The bullet hit her like a heavyweight boxer’s punch and she felt a searing pain in her right side, punctuated by the crack of a rib as the bullet passed through her midsection, just missing Mitchinson.
How she remained standing she would never quite work out. Maybe it was adrenaline, maybe it was just bloody mindedness, but she did more than just stand. She looked at the bloody damage to her shirt and shouted, her voice a mixture of pain and rage.
“Not again!” She let go of the stunned MI5 man, who had not known that his accomplice had a gun.
“You damn fool, Donkin!” Barry blustered. “We need her alive!”
By the time he had uttered the words, Donkin had raised the gun again, ready to defend himself against the approaching Dee Hammond. She was advancing towards him, and her murderous expression scared him witless. He fired a second time, but the kick on the gun sent the second bullet harmlessly through Dee’s billowing jacket, thankfully missing her body. Realising that he had missed, Donkin dropped the gun and tried to turn and run, but he was too late. With one last desperate lunge, Dee packed all of her remaining power into a right hook which caught Donkin on the left side of his jaw. His head twisted oddly, and an audible crack echoed around the junk yard. Donkin collapsed in a heap on the dusty, littered ground. His body lay at an impossible angle. His neck was clearly broken, and Dee thought he was most probably dead.
Dee tried to hold on to the chair for support, but the bone handle of the hunting knife crashed into her head and her body went limp as she joined Donkin on the dusty junk yard floor.
***
Dee had no idea how long she was out of it, but when she finally awoke her face was wet and she was tied to a chair, whilst Mitchinson, remarkably uninjured, stood over her, holding a bottle of water.
After a moment Dee noticed that Donkin still lay where he’d fallen. Mitchinson paid him scant attention, and had not even checked for a pulse. She realised then that Katie, Donkin and herself were never destined to leave this junk yard alive.
“Welcome back, Mrs Hammond. I suspect that within the hour you will bleed to death, so you have one chance and one chance only. You may think that chance is slim, and so it is, but it is a chance.” He paused as he walked towards Katie, whose eyes were wide with fear. He was holding the gun.
“Mrs Hammond, I am a significantly better shot than the boy, and in any case I can’t miss from here. Please tell me, where can I find Gillian Davis?”
“You’re going to kill us both anyway, so why should I cooperate?”
“Firstly because I may, in fact, decide to let you both live, and secondly, because you can die quickly or slowly, dependent upon how generous I’m feeling. Let me say that I will feel more benevolent towards the pair of you if I can get my hands around the scrawny neck of Gillian Davis.”
Dee had to play for time. She didn’t buy any of that. She was certain that the moment he knew where Davis was, Katie and herself would both be dead.
“I’m sorry, Barry, whatever your name is, but I will not tell you unless you let Katie go. If you do that, I’ll tell you and you can take me with you to find Davis, and you can kill me if we don’t find her.”
“Sorry, Mrs Hammond. You wouldn’t last the journey.” He raised the gun to Katie’s head and flicked off the safety catch. “I’m sorry, young lady, but your good friend is sacrificing your life in order to protect a paid killer.”
Dee was about to blurt out the address when Barry Mitchinson’s hand suddenly disappeared in a dense red mist. All three of them stared in horror, as what was left of his tattered right hand fell to the floor, along with the gun.
Mitchinson screamed in terror as he used his left hand to grip the remains of his wrist, in a doomed effort to stop the arterial blood spraying out like a fountain in a parody of a low budget horror film. He collapsed to his knees.
“Steve, is that you?” Dee yelled, the pain in her side making her feel winded at the effort.
A figure carrying a hunting rifle with a light coloured wooden grip and stock appeared from behind a scrap car and picked its way carefully across the debris of junk until it was walking towards the two restrained women.
“I’m afraid your knight in shining armour didn’t quite make it in time,” Gillian Davis said in an ironic tone.
Gillian Davis propped up the Browning X Bolt 7mm Hunter rifle against an old refrigerator, and walked over to collect the Sig from where it had fallen. She carefully slid her pen into the barrel and lifted the gun, being careful not to touch it, whist sliding it in to her shoulder bag. She then picked up the knife and swung a hefty kick into Mitchinson’s ribs. He was physically lifted off the floor by the force of it. He landed shaking and sobbing, his life blood seeping into the dust.
“That’s for trying to kill me at the Strand Tube Station, you bastard. I did everything you ever asked of me, you malicious creep.” She steadied herself, ready to deliver another kick, but he cowered away.
“Please, I need medical assistance. I’m dying! You’re better than this, Gilly. You were my wondergirl. Don’t let me die! Please!”
Gillian Davis looked down at what was left of his wrist. The hunting ammunition had exploded the joint, amputated his hand and destroyed the artery, pretty much as she had expected when she loaded 150gram, 7mm hunting ammunition.
“Sorry, Barry,” she said with genuine remorse, “You are already dead. I suggest you make peace with your maker while you still have the chance.”
Barry began weeping openly.
Dee was now concerned for her own safety.
“What about us?” she asked tentatively. “Despite everything, Katie doesn’t deserve to die.”
Gillian looked at her with a puzzled expression, and then she grinned.
“Nor do you, Dee. Do I deserve to die? Well, that’s debatable, and these two are beyond deserving, but you’ve done nothing wrong. All you ever wanted was to find justice for those two sweet people who died at the hands of the Chameleon. Anyway, we don’t have time for this. We need to get you to hospital, and a damn sight quicker than an ambulance would.”
Gillian cut Katie’s bonds and carefully removed her gag. Gillian looked at Katie Norman and saw herself as she might once have been; the innocence, the optimism, the normality.
“Come on, sweetheart. We have to get Dee to the minivan.”
Gillian cut Dee free and took off her own jacket and shirt. Standing there, incongruously, in a lacy blue Victoria’s Secret bra, she tore her Armani shirt into strips and, balling two strips into fist sized pads, she placed one on the bullet entry wound and the other on the exit wound. Dee squirmed. Katie held the pads in place as Gil wrapped the remaining strips of the shirt around Dee’s body to form a bandage. She then removed her belt and tightened it around the makeshift bandage. Gillian then replaced her jacket to preserve a modicum of modesty.