‘Then you’ll have to crack Scott Haldane’s code and give them proof they can’t ignore.’
Steven’s response was to hurl himself across the table and topple Tally off her chair to bring both of them crashing to the ground.
TWENTY-ONE
Tally let out a scream but the sound was drowned out by the windows beside them shattering in a hail of automatic gunfire. Steven’s arm held her pinned to the floor, keeping them both huddled behind the brickwork along the base of the windows which stretched the entire length of the wall. The air was full of flying glass and splintered woodwork as bullets ripped into the serving areas. Trolleys jerked and bounced and overturned, display cases exploded and people cowered everywhere, seeking what cover they could, horror etched in their faces. Some screamed constantly, seeming only to pause for breath, others were struck dumb, their faces white as snow.
Everyone in the restaurant assumed that the service area was under terrorist attack but Steven knew differently. He had noticed two men enter the restaurant a few minutes before and look around casually as if seeking a missing colleague. The fact that one had examined only the right side of the restaurant while the other covered the left suggested to him that this had been agreed previously and that they just might be professionals looking for a target. The fact that Steven noticed one give the other an almost imperceptible nudge after making momentary eye contact with him confirmed it. He had carried on his conversation with Tally but had watched them leave and walk over to their car some fifty metres away to open the boot. When they both started to head back to the restaurant carrying overcoats over their arms he knew at once what they were concealing and that he and Tally were in big trouble. As soon as the first man dropped his raincoat to the ground to reveal the muzzle of an automatic assault weapon, Steven had dived across the table to bring both himself and Tally into the lee of the brick wall supporting the windows as the glass above them shattered.
Steven indicated to Tally that she should crawl away from him, keeping close to the shelter of the wall. She started making for the far end of the room, using her elbows to propel herself along while he turned over on to his back, drew his gun and waited. There was a chance that his attackers would make good their escape but there was also a possibility that they would check to see if they had achieved their objective.
There was an eerie quiet about the place, broken only by the sound of sobbing somewhere in the room and shouting coming from far away. It was the kind of silence that follows the mayhem of a high-speed rail crash when the almost unimaginable momentum and energy bound up in the accident, the force which creates such a screaming hell of tortured metal and splintering wood, is suddenly spent, leaving nothing but an eerie quiet.
Steven did not blink. He steeled himself to continue waiting — even when he saw the muzzle of one of the guns appear above the wall — but, as soon as the second appeared, he sprang into action, swivelling round on the floor to put both feet firmly against the brickwork and push himself out from the wall. Holding the Glock firmly in both hands he fired two shots in quick succession — one into each of the two figures standing there. He went for body shots, the biggest target: he couldn’t take the chance of missing with a head shot. Both men slumped to the ground but Steven was well aware that the Glock wasn’t the most powerful handgun in the world.
With the words of a training sergeant from long ago echoing in his head, Never take chances; if they go down, make sure they stay down, Steven scrambled to his feet and holding his gun out in front of him, looked cautiously over the wall. One of the men, although badly wounded, tried one-handedly to bring his weapon round to bear on him. Steven shot him twice more and he lay still. The other man was lying motionless as if already dead but Steven saw that his finger was still curled round the trigger of his weapon. Never take chances. He shot him too without checking further.
Then he turned and hurried towards Tally who was cowering against the far wall with her knees held under her chin and her expression a mixture of horror and disbelief.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked gently, squatting down beside her.
Tally looked at him in silence for a moment before saying slowly and deliberately, ‘They really don’t like you, do they?’
It was such a ridiculous thing to come out with that Steven couldn’t help but smile. Tally couldn’t quite manage one but she put her head against Steven’s chest and patted him with the palm of her hand. ‘You’re something else, mister.’
The noise level was rising as the whole place started to come to life again. People were running; people were shouting; the sound of emergency service vehicles in the distance grew ever louder.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ said Steven, realising that the response to the incident was about to become organised. ‘While we have the chance.’
He grabbed Tally’s hand and together they stepped over the retaining wall and out through the gap where the windows had been into the car park. They got into the Honda, which was nearer than Tally’s car, and drove off down the southbound slip road just as barriers were about to be pulled into place.
‘They’ll close the motorway,’ said Steven as he gunned the Honda out on to the main carriageway with the rev counter on the red line in each gear. ‘We’ll try to make it to the first exit.’
Once again they were just in the nick of time as police were in the process of closing the exit road. One officer was about to raise his hand when he realised how fast the Honda was travelling and changed his mind, stepping smartly out of the way to let it past. Steven braked hard at the top of the exit road and saw in his mirror that it had now been closed off with two police vehicles straddling it.
‘What now?’ asked Tally, rubbing her shoulder where the seat belt had bruised her.
‘Somewhere quiet and anonymous,’ said Steven. ‘We need time to let the dust settle. I don’t want to risk going back to my flat right now in case it was me they followed and they know where I live.
‘Steven, the M1 is closed, a motorway service area has been shot to pieces and there are two dead men lying back there… just how long is it going to take for the dust to settle? I mean, are we both going to live that long?’
‘I’ll get Sci-Med to dress it up as a gangland feud.’
‘I know I don’t understand too much about any of this,’ said Tally. ‘But I can’t see your… what is it they call it when you need a way of getting out of a bad situation?’
‘An exit strategy?’ suggested Steven.
‘That’s it, an exit strategy. Do you have one?’
‘We have to crack the code,’ said Steven. ‘Once we know the full facts and pass them on there’s no point in killing me.’
‘Are you sure the other side know that?’
‘Rules of the game.’
‘Game?’ exclaimed Tally. ‘You call this a game?’ She looked and sounded angry.
‘Sorry,’ said Steven. ‘That was male bravado talking. I’m as scared as you are, believe me.’
‘You couldn’t be,’ sighed Tally. ‘You just couldn’t be. I keep praying I’m going to wake up and find this has all been a nightmare and I never met anyone called Steven Dunbar.’
Steven gave her a sideways look and she squeezed his knee in apology.
They lapsed into silence until Steven said, ‘How about here?’ He slowed as they came to a large, blue sign advertising Radleigh House Country Hotel.
‘As long as it has hot water and gin,’ said Tally. ‘God, we’ve no luggage,’ she added as an afterthought. Steven brought the car to a halt in the gravel car park fronting the hotel.
‘I’ve got a bag in the back. It’s just got odds and ends in it but it’ll get us past the front desk. We’ll get ourselves cleaned up, call room service and have a bit of a breather before deciding where we go from here.’
‘Will you call Sci-Med?’ asked Tally.