Logan heard the boot to the car slam shut and was about to turn around to Butler when he felt a cold pressure against his neck. The barrel of a gun. Like a switch had been flicked, Logan was filled with unabashed fury.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ Butler said when Logan flinched.
Logan cursed himself for having been so easily foxed. Fleming turned around to meet his gaze. Evans too was looking at him.
‘Logan, no funny business now,’ Fleming shouted over. ‘Let’s just get this done quickly and quietly.’
Logan said nothing but he was fuming, his nostrils flaring with each angry breath. He looked over the car to Grainger. She was staring at him, two of Fleming’s guards crowding around her. She gave Logan a questioning look, as though asking what she should do next. He gave her the slightest of nods.
Evans walked forward.
‘Winter sent me, Logan. There’s no need to be alarmed. We know what’s happening. We’re going to help you.’
But Logan wasn’t really listening. For days, he’d struggled to keep hold of his anger. He’d done his best to ignore Butler’s many gibes and knowing looks. This time Logan knew it was a struggle he could no longer win. Fleming and Butler’s latest betrayal was a step too far.
Logan ducked down, away from the gun barrel, acting on pure impulse, no longer caring about potential consequences. He spun around, throwing his balled right fist up into Butler’s jaw. Logan’s whole body leaped up at the same time, the momentum of more than two hundred pounds of weight smacking into Butler’s chin. The shot was sweet, perfect contact, enough to knock out most men. But Butler was tough. His head snapped back but he didn’t fall, didn’t buckle.
Logan kicked out against Butler’s hand, which was gripping one of the MP5 sub-machine guns that had been in the back of the car. The kick was good. Enough to see the gun fly from Butler’s grip. The ex-soldier lunged at Logan, ready to counter any further attack.
As Butler came forward, Logan sent a right hook into his foe’s head. Then a quick left jab into the already injured nose, then another hit with his right hand, this one full force. And then, with Butler stumbling backward, trying his best to shake himself off and regain his composure, it took just one more left fist to the nose to knock Butler to the ground.
But Logan wasn’t quite finished yet. Butler groaned and rolled his head. His face was bloodied. His nose shattered. His eyes were defeated. He caught Logan’s stare for just a second before Logan sent a crashing boot onto Butler’s already pummelled face.
‘Enough!’ Fleming bellowed. ‘That’s enough!’
Logan, snarling, panting, spun around, his fists still balled, looking for his next target. His body was hunched over, knees bent, like a wrestler about to grapple with his opponent.
But when he saw Grainger in front of him, he suddenly straightened up and unclenched his fists. Grainger, her nose bloodied, was standing over by Fleming. Maksat, the giant, had one arm tightly around her neck. He was leaning back, pulling her up, her feet barely touching the ground. In his other hand was a gun, pointed at her head. Bulat stood a yard away, an assault rifle held high, its barrel also pointed at Grainger.
In those few moments of madness, Logan had been so consumed with inflicting pain on Butler that he’d not once thought of Grainger. He’d hoped she would have put up a fight, but had he really expected her to take on Fleming’s guards on her own, unarmed? He’d done exactly what he’d been trained not to do all those years ago: he’d fought with anger, resentment. He’d lost control. And despite the predicament that he and Grainger were in, he knew he wasn’t far from losing it again.
‘Just who the hell do you think you are?’ Fleming said, striding up to Logan.
As Logan readied himself to take on Fleming, he was taken by surprise when arms grasped him from behind. They wrapped around him, squeezing, gripping like a vice. Ilya or Vassiliy, Logan assumed.
‘If you’ve killed him, I’m going to end your days,’ Fleming said, lining up to take a shot at Logan.
Logan wasn’t finished, though. He wasn’t going to take any more shit from Fleming. As the ex-soldier came within striking distance, Logan lifted his legs in the air and, using the weight of the guard behind him like a springboard, he kicked out. His feet collided with Fleming’s stomach, causing him to double over.
Logan slipped out of the grip, spun around and took two steps away to give him space from Fleming and whoever had grabbed him. As he looked up, he saw it was Ilya.
Fleming straightened up and the three men faced off. But after a second, Fleming’s body relaxed.
‘Just go,’ he said. ‘I’m not losing any men over this.’
‘You set me up, you piece of shit.’
‘What did you expect me to do?’
‘Help me.’
‘And why would I do that?’
‘Why did you even bother to get us away from the NSC?’
‘I’m a businessman, Logan. This was simply business. I wasn’t lying when I said I didn’t want my relationship with the NSC to suffer. So I went with the best deal. As nice as it would have been to get one over on the CIA by helping you – and I really do despise those snakes – what you were offering just didn’t cut it.’
Fleming turned around and walked over to Butler, who hadn’t moved an inch since Logan felled him. Logan was both surprised and disappointed that Fleming had found the strength to walk away from the fight. Business. That’s what Fleming had said. It was just business to him. To Logan, it was so much more.
‘Come on, Logan,’ Evans said, putting a hand on Logan’s shoulder. ‘Let’s get out of here. I’m here to help you.’
‘Like hell you are,’ Logan said, brushing him off.
‘Believe what you want. But do I look like a threat?’ he said, holding his hands in the air. ‘It’s not my men who are pointing guns at you and Grainger.’
‘Let her go,’ Logan said, glaring over at Maksat.
The guard flicked his eyes this way and that, waiting for someone else to give him an instruction.
‘Just do it,’ Evans shouted. ‘The deal’s been done now. You can all go home.’
Maksat waited just a couple more seconds but then released his grip on Grainger. She dropped down to the ground, nursing her neck. Bulat too lowered his gun, then the two guards began to slowly, cautiously, back away.
Logan walked to Grainger and pulled her back up to her feet. She wrapped her arms around him.
‘Come on then,’ Logan said to Evans.
Evans and his companion turned and began to walk back over to their vehicles. As Logan and Grainger followed, Logan looked over his shoulder at Fleming. He was still kneeling by Butler, who was now sitting up but looked completely out of it. A part of Logan was disappointed that Butler had been able to get up at all. And he wished he’d had one real shot at Fleming. Just one chance to fell that treacherous shit.
‘You two can ride in the Land Cruiser,’ Evans said. ‘With me and Mason.’ Evans nodded to the man they were walking with. ‘The other two will follow us.’
‘Where are we going?’ Logan said.
‘Let’s just get out of here first. Before Captain Fleming has a change of heart. If he wanted to, he could kill us all and bury us out here. And you’re not exactly winning him over by trying to kill his friends.’
Evans had a point. With Fleming’s arsenal, it wouldn’t be too difficult for him to finish everyone else off. And Logan had certainly provoked him into a fight. Evans had three men with him, only two of whom appeared to be armed. Fleming had himself and five other armed men, all skilled fighters.
Logan certainly didn’t want to hang around any longer.
But he also had no intention of going anywhere with Evans, regardless of whether he was there to help or not.
As they drew nearer to the driver’s side of the Land Cruiser, the man Evans had called Mason took a set of keys from his pocket.
‘You get in this side,’ Logan said to Grainger.
He looked over at her as he spoke and gave her a look that he hoped she’d understand. The slight nod she gave him told him she had.
Mason went to open the driver’s door. Grainger stopped in her tracks.
Logan looked over at Evans, who stopped just as he reached the car and turned to the two men standing at the gate, who still had their guns at the ready.
‘Wait for us to pass, then follow us out,’ Evans shouted over to them.
As Evans turned back around, he was completely unprepared for Logan’s attack.
Logan lunged at him, grabbed Evans’s jacket at chest height and pulled him in. He sent a bone-splitting head-butt into the crown of Evans’s nose. The loud crack from the ferocious blow seemed to echo off into the distance. Evans crumpled toward the ground. Before his body had even hit the deck, Grainger grabbed Mason from behind and twisted his left arm behind his back into a hammerlock. The man initially squirmed and cried out, but soon became placid when Grainger pushed the shoulder to bursting point.
‘The keys,’ Grainger said.
Mason groaned and held out the keys in his other hand. Logan grabbed them off him. Grainger delivered a flat-palmed smack to the base of Mason’s neck that sent him to the ground. Logan raced over to the driver’s door of the Land Cruiser. He dived into the seat, sank the keys into the ignition and fired up the engine as Grainger jumped in the back. He was reversing out of the spot before either Evans or his companion had even stirred.
Logan shoved the automatic gear box into drive, then slammed shut his door and pressed down as hard as he could on the accelerator. The car shot forward. The tyres initially skidded on the icy surface, but the four-wheel-drive mechanism did its job and ultimately kept traction.
The two guards at the gate barely had enough time to get themselves into firing position as the Land Cruiser swept past them. Fleming and his men seemed almost oblivious to the proceedings. Perhaps they felt it was no longer their fight.
Evans’s two men let out a volley of fire, but it was clear they were aiming for the tyres rather than Logan or Grainger; the barrels of their guns were pointed low. It was only through sheer luck, or perhaps the fact the guards had been taken by surprise, that all four tyres remained intact as Logan steered the Land Cruiser away and sped down the track back toward the motorway.