Tom Cain - The accident man

"Now put your left hand through there," said Carver, gesturing with his gun at the empty cuff. "Tighten it with your right hand. Good boy."

Colclough was now cuffed to the steering wheel. He wasn't leaving the car until Carver cut him loose. Carver patted him down, looking for a weapon.

"Maybe you should have done that to the bird, eh?" Colclough sneered. "You might've enjoyed it an' all."

Colclough was balding, maybe twenty pounds overweight. His shirt was white polyester. He was wearing gray trousers, with a matching jacket hanging from a hook behind the passenger seat. His shoes were black lace-ups. He wasn't carrying a gun or knife. There was nothing in his jacket.

Carver looked at Colclough with a wry, contemplative smile on his face, then glanced down at his gun. Without warning, he lashed out, smashing the pistol into Colclough's face, cracking his cheekbone and drawing blood. Colclough bent over, holding his face in his uncuffed hand. He prodded his battered cheek with a fingertip and winced.

"What the 'ell did you do that for?"

"You heard the lady," Carver said. "Show some respect."

"My hero," said Alix, teasingly. She tossed the knife handle up and down in her hand. "It was in my boot," she explained, "then in my hand. From the moment you set me free, I could have killed you anytime."

"Why didn't you?"

"I still might."

Carver ignored the remark and turned back to Colclough. He took the lump of C4 putty from his pocket and held it out.

"Do you know what this is?"

"I can guess."

"Good," said Carver. "Now, watch."

He leaned down and stuck the putty underneath the side of the passenger seat, out of Colclough's reach. Then he rummaged through another pocket and pulled out a timer detonator.

"Max is in town, isn't he?"

Colclough nodded.

"Thought so. An operation like this, he'd have to control it on-site. So I'm guessing he's not far from here, right?"

Another nod.

Carver held the detonator in front of Colclough's face. "I'm setting this to fifteen minutes. You've got that much time to get us to Max. If we get there on time, I pull out the detonator, nothing happens. If we don't get there, I open this door and leave. The lady goes out the back door. You stay locked to the steering wheel."

He set the timer and skewered it into the putty. The sound of a fire engine siren echoed in the distance.

"Alternatively," said Carver, "I reset it to thirty seconds and we get out now. What's it going to be?"

Colclough didn't say anything. He didn't have to. His labored breathing and the sheen of sweat breaking out across his forehead told the story. He turned the ignition, stuck the car in gear, and pulled away from the curb.

"Good man," said Carver. "Now, time we had a little chat. Let's not piss about. Tell me where we're going. Describe the place. How many people does Max have? Fourteen and a half minutes left. Talk."

Carver repeated the question. "How many people?"

"I don't know, all right?" Colclough whined. "That's the whole point, ain't it? You only know what you need to know. You only see what you need to see."

"All right, what did you see?"

"It's a big mansion. Old place. Proper flash. You get there and the building comes right up to the pavement, almost like a blank wall facing the street. There's an arch with a driveway through it. That's how you get in."

"Security?"

"Gates. Metal gates."

They'd made it back to the river again. Across the water, Carver could see the floodlit towers of Notre Dame. He ignored them, giving all his concentration to Colclough.

"You drive in and there's a little guardhouse on the left, inside the arch, yeah? There was definitely an individual there, checking everyone in and out."

"Cameras?"

"Couple at the front. Didn't see any others. But there might be."

"All right, then what?"

Colclough thought for a moment. "A courtyard. There's like an old stables or something on one side they use for car parking. The front door's opposite the entrance arch. It's under cover, so you can drive right up, get to the door, and you don't get wet. You go in, there's a big, bare hall and a marble staircase right up the middle of the building."

"That's normal. It's a hotel particular," Alix interrupted.

Carver turned around in his seat. "Sorry?"

The girl explained, as if reciting from a guidebook. "A hotel particulier. A classic Paris mansion, probably built in the seventeenth or eighteenth century."

"How do you know about that?" asked Carver.

"Because I was trained to discuss such things."

"In Russia?"

Alix nodded. "Of course. It was essential for my job."

"Which was?"

She broke into one of her noncommittal smiles. "Conversation. So, if this is a typical hotel, all the main reception rooms are on the first floor. Is that where Max is?"

Colclough nodded. "Yeah, some kind of dining room. His guv'nor was next door, in some other room."

Carver frowned. "What do you mean, 'guv'nor'? You're saying Max has a boss? Who is he?"

"How should I know? I never saw him."

"How do you know he's there, then?"

"Because Max was called into the next room. Went straight through, no argument. So the bloke must've been his boss. Logical, yeah?"

He looked at Carver with pleading eyes, desperate to be told he was doing all right, that everything would work out okay. His voice cracked. "Christ, I'm doing my best. I've got a wife, a daughter. I don't wanna die. I mean, what've I ever done to you, for Chrissake?"

"Okay," said Carver, ignoring Colclough's pleas. "One on the door. Max. His boss. Who else?"

"I told you, I don't know. Not many. I was told to wait downstairs in some kind of pantry. There was food and coffee there. A couple of other blokes came in and out."

"Armed?"

"Could've been. In fact, yeah, there was two of them outside the room Max was in, like guards. They had guns, definitely. Anyway, I drank coffee and did the crossword till about eleven. Then I got orders to take up my position. The rest you know."

"Not quite," said Carver. "Where's the pantry, relative to this dining room Max was in? How did you get there?"

"There was more stairs that went down the back way. You know, like for servants."

Carver thought. Call it four people to mount proper surveillance of the targets in the hours leading up to the hit. You'd need a couple of them to stay by the accident, monitor what happened, and follow the ambulance. That left two, plus the doorman, Max, his guards, and his mysterious boss. Seven against one. Not great odds.

He turned around to face Alix again. He'd disarmed her pretty easily at the bus stop. It wasn't a great sign.

"How much armed combat training have you actually had?"

She shrugged and pouted. "Some. Basic self-defense, shooting, nothing special."

"And knife work," said Carver.

"No. That I taught myself. Every girl needs a way to scare off creeps."

"Bit extreme, isn't it?"

"So were the creeps."

Colclough spoke. "Can I ask a question?"

Carver only looked at him in response.

"Why don't you just get out of here? Trust me, I'll stay schtum. I swear to God, on my girl's life, not a word. Take this car. Head for the nearest airport. Fly as far away as possible."

Alix nodded. "Or we could fly to different places. Separately."

"Yeah, we could," said Carver, "if you wanted a pain in the neck from looking over your shoulder for the rest of your short life and an itch in your back, waiting for the first bullet. The people who sent us wanted us dead. They're not going to change their minds on that. So we've got an hour, tops, before the police discover there was no one in that flat and that body gets fished out of the sewers. We've got to assume that Max and his boss are either monitoring police communications or have people inside the force. They'll soon know we're still alive. We've got to hit them before then. And we've got to find out about their organization. I take it Max had some kind of IT/communications setup?"