Natasha saw sweat beads covering Lomax’s pale face. His eyes were closed and he appeared to be unconscious. Together they half carried, half lifted his body through the door into the garage.
‘You have one minute to come out with your hands high’ blared the speaker again. ‘I repeat this is a police SWAT team. Do not think of trying to escape.’
Natasha opened the rear car door and they both pushed Lomax into the back. DD ran around the front and jumped into the driver’s seat as Natasha strapped herself in the passenger side.
‘Wait!’ DD jumped out. He ran upstairs to his bedroom and scooped up the memory sticks lying around. There was no need to destroy the hard drives as they were encrypted. He saw that one memory stick was still plugged into a laptop. He removed it quickly and pocketed it along with the others.
He heard the police again, ordering them to leave the house, swiftly followed by Natasha’s shout from below to hurry up.
DD hadn’t the breath to reply. He turned and ran back down the stairs into the garage. On the way down he could see blue flashing lights from the landing window. DD’s mind calmed and focused on the present and what he had to do. He needed a diversion. There was only one person who could help.
‘We should just give ourselves up’ said Natasha, frantic with worry.
‘I need you to create a diversion.’
‘What?’ Natasha was dumbfounded. ‘Why me?’
‘Don’t ask questions, just do what I say!’
Natasha was surprised at the sudden authority in his voice.
‘We don’t have time for chit-chat’ he warned. ‘Just get going.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘When I drive out, you spill the petrol in that can over there. Be sure you are able to get out quickly, then use this lighter to set fire to it. Sneak out the back if you can and meet me at the lock-up. It’s two streets away. Follow the road around to the left, then first right and right again.’
Natasha gritted her teeth as she unbuckled her belt and got out of the car.
That was DD’s signal to get going. He shoved it into auto and slammed on the brake and the accelerator at the same time. The car lurched forward then stopped with a screech. The engine screamed. When it had reached a peak, DD braced himself and let go of the brake. The car shot forward, smashing into the wooden garage door, brushing it aside like a leaf in the wind. There was a brief moment when the air was filled with the mangled scream of tortured metal, then they were through.
A police car blocked off the ramp from the garage. Two other police cars sat either side in the street with their lights flashing. DD wrenched the wheel to the right, taking the car over the front garden and onto the street. In that split second DD heard the pop of rifle shots and then the thwack as rounds hit the side of the car. DD pressed the accelerator to the floor. The wheels spun and the car bucked wildly over the rose beds until meeting the tarmac on the road. As soon as the front wheels caught the hard ground, the car rocketed forward. DD saw the horror and dismay on the men’s faces when they realised how easily DD was making his escape.
As he followed the curve of the street around, he thumped the wheel in a mixture of excitement and relief. He was travelling so fast that he didn’t see the police car blocking the road immediately ahead. He drove straight into the side and Lomax crashed against the back of his seat.
Without thinking, DD reversed in a haze of blue smoke from burning tyres. He yanked the wheel over, changed quickly into first gear and drove around the crippled police car.
Sean listened. He could hear the police over their loud hailer. Lomax was one of the few executives who relished this kind of action and Sean knew he would do everything in his power to prevent the team being taken. But nothing was certain.
On balance Sean felt he should intervene. Alone, Lomax would have no problem evading capture. But he had a student and a civilian in tow and they would slow him down.
Next problem was how to approach the safe house. He could open the throttle of the bike and roar off to the rescue, or go quietly like any other law abiding citizen. If he roared off, he would attract attention more quickly. If he went cautiously, he always had the option to use the power of the bike later to make his escape.
Sean twisted the throttle to the maximum and roared out of the garage on the big bike, heading towards the flames lighting up the night sky. Before reaching the street he took a detour through the grassy stretches between the houses. He wanted to avoid the police cars by approaching the house from the rear. Even following the light from the flames it was easy to take a wrong turning. He had to backtrack twice before picking up a new path. The roar of the motorbike engine was lost under the noise from two fire trucks, sirens wailing at full volume.
Natasha picked up the petrol can and quickly unscrewed the cap. In her unsteady hands some of the petrol spilt onto her jeans and shoes. She sloshed the petrol around, on the ground and over the wooden bench where tools and rags lay scattered. When there was no more petrol she threw the can onto the bench. She noticed some bottles of white spirit which she opened and left on their sides, spilling out clear liquid. The garage began to stink of petrol fumes. Natasha ran over to the rear door, brought the lighter up and flicked it on. She grasped the door handle and threw the lighter onto the floor. The petrol caught alight with a whoosh! Natasha turned the handle, but the door wouldn’t move. It was locked.
Natasha could escape the garage through the doors which DD had blown open. But she would be escaping into the arms of the police.
The flames were so close now she felt a searing heat along one side of her face. She grabbed a wooden trestle standing just two feet away and swung it hard at the big window next to the locked door. The window smashed easily. She kept hold of the trestle and raked the remaining glass away from the bottom of the sill.
A burning cinder landed on her head and for a moment she thought her hair would catch light. She brushed it off roughly, feeling her palm blister as it made contact. She put the trestle down underneath the window, stepped up on it and launched herself through the space, landing on a hard concrete path outside. She was disorientated but the adrenaline surging through her blood stream carried her forward towards freedom. She heard the fire engines above the roaring of the flames and started to follow DD’s directions to the lock-up.
She had taken no more than ten steps when she stopped dead in her tracks. In the narrow alley the noise of the engine was overpowering. Silhouetted in a street light was a massive motorbike. She didn’t recognise Sean until she heard his voice.
‘Hop on, Nat. Let’s get the hell out of here.’
They put DD in a windowless and featureless room where he was kept waiting for two hours. Eventually a tall man wearing a fawn coloured overcoat came in. DD saw drops of rain on the coat. He wondered why there was only one man. Maybe he was their star performer, he thought — or maybe he was the warm-up before the main act.
The man sat down on the opposite side of the metal table and opened the jacket of his suit. Carefully he rested one leg over the other. ‘Evening DD. I hope you’re comfortable?’
DD could not hide his astonishment. How did they know his name? ‘Never felt better’ he said sourly.
‘I expect you thought you’d escaped our police cordon. Perhaps you were beginning to feel pleased with yourself?’
DD’s lips formed a thin line.
‘You must know how we do things in this country. Especially when we’re chasing criminals.’
DD’s expression hardened.
‘We laid on more cars than you thought. Surely you know how we work — after all, haven’t you been studying in one of our finest Universities for the last year?’