Lamb stared out of the side window for two minutes, his face squashed into a scowl. When he spoke again, his voice was flat and final. “Tearney didn’t come up through the ranks. She’s a committee animal; she runs meetings, not joes. Dunn died six years ago. Back then, Tearney wouldn’t have known her way under the bridge, certainly not well enough to have someone bump off army personnel. Even just a captain.”
“You mean, it’s not Tearney they’re after?”
“I mean, if it’s Tearney they’re after, there’s someone else pulling their strings. How’d they know about Slough House, for a start?”
“Oh,” said Catherine.
“Yeah, right. Oh.”
“What?” said Ho.
“Above your pay grade,” Lamb said. “Stop at the next services.”
“We’re okay for petrol.”
“It’s not the car’s fuel I’m worried about,” said Lamb, putting his unlit cigarette in his mouth. “It’s mine.”
In their ears, nothing but ringing. In their eyes a shadow-show; everything silhouetted against everything else.
But it would have been a lot worse if the flash bomb had cleared the cabinet and landed on their side, instead of bouncing back the way it had come.
River, eyes screwed shut, reached out and felt for Louisa.
“Oy. Hands.”
“You okay?”
“Uh-huh. You?”
He nodded, then said, “Uh-huh.” The thing about a flash bomb was, it preceded an attack. But maybe that only happened when you threw it in the right direction.
“And they call us special needs,” he muttered.
“What?”
“We need to get out of here.” He looked at Donovan. “Can you walk?”
Donovan shook his head. His features were glazed with sweat.
“You got another magazine for this thing?”
“Left-hand pocket.”
River fished it out and reloaded. Donovan reached out his hand.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Uh-uh. You two go. Back the way we came in.”
Louisa said, “You’re losing blood. I mean really, a lot.”
“So I’ll just lie here and bleed quietly. But leave me my gun. I’ll deal with the rest of this crew.”
River and Louisa exchanged glances.
Donovan grabbed River by the shirt. “You think we did all this for nothing? Ben knew we might be killed. Well, he’s dead. And if that folder stays down here, he died for nothing.”
Louisa said, “I already told you. We’re not on your side.”
“You’re on theirs?”
“It’s not as simple as that.”
“We’re only in this because you took Catherine,” River said.
“Then give it to Catherine.” He closed his eyes briefly.
River unpeeled Donovan’s fingers from his shirt front.
Louisa peered round the cabinet. A pair of figures were cautiously making their way through the wrecked wall, one holding a gun. She fired once, over their heads, and they scuttled back to safety.
Donovan opened his eyes again. “Give it to Catherine,” he repeated. “And when you do, tell her I’m sorry.”
Louisa said, “Another minute, two at most, they’ll try again.”
River said, “We’ll have to carry him.”
“Like hell you will.” Donovan reached for River again, but River batted his hand away. “You try taking me anywhere, I’ll resist. How far do you think you’ll get?”
“You seriously want to die?”
“I seriously want that information out there in the light.”
“Louisa?”
She said, “If he won’t come willingly, none of us’ll make it.”
“If we take the gun, he’s dead for sure. And if there’s anyone between us and the exit, they can’t be armed. Or they’d have made a play by now.”
Louisa said, “There’ll be more of them up top.”
“You think?”
“Don’t you?”
River said, “Yeah, probably. But they’re not all armed.”
“They don’t all have to be,” she said. “One’ll do.”
“Your call,” he said.
She looked at Donovan, then back at River. “Oh, for Christ’s sake. Leave him the gun,” she said.
“Prick.”
“Thanks,” Nick Duffy said. “That makes it easier.”
The windscreen of the van collapsed inwards in a storm of metal.
Marcus arched his back and kicked out with both bound feet, catching Duffy mid-chest: he flew backwards into the van’s rear doors, which opened to spill him onto the ground. His gun disappeared in the dark just as the tumbling klieg light completed its bounce off the roof of the van. With a loud crash the floodlight shattered in a shower of glass. Marcus lay on his back, legs in the air, and tried to ease himself through the loop of his cuffed hands. It was like performing yoga on a bus. He focused on the mess on the sidepanels, the smear of brain matter oozing floorwards.
He blinked, ready to die.
“Found this,” Shirley said, her voice bright.
Then she said, “Ha! What do you look like?”
