Relentless (20 page)

Behind us there was a crash as the door flew open completely.
They were in, and in the light of the room we were sitting ducks.
But this time there was no way we were stopping.
Dropping the chair, I grabbed Kathy, lifted her up (thank
God she was slim) and heaved her bodily through the window
before she had a chance to protest. I took three steps back and,
ignoring the footfalls coming across the floor, and the strangely
muffled shouts to put my hands up coming from my pursuers,
ran forward and did a flying dive through the gap, experiencing
a sharp, hot pain like a burn as what was left of the lower shard
tore through my clothing and the skin of my stomach.
I landed hands first, beyond the panes of glass lying on the
grass, and somersaulted over, my legs hitting Kathy as she got to
her feet. I was up in an instant, grabbing her by the hand and
running through the soaked undergrowth, the cool air filling
me with an exultant relief. She stumbled; I pulled her up. We
went through a bramble bush, jumped over a fallen log, kept
accelerating. Knowing that we were free. That we'd beaten the
bastards. We'd actually beaten them. In those moments, nothing
else mattered.
Behind us, the shouts of our pursuers faded into the rain.

29

Lench jumped back onto the landing, using the bedroom door as
cover, Daniels' bullet narrowly missing him. He knew that the

trap he'd set had failed. Knowing that Daniels was armed, and
that a full-frontal attack would cost him men, Lench had decided
to send Mantani round the back of the house to climb up
onto the single-storey roof and get inside that way. Then, by
simultaneously firebombing both ends of the house, they would
drive the three either out into the open or more likely up the
stairs, where Mantani had been ordered to ambush them and
despatch Daniels so that the Merons would have no choice but
to surrender.
Lench had assumed that Daniels would take the lead and be
the first of the three upstairs, making him a comparatively easy
target, but that hadn't happened, and now Mantani was dead,
and Lench himself was having to pick up the pieces. Far better,
he thought as he stood outside the bedroom door, to have
simply firebombed the place and waited for them to exit the
building, choking and vulnerable. In the battlefields of Croatia
and Bosnia all those years ago, they'd taught him always
to keep plans simple. Elaboration wasted time. Human beings,
particularly civilians, were essentially cowardly creatures given
to panic. Surprise and overwhelming force were all that was
needed to subdue them. He'd ignored that advice tonight by
trying to be clever, and now it had cost him. But the situation
was redeemable. If he moved fast.
He dived low into the bedroom, all the time facing the badly
damaged and blood-stained bedroom window. Meron was
scrambling out of one end and onto the roof while Daniels
crouched a few feet away in front of the shattered middle pane.
He had a gun in one hand and was using the other to pull up
Mantani's balaclava-clad corpse under the arms, trying to use
him as a shield.
Lench pulled the trigger while he was still in mid-air. So

did Daniels, three times, the bullets cracking like whiplashes
through the room. Each man's shots missed the other. Lench
landed on his side and the shotgun discharged again, this time
accidentally, blasting a tight circle of penny-shaped holes in the
ceiling above the bed. Dust and plaster sprinkled down. Daniels
fired two more shots in return, both of which hit the lower part
of the wall near Lench. Then there was silence. Neither man
could see the other. Lench could hear Daniels shuffling along
the line of the window, presumably making for the part that was
open so he could make his own escape. He'd fired thirteen shots.
The weapon was a Glock that Lench had supplied, which carried
a fifteen-round magazine, with one in the breech. That left
Daniels with three more bullets. Enough still to be dangerous.
Lench only had two shells left himself, and he wasn't carrying
spares. Another lesson from the Yugoslavian war zone he'd
failed to heed: always prepare for the worst-case scenario.
But whatever faults Lench possessed, the fear of death was
not one of them. In one surprisingly athletic movement for a man
so large, he leaped to his feet, calculating accurately Daniels'
position, and opened fire without hesitation.
Daniels stumbled backwards with the force of the shot, but he
was crouched low behind Mantani and it was the.dead man who
took the force of the blast, his masked face disappearing in a
cloud of blood and bone, much of which sprayed over the
undercover cop. Daniels let go of Mantani's body and pulled
the trigger of the Glock wildly, cracking off two shots, neither of
which went anywhere near their target, before Lench discharged
the shotgun for the last time.
The shot caught Daniels in the centre of the chest, driving him
hard against the broken glass of the middle pane, the gun flying
uselessly out of his hand. Mantani's ruined corpse slipped out of

view and hit the floor with a dull clump. At the same time,
Daniels let out a pained gasp that filled Lench with the kind of
warm, easy glow that ending a life always gave him. Daniels was
unsteady on his feet, stumbling badly, but Lench wanted him
conscious for these last few moments so that he could hold
him close as his life ebbed away. He dropped the shotgun and
with an animal howl sprang across the bed.
But for a dying man, Daniels still had something left, and he
moved to one side and avoided the full force of the attack.
Lench managed to grab him with one arm, though, and pull him into the beginnings of a bearhug. Daniels fought back, a punch
coming out of nowhere and catching Lench across the cheek.
The two men struggled as Lench manoeuvred the arm to
which his jet knife was attached so that it was against Daniels'
belly, close to the appendix. But as he pushed against his foe's
torso, he realized that it felt solid. The bastard was wearing a
bulletproof vest. No wonder he was still fighting. Lench shifted
the knife so that it was wedged in underneath Daniels' armpit,
but the other man suddenly bucked wildly, pushed himself away
from the open window and grabbed the knife arm by the wrist,
yanking it away from his body.
Lench punched him hard in the face with his free hand, twice
in quick succession, and flicked the wrist of the knife arm so that
the six-inch blade shot out, ripping a huge gash in Daniels'
thumb and narrowly missing his neck. Dazed, Daniels stumbled
backwards, still clinging to Lench's wrist. Lench knew that there
was no point in continuing to toy with his victim. He had to
make the kill. And quickly. Smoke was filling the room, and he
could hear the sounds of shouting outside as the other two men
gave chase to Meron and his wife. He needed to bring the
situation under control, and now.

Daniels had also grabbed his free hand by the wrist so that
Lench couldn't punch him again, so instead he shoved Daniels
hard, bending him backwards over the windowsill. Using all his
weight, and his advantageous position looking down on the
other man, Lench tried to force the knife downwards into his
throat. Daniels bent his body back through the open window in
a desperate bid to avoid the blade as it inched closer and closer.
His face was bloodied where he'd been hit, and his eyes were
wide with nervous tension. The arm holding the knife away from
him was the one that had been hit by shotgun pellets, and it was
shaking wildly. Any moment now it was going to give, and then
death would be inevitable. The tip of the blade was just three
inches away from Daniels' Adam's apple, and Lench smiled
down at him.
'Time to die, my friend,' he whispered gently. 'Time to spill
some blood.' His voice was thick with gloating.

Then, suddenly, he gasped in shock as Daniels drove a
knee up into his groin. Lench felt his whole body go slack, and
before he could right himself Daniels had slammed his knife arm
against the window frame, risen up from his supine position and
headbutted him on his upturned chin. Lench lost his footing and
Daniels shoved him away, managing to put a couple of feet of
space between them, then turned and slid out of the window
onto the single-storey roof. Lench grabbed wildly for one of his
legs, ignoring the pain in his groin, but Daniels kicked the hand
away and began crawling along the ridgeline, making for the
edge.
Thin lines of smoke seeped through the gaps in the roof's tiles,
and Lench realized that it was going to collapse at any moment.
But he couldn't let his quarry get away. Clambering up onto the
window ledge, he leaped through the air, landing on Daniels'

back, knees first. There was a loud crack beneath them as
the badly weakened roof buckled under the strain, but Lench
ignored it and pulled Daniels' head back by the hair, the knife
raised ready to slash his throat. Something else cracked.
But Daniels was a formidable opponent who didn't seem to
know when he was beaten, and he shifted violently onto his side,
bucking like a donkey and knocking Lench off balance. The two
men rolled down to the guttering, and suddenly they were falling
through the air.
They landed hard, Daniels on top. Lench exhaled violently,
winded by the fall, but still had the presence of mind to lash out
with the knife, the blade narrowly missing his opponent's cheek.
But Daniels was already struggling free, and he ducked away
from the second slash of the knife and jumped unsteadily to his
feet.
He started running towards the bushes, but then abruptly
changed direction as two of Lench's men emerged from the
timber-framed summerhouse ahead of him, and instead made
for the wooden fence that separated the back garden from the
driveway. He jumped up, grabbed the top with both hands, and
used his arms to lift himself up and over.
Lench watched him negotiate the fence, realizing not only
that it was possible the Merons were escaping, but so was this
bastard, Daniels. A man who was his own responsibility. This
couldn't be. Failure was not possible. Not tonight.
One of the two men coming out of the summerhouse made a
gesture at Lench to let him know that their quarry had escaped.
Lench cursed, slid the blade of his knife back into the handle,
then ran over and grabbed the pistol of the nearest man.
'Where the hell have they gone?' he demanded.

'Iato the woods,' answered the one whose pistol he'd taken,

managing to keep his voice free of nerves. He was afraid of
Lench, as all who knew him were, but was also aware that he
needed both of them right now, so he wouldn't do anything rash.
'There's no way we're going to get them out there. They've got
fifty yards on us, probably more.'
Lench told them to wait where they were, then ran over and
vaulted onto the fence. He sat astride it and spotted Daniels
through the rain running unsteadily across the driveway, ten
yards short of the 4x4, the keys to it in his hand. He took aim
carefully, squinting as he sighted his eye down the barrel. The
distance was fifteen yards. Handguns are notoriously inaccurate
over distance, but Lench was an excellent shot. He'd learned to
shoot pistols in Croatia in 1991, and had practised regularly ever
since, often travelling to a shooting range in Normandy where he
made use of his wide collection of licensed firearms. The Glock
17 he was holding now was one of them, brought back into the
UK illegally amid a shipment of computer chips some months
earlier. He picked out the back of Daniels' head and held the
position. His quarry seemed unaware that he was being targeted.
Lench's arm was perfectly steady. The distance between Daniels
and the Lexus decreased to eight yards, then seven. Lench
pulled the trigger. A second later, Daniels pitched forward and
fell flat on his face on the gravel, arms spreadeagled.
Lench allowed himself a small triumphant smile. Another
to add to the list of his kills. He remembered all his victims
individually, could bring up a picture in his mind of every one
of them, as well as the circumstances of how they'd died.
Sometimes, when it was possible, he took a trophy. He still kept
a lock of thick, raven-black hair spun through a small gold
wedding band in a drawer beside his bed, a constant reminder
of his single most enjoyable encounter to date - a stunningly

attractive, newly-wed Muslim girl of barely eighteen with the
bluest eyes he'd ever seen. He'd invaded her home in a village
near the Bosnian border town of Banic in the winter of 1992,
and had snuffed out her existence in a bloody bout of sexual
ecstasy that had probably lasted only a couple of hours but
which had felt like a whole joyous lifetime.
Daniels didn't move. He was dead, of that there was little
doubt. Now he could do no further damage. But the problem
was, the people who could do real damage - Tom and Kathy
Meron - had somehow got away again.
Lench looked up towards the leaden sky. It was as if he was
sniffing the wet night air. In the distance he could hear the sound
of sirens, and he knew they were coming here. The house was
now completely ablaze, flames licking the brickwork, their heat
spreading in thick, comforting waves. The fire, coupled with the
gunshots, would have been more than enough to attract the
attention of anyone living within a half-mile radius.
He slid down the fence and jogged over to the other two men.
The Merons, he knew, were lost to them for the moment.
It was time to up the ante. It was time to call Dorriel Graham.

3a

Mike Bolt had a theory about detective work, and it was this: the
detective could never explain everything. He might have a good
overall idea about a criminal's motivations, but rarely, if ever,

did he have the full picture. It was the same with the circumstances
of a crime. Sometimes things happened that defied logic.
Like a woman in a university library murdered with a knife that
held the prints of a work colleague who several hours earlier had
been ten miles away at the home of a man who was murdered in
entirely different circumstances, almost certainly by different
people, in a case that may or may not have been connected. The
way forward in something like this was not to rack your brains
trying to come up with theories, but to get hold of live witnesses
who could fill in the gaps for you. And this meant finding the
Merons.
They stopped at the HQ and picked up Bolt's car, saying their
goodbyes at just before eleven o'clock.
'I'm sorry I messed up your night,' Bolt told Mo as he got out
of the car.
Mo smiled. 'You didn't. It's everyone else. If they weren't
dying in mysterious circumstances and leaving behind secret
pasts, I'd be tucked up at home with a beer in front of Match of
the Day.'
'Well, go home now, get some rest. I'll call you in the morning.'
'Sure. Are you going to put out a bulletin on the Merons?'
'I'll put a call in on the way home.'
Bolt shut the car door and watched as Mo drove away. The
rain had stopped, and the clouds were breaking up in the
orange-tinted night sky. He was exhausted. This was a case like
no other he'd investigated, with wildly disparate pieces appearing
all the time, and events moving at breakneck speed. Bolt was
more used to cases lasting months, involving a long, patient
build-up of evidence against elusive and very careful targets, not
a sudden and explosive series of crimes that might be linked to
individuals right at the very heart of the establishment, and