Cut Throat (56 page)

The gate was padlocked and, for an instant, Ross' heart sank. The thought of trying to clamber over, with his knee refusing to bend properly or take his full weight, was bad enough. Couple that with the problem of keeping Darcy under control at the same time and he was in big trouble.

Then a thought occurred. He had, in his pocket, the keys to two of the gates on the far side of the copse. Sometimes they rode that way and the Colonel liked to keep all the gates on the perimeters of his land locked to keep out undesirables. He hardly dared to hope, as he fished for them, that one of the keys would fit this padlock.

One of them did. He could have cheered.

Once through the gate and standing with his captive on the grass verge of the lane, Ross felt less like cheering.

To his right, about twenty yards away, a sizeable tree lay squarely across the tarmac, effectively blocking any form of passage, be it on foot or in a vehicle. To his left the way looked, for the moment, to be clear but to go that way would involve a walk of at least a mile and a half before he reached a road where there was any likelihood of flagging down a car. It might as well be half a continent away for all the hope Ross had of walking to it.

Where is McKinnon? he thought, for what seemed like the hundredth time that day. He was forced to concede the probability that this time, as last, his way was blocked by fallen timber. Never had he needed his mobile phone more.

‘What now, smart arse?' Darcy enquired annoyingly.

Annoying, because Ross wasn't sure. If he walked as far as the tree on their right, who was to say that McKinnon would be able to get even that far? On the other hand, if he went left, would he be going away from possible help, and might he not find the road similarly blocked around the next corner?

‘We wait,' he told Darcy, trying to sound confident. ‘I'm still wired, don't forget. So I just have to say, “I've got Darcy. We're in Home Farm Lane”, and someone will come.'

‘You hope! What range does that transmitter have?'

Ross ignored him. He had no idea about range but neither did he have any choice. Leaning against the gate to take some of the weight off his bad knee, he waited, trying not to mind that it was beginning to rain.

In the event, he was right. Someone did come. Above the gusting wind he heard the sound of an approaching vehicle and, pushing Darcy ahead of him into the lane, was almost immediately blinded by a set of powerful headlights sweeping round the bend towards them.

Ross' relief was immense. He waved a weary arm to make sure the driver saw them, and waited for the situation to be taken out of his hands.

It was.

The lights, still blinding, came to a halt barely ten feet away, shining through the rods of rain and making the surrounding gloom seem darker than ever. A figure sprang from the vehicle and strode towards Ross and Darcy, silhouetted by the glare.

‘Jeez, am I glad to see you!' Ross declared, giving Darcy another push.

The figure in the lights halted some four or five feet away.

‘Why, Yank, I'm touched!' an all-too-familiar voice sneered.

Leo!
Ross froze in disbelief, his hand tightening instinctively on Darcy's arm. How the bloody hell did he come to be here?

Darcy seemed to find the situation amusing. ‘What now,
Yank?
' he asked over his shoulder, with heavy emphasis.

Ross didn't answer, for the simple reason that he didn't know. He wondered briefly, if he pushed Darcy hard at Leo to unbalance him, whether he could use the advantage gained to overpower the man. He was never to know. Just as he was steeling himself to try, Leo spoke again.

‘I want you to meet an old friend, Yank. A great friend of mine. Do you recognise him?' He held one arm out sideways against the light and Ross was forced to reconsider. Leo was carrying his gun.

Without a moment's hesitation, Ross pulled Darcy close in front of him, using him as a shield.

Leo laughed out loud. ‘A good idea, Yank! Very good. Always supposing I gave a shit about him. But I don't. He was just a means to an end. A bit of easy money. If I have to shoot him to get to you, well,' he shrugged, ‘that's okay.'

He lifted the gun in front of him to shoulder-height, using both hands.

Ross' pulse rate accelerated into the hundreds. Surprisingly, though, what he felt was more excitement than fear. The situation seemed so unreal. The wind, the rain, the deadly silhouette in the blinding light – it was almost as though he were watching from a distance. As though it were some fantastic dream from which he would awaken, by and by. That was a dangerous way to think and he gave himself a sharp mental kick in the pants.

Deeply disappointed to have failed at this late stage, his inclination was to goad Leo, to shake him out of that irritating self-satisfaction and hope that anger made him careless. It also occurred to him that it mightn't be a bad idea to try and redirect that anger towards Darcy.

‘Yeah, I guess you must be pretty mad, if you've found out how much Darcy's really been making from his little racket,' he said, sympathetically. ‘So much for honour among thieves, eh?'

‘What do you mean?' The gun dropped six inches or so. He had Leo's interest. He'd gained some time.

In front of him, Darcy was perceptibly shaking. ‘He's just talking,' he said urgently. ‘He doesn't know anything. Don't listen to him.'

‘Shut up!' Leo said sharply. ‘Go on, Yank.'

‘I bet he never told you the half of it,' Ross said, warming to his task. ‘We're talking hundreds of thousands here. What he offered you was mere chicken feed. If I were you, I'd want fifty per cent, maybe sixty. After all, you've done a lot of the hard work lately. Taken most of the risks.' He was talking off the top of his head. He had no idea how much Darcy had cost Franklin but it certainly seemed to impress Leo. His hunch was obviously right. Forced to take Leo on board, Darcy had nevertheless kept the true scale of his operation a secret from his partner in crime.

Leo was incensed.

‘How much?' he demanded of Darcy. ‘How much have you been holding back? If I find you've been lying . . .'

‘Nothing! I swear it!' Darcy was panicking. ‘He's just trying to stir you up. Can't you see? He's playing for time.'

Leo was silent for a moment. ‘Maybe you're right at that,' he said shrewdly. ‘And then again, maybe there's some truth in it. I think I'd like to find out, but not here. We'll take the car and you, Yank, will drive it.'

This was not what Ross wanted at all. If he were to get in that car, he would very soon leave all chance of help from McKinnon's men far behind him. He must play for more time. Surely help wouldn't be much longer in coming?

Or would it? There were several miles of lanes round the Oakley Manor land. How many men had McKinnon got? He slipped Darcy's flick knife from his pocket and released the blade.

‘How did you know where we were?' Ross asked Leo, pushing Darcy a step closer to him.

‘I didn't. I was coming to see what had happened to the Land-Rover. Darcy was expecting to hear that you'd had a nasty accident but nobody called and he wanted me to find out what had gone wrong. I should have told him to do his own fuckin' dirty work,' Leo added sourly, reflecting on what he had just learned.

Darcy was getting fidgety. ‘He's playing for time, Leo!' he repeated urgently. ‘There are others coming. McKinnon's men. They set me up but I got away. They could be here any minute. We must go!'

‘We
will
go,' Leo assured him.

‘Okay, but now!' Darcy said, frantic. ‘Look, I'll let you have your share of the money – it's only fair, after all. Get rid of Wakelin and let's go.'

Ross tightened his grip on Darcy and squinted into the light. ‘Looks like a stalemate, doesn't it, Leo? You can't have the money without Darcy and I have him as my insurance. If you try to take him from me, I'll stick this in him.' He raised his right hand, in which he held the knife. It gleamed as it caught the light. ‘On the other hand,' he continued, ‘you could forget the money and try for me anyway.'

‘I don't think you'll use that,' Leo said, taking a step closer.

Ross didn't think he would either. At least, not on Darcy. That wouldn't gain him much, except a bullet from Leo's gun an instant later.

‘You bet I will,' he lied, with as much savage conviction as he could muster.

From the way Darcy was shaking, he at least believed it.

‘Leo! Be careful! He'll bloody do it!' he said in desperation.

Leo stepped closer. ‘No, he won't,' he countered confidently. ‘He hasn't got the guts. And besides, he knows he'll be dead if he does.'

Barely three feet away now, Ross could see the faint gleam of Leo's teeth as he smiled. Oh, hell! he thought and shoved Darcy towards him as hard as he could.

Out of the corner of his eye, as he dived towards the darkness of the hedge, he saw the two men stagger back and fall in an untidy heap against the radiator of the car. With a sharp crack the gun fired as Ross completed his roll and fetched up in the nettles and brambles beneath the hawthorn.

The car had been a temptation but Ross was by no means confident he could make a three-point turn in the narrow lane before Leo recovered his wits.

For a moment, after the gunshot, there was no sound from the two men. Then, ‘Shit! You fucking idiot!'

Ross heard the sound of boots scraping on the tarmac and then saw Leo's wiry form stand up. Darcy, he supposed, was lying in the deep shadow below the range of the car's lights. Had he been shot?

After a moment, Ross dismissed that idea. The gun had gone off after Darcy had cannoned into Leo. If the gun had been between them the report would surely have been muffled.

Leo by this time had made his way round to the side of the car, which looked, now Ross could see it more clearly, like some kind of four-wheel-drive vehicle. He opened the door and reached inside. Seconds later a beam of light sprang from his right hand as he swung round towards the verge where Ross lay holding his breath. It was clearly time to move.

He lunged to his feet, hoping Leo wasn't ambidextrous or, even better, that he had lost the gun when he fell.

He hadn't. Two shots in quick succession whined over Ross' head as his knee gave way and reduced his intended sprint to an undignified scuttle. He reached the gate and scrambled over, landing on his backside in the wet grass of the field. He heard Leo curse again and scurried, crabwise, into the shelter of the hedge once more. Here, inspiration unfortunately ran out.

The field was three or four acres in size and the hedge he was presently pressed against ran for a hundred yards or so in a straight line, all neatly cut and laid, and as impossible to penetrate as a stone wall. There was nowhere to run. Even supposing, Ross thought with weary despair, that running was an option.

Leo was climbing the gate now, doubtless having first sorted the gun and the torch into the appropriate hands. He swung the torch in a rapid and inefficient arc, which blessedly failed to pick the American out, pressed as he was into longer grass at the base of the hedge. Then he turned away from Ross and began to search the far side of the gate first.

The wind had dropped substantially now but not enough, Ross hoped, for Leo to hear the swishing of his body snaking through the grass. In a vain attempt at a bluff, he moved in a commando-style slither, away from the shadow of the hawthorn and out into the open grass.

He forced himself to keep moving when, after twenty feet or so, he was sure that Leo must soon turn and see him.

He kept his head low, resisting the temptation of looking behind to see where Leo was, and when he was perhaps fifty feet from the hedge, turned and collapsed with gasping, heart-thudding relief into the wet grass.

He felt horribly vulnerable. The grass had not been grazed for several weeks, the Colonel hoping to get a second crop of hay off it, but because of the hot spell it was barely eight inches long and by no means thick. Ross could only hope that if Leo shone the torch his way, he would, head on as he was, pass for one of the several molehills in the vicinity.

Leo had moved to the near side of the gate now, and was searching the area where Ross had until recently lain. Surely when he failed to find him close by, he would abandon the search and leave before McKinnon's men arrived.

Indeed, it seemed that was what he was going to do. From his lowly position, Ross saw him make his way back to the gate and pause, swinging the torch once more in a wide arc. It passed over Ross about three feet above his head, went on, stopped and came back. Almost instantaneously, Ross heard a swishing in the grass behind him.

Darcy! he thought with a sick sense of failure.

Somehow, while he was concentrating on Leo, Darcy must have got round behind him. Just
how
he had managed it in the time, Ross didn't have leisure to consider. He tensed himself to try and turn and come to his feet in one movement, aware as he did so that he still held the knife in his hand. This time he knew that he would use it if he had to. His situation was desperate and the survival instinct was strong.

Just as he began his move he felt something brush his back and warm breath huffed in his ear.

Definitely not Darcy!

Telamon, who had wandered over curiously to see why his master was full-length in the grass, threw up his head in alarm as Ross surged up suddenly, right under his nose.

His situation already betrayed, Ross grabbed at the lead rope, which had come unknotted, and flung himself, for the second time that day, at the horse's back.