The Dead Lie Down (Adam Lennox Thrillers: Book One) (27 page)

Here there was potential. Furniture, dark corners, a large lead-paned window,
things to throw if he could get his hands free. Adam Lennox, optimist
extraordinaire.

Here, the hired help seemed to grow confidence, and a voice.

"On your knees," barked Brent's mate.

"On your bike," declared Adam.

Adam was disappointed after the event that he hadn't seen the kick coming, but
the back of legs caved in nevertheless and he found himself unwillingly on his
knees, his eyes smarting with the pain.

Finding himself running out of conventional options Adam decided on plan B, not
that he had had a plan A particularly but it made it sound better.

He straightened his back and turned to Anna.

"I seem to recall on a previous occasion you were keen to indulge in some
recreation time," he recalled. "I doubt whether there's a bed here but I'm sure
we could improvise." He lifted his eyebrows to underline the suggestion.

"Shutup," interjected butler, silence having obviously been too much of a strain
for so long.

Adam turned to him. "I don't remember including you in the conversation."

This time he did see it coming and swayed backwards, but the boot still
connected with his right hand rib cage, sufficient to cause a sharp pain that
indicated damage. He was picked up off the floor and dumped once again on his
knees. He coughed, and it hurt.

Anna moved around and dropped to her knees to face him. She leant forward, and
taking his head in both hands she enclosed his lips on hers in a kiss that would
have meant a lot more in different circumstances. She let go and in a momentary
and improbable movement dropped one eyelid in a wink.

What was that supposed to mean? Was it a signal? Was it a come on? Was it her
idea of a joke?

"You just don't know how to die, do you?" she said finally.

She moved away to one side of the room and turned to the hired help. There was a
tiredness in her voice that Adam couldn't place.

"Do it," she ordered.

Adam's thoughts ran wild. This wasn't meant to end this way. There were things
he wanted to do. Bel's message came back to him. He was going to die without
her. He mentally apologised. Iraq flashed back to him again and the fear of war
on the front line. He saw his parents, and the house.

He felt the muzzle of the gun on the back of his head. He remembered news
footage of hostage executions in the Middle East and in Korea. He closed his
eyes and in his mind stepped outside himself, watching his own execution.

The gun moved slightly.

There was the sound of a shot, a searing pain and bright light went through his
head, then darkness engulfed everything and his body toppled to the ground.

Chapter 37

The room lay in complete darkness. No light pollution entered through the broken
window to illuminate the ghostly scene. Eyes accustomed to the dark would
perceive three motionless shapes on the floor. In time one of the shapes moved
imperceptibly.

So this is hell, thought Adam. He could see little but what he could see was
through a red haze that covered his eyes. Pain echoed through his head as he
tried to move slowly off the floor. He recalled vaguely what had happened and
questions flit through his mind. If he wasn't dead then why not? If he could
move his hands, how come they were untied? He wiped away the blood from his eyes
and to some degree normal vision was resumed. Carefully he rose to a sitting
position, aware that any sudden movement brought sickening pain to his head. He
sat there for ten minutes regaining some normality. Reaching into his pocket he
pulled out his mobile phone, which inexplicably hadn't been removed from him
earlier. By the subdued light of its display he endeavoured to make some sense
of the scene around him.

Crawling slowly round the room he identified the two further bodies over by the
sink. They lay where they had fallen. The hired help wouldn't cost anyone
anything any more, both with bullet wounds to the head, there was no pulse from
either. He sat with his back against a dresser whilst the hammer drill in his
head eased off a fraction and he could gather his wits. He couldn't understand
how he seemed to have suffered a flesh wound when the guys with the guns were
both dead. He began to feel that he was in an action thriller, where the
impossible happens only because the scriptwriter writes it that way.

After a few minutes he slowly scouted further around the deep shadows but there
was no sign of Anna anywhere, alive or dead. He wasn't sure whether to be
pleased or disappointed but for the moment put it to the back of his mind.

He was ably assisted in this by the whine of a car engine approaching, and
wavering headlights lighting up the farm like flashes of lightning. Car doors
were followed by swift footsteps across the farmyard to the front door.

Adam decided this was not a safe place to hang around. Stopping only to pick up
a discarded automatic he negotiated his way to the kitchen door, figuring that
if anyone was expecting him to leave it would be by the front door, with or
without the benefit of a pine box or concrete overshoes.

He stopped in the deep shadows of the kitchen garden. Assessing the situation he
was interrupted by an unknown voice from inside the kitchen.

"It's Fergus and Davey, Lennox has taken both of them. Search the place, he
can't have got far, there's plenty of his blood on the floor." A pause. "I want
him taken out, and I want it now."

A
second unknown voice responded in like frame of mind. "Any sign of the American
woman?"

"No. Either she's helped him or he's got her hostage somewhere."

Adam risked moving out of his hiding place and crossed what was left of a
vegetable patch. The noise of breaking glass as he collided with the remains of
a cold frame brought cries from indoors. He scrambled through a hedge and made
his way around the edge of a spinney. He tried to recall the map they had
studied before leaving London and tossed up whether to lie low or make a run for
it. As luck would have it, the coin landed on its edge and he moved further through
the trees to the edge of the next field before dropping into a ditch filled with
drain-water. The cold seeped through him and he was glad they weren't doing
this in the middle of winter.

His pursuers briefly abandoned the softly-softly approach and crashed through
undergrowth before thinking better of it, and all went quiet. Adam could hear
himself breathing. Not a good sign. If he could hear it he was damn sure others
could too. Five minutes went past without disturbance, ten minutes went past. He
was becoming more confident now, and was on the verge of moving out when he heard
it. The lightest of snuffled breath and the breaking of a twig, ten, maybe
fifteen feet away. Movement, very quiet, very deliberate, very slow. Then he
could see the vague shape, moving towards him. He waited until the last
possible moment. He stood up to get a better shot, and was nearly decapitated by
the hooves of the full grown deer as it soared out of the tree line, across the
ditch at head-height and continued out into the field.

Now he was committed, and running as low as he could, he skirted the field edge,
trying to stay in shadow, straining for the sounds of pursuit, ready to throw
himself to the ground.

Three fields later he began to feel he might be in the clear and risked
approaching a lane which snaked across the side of the hill, rising in and out
of the moorland dips of the Forest. He stumbled down onto the tarmac and paused
by a gatepost to regain his breath. Scanning the country for signs of habitation
he noticed the car only by its headlights reflecting from hedgerows. With the
automatic at the ready he rose away from the gate as the car approached. Some
risks were worth taking. The car pulled to a halt beside him and the window
scrolled smoothly down.

"Well if this isn't role reversal I don't know what is," declared Anna.

Without stopping to exchange pleasantries, Adam dived in to the passengers seat,
stuck the automatic in her ribs and hissed in her ear.

"Don't try anything, just drive. Give me an excuse and I'll blow your head off."
He briefly reminded himself to book into a risk assessment refresher course.

To give her credit, she just turned and smiled before calmly putting the car into
gear and moving off.

"Where to?"

"London."

She turned again and smiled. Adam found it strangely disconcerting but couldn't
work out why.

"I don't know if it's got enough gas, I stole it from the farmhouse, but we can
try."

Adam raised an eyebrow in the dark before she continued.

"You can put the firearm away, we really are on the same side."

For some reason Adam didn't trust her, something to do with her having given the
order for his execution less than six hours previously, or was he being over
sensitive? The gun stayed where it was.

"So what happened to the plan?" he asked.

He could see her grin in the moonlight which had just broken through the light
cloud.

"The plan was overtaken by events."

"Events being that you are working for O'Rourke?" suggested Adam
sardonically.

"I'm not working for O'Rourke. Oh shit, it's blown to the wind now. I was
working undercover on the fringes of his organisation, trying to get a line on
his plans."

Adam considered it for a moment before spotting the flaw.

"So that caused you to pull the gun on me?"

"I had to gain the upper hand over you." She sighed with exasperation at having
to explain it all, like a mother to a child. "I needed to get O'Rourke to give
the order to kill you, but on my terms. I was wearing a wire. I've got it all on
disc. You were great, you reacted beautifully. I couldn't have got the right
reaction if I'd told you before."

Adam didn't buy it. It was stretching plausibility far too much. He'd heard
better fairy tales on his mother's knee for crying out loud. He said as
much.

Anna took her eyes off the road, she was an American, they can drive like
that.

"So you going to put the gun away before there's an accident?"

"No." Adam liked to think he could remain dominant, play the short answer game.
"This doesn't sound like Customs & Excise to me."

Anna considered for a moment, fortunately she had put her eyes on the road
again.

"It's not Customs & Excise."
He put on his best 'I'm flabbergasted'
expression so she continued.

"You still covered by the Official Secrets Act?" She took his silence as a yes,
she knew the answer anyway.

"The CIA has undertaken a mission to compromise O'Rourke, to get a hold over him
for use in the future. He's a man with a very dodgy past who's accumulating too
much power and influence both here and the States."

"Does the UK Government know?" Adam interrupted.

"Not precisely."

"So who can verify your story?"

Again she turned to glance at him before answering, as if to try and anticipate
his reaction to the answer.

"Ask Erikson."

That floored Adam. That she should know the Head of NATO Military Intelligence
was one thing, but that she knew that Adam knew, blew away all Adam's
preconceptions.

The next half-hour was spent in silence. The petrol didn't run out. Adam put the
gun away.

Eventually he broke the silence.

"So what happened at the farm?"

Anna stared straight ahead. "You weren't actually in any danger."

"You want to try and convince my headache of that?" Acting the hurt victim
always worked well, playing the martyr bit you understand.

"We had two marksmen stationed. That's why I insisted on using the main room and
not the kitchen. The main room had better light, and line of sight for a
shot."

"Talking of shots.." Adam touched his head and winced slightly. "It came a bit
close."

Anna bit a lip. "I'm sorry, it wasn't meant to get that close. I got up from the
floor after the shooting had stopped and found you... I untied your hands but
had to get out. I honestly wasn't sure you were going to make it. You've no idea
how relieved I was to see you at the side of the road."

"So did I get this headache from an American bullet or from one of O'Rourke's
henchmen?"

"That was one of O'Rourke's. He managed to loose off a round as he went down.
That's why it missed the mark and grazed you."

"Why do I get the idea that you consider me expendable?"

Silence.

The scalp wound was still bleeding and by the size of the stain on the farmhouse
floor he had lost a reasonable amount of blood before it had stopped. He felt
slightly light headed but was putting that down to his having cheated death yet
again. How many lives was a cat supposed to have? He scratched himself behind
the ear with a paw and pulled out his mobile. Neither the phone in the flat nor
Bel's mobile was being answered. His optimistic side came to the rescue. Bel's
phone had obviously run out of battery and she was staying with someone for the
night as she wouldn't want to stay on her own. Good thinking Adam, keep telling
yourself, you'll believe it. The bottle is definitely half-full. Just don't
drink any more. He shook his head in an attempt to clear it, regretted it
instantly and finally considered his next move. Something still narked at his
brain.

"Someone tortured and killed Kemp." He waited for a reaction. Nothing. Zilch.
Zip.

"I only told two people about him," he continued. "The other one was a
policeman. I don't think he did it."

Still no reaction. Adam spoke slowly and deliberately, and kept one hand on the
gun in his pocket.

"You told O'Rourke didn't you?"

He let the silence speak for itself until she replied. "I needed to maintain
O'Rourke's trust, needed to keep the flow of information. I didn't realise what
he would do."