This time, the tyre blew out.
The Suburban swerved sharply — and hit a palm tree.
Even bulletproof armour yielded to a two-foot-thick column of solid wood. The SUV slammed to a stop, its nose folding around the obstacle.
Eddie ran towards it. If he could catch Mukobo while he was still stunned from the crash…
The warlord stumbled from the Suburban — and saw him.
Mukobo’s golden revolver came up, a thunderclap erupting from its barrel—
Eddie vaulted over the wall, hitting sand as the Magnum round cracked above him. More screams from the tourists. He expected another shot, but the Congolese had turned to run.
He jumped back over the wall and raced after him. A glance into the Suburban as he passed told him that the driver would pose no further threat. He had been thrown face-first into the bulletproof windscreen, leaving a good chunk of his features stuck messily to the glass.
Ahead, he saw that Mukobo was limping. He would soon catch up — but the warlord still had his gun and, depending on whether or not he had reloaded in the car, anything from three to five bullets. The Glock in the Englishman’s hand was literally an empty threat.
High fencing around a twin-towered hotel complex lined the path’s inland side, and the beach narrowed below the wall on the other. Mukobo was being channelled, trapped — and a trapped foe was the most dangerous.
Mukobo had realised the same thing. He fired a wild shot over one shoulder. The Yorkshireman swerved behind a tree. The African opened up the gap a little, but was still limping. Eddie closed again—
A couple emerged from a high metal gate in the fence. Mukobo knocked them aside, darting through — and slamming the barrier behind him. Eddie reached it seconds later, only to find that it had a key card lock.
Mukobo grinned — then fired again. Plasterwork exploded from concrete as Eddie dived behind a gatepost. Sunbathers screamed and scattered. The warlord hurried towards the hotel.
Eddie stuffed the Glock into a pocket, then scaled the gate. Mukobo was almost at the hotel’s entrance. He hared after him.
The African ran through the doors, finding himself in an expansive marble lobby. He slowed, searching for the best escape route. A bearded man was at the nearby reception desk, complaining to the concierge. ‘Look, we specifically asked for a quiet room for our baby, and you’ve put us right above the disco!’
The concierge smiled smugly. ‘I have worked here for fourteen years, I know which rooms are quiet—’
The boom of a gunshot shattered the air-conditioned calm as Mukobo saw Eddie approaching the glass doors and fired at him. The Englishman saw the glinting gun just in time to dodge as the bullet exploded the pane. Mukobo ran through the nearest exit.
‘I will find you something quieter,’ said the trembling concierge.
Eddie hopped through the hole in the door and chased the warlord into a large cafeteria — with no way out at its far end. Mukobo spun to face his pursuer. The golden gun came up—
Click!
The hammer fell on an empty casing. Mukobo hadn’t reloaded during the car chase. The Congolese glared at the revolver as if it had betrayed him personally — then charged.
The two men collided, Eddie crashing backwards against a table stacked with glasses. Several shattered beneath him, dozens more smashing on the floor. ‘I did not think I would ever see you again, Chase,’ snarled Mukobo, forcing his forearm across the other man’s throat. ‘But now I have, I can finish what we started!’ He pushed down harder, trying to choke him. Something heavy clunked across the surface behind the Yorkshireman as the table shook.
Eddie felt the cartilage of his Adam’s apple crunch. Broken shards stabbed into his back. He clawed at the tumblers, but they skittered away from his fingertips. Mukobo leered in triumph—
The Englishman’s hand found a curved handle. He grabbed it, swung — and a large glass jug burst apart against Mukobo’s head. The African reeled away. Eddie jumped up and grabbed him, swinging around to propel him into one of the buffet counters. ‘Only thing you’re finishing,’ he growled as he delivered a savage kidney punch, ‘is lunch!’
He slammed the gasping Mukobo on to a metal tray of greasy bacon strips. The warlord yelled as runny fat burned his face. He jumped up — and hit the heat lamp above, smashing the bulb and driving spears of hot glass into his scalp.
Eddie hauled him out and punched him, then grabbed him in a fierce headlock. It would only take a twist and squeeze to snap his neck. He was sorely tempted — but instead forced him along the buffet, knocking abandoned trays to the floor. A large metal vat of baked beans stood under another heat lamp at the counter’s end. He shoved down Mukobo’s shoulders and ran him headlong into the pan with a flat bong. The dazed warlord staggered back — and Eddie swung the vat against his opponent’s head. Mukobo crashed to the tiled floor. Eddie tipped the beans over him, then dropped the empty pan after them. ‘You’ve bean done, mate.’
Shouts from the entrance. He looked up — to see several policemen rush into the cafeteria, guns raised. He immediately lifted his hands in surrender as a cop screamed at him in Spanish. ‘Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!’ he replied. ‘No hablo español. I got your guy.’
Most of the officers advanced on the two men, the remainder ordering onlookers away. Brice ran in, only to be told in no uncertain terms to move back. ‘Chase!’ he shouted. ‘You idiot, what have you done? Now the local police are going to arrest him!’
Eddie knelt in response to a gesture from a gun-wielding cop. ‘You’re lucky I didn’t kill him. And I caught someone on Interpol’s most-wanted list! What difference does it make who arrests him?’
The MI6 officer seemed about to reply, but held back, aware that he was in a public place with numerous civilians. He settled instead for glaring at Eddie as he was handcuffed. Alderley caught up with him, one hand to his bloodied arm.
Mukobo had already been identified as responsible for the carnage along the seafront, other cops hauling him up and cuffing him with no small amount of force. Eddie was also pulled to his feet. ‘You’d better bloody get me out of this,’ said the Yorkshireman as he was hustled past his two countrymen.
‘I should let you rot,’ growled Brice.
Alderley gave Eddie an unhappy look. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
‘You’d better,’ he replied, ‘or I might tell ’em why we were here in the first place!’
Brice prickled with anger, keeping pace with Eddie on the other side of the police cordon. ‘The Official Secrets Act still applies to you, Chase. Don’t tell them anything! That’s an order!’
‘I don’t work for you. But sort this out and I won’t need to tell ’em, will I?’ The cops took Eddie and Mukobo through the exit, an officer preventing the furious Brice from following. ‘And Alderley?’
‘Yeah?’ Alderley replied.
‘For God’s sake, don’t tell Nina what’s happened!’
‘Hi, honey,’ said Eddie as he entered his apartment two days later. ‘I’m home.’
His wife’s silence warned him to expect a frosty reception. He grimaced, then went into the living room. Nina Wilde was waiting on the couch, arms folded. ‘So,’ she said. ‘What happened?’
‘Nothing happened. Where’s Macy?’
‘Napping in her room. And what do you mean, “nothing happened”? You were supposed to come back yesterday!’
‘Things were a bit more complicated than I expected.’
Nina stood, eyeing him suspiciously. ‘More complicated? How?’
He decided not to tell her that he had spent a night in a cell, Alderley getting the British Consul to intervene the following day. Diplomatic strings had been pulled to suggest that delivering Mukobo to Interpol through the local police had been the objective all along. ‘I had to help Alderley with the paperwork,’ he said instead, giving her a technical truth. ‘But everything’s been sorted out now.’