‘Give it up, Sam,’ Tom said, as Driver hit the floor. ‘Give it up and come with me.’
She rolled onto her side, spat out a mouthful of blood. ‘I dunno. I’m not sure this relationship is healthy.’
Tom grabbed her by the collar of her jacket, dragging her towards the edge of the roof. Driver kicked and struggled. She couldn’t get traction, so she wriggled out of her sleeves. Her jacket came free in his hands. Driver flew again at Tom, yet he blocked every attack – too fast, too strong and with greater reach. He delivered a one-two rabbit punch, fast as lightning, into the sternum. Driver staggered back, gasped for breath, doubled over.
‘Bravo Team, this is Alpha Leader. What’s the status on Chiang?’ Tom asked, a finger to his ear. As she dropped to a knee, he continued his conversation. ‘Good, I’m almost done here,’ he said. ‘I’ll meet you at the extraction point.’
Driver breathed the dagger-like pain from her chest, put a hand to a rib. It was broken, fractured – cracked at least.
‘My team just found Chiang,’ Tom said, approaching. ‘He’s dead. And you can’t stop what’s in process. So final chance, Sam. Let it go and we both walk away.’
Driver looked up as Tom walked towards her. She pretended to struggle long enough for him to get in range. Then she moved, fast, across the rooftop. Tom swung a fist. She dropped to the deck, slid low and drove an elbow into the inside of his left knee. He buckled in agony, the meniscus cartilage in his knee dislodged.
Tom collapsed to the ground, but pushed back up on his feet with a trailing leg. Driver was up too. Tom no longer had the speed or the solid base from which to fight. He tried anyway, stubborn as always. Driver grabbed his arm and the scruff of his neck. She rolled him over her shoulder. He hit the roof. Keeping hold of the arm, Driver wrapped a leg around it and pulled. Tom beat the ground in pain. She rested a foot on his throat. He struggled, but couldn’t break the hold.
‘You’re not walking away from anything,’ Driver said.
Wells spun the wheel and stepped on the accelerator. The Alfa tyres screeched as he turned the car around. Before she’d disappeared, he’d seen Lim take a left at the crossroads. Wells did the same.
‘Tell me you tracked her,’ he asked over the comms, turning down Katy Perry on the stereo.
‘She took a right 300 yards from your position,’ Mo responded. ‘After that, she vanished.’
As Wells sped along the road, he noticed the entrance to an underground car park. Skidding to a stop thirty feet past the entrance, Wells reversed into angry traffic. He changed gear and pulled down the ramp. Fumbling for the headlights, Wells followed the in-road to the left. He drove at pace along the central aisle between parked cars. The stolen BMW lay dead ahead, abandoned at the end of the car park.
But no. Not abandoned.
Wells ducked at a flash of gunfire. His front left tyre exploded, the steering wheel pulling out of his hands. The nose of the Alfa ploughed straight into a concrete pillar. Wells rocked forward against the wheel. He sat dazed and in pain, but lucid and able to move. He opened the door, drew his pistol and slipped out of the crumpled, steaming Alfa. He raised his weapon to fire. Yet Lim was in position, elbows resting on the boot of the car and an assault rifle pointed his way.
Wells dropped the pistol. The only chance he had. But Lim wasn’t letting go of that rifle. She was about to finish her business from Singapore. And he didn’t need to ask what had become of Chiang.
‘On your knees,’ Lim said.
‘Fuck you,’ Wells spat back.
‘On your knees.’
‘If I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die standing up.’
Lim sighed. ‘Then at least move to your left.’
Wells heard the squeal of tyres. He turned as the remaining BMW entered the car park. It slammed to a stop. Wells bolted to the left, an automatic response as the last of Chiang’s security jumped out of the car firing. Lim unloaded in reply. Chiang’s two remaining bodyguards took cover behind open doors. Wells’ next instinct was to come out of hiding, go for his pistol and join in the fight against Lim. But the crossfire was too intense, the thunder of MP5 machine guns magnified by the bare confines of the car park.
The first of Chiang’s security to go down was a bald man caught as his weapon jammed. The passenger window of the car shattered, his body jerking as a round cut him apart. He slapped against the floor, spilling his gun. That left a woman – tall and raven-haired. She responded with an automatic burst from behind the driver-side door, but Lim took cover and switched to manual fire. As the woman rose for a second bite, Lim beat her to the punch. The woman took a double-tap shot to the head and collapsed to the ground, missing half a brain.
With the BMW still running, gunfire still reverberating and the smell of petrol fumes in the air, Lim emerged from her position. It was now or never for Wells – he went for his pistol. A single shot from Lim’s rifle spun the weapon away under a parked car. He could only stand and watch as she approached with her rifle in hands. Yet she strode by him as if he wasn’t there.
Lim walked around the passenger side of the car, found the stricken bodyguard moving and flashed a bullet into his skull. She strolled around the front of the BMW and kicked the woman’s corpse to check for life. Lim stooped and reached into the woman’s ear, prising out an earpiece attached to a wire and a microphone.
What the hell was Lim doing?
She walked towards Wells and tossed him the earpiece.
As Lim stood waiting, Wells looked at the earpiece in his hand. He slipped it in his spare ear. There were voices talking, American and European. And one he recognised from the day before.
It was McNeil. ‘Bravo Team, this is Alpha Leader. What’s the status on Chiang?’
Lim pressed a button on the key fob of the stolen 7-Series. The boot jerked open. Chiang clambered out, pale and shaken, but alive.
Wells feigned an American accent, a finger to his ear. ‘We just found Chiang,’ he said. ‘He’s dead.’
‘Good,’ McNeil said. ‘I’m almost done here. I’ll meet you at the extraction point.’
Wells removed the earpiece and looked at Lim. ‘How did you know?’
She dropped the spent rifle and took a handgun from inside her jacket.
‘Private security don’t carry customised silencers,’ Lim said, ejecting the clip. She tossed the weapon away and picked up Wells’ discarded pistol.
He raised his hands. ‘You kill me and they’ll hunt you down.’
‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ Lim said, throwing over the pistol and leaving herself unarmed.
Wells caught the gun. He paused a moment and looked at Lim – vulnerable, exposed. He holstered the weapon. Lim inclined her head and Wells nodded in return.
Chiang, meanwhile, shuffled into view, staring in horror at the dead security team. At Lim and Wells. Bewildered. Lim bundled him back into the boot and slammed the lid. Wells joined her in the car. She reversed the bullet-ridden BMW and steered around the bodies, out into the midday sun.