Luckily the shot knocked the cop off balance, but he didn’t go down. He readied himself in the space of half a second and started firing again as Fox’s last bullet, now aimed at the guy’s head to avoid the body armour, missed him. Only then did a burst of automatic gunfire from somewhere out in the woods finally send the cop sprawling to the ground.
Scrambling to his feet, Fox grabbed the key to the handcuffs from the second dead cop and unlocked them with a remarkably steady hand.
He was free.
As the van’s rear doors flew open, Tina saw two armed officers come stumbling out amid a series of gunshots from inside. One of the officers grabbed his leg as he was hit, and fell against the bonnet of the car Tina had been travelling in before falling to the tarmac so that he was facing her, his face etched with pain as he tried to wriggle round the front of the car to safety. The other officer turned round so he was facing the van and managed to get off a few shots before he was hit by a stream of automatic gunfire from somewhere in the trees. He dropped his weapon and fell to the ground too, momentarily disappearing from view.
Tina braced herself. The good guys were dropping like flies, and soon she was going to be the only one left.
Seventy-four
21.31
Mike Bolt had a cold feeling of dread in his gut that momentarily stopped his nausea. He’d definitely heard shots before Tina’s phone went dead, and he had no idea whether she was alive or dead.
He called Commander Ingrams but his line was busy, forcing him to stagger back towards his car in the hunt for the police radio. He could hear the sound of a helicopter approaching, and as he looked up he saw an air ambulance coming in low over the horizon. His vision blurred again and he suddenly felt very faint. Grabbing the back of his car for support, he speed-dialled Ingrams’s number a second time, knowing he had to hold on until he’d talked to someone at Scotland Yard.
‘Mike, what the hell is it?’ demanded Ingrams, picking up this time. ‘I told you to go home.’
‘The convoy carrying Fox has been ambushed. I just heard shots down the phone.’
‘Are you sure?’ Bolt could hear the shock in Ingrams’s voice.
‘Hundred per cent. They’re near the safehouse. Get reinforcements there now.’
The noise from the air ambulance’s rotor blades drowned out the end of the call as it hovered directly above the car park.
Bolt pushed himself backwards, away from the car, dropping his phone in the process, waving up at the crew to try to attract their attention. A wave of pain, so intense that it made him cry out, surged through his head, culminating just behind his right eye. He lost his sight; he lost his balance; he lost every sense he had. All in that single, agonizing moment as he fell blindly into darkness.
Seventy-five
21.32
Poking her head just above the bonnet of the ARV, Tina saw the muzzle flash from the shooter’s gun up in the trees, but she still couldn’t see the shooter himself. It did, however, look like he was the only one firing. As she watched, a silhouette seemed to rise up from the ground twenty yards away and come jogging down the incline towards the convoy, keeping close to the undergrowth for cover, his assault rifle outstretched in front of him.
It was clear he hadn’t seen her. She could have stayed where she was but she wasn’t that kind of person. She didn’t turn her back on trouble. This was a chance to even the odds, and she knew it. But she was scared. Damn scared. She could see at least two corpses of police officers only feet away, their blood leaking on to the tarmac, and knew full well that could be her in a few moments’ time. Her whole body ached with exhaustion, and a heavy tension that made it hard to move.
A voice in her head told her to hide. It was a sensible voice — a voice of reason. To do anything else was madness.
But then she was jumping up and opening fire with the Glock, acting entirely on instinct.
Handguns are never the most accurate of weapons — a fact that’s not helped when the person firing them hasn’t fired one for a while, and is shooting at a moving target in near darkness — but Tina kept her hands steady and aimed low, cracking off five shots in rapid succession, before the gunman had even reacted to her presence.
But, crucially, she didn’t hit him, and she was forced to dive for cover as he returned fire, his bullets spraying the spot where she’d just been standing. She landed painfully on her shoulder, knowing that she’d missed her chance, and would probably not get another one now.
At that moment, the cop who’d been shot in the leg, and who’d been lying on his side, rolled round so he was facing the gunman and let loose a burst of automatic fire from the MP5. Tina immediately got to her feet and peered back over the bonnet, seeing the gunman now running towards them, barely ten yards away, firing as he went as he tried to take out the firearms cop.
Smoke flew up from the cop’s body armour as he took rounds to the upper body, causing him to buck and jerk on the ground. Taking advantage of the distraction, Tina jumped up again and cracked off another three shots. She didn’t know if it was her or the other cop who’d hit him, but the gunman suddenly went down on his side, dropping his weapon in the process.
She felt a surge of hope then that lasted the space of a second before suddenly Fox appeared in the van’s doorway, a gun in his hand. He raised the gun, looking straight at her. She just had time to react by throwing herself backwards, firing as she went, as he pulled the trigger, narrowly missing her.
As she landed, she fired again, but Fox was already out of the van, moving fast. Keeping low, he jerked round and shot the injured cop in the face, then fired another shot at Tina. It bounced off the tarmac behind her as she kept firing back at him, but then he disappeared from view around the front of the car, and suddenly everything fell silent.
Seventy-six
21.33
Fox ran round the side of the van, then made for the cover of the trees. He hadn’t run properly in a while, and his legs felt stiff. But adrenalin was keeping him going. Adrenalin and excitement. This was what it was all about for him. The hot joy of battle. God, he’d lived for those moments in the army, and in his time as a mercenary since.
And now here he was again, having planned his escape from prison down to the last detail.
The ambush had been perfect. All the cops were either dead or too badly hurt to offer any meaningful opposition. He didn’t think he’d hit Tina Boyd, which was a pity. He’d like to have put a bullet in her. Not so much because of what she’d done to help scupper the Stanhope siege, more because it would be good sport to take out such an iconic figure, a woman who was a born survivor, and good at her job. But he’d defeated her. That was what mattered. He’d defeated all of them.
Ten yards away he could see the black-clad figure of one of the ambush team. He was lying on the ground clutching his leg, his face covered in black camouflage paint. Fox had been told that there’d be a minimum of three of them in the team, but this was the only one he could see right now.
‘Help me, for Christ’s sake,’ hissed the shooter as Fox ran towards him, keeping to the undergrowth.
He recognized the Northern Irish accent immediately. It was Cecil Boorman, the man whose name he’d given to Tina earlier. He was no good to any of them, not now that he’d been shot.