Omega Dog (20 page)

That had all happened only fifteen hours earlier. It seemed a lifetime ago.

When Beth looked like she was going to go back to sleep again, Venn shook her shoulder.

‘Honey. We need to go.’

She was suddenly awake, eyes wide, sitting up. He imagined that as a physician she, too, was used to rising from naps and having to function at full alertness without a moment’s delay.

‘Is something wrong?’ she said sleepily. As she sat up the sheets fell from her upper body. Venn glanced away, embarrassed for her, even though they’d spent the last couple of hours naked together. It was too early for that easy familiarity couples came to share with each other’s bodies.

Too early.
He was thinking as though they had a future together. As though it was certain either of them would survive the next twenty-four hours.

‘I don’t know,’ he answered truthfully. ‘But I have a... feeling.’

Beth looked at him for a long instant. Then she nodded. As if she, too, knew what it was like to have instincts about situations, and to trust those instincts. Which as a doctor she probably did.

She said, ‘Okay,’ and began to pull on her clothes.

Venn checked the mechanism of his Beretta, made sure the spare magazines were close to hand in his pockets. Ammo might become a problem if he went through much more of it.

He walked over to the window and tweaked the drapes aside. The parking lot of the motel drowzed in the noonday sun. There were no new vehicles out there. Business seemed quiet. But then again, it was a weekday, hardly peak time for customers.

Beth freshened up quickly in the bathroom, and emerged gazing at Venn expectantly. He put an arm round her shoulders as he’d done before.

‘Rested?’

‘A little.’ She tried a smile, but her heart wasn’t in it. He didn’t blame her.

Venn pushed open the door and peered out. Just like he’d seen through the window, the forecourt was empty apart from one or two cars which had been there earlier. He led the way over to the Impala.

Nobody opened fire. Nobody showed themselves.

It was only after he’d returned the room key to the clerk behind the counter, gone back to the car where Beth was waiting in the passenger seat, and started the engine, that Venn understood the source of the unease he’d been feeling.

Parked up on the road, fifty yards from the entrance to the motel’s parking lot, was a car.

A bottle-green Jaguar.

Venn didn’t pass it on the way out, and didn’t get a look at the driver through the tinted windows. But he didn’t have to wait long before he saw the car start up after them in the rearview mirror.

Beside him, Beth seemed to catch his mood, and looked over.

‘Trouble?’

Keeping his eyes on the mirror, Venn said: ‘We may have company.’

The Jaguar fell into a steady pace, maintaining a fixed distance behind them.

Venn had two options, as he saw it. He could continue as he was, cruising, making like he hadn’t spotted the car on his tail.

Or, he could put his foot down and try to outrun the Jaguar.

He wouldn’t achieve this, of course. And by giving the Impala full throttle, he’d reveal to the driver of the Jaguar that he was on to him. That he knew he was being followed.

On the other hand, it would force the other driver to reveal himself. It would strip away the subterfuge and put them on an open footing.

Venn chose the second option.

He muttered to Beth, ‘Hang on,’ and floored the accelerator pedal.

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L
esser men would have cursed in frustration.

Marcus Royle instead acknowledged quite an admiration for Venn’s powers of observation, instinct, and self-preservation.

Royle had kept a steady speed just under the legal limit for most of the ride up the interstate through upstate New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. All the time he’d glanced repeatedly at the phone in its holder on his dashboard. And at the tracking beacon on the display, which showed Venn’s position.

Which remained stationary.

Impatience threatened to get the better of Royle at times. But whenever he felt the urge to put his foot down and make the most of his advantage, make the most of the fact that Venn and presumably Dr Colby seemed to have stopped and were therefore giving Royle a precious chance to catch up with them, he reined himself in. Attracting the attention of some zealous highway patrolman was the very last thing Royle needed right now.

Eventually, after almost two hours’ journey, Royle had observed that he was drawing close to the beacon representing Venn’s tracked phone. And finally, he’d seen his own phone’s marker appear on the screen, pulsing steadily towards the target.

He overshot at first, heading down the interstate before realizing he’d gone past. Doubling back wasn’t much of a problem, and soon Royle was on the offramp and heading toward the motel from which Venn’s signal was emanating.

Royle parked up on the road near the entrance and looked down at the parking lot. A couple of pickups, and a Chevrolet. That would be Venn’s. A rental, no doubt.

The satellite tracking system which had been so invaluable in pinpointing Venn’s location had now outlived its usefulness. It wasn’t precise enough to tell Royle exactly where in the motel Venn and the woman were. Royle assumed Venn would be hypervigilant, given all that had happened to him recently. Therefore Royle couldn’t just waltz in, knocking on the doors of the rooms until he found the one he wanted.

For a moment Royle considered smoking Venn and Dr Colby out. Heading back down the road to the service station he’d passed, loading up with several gallons of gas in containers, spilling a trail of the stuff from the motel outwards, and dropping a match. If the resulting conflagration didn’t kill them, it would drive them out into the open, where they’d be sitting ducks.

But that was too crude. It was using a howitzer to destroy a bug. Royle didn’t work that way.

Instead he decided to wait.

If Venn and Colby were sleeping, or eating, or even having sex together, they’d eventually tire. Would eventually decide they had to keep moving. That was when they’d show themselves.

And Royle had all the time in the world.

In the event, he didn’t have to wait very long. Before he’d been seated there fifteen minutes, the door to one of the first-floor rooms opened and a man peered cautiously out. Then emerged fully.

A woman at his heels.

Venn and Colby.

Royle was far enough away, and the windows of the Jaguar were darkly tinted enough – Royle had checked on that when he’d rented the car – that he wasn’t worried about being recognized himself. Nevertheless, he thought Venn would become suspicious of a sports car parked up there on the road, here in the middle of nowhere.

And he was right.

He watched the woman get into the Chevy and Venn head for the motel office. Idly he considered driving down and taking out the woman, but he knew he wouldn’t get there before Venn came running out.

Instead, Royle waited for Venn to come back to the car, get in and wheel it out, heading up the driveway.

Did he pause momentarily at the entrance? Possibly. But as soon as he was out on the road again, and heading away from Royle, he took off at speed.

So it was a show of defiance. Well, Royle thought, there was no point in pretending the situation was other than what it was.

He drew the gun he’d taken off the policeman in the ambulance, the Smith & Wesson 9 mm. Along with his stashes of cash around the city, Royle kept several spare supplies of Parabellum bullets. The gun was fully loaded. Royle laid it across his lap. He was right-handed, which made it a little more awkward to shoot than if he’d been driving a car in his native Britain, with the wheel on the right-hand side.

No matter. He was a professional.

The Jaguar began gaining on the Chevy, which sent up a cloud of dust behind it. The road hurtled though recently sown fields that might have been growing anything – Royle wasn’t an expert on New England agricultural practises, nor did he especially care about them – until a T-junction loomed ahead. A right turn would take them back toward the interstate, and Royle fully expected Venn to choose that road. To get back onto a freeway that would give him the relative protection of traffic, and possibly police patrol cars.

Instead, the Chevy swung sharply left, and Royle followed, onto a road that plunged deeper into farmland.

So it was going to be a showdown. Royle against Venn. That was the way Venn wanted it, and to be honest that was what Royle wanted, too.

Royle kept up, easily, but he took care not to approach too closely. Venn might decide to slam on the brakes, an old trick that took amateur pursuers by surprise and often ended up with them pitched through the windshield.

Royle had to admit he wasn’t fully prepared for what Venn did next.

He leaned back out through the open window on the driver’s side, and fired at the Jaguar’s tire.

Because of the angle of the shot, and because he was driving the car at the same time, Venn missed. But the shot was close enough that Royle instinctively spun the wheel to the left, even as the bullet smashed off the front fender and whined off into the fields.

The movement of the Jaguar sent the left fender of the Jaguar caroming off the hedge running along the side of the road. The thick gorse crackled against the car’s metal, the mild impact slowing the vehicle and juddering through Royle’s body.

Worse, he was now at an impossible angle to fire back, the passenger side of the car nearer the front.

Royle got control of the car again fast, swinging it back on course, but not before Venn managed a second shot. This one shattered the side passenger window, glass fragments spraying across Royle as he ducked.

Gritting his teeth, determined not to let the man ahead get the upper hand, Royle flattened the accelerator, closing in on the Chevy.

It grew rapidly larger in the windshield.

Twenty yards ahead.

Ten.

The Jaguar smashed into the rear of the Chevy, shunting the front vehicle forward and sideways, metal shrieking against metal, more glass showering upward and outward, from the headlamps this time.

Because Royle had been expecting the crash - had caused it - he was ready for it, and managed to avoid being flung against the dashboard or windshield even though he didn’t have his seatbelt on. Even as the hood of the Jaguar buckled, Royle was out the door and rolling and coming up at a crouch, the Smith & Wesson in his hand.

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S
urprise was the most effective weapon Venn had, and he decided to use it wisely.

He yelled ‘Get down,’ at Beth, at the same time putting his hand on the back of her head and shoving her so that she was bending forward. It wouldn’t provide cover for very long, but if their assailant opened fire at the windows then at least Beth’s head wouldn’t be a clearly defined target.

Venn fired blindly out the window on his side, not expecting to hit anything unless he got really lucky, but guessing the other man wouldn’t expect the first shot to come so quickly. Without looking to see if his bullet had struck home, he kicked the door of the Impala open and dived out, staying low and hitting the tarmac.

There was nobody there.

Venn twisted and fired upward just as the shot came from above, and just an instant before his conscious brain told him what his reflexes had already gauged.

The guy’s on the roof of the car. Just like I was, last time round.

The bullets, one, two of them, spanged off the blacktop close to Venn’s face. Venn’s returning shot had put the man off his aim. As Venn tried to draw a bead on the man from where he was lying on his back on the road surface, the guy fired again.

It was both a lucky and an unlucky shot. Venn felt an awful impact against his hand and saw the gun wrenched free to go clattering across the road surface. His hand hurt like crazy, as if somebody had taken a sledgehammer to it.

But he wasn’t shot. The bullet had struck the gun.

And now Venn was a sitting duck.

The man took his time, bracing his legs on the roof of the car with his knees slightly bent, aiming his gun with both arms outstretched. For the first time Venn got a good look at him, in bright sunlight rather than shadow. He was surprisingly older than Venn would have believed. Approaching fifty, maybe, or even on the wrong side of it. His face was mild. A scholar’s.

Venn drew his arms across himself, flinching against what was coming. There was nothing he could do. Nothing. He’d never make it to the car to crawl under or alongside it before the guy fired. Nor would he have time to reach his gun, where it lay several yards away on the road surface.

Maybe he could keep the guy talking. But for how long? And till when? Till a helpful highway patrolman cam cruising by, in this godforsaken lane off the beaten track?

The Impala lurched, then, like a car being started up by an inexperienced driver who immediately stalls the vehicle.

The man on the roof was thrown off his feet, quite literally, so that Venn saw the soles of his shoes. His gun went off, the shot singing off into the blue, and he landed hard on his ass on the roof and slid off.

Beth
, thought Venn. She’d realized the man was up there, and started the car.
Bless her.

Even now, with the guy on the ground, Venn knew he wasn’t going to get to his gun in time. So instead he scrambled toward the guy, leaping the last few feet until he was on top of him before he could bring his gun up.

He knocked the guy back, slamming him down hard on the blacktop, his hand gripping the wrist of the man’s gun arm and twisting it hard, twisting until he could feel the bones creaking. Venn took car not to focus all of his strength in his grip, however, because the guy was already trying for access elsewhere, his free hand clawing at Venn’s face as his knee came jabbing up, seeking Venn’s groin.

Venn kept his legs closed but the man’s claw-hand got his face and Venn felt fingertips hook just shy of his eye sockets. He arched backward, the movement allowing the man to surge forward off the ground and bring his forehead crashing into Venn’s face.