Sudden chilling clarity. Andrew Stephens’s father was Greek. He’d anglicised his name.
Andrew Stephens was El Greco, The Greek, close-range shooter of pigeons, maker of snuff movies, organiser of murderous run-throughs.
And then the realisation.
Berglin had always known who El Greco was. Berglin had toyed with me. Berglin had given me to Scully, Hill and El Greco.
Naive. You only know about naive when it’s too late.
Absolute silence.
I walked into something, old fence, some obstacle, small screeching noise.
Something landed in the vegetation near me, sound like an overripe peach falling. And then a thump, no more than the sound of a hard tennis forehand.
Whop.
The night turned to day.
Blinded.
Flare grenade. I backed away, left arm shielding my eyes.
The bullet plucked at my collar, red hot, like being touched by an iron from the forge.
I fell over backwards, twisted, crawled into the undergrowth, hands and knees, through the thicket, thorns grabbing, scratching face and hands, reached a sparser patch, got to my feet, ran into the dark, into something solid, forehead first.
I didn’t fall over, stood bent, stunned, looked back. The flare was dying, white coal.
‘Mac.’ Shout.
Bobby.
‘Mac. Deal. The tape, you walk. Don’t need you dead.’
What hope did I have?
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘I’m coming.’
I ran left, northeast, hindered by wet, clinging, growing things, hampered but not blocked. I reached the fringe of the cleared area, exhausted. Knew where I was.
Clouds opened. Moonlight.
The bullet hit something in front of me. Something solid, tree trunk.
Night-vision scope.
That was the fat tube on El Greco’s rifle. Light-enhancing nightscope.
He could see in the dark.
I threw myself into the denser growth to my right, crawled deeper, deeper, desperate, no breath left, ten metres, fifteen, more. Into, over plants, roots, through ditches of rotten leaves, mud, scrabbling, don’t want to die like this…
I fell into the sunken tennis court, fell a metre, head over heels, got up, dazed, winded, pitch-dark, sense of direction gone, ran, ran a long way, length of the court perhaps, knee-high weeds, swimming in porridge, fell, crawled, a barrier, a wall, the other side of the court, bits of rusted wire, hands hurting, sodden soil, tufts of grass coming away in my hands.
I was out of the court, on my stomach, all strength gone.
The end.
Fuck that.
I was being hunted. I was their victim. They’d had lots of victims. They knew about victims: they run, you find them, you kill them.
Dangerous is what you want to be. Go mad. Nobody wants to fight a mad person. Nobody wants fingers stuck up his nose.
A father’s words to a small and scared ten-year-old son.
Yes. I found the strength, crawled around the perimeter of the sunken court, turned north. Waited in the undergrowth.
Whop.
Fireball. In the tennis court. Night sun. Cold, white night sun.
I buried my head in the dank, wet weeds. Flare thrown from the edge of the tennis court, somewhere near where I’d toppled into the court.
Flare dying, fading.
Dark.
Dark.
And then light, cold silver moonlight through the flying clouds.
Bobby Hill, ten metres away, moving through the knee-high weeds, long-barrelled revolver at his side, not anxious, not hurrying, man out for a walk in difficult conditions.
Dark again. Lying on my face, I reached under my chest, found the gun butt, comforting feel, drew the Colt from the shoulder holster. Safety off. Hammer back.
Whop.
In the air, above me, intense sodium-like light.
I cringed, pushed myself down, didn’t move, Mother Earth, breathed wet soil, waited for the pain. You bowl these things, I realised, throw them, they float for a few seconds. Not parachute flares.
No pain. White glare dying away. Slowly, slowly. Dark.
I got up. Walked to the edge of the sunken court, slid down on my backside, stayed down, drew up my knees, rested my outstretched arms on them. Waited.