“This is One. Study is clear. Out.”
She sensed movement before she saw it. She felt someone behind her and, as she stepped forward and started to turn, she saw something moving through the darkness. She moved just in time to see the dim light from outside catching on the blade of a knife that was swinging toward her. She blocked up with her right hand, catching the blade against her forearm, and felt the sharp edge bite through the sleeve of her shirt and into her flesh. Pain flashed up her arm, a jagged bolt of electricity that burned into her brain. The machine gun was in her hand and she tried to pull the trigger, but the impact had jostled her finger out of the trigger guard and, as she slid it through again, she felt a strong hand around her wrist, forcing the gun away and then up toward the ceiling. She managed to slide her finger back around the trigger and the gun fired, three loud reports that echoed around the confined space. A shower of dislodged plaster fell down onto her.
Her assailant was male. He had his left hand locked around her right wrist, and, as Conway tried to force the gun down again, the man yanked her closer and stabbed at her again. There was nowhere for her to go. The edge of the knife slid into the soft flesh of her gut and was then yanked up, ripping through the wall of her stomach. She felt the strength drain out of her and the gun slipped from her fingers, vanishing into the darkness. She dropped down onto her knees.
The man with the knife followed, and, as he passed through the weak shaft of light from the open doorway, Conway saw his face: it was Timoshev. His expression was determined. Pitiless.
“You’ve been burned,” she muttered through the rending pain. “Give up. This won’t help.”
Timoshev didn’t respond. He stepped out of the light and into the darkness again, his face dissolving into the gloom as he drew closer to her. He was behind her before she could say anything else. He knotted her hair in his fist, pulled her head back to expose her neck, and sliced the blade across from one side to the other. She gasped, unable to draw breath, and, as she saw the blood spray out from her severed throat, she knew that she was done.
Her radio had a panic button and, with the last ounce of her strength, she reached up and pressed it.
36
Milton had just cleared the sitting room and was working his way back to the cloakroom when he heard the gunshots. He froze, and, a moment later, his earpiece buzzed. Someone had pressed the panic button on their radio.
“This is One. Report.”
“I’m here,” Pope said. His voice was as tight as a drum. “Did you hear that?”
“Ten,” Milton said. “Report. Repeat: Ten, report. Out.”
There was no reply.
“Shots fired,” Pope said.
Milton turned toward the cloakroom and started to move. “WATCHER, WATCHER,” he radioed. “Ten is not responding, likely down. Over.”
“Acknowledged. I heard gunshots. Over.”
Milton went into the cloakroom, cleared it, and passed through into the hall. The door to the kitchen was ahead of him. It was open. He thought of Conway, likely compromised, likely dead, and felt the familiar tremor of weakness.
No.
Not now.
Not here.
He paused, breathed in and out, then crossed the hall and stopped again to aim up the stairs to the first floor. It was dark up there, and he couldn’t see anything. He moved on and paused in the doorway. There was another door directly opposite him. He saw, just in time, the shadow standing there, half hidden in the gloom.
“Hands!”
The shadow paused.
Milton aimed the submachine gun.
“Hands!”
The shadow took a step back and, in so doing, moved into a shaft of dim moonlight from a window in the room beyond. Milton could see more now. It was a woman. Milton fumbled for the trigger.
Callaghan was sitting on the breakfast bar, kicking his heels. There was blood running down his face. You going to do it again? he asked him. You going to kill her, too? Milton looked down at the gun in his hand, at the blood on the floor, blowback smeared on his skin.
His arm fell a little and, as if waiting for the opportunity, the woman pointed a stubby MAC-10 at him. Milton snapped back just in time, falling back into the hall as a fusillade of nine-millimetre rounds streaked across the space. She had fired quickly, and her aim was off. The door frame detonated in a volley of tiny explosions, fragments of wood and paint and plaster stinging Milton’s skin.
The pain banished the dream. “I’m taking fire,” he called into the microphone as a second barrage held him in place. “WATCHER—call for help. Five—on me.”
The barrage ended. Milton heard the jangle of empty casings falling to the floor.
“You’ve been burned,” he called out.
There was no reply. Milton crawled ahead on hands and knees.
“We know who you are and what you’ve done.”
There was another volley of gunfire; this one was not aimed in his direction, though. Milton glanced around the doorframe. There was enough silvery light for him to see the fragments of broken tile and other debris on the floor next to the door to the dining room. Pope would have approached from that direction.
Milton aimed and fired, sending a fusillade in the direction of the target.
“Five,” Milton said when the clatter of the rifle had faded away. “Come in. Over.”
“The shooter saw me,” Pope responded. “I’m pinned down.”
“Go outside and come around the back.”
“On my way.”
He heard the buzzing of a motor and then a scraping noise from the direction of the annex. He knew what it was: the garage doors were opening.
He crawled forward and poked his head around the chewed-up doorframe.
Muzzle flash. The submachine gun fired again, and Milton jerked back into cover. The wall and balustrade behind him exploded, chunks of plaster and wood blowing out into the room as the hall was riddled with incoming fire. The plaster fell onto him, coating him in a fine white powder.
37
Nataliya had been taken by surprise. She had almost blundered into the kitchen, had almost run into the agent who had been waiting there. She had fired too quickly, the rounds going high and wide, but it had still bought time to get the passport and retreat. She was backing up when she saw another shadow in the doorway that connected with the dining room. She fired another volley.
She heard the sound of the motor that opened the garage doors and then, immediately after, the grumble of the Porsche’s engine. That was her cue to move. The first man called out again, telling her to stay where she was, but she ignored him. She left cover, and, walking backwards so that she could continue to aim at anyone who might try to follow her through the doorway to the kitchen, she crossed the annex sitting room, then the bedroom, and finally returned to the garage.
The doors had just finished opening and, in the wide shaft of moonlight that they admitted, she could see that Mikhail was inside the car. Vincent was next to the armoury, the shotgun held in both hands. There was the body of a woman on the floor.
Vincent had pressed the dead woman’s earpiece into his own ear and was monitoring their comms. “There are at least two more,” he said, raising his voice so that Nataliya and Mikhail could hear him over the rumble of the engine. “And they’ve just called for backup. We need to leave.”