“Get it off! Get it off!” whispers Holly.
Ruiz holds a finger to his lips and looks around the room, lifting boxes, opening cupboards, fumes in his head. He tries the bathroom. The sink is broken. A cascade of water runs across the broken ceramics. The mirror-it would take him too long. He has bolt cutters in the car.
Re-entering the bedroom, he catches a glimpse of the Courier at the last moment and pivots to take the first blow on his shoulder. The second comes down on the side of his head. The third crushes his scrotum, sending pain to the center of his brain. The Glock was on the floor next to Holly. He can’t see it. Where has it gone?
He rolls on to his side and puts his hands on the floor, trying to rise but the floor won’t let him up. The butt of a pistol thuds into the side of his head. Barely conscious, he feels himself being dragged across the room. Something closes around his wrists. So this is how it ends, he thinks, a victim of his own stupidity, a sucker for a sob story. One door too many-that’s what they say when someone dies in the Armed Response Group. “One door too many.”
Ruiz opens his eyes. Blood is trickling from his forehead down his nose and over his lips and chin. He is handcuffed to a radiator. Holly is standing in the corner, her thin dress clinging to her frame, the suicide vest still buckled around her torso. Ruiz jerks at the metal cuffs.
“I wouldn’t trouble yourself. It’s a done deal,” says the Courier, who turns a chair backwards. Sits. Legs akimbo. He has a face now, real features. Dressed in black with razor-rimmed hair. Not handsome. Not ugly. Ordinary.
Ruiz has seen him before; he was in the crowd outside Colin Hackett’s office when Ruiz was talking to Gerard Noonan. Now he’s holding a mobile phone in his hand, spinning it like a six-gun.
“In case you’re wondering, that vest contains ball bearings packed around plastic explosive-enough to blow this room apart. When I send a text message it will detonate. The wearer will not have a choice. That’s one of the fail-safes I build into a project like this. I plan for cowardice.”
Ruiz glances at Holly. She nods her head. He’s telling the truth.
“They’re not going to reach London. The police are following the van.”
“I don’t believe you, Mr. Ruiz. If the police were coming, they’d be here by now.”
“Suit yourself.”
The Courier is annoyed by his nonchalance, his lack of respect. The girl knows how to fear him. She knows what he’s capable of.
“I am leaving now,” he says. “Perhaps I shall have to take a hostage as insurance. Who shall it be?”
“Take me,” says Ruiz. “Let her go.”
“Are you begging?”
“I’m asking.”
“Perhaps you should beg.”
“I beg you.”
He glances at Holly and smiles. “This one is in love with you.”
“Maybe I just want a chance to rip out your throat,” says Ruiz.
The Courier laughs. “Oh, you sound so courageous, so heroic, but it’s not bravery if you’re lying on a floor, chained to a radiator. All I hear are empty threats from a hollow man. I know all about you, Mr. Ruiz, and there’s nothing heroic about your history. Your daughter. Your son. Three wives. A failed career. Did you really think you could come in here, without a weapon, and hope to succeed?”
He doesn’t know about the Glock. Holly must have hidden it. Ruiz follows her eyes. She glances at the bed.
The Courier raises his hand. Listens. Sirens. He looks at Ruiz with loathing. Then he grabs Holly and pushes her out the door, pausing to strike the wheel of a cigarette lighter. He crouches and touches the flame to the carpet and a thin blue film shimmers across the floor. Liquid fire. Feeding. Growing.
The door closes. A padlock clicks into place.
Ruiz tries to pull his hand through the cuff. Ripping one arm back, he almost dislocates his wrist. He gets to his feet, leans backwards, arms outstretched and jerks against the chain, bellowing in pain. He lies on his back, kicking at the radiator, and then hooks his fingers over the top, rocking it back and forth.
The fire has spread from the floor to boxes of curtains in the next room and the bedding. Smoke is filling the ceiling space. Toxic fumes.
He yells for help. Screams in frustration. Someone is rattling the padlock on the door. He yells again, but fire whooshes across a mattress, drowning out the sound.
Then he hears a car engine, a familiar rumbling. Someone is revving the Merc, letting off the clutch, taking aim. The front wall of the room explodes inwards and part of the ceiling collapses on to the bonnet. Luca is sitting behind the fractured windscreen, slumped sideways with blood pooling in his lap.
The impact shakes the entire building. Plaster crumbles and pipes bend. Ruiz rocks the radiator again and this time pulls it clear off the wall. His wrists are still cuffed, but he’s free.
Luca puts the Merc into reverse and spins the wheels, pulling over broken bricks and plaster, using one arm to drive. Ruiz scrambles across the room and reaches beneath the bed, feeling blindly for the Glock. His fingers close around the grip.
Climbing over the debris he tries to open Luca’s door, but the impact has bent the frame, trapping him inside. Ruiz sees the blood.
“I’ll be fine. Just go,” Luca yells. “They went through the back fence.”
Ruiz crosses the forecourt and runs along the chain-link fence, looking for a gate or a hole. He peers into the freight yard to where spotlights create pools of light between rows of containers. He can hear them moving across the screed. The Courier is yelling at Holly to hurry up. Cursing her.
Ruiz aims the Glock with both hands, bracing the barrel in the diamond of the mesh fence. They are visible for a moment as they pass between rows of containers. Silhouettes. Two figures, Holly the smallest, being dragged along behind him. Squeezing the trigger, Ruiz fires six rounds in a row, the brass casings flicking past his eyes. He releases the empty magazine and shoves in a fresh one.
The Courier has never been in the military. He’s never been taught to stay off the crest of hills and embankments and never to run in a straight line when someone is aiming a gun at you.
Ruiz waits, scanning the broken edge of the horizon. There they are. Aim. Squeeze. Fire. The Courier spins sideways and falls. Holly goes down with him, disappearing from sight.
Police cars are screeching to a halt outside the motel, bathing the windows in blue and white. The first officers are wearing body armor and carrying weapons. One of them yells at Ruiz to drop his gun.
Ruiz is scanning the fence line, looking for a way through.
“Drop your weapon, or I’ll shoot,” the officer shouts.
Ruiz raises his arms and throws the Glock to the ground.
“They’re getting away! He’s got a hostage!”
Finally he sees where the wire has been cut and peeled back from the metal posts. Dropping to his hands and knees, he crawls through, ignoring the orders of the policeman. Up again, running, he crosses the trolley tracks, heading towards the freight yard.
The motel is eighty yards behind him when he reaches the ridge where he last saw Holly. He notices blood on the rocks and weeds, a dark stain like fungus or rust.
Ruiz doesn’t stay on top of the ridge. He drops down and scans the rows of metal boxes, stacked four and five units high. The Courier is hiding somewhere among them. Wounded. Bleeding. He’s still with Holly.
The next fifty yards is open ground. Ruiz decides to run for it, huffing air in his nostrils, feeling like an elephant rather than a gazelle.
Someone like the Courier is trained for this. His reflexes. His instincts. No conscience. No guilt. What will he do if he’s cornered… if he can’t run? He’ll fight. He’ll die. He’ll take Holly with him.