Landvik brightened, a thread of hope igniting again. “Right, okay.” He began to turn away but caught the flash of a frown pass over the woman’s face. “Thank you,” he added.
She smiled uncomfortably and nodded.
Landvik whistled once, sharply, caught the attention of his other man still roaming about between the headstones in the small cemetery. “Back to the car,” Landvik called out.
Rose fought desperately against the blackness closing in around the edges of her vision. The man’s hands clenched her throat like a vice, his eyes wild in his furious face. He had clearly completely lost control, one too many strikes from Rose hurting him enough that he no longer cared about anything except hurting her back. Permanently.
She tried to gasp for breath, tried to tell him that Landvik needed her memories and for that she had to be alive. She wanted to plead with him for her life as the terror of actually dying became an all too real possibility. After everything she had been through since this whole ridiculous drama had begun, it was surely impossible that she was about to die now at the hands of an ignorant, musclebound idiot.
Darkness closed in further, her vision narrowing to a pinpoint showing only Grigor’s grimacing, blood-stained face, and Rose’s consciousness, her very life, ebbed away.
The iron pressure of Grigor’s grip suddenly vanished. Still blinded by lack of air and panic, Rose could only gasp, her chest tight, her throat on fire. She heard a cry of surprise, a fleshy thwack, as she gasped again. Through blurred and swimming vision she watched Grigor dragged backwards through the now open car door on his side. She caught a glimpse of Crowley’s face, hair slicked to his scalp by rain, mouth twisted in a snarl of rage, but refused to believe it was real. Surely she was hallucinating from lack of oxygen to the brain. Was this some strange fantasy of rescue, her brain softening the agony of her last moments before death? But she felt the cold wind coming into the car, heard the rain more loudly, spattering against the bitumen outside.
The other back door behind her head popped open, more cold, wet air gusting in. She dragged more life-saving breaths into her straining lungs. A strange man with deep olive skin and black hair as wet as Crowley’s called her by name. She twisted in the seat to see him more clearly, trying to order her thoughts. Unsure who this stranger was, she scrambled forward anyway, desperate only to be out of the car, with a chance to get away from all of this.
“I’m with Crowley,” the man said. “My name is Cameron. Come on!”
Too woozy to argue, she stumbled into his waiting arms. He held her up and produced a small pocket knife that he flicked open with the hand holding it. A wash of panic slipped through her, and then he dragged the blade up through the plastic of the zip tie around her wrists. It fell away and her arms swung free. Nothing had ever felt so good. She vigorously rubbed at each wrist with the other hand, moving her elbows and shoulders as she did so.
Over the roof of the car she could see Crowley tussling with Grigor. It really was him! Where had he come from? The thug was bigger than Crowley, but not gaining much ground against Crowley’s trained skills. A number of tourists milled around, faces stunned in expressions of shock. At least two were pulling phones from their pockets, pointing them at the action.
Crowley and Grigor ducked and moved, Grigor throwing out a heavy looping punch that Crowley caught on one forearm as he ducked in and delivered a rapid double uppercut to Grigor’s liver. The big man grunted in deep pain, folding over Crowley’s fist, then a voice cut through the wind and hiss of rain.
Landvik came running from the gate of St Mary’s, water slashing up from the recently filled puddles in the gravel path. His other two heavies were right behind. One of them pulled an automatic from his jacket, raised it over Landvik’s shoulder and fired. The low popping of its report hinted at a silencer, but still the gawking crowd began screaming and running randomly left and right, all generally heading back down the road away from the ruins.
The first two shots hit the car, shattering windows.
“No wonder,” Rose thought distantly, the idiot firing a handgun at range while running. But he was getting rapidly closer.
Cameron dragged against her arm and turned her toward a large white Land Rover Discovery parked behind them, with both front doors open and the engine running. It must be the car Crowley and Cameron had arrived in.
Crowley ducked and caught Grigor across the jaw with a fast jab. As Grigor stumbled, Crowley slipped behind him and lopped one arm around the man’s neck. He dragged Grigor backwards as a human shield as he came around Landvik’s car, heading for the Discovery.
Rose dove into the big white car and scrambled into the back seat as Cameron jumped into the driver’s seat. Another bullet kicked up dirt at Crowley’s feet, then she heard two wet thuds, strangely loud, and Grigor cried out in pain and fell limp. Crowley dropped the dead weight of Grigor’s corpse and leapt into the passenger seat as Cameron gunned the engine and the Discovery skidded in a wide arc and began to power away down the narrow road. Cameron ducked as his side window shattered and showered his lap with glass.
“Are you hit?” Crowley yelled.
“No.” Cameron’s voice was tight, his focus entirely on driving.
Tourists leapt aside, many screaming and shouting, as another couple of bullets pinged against the car’s bodywork. The rear window suddenly burst into a crazy field of glass cubes, made Rose cry out in surprise, but it didn’t fall, then they were gaining speed back between the houses.
“That guy would make a great Stormtrooper, right?” Rose quipped, her adrenaline a furious rushing in her ears.
Crowley laughed, his face flushed from his exertions as he looked back from the front seat. “Sounds like you’re okay then?”
“I’ve been better,” Rose admitted. “But I have never been happier to see someone in my entire life!”
Chapter 46
Cameron drove expertly through narrow streets lined with stone walls, small shops and buildings built right up to the edges. Tourists milled about, some cars moving slowly, causing Cameron to brake and downshift to roar past at the first chance. People angrily shook fists and yelled abuse as they went. Crowley had watched Landvik’s car skid around hard and come powering after them, but lost sight of it quickly. He knew they were not at all far behind.
A small red car with its hazard lights blinking and the hood up appeared as they rounded a shallow bend. Traffic in the other direction blocked the way. Cameron stood on the brakes, the tires squealing, making several people jump and hurl fresh abuse.
“They’re right behind us!” Crowley said tightly.
Cameron nodded. “I know.” He revved up and forced the Discovery into an unbelievably tight turn given the size of the vehicle and headed into a right turn.
“That was the only road back to the causeway,” Rose said. “There’s no other way off the island.”
“Again,” Cameron said with a tight smile, “I know. Going to have to try to go around.”
He continued to wind too fast through the tiny village, steering subtly left and right, trying not to kill pedestrians. Crowley trusted the man’s driving skills, but not so much the likelihood that a member of the public wouldn’t do something stupid. People tended to react in bizarre ways when they were scared. He was tense, sitting forward, hands on the dash. He leaned back repeatedly, watching for Landvik in the wing mirror, but couldn’t see the man’s large black Lexus.
Cameron made a hard left, presumably attempting to double-back toward the causeway, but braked hard. Landvik’s Lexus was parked a hundred meters ahead, facing them. The passenger door popped open and one of Landvik’s heavies rose up, leveling a gun at them as he did so.