She couldn’t let her kids be taken away, but had only a few short minutes left.

  And when she rushed into reception, she found Steve Carragher heading towards the entrance, pulling Harley and India behind him.

  ‘Leave them alone!’ she shouted.

  At the sound of Elsa’s voice, he turned, pulling out a handgun to shoot her.

  ‘No!’ screamed India, and pulled at his arm.

  Carragher easily swatted the girl away, but not before Elsa flew at him, knocking the weapon from his hand.

  They smashed into the wall.

  48

  Somehow, Saint managed to stay on the motorbike as it roared across bumpy grass and mud and through hedges; bracken tore at his face; his coccyx juddered painfully on the seat.

  He was barely in control of the machine, which slipped and shifted beneath him. Lifting his head to the sky, letting the wind cool his sweaty face, Saint’s eyes would drift shut as he felt himself come back to life, and he’d have to remember to open them before he crashed.

  Accelerating out of a ditch, the bike’s wheels left the ground and landed in the middle of a road, the suspension crunching angrily, to cross in front of a speeding car. Saint heard the stricken blare of a horn, the screech of brakes.

  The Triumph flew over fields, bouncing over ridges and ruts, because if he stuck to the roads he’d never make up any time. He just about managed to steer the bike through dense woods. Trees threw themselves in his path; every time he managed to avoid one, another loomed suddenly behind it. He zigzagged crazily, gunning the 865cc engine as hard as he could, mulch and leaves spraying behind the wheels. He rode in a state of amazement that he was still alive, let alone still moving. His hand rolled greedily on the throttle, increasing the speed.

  The airstrip had to be close, but Saint couldn’t see it. He began to panic; the woods seemed to go on forever. Hurtling down a steep incline onto another narrow country lane, the wheels thudding angrily back to the ground, he saw a smooth ribbon of concrete in the distance where a Land Rover Discovery was pulling up beside a small building.

  A figure climbed from the vehicle to watch him approach from a hundred feet away – the guy called Kieron. Saint gunned the bike across the road, accelerated up the incline onto a sea of grass. He’d aim the motorbike right at him, mow him down. Yanking the throttle, bellowing his exhilaration at the top of his lungs; the bike surged. The next thing he knew, he heard a faint crack over the noise of the engine.

  The carrier was firing at him. Closing in fast, Saint’s concentration wavered. For a split second, he lost control of the bike; it swerved one way and then the other. But he kept going – aiming at Kieron as best he could – and then suddenly the machine tipped beneath him, and he flew off. The bike smashed onto its side, scraping along the ground.

  Saint rolled across the concrete behind it, his brain rattling in his skull. The harsh surface of the runway gouged at his clothes. His thigh felt like it was on fire, pain burning up and down his body as friction tore through the fabric. He rolled and rolled, bones and muscles shrieking, until he came to a stop.

  Saint groaned, lying on his back; the clouds in the sky spun furiously. If he’d been more sober, he might have felt the pain more, but he was mostly dizzy and nauseous. Later, if he wasn’t shot dead, he’d no doubt feel all the rends and cracks and fractures. A symphony of pain would play all over his body; the drum section already banged cheerfully in his skull.

  When he lifted his head, he saw Kieron walking towards him, turning like a Catherine wheel in his disorientated vision.

  ‘Wait!’ Saint said as the man came over, handgun pointed down at him. When he held up his own bloodied hand, its multiples flew around in front of his face. It was difficult for Saint to know what was up, what was down, just how many Kierons there were, or whether or not he was flying at the speed of light.

  He didn’t know what to do next, except possibly be sick, until his fingers found a traffic bollard, one of a number placed around a mound of spilled sand at the edge of the runway, and instinctively swung it at the guy. It bumped harmlessly off Kieron’s arm, and Kieron waited till Saint climbed unsteadily to his feet, stumbling back and forth to keep his balance, before he raised his gun.

  Kieron fired. Saint felt excruciating pain in his shoulder. His vision was obliterated by a blizzard of aggressive dancing shapes. If the guy fired again, he’d be dead for sure, so Saint threw the sand he clutched in his hand. It went straight in Kieron’s eyes and when the man’s arms flew to his face, Saint lurched forward. Knocking Kieron to the floor, he half jumped, half fell on top of him; slammed the guy’s gun arm into the concrete, sending the weapon skittering away.

  All the rage Saint felt about his miserable life, all the dreadful feelings he smothered with his addiction; all the poor decisions and wrong turnings; the prison time, the spells in psychiatric wards, the family who had rejected him, all those cold months and years in hostels or on the street; all those times he’d nearly gotten himself killed on behalf of nations, corporations, militias, groups, factions, and obscenely rich men who didn’t know who he was, and who didn’t care. But, most of all, the shame and guilt he felt at his core about the men he had killed, the families he had broken, the children he’d left orphaned.

  All his self-loathing at how he had become a joke, a jester, a fool. His endless, remorseless disgust at what he had done, and what had been done to him, about what he had become, and where he would end up.

  And the physical pain too, because his shoulder really hurt.

  All he wanted to do was punch out all that pain.

  He focused it all into the fist on his one good arm, and smashed it again and again into the guy’s face. Saint punched and punched and punched, until he was breathless and sobbing, and his hand was numb and bloody. And he only stopped when he realized Kieron had stopped moving, which could have been hours, minutes or moments ago.

  Saint stumbled to his feet and roared with triumph.

  ‘Yes!’ he screamed, doing a little jig of pleasure on the runway, and somehow not falling over. ‘Didn’t count on Max Saint, did ya? I did it, I’m back!’ He took the flimsy photo of the beach hut from his pocket and smothered it in kisses. ‘I’m coming for you, baby, I’m coming home!’

  Limping to the Land Rover, he opened the rear door. There was a backpack, and when he unzipped it, he found a small graphite case. Handling it with extreme care, he placed it on the bonnet of the car and undid the clasps. Opening the case, he looked inside.

  His good mood evaporated in an instant. ‘Shit!’

  He had to get back to Elsa, and quick.

  There was a sound, a helicopter approaching in the distance. Luckily, Kieron’s body was hidden on the other side of the vehicle. Saint watched as the MD 500 came closer.

  The pilot thought Saint was Kieron, and he was here to pick him up and take him into London so he could release the infectious agent. Which was fine with Saint, who fancied a ride in a helicopter. It would be just like old times.

  Enjoying the draught whipped up by the rotors on his hot face, he waved cheerily at the pilot as the skids touched down.

  49

  She didn’t stand a chance.

  Carragher was strong, relentless, his rage fuelled by nine years of resentment. He’d rather kill her in front of her own children than let her take them, and he came at her with all the brute force he had.

  Elsa needed all her skill and experience to stand a chance against him; he was a trained killer, one of the best, and she was exhausted, full of aches and pains, her body bruised and battered, reactions slow. In a fair fight, she could have used her natural speed and agility to stay out of his reach, but everywhere she tried to move, Carragher got there first.

  His very first punch glanced off her cheek, sending her spinning into a side cabinet; the edge painfully cracked against her hip. He picked her up and threw her to the floor. She landed on her back and the air whipped from her lungs. For a moment she didn’t know who or where she was, but the instinct to survive made her scrabble away on her hands and knees. When he followed, she attempted to backheel his shin, but he sidestepped, and grabbed her hood.

  She lost time after that. Everything happened in juddering smash cuts of light and dark, of flickering moments and sudden, agonizing pain she was powerless to stop. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was vaguely aware of the terrified screams of her children coming from a long way off.

  Trapped against a wall, Carragher’s powerful blows pounded into her flesh; breaking skin, compressing muscle, juddering bone. Cringing from a blow on the left, another arrived on the right. His big fingers dug into her cheeks as he began to crush her head against the wall, the pressure inside her skull reaching intolerable levels, the soft plaster on the wall denting and cracking. Elsa put all her last ounce of energy into a vicious Krav Maga palm strike to his nose. A butterfly of blood exploded across his face and he staggered back.

  Baring his bloody teeth, lips curling in fury, Carragher unsnapped the Kevlar, shrugged off the spattered armour, let it fall to the floor, so he could move more freely.

  Then he came again with a roar, knuckles as pale as marble across the top of his clenched fists. Maybe his frenzy of anger, his utter confidence, was her only opportunity.

  When Carragher swung, Elsa dropped to the floor, rolled and came up onto all fours, skittering backwards like a crab. The patterns of the tiled floor zigzagged crazily between her thighs as she tried to find space, her heels sliding in a slick of blood.

  Carragher strode forward and picked her up. Her body left the floor, and she flew through the air; a discordant crash seemed to come from everywhere, and a moment later Elsa vaguely realized she was lying face down on the floor among scattered pieces of medieval armour. When she lifted her head, ear shrieking, vision blurring, she saw the anguished faces of Harley and India across the room, but barely heard their cries of terror.

  And she saw one of the staircases.

  Carragher walked away, his wide shoulders rolling easily; she didn’t know why. But then he took a sword from between the gauntlets of another suit of armour. The steel blade was thirty inches long and he rolled it in his hand, swinging its tip in a wide circular motion, getting a sense of its length and heft, as he strolled back. She was prone on the floor and knew he intended to ram it into her chest until the blunted end cracked the floor tile beneath her.

  Elsa tried to get up; she had to get up.

  She wanted to tell the kids to run, but they’d only hide somewhere in the house. The fighter planes would be here.

  In how many minutes, how many seconds? Typhoons were ripping through the sky towards them at impossible speed, carrying a devastating payload.

  Gripping it tightly in both hands, Carragher lifted the sword high above his head and swung it down with huge force, to cleave her in two. Elsa grabbed a fallen axe spear and braced herself beneath the thick wooden shaft. The clashing weapons clanged angrily. Elsa felt a jarring vibration all the way up her arms and into her shoulders. She slid back on the tiles, pushing with her heels, as he lifted the sword and brought it down again and again on the wood, which splintered in two.

  She dropped it and frantically crawled towards the staircase. He swung the sword again. Cold steel whistled at the back of her neck to smash into the tile at her shoulder.

  ‘Where are you going?’ he said in irritation. ‘I expected more of you, Elsa.’

  When Elsa reached the bottom step of the curving staircase, he grabbed her by an ankle and pulled. She felt herself slide, blood and perspiration smearing on the smooth tile, the nails of one hand unable to find purchase. Carragher viciously twisted her leg, forcing her onto her back beneath him. Panting, chest heaving, she blinked the blood from her eyes to look up along his massive body in angry defiance.

  Carragher lifted the sword above his head two-handed, the tip face down, ready to thrust it into her heart. But she swung up the handgun that had fallen from his hand and spun to the side of the staircase, and which she had desperately scrambled to recover.

  Carragher gaped in surprise, his mouth a yawning red mess.

  ‘Try digging this out of your DNA, Steve,’ she told him, and emptied the magazine into his chest. He staggered back several steps, bullets punching into his body in rapid succession.

  Elsa pulled the trigger until it clicked uselessly. Carragher lay dead on the floor, spreadeagled in the pool of blood unfolding like wings on either side of his body.

  The weapon clattered to the floor beside her as Elsa fell into darkness.

  ‘Mum!’ She barely felt Harley press himself against her. ‘You have to get up!’

  Elsa jerked awake. The jets – the fighter planes would be here any second. She had to get them all out, but didn’t know if she had any strength left to even move. Lifting her head would be a start.

  ‘I’m okay,’ she said, rolling over onto her elbows.

  ‘Mum, please,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ The words didn’t seem like enough. Her kids had just watched their mum and dad fight to the death; Harley and… Elsa squinted around the reception.

  ‘Your sister,’ she said. ‘Where’s India?’

  ‘The lady took her!’ Harley was in tears. ‘She’s got India!’

  Elsa could still just about hear the thwap thwap thwap of helicopter rotors outside, the roar of the engine, and she staggered to her feet.

  Grabbing her son’s hand, she stumbled outside, finding a last drop of adrenaline to run onto the lawn. Sitting in the pilot seat of the helicopter was Camille – with India beside her.

  Camille grinned at Elsa as the helicopter lifted off the grass. Elsa let go of Harley and raced towards it as fast as she could, but it had already soared twenty feet into the sky. Standing in the downdraught, Elsa screamed in frustration as she watched the vehicle disappear behind the treetops.

  But she didn’t have time to think about what to do next because she heard a faint ripple of sound, barely a hum.

  ‘Harley!’ She ran to her son. ‘Quick!’

  She pulled him behind her, practically wrenching his arm out of the socket, as the tiny specks of the fighter planes tore almost soundlessly through the distant cloud.

  ‘Run!’ They raced towards the trees. ‘Keep going!’

  As her son raced into the woods, Elsa stopped briefly to look back over her shoulder. Arkady and Noah had managed to prise one of the wooden boards off a window in the biolab room, but it wasn’t enough. She saw the panic on their faces as they saw her sprint away and realized what was happening.

  She followed her son into the trees, stumbling over the uneven ground, yelling at him to keep running.

  ‘Here!’ she shouted.

  Elsa pulled Harley to the ground behind a fallen tree trunk, pressed him into the depressed pit below it and fell on top of him as the fighters flew directly overhead. It was only after they had disappeared behind the house that the sonic boom of the jets cracked the sky.

  Moments later she heard two – three – four explosions, as the mansion was engulfed in a massive fireball. The temperature at the heart of the inferno reached a thousand degrees in an instant. Concrete and glass and wood shot into the sky and across the lawn as the building was destroyed. The noise was deafening; the carnage total.

  Slabs of concrete and glass and steel fell through the trees, which bent against the blast. Elsa spread herself across Harley, trying to keep him safe. She heard branches snap and shatter and fall. Jagged metal and glass thwapped down all around them, spinning fragments of brick and stone, each one a deadly missile, embedding into trunks, smashing into the ground. A solid wall of smoke a hundred feet high pulsed into the woods, drifting through the trees.

  Finally, when she was sure no more flying debris was going to slice off the top of her skull, Elsa dared to peer over the top of the trunk. The destroyed mansion, now barely a heap of bricks, was obscured in a thick blanket of smoke and dust. There were fires everywhere, and some of the trees were alight. Masonry and rubble covered the lawn.

  The biolab and its contents had been completely consumed in the firestorm. Trapped inside, Arkady and Noah hadn’t stood a chance.

  She saw, then heard, the jets screech back across the sky, imagined the pilots inside confirming the completion of the mission. They flew off into the distance, returning to whichever RAF base they had come from.

  Ground vehicles would be arriving next, from the military and emergency services; CBRN specialists equipped to deal with chemical and biological disaster.

  But Elsa was surprised to hear another sound. A helicopter flew over the trees and hovered over the lawn, jerking left and right as the pilot tried to find a space to land among all the devastation. When it finally came down, causing smoke to billow frenziedly this way and that, Elsa was shocked to see Saint at the controls.

  She ran over and opened the passenger-side door.

  ‘I didn’t know you could fly!’

  ‘Man of many talents, me.’ He nodded grimly at the graphite case beside him. ‘There’s only one vial of the virus, the other is missing.’

  ‘It’s not over,’ Elsa shouted over the roar of the rotors. She remembered Camille had escorted Kieron out of the biolab room; had somehow got her hands on one of the vials then. ‘I think Camille’s got it, and she’s taken India.’

  Saint pulled a hand down his weary face. ‘I never took to that woman.’

  He was pale and sweating; a bloody stain spread across the top of his bodywarmer. He didn’t look like he could even stay conscious, let alone pilot a helicopter.

  ‘You can’t fly,’ she said.

  ‘Can you?’ he asked, and Elsa shook her head. ‘Then don’t be daft, I’ve got this.’

  Elsa kneeled down in front of Harley. Behind him, emergency vehicles approached the devastated building.

  He knew what she was thinking. ‘Please don’t go.’

  ‘I’m going to get your sister,’ she told him. ‘The police will keep you safe till…’ She felt a lump in her throat. ‘I’m bringing India back.’

 

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