Eddie pulled himself upright to see the Removal Man readying an MP5K, a compact — but still deadly — sub-machine gun. He took aim again, this time at the Range Rover’s driver. Time to end the pursuit—
He fired — but the round glanced off the windscreen. The glass was bulletproof.
The Routemaster’s was not. ‘Roy, get upstairs!’ Eddie yelled, running back up the central aisle. Roy hurriedly scrambled to the forward staircase as the Yorkshireman dived flat—
The SMG blazed, the gunman hosing the bus with gunfire. Bullets ripped through the cabin. Roy shrieked as a round burst through the panel behind him and cracked against the stairs between his legs. He flung himself up the last few steps on to the top deck, clutching the laptop.
Nina heard the bullet strike behind the driver’s compartment. She ducked, but knew she was hopelessly exposed in her elevated position. Her pursuers had realised this as well, the Range Rover reappearing in the surviving mirror and pulling out to overtake.
She threw the wheel to the right. The bus tipped again as it crossed on to the wrong side of the road. The Range Rover dropped back. She straightened — but not quickly enough, clipping a car. The windscreen cracked.
‘Nina!’ Eddie shouted. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Yeah!’ Where were their attackers? No sign of them in the mirror—
Another burst of gunfire blew out the left-side windows. Eddie lunged under a seat as glass cascaded around him. Nina gasped and hunched down again. The Range Rover drew level with the Routemaster’s tail. If she swung left again, she could force it to crash—
A thump from behind — and she caught movement on one of the CCTV monitors. To her shock, she saw that the bus had a new passenger. The man in the Range Rover’s back seat had thrown himself on to the rear platform.
He still had his sub-machine gun. Eddie snapped up his own weapon—
The man rushed up the curving staircase. The Yorkshireman fired, but hit only metal as his target ran out of sight. ‘Roy!’ he cried, rising and pounding up the forward stairs. ‘He’s coming after you! He wants the laptop!’
He reached the stairwell’s top, looking over the banister — and hurriedly ducked as the Removal Man saw him and unleashed a burst of bullets. Panels splintered above him. He popped his gun arm around the corner at floor level, sending two rounds down the upper deck. The other man hurled himself on to one of the rear seats, disappearing from sight. Eddie tracked him and fired again, but the bullet didn’t have enough power to penetrate all the intervening seat backs.
And now he was out of ammo—
The MP5K rose above the seats and swung in his direction, the Removal Man blind-firing — but only a few rounds lanced up the bus before the clamour of gunfire was replaced by a dry click.
Eddie knew he only had moments before his opponent reloaded. He charged down the aisle. The Removal Man had already ejected the magazine and inserted a new one, springing up to fire—
The Yorkshireman hurled his empty pistol at him. The MP5K snapped up to deflect it, metal clanking off metal — then the savage little gun came around—
Eddie dived over the seats to hit the other man in a flying tackle, knocking his gun arm away. The MP5K went off, a spray of bullets tearing through the bus’s side and shattering a shop window on the street beyond.
‘Roy, get downstairs!’ he yelled. The younger man hurriedly retreated as Eddie prepared to unleash a headbutt—
His adversary beat him to it.
A piercing pain drove through Eddie’s upper jaw as a tooth cracked. ‘You fucker!’ he roared, anger powering his fist into the other man’s nose. Cartilage crunched, blood spurting. The younger man grunted… but didn’t go down.
They grappled, lumbering into the aisle. The Removal Man twisted to pitch his target down the rear stairs. Eddie kicked out, catching the safety barrier surrounding the stairwell and propelling both men away from it. His opponent staggered, briefly unbalanced. The Yorkshireman spun, grabbing the other man’s gun arm and slamming his wrist against a pole.
The MP5K clattered to the floor. Both men tried to lunge for it while simultaneously forcing the other away. They thumped back and forth against the seats, reeling forward as they struggled for the upper hand…
Eddie realised to his dismay that he wouldn’t win the contest of raw muscle power. The GB63 member had been through the same special forces training as himself, and more besides after joining the ultra-secret unit — and was both younger and stronger.
Instead he shifted position — and kicked the gun. It skittered up the aisle to the front of the deck, well out of reach.
But the action had saved him from one danger only to expose him to another. His movement gave his opponent extra leverage — and the other man took advantage, forcing him forward and driving his head against another vertical handrail.
If the pain of his broken tooth was piercing, this felt more like being struck by a mallet. Eddie staggered, impossible colours exploding in his vision before clearing — to reveal the Removal Man lunging again. A fist rushed at his face. He jerked up one arm to take the blow, but a second strike thumped into his stomach.
He gasped, stumbling into the front stairwell’s safety barrier. Another brutal punch winded him — then a hand clamped around his throat.
The man bent him back over the barrier, fingers tightening like steel cords. Eddie lashed at his head, but scored only glancing impacts. He choked as his enemy’s remorseless grip squeezed his airways closed.
The Removal Man pushed harder, about to pitch him head first down the stairs—
The bus tipped violently, flinging both men away from the stairwell.
Nina had seen on the CCTV monitor that her husband was in grave danger and threw the Routemaster sharply to the right, making a tyre-squealing turn down a side street. Roy yelped as he was hurled sideways. He checked the laptop’s connections. ‘If the cable comes unplugged I might have to start from scratch!’ he complained. ‘By the way: ninety-nine per cent!’
‘Hold it in place with your damn teeth if you have to!’ she shouted back. Another glance at the screen. Eddie had broken free, but the SIS assassin still had the upper hand — and foot, delivering a savage kick to the Yorkshireman’s stomach. Eddie fell back on a seat, his head banging against the window. She gasped.
The Removal Man straightened as if to attack again — then saw something on the floor.
The MP5K was a sinister black shadow at the bottom of the monitor.
Nina looked desperately ahead, but the new street was much narrower than the main road; any turn harsh enough to knock him down would send the bus head-on into a lamp post or parked car. And the Range Rover was still behind them. If they stopped, they would be shot dead…
A large red-brick apartment building rose on the left. A driveway ran to it — and through it, a tall arched passage leading to another road beyond.
The Removal Man snatched up the gun—
Nina was already turning the steering wheel before her conscious mind could object to the crazy plan. The bus demolished the end of a low wall, the Routemaster bounding over the rubble on to the driveway.
She accelerated, foot to the floor. The bus jolted back towards the vertical. On the monitor, the Removal Man had grabbed a seat for support, but was now recovering. He faced Eddie, raising the sub-machine gun…
The archway was just big enough to accommodate the bus — if it went straight through the middle. Nina instead steered to one side. ‘Eddie! Low bridge!’