Gray Redemption (Tom Gray #3) (29 page)

When he descended the stairs, Mohammad was waiting in the hallway.

“I haven’t seen anyone else arrive,” he said, and gave Mansour a slip of
paper.  “You can stay here for a few days until the heat dies down.”

Mansour committed the address to memory and handed it back.  “Can you
distract them while I go out the back?”

“Of course.
  Go, and may Allah watch over you.”

*
* *

Gray watched the man appear from the front of the house and cross the road
on a collision course with Harvey.

“Hey!  I know you!  You stole my bike!”

Harvey turned to see an angry looking man bearing down on him.  The
last thing he needed was a scene, so he tried to walk away, but the stranger
grabbed his collar and swung a punch.  Harvey easily avoided it, but the
man kept coming and he tried talking his way out of it.

Gray was watching the drama unfold when a flash of movement caught his
eye.  In a gap between two semi-detached houses he saw a figure in black
hurdle a fence and disappear into the next garden, and he knew instantly that
Harvey’s attacker was a distraction.

He jumped into the driver’s seat but the ignition was empty: Harvey must
have taken them with him.  He debated helping, but he knew that with every
passing second, Mansour’s chance of escape increased exponentially. 

Harvey seemed to be holding his own, and with the armed police due in the
next few minutes, he decided to take up the chase.

By the time he climbed out of the car and reached the end of the road,
Mansour had cleared the garden and was running towards an alleyway, his
burqa
flapping around his legs.  Gray followed a hundred yards behind and hit
the alley just as his target exited the other end, turning to the right. 
He’d closed by ten yards, but Mansour still had a healthy lead.

When Gray got to the end of the alley he saw the black clothes disappear
around another corner and sprinted to catch up, the exertion already beginning
to tell after weeks with no proper exercise.  When he reached the main
road he saw a sea of pedestrians parting as Mansour barged his way
through.  An elderly lady was knocked to the ground but Mansour didn’t
give her a second thought as he dashed across the road, narrowly avoiding a van
which just managed to slam its brakes on.  The driver of the car behind
wasn’t as quick to react, and she ploughed into the back of the van, but Gray
didn’t break stride as he ran between the two damaged vehicles.

He was beginning to close on his target, and Mansour could sense it. 
He turned and saw the pursuer less than fifty yards behind him, and his first
thought was to find a weapon.  He saw a hardware store and dived inside,
scattering customers as he
search
for the aisle
containing the knives.  Mansour grabbed two from the shelf and turned to
the front of the store, only to find his way blocked by an employee.  He
ripped off his headpiece and gave the teenager a look which offered two
options:  get out of the way; or die.

The young man got the message.  He stood aside and Mansour ran out of
the shop.

Where he found the mystery man waiting for him.

They stared at each other for what seemed a lifetime, oblivious to the crowd
gathering around them — albeit at a respectful distance.

“Drop the knives,” Gray said, his voice tinged with anger.

Mansour ignored the command, instead trying desperately to think where he’d
seen the man before.

“Who the hell are you?”

Mansour may not have
recognised
him, but a few of
the shoppers had seen the BBC news transmission and knew exactly who they were
looking at.  Whispers of “Tom Gray” began to grow, and when they reached
the terrorist’s ears he wondered if it could possibly be true. 

He looked Gray in the eyes, and at that moment, he knew.

He’d tried to kill this man twice, but this time he wouldn’t delegate
responsibility to someone else.  He gripped the handles of the knives
until his knuckles turned white and took a step towards his opponent, expecting
him to move backwards.

Gray held his ground.

The attack, when it came, was lightning fast.  Mansour raised his
right arm and brought it down hard, aiming at Gray’s head.  That blow was
easily blocked, but the simultaneous jab with the left punctured a one inch
hole in Gray’s side.

Mansour danced back, bobbing on the balls of his feet, while Gray put a
hand to the wound.  It came away covered in crimson.

“You’ll have to do better than that,” he said, adjusting his position to
move closer to a street light.

Mansour came again, this time thrusting at Gray’s face, but he was ready
and caught the knifeman’s forearm in a vice-like grip before slamming Mansour’s
knuckles against the steel lamppost.  The blade clattered to the floor,
but Mansour brought up the other one, aiming for Gray’s kidneys.  The move
was telegraphed and Gray easily avoided further injury by backing into his
enemy and switching his attention to the knife hand.

Mansour tried to bring the blade up to Gray’s neck but his strength was no
match for the ex-soldier, who held his wrist tightly while slowly pivoting so
that they were once again face to face, the knife poised delicately between
them.

Both men heard the sirens approaching, and Mansour knew his time had run
out. 

But there was still time for one last, defiant action.

He brought his knee up sharply into Gray’s groin and pushed him away,
sending him sprawling to the ground.
 
Instead of stepping in to deliver the killer strike, though, Mansour put
his hands into his pockets and brought out the inhalers.

“The difference between you and me,” he said to Gray, as he pressed both
canisters into their housings and held them in position, “is that I am willing
to die.”

The crowd, thinking he was holding a detonator, scattered in all directions,
screaming incoherently and trampling each other in their bid to clear the area.

...
two
, three, four...

The first of the armed response vehicles pulled up and two officers
decamped, shouting for Mansour to get to the floor as they aimed their single-shot
MP5 rifles at his chest.

...
five
, six, seven...

 “Allahu Akbar...”

“Drop it, now!”

...
eight
, nine, ten.

Mansour closed his eyes just as the rifles spat, and the inhalers fell from
his dying grasp.  One of them rolled towards Tom Gray, and he felt a
breeze on his face as the canister dispensed its entire contents.

Epilogue

Monday
June 17th 2013

“
Push!
”

Vick Phillips screamed and dug her nails into Tom’s hand, hoping to cause
him as much pain as she was experiencing.

“You’re doing well, darling,” Tom said through gritted teeth.  In
truth, she’d been in
labour
for over thirty hours, and neither was at their peak. 

Vick did her breathing exercises as best she could, but all she could focus
on was the seven pounds of human trying to navigate a four centimeter passage.

“Do you know the sex of the child?”  The nurse asked, trying to take
Vick’s mind off the pain.

“No,” Tom told her.  “We wanted it to be a surprise.”

“What about names?”

“Vick wanted to do the celebrity thing and name it after the place it was
conceived, but there’s no way I’m calling a kid Machu Picchu.”

The joke was lost on the nurse, but Vick showed her appreciation by
squeezing his hand with enough force to draw blood, and Tom wondered if she’d
had her nails sharpened just for the occasion.

“Just kidding,” Gray winced.  “We chose the names weeks ago.”

The obstetrician, sitting at the foot of the bed, saw the crown of the
baby’s head appear.

“One more big push,” he said, and Vick obliged, her face contorted as beads
of sweat coursed down her crimson forehead.  She produced a scream
befitting a horror movie, and then it was over.

A nurse cut the umbilical and took the baby away to be weighed and checked
over.
 
A minute later it was wrapped up
and placed on its mother’s chest.  Vick looked down at the screaming,
purple bundle and thought it the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

“Congratulations, you’ve got a beautiful little girl,” the nurse told her,
and Vick cooed over her daughter.

“Hello, Melissa.”  Vick shed a tear, but finally one of joy rather
than pain.

Tom Gray gently traced a finger down her tiny wrinkled face and his
thoughts turned
to
little Daniel, stolen from him at
such a tender age.  His son may be gone, but he would never be forgotten,
and Gray made a silent promise to give his daughter enough love for two.

The one thing he was truly grateful for was that she could at least lead a
normal life. 

The political fallout hadn’t been as bad as some commentators had
predicted, with just the Home Secretary and a couple of his minions giving way,
awaiting a decision as to whether or not they would face criminal
charges.  Farrar, for his part, had already been charged with multiple
counts of murder and attempted murder and was awaiting trial, along with the
remnants of his team.

While those bad guys had been taken off the streets, Gray was pleased to
know that there were still many more out there. 
Viking Security
Services
had nosedived since he’d
sold it to the venture capitalists, who had increased their prices and lowered
salaries to the point where those staff who hadn’t fled to sign up with Timmy
Hughes had been
demoralised
. 
The effect on the company’s reputation had been quick and harsh, with contracts
drying up.  They’d been at their lowest point when Gray walked into the
office and made them a generous offer, which had been readily accepted.

With Gray back at the helm and Hughes gone, his staff had come back in
droves, as had the customers, and he knew he would be able to give his daughter
— not to mention his new wife — a more than comfortable life. 

Melissa wouldn’t be spoiled by any means.  At least, that’s what Gray
told himself, though he knew it was going to be hard to say no, just as it had
been with Daniel.  All he wanted was for his daughter to grow up with the
same morals as her father, and he’d consider that the perfect foundation on
which to build her life. 

The obstetrician checked mother and child over, and happy that they were
doing well he left to complete the paperwork. 

He also decided to check with the Department of Health to see if any other
maternity hospital had gone a whole calendar month without delivering a single
male child...

THE END

 
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