Chris Ryan - Killing for the Company

No time at all, he realised. No fucking time at all.

He could hear the chopper. It was hovering just beyond the junction with the main road, clearly scanning the area below. It was only seconds before…

Suddenly another wave of spray hit him, chill and muddy. Luke cursed — but then he saw that the vehicle which had caused it hadn’t driven past but had come to an abrupt halt just five metres up ahead. Luke ran back. The vehicle was a VW minibus, its front half painted yellow, its rear half white and with Hebrew lettering along the side. Underneath, much smaller, was the word ‘ Sherut ’.

As Luke came alongside, he saw that the side door had slid open to reveal a ramshackle, poorly cared-for interior with banks of worn seats, about half of them occupied. The driver had one arm on the wheel and was leaning over in Luke’s direction, calling impatiently to him in Hebrew. As Luke threw himself into the vehicle and slammed the door behind him, the driver grew more irate and Luke felt the eyes of the other passengers on him.

He turned to the driver and blinked stupidly at him. It took a couple of seconds to work out where he was. All the passengers had some kind of luggage next to them or at their feet; the driver himself had stretched out his palm. Luke twigged that he was in a shared taxi. He’d seen vehicles like this — usually in a state of profound disrepair — up and down Africa, but he hadn’t realised they were a feature of the Israeli transport system. He plunged his hand into his pocket and pulled out the sheaf of notes he’d taken from the stolen Bergen. He peeled off a couple and thrust them into the fist of the driver, whose instant silence suggested that he’d overpaid. Luke took a seat by the window and silently urged the taxi to slip back into the lane of traffic. But the driver was taking great pains to stow away the money in a leather purse, and it was an agonising twenty seconds before the vehicle moved again.

Luke’s wet clothes clung to him and cold rainwater dribbled down his neck. Trying not to alert the other passengers, he kept an eye on the chopper, still hovering over the junction. He pictured the crew staring intently at the violent colours of a thermal-imaging screen as they scanned the surrounding area; and he found himself holding his breath.

The heli’s searchlight swung round in the direction of the taxi and momentarily blinded Luke. He became vaguely aware of the passengers muttering to each other, no doubt wondering what the chopper was looking for and perhaps suspecting it was their bedraggled new companion. Luke ignored them. As his vision returned, all his attention was on the helicopter. And on the searchlight, which he could see had lit up an abandoned WMIK in a ditch by the side of the road leading back to the military base…

The taxi moved beyond the chopper’s position.

Fifty metres.

A hundred.

Looking back, Luke saw that it was still hovering there. And then suddenly it turned — not in Luke’s direction, but the other way.

He sat back in his seat, closed his eyes and tried to control his breathing. He was safe, for now. But as the minibus sped along the main road, the knot in his stomach refused to go. His mind churned over everything that had happened over the past few days. Suze McArthur. Gaza. His men, dead.

But above it all were two faces. Alistair Stratton and Maya Bloom.

He suddenly turned and looked at the passenger behind him — an elderly man with silver hair and a tanned, lined face.

‘Do you speak English?’ he muttered.

The man looked taken aback. ‘Of course,’ he said.

‘What is the next stop?’

The elderly passenger was looking at him like he was a lunatic.

‘Why… Jerusalem, of course,’ he replied.

Luke blinked.

He checked his watch. 18.35. Less than seventeen hours till Stratton’s spectacular came off.

Less than seventeen hours to stop him.

20.15 hrs.

The taxi ride was painfully slow. The road was good, but it was busy and the weather was fucking awful. Every time one of the travellers started talking into a mobile phone, Luke had to fight the paranoia that they were raising the alarm about his presence. It made him want to reach for the Sig that he’d stashed in the Bergen, but he kept his cool.

After nearly two hours the rain eased and Luke could make out the outskirts of a city.

It wasn’t much more than twelve hours since he’d been in Jerusalem. Christ, it seemed like a lifetime. He felt like he was returning a different person. Through the rain he saw flashing blue lights. A hundred metres further on, parked by the side of the road, he even caught sight of the slanted turret of a Merkura battle tank and its 120mm MG253 gun. When the taxi got stuck behind a military truck heading towards the centre of the city, Luke felt his fingers twitching for his own weapon again. When the taxi finally stopped, Luke was the first to grab his bag and jump out. He found himself on a wide boulevard, indistinguishable from almost every other street they’d driven down since they’d hit the centre. The pavements were fairly crowded, but the road itself was jammed with vehicles. Those restaurants that were open appeared to be doing a good trade. Despite that, he could sense tension all around. Hardly fucking surprising. Troops were camped out on the Israeli plains. West and East were mobilising and when it came to a head — if it came to a head — chances were these streets would be the battleground…

A chopper flew overhead, causing Luke to shrink instinctively against a shopfront. He told himself that the city was on high alert for reasons unrelated to his presence, but that didn’t make him feel any less nervous. Looking round, he saw a small tourist sign shaped like a pointing hand. It had Hebrew lettering on it, but underneath it was translated into English: ‘to the old town’. Luke took that direction, but he hadn’t walked more than ten metres before he stopped. Up ahead, perhaps thirty metres away, three Israeli soldiers were walking towards him with rifles slung across their fronts. He changed course, ducking into a dingy little side road at ninety degrees and hurrying down its length.

It was quieter here. More sheltered. He passed two old ladies wrapped in black robes and headscarves and deep in conversation as they walked towards him, but nobody else. Luke was shivering with cold from his earlier soaking and his brain felt like it had shut down. He needed to get something hot inside him to raise his body temperature. When he passed a shop with its grille open and a picture of a steaming cup painted on the window, he checked for security cameras inside. Seeing none, he entered.

It was warm in here, and almost empty. That suited Luke just fine. There were four tables, each with foil ashtrays, and a Formica counter behind which stood a young woman of about twenty with dark hair, dark eyes and a good couple of inches of cleavage on show. She smiled and looked him up and down. She didn’t seem at all put off by his dishevelled state. Quite the opposite, in fact. She gave Luke an appealing smile, which he didn’t return.

‘Coffee,’ he said. ‘Black.’

She inclined her head. ‘English?’ she asked in a throaty voice.

Luke nodded and continued to look around the room. There was only one other customer — an incredibly ancient man dressed in an old black suit and with a black hat perched on the table in front of him next to his coffee cup. He looked up at Luke with piercing blue eyes. Just behind him, against the left-hand wall, was a low shelf with an old beige computer and a stool at which to sit. Alongside the screen was a Perspex rack of free postcards and tourist leaflets.

‘But not on vacation?’ the woman said. ‘Who would come to Jerusalem on vacation right now…?’