In the illuminated green dial the needle swept smoothly past fifty. Steve kept his foot down, the acceleration pressing them back in their seats… fifty-five — sixty — sixty-five in less than seven seconds, the needle hovering at seventy as they neared Regent’s Park. Through the wing-mirror Dillon had a clear view of the red Sierra, lagging behind but gradually picking up speed to match theirs; nothing in-between them now and very little traffic, so the two cars had virtually this entire stretch of road to themselves. Dillon hadn’t a clue what Steve intended doing. He hoped to God Steve had. But what Steve did, totally unexpectedly, as they raced towards the lights at the junction with Great Portland Street, was to flick on the left indicator. Crazy, Dillon thought, lost his marbles, Steve meant to turn into a one-way system, meeting the flow of traffic head-on! They were doing seventy, and Dillon braced himself for the turn, but what Steve did next was even crazier. Twenty yards from the lights he decelerated, and spinning the wheel hand-over-hand in a continuous, co-ordinated movement, he swung the Merc sharply to the right in a sliding 180-degree turn, tyres squealing and smoking, leaving burnt rubber on the tarmac as he completed a U-turn at the traffic lights and gunned back along Euston Road. Rocking in his seat, Dillon glimpsed the flash of red in the mirror as the Sierra skidded into the turn, nearly losing its traction, then righted itself and came after them. Whoever they were, these guys weren’t amateurs, Dillon realised. And the Sierra had more soup under its bonnet than its un-extraordinary exterior might suggest. He ought to have known that playing nursemaid to a couple of Middle-Eastern arms-dealers wouldn’t turn out to be a vicarage tea-party. What had that prat Cliff gotten them into, him and his favours? Nudging seventy-five, Steve took the centre lane down into the underpass, the yellow lights inset in the concrete walls smearing like racing stripes along the aerodynamic silver body. The 300SE barrelled through the echoing tunnel and up again onto the main road, the glass and granite splendour of the mainline Euston terminal flashing by to their left. The traffic lights were changing to red, but Steve went through them anyway, and so did the Sierra, as a glance in Dillon’s wing-mirror confirmed. After that hair-raising U-turn back there he was beyond offering Steve any advice. The lad might be crazy but he could handle the Merc all right, sitting back in his seat, head up, arms at full stretch, displaying the cool nerve and aplomb of a stunt driver, a faint grin on his face. All four of them were flung against their seat-belts as Steve suddenly slammed on the brakes and veered left off the main road, taking to the labyrinth of dimly-lit streets backing onto King’s Cross. To Dillon it was a dark maze of terraced houses and small blocks of flats, shops and pubs, the whole area shut down for the night. Every street a replica of the one before. Not to Steve, apparently, who seemed to know the district like the back of his hand, jinking left and right and judging gaps between cars parked either side as if he possessed a built-in slide rule. But the red Sierra was a tough bastard to shake. It kept right with them, never more than fifty yards behind, headlights now on full-beam flaring in the mirrors. Without warning, Steve hauled the car down a right-hand fork, the brick archway of a rail viaduct looming up ahead. He gave himself a quick nod, as if making up his mind, and half-turning his head but keeping his eyes front and centre, rapped out: ‘Tell ‘em I can double back on the Ford — there’s dead-ends all along here.’ Dillon craned back. ‘You want us to stop their car? We can double back, come out behind them…’ A quick gabble of Arabic, and the secretary gripped Dillon’s shoulder, his usual fluent English jerking out disjointedly. ‘… we have no diplomatic immunity… they could be armed … we cannot risk…’ ‘Hang on, Steve.’ Dillon reckoned it was about time to view the situation realistically. One thing, letting Steve have his fun like a big kid on the dodgems, quite another to find themselves in the middle of a shooting war that was none of their business. He said quietly, ‘They seem to think these guys’ll have guns. Maybe just lose them.’ Steve pointed to the fuel gauge. ‘Petrol… no petrol.’ Dillon stared at the needle, hard against Empty, and closed his eyes. That was that then. Hobson’s Bleeding Choice. He glanced behind. ‘Get down — keep your heads down.’ He shot a look at Steve. ‘Can you handle it?’ Steve grinned. Bastard was loving every minute. Best time he’d had in three years, since leaving the Paras. Dillon had another disquieting thought, concerning thirty grand’s worth of Mercedes-Benz 300SE. He turned to the rear, raising one eyebrow. ‘What about damage to the car, sir?’ The secretary was huddled in the corner, his fingers digging in the padded arm-rests. ‘Sir?’ ‘Please … get us out of here…’ Steve adjusted his grip, hands crossed on the wheel, face lit up like a Christmas tree. ‘Here we go…!’ The Merc slewed to the left, did a shimmy with its rear end, the bumper almost scraping the road, then went like the clappers as Steve jammed his foot to the floor. Two more screeching turns and they were back at the brick viaduct, which was exactly where Steve wanted to be — this time passing through the adjacent archway. A flick of the wheel, foot hard down on the brake-pedal. Hidden momentarily by the central, arch, the Merc went into a spinning half-turn just as the Sierra shot out from under the bridge and passed them, the driver’s head whipping round in dismay and disbelief. Steve whooped. Gotcha! Grinning from ear to ear, he applied reverse lock and the Merc’s tyres steamed as he performed another spinning half-turn, gave the 140 bhp engine its head and zoomed up behind, the Sierra’s arse-end in his sights. Closing fast, he gave the Sierra a gentle nudge, pulled away and gave it a harder one. There was the tortured sound of grinding metal and then a clang as the Sierra’s bumper was wrenched half-off, the dangling end scything a trail of orange sparks down the centre of the road. Getting desperate, the driver took the only evasive action he could, picking at random one of the streets to his left to get the hell out of the way. Turned out it was a desperate mistake too, because as Steve was well aware, all those streets finished in a sheer brick wall that bordered the tracks out of King’s Cross. The Sierra’s driver very quickly got the message. Reacted fast too — but by then all he could do was slam on the brakes and helplessly watch, frozen at the wheel, as the car went into a skid and slid sideways, left side on, smack into the wall. Dillon expected Steve to slow down, but unbelievably the crazy bastard didn’t. He kept right on going. He was doing what he’d been trained to do, following the anti-terrorist manual to the letter: when you have the enemy pinned down and cornered, take all effective steps for total disabling action. In this case it meant ramming the Merc’s beautiful gleaming bonnet into the side of the Sierra, trapping the two men inside and preventing further hostile action. Dillon covered his face. In the back seat the two Arabs were crouched double, petrified with fear, the big man uttering a kind of sing-song dirge. Steam hissed out, and there was a fizzing and crackling as the electrics shorted, the fascia display flickering like mad. Dropping his hands, Dillon peered through the steam rising from the crumpled bonnet. The Sierra’s driver was slumped over the wheel, his head at a nasty angle. Blood was streaming from the other man’s nose, and he looked groggy, but then Dillon saw his hand move — saw him reaching inside his jacket — and he didn’t wait to see any more, screaming at Steve, ‘Back off! Back off!’ There was a horrible jangled cacophony of tearing metal as Steve reversed, leaving the Merc’s radiator grille and the remnants of all four headlights in the roadway. Dillon was out even before the car had stopped, flat to the ground, snaking forward on elbows and insteps. Behind him, Steve scuttled head down below window-level and did a neat shoulder-roll to land up against the Sierra’s front wheel. Dillon pointed to the door handle, pointed at Steve, made a twisting motion. Steve nodded and reached stealthily for the handle. Dillon rocked himself onto the balls of his feet, hands curled, ready to make the dive the instant the door was opened. The man inside the car was yelling something, difficult to know what because his voice was high-pitched with panic. Cautiously, Dillon raised his head and took a peep. Steve did the same. They bobbed back down again and stared at each other with a sagging, sickly realisation. Not a gun the man had been reaching for at all. But a badge. He was holding up a silver badge. The man was a police officer and they’d just rammed a Flying Squad car.
Squatting on his haunches, Taffy listened to the police siren getting nearer and nearer. Further off in the distance, the clanging of an ambulance bell. The two sounds converged, competing with one another, loud and clamouring, and then suddenly died away as both vehicles reached the pub three streets from where Taffy was crouching in a vegetable patch in someone’s back garden. Reflected on the chimneys and slate roofs opposite, flashing blue and red lights, like the blue and red tracer fire spewing from the machine-gun emplacement the night they took Mount Longdon. Some of the blokes thought it made a pretty display, arcing out of the darkness, until they remembered that between each blue and red streak there were five live rounds, any one of which could have your name on it. That had been some firefight. Taffy’s bowels had become liquid and he’d nearly cacked in his britches. Belly-down in a rocky crevice, cushioned by his bergen, he’d stuck the business end of his L1A1
SLR
rifle over the top and pumped the trigger. Didn’t matter a flying fuck what you were aiming at, the object was to overwhelm the enemy with sheer firepower. That John Wayne Hollywood crap about picking off individual targets, with your head out in plain view, was strictly for the punters. You kept your finger on the trigger until the magazine was empty, slapped in a fresh mag, did it all over again. There was always more ammo where that came from, there was only one of you. And yet, for all the bowel-churning fear, it was bloody great. What you’d sweated through years of training for, and never dreamed, in all your wildest hopes and imaginings, to be actually engaged in a live firing attack against a real enemy who were trying to kill you. Suddenly everything made sense. You had a role, an identity, a purpose. You were doing the job you’d been made for, doing it with skill, guts, pride, and total uncompromising commitment, and you were going to show those Argie bastards what it was like to come up against a real soldier. That’s what Taffy had been then, a real soldier, still was, always would be. A fine chill drizzle settled on his face. Time to get mustered. In
FIBUA
training — Fighting In Built-Up Areas — he’d had to crawl through sewer pipes as a means of infiltrating enemy lines, but bugger that for a lark. Taffy didn’t fancy the Cardiff sewerage system, and besides, speed and distance were the top priorities. Spitting on his palms, Taffy dug into the soft damp earth and plastered his face, smeared the backs of his hands. He could hear shouts now, running footsteps. He straightened up, and taking a couple of deep breaths, ran swiftly across the garden and leapt at the high brick wall, scaling it with ease, and dropped down into the deep shadow of a cobbled alleyway, light as a cat. A few minutes after 1.30 a.m. he was standing on the hard shoulder of the ring road that connected with the M4. Probably his uniform helped, because only the third truck he thumbed — a Bristol meat packer’s refrigerated artic — slowed down and pulled over. Taffy climbed on board.
From the holding cell Dillon, tieless, beltless, and with no laces in his shoes, was taken two floors up to the interview room. Little more than a cell itself; a bare table, one metal ashtray, two chairs, a sixty-watt bulb in a green plastic shade that threw a cone of light over the man already seated there, somewhere in his thirties with puffy, handsome features gone to seed and a flourishing head of hair streaked with grey that overlapped his collar. He was smoking a Marlboro, and he offered the packet as Dillon sat down opposite him, more out of icy politeness than as a gesture of friendship. And his voice too had an antiseptic ring to it. ‘Mr Dillon. I am Alastair Sawyer-Smith.’ He pushed a rather dog-eared card across the table. ‘I am acting on behalf of Mr Salah Al-Gharib.’ ‘Thank Christ —’ Dillon accepted a light, sucked in smoke. He had a headache and his eyes burned. It was long gone three and he felt strung-out. ‘Look, this has all got out of hand… and I have to call my wife, she’ll be worried stiff.’ But Sawyer-Smith wasn’t listening, glancing instead to a man staring in through the glass panel in the door, studying Dillon hard. Dillon met his eyes and quickly turned his head away, recognising him as the detective who had followed him and Jimmy the day they delivered the diamonds. Whom Jimmy had clobbered and cracked his skull in the gutter. ‘Oh shit,’ Dillon muttered, closing his eyes. ‘I hope you will co-operate fully, as this has been an exceedingly long night. Firstly —’ ‘It was all a misunderstanding,’ Dillon was at pains to explain. ‘My clients have been released,’ continued Sawyer-Smith smoothly, ‘without any formal charges being pressed. Furthermore —’ ‘What about me and Steve? We’ve been here all night — your clients got us into this!’ ‘No, you are mistaken,’ Sawyer-Smith contradicted him gravely, his baggy-eyed stare perfectly level. ‘The reason the police followed the Mercedes driven by your associate Mr Steven Harris was because the car is owned by a man currently under police investigation.’ Dillon slowly leaned forward into the light, the scar on his left cheek a thin cruel crevice. ‘What… ?’ But the lawyer had it signed and sealed, all stitched up. ‘Clearly you were working for my clients under false pretences, fraudulently using documents which they believed were from the Samson Security Company — a company that denies all knowledge of either hiring you or the driver of the vehicle, Mr Harris.’ Having his man on the floor, Sawyer-Smith put the boot in. ‘Mr Harris, who by-the-by has no licence, no insurance, and was given a suspended sentence in January of last year…’ ‘But…’ Dillon’s hands came up, clutching thin air. ‘I wasn’t driving…’ ‘No doubt the security company will take this matter up personally.’ Sawyer-Smith got to his feet, picking up a somewhat shabby briefcase with a broken clasp. He looked down on Dillon. ‘As far as my clients are concerned, they have agreed to forget the whole embarrassing episode.’ ‘But what about the damage to the Merc?’ Dillon was half-out of his seat, blinking rapidly. ‘It’s not mine — who’s gonna pay for that?’ For the first time Alastair Sawyer-Smith permitted himself a fleeting chilly smile. ‘I would say that is the least of your problems, Mr Dillon,’ and was gone, leaving Dillon with a dazed expression and two smoking stubs in the metal ashtray.