In the half-second that it took him to register the large, bleeding lump of raw beef and the cushions arranged under the sheets to look like the shape of a man, the wardrobe door had burst open behind him. The assassin whirled around — straight into the chopping double-handed swing of the cricket bat. It caught him across the temple with a resounding crunch of well-seasoned willow against bone, and he hit the floor in a coma.
Ben tossed the bat away and snatched up the fallen MP5. With a hard stamp of his heel he crushed the assassin’s windpipe. Then he was across the room, through the bedroom door and out on the dark landing. He flew down the stairs, avoiding the gaping hole where he’d half-sawn through the oak treads earlier that day.
The man trapped inside the under-stairs cupboard was struggling furiously and crying out in panic. Ben unbolted the door and shone the tactical light beam of the MP5 in the guy’s face. He was helplessly enmeshed in the barbed wire, thrashing to get free, the black combat clothing lacerated and bloody. Ben flipped the select-fire switch on his weapon to single shots. Put two in the man’s chest and a third between his eyes. The thrashing stopped instantly.
Ben turned away.
If he’d done so a fraction of a second later, he’d have been dead. A line of bullet holes punched through the cupboard door right next to him. Ben felt the sting of splinters and a jarring bullet strike that knocked the machine carbine out of his hand and sent it spinning to the floor.
No time to go after it. Gunfire ripped a line of holes in the wall after him as he dived across the hallway and crashed through into the living room. The third shooter had come in via the front door and now gave chase, flame bursting from the muzzle of his gun. He had the advantage of being able to see almost perfectly in the near-total darkness, but Ben was more familiar with the terrain. Darting into the kitchen he kicked over the sturdy table. Antique pine, knotty and age-hardened and more than two inches thick: Ben hurled himself behind it and felt the high-speed hammering impacts churning up the tabletop as the shooter released another flurry of full-auto fire.
Then, suddenly, the room fell silent — the gunman’s weapon had shot itself empty. Ben didn’t intend to give him time to drop his spent magazine and slam in another from his belt pouch. He leaped out from behind the pockmarked table, reached down to his belt and drew out the slim carving knife he’d taken upstairs earlier that day and hidden in the wardrobe. When you knew you were expecting these kinds of visitors, you wanted to be as prepared as possible. His right hand was tingling violently from where the bullet had impacted against his weapon’s trigger guard, but he could flex his fingers and he knew he hadn’t been hurt.
That could change at any moment, though.
The shooter slung the empty gun behind him and ripped his combat dagger from his leg sheath. The two of them squared up to one other. All Ben could see was a moving patch of deeper black against the darkness of the room.
The black shape suddenly rushed towards him. Ben sensed, rather than saw, the blade come slashing towards his throat, and dodged it at the last instant. The killer advanced two steps, waving his blade this way and that. Ben retreated.
But now Ben had manoeuvred himself into exactly the position he wanted — right beside the double light switch on the wall. He flipped both switches on together.
The sudden glare of light made the assassin’s night-vision goggles wash out and rendered him temporarily blind. Ben darted in, aiming the knife at the gap between the ski-mask and the bullet-proof, stab-proof vest he knew the guy would be wearing under his clothes. The assassin managed to tear off his goggles just in time to evade Ben’s thrust and counter with one of his own. The blades clashed. A brief furious exchange of strikes and blocks, and they backed off. Blood dripped from the assassin’s forearm, but not a lot of blood.
The two men circled one another under the glare of the lights, each trying to anticipate the other’s next move. In a knife fight, cold steel against soft skin and flesh, there was no margin for error. Even a non-lethal cut to a major body part could produce enough of a sudden shock response to incapacitate you for a few critical moments. Then it was all over very quickly.
Ben readied himself. The assassin’s blade came flashing towards him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The pulsating buzz of the phone on the bedside table dragged Egerton Sinclair up from the depths of a dream that was instantly forgotten as he sat up in bed, fumbling for the lamp. He cursed at the time on the bedside clock.
Sinclair carried three mobiles, and he kept them all close by at all times, whether he was at home in Surrey with his wife or here at the luxury apartment he used when he’d been working late or wanted to entertain a lady friend. Only one person in the world could be calling on the phone that was ringing at this moment. And if it was ringing, that meant there’d been complications. His heart began to beat strongly as he answered the call.
‘We got him,’ said the familiar voice on the other end. ‘It’s done.’
The wave of relief Sinclair felt quickly gave way to irritation. ‘Then proceed according to plan. What are you calling me for at three in the bloody morning?’
A pause. Then: ‘Ah, we have a problem.’
Sinclair kicked his legs out from under the sheet and perched on the edge of the bed, waiting for more.
‘Hope wasn’t working alone,’ the voice said.
That didn’t make any sense. ‘So deal with it,’ Sinclair told him. ‘Fast.’
‘Can’t deal with it. I need to meet you.’
Sinclair trusted his associate, based on a catalogue of jobs that had always gone without a hitch in the past, however sensitive or complex. The man’s edgy tone told him that something was definitely amiss — and it wasn’t the kind of matter they could chat about over the phone, no matter how secure the line. Sinclair cupped his forehead in his hand and screwed his eyes shut. ‘Are Ellis and Nash with you?’ he asked.
‘Ellis and Nash are down,’ the associate replied.
Sinclair sprang up from the bed. ‘Roger that. The usual rendezvous point. Can you make it there in thirty minutes?’
‘Copy.’
Sinclair threw on his clothes and rushed out of the apartment. Three floors below in the private car park, he climbed into his Jaguar Sovereign and took off with a nervous screech of tyres.
Twenty-seven minutes later, Sinclair rolled the Jag to a halt under the arches of a crumbling Victorian bridge in a seedy district mainly frequented by crack dealers, well away from the eye of security cameras that haunted most of London. It was nearly quarter to four in the morning and he felt sick with fatigue and tension as he stepped out of the car and approached the black Audi A8 that was parked a few yards away under the gloom of the arch. His right hand was in his coat pocket, clutching the compact CZ 9mm pistol.
He hardly even sensed the movement behind him before he was being slammed into the rough brickwork of the archway and felt the muzzle of a gun pressing into the base of his neck. A hand dived inside his coat pocket and tore the CZ from his grip.
‘Hope!’
‘I’d crack your skull with this,’ Ben said, grinding the muzzle of the MP5 harder into Sinclair’s neck, ‘but it’d mean having to drag you to the car myself. Get walking.’ He grabbed the MI6 agent by the collar and shoved him roughly towards the assassins’ Audi.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Somewhere nice and peaceful where we can have another of our little chats.’ Ben opened the car boot and motioned at the occupant already inside.
‘I think you two know each other.’