The John Milton Series Box Set 4 Read online

  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.”

  Milton felt as if he was caught between reality and the dream. He was balanced on a precipice, teetering there; it would only take a little for him to fall. He moved through the annex, staying low, stumbling a little, the gun up and his finger held loosely around the trigger. He cleared the sitting room and then the bedroom, finally reaching the door to the garage. The door was closed; he slid next to it, pressing himself against the wall. His breath was coming in shallow gasps and he was sweating, drops rolling down his forehead and into his eyes. He wiped his face with the back of his sleeve.

  He heard a car door open and close, took a deep breath, wiped his eyes again, reached for the handle and pulled it down. The door was unlocked. He opened it and, after waiting for a moment, he stepped back so that he could look through the doorway.

  There was a car in the garage. The engine was turning over and the cabin lights were lit, casting a greenish glow over the silhouette of the man who was sitting in the driver’s seat. He looked into the back and saw another person: a woman, perhaps the one who had just shot at him.

  Milton raised his weapon and aimed at the driver.

  He straightened his arm and started to tighten his finger around the trigger, but before he could pull it all the way back, he caught the reflection of a second man in the window of the car. He had been around the corner, hidden, but now he moved into sight, a shotgun clutched in both hands. The man brought the stubby barrel around and fired; Milton fell farther back into the bedroom as the doorframe exploded. He was showered with another cloud of wood and plaster.
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  He heard the sound of a car closing and then the whine of the engine as the driver fed it gas. Milton rolled low out of the door as the car pulled out onto the drive. He fired a burst into the car, aiming for the engine and the driver’s side window. The bodywork chimed with each impact and holes were punched through the glass, but the window held.

  The car kept going.

  “Targets are in a Porsche Cayenne,” Milton said into the radio, his voice hoarse. “They’re heading toward the gate. Over.”

  He saw the silhouettes of two people in the back of the car: the man with the shotgun had joined the woman. He heard the buzz of the hydraulic motor; the doors were closing again. The light from outside narrowed and dimmed as the doors drew together but, before the light was snuffed out altogether, he saw a woman’s body on the floor. He recognised the jacket that Conway had been wearing.

  “Ten is down. Repeat: Ten is down.”

  38

  Pope retraced his steps and, the UCIW clasped in both hands, he ran back into the drawing room, into the hall and then out of the front door. He ran hard, reaching the corner of the building and poking his head around it in an attempt to scope out the garage. A car raced out of it and went by him, the brake lights flaring bright red as it slowed for the turn in the drive, and then the engine roaring loudly as it straightened out. Pope ran after it, making his way around the turn as the car started to accelerate toward the closed metal gates.

  He raised the machine gun and pulled the trigger, five short bursts to stop the muzzle climbing on him. The gun chewed through the magazine, sending rounds slapping into the back of the vehicle. The rear window spiderwebbed as bullets punched through it. The car remained on course, the engine whining as it plunged into the dead centre of the gates. The metal screamed as it was torn apart; the gates were ripped from their hinges and spun onto the asphalt, clanging loudly as they slammed down hard. The car raced across the short fringe that separated the gates from the road, the brake lights showing again as it fishtailed right and then left, then winking out as the driver buried the pedal and raced away to the west.

  Pope sprinted after it, ejecting and reloading as he ran. He came out of the gates just as the glare of a motorcycle’s headlamp approached along the main road. Pope jumped out in front of it, waving his arms. The motorcycle was travelling slowly, and the rider brought it to a halt and put his foot down. Pope grabbed the man and dragged him off the bike, dumping him on the road. Pope caught the bike before it could fall, mounted it, shoved the UCIW around so that it hung from its sling across his back and twisted the throttle. He raced away from the house and sped after the fleeing spies.

  Beck found that he was biting his lip. The atmosphere in the car was tense. Nataliya had cursed as the rounds had punched through the rear window, and Beck had reached over to brush away the small fragments of glass that had fallen onto her. They had been lucky: most of the bullets had missed, and the rest had been stopped by the chassis of the car or the luggage in the boot behind them.

  Mikhail was driving fast, hitting sixty as he raced out of the village and then squeezing up to seventy despite the narrow, twisting road. Nataliya had half-turned in her seat so that she could look back through the window for signs of pursuit. She was beautiful. Beck sometimes thought of her and Mikhail as the children that he had never been able to have. He had often daydreamed about what it might have been like if they had been allowed to return to Russia together. The two of them had been good enough to let him indulge his fantasy, and he knew that they would have stayed in contact with him even after their professional relationship had come to an end. It was unprofessional, but he loved them. He loved them, and, because he did, he knew what he had to do.

  Mikhail glanced up into the rear-view mirror. “Someone’s behind us,” he said.

  Beck craned his neck around and saw the glow of a single headlight in the distance behind them.

  Mikhail turned the wheel to the right and swept into a minor road that ran to the north. He put his foot down, quickly racing up to sixty and then seventy. Beck turned around again and saw that the glow of the headlamp was still behind them. Mikhail swung the car onto another minor road and then immediately turned right, making a series of unpredictable manoeuvres that the vehicle behind would be unlikely to match unless it was following them.

  They raced through the countryside. Beck turned back. The headlamp was still there.

  “Pull over,” he said.

  “Beck—” Nataliya started to protest.

  “I’ll slow them down. The longer we wait, the more coverage they’ll have. That’s a motorbike. Maybe that’s all they have now. You won’t be able to get away if we give them the chance to bring more.”

  “But you’re still coming?”

  He turned to the front, said, “I am,” and hoped that she wouldn’t be able to read his face. “There,” he said, pointing to a track on the right. “Stop there.”

  Mikhail braked suddenly, the seat belts biting and holding them all in place even as the wheels slithered across the dusty road.

  Beck had rested the shotgun next to him. He took it, opened the door and stepped out.

  “Go,” he said. “Don’t wait. Remember: Popham Airfield. I’ll see you in Moscow.”

  He slammed the door before either of them had a chance to speak and waited until the car lurched ahead once more. He could see the glow of the headlamp suffusing the night above the meandering hills. He clasped the shotgun in both hands and walked out into the middle of the road to meet it.

  39

  Pope gripped the handlebars and gritted his teeth. The targets had a head start and they were driving aggressively and quickly. He knew that it would be impossible for him to follow them without them noticing, and that had been confirmed as the Porsche had taken two sharp turns and then accelerated away at high speed. They were going to try to shake him; Pope would have to try and stay on them until he was able to summon reinforcements. Control’s preference that the operation remain limited to Group Fifteen looked fatuous now; they were going to need to call on the police to bring the car to a stop. Pope just had to stay on them until that was possible.

  The road was straight for a moment; Pope took the opportunity to reach up to his radio and pressed the button to open the channel.

  “WATCHER, WATCHER, this is Five. Can you hear me? Over.”

  “Barely. Speak slowly and clearly. Over.”

  “I’m in pursuit of the targets. They are driving a Porsche Cayenne, partial registration BL12. Repeat: partial registration is BL12. We are proceeding west out of Kings Worthy. Over.”

  “Five, copy that. Over.”

  The road curved to the right; Pope gritted his teeth as he bent the bike low to the ground.

  “Request police assistance. Track my location and get them to close the road ahead. Out.”

  The road was narrow, with barely enough space for two cars to pass. There was open space to the left and right, with hawthorn hedges marking the boundaries. There was no light; Pope could see no farther than the glow of the headlamp. The wind rushed around him, pushing his hair back against his scalp and stinging his eyes.

  A sharp left-hand turn approached. Pope drifted wide so that he could accelerate through the apex and, as he cleared it and straightened out, he saw the figure of a man standing in the middle of the road ahead of him. The headlamp bathed him in its golden glow and threw out a long shadow behind him; Pope could see that he had a shotgun braced against his shoulder and that it was aimed down the road at him.

  He yanked the handlebars hard and leaned back. The bike slid through ninety degrees until it was almost parallel to the road. It bounced against the surface and then scraped along it. Pope travelled with it, then released his grip and allowed it to slide ahead of him. He felt the burn of the road’s surface against his legs.

  He heard the boom of a gunshot, but the lead passed harmlessly overhead.

  The bike continued down the road. It started to spin and, as it d
id, the front wheel clipped the legs of the gunman. The man toppled face first to the ground, his head cracking off the hard surface, his body bouncing once before it crumpled and he lay still.

  The bike crashed into the hedge and came to rest. Pope slid by the man, digging in with the heels of his boots until he had arrested his forward momentum. His trousers were ripped and torn, and the flash of pain said that he had abraded the skin on his thighs and calves. Those were minor concerns that he had no time to worry about now.

  The road was dark without the glow of the headlamp to illuminate it. Pope waited a moment for his eyes to adjust and then approached, covering the shooter with the machine gun. There was enough silvered light from the moon for Pope to see that his assailant was male and seemingly well dressed. He was face down, his arms splayed above his head. Pope knelt down for a better look. The man was no longer armed; Pope couldn’t see the shotgun in the darkness. He reached down with his left arm and turned the man over so that he lay on his back. It was too dark for Pope to see much, but there was enough light for him to recognise Vincent Beck. Blood was pouring out of a gash in his forehead.

  Pope stood and gazed down the road. The bike was on its side, wrapped around the trunk of a small tree. The engine was still turning over, and the headlamp glowed through the vegetation. It wasn’t going anywhere. He looked beyond it, into the deeper darkness as the road led away. The agents were gone. He doubted that he would have been able to find them now, even if he had transport to continue the pursuit. Beck had sacrificed himself to buy their escape.