Ryan, Chris - Zero 22

He upped his pace, half closing his eyes to stop the rainwater blinding him. The sirens were screaming behind him. His feet slapped against the wet path. He kept looking straight ahead. He could see a street crossing, one at right angles. Distance, seventy-five metres. And in the yellow light of a street lamp, which illuminated the rain pelting at an oblique angle, he saw a figure turning the corner to the right. A small frame. A glimpse of blonde hair. It was her.

Rain everywhere. In his mouth. Down his neck. It saturated every thread of his clothes. It seeped in between his palm and the handle of his Sig. He wiped it from his eyes with a soaking sleeve as he reached the corner and turned right. It was another residential street, almost indistinguishable from the last. Townhouses loomed on either side. Parked cars lined the road. And there was the flashing neon of police lights, too. Danny had been right about the cordon. They blocked the road, 150 metres distant. Danny scanned through the rain and the glare, searching for Bethany. There was no sign of her, but she couldn’t have simply disappeared. She would be avoiding the police lights. She would be hiding somewhere between his position and theirs.

He slowed to a jog. Advanced along the street, scanning left and right. He didn’t really think she would be hiding between parked cars or in the porch of a townhouse. Too easy to see, but he checked those locations anyway. No sign of her.

The flashing lights didn’t move. The police vehicles were stationary at the end of the road. Twenty metres ahead, Danny saw a side street leading off to the right. More of an alleyway, really. Narrow: no more than six metres wide. He put himself into Bethany’s head. Police in front of her. Danny behind. No other place to hide. She wouldn’t know if the alleyway had an exit, but it looked like her only option. He stopped at the corner by the black railings in front of the end of terrace. Listened through the pounding rain. Raised his weapon two-handed.

Turned.

She was there. Fifty metres away.

She wasn’t running. Perhaps she had realised that he would catch up with her eventually. But Danny didn’t understand what she was doing. There was a high brick wall on either side of the narrow alleyway. There seemed to be an exit route at the far end, but the rain was too heavy for him to see it clearly. Bethany herself was crouching on the ground to the left-hand side of the alleyway. The slope of the road was such that a rush of rainwater was streaming towards her. She seemed to have one hand in the stream. She held her gun in the other and was pointing back down the alleyway towards Danny.

There was no way she could fire reliably from that distance. Danny advanced, his own weapon raised. There was a clap of thunder, then another flash of lightning. It illuminated the wet hair plastered to her pale face. Even from a distance, she looked desperate. Crazed.

Distance to Bethany: twenty metres.

Fifteen.

What was she doing? Why was she crouching there?

Ten metres, and Danny understood. The stream of rainwater was gushing into a drainage grate. He could now see that Bethany was holding the memory stick over it. Ready to drop it. And if Danny took her out, her grip would immediately loosen and it would be lost.

Stalemate.

Rainwater streamed down Bethany’s face. Danny couldn’t be certain that there weren’t also tears. They stood in silence, weapons pointed at each other, for a full thirty seconds. Danny knew he had to choose his words with great care. He had to talk her round. He had to be persuasive. He took a single step towards her.

‘Don’t move!’ she screamed.

He froze. Kept his weapon raised. Evaluated his position. He knew she was right-handed. She was holding her weapon in her left hand. She was in a heightened state of emotion. Her chances of an accurate shot at this distance were low. His chances were pretty high. How far would the sound of gunshot travel? With the cacophony of the rain pelting the ground and the rooftops, not far.

‘We can sort this out,’ he shouted over the hammering of the rain. ‘Put the weapon down. Give me the memory stick.’

She shook her head. He saw that she was shivering.

‘If you don’t put the weapon down, this only ends one way,’ he shouted. ‘Work with me, I can get you out of here.’

Another shake of the head.

‘We can deal with the General,’ he shouted. ‘We can say he was killed by the guy waiting for us in the apartment. They’ll believe me even if they don’t believe you. We can fix it.’

He risked another step.

‘ I said, don’t move! ’ Bethany screamed. She waved the weapon threateningly and put her fingers into the gaps in the grate, so the memory stick was out of sight. ‘I want to speak to my son!’ she shouted. ‘I want to see him. Get him on the phone. Otherwise this footage is gone.’

Danny didn’t move.

‘Don’t you understand me?’ Bethany shouted. ‘I don’t care about anything else. I don’t care about this footage. I don’t care about the terror attack. I don’t care about you. I just care about my son and I want to speak to him right now.’

Danny heard sirens. A glimpse of blue neon as a police car passed the opening to the alleyway forty metres behind him. What are my options? He could continue trying to talk her round. But she wasn’t in the mood to be persuaded. Or he could do what she asked. Get the kid on the phone. It would give him the opportunity to approach her. Get close. And when he was close, he had a much better chance of overpowering her.

Decision made.

He released his left hand, while keeping the Sig raised in his right. Felt inside his jacket for his phone. It told him that the time was 21.00 hrs. Beads of rain collected on the screen, making it unresponsive as he swiped. He had to try a few times. But he accessed his encrypted calling app and dialled the access number into Hereford before putting the phone to his ear.

It rang. Bethany stared. He was sure that it wasn’t just rainwater welling in her eyes.

‘ Go ahead. ’

‘Get me the CO.’

‘ Say again. The line is bad. ’

‘Get me the damn CO!’

‘ Wait out. ’

The line went silent. Danny’s focus moved to other sounds. The distant sirens. The boom of thunder. The rain fizzing all around him.

‘ Black? ’ The CO’s voice sounded curt. ‘ What’s happening? You’re all over the fucking news networks . . . ’

‘I need Bethany’s kid,’ Danny said. ‘On the line. Right now. Video call.’ He judged the level of his voice carefully. Clear enough to be heard over the line. Not so loud that Bethany could hear him.

Silence.

‘Boss? Did you hear me?’

‘ I heard you ,’ the CO said. ‘ Black, I don’t know why you’re asking this, but it’s not going to happen. ’

‘It has to. Bethany has the memory stick with the footage. She’s going to destroy it if she doesn’t see her kid.’

More silence.

‘ You have to find another way ,’ the CO said.

A crack of thunder. A flash of lightning. It lit Bethany’s face up again. There was a kind of hunger in her expression. She looked wild. Desperate.

‘There’s no other way,’ Danny said, and he meant it.

‘ There has to be. Don’t you get what I’m saying? The kid can’t get on a call. It’s impossible. His getting-on-a-call days are done. He’s dead. ’

Danny could almost taste his revulsion. It was bitter and acrid. It made him sneer. ‘How?’ he said.

‘ The team that picked him up got heavy handed. We couldn’t tell you. Not when he was all the leverage we had with her. You get that, right? ’