Tom Cain - Assassin

Krebs, he calculated, was going to approach the lefthander with the confidence and speed of a man who knew the route so well his driving was virtually automatic. His concentration would be impaired by fatigue and the after-effects of the alcohol, cocaine and ecstasy he’d been consuming through most of his waking hours since Friday evening.

Now a car was coming down the road towards Tyzack. Its Xenon headlights were on, but there was still enough ambient light for him to be able to see beyond them and make out the domineering bulk of the Escalade, the Diamond White paint-job and 22-inch chrome wheels identifying it as Krebs’s.

Tyzack took his time. He waited until Krebs was just fractionally short of the point where he would have to brake, the car’s speed up around 70 mph, before he depressed the control that sent a radio signal to the explosive valves. Then he just let events play out of their own accord.

Just two of the charges detonated. The driver’s side tyres remained intact. But that only added to the catastrophic effect of the other explosions, as the functioning wheels kept driving, pushing the car away from the centre of the road, towards the hazards beyond.

Krebs’s reactions were as sluggish as predicted. He’d been driving along a dry road on a warm, clear evening with very little traffic about, so there’d been no reason to anticipate any problems. The simultaneous disintegration of two tyres and the immediate, total loss of steering and brakes took him entirely by surprise.

His eyes widened, his mouth dropped open and the Escalade swerved across the tarmac, its high body lurching from side to side. It rocketed off the road and hit the cattle wire at full tilt. The fiery rasping of wheel rims on the road was replaced by the screech of the wire on the car’s bodywork as it rode up the radiator grille then over the high, bulbous bonnet, stretching like a bowstring as the nearest fence-posts were torn from their footings.

Then, as the massive white machine approached the edge of the ravine, an invisible hand seemed to let the bowstring loose and it cut through the first six feet of the Escalade’s cabin as easily as a wire through cheese, slicing Norton Krebs clean in two below the shoulder. Only then did the barbed wire snap. The release of tension catapulted the Escalade towards the oak tree and then sent it pinballing off its trunk into the ravine, where it finally came to rest, as ripped and lifeless as its owner.

Tyzack let out his breath and gave a slight shake of the head. Then he turned away from the scene of the crime. The unexploded tyre-valves were still down there in the wreckage, but Damon Tyzack did not make any move to retrieve them. He walked away down the road, towards the truck he’d parked half a mile away, without a backward glance.

Carver was not a horseman. He’d always left that kind of thing to the fancy-dressed toy soldiers in the Household Cavalry, keeping the tourists happy at Buckingham Palace with their shiny breastplates and plumed helmets. But since arriving at the ranch he’d grasped that if he wanted to know Madeleine Cross and understand who she really was, he’d have to change his ways.

One morning, lying in bed with her head nestled on his shoulder and her legs wrapped around his, the heat of her on his thigh, she started telling him about her childhood.

‘We were absolutely blue-collar,’ she murmured. He could feel her breath on his skin, and her own skin was smooth and warm against the arm he’d draped around her. ‘My father took jobs wherever he could find them, working the fields as a farmhand, or on construction sites. I wore hand-me-downs from the families Mom cleaned for.’

‘If you were so poor, how come you learned to ride?’ Carver asked.

‘I had a horse called Blaze. Well, he belonged to our neighbour, but to me he was mine. I used to ride him bareback in the summer. When I’d dismount you could see the sweat-prints from my legs on his back. You know, it’s crazy, but even now, when I talk about Blaze, or just think about him, I can smell him, that horse-smell, the leather and sweat.’

‘There you go,’ said Carver, ‘horses smell. No wonder I can’t stand them.’

She propped herself on her elbows and he shifted under her, so that they were face to face.

‘But you can stand me, right?’ she asked.

‘Oh yes,’ he said, a greedy smile on his face, his hands moving down to her buttocks, pushing her closer to him.

‘And you desire me very much…’

‘I think that’s pretty obvious.’

She gave a little wriggle. ‘Mmm… seems to be.’

‘So are we going to do something about that?’

He moved his mouth towards hers, closing his eyes, expecting her to meet him. Instead, she pushed away with her hands, slipped out of his grasp and off the bed. By the time he looked up, she was standing several feet away, her naked body glowing in the light that filtered through the bedroom curtains.

‘No!’ she said. ‘We don’t do anything until you at least try to ride one of my horses.’

‘You’re kidding…’

‘Not at all,’ she insisted, opening her underwear drawer and pulling on her knickers.

Carver got out of bed, never taking his eyes off her and stood in front of her, half a head taller and sixty pounds heavier. She remained motionless as he ran his strong hands down the sides of her body, pausing for a moment on her waist before continuing downwards, his fingers spreading over her hips and sliding under the flimsy strips of fabric they found there.

‘I could rip these off right now,’ he said.

‘Don’t,’ she said, quietly, but with absolute seriousness.

Carver’s pulse was racing, his breathing heavy. His hunger for her was overwhelming and he was certain that she wanted him just as much. If he took her now there would be absolutely nothing she could do to stop him, but her trust and faith in him would be lost. Without that, they would have nothing.

So he stepped away from her, slowed his breathing and even let a wry smile play across his mouth as he said, ‘All right then, where are the gee-gees?’

Carver fell off more than his jarred bones, aching backside and injured dignity would have liked, but Maddy taught him to ride Western-style, leaning back in the saddle, the reins in one hand, his stirrups so long that his legs fell straight down the flanks of his horse. With Buster bounding along beside them, they rode out across the open land that took up most of the ranch’s 120 acres and picked their way uphill between the pine trees, where the air was cool. In the early morning, with the dew still glistening under the horses’ hooves, the pines gave off a scent that was as sweet as a pina colada. Carver could smell vanilla, too.

‘Some folks call them Sugar Pines,’ Maddy said.

While they’d been riding through the woods, Buster had suddenly started barking. He’d dashed away into the undergrowth, stopped dead, and then begun digging at the earth with his front paws, growling excitedly. Carver had felt a tremor of danger from a source he could not place, an indeterminate, undefined threat. But then Maddy smiled at him, and the feeling vanished like the shadow of a cloud when the sun comes out, burned away by her presence.

‘He’s just chasing rabbits,’ she said, kicking her horse into a walk. She called the dog. Reluctantly, Buster stopped his digging and trotted after them. A minute later, the whole episode had been forgotten and the main thing on his mind was trying to work out exactly what he had going with Maddy. Whatever it was, pretty soon he’d have to leave. It was going to take three flights and the best part of twenty-four hours to get him to Norway and Thor Larsson’s wedding.

Standing in the kitchen a few hours later, watching Maddy cook supper, a thought struck him.