Eddie heard her and rolled to the floor—
The Routemaster ploughed into the brickwork.
Masonry smashed and metal tore, the entire frame of the heavy front window ripping loose and slamming across the SIS agent’s back. He fell, broken bricks pummelling him.
Eddie shielded his face from flying rubble, then scrambled upright as Nina swung the bus back into the centre of the arched passage. The mangled section of roof crashed to the ground as they burst back into the open.
The Routemaster ploughed through a set of iron gates on to the next street, Nina making another hard right turn. Wind hit Eddie’s face through the gaping hole in the bus’s front. He looked for the Removal Man’s MP5K. It was teetering at the top of the stairs.
The SIS man also saw it. He lunged—
Eddie stamped on his hand. He screeched in pain. The Yorkshireman snatched up the weapon — then twisted to kick him hard in the face with a hideous snap of breaking teeth. The younger man slumped nervelessly to the floor.
Gunshots from behind. Windows on the lower deck shattered as Nina swerved frantically from side to side. Eddie ran back down the bus. Below, he saw the Range Rover pulling alongside, the fourth man leaning from a window with another MP5K. The sub-machine gun blazed again, strafing the Routemaster’s flank—
Eddie’s weapon joined in the staccato chorus. The gunman fell screaming back into the SUV with bloody wounds in his arm and shoulder. The Yorkshireman switched aim, knowing the windows were bulletproof — but gambling that not every part of the vehicle was similarly strengthened…
His shots tore into the roof.
The Range Rover was indeed not impenetrable from above. The rounds hit the driver in the legs and hip. The black vehicle abruptly fell back, weaving — then struck a parked car and cartwheeled over it, smashing down on its side.
Eddie hurried down the stairs. ‘Nina! Roy! You both okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ Nina replied breathlessly. The window beside her had been shattered.
‘Oh my God!’ cried Roy. ‘That guy tried to kill us! What happened to him?’
‘I took him out,’ said Eddie.
‘He’s dead?’
‘No, but I hope MI6’s cafeteria has plenty of soup options, ’cause it’s all he’ll be eating for a while. What about the laptop?’
The young man checked. ‘Well, it’s still working, somehow, but — oh!’ A ping came from the machine. ‘One hundred per cent. Good timing!’
‘It’s finished?’ asked Nina.
‘Yah, yah.’
‘Great — but which way do we go?’
Roy looked ahead. ‘I’m not sure where we are — no, there!’ He pointed. ‘Right, then left straight away. I can see the river!’
Nina braked to bring the battered bus through a junction, then immediately turned again to swing it on to a tree-lined road along the Thames’s northern bank. She saw a bridge crossing the river about half a mile ahead. ‘Can we get to the US embassy from there?’
Roy nodded. ‘That’s Chelsea Bridge — the embassy’s in Nine Elms on the other side.’
‘Still got to reach it,’ Eddie warned. ‘There’s probably another half a dozen cars of goons on the way already.’
‘Roy, check if the video’s there,’ Nina said, blasting the horn and swinging the bus around a knot of dawdling traffic.
He quickly checked the newly recovered directory. ‘The most recent file is… an MP4, about two gigabytes, last changed… four days ago.’
‘That’s got to be it,’ said Eddie. ‘Play it!’
Roy double-clicked the file. Eddie watched as a video started. Nothing but blackness for several tense seconds, making him worry that the file had been corrupted… then lights came into view.
They were inside the ceremonial chamber beneath the Palace Without Entrance, the drone descending towards it. Inside, he saw shadows cast by movement in front of the lanterns — then figures came into view.
Himself, Nina… and Brice.
‘We’ve got video,’ he told his wife, before looking back at Roy. ‘Turn it right up, we need to hear.’
Roy set the laptop’s volume to maximum. Echoing voices became audible. ‘Cosmic rays, maybe,’ said Brice. ‘Something that can penetrate so deeply.’
Eddie looked up from the screen. ‘We’ve got it. We’ve got it — and we’ve got him!’
Nina spotted cars slowing on the bridge ahead — and moving aside to clear a path for something coming up from behind them. ‘Roy, have you still got that flash drive?’ Having seen several USB sticks on his desk, she had suggested he bring one.
He checked his pocket. ‘Yah, it’s here.’
‘Copy the file on to it.’
‘Why?’
‘Because a flash drive’s a lot harder to break than a laptop! Eddie, bad guys on the bridge.’
Eddie hefted the sub-machine gun and hurried up the front stairs. ‘If they stop us, we’re dead,’ he called back to Nina. ‘Keep going no matter what!’
He made sure the Removal Man was still unconscious by kicking him again, then went to the front of the top deck. Another black Range Rover was tearing across Chelsea Bridge. It reached the shore and made a screeching turn through a crossroads to power down the embankment towards them.
He readied the gun, expecting a gunman to lean out — but instead the SUV skidded to a halt across the middle of the road. Other drivers heading in each direction stopped in alarm as a man jumped out and took up position behind it, aiming a gun — an MP5, the full-size, more powerful version of Eddie’s own weapon — over its bonnet.
With traffic halted, there was no way around the obstruction. ‘Eddie, what do I do?’ Nina cried.
‘Go through ’em!’ he yelled. ‘Ramming speed!’
‘Roy, keep down!’ Nina shouted as she dropped as low as she could. The speedometer needle rose again—
The man behind the Range Rover opened fire. Nina screamed as the windscreen blew apart — but held her course, foot jammed down on the pedal. Eddie retaliated, bullets twanging off the SUV’s windows and bodywork. The man ducked as people nearby fled their cars.
But the MP5K had already exhausted its ammo. Eddie dropped it, bracing himself as the bus surged towards the Range Rover.
The gunman sprang up again — to see a wall of red charging straight at him. He broke and ran—
The Range Rover’s driver also realised what was about to happen and threw his vehicle into reverse — but too late.
The bus hit the Range Rover’s front quarter at over fifty miles per hour. The SUV was flung around in a mad pirouette, swatting the running man over an abandoned car before smashing into it.
Nina raised her head, squinting into the wind. What had been the platform inside the bus’s front passenger door was now folded upwards like crumpled paper, mangled bodywork embedded in it. But the bus was still moving, the long overhang having protected the front wheels. ‘Is everyone okay?’ she shouted as she turned towards the bridge.
‘Somehow, yah,’ said Roy, sounding surprised.
‘More of ’em!’ Eddie yelled from above.
There was indeed another 4x4 charging towards them. ‘What, does MI6 have an infinite supply of Range Rovers?’ Nina protested.
Too late to turn back. The oncoming SUV braked hard and angled up on to the kerb at the start of the span to block her way, its nose against the sloping metal barrier separating the roadside from the footpath. A window lowered, another MP5 poking out.
The bus roared towards it. ‘Hold on!’ Nina cried—
The Routemaster smashed into the Range Rover.
The impact slammed the 4x4 up the barrier — and over its top, sending it cartwheeling across the pavement into the bridge’s railings. It burst through them and plunged into the murky waters of the Thames forty feet below.