There were eyes on them. Colt smiled, like he and his friend were just happy to have caught the bus. The bus turned away from the terminal and headed for the tunnel. There was his luck. He had his hand under Bissett's armpit, because he thought that if he let go his grip the man might spill down into the aisle of the bus.
Into the first five minutes, into the gaudy orange light of the tunnel. At the roundabout at the end of the tunnel, as they emerged, Colt saw the first police cars, the first blue revolving lights, and the first sirens, bullocking into the traffic heading into the tunnel and towards the terminals. Colt saw that the bus swung up the hill, going left. Distance was what counted. Past the fire station… He saw, out through the grimed windows of the bus, the lines of the cars in the long-term parks. The conductor was halfway down the steps to the upper deck of the bus. They were in traffic themselves, dawdling at perhaps ten miles an hour. Colt was on the tail platform. He didn't tell Bissett. If he had told Bissett then the man might have hung on to something. He had hold of Bissett's arm again, and he jumped, and he took Bissett with him. Colt was on his feet, and Bissett was sprawled, half on the pavement and half in the road, and there was a squeal as the car following the bus braked to miss them. They ran what would have been close to 150 yards, and all the time they ran Bissett was failing. They went into the long-term park.
Into the first 30 minutes… The car started. Colt had Bissett in the passenger seat. He told Bissett to take off his coat, shove it under the seat, and to help Colt get out of his own jacket, and put that too under the seat. He screamed the car towards the exit. Colt took a hand off the wheel and snatched Bissett's spectacles from his face. He paid off the attendant. He muttered something about leaving his passport at home, that was how he explained his coming out with only eighteen minutes on his ticket. There were more blue lights and sirens on the perimeter road, and a police van passed them, going up the wrong side, and then swerved at the airport exit filter to go half across the road. It was six, seven, minutes since they had crashed out of the terminal. Colt was calm. They would have had descriptions, clothes and hair and spectacles. Nothing he could do about the hair, and he had done something about the coat colours and something about Bissett's glasses. He saw the faces of the two young policemen who had been in the blocking van, and they didn't seem to know what they were at, and the one had his ear cocked to his radio on the collar of his tunic. Another minute, another 90 seconds, and they might not have made it out. He was waved through.
He didn't speak.
He wriggled in his seat, he moved his hip so that he could get the pistol clear of his belt, and he laid it on his lap. He heard the deep and sharp panting of Bissett's breath, like the man was in crisis.
Colt was hammering for the motorway.
If Erlich had gone faster, straight off, then he might have made it through before the block was set on the east side perimeter road, close to Cargo.
He had not gone fast. Rutherford was dead. Christ Almighty.
Dead before he could reach him, hold his wrist, his head. Oh no, oh Jesus..!
What he remembered of the terminal, coming out of the concourse, hitting the night air, with the big red bus pulling away in front of him, was that sound had slipped back to his ears. He had heard a woman screaming, and he had realised that he still held the Smith and Wesson in his hand, and he had heard the placid voice of the announcer over the speakers. There had been a woman screaming, and he had holstered the revolver, and the announcer had been giving the final call, last call, for passengers on Gulf Airlines to Bahrain and Dubai. He could remember that… He had shot a colleague, and they were calling for the passengers for the flight to Bahrain and Dubai.
He might have been delayed more, but he showed the uniformed officers his F. B. I. I/D. They wouldn't have gotten round yet to worrying about Bill Erlich. Their airwaves would have been full of Colt's description, and what Bissett was wearing… but he wasn't ready for thinking yet, because of the great sickness in his stomach and the numbness in his mind. He was William David Erlich, born May 7th, 1958, son of Gerry Erlich and Marianne (Erlich) Mason, Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and he could not think straighter than a bent dime because he had shot James Rutherford dead, and he had left him. So little of it that he could remember, the shooting. The blurred and fast-moving shape of Colt, "Freeze," he remembered his roar and the lumbering outline of Rutherford…
He had shot pretty Penny Rutherford's man. He knew where he had to go.
What Hobbes saw first was the slack line of the white tape.
He elbowed his way through the quiet and staring crowds. He flashed his card, he bent under the tape. They had not even covered the body. He was careful to avoid the three cartridge cases on the concourse floor. A dozen long strides from the body was a suitcase and a grip bag.
He asked what had happened.
He was told. There were two Branch men who had seen it all and had the crack of emotion in their voices.
The taller Branch man said, "It was really difficult, it was so quick. We didn't know what we were looking for until your man yelled out. There was a fair-haired man, mid-twenties. He had a smaller man with him, glasses and raincoat. They were with two Arabs… "
The other Branch man said, "They were close to the check-in on the delayed Iraqi flight. They train you for this, it's nothing like the training when it happens… "
" O h, God… " t h e taller Branch man mouthed.
"Spit it out," Hobbes demanded.
" W e had a photograph, about two weeks back. Iraqi link.
English… "
" O h, Christ," the shorter Branch man seemed to crumple.
"There's an all airport and all port watch."
Venom in Hobbes's voice. "Just go back to bloody sleep. He's Colin Olivier Louis T u c k. "
Hobbes walked away from them. The equation was sharp in his mind. Colt was with the Iraqis, Bissett was with the Iraqis, Colt was with Bissett. And wasn't life simple, when the light shone on it?
Hobbes spoke fast over his personal radio. He repeated himself three, four times, so that at Curzon Street there was no possibility of a further mistake. Colt was the name he gave over and over again, and the flat statement that he would strangle those responsible, himself and with his own hands, if every airport and every ferry port in Great Britain did not have the photograph of Colt out on the Emigration Desk.
He went back to the Branch men.
Hobbes gave the taller of them the name of Dan Ruane and his office number.
"I want him here. I want him here immediately… God, what a shambles."
He was told what was in place, where the blocks had been set.
He was told it was 29 minutes since the shooting. He was shown where the fair-haired man with the pistol, Colt, had fled, taking Bissett with him, through the concourse door. He was told that the American had followed him out, gone after them.
He stood a few paces from the body. He could hear Barker's