“Arthur,” Clyde says, a warning note in his voice. “I’m relatively sure that’s not the whole running thing I was advocating. I mean, not an athletic expert here, but—”
The bark of my pistol cuts him off. I aim for the lion’s eyes as best I can. I have no idea if it needs them to see, but it’s the most annoying place I can think to target.
“Come on, you big bastard.” I know it can’t understand me, but saying it makes me feel better. “Come to poppa.”
My knees still feel weak. I would feel much better about this plan if I had, say, dedicated the past thirty-four years of my life to actually exercising on a regular basis.
The lion roars once more.
I put a shot down its throat.
And that does it.
It comes at me. No warning. No final growl. Just uncurls into action.
“Fuuuuuuuuuu…” I never make it to the end of the expletive. I turn and flee, fast as I can. I can feel the ground shaking beneath me. Can feel the thing a yard behind me. Gaining. Eating up inch after valuable inch. Just like it’ll eat me.
Save me, Clyde. Please. Take this moment I’m trying to buy you and save the crap out of me.
A noise from behind me, vast, squealing, but still that rhythm of metal paws doesn’t cease. Head down. Push on reserves of adrenaline that I’m not sure are there. A breathless, ragged push to flee. To get away.
Everything around me disappears. Even the sound of the lion. Everything narrows down into the action of placing the next foot, the next one, pumping my legs that little bit harder. My whole world reduced to a single action.
And then I trip, I sprawl. Hands out, too late. I grind my chin on concrete, bite my lip, spit blood. I roll. Arse over head. Feet over arse. Crashing down. Arms splayed. Wrist slamming down. Skid and stop.
And this is it. This is—
—I don’t die. I lie on my back, puffing, wheezing, trying desperately to suck air back into my lungs. Trying to widen my vision from the two narrow points it’s become.
I am not in Trafalgar Square anymore. I am in a dull back street. All brown brick, and black, wet asphalt. Somehow in my mad dash, I have managed to fully clear the field of engagement. I must have looked like a lunatic, sprinting madly away.
Jesus, I have to get back there.
I check my gun. My hands are shaking almost uncontrollably. Too much adrenaline in the system. Too much having my life threatened by things that shouldn’t be. I am going to go back to that square and I am going to execute me some Russians. Shock and bloody awe.
“What’s Katerina’s situation?”
Who the hell? I spin around. But the street’s abandoned. No one here.
“Pardon?” The voice again, quiet and bland, barely audible. “Is she on location?”
A little voice that seems to be coming from my pocket. I reach in. What the hell do I have…?
Coleman’s phone. It’s still on, still translating.
“She’s at Big Ben now.”
Russians. Russians are talking. Near me. Audibly.
“And they’re all here?”
Russians talking about Big Ben. I was just talking about Big Ben the other day. Something to do with all this. What was it?
“The MI37 goons? They haven’t a clue.”
I spin around in the street. And there’s no one here. A couple of parked cars. An empty Fiat. An empty Ford. Some workmen’s white van.
Wait… the van. The window is rolled down. I take a step toward it. I hear a voice. Syllables I don’t fully catch.
“Ivan has given his performance?”
I look down at the phone. Take another step.
More mumbling.
“What was that?” asks the phone.
I look at it. What was what?
“Do you hear that?” asks the phone.
I waste about half a second wondering how on earth I triggered paranoia mode on Coleman’s phone before I realize I’m rumbled. The Russians know I’m here. I back up ten fast paces and flatten myself against the rear of the van. My breathing is coming fast. I put the phone away, slip it into the inside pocket of my jacket. Time to concentrate on my other hand and the gun in it.
I hear the van door open. A heavy foot falls.
Breathe slow. I make my mouth a little “o,” concentrate on controlling each exhalation.
Footsteps move away from me. Four, five, six. They stop.
I grip my gun in both hands, the cold wet barrel pressed to the tip of my nose. Like I’m praying to the god of gunslingers.
The footsteps stop, reverse direction, come closer. Four, five, six. As quietly as I can, I thumb back the hammer on the pistol. More steps. Seven, eight, nine. Still coming. I can hear a slight motorized whine with each one. Ten, eleven, twelve. They stop.
I stop breathing. Slowly, so slowly, I stretch out my arms, point the gun at the corner of the van.
Get back in, bastard. Get back in.
A woman’s voice comes from the van. Someone calling to the figure in the street. An incomprehensible stream of Russian syllables.
“Come back, Leo. There’s no one there.”
I stare in horror at my pocket. What sort of hellspawn put a microphone with the sensitivity of a hummingbird in this bloody thing? Who would do that?
I hear the scuff of the man’s heels. I take a step backward, brace to pull the trigger.
A flash of light, like a camera going off. Then my world spins. I stagger.
Behind me. Someone just hit me from behind. But he… Did the woman climb out of the van?
Groggy, I spin, bring up the gun. But I’m just staring into a flash of light.
Another blow. From the right this time. From down back the way I’d come. And how many of the bastards are there? How long have they been watching me?
I spin again. A foot crashes into my kidneys. I stagger, go down on all fours. I try to hold onto the gun but it spills from my hands. I watch it scatter uselessly away.
A cold hand grabs my chin. Cold like the barrel of my gun against my nose. It heaves me up, an unforgiving grip on my jaw, lifting me to my knees, my feet.
A man in his forties. Good-looking. Elegant Slavic features. Straw-blond hair matted to his scalp by rain. Disgust in his eyes.
He pushes me back, and I fall. I land on my arse in a puddle. My hands grind against the blacktop. Everything is spinning.
The Russian, Leo I heard him called, says something I don’t understand.
“You think you are clever?” asks the phone.
Not particularly, no.
Another question in Russian.
“You think you have us now?” the phone translates. “I do not think you are clever, little British man. I do not think you have us, little spy.” The Russian takes another step toward me. Still talking.
I scrabble toward my gun.
“I think you are dead,” says the phone.
I’m beginning to think that Coleman’s phone is as big an arsehole as he is.