'You fucking liar,' Neville snarled, taking a step back towards the bike.
Doyle shook his head. 'She's Baxter's kid. Trust me.'
The gunshot was deafening.
It was followed by another and another.
Bullets struck the pavement and screamed away, ricocheting off the concrete.
Doyle lurched backwards.
Neville leaped towards the bike, both men looking up, towards the direction of the shots.
Towards the roar of rotor blades.
The police helicopter descended slowly, hovering barely fifty feet above the ground.
The air was suddenly filled with the crackle of firearms.
7.37 P.M.
Doyle had dropped to his knees when the first shot struck the ground, pulling Lisa with him, but she shook loose and scrambled to her feet, running towards Neville who was already at the Harley Davidson.
He dragged open the top box and pulled the Steyr MPi 69 free, his finger jerking on the trigger.
The staccato rattle of automatic fire filled the air as he sprayed the ground close to Doyle, bullets singing up from the pavement.
As Doyle ducked down, amazed that he hadn't been hit by the fusillade, he heard the roar of the Harley's engine, even over the droning rotors of the Lynx.
There was a scream of spinning rubber and, for a long moment, the bike seemed to hover on its churning wheels, motionless.
Doyle raised the Beretta and squeezed the trigger, three shots blasting off in quick succession, the automatic slamming back against the heel of his hand.
Then, the Tour Glide's wheels gained purchase and it shot off as if fired from a cannon.
Doyle scrambled to his feet and fired off two more shots at the speeding bike, ducking involuntarily as the helicopter suddenly roared over his head, also in pursuit of Neville.
Lisa was lying on the pavement sobbing.
Doyle pulled her to her feet, saw that there was blood on her cheek.
A tiny sliver of concrete, blasted free by a bullet, had cut her skin.
Otherwise there seemed to be no damage. She just stood there sobbing uncontrollably.
Frank Mallory saw her as he ran towards the two figures, shouting something which Doyle couldn't make out.
He saw the man in the flannel shirt gesturing towards him but he didn't hear what he shouted. He had other things on his mind.
Neville was already halfway up the Mall by now, the helicopter still in pursuit, hurtling along so low it seemed to brush the tops of the trees which lined the thoroughfare.
Traffic travelling in both directions slowed down, mesmerised or terrified by the spectacle.
Doyle ran into the road, the Beretta still gripped in his fist.
The driver of a Cortina slammed on his brakes in an effort to avoid this madman, the car skidding, missing Doyle by inches.
Two more cars behind him also slowed up, one of them bumping the back of the Cortina.
It was the vehicle behind that which Doyle wanted.
The driver of the red Nissan 200 SX was in his late thirties, smartly dressed and, when he saw Doyle running towards his car, he immediately slapped on the central locking.
His companion, a young woman in her late twenties with long hair and an impossibly tight black dress, screamed as she saw the leather-jacketed, long-haired man approaching the driver's side. She realised instantly he was carrying a gun. She'd seen enough Sylvester Stallone pictures to recognise one when it was waved at her.
'Get out the fucking car,' shouted Doyle, levelling the Beretta at the driver.
Neither occupant moved.
Doyle fired once, the bullet shattering the side window.
The glass fractured, splintered and sprayed inwards.
The counter terrorist punched through what was left of it and yanked up the locking depressor, tugging at the handle, then grabbing the driver, hurling him into the street.
'Get out!' Doyle shouted at the woman who was still screaming.
She tumbled out of the passenger door, one of her high heels skittering across the pavement behind her.
Doyle floored the accelerator, twisting the wheel, allowing the car to complete a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn.
A van travelling in the other direction struck the rear of the Nissan, shattering a back light, but Doyle pressed down harder on the right-hand pedal and the SX roared off up the Mall.
He could see Neville up ahead of him, weaving in and out of traffic, the helicopter skimming low as it followed him.
Doyle jammed the Beretta into his belt, using both hands to grip the steering wheel.
He slammed into the side of a blue car in the opposite lane, ripping off a wing mirror, the squeal of metal on metal almost deafening. Paint was stripped from the nearside of the Nissan as surely as if someone had attacked it with a blow torch.
Ahead of him, Neville swung right into Marlborough Road, cutting across the path of a taxi, which was forced to mount the pavement to avoid him.
The helicopter banked right too and Doyle heard another shot.
What were those dozy fuckers playing at?
As he himself sent the Nissan screaming around t he bend, the needle of the speedo touched fifty.
The car barely held the road.
Doyle fought and regained control of the wheel.
Air from the shattered window gushed in, sending his hair flying behind him like incensed reptilian tails, but he cared about nothing except that motorbike rider ahead of him.
Doyle pressed down even harder on the accelerator and eased the automatic free.
He was ready.
7.42 P.M.
'This wasn't supposed to happen,' PC Duncan Clark panted, gripping the back of his seat as the helicopter swung low between two buildings before rising sharply again, always following the fleeing motorbike.
'We were told to get Neville,' Butler reminded him. 'We've got to.'
The pilot looked down at the small infra-red image showing on the console beside him, checking that Neville was still within their reach.
The Lynx was flying at around a hundred feet, rising and dipping where necessary, McBride constantly aware of the proximity of so many buildings.
Neville was roaring up St James's Street now, hunched low over his handlebars, the Harley Davidson swerving in and out of traffic as if it were on some kind of maniacal slalom.
Butler pulled the HK81 up to his shoulder once more and squinted into the telescopic sight, trying to draw a bead on Neville.
'Take her down a little.'
'I can't take her any further, we'll hit something,' McBride told the marksman.
Butler tried to hold the rifle steady. His finger pressed more firmly on the trigger as he waited until he had Neville squarely in the cross-threads of the sight.
The bike veered left slightly and Butler lifted his finger from the trigger.
'Jesus,' he snarled. 'I can't get a clear shot.'
Clark was breathing hard, his heart pounding madly against his ribs.
He raised his own rifle and drew a bead on Neville.
He tried to swallow but it felt as if someone had filled his throat with chalk.
There were so many other vehicles in the road. So many other targets he might hit by accident.
Dare he shoot?
He kept the rifle pressed to his shoulder.
The chopper dipped low once more.
As Doyle roared along in pursuit of Neville, he could see the Lynx above him, drifting up and down like some toy dangled on a string. Many of the pedestrians he sped past had stopped to look at the spectacle hurtling past them, marvelling at the wildly moving helicopter and the speeding motorcycle it pursued.
Fucking police, Doyle thought angrily.
They were told to keep out of it.
Without their interference he'd have got Neville.