring her weapon up. He hit the accelerator, hoping he could make it in time.

The gap narrowed fast. As he began to draw level with the stationary car, he stamped hard on the brakes. The tyres squealed in protest as they tried to grip the tarmac, causing Joanne to glance up. At the same moment, a shadow moved inside the vehicle. But the watcher wasn’t in the driver’s seat where he should have been — he was in the back and facing the pavement, waiting for Joanne to draw close.

He’d spotted her.

‘Gun!’ Harry roared as he saw the outline of a weapon in the man’s hands.

But Joanne had seen it, too. With no change of expression, she skipped sideways and ran out into the road. Caught out by the speed of her reaction, the man inside the car couldn’t spin round on his seat fast enough.

Joanne’s move had brought her level with the offside rear wing of the man’s car. In a single movement she swivelled her body, brought the gun up two-handed and fired twice through the side window. The noise of the two shots rolled into one and was almost lost against the residue of the engine noise of Harry’s car and the squealing of his tyres, followed by the tinkling of glass falling to the road.

Then Joanne ran round to the front of the Saab and dived into the passenger seat, slamming the door behind her.

‘Go!’ she yelled, and threw her rucksack in the back.

THIRTY-FOUR

‘They’ve split up.’ Dog reported succinctly. He was carefully picking broken window fragments out of his hair and trying to ignore a painful ringing in his right ear. Luckily, he could hear well enough with his left to make the call. While he waited for a response, he clambered into the front seat and started the engine. It caught with a cough and settled into a smooth hum.

Further along the street somebody was shouting. He ignored them. He felt humiliated but relieved to be alive. Christ, nearly being bested by a woman! He pounded the steering wheel. She was good, though, and should have been; she’d been trained by the best. It was the shout from Tate that had unnerved him. Then that move she’d pulled before opening fire was a beauty. The only thing he couldn’t figure out was why she’d aimed to miss. At that distance, she should have splattered his brains all over the interior of the car. Given the same circumstances, he’d have aimed to kill.

‘All three?’ The drawl on the end of the line was heavy with criticism because Dog had managed to lose both Tate and Ferris. And now Archer. After the screw-up at South Acres, he could have done without it.

‘I could hardly follow them all,’ he replied tersely. ‘I decided to stick with Tate and the girl.’ He hesitated then added, ‘She blew my window out in the middle of the street with a semi-automatic. You never said she was a fucking lunatic.’ It was rare for Dog to swear, especially in the presence of an employer, but he felt it more than suited the occasion.

‘I didn’t think I had to. You know her background. Where are they now?’

‘Gone. Do you want me to come in?’

‘No. Stay in the open. The office is closed until further notice.’

‘Closed?’ Dog didn’t like the sound of that. So far this assignment had not been going spectacularly well, and he had a bad feeling about this latest development. In his experience, poor planning was as much to blame as bad execution. Perhaps Jennings had overreached himself. Maybe it was time he considered getting out while he still could. Except that it went against the grain to have a failure on his record. He couldn’t have that, not after all this time. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Don’t worry about it. A minor operational glitch, that’s all. I’ll call you with a new location when I’m sure it’s safe. In the meantime, I suggest you keep looking. This matter has now gone critical.’

The phone clicked and Dog threw his mobile down on the passenger seat. Critical. So critical he was out in the open and would have to stay on the move to avoid being compromised. Still, it wouldn’t be the first time; some things you just got used to in this business.

As he turned a corner into a quiet square, thinking about where he could find a safe base, he smelled burning plastic. It grew steadily stronger until, seconds later, the engine coughed and juddered, then died.

It was only then that he noticed the two bullet holes in the dashboard.

THIRTY-FIVE

Joanne turned and watched the road behind them, but there was no sign of the other car. ‘That should slow him down a bit.’ She ejected the magazine from the semi-automatic and checked the action, then reloaded and slipped it back in her jacket. ‘By the way, I remember the name of the village where Humphries lived. It’s Green’s Morton.’

Harry hardly dared look at her, too busy wrestling with the wheel and trying to negotiate a series of narrow back streets to shake off any chance of pursuit. It was as if nothing had happened; as if she hadn’t just fired two shots into a man in a north London street, blowing out a car window in the process and probably scaring half the residents into calling the anti-terrorist squad.

‘Are you nuts?’ he shouted. ‘You might have murdered an undercover cop!’

But her response surprised him. ‘Do me a favour. If I’d wanted him dead, he’d be dead. I didn’t even aim at him. The worst I did was probably make him piss himself.’ She grinned like a happy kid on a Sunday outing. ‘Serves him right — he shouldn’t be following us.’

It stopped Harry’s protests in their tracks. He realized she must have been aiming forward of the rear seats. She’d gone for shock tactics rather than something more fatal to put the man off watching them. ‘You could have told me,’ he said after they covered a mile or so. ‘When I first came back out I thought you’d. .’

Joanne laughed. ‘What — legged it? Jesus, why would I? You guys are the only protection I’ve got.’ She looked at him seriously. ‘I trained hard for my job, but it doesn’t make me a psychopath. I know when to draw the line.’ She paused and looked out of the window. ‘If you hadn’t warned me and I’d stepped up to the other window. .’ She shrugged fatalistically. ‘Thanks.’

‘You did well to spot him.’ Harry felt guilty for assuming the worst and jumping on her with both boots. She