His curiosity aroused, the officer bent forwards, his head going close to Cole’s so that he could hear the quiet words.
Before he knew what was happening, he felt a blinding pain in the side of his head, searing in intensity. He heard a high-pitched noise, and realized it was his own screams.
Cole had slipped his hands and lower arms out of the straps, and whilst he grabbed the officer’s head with one hand, pulling it close and sinking his teeth into the man’s ear, his other hand shot across to retrieve the handgun from the open belt holster.
Putting the gun tight to the officer’s head, cradled across his chest, he let go of the ear and snapped at the shocked medics. ‘Get these straps off me! Now!’
The men remained frozen to the spot, and Cole noticed a dark stain appear on the trouser leg of the nearest man. ‘Do it or I’ll blow his fucking head off! Do it!’
The man furthest away acted first, reaching down to untie Cole’s head, then his arms, body and legs. The policeman was meanwhile sobbing into Cole’s chest, begging for mercy, for his life to be spared.
Cole sat up, ordering the medics to the doors at the back of the vehicle. ‘Open them,’ he ordered. The first man again did as he was told. ‘Now jump.’
The speed wasn’t great, so the first man jumped quickly, rolling over in the ice and snow into a small heap. The second medic was still frozen, petrified. Cole gestured aggressively towards him, and the man squeaked as he jumped reflexively backwards, he too rolling across the icy road.
Cole shoved the policeman towards the door, aiming the gun at his chest. ‘Now you.’
Cole could see the officer weighing his options — his ambition telling him to capture the criminal, his logical mind telling him to jump.
He made his choice and moved unsurely towards Cole, but Cole was ready. He launched a vicious thrusting front kick to the officer’s chest that sent him sailing out of the back of the ambulance into the road beyond.
Cole closed the doors, and looked towards the other end, where there was a door to the cabin.
He stretched the kinks out of his body, and tried to shake off his headache — maybe he was concussed after all — and pushed through the door, gun aimed at the driver.
The man was caught completely off guard, surprised — he had heard nothing from the rear compartment. ‘What do you want?’ he asked, horrified.
‘Just keep driving and you’ll be fine,’ Cole said calmly, looking out of the windscreen. The weather had improved, but visibility was still poor. Even so, Cole could make out what looked like a large concrete structure just up ahead.
‘Where are we?’ he asked the driver, although he feared he knew the answer.
‘We’re here, we’re here. The hospital. Just let me out, okay? Please?’
Cole was silent. He recognized the building as the American Hospital of Paris, on the Boulevard Victor Hugo less than a mile northwest of the Arc de Triomphe. It had been set up in 1906 by a group of expatriate Americans who wanted American care within the French capital. He had used it before in fact, after sustaining an injury whilst operating in France, and knew the staff there were like Swiss bankers, never revealing anything about their patients. The CIA often sent agents there for surgery, and it was also widely used by the American military. It was the perfect place for Hansard to have him killed.
As they cruised up to the entrance, he could see the two men standing to one side, motionless. Truro and Vinh. Cole recognized them instantly, having worked with them on a couple of ops in the long and distant past. Because of his plastic surgery, they would not recognize him, of course; but Cole knew that it would not matter to them even if they did recognize him. They were bad news, ruthless professionals that could be trusted to get the job done.
‘Get out,’ Cole ordered the driver. ‘Now!’
The ambulance was slowing down to a halt anyway, so the driver gladly opened the door and jumped out, running for freedom even as Cole slipped into the driver’s seat and gunned the accelerator.
46
Neither Truro nor Vinh could believe their eyes. They had seen the ambulance coming from a distance, its headlights illuminating its path through the thick snowfall. They were gearing up to retrieve the target from the back of the vehicle when it got close enough to see clearly. And what they saw inside the cab made them immediately sick. A man matching the description of their target, holding a gun to the driver’s head. And then the driver was jumping out of the vehicle, the target was taking the wheel and –
Both men left it too late to react, one darting left and one right. Vinh narrowly missed the front bumper, but Truro took the full force of the ambulance as it smashed into him, lifting him clear off the floor as the vehicle mounted the kerb at the front entrance, his body flying off as the ambulance came to a stop, the limp form crashing straight through the large glass double entry doors.
Vinh watched wide-eyed as the ambulance reversed backwards off the kerb, pulled a one-eighty, and sped off back the way it had come.
His eyes went reluctantly to the mess over in the foyer. Andy. He sprinted over to check on him, but it was too late. The impact would have broken every bone in his body, and the shattered glass had left him a bloody pulp. He checked for a pulse nevertheless, even as an army of doctors and nurses rushed towards them. There was none.
A single tear rolled down his cheek as he ran back out into the frozen night, watching the receding tail-lights getting away from him.
Vinh ran to get his own car, vowing to do whatever it took to destroy the man who had killed his only friend.
47
Cole could see the approaching lights in his wing mirrors. He knew Truro must be dead, so it would be Vinh trying to catch him. He was sure their vehicle would be fast, and would certainly handle better than the big ambulance he was driving, but Cole nevertheless tried to pick up the pace, increasing speed as he raced south back down Victor Hugo towards Boulevard Bineau, grip next to nonexistent on the icy streets.
The road was, however, mercifully quiet due to the late hour and the atrocious weather, and so Cole didn’t have to use the siren, which would have made it too easy for Vinh behind him. As it was, it was even possible that he might lose his pursuer in the urban mass of the city, if he could keep sufficiently ahead.
He crossed straight over Bineau, seeing headlights just behind him. Cole strained to identify the vehicle from the unclear image in his mirrors. A Range Rover? He heard the supercharged V8 accelerating behind him, and confirmed the ID. Perfect for the weather, and fast too. It was going to take some creative driving, Cole decided even as he ignored the instruction to follow the road to the right, instead ploughing straight ahead onto the lower half of Boulevard d’Aurelle de Paladines the wrong way, two vehicles coming towards him forced to swerve off to the side, the icy surface causing their cars to spin out, freewheeling across the street.
Cole carried on through the Place du General Koenig, still driving against the traffic, and straight through an intersection onto Avenue des Ternes, vehicles coming from either side just missing him, one by mere inches.
Cole risked another glance in his wing mirrors. Surely he would have lost Vinh by now?
But there it was, the ominous black 4 × 4 still surging towards him, a killer at the wheel.
48
Vinh had seen Cole’s trick early, and had therefore had time to manoeuvre his car around the vehicles on the one-way street as they span out of control.