Джеймс Паттерсон: Revenge

Might be nothing , he thought. The two guys could be mates on their way to the pub, or job center, or picking up a car from the garage.

On the other hand it might be something . They might—just might—be part of the crew that had contacted the Drakes. And maybe that crew had decided to make good on their initial threat and show they weren’t to be messed with.

And if that’s what they were, then they’d have scoped out the Drakes already; they’d know that Shelley, Susie, and Emma were on their way to Waitrose. Which meant that Shelley had missed their surveillance runs, too busy yakking. He swallowed, perspiration prickling his forehead, cursing himself as an amateur, thinking, You fucking idiot.

At the lights, the Peugeot eased out from behind and drew alongside. Shelley kept up his conversation with Susie and Emma in the back, surreptitiously checking out the Peugeot at the same time: two guys, one in a navy sweatshirt, the passenger wearing a black puffa coat. They didn’t look across. They, too, were deep in conversation: neither of them seemed to pay the BMW much attention.

Even so, Shelley remained alert, thinking things over. It could be that they were just a couple of blokes arguing over last night’s football.

Or it could be that they were good at their job, and didn’t want to show their hand.

He leaned forward as though to scratch his thigh, eased his SIG Sauer from its holster, checked the safety, and tucked it underneath his buttock.

The lights changed. The Peugeot beat Shelley off the line and then tucked in front of them. Right, thought Shelley, if they were kidnappers, then there’d be a second team. And the second team would be behind.

His eyes went to the mirror, scanning the traffic: VW Passat, one lady driver; behind that a Vauxhall of some kind, again a lone driver. But sure enough, behind the Vauxhall there was a white van, the builders’ sort, or at least that’s how they wanted it to look, dashboard stuffed with yellowing copies of The Sun , crumpled Burger King wrappers, and discarded coffee cups.

The van. That was the second team. And if Shelley was right they’d make their way up the line of traffic to come up behind the Drakes’ BMW. Once in position the BMW would be boxed in.

When? was the question. They might wait until the supermarket. If they’d been carrying out surveillance—and Shelley thought so—then they’d know that Susie Drake was on a shopping expedition. The supermarket would be the perfect place. That’s where Shelley would choose.

But he was wrong about that.

CHAPTER 12

REACHING THE NEXT set of lights, the Peugeot was first in the queue, Shelley behind, the white van a few cars back.

His hands were tapping on the steering wheel as he continued a conversation with Emma, fielding her latest inquiry about what he’d done “in the war.” That’s what she always said: “in the war.”

“Which war, Emma?”

“Any war. Did you kill anybody?”

“Emma!” chided Susie. Shelley’s eyes flicked to the rear-view to check the status of the van behind. Still there. Biding its time.

The lights changed. The Peugeot in front began to move off. Shelley lifted the clutch and inched forward. The Peugeot jerked to a halt.

He tensed. Cars to the right of them, the pavement to the left, teeming with pedestrians. His eyes returned to the rear-view but nothing was happening at the van. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe the Peugeot had simply stalled. Even so . . .

“I don’t like this,” he said out loud, cutting Emma’s chatter dead, the edge in his voice letting Susie and Emma know he was serious. Emma had been told: there might be a situation, and if there was, then Shelley was in charge. Don’t question. Don’t hesitate. Just do everything he tells you. And this was one of those times.

Still no activity from the van. The guys in the Peugeot seemed even more animated than before, behaving like a couple of blokes trying to get a recalcitrant car restarted. Shelley was on a knife-edge, ready for something to happen, ready for it not to happen, hoping, praying that he’d be able to tell Susie and Emma, “False alarm, guys,” and go back to bantering about what he’d done “in the war.”

Eyes to the van. No movement. The indistinct shape of the driver looking bored. Eyes in front, the Peugeot double act still going strong.

And then came a movement he only saw in his peripheral vision. At the same time Susie, with fear in her voice, said, “Shelley . . .”

It was the woman from the VW Passat. She’d got out of the car and now stood by the BMW. In the next instant the locks to the BMW flicked open, the door was yanked wide, and she bent into the car, looking for all the world as if she was loading something into the back seat.

Except for the gun that she lodged into the back of Shelley’s neck, making him freeze.

“Awright, hero?” she said in a strange put-on northern accent. “Face front, hands through the steering wheel and flat on the dashboard.” Her short hair was ill-fitting, probably a wig. “Move your hands again and the last thing you’ll see is your teeth hit the windscreen.”

In the rearview he saw that in the other hand she held a lock remote, some kind of universal access, and with that hand she reached for Emma. “Get out of the car, honey,” she ordered. At her neck was the furry nodule of a microphone. Eyes front, Shelley saw that the two blokes in the Peugeot had put on headsets and were monitoring the situation behind. One of them turned to show him a handgun but made no move to leave the car. They wanted to do this discreetly, with the minimum of fuss.

Time stood still inside the BMW. Susie sat frozen, eyes round with fear, parental instincts kicking in, but at the same time abiding by Shelley’s instructions to let him take charge.

“I won’t tell you again,” said the short-haired woman. “Get out before I paint the car with your bodyguard.”

“What shall I do, Shelley?” asked Emma. The fear in her voice cut through a symphony of angry car horns from behind. The entire junction was locked, the whole street brought to a halt.

“Just do as she says, Emma,” replied Shelley, very aware that his words were being relayed to the car in front and wanting to put them at ease. “Just go with the lady. She won’t hurt you, I promise.”

“You heard the man,” said the woman in her awkward northern accent, like something she’d learned off Coronation Street .

Reluctantly, Emma moved across the seat toward the kidnapper, who took hold of her.

“Be lucky, sweetheart,” Shelley told Emma.

It was the signal they’d worked out in advance: If I say “Be lucky, sweetheart,” it means that the bad guy’s grabbed you and I’m ready to make my move and I want you to bite the hand he’s holding you with. And I mean bite. I don’t mean nibble, or chew. I mean bite, like you’re biting down on the biggest, toughest bit of steak you’ve ever eaten. You understand me?

Emma did as she had been told and bit down hard on the woman’s hand. The woman screamed and pulled the trigger in the same moment as Shelley twisted in his seat, praying the gun barrel wouldn’t follow.

It didn’t. The shot singed a sideburn and cost him the hearing in his right ear for a week, but it missed and struck the center of the steering wheel. Shelley heard another explosion and felt an almighty punch to the torso as the airbag deployed.

Pinned but half twisted in his seat, he grabbed the woman’s arm and with a shout of effort snapped it across the BMW’s midsection.

Her gun dropped and she screamed like a wounded animal as she yanked herself away from Shelley and free of Emma’s teeth, rebounding off her Passat and then running toward the Peugeot with her snapped arm cradled. Shelley saw red-tipped bone poking through torn flesh. She dragged open the rear door of the Peugeot and threw herself inside.