"Oh, yeah?"
"Yep. Ellis's major problem was that he never got round to telling his paymasters he was insured." Greg slowed as the car in front turned off on to the sliproad for the bridge ahead, then accelerated again as the cutting walls rose on either side.
Gabriel said: "I still don't think Ellis would take such—"
The front nearside tyre blew out.
The Duo veered violently to the left, straight towards the near-vertical slope of the cutting. Greg saw sturdy grey-white saplings, impaled in the headlight beams, lurching towards him. The steering wheel twisted, wrenching at his hands, nearly breaking his grip. He jerked it back as hard as he could, with little or no effect. The Duo's three remaining tyres fought for traction on the coarse cellulose surface. It was slewing sideways, screeching hard. A flamboyant fan of orange sparks unfolded across the offside window. That alpine-steep incline was sliding across the windscreen, rushing up on the side of the Duo. Horribly close. They'd spun nearly full circle and Greg could feel the tilt beginning as the car began to turn turtle. Then there was a boneshaker impact, a damp thud, and they were disorientatingly, motionless. Silence crashed down.
Soon broken.
"Shitfire," Gabriel yelped. She was staring wild-eyed out of the windscreen, drawing breath in juddering gulps. "I didn't know!" She whipped round to look at him, frantic, frightened, entreating. Which was something he'd never ever seen in her before. And that alarmed him more than the blow-out.
"I didn't know, Greg! There was nothing. Nothing, flick it! Do you understand?"
"Calm down."
"Nothing!"
"So what! You're tired, and I'm knackered. It's only a bloody tyre gone pop, small wonder you didn't see it. Non-event." Even as he spoke he could feel some submerged memory struggling for recognition. Something about the tyre performance guarantee. Puncture-proof? That bonded silicon rubber was tough stuff.
Thankfully, Gabriel subsided into a feverish silence; eyelids tightly shuttered, mind roaming ahead. Did she suffer visions of her gland pumping furiously? He'd never asked.
Greg concentrated on his hands, still clenching the wheel, white-knuckled. They wouldn't let go.
What appeared to be a eucalyptus branch was lying across the windscreen. Its purple and grey leaves shone dully in the waning rouge emissions from the office block's sign.
Looking out of his side window he could see the bridge nearly directly overhead. They'd only just missed crashing into the concrete support wall.
"Greg—" Gabriel said in a low frightened moan.
Upright shapes were moving purposefully through the dusky shadows outside the sharp cone of light thrown by the Duo's one remaining headlight.
Greg stared disbelievingly at them for one terrible drawn-out second. "Out!" he shouted, His door opened easily enough and he was diving out, racing for the back of the Duo. A mini-avalanche of loose earth and gravel had digested the rear of the car. His hands flapped across his dinner jacket, hitting every pocket. Panicking. Trying to remember where the fuck he'd left the Armscor stunshot.
There were three of them approaching; two men, one woman. Walking down the middle of the road with a glacial panache, cool and unhurried. A confidence that'd tilted over into sublime arrogance.
The Armscor had gone, swept away by the tide of pitiful sloppiness he was screwing his life with. Given it to Victor? Suzi? Left it in Walshaw's office?
He stuck his head above the Duo's roof, ducking down quickly. The ambush team was closing in remorselessly, empty silhouettes against that idiotic phallic sign and its happy floating Disney projections. They were still carefully avoiding the headlight beam.
Gabriel's door was jammed up against the earth of the cutting; her frantic shoving couldn't budge it more than halfway open. The gap wasn't nearly large enough for her bulk.
One of the men levelled a slender long-barrelled rifle at her. Greg squirreled away his profile: leather trousers tucked into calf-high lace-up boots, last-century camouflage jacket, blind plastic band of a photon amp clinging to his face, designer stubble, small pony tail.
"Mine," the man said.
A narrow streak of liquid green flame spewing from the end of the rifle, and Gabriel was jerking about epileptically.
Greg turned and ran for the slope of crumbling earth, clawing at the dense treacherous scrub lassoing his legs, keeping low. The eucalyptus saplings were neatly pruned, a bulbous flare of foliage on top and bare slim boles, providing a meagre cover. He grabbed hold of them in a steady swinging rhythm, hauling himself upwards, feet scrabbling for purchase. The embankment seemed to stretch out for ever. It was an animal flight. Blind instinct, equating the sliproad at the top of the embankment with the grail of sanctuary. Pathetic, some minute core of sanity mocked.
"There," came the triumphant shout from below.
The shot caught him three metres short of the summit, where the saplings and scrub had given way to a bald mat of grass which bordered the sliproad. The pain seared down his nerves like a lava flow. He saw his arms windmilling insanely, fingers extended like albino starfish.
As he fell there was just one question looping through his brain. Why hadn't Gabriel known?
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Greg woke to find he couldn't move. His toes and fingers were tingling, not so much pins and needles as pokers and knives; the aftermath of a stunshot charge. Arms and legs ached dully. Guts knotted tight, rumbling ominously. A livid collection of aggravated bruises and scrapes.
His cortical node prevented the worst peaks of neural fire from stabbing into his brain, but the cumulative effect was atrocious.
He opened his eyes, seeing greyness distorted by octagonal splash patterns. His whole body was quivering now, drumming against whatever hard surface he was lying on. The tingling bloomed into a sandpaper rasp which the cortical node hurriedly muted.
Consciousness seemed like nothing but constant suffering. He instructed the node to disengage his nerves altogether. Sensation fell away, leaving him alone in grey nothingness. He closed his eyes and slept.
At the second awakening his thoughts were clearer. He'd stopped bucking, still on his back and unable to move. Genuine tactile sensation had replaced the tingling. The surface he was lying on was vibrating faintly. Heavy machinery, somewhere not too far away. A stifled monotonous hum backed the supposition.
He opened his eyes again, focusing slowly.
Gabriel was lying beside him, shuddering, in the throes of stunshot backlash. Her mouth gaped, drooling beads of saliva.
Greg tried to reach out to her, found his hands were immobilised under his back. There was a rigid bracelet about each wrist, bolted to the floor; it was the same for his ankles.
Bloody uncomfortable.
They were in a small empty compartment, metal walls, metal floor, metal ceiling. Painted grey. The only light was coming through a grille in the door.
Greg blinked at that door, haunted by its familiarity. It was rectangular with curved corners, fastened by bulky latches. The last time he'd seen that particular arrangement was on board the Mirriam. "Oh, shit." And under way too, by the sound of it.
Thinking logically, they'd have to be heading down the Nene. Or up? No, the river wasn't deep enough to take the Mirriam west of Peterborough. The Wash and the open sea, then.
Next question: Why?
Not just to dump them overboard. There were far simpler ways to dispose of bodies. Besides Kendric had gone to a great deal of trouble snatching them alive.
Nothing pleasant, hundred per cent cert.
"Greg?" Gabriel's voice was tiny, fearful. "Greg, it's gone."