Trant appeared at the other entrance, firing wildly on full auto.
Bullets ripped into the marble stairs, a line of dust-spitting impacts chasing after Rothschild. Splinters hit her legs. She screamed and tripped just short of the top. The statue was jolted from her grip — and rolled back down the steps, loud clunks echoing around the room.
Trant had taken off his gas mask; his expression was a flash of pure panic as he watched the angel’s clattering descent. ‘Back, get back!’
Eddie also watched the stone figure with alarm. The attackers’ fear confirmed that they hadn’t been lying about the danger…
Clunk, clunk — and the angel finally reached the floor, skittering across the polished wood before coming to a halt. For a moment, all eyes were upon it, tension rising… then Trant spoke. ‘It’s safe! I’m gonna get it — cover me!’
Gun raised, Eddie whipped around the pillar — but he held his fire, conflicted. The doorway was a choke point, meaning he might be able to hold the gunmen back while he made a desperate run for the angel… but doing so would leave Rothschild unprotected in the open.
His indecision lasted only a split second, but that was enough for Trant to run into the great hall — and for the two men with him to aim up at the altar from the doorway.
Eddie grabbed Rothschild and dived with her over the top of the stairs as they opened fire. Chunks of pale stone exploded from the columns, ricochets twanging and screaming across the room. ‘Jesus!’ he gasped.
‘I’ve got it!’ Trant shouted. ‘Get to the sluice channel!’
More guns blazed with suppressing fire as the others followed their leader. Eddie crawled to cover Rothschild as debris pummelled them, then raised his gun to catch anyone climbing the stairs to finish off the two fugitives…
Nobody came for them. The gunfire stopped. Eddie waited for a moment, then cautiously lifted his head. There was no one below — and the statue had gone. ‘Shit!’ he growled, standing.
‘What’s happening?’ Rothschild asked plaintively.
‘They’ve got the angel. Stay there.’ He raced down the steps and went to the glass doors. Nobody was in sight, though he heard a door bang from the direction of the lobby.
He ran after them. They would be heading for a getaway vehicle; if he caught up, he might be able to shoot the driver or a tyre, or at the very least get its licence plate for the police.
He reached the lobby. No rearguard — the gunmen were in a hurry to escape with their prize. He went to the main doors, spotting a couple of corpses behind the security station. The rain was still streaking down outside, a large black van parked in front of the bridge.
The raiders weren’t in it. They had instead gone to the bridge’s side, climbing on to its wall… and jumping off.
Eddie barrelled into the open just as the last man dropped out of sight. The roar of engines came from the waterway below. Rather than risk being hemmed in on Berlin’s roads, the raiders were making their getaway by boat along the Spree, the river bisecting the city. He ran to the wall, seeing the lead craft with Trant and two others aboard already powering away under a railway bridge to the north-west. Another picked up speed behind it, a man in the back seat sealing the angel inside a case— The Englishman flicked the MP7 to full auto and unleashed a long burst after the trailing speedboat. The man flailed and fell over the side, but then the compact weapon’s magazine ran dry. ‘Fuck!’ Eddie roared, watching helplessly as the two craft surged away into the darkness with their prize.
‘Eddie!’ He looked back to see Rothschild hurrying towards him.
‘I told you to stay put!’
‘I know where they’re going! That man told the others to get to the sluice channel — he means the Schleusenkanal, along the river. We passed it on the way from the airport.’
‘They must have a car waiting,’ Eddie realised. Using the river would make it easy for the robbers to evade pursuit, and once they reached their rendezvous, they could quickly reach Tegel and leave the country. ‘You know how to get there?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Okay, come on. We might be able to catch ’em.’ He ran to the street. Rothschild hesitated, then followed.
He guessed that the van belonged to the raiders, but doubted that the driver had left the keys in the ignition. Besides, the boats were doing at least forty miles per hour; he needed something much faster…
‘And there it is,’ he said as he saw the very thing approaching.
A sleek silver Porsche 911 was cruising through the rain. Eddie ran out into its path, waving his arms. The driver swerved to round him — then jammed on the brakes as Eddie pointed the gun at his car. ‘Achtung!’ shouted the Englishman. ‘Outta ze Auto!’
The middle-aged man might have been confused by the words, but he couldn’t mistake the message. He scrambled out, hands up as he stared in fear at the man marching towards him.
‘Here, present for you,’ said Eddie, handing the weapon to the startled driver. ‘Prof, get in!’
Rothschild ran to the Porsche. Its owner looked in confusion between his car and the gun, then took a couple of panicked steps backwards and pointed the MP7 at the Yorkshireman. ‘You — you are not taking my car!’
‘It’s empty, you dozy twat,’ Eddie replied. The driver gawped at him. ‘I’ll try not to smash your Porsche to fuck, but if anything happens, send the bill to Oswald Seretse at the United Nations in New York. Okay?’
‘Oswald Seretse,’ the German replied slowly. ‘Okay. Yes.’
‘Great. Thanks!’ Eddie dropped into the bucket seat and slammed the door. Rothschild swung herself awkwardly into the passenger seat beside him. ‘All right, never driven one of these before. Hope Top Gear was exaggerating about how hard they are to control!’
He depressed the clutch, slotted the gearstick into first, then rocketed into the night at the head of a huge trail of spray.
15
Even from a wet standing start, the speedometer needle surged past ninety in mere seconds. ‘Whoa, bloody hell!’ Eddie cried, struggling to hold the Porsche in a straight line as the wheel squirmed in his hands. ‘Guess this one’s a turbo.’
Rothschild clutched the door handle with one hand and the centre console with the other, fingernails digging into both like claws. ‘Oh my God!’ she screamed. ‘Slow down, slow down!’
‘I’m chasing them — going fast is the whole fucking point!’ The one-way street became two-way at a junction. He swung to avoid the flaring headlights of an oncoming car, then slammed the power back on to whip around another vehicle ahead. The road ran along the riverbank, the long facade of another museum rising across the water to the right. ‘Can you see them?’
‘Not yet — and what exactly are you planning to do? They’re in boats, we’re in a car! And you don’t have a gun any more; how are you going to stop them?’
‘Not a clue. But if they get away with the angel, I’ve got no chance of finding Nina. So that’s not going to happen, whatever I have to fucking do.’ The clenched fury behind his words deterred her from asking further questions.
The channel curved, the road following it. ‘There!’ Eddie said, spotting churning wakes on the dark water. As the Spree widened, the boats had moved out into its centre. The Porsche was gaining rapidly, but as Rothschild had pointed out, there was no way of reaching them. ‘This sluice canal — how far away is it?’
‘Four or five— Ah!’ She gasped in fright as the Porsche swerved to overtake another car. ‘Four or five miles,’ she concluded, her voice noticeably higher in pitch.