Behind him, perhaps eight or ten black-masked figures swarmed forward, and then suddenly halted. They watched the Porsche disappear into darkness. Men were shouting — they jumped into 4x4s and the black-clad Assassins leaped apart as the power of the V8 vehicles roared past in pursuit.
In the Porsche, Dillon had the audio system wound up to near maximum and The Artic Monkeys blasting the night air. He spotted the headlights far behind him, and another smile hijacked his face as he drove the sports car even harder down the unlit lane surrounded by thick woodland. He suddenly slowed, ventilated discs being gripped and the nose of the car dipping under the harsh braking, and flicked off the vehicles lights as the Porsche’s engine throttled back and the rev needle flickered as he dropped down a couple of gears.
The V8 Range Rover engines approached at high speed. The Glock kicked in Dillon’s hand as he emptied a full clip into the windscreen of the lead vehicle. The Range Rover veered right and slammed head-on into a large oak tree: a figure was flung through the windscreen, a pulped corpse. Dillon blipped the accelerator pedal and watched the rev counter dance. The rear wheels gripped as the clutch was let out sharply; within seconds he had hit 100 m.p.h. and again he switched on the lights as he took a slow left-hand bend. As he came out the other side he opened the throttle again, his grin broadened and the chase was forgotten as the Porsche was pushed to the twitching 160 m.p.h. plus limits of the powerful engine’s ability.
“I just love fast cars,” Dillon said aloud.
Far behind, Kirill’s country residence blazed briefly as several explosive devices located throughout the large building detonated one after the other. Fire roared, ate, consumed — billowed up into the night sky, causing Dillon to lock the Porsche’s wheels into a long broadside skid, finally to halt and to glance back with an intense frown.
The explosions lit up the night — a vivid purple red in an otherwise black sky.
Dillon selected first gear and let the clutch out with enthusiasm, accelerating up the narrow road, leaving two streaks of burned rubber. He disappeared into the blackness of the Cornish landscape.
Dillon sat in the ancient woods, listening to the rustling of leaves in the light breeze and the gurgling of a small stream running nearby. He was smoking a cigarette leant up against the twisted knurled trunk of a three hundred year old oak tree. Nearby, well hidden, was the scraped, scratched and mud-spattered Porsche behind a screen of dense bushes.
Dillon wearily toyed with the mobile phone. He activated the emergency homer, a bank of red, green and blue lights danced across the touch-screen and, he felt it vibrate in the palm of his hand as the state-of-the-art device started to send out its powerful signal to the Ferran & Cardini International receiver in London. The longer he sat there, the more effect the tranquil environment had on him. Dillon felt the tension leave him and the sound of the running water was having a soothing effect on his soul. But too many questions were running around his head with no apparent answers to any of them.
The only thing that was obvious now — was that he had been elaborately set-up.
Dillon felt a shiver run through his body; someone wanted him dead — what was new about that. Somebody had wanted him dead real fast. But why go to the trouble of inducing him out of his selfenforced retirement to undertake such an assignment? Of course — to get him away from Scotland and into an environment where he had little control… Somewhere he was totally on his own. If he was supporting MI6 then he could not have been assigned to any other Ferran & Cardini job.
And Zhenya.
Dillon shook his head. She had fooled him; and he had shot her. She may be wounded or even dead and buried, and all to what end? To kill him?
Kirill and Zhenya. They were both British Government… and yet they had both tried to kill him. And it would seem that some of the MI6 protection squad had been in on the betrayal… and those explosions. What the fuck was that all about? And what in God’s name had been going down back there?
After Dillon had started killing, events had taken on a dullness, not dissimilar to a dream, without colour, or realness. The fury with which he had automatically cut down anyone in his path had left a sour feeling in his belly, and an empty void in his soul.
Dillon stared at the Glock in his hand. It had done its job — had saved his life again as it had done many times before. But he was angry at how he had been protecting his own would-be Assassin… and now was she dead? Lying with Kirill in a cold freshly dug grave?
Dillon stood up and paced around the thick trunk of the oak tree, stretching his back and rolling his neck, which cracked as it realigned itself with the release of tension.
Why hadn’t they killed him earlier?
Dillon pondered. Maybe the explosions had been intended — not just for him, but for the guests as well? But something had obviously gone horribly wrong with their plan and he had messed it all up for them, and so it had been left to Kirill and Zhenya to carry out the kill. Maybe.
Dillon rolled the mobile phone in his palm, and then sent his report to Ferran & Cardini.
What the hell, he thought. Let them figure it out! Maybe Vince Sharp could discover what had happened when the signal to the phone had disappeared as well…
Twenty minutes later, a low whomping sound made Dillon look up through the canopy of the trees. The sound pounding over the ancient wood.
Dillon held his position, safely concealed, while he patiently waited for the helicopter to come into view. It hovered directly overhead and then veered away to the right towards the clearing and touched down. The whump, whump, of the rotors sent branches and trees swaying and Dillon ran the hundred metres or so to the cockpit and the serious face of Ferran & Cardini’s most experienced pilot, Tony Brown.
“Come on, Dillon — hurry up,” he shouted. “We’ve got company close by.”
“Company?”
Brown nodded as Dillon climbed into the cockpit of the modified Bell Robinson four-man helicopter and belted himself in. “Put on the spare helmet, will you. I may need your help. Whatever the hell you’ve been up to down here, you’ve certainly stirred up a bloody hornet’s nest. Ever used a helmet with a heads-up display before?”
“I had one in my own helicopter.”
“Why use the past-tense?”
“Because those bastards back there blew it up. That’s why you’re here.”
“Oh. Well, let’s get this thing back in the air and as far away from this place as possible.”
The Bell-Robinson’s powerful twin engines screamed and the helicopter launched up into the total darkness of the night. Brown veered left, the nose dipped and the next instant he was heading southeast, following the coast at an altitude of five hundred feet above the white capped waves below.
Chapter 4
The twin hulls of the American Navy Sea Predatorstealth ship cut through the tumultuous waters of the Barents Sea, pushed forward at forty-five knots by its nuclear powered turbines. A vessel alone in dark waters, seventy-five miles west of the Russian island of Ostrov Kolguev.
John Taylor, Commander of the stealth ship and many times decorated special forces veteran, drummed his fingers on the arm of his seat and stared at the charts and information displayed on the large glass screen in front of him. The bridge was buzzing with activity and anticipation as the order was given to bring the one hundred and seventy foot vessel to a stop. The turbines wound down and the sinister looking black painted hulk came to rest on the swell of the sea. Taylor glanced across at his second-in-command, Steve Kramer who had been on the bridge for a straight twelve hours and had a worried expression on his unshaven face as he studied the charts and data stream running across the glass display panel. The Commander smiled warmly, and dismissed the man.