Dillon waited for a further five minutes and then decided to go take a look, got out of the Porsche and walked up the road towards the gated entrance. He quickened his pace; sprinting across the road when he saw that the front panel of the intercom was hanging off and he immediately guessed what was happening, but by the time he could get up the driveway to the house, the job would be over.
As he rounded the bend at the top of the driveway, he immediately saw the van parked in front of the entrance porch, facing directly at him with one of the three men still sitting at the wheel. He darted to the right into the dense shrubbery at the driveway’s edge, pulled out the Glock and slid the safety catch off.
He moved slowly and with the utmost care through the undergrowth towards the front of the van and was about to make a move when he heard voices coming out through the front door. A moment later, the other two men appeared, still carrying their silenced handguns. One of them walked by, only missing him by inches. Dillon quickly dropped down, flattening himself against the ground as the shooter walked past to get into the van. The engine started and a second later the van moved off slowly down the driveway
The smell of damp soil mixed with decomposing leaves was all around him. As he stood up he holstered the Glock and looked up at the luxury Spanish-style property. There was no point in going back inside; Dillon knew what he would find. He felt partly responsible, but wasn’t going to dwell on it. Instead, he sprinted back to the Porsche just as the van’s tail lights were disappearing over the brow in the road. He drove at speed without lights, but with the sun fast rising there was enough light. The sheer power of the Cayman soon had Dillon pulling up sharp at the next junction, just as the silver van was turning left. They hadn’t spotted him, and so he held back his urge to give chase, allowing them instead to drive off up the road before following.
He stayed a good distance back so he couldn’t see any of the men in the front seat, but he made a note of the registration number to check out later.
In the back streets of Westbourne driving without lights and following another vehicle, was not too much of a problem. Once they hit the main roads it would become too risky, even though they were virtually empty at nearly five-thirty in the morning. This was a time when police traffic patrols were looking for something to alleviate the boredom. So he decided to switch on his sidelights even though the day was becoming lighter with every minute.
Even though he was taking no chances by keeping his distance, he knew that he’d be seen sooner or later and that the three men in the van were professional hit men. He simply kept following. When the route became erratic and they started using the same tactics that he’d used against Bob Norton the previous afternoon, he knew for certain that he had been seen.
He took an educated guess on the general direction they were heading and immediately turned up a side street that would lead him to the main road at another point. It worked the first time, because as he joined the main road he saw tail lights in the distance and accelerated smoothly to catch up just enough to make sure that it was the same van. When he was satisfied that it was, he turned off again.
At the next junction, he turned right and then right again. When he rejoined the main road, there were the first signs of early morning commuter traffic building up. But no silver van. A yellow taxi came drifting towards him, but as it passed Dillon saw no passengers — only the driver who looked like he’d had a long night behind the wheel.
Dillon was tempted to speed just to find out whether the van was way out in front of him. But that would bring another kind of risk, and to confirm it a police patrol came out of one of the side roads as he went by and followed him for a short distance. As it cruised by the Porsche, Dillon was scrutinised by the officer sitting in the passenger seat. For a second, as he saw the brake lights come on, he thought that they were going to pull him over, but then the patrol car picked up speed again and was gone.
Dillon decided it was time to make his way back to the apartment in Lilliput. As he drove, his thoughts reverted to Jack and Cassey Fox and wondered whether he could have done anything to save them. A gun battle with the two hit men as they had come out through the front door would not have been successful — certainly not with the third one sitting in the van on his left flank. But it still didn’t make him feel any better about their demise. His thoughts were starting to drift, he was tired and his eyelids felt heavy with lack of sleep. He switched on the radio and dropped his side window, was heading down the road towards Branksome Chine when a black Mercedes 4x4 shot out of a side road and cut in front of him. Within seconds, the silver van re-appeared right behind him.
Dillon had been outsmarted, boxed in by the 4x4 in front and the three men in the silver van behind him. He switched off the traction control, hit the brakes hard and the back end of the Porsche immediately twitched as he flicked the steering wheel to the right, allowing the back-end to drift out to the right. He kept a light grip on the leather steering wheel and a heavy foot on the accelerator. The driver of the van slowed down, but then had a spurt of confidence and at speed hit the rear bumper of the Cayman full-on. Dillon reacted by accelerating and was about to overtake the 4x4 when he saw someone lean out of the driver’s side rear window with a silenced machine pistol pointing straight back at him.
He re-activated the traction control, put his foot down and lurched forward until the Cayman’s bumper was actually touching the 4x4’s bumper. The driver of the Mercedes reacted immediately by swerving violently from side to side in an attempt to shake Dillon off, and when eventually he did, all that Dillon could do was duck down and drive almost blindly at speed. Glass shattered over him as his windscreen exploded into millions of tiny fragments. Bullets ripped through the interior and then the rear screen shattered under the short burst of gunfire.
The Porsche’s lightweight body shell had stood up pretty well under the fusillade of gun fire, but the bonnet had been riddled with bullet holes. Dillon tried the brakes — there was nothing, no resistance and no slowing of the car. But at least the vehicle in front of him was no longer there and neither was the silver van. He was heading at speed down the hill towards the beach car park and the bistro. He was in grave danger of missing the tight right-hand bend at the bottom and crashing through the low brick wall.
He desperately wrenched the wheel round to the right, hit the accelerator to the floor and then immediately brought the steering wheel back round to the left and managed to power-slide the powerful sports car through the bend and on up the steep hill towards Canford Cliffs village. A moment later he found a quiet side road and pulled in. There was glass everywhere. He had cuts on his face and on the back of his hands from the shattered windscreen. He got out of the car, walked around it once and surveyed the damage and the puddle of brake fluid that had already appeared on the tarmac. He’d been caught off-guard once again and it was starting to annoy him. He got back in and slammed the door in anger.
He turned the ignition key and the engine immediately came to life. Sitting for a moment, he thought about what had just taken place. The warnings were obviously over. It would seem that from now on it was for real with no holds barred. He put on a pair of sunglasses in an attempt to cover up some of the cuts around his eyes, turned the car around and went back to the main road. He drove slowly, having to rely solely on the gearbox and handbrake to slow him down. It had been a long time since he had felt so defeated and it was starting to depress him. By the time he reached the rented apartment in Lilliput he was tired out, but was satisfied that he’d made the journey back without anyone following him.