Ryan, Chris - Zero 22

‘There’s more of them,’ Danny said. ‘We need to get to the car now.’ Eight hundred metres. They should be able to get there within five minutes.

They ran in the direction of the crossroads, past open-fronted restaurants and a couple of souvenir shops. Danny was fit and fast. Bethany too. The General was older and slower, so they had to move at his pace. Mostly, pedestrians moved out of their way. Some didn’t. There were collisions and angry shouts. Danny ignored them all. He blocked out the shock of seeing Turgenev too. He was scanning left and right. Up ahead. His tactical mind making a hundred tiny decisions every second. Of the people around them, who was harmless, who was hostile? These were Wagner Group guys, so he was looking for white skin. Only male? Not necessarily . . .

They reached the crossroads and sprinted left into the street where they’d parked. Distance to the vehicle: six hundred metres. The street was much busier than before. Arabic pop music rang out of cafes. Crowds of young people were congregating on the pavements in the warm night air. There was a smell of grilled lamb and a party atmosphere. It was harder to get through them all. Slower. Tougher to identify threats among all these people. The younger crowd were reluctant to get out of their way. Twenty-something men trying to impress their women were bolshy and shoulder-bargey. Danny moved through them like a bullet through steel, gripping the General, aware of Bethany at his shoulder.

He saw the car up ahead. Distance: thirty-five metres. He upped his pace, his focus now all on the vehicle.

And that was why he missed him.

The shooter was standing in the doorway of an electrical equipment shop on the other side of the road. White skin, brown beard, backwards baseball cap. He had obviously been waiting for them, and Danny only noticed him in his peripheral vision a fraction of a second before he took his shot. He threw himself and the General to the ground at the exact moment that the retort echoed across the street. The bullet missed Danny. It missed the General. But it didn’t miss the old Jordanian guy they were passing at the moment. The victim was comfortably in his seventies and wore a cream dishdash. The bullet slammed into his stomach, and a red patch spread instantly across his clothes as he clutched the wound and staggered back. Danny was on the ground. He raised his Sig and aimed. He discharged three shots in quick succession. Each of them found their target and the gunman collapsed in the doorway.

Now there was real panic. Screams. Pedestrians jumping up from cafes and running from the scene. There were fifty or sixty people in their immediate vicinity. Danny hauled the General to his feet. Bethany was already halfway to the car and they sprinted after her. Danny made his gun very visible. It ensured any loitering pedestrians quickly moved out of the way. He half expected more shots, but they reached the vehicle unharmed after a few seconds. It had been boxed in by two other cars. Bethany was standing on the pavement, protected by the body of the car, her arms and weapon stretched out over the roof as she scanned left and right, searching for threats in the direction of Danny and the General. Danny found the car keys and quickly opened up. ‘ Get in! ’ he shouted. He pushed the General towards the rear passenger side, then opened the driver’s door and threw himself behind the wheel. He stowed his Sig in the door, well out of the General’s reach. Bethany took the seat behind him and the three doors slammed shut at the same time. He turned the engine over, revved it hard and knocked it into gear. He sharply nudged the car in front, then reversed into the car behind. Repeated the process twice to shift the vehicles boxing him in. Then, when it was possible to exit the parking space, there was a screech of wheel spin and the vehicle catapulted down the road.

Ordinarily, Danny’s strategy would be to manoeuvre a vehicle as safely and calmly as possible. All that Lewis Hamilton shit was for wankers. But right now, he needed speed. There could still be more shooters in the vicinity. A single bullet in a tyre and they’d be in even more trouble than they were now. They were still in the centre of the city and they needed to get out as quickly as possible. One hand on the wheel, he slammed his free fist on the horn to clear the way of the few stray pedestrians ahead of him, then accelerated up through the gears. Average speed down a narrow street like this? Maybe twenty miles per hour. Danny hit fifty and continued to accelerate. In his rear-view mirror he could see the General looking behind them.

‘Get down!’ Danny shouted. ‘Get out of sight!’

The General did as he was told, crouching down in the back seat. Just in time. A bullet hit the rear window. The glass splintered but remained whole. Bethany lowered her sitting position to protect herself. ‘Stay down!’ Danny shouted, and he kept his foot on the accelerator.

The road bent round to the right. Danny followed it with just the faintest whisper on the brake pedal. Blue emergency lights came into view. A police vehicle, blocking the road at right angles. Distance: forty metres. He slammed the brakes and pulled a hard left into a side street. The rear tyres lost traction, but he went with it and was back in control in a moment. He heard sirens and knew that the police vehicle was making chase.

‘You just killed two men,’ the General shouted from the back. ‘The police get us, we ain’t getting out of Amman this side of Christmas.’

Danny didn’t reply. The General was stating the obvious, and anyway, he needed to focus on the road. The side street continued for fifty metres before emerging on to another busy thoroughfare where the traffic, mercifully, was moving. Danny slammed the brakes, then merged more sedately on to the thoroughfare. He was sweating profusely and he could hear Bethany breathing hard. The General sat up. He looked back at the cracked window rather gingerly, then faced forwards again. ‘I think you owe me a goddamn explanation,’ he said.

‘Quiet,’ Danny said. With one hand on the wheel he located his phone and dialled in to Hereford.

‘ Go ahead. ’

‘We have him. We’re still in central Amman but we’re heading out.’ He didn’t mention Turgenev.

‘ Make for your original drop zone. We’re sending in a stealth chopper to pick you up at 04.00 hours. Does that give you enough time? ’

Time check: 20.37 hrs. He estimated they had forty miles to travel, and some of that was off road.

‘Roger that.’

He killed the line and dropped the phone into his lap.

‘I said,’ the General repeated, ‘you owe me a goddamn explanation. That crazy bitch was one cut away from killing me.’

‘Call me that again, lover boy, and I’ll finish the job.’

‘Cut it out,’ Danny said. He realised he had to choose his next words carefully. The message from Hereford had been cryptic. Tell him that we know about Poliakov and the deepfakes. When he’d said it, O’Brien had become immediately compliant. But what the hell did it mean? ‘I’m getting you out of Jordan,’ he said. ‘Right now. But you have to tell me everything about Poliakov.’

‘Tough shit, soldier,’ the General said. ‘That’s need to know, and you don’t need to know.’

Danny glanced in the rear-view mirror. The General looked like he meant what he said. Through the cracked rear window, he saw the distant glare of flashing blue neon. ‘The Amman police are on high alert,’ he said. ‘Easiest thing in the world for me to pull over right here, wait for them to catch us up.’

‘What are you, stupid?’

‘I just saved your life, pal, a couple of times over. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that means I give a shit about you. We pull over now, I like my chances of getting away better than I like yours.’