Long before the cops arrived, Gleason’s men scooped me – and what was left of the Buell – off the road, but that didn’t mean they had my best interests at heart. In fact, once I was back in the situation room at Eisenberg’s place, the whole thing turned into more of another hostile interrogation. I supposed, with something worth a minimum of five million in play, they had every right, but I was glad of Parker’s presence more than ever.
As if in response to my quip about his lack of faith, made that day at the Willners’ place, he stayed close while Eisenberg’s in-house medic checked me over and pronounced me remarkably fit, under the circumstances. When they peeled me out of the body armour, I collected the stopped round from the lining. It was a .380 with a light load behind it, if the relatively minor dent in the inner polycarbonate sheet was anything to go by. Anything heavier calibre, or higher grain, and I would have cracked a rib at the very least.
Of course, to begin with this seemed to Gleason’s suspicious mind less like a lucky escape and more like complicity with the kidnappers on my part. I went over every second of what happened for her, again and again, from the moment the traffic lights at the intersection turned against me, to the Dodge’s slightly limping departure.
It was hard to keep my temper while all this was going on. There was a large digital clock on the wall above the bank of monitors, and I watched the minutes flip over, one after another, while Gleason and I went round in combative circles.
Meanwhile, Torquil’s period of captivity stretched past forty-eight hours and into its third day. Still they were refusing to call in the authorities, despite my and Parker’s urging. I don’t know if Gleason was truly protecting her employers’ privacy and interests, or if she was hoping she could present the FBI with a fait accompli – one which included me in the bag.
And then the CCTV footage came in.
I’ve no idea how Gleason managed to get hold of it ahead of the police, but could only guess it was a measure of how far Eisenberg’s influence stretched. Even Parker allowed himself to raise an impressed eyebrow.
The footage was not high quality, but considering the whole of Eisenberg’s supposedly secure comms system had been effectively jammed from the instant the white noise kicked in, it was the only proof I’d got that things had gone down the way I’d claimed.
The camera had been mounted high, looking into the mouth of the intersection with both sets of traffic lights clearly visible, so anyone who jumped the lights could be shown irrefutable proof of their guilt. It couldn’t have been better placed to capture everything that happened.
Gleason’s techs had already isolated the relevant segment. It began just as the lights flicked to amber and then red ahead of me, and the Buell came into view a few seconds later. I watched myself cruise to a halt in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen and put my feet down. I was obviously tense, head ducking to check my mirrors as I heard the vehicle behind me. I saw me put the bike into gear, ready, just as the nose of the Dodge came into view at the extreme edge of the picture.
‘Stop it there, please,’ Parker said suddenly. He stood, moved closer to the screen and turned back. ‘What’s wrong with this picture?’
Gleason shrugged. ‘You tell me.’
‘The lights,’ Parker said. ‘They’ve gone to red for Charlie, but they haven’t changed at the cross-street. See – still on red. Whoever did this had control of the lights.’
Gleason’s eyes narrowed, but then she nodded slowly, reluctantly. She pressed the remote and I could spot the instant the jammer kicked in, even without the sudden spike to the video that must have coincided with it.
On the screen, my body jerked and went rigid. I let go of the bars and barely kept the bike upright as it stalled, wrestling unsuccessfully with my helmet as if it had suddenly melted red-hot to my head. The Dodge’s bonnet soared as the driver floored the throttle to ramming speed, and ran it full tilt into the side of me.
From up there, it looked impossible that I’d got my leg out of the way in time. The bike was hurled sideways, skittering halfway across the intersection with me first tumbling off backwards and then underneath it. I heard a quiet intake of breath from Parker as the Dodge seemed to be doing its best to climb on top of both of us.
The way the car drove me down was nasty for being so obviously deliberate. They must have kept going until I’d disappeared from view under the front end. The only thing that stopped them then was probably the fear they might not be able to separate me from the jewels.
On screen, I was struggling for the SIG, then reached for the KA-BAR knife as the men leapt out. And I saw the totally calm way the driver shot me as the passenger scuttled round to retrieve the rucksack.
Parker waved again and Gleason stopped the tape without needing to be asked. ‘This was a very well-timed operation,’ Parker said, face taut. ‘They must have had the jammer with them in the car to have reacted so fast. They were moving almost before the interference began.’ He picked up the remote himself, ran the footage back a little to watch my shooting again, his gaze hard and coolly objective.
‘The driver is the one in charge. He showed no doubts, no hesitation. He can’t have known Charlie was wearing a vest, and yet he went for a body-mass shot without hesitation.’ His eyes slid to me. ‘I think, if you’d managed to get your helmet off before they hit you, he probably would have gone for a head shot instead. He didn’t want to miss.’
‘But the passenger flinches when the gun fires,’ Gleason said, not to be outdone. ‘And everything about his body language says he’s afraid of the guy with the gun. Like, if he gets out of line, he’ll get a bullet, too.’
Parker nodded and pressed the remote again.
I was mildly gratified to see that I had my own weapon out before the men had managed to get back into the Dodge, that I was pouring shots into the front end of the car as it reversed off the wreckage of the Buell, the action of the SIG cycling rapidly, gases spurting the dead brass out alongside me. I saw the spreading dark pool from the Buell’s ruptured fuel system, and realised again how lucky I’d been not to catch fire.
The car swerved round to roar away into one of the cross-streets. The passenger side was closest and, cynically, I wondered if the cold and calculating driver had deliberately put himself furthest away from the gunfire.
‘You got him, Charlie,’ Parker said with grim satisfaction as the car disappeared. ‘If we run it back a few seconds you’ll see that jerk – there. Just as the side glass disintegrates. I think that was a hit.’
‘Can we zoom in on the car a second?’ Gleason said over her shoulder to one of the techs.
The picture froze, rewound again, and jumped to close-up, focusing on the passenger side window as the glass blew in from the first shot. In slow motion, I saw the passenger flinch back twice. Once from the shock of the flying glass, lifting his arms to protect his masked head, and the second time with the distinct involuntary snap as a round caught him.
I had another rapid full-colour flashback. The way Sean had jerked as the bullet struck the side of his head. That same dancing twitch.
‘Oh yeah, she got him,’ Gleason murmured with a satisfaction that sickened me. She paused, eyes flicking me up and down. ‘Good job.’
‘No, it wasn’t,’ I said tiredly, getting to my feet and discovering I ached from my ears downwards. ‘If we’d got the kid back, kept hold of the Eisenberg Rainbow, and caught the bastards, that would have been a good job. This was just a bloody disaster.’