Aim.
Concentrate.
I thought of my dad teaching me to fire guns. Of him running through the woods behind our farm with me when I was a teenager. Firing a replica Beretta at targets he'd assembled.
I squeezed the trigger.
The noise was immense. It crackled across the path seconds after the bullet went through the gunman's face. One side to the other. In the periphery of the light, I could see a flash of red. And then he was down. Slumped to his side. Half in the woods, half on the path.
I got to my feet and ran.
Bullets hit the space behind me. I clipped a tree with my shoulder, unable to distinguish it as I moved further away from the two torches on the path. Then I hit another and almost knocked myself out. I fell back into the undergrowth.
Quiet.
Nothing now. Just the gentle patter of rain against the canopy. My thoughts were racing: would they hear the gunfire from the road? How long would it take them to get support teams here? It had taken us thirty minutes to walk this far. That probably meant half that at a run. I rolled over. Grass and fallen branches cracked under me.
On the other side of the tree line, about thirty feet away in a diagonal to my right, was another dead PC. His torch was pointing towards him, right up close to his face. It turned his skin red, and the blood at his mouth even redder. Beyond that, further up the trail, was what was left of the crate, just a vague shape against the night. I could see a dead PC lying alongside it. Back the way I'd come, Crane was still down on the floor. He hadn't moved. It meant the last SFO was still alive — or the remaining assassin couldn't be sure. If he knew for certain, Crane would just get up and walk off.
Movement.
Opposite me, across the trail, on the other side of the woods. I squinted into the darkness. Nothing now. Just the tree line and the swathes of black beyond.
But then it came again.
More movement.
Suddenly, gunfire erupted from the direction of the crate, and the whole area lit up. The bodies on the trail. Jill strapped to a tree, further back in the direction I'd come. Crane on the floor of the path. The SFO, MP 5 to his shoulder, was firing towards the space I'd seen movement. And the source of the movement: the other assassin, hidden behind a tree, facing in my direction.
We were looking at one another.
And his gun was aimed.
I ducked — late - as two bullets whipped across the trail and hit the tree behind me. They'd missed me by an inch. Through the undergrowth, on my side, I saw him for a second. And then he was gone. The SFO had stopped firing.
The Dead Tracks were black.
No sound but the rain.
I very gently sat up and shifted sideways, moving on my backside, dragging myself through the undergrowth as quickly and as quietly as I could. After about ten feet, my arm hit a tree. I stopped. Lifted the MP 5 to my shoulder and aimed it back in the direction of the gunman.
The SFO was reloading. I was closer to the crate now, could hear the gentle sound of the magazine being fitted back into the gun. A brief moment of silence.
Then more gunfire.
The SFO's bullets hit the tree the man was using as cover. But he was protected. His cover was good.
Except he'd made a mistake.
He was still facing the same position I'd been in before. As soon as the MP 5 lit up the woods, he fired twice into the space I'd been. But I wasn't there. Through the sights I could see his balaclava, eyes showing: a moment of hesitation as he realized I was somewhere else. He scanned the woodland, moving left along the edge of the trail. Then surprise as he picked out my position about thirty feet across from him.
Aim. Concentrate.
I fired.
His head ruptured, blood spattering against the tree, and his body fell backwards against the floor of the woods. No sound. Through the corner of my eye, I saw the SFO look in my direction and nod. He'd known I was there. He'd tracked my movement from the first time I'd fired. I nodded back. We both realized he'd used me. He'd given me enough light and enough time to take the shot and banked on me hitting the target. I wasn't an expert marksman. With less time to line up the shot I might have missed. But I knew enough to hit two stationary targets, both of which hadn't seen me first. Maybe he knew what I could do. Maybe he'd read what the police had on file about me. Or maybe he'd just taken a chance. Either way it had worked.
Movement to my left. I swivelled.
Crane was up and on his feet, sprinting away.
I headed after him, bending down to pick up the torch lying next to the dead PC's face. The burnt, nauseating stench of gunfire drifted along the trail, and there was the tang of blood in the air, thick and fresh. Crane looked back at me, then veered right, into the woods. I followed. I shone the torch out in front of me and saw him about fifteen feet ahead, my heart thumping in my ears, my hands greased with sweat and rain. He was trying to get some distance between us. Trying to pull away. Trying to lose me and fade into the night. But without a torch, the woods were like a maze.
A second later he fell.
Out of the night, a huge oak tree emerged, springing from the dark like a wall of wood. He clipped it with his shoulder as he went to avoid it. Stumbled. Shifted to his left. As he tried to stop himself from falling, a bramble grasped at his foot, reaching up from the forest floor. He lurched forward and toppled over, hitting the ground hard, the wind thumped out of him, his wrists - locked together — catching under his body. He rolled over, looking up, breath forming in front of his face.
For a moment, he couldn't focus. He stared up in my direction but slightly off to the side. Then he rocked his head from left to right, his eyelids fluttered and he readjusted. His eyes fixed on me. I shone the torch down at him, off to the side of his face, so he could see me as clearly as the darkness of the woods would allow.
'Who were they?' I said.
'Russians.' He coughed then smiled, blood and saliva smeared across his teeth. They were scared about what I might be forced to tell the cops. They can get to me in prison. But they can't get to me in a police station. So I made a deal.'
'A deal?'
'The Ghost needs his face doing again. He's paranoid. Thinks the police are closing in on him the whole time.' He paused, ran his tongue across his teeth. 'So I told his people that if he got me out of this, I could delay the police - and I'd do Gobulev's face for free.'
'This was about a facelift?'
'No, David,' he said. This was about protection. Have you any idea how valuable I am to the police? Have you any idea how much I've seen? The Russians were taking out an insurance policy. And anyway, how many plastic surgeons do you think there are in this country willing to work for people like Gobulev?' He paused. 'I'm the star witness. I'm the key. I'm
A trickle of blood escaped from his lips and ran down his face. He reached up with his handcuffed wrists and brushed it away. It smeared across the scar on his chin.
'How did they know?' I asked him.
'Let's just say, when I asked for a phone call, I didn't call my lawyer.'
