Читать книгу Conspiracy Thriller 4 E-Book Bundle - Scott Mariani - Страница 37

For a heartstopping moment as the car tipped over, Ben thought they were about to sail right off the edge of a precipice – but then the front wheels touched solid ground with a jarring thump and they were racing down a near-vertical slope, crashing over rocks and ruts. The Range Rover cleared the edge of the drop and came roaring after them, its four-wheel drive and elevated ride height enabling it to negotiate the extreme slope with greater control. More strobing white muzzle flashes burst from the passenger window. Bullets punched into the Mazda. The dashboard blew apart in front of Ben. Sparks began to fizz from mangled wiring.

‘Do something!’ Jude screamed.

There was nothing Ben could do, except pray that the bullet-torn car wouldn’t start to tumble end-over-end, destroying itself and battering them to death inside. But even as the worst seemed inevitable, the slope suddenly began to level out. Open moorland was ahead of them, a few isolated copses of wind-ravaged trees flashing by in the headlights. Down here on lower ground, the going was much less rocky and much more marshy. Ben kept his foot to the floor and the engine revved into the red as the wheels spun in the mud. The front of the car threw up a constant fountain of brown spray that spattered the broken windscreen and half-blinded Ben as he kept doggedly surging ahead at over sixty miles an hour.

They were driving into a real marsh now, thick with clumps of reeds and ancient, rotted tree stumps that stuck up out of the mud like gravestones. Ben only just managed to prevent the bucking Mazda from crashing straight into one.

More gunfire exploded from the Range Rover. Bullets ripped through the Ben’s window and door. A red-hot sear of pain made him glance down and see the blood on his forearm where a round had grazed him, splitting the flesh.

A few more seconds of this and they were dead.

But then, suddenly, their pursuers seemed to be falling back. Ben twisted his head round to look out of the shattered rear window, and saw that the Range Rover had veered off course and was wallowing badly in the marsh, its passenger still hanging out of the window trying to fix the Mazda in his gunsights. Then, just as suddenly, the Range Rover slewed into a high-speed skid and hit the blackened stump of a tree.

The impact flipped the vehicle over sideways. Ben caught a glimpse of the passenger opening his mouth to scream as he was half thrown from the window and the Range Rover overturned on top of him, crushing him deep into the mud and smearing him like an insect under its weight. It slid for a few yards and then smacked into another tree stump, head-on, with enough force to kick the rear wheels high up in the air. The windscreen exploded outwards, and through the spinning shards of glass the body of the driver was shot like a missile over the bonnet and into the soft marsh.

Ben brought the Mazda round in a handbrake turn, sending up a wave of watery mud as it came to rest among a thick bank of reeds. ‘You okay?’ he asked Jude.

‘I think so,’ Jude mumbled. Ben grabbed the shotgun, stepped out of the car and immediately felt his feet sinking into the ground. This isn’t a marsh, he thought, stepping quickly back towards the firmer ground on which the Mazda was resting. This is a bog.

The Range Rover had come to a stop right in the softest part of it. One of its headlights was still intact, and in its beam Ben could see the sucking brown mud working its way up the crumpled bodywork as the vehicle began to sink.

‘Help me,’ the Range Rover’s driver croaked. He was a few feet in front of the overturned vehicle. His legs had already sunk deep into the bog. He reached out a hand in supplication. The other arm was mangled and twisted at his side. His ski mask had been ripped away in the crash. Most of his face was covered in the blood that was pouring from an open gash across his scalp, but Ben could see the look of utter horror in his eyes as the bog squelched and sucked at him, drawing him inexorably down inch by inch. ‘Help me. Please.’

Jude had climbed out of the car and stood at Ben’s side. ‘We can’t just leave the guy to drown,’ he said shakily. ‘It’s awful.’

Ben spotted the half-submerged remains of an old tree that lay crossways like a bridge between him and the sinking driver. Slinging the shotgun across his shoulder, he placed his foot on it. The bog heaved around the rotten wood like a living thing, but the trunk took Ben’s weight. He took a step towards the man, then another. It was unsteady beneath his feet. One slip, and he’d be next in line crying to be rescued.

‘Help me,’ the man moaned again, stretching out with his clawed hand.

Ben took another step forwards. He looked at the hand.

‘Pull him out!’ Jude called across from firm ground.

Ben looked at the man’s pleading face. He took in the lean features under the mask of blood, and the scar over the eye. He knew that face. He’d seen it before. And he remembered where.

The man had sunk in almost up to his chest now. He was beginning to gibber in panic. ‘Ben!’ Jude yelled. ‘Grab his hand! You’ve got to help him. for God’s sake!’

Ben didn’t grab the hand, not for God’s sake or anyone else’s. He reached into his jacket pocket for the printout of the photo from Petra Norrington’s camera. He unfolded it, studied it briefly in the glare from the Range Rover’s rapidly-disappearing headlight. Then he crumpled the printout into a ball and lobbed it over to Jude.

Jude caught it, uncrumpled it and stared at it mutely.

Slowly, calmly, Ben unslung the shotgun from his shoulder. His injured arm hurt as he worked the pump. The empty shell spat out and landed with a plop in the mud. The last round in the magazine fed into the chamber. Ben pointed the gun at the sinking man.

‘What are you doing?’ Jude yelled, still clutching the crumpled printout.

‘That picture was taken the night your parents died,’ Ben told him, not taking his eyes off the whimpering, groaning man in the bog. The mud was almost up to his neck now. He was flailing with his free arm. The other was well beneath the surface. A few feet away, the Range Rover was almost completely submerged.

‘This is the man who ran them off the road,’ Ben said.

‘I’m begging you. Pull me out!’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Napier,’ the man moaned. ‘Vincent Napier.’

‘Is that your real name? Not that it matters any more.’

‘Don’t let me die like this!’ Napier sobbed. His free hand clawed desperately at the air. His head thrashed from side to side.

‘The more you struggle,’ Ben said. ‘The quicker you’ll go down.’

‘Ben!’ Jude shouted from firm ground. ‘Help him!’

‘Please,’ Napier wept. ‘Look, I only do what I’m told to do.’

‘Just business,’ Ben said.

‘Yes! You’ve got to understand.’

‘I understand you’ve got less than half a minute left, Vincent,’ Ben said. ‘Tell me who you people are working for.’

‘I don’t know his name! He’s just the boss! I’ve only met him once!’

Ben believed him. People in these kinds of situations generally didn’t tell lies. ‘Then that doesn’t make you very useful to me, does it?’ he said.

‘Please don’t let me drown.’ The mud was up to Napier’s chin and the arm reaching out was submerged to the elbow.

‘Ben!’ Jude shouted.

Ben didn’t look back at him. ‘Turn around, Jude,’ he said.

‘For fuck’s sake!’ Jude yelled hoarsely.

Ben edged a few more inches across the tree trunk and reached out to the drowning man. Not with his hand. With his foot. He planted the sole of his shoe on Napier’s bloody forehead and pushed.

‘No!’ Napier screamed. Then the mud filled his mouth and his cry became a bubbling gurgle. His eyes stared upwards in horror in the last light of the Range Rover’s sinking headlamp. Then the light was gone, and so was the top of Vincent Napier’s head as Ben pressed him under with a final shove of his heel. A few bubbles clustered and popped on the surface of the swirling mud.

Ben watched for a few seconds until the bubbles stopped, then turned and started making his way back to firm ground.