Ken McClure: White death

Steven indicated to Tally that she should crawl away from him, keeping close to the shelter of the wall. She started making for the far end of the room, using her elbows to propel herself along while he turned over on to his back, drew his gun and waited. There was a chance that his attackers would make good their escape but there was also a possibility that they would check to see if they had achieved their objective.

There was an eerie quiet about the place, broken only by the sound of sobbing somewhere in the room and shouting coming from far away. It was the kind of silence that follows the mayhem of a high-speed rail crash when the almost unimaginable momentum and energy bound up in the accident, the force which creates such a screaming hell of tortured metal and splintering wood, is suddenly spent, leaving nothing but an eerie quiet.

Steven did not blink. He steeled himself to continue waiting — even when he saw the muzzle of one of the guns appear above the wall — but, as soon as the second appeared, he sprang into action, swivelling round on the floor to put both feet firmly against the brickwork and push himself out from the wall. Holding the Glock firmly in both hands he fired two shots in quick succession — one into each of the two figures standing there. He went for body shots, the biggest target: he couldn’t take the chance of missing with a head shot. Both men slumped to the ground but Steven was well aware that the Glock wasn’t the most powerful handgun in the world.

With the words of a training sergeant from long ago echoing in his head, Never take chances; if they go down, make sure they stay down, Steven scrambled to his feet and holding his gun out in front of him, looked cautiously over the wall. One of the men, although badly wounded, tried one-handedly to bring his weapon round to bear on him. Steven shot him twice more and he lay still. The other man was lying motionless as if already dead but Steven saw that his finger was still curled round the trigger of his weapon. Never take chances. He shot him too without checking further.

Then he turned and hurried towards Tally who was cowering against the far wall with her knees held under her chin and her expression a mixture of horror and disbelief.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked gently, squatting down beside her.

Tally looked at him in silence for a moment before saying slowly and deliberately, ‘They really don’t like you, do they?’

It was such a ridiculous thing to come out with that Steven couldn’t help but smile. Tally couldn’t quite manage one but she put her head against Steven’s chest and patted him with the palm of her hand. ‘You’re something else, mister.’

The noise level was rising as the whole place started to come to life again. People were running; people were shouting; the sound of emergency service vehicles in the distance grew ever louder.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ said Steven, realising that the response to the incident was about to become organised. ‘While we have the chance.’

He grabbed Tally’s hand and together they stepped over the retaining wall and out through the gap where the windows had been into the car park. They got into the Honda, which was nearer than Tally’s car, and drove off down the southbound slip road just as barriers were about to be pulled into place.

‘They’ll close the motorway,’ said Steven as he gunned the Honda out on to the main carriageway with the rev counter on the red line in each gear. ‘We’ll try to make it to the first exit.’

Once again they were just in the nick of time as police were in the process of closing the exit road. One officer was about to raise his hand when he realised how fast the Honda was travelling and changed his mind, stepping smartly out of the way to let it past. Steven braked hard at the top of the exit road and saw in his mirror that it had now been closed off with two police vehicles straddling it.

‘What now?’ asked Tally, rubbing her shoulder where the seat belt had bruised her.

‘Somewhere quiet and anonymous,’ said Steven. ‘We need time to let the dust settle. I don’t want to risk going back to my flat right now in case it was me they followed and they know where I live.

‘Steven, the M1 is closed, a motorway service area has been shot to pieces and there are two dead men lying back there… just how long is it going to take for the dust to settle? I mean, are we both going to live that long?’

‘I’ll get Sci-Med to dress it up as a gangland feud.’

‘I know I don’t understand too much about any of this,’ said Tally. ‘But I can’t see your… what is it they call it when you need a way of getting out of a bad situation?’

‘An exit strategy?’ suggested Steven.

‘That’s it, an exit strategy. Do you have one?’

‘We have to crack the code,’ said Steven. ‘Once we know the full facts and pass them on there’s no point in killing me.’

‘Are you sure the other side know that?’

‘Rules of the game.’

‘Game?’ exclaimed Tally. ‘You call this a game?’ She looked and sounded angry.

‘Sorry,’ said Steven. ‘That was male bravado talking. I’m as scared as you are, believe me.’

‘You couldn’t be,’ sighed Tally. ‘You just couldn’t be. I keep praying I’m going to wake up and find this has all been a nightmare and I never met anyone called Steven Dunbar.’

Steven gave her a sideways look and she squeezed his knee in apology.

They lapsed into silence until Steven said, ‘How about here?’ He slowed as they came to a large, blue sign advertising Radleigh House Country Hotel.

‘As long as it has hot water and gin,’ said Tally. ‘God, we’ve no luggage,’ she added as an afterthought. Steven brought the car to a halt in the gravel car park fronting the hotel.

‘I’ve got a bag in the back. It’s just got odds and ends in it but it’ll get us past the front desk. We’ll get ourselves cleaned up, call room service and have a bit of a breather before deciding where we go from here.’

‘Will you call Sci-Med?’ asked Tally.

Steven nodded.

Tally was in the bath and Steven had just tipped the room service waiter who had delivered two large gin and tonics and a plate of smoked salmon sandwiches when his phone rang. It was John Macmillan.

‘The business at Watford Gap services… Anything I should know?’ asked Macmillan.

‘Another attempt on my life,’ said Steven. ‘Dr Simmons was with me at the time.’

‘Russians?’

‘I didn’t get the chance to ask,’ replied Steven acidly.

‘How many and what was the outcome?’

‘Two, both dead.’

‘Any danger of you being identified?’

‘I don’t think so. They opened proceedings with a Kalashnikov overture played on the windows. There was widespread panic, people under seats, that sort of thing. It should be possible to pass it off as a gangland feud.’

‘Right. I’ll tell that to the Home Secretary. Where are you?’

‘In the country.’

Macmillan waited, expecting more, but nothing was forthcoming. ‘Quite right,’ he said. ‘You must feel you can’t trust anyone.’ He cut short the ensuing silence by saying, ‘But we’ve made progress in establishing the Russians’ interest in all this.’

‘Really?’ asked Steven, suddenly feeling that he might not be so alone after all.

‘You asked about the funding behind Redmond Medical and St Clair Genomics. It turns out they have a common source; a company called European Venture Capital is the principal backer in both cases. It’s a concern that has been attracting the attention of our security services for some time, especially their front man. He’s an Englishman named Marcus Rose. They think he’s the old Etonian front for Russian Mafia money coming into the country.’