Authors: JT Brannan
STOP AT NOTHING: 'Mark Cole is Bond's US cousin mixed with the balls out action and killing edge of Jason Bourne' Parmenion Books (22 page)
Cole opened his eyes slowly, blinking at the harsh overhead lights as if he was waking for the first time. A look of confusion spread across his face as he pretended to take it all in.
‘What … What’s going on?’ he asked weakly in French. ‘Where am I?’
As the paramedics tried to console and reassure him, Cole saw the policeman rise from his seat and approach, his head coming down towards Cole.
‘The police?’ said Cole. ‘Why? What …’
‘We know that the car was stolen,’ the man said. ‘You’re in big trouble, sir.’
The ambulance team began to remonstrate with him for badgering their patient, but Cole whispered faintly, ‘No, no, it’s okay.’ He gestured with his head for the officer to come closer. ‘Come here,’ he continued, his voice getting weaker, ‘I need to tell you something … about the car.’
His curiosity aroused, the officer bent forwards, his head going close to Cole’s so that he could hear the quiet words.
Before he knew what was happening, he felt a blinding pain in the side of his head, searing in intensity. He heard a high-pitched noise, and realized it was his own screams.
Cole had slipped his hands and lower arms out of the straps, and whilst he grabbed the officer’s head with one hand, pulling it close and sinking his teeth into the man’s ear, his other hand shot across to retrieve the handgun from the open belt holster.
Putting the gun tight to the officer’s head, cradled across his chest, he let go of the ear and snapped at the shocked medics. ‘Get these straps off me! Now!’
The men remained frozen to the spot, and Cole noticed a dark stain appear on the trouser leg of the nearest man. ‘Do it or I’ll blow his fucking head off! Do it!’
The man furthest away acted first, reaching down to untie Cole’s head, then his arms, body and legs. The policeman was meanwhile sobbing into Cole’s chest, begging for mercy, for his life to be spared.
Cole sat up, ordering the medics to the doors at the back of the vehicle. ‘Open them,’ he ordered. The first man again did as he was told. ‘Now jump.’
The speed wasn’t great, so the first man jumped quickly, rolling over in the ice and snow into a small heap. The second medic was still frozen, petrified. Cole gestured aggressively towards him, and the man squeaked as he jumped reflexively backwards, he too rolling across the icy road.
Cole shoved the policeman towards the door, aiming the gun at his chest. ‘Now you.’
Cole could see the officer weighing his options – his ambition telling him to capture the criminal, his logical mind telling him to jump.
He made his choice and moved unsurely towards Cole, but Cole was ready. He launched a vicious thrusting front kick to the officer’s chest that sent him sailing out of the back of the ambulance into the road beyond.
Cole closed the doors, and looked towards the other end, where there was a door to the cabin.
He stretched the kinks out of his body, and tried to shake off his headache – maybe he was concussed after all – and pushed through the door, gun aimed at the driver.
The man was caught completely off guard, surprised – he had heard nothing from the rear compartment. ‘What do you want?’ he asked, horrified.
‘Just keep driving and you’ll be fine,’ Cole said calmly, looking out of the windscreen. The weather had improved, but visibility was still poor. Even so, Cole could make out what looked like a large concrete structure just up ahead.
‘Where are we?’ he asked the driver, although he feared he knew the answer.
‘We’re here, we’re here. The hospital. Just let me out, okay? Please?’
Cole was silent. He recognized the building as the American Hospital of Paris, on the Boulevard Victor Hugo less than a mile northwest of the Arc de Triomphe. It had been set up in 1906 by a group of expatriate Americans who wanted American care within the French capital. He had used it before in fact, after sustaining an injury whilst operating in France, and knew the staff there were like Swiss bankers, never revealing anything about their patients. The CIA often sent agents there for surgery, and it was also widely used by the American military. It was the perfect place for Hansard to have him killed.
As they cruised up to the entrance, he could see the two men standing to one side, motionless. Truro and Vinh. Cole recognized them instantly, having worked with them on a couple of ops in the long and distant past. Because of his plastic surgery, they would not recognize him, of course; but Cole knew that it would not matter to them even if they did recognize him. They were bad news, ruthless professionals that could be trusted to get the job done.
‘Get out,’ Cole ordered the driver. ‘Now!’
The ambulance was slowing down to a halt anyway, so the driver gladly opened the door and jumped out, running for freedom even as Cole slipped into the driver’s seat and gunned the accelerator.
Neither Truro nor Vinh could believe their eyes. They had seen the ambulance coming from a distance, its headlights illuminating its path through the thick snowfall. They were gearing up to retrieve the target from the back of the vehicle when it got close enough to see clearly. And what they saw inside the cab made them immediately sick. A man matching the description of their target, holding a gun to the driver’s head. And then the driver was jumping out of the vehicle, the target was taking the wheel and –
Both men left it too late to react, one darting left and one right. Vinh narrowly missed the front bumper, but Truro took the full force of the ambulance as it smashed into him, lifting him clear off the floor as the vehicle mounted the kerb at the front entrance, his body flying off as the ambulance came to a stop, the limp form crashing straight through the large glass double entry doors.
Vinh watched wide-eyed as the ambulance reversed backwards off the kerb, pulled a one-eighty, and sped off back the way it had come.
His eyes went reluctantly to the mess over in the foyer.
Andy
. He sprinted over to check on him, but it was too late. The impact would have broken every bone in his body, and the shattered glass had left him a bloody pulp. He checked for a pulse nevertheless, even as an army of doctors and nurses rushed towards them. There was none.
A single tear rolled down his cheek as he ran back out into the frozen night, watching the receding tail-lights getting away from him.
Vinh ran to get his own car, vowing to do whatever it took to destroy the man who had killed his only friend.
Cole could see the approaching lights in his wing mirrors. He knew Truro must be dead, so it would be Vinh trying to catch him. He was sure their vehicle would be fast, and would certainly handle better than the big ambulance he was driving, but Cole nevertheless tried to pick up the pace, increasing speed as he raced south back down Victor Hugo towards Boulevard Bineau, grip next to nonexistent on the icy streets.
The road was, however, mercifully quiet due to the late hour and the atrocious weather, and so Cole didn’t have to use the siren, which would have made it too easy for Vinh behind him. As it was, it was even possible that he might lose his pursuer in the urban mass of the city, if he could keep sufficiently ahead.
He crossed straight over Bineau, seeing headlights just behind him. Cole strained to identify the vehicle from the unclear image in his mirrors. A Range Rover? He heard the supercharged V8 accelerating behind him, and confirmed the ID. Perfect for the weather, and fast too. It was going to take some creative driving, Cole decided even as he ignored the instruction to follow the road to the right, instead ploughing straight ahead onto the lower half of Boulevard d’Aurelle de Paladines the wrong way, two vehicles coming towards him forced to swerve off to the side, the icy surface causing their cars to spin out, freewheeling across the street.
Cole carried on through the Place du General Koenig, still driving against the traffic, and straight through an intersection onto Avenue des Ternes, vehicles coming from either side just missing him, one by mere inches.
Cole risked another glance in his wing mirrors. Surely he would have lost Vinh by now?
But there it was, the ominous black 4 × 4 still surging towards him, a killer at the wheel.
Vinh had seen Cole’s trick early, and had therefore had time to manoeuvre his car around the vehicles on the one-way street as they span out of control.
The Range Rover didn’t just have an uprated engine, giving an output of over seven hundred horsepower, it also had much improved suspension and brakes; even the chassis had been strengthened to deal with the extra torque.
As Vinh followed Cole’s suicide dash across the intersection, he was in no doubt whatsoever that he was going to catch the slow, heavy ambulance.
It was just a question of how long it would take.
Cole had now passed the seventies lump of the Palais des Congres convention centre, and had gone the wrong way around the Place de la Porte Maillot, clipping a small Citroen and forcing the rider of a small scooter off the road, before joining the Avenue de la Grand Armee.
The illuminated beauty of the Arc de Triomphe lay ahead of him, just visible through the snow that still fell, but now only lightly. He accelerated the ambulance down the wide avenue, checking his wing mirrors constantly.
Nothing … Nothing … There it was, turning onto the same road and accelerating once more towards him.
Cole had hoped taking the wrong direction at the roundabout might have lost his pursuer, but it had merely gained him some time.
Gritting his teeth, Cole decided he would have to use it wisely.
Ahead of him, Vinh could see Cole’s ridiculous ambulance as it raced in and out of the light traffic towards the Arc de Triomphe.
Vinh heard the whine of the twin superchargers as he pressed his right foot down, feeling a kick in his lower back as he was thrust forwards down the street at a tremendous pace, gaining distance with Cole rapidly.
His quarry’s driving had enabled him to string the pursuit out, but as soon as he slowed for the main roundabout, Vinh would be right in top of him. He would ram him straight off the road, run around and shoot the bastard straight in the face.
The ambulance was there, Vinh could see, right at the arch; Vinh was behind, still surging forwards. Cole would have to slow soon, and Vinh could –
His eyes opened wide as the ambulance ploughed straight on, snaking in and out of the vehicles travelling around the arch, mounted the pavement and drove directly underneath it.
Son of a bitch!
Cole came crashing down off the other side, through the massive arch, down off the pavement and once more through the traffic circulating around it.
There were only one or two vehicles though, and Cole easily avoided them as he charged forwards onto the Avenue des Champs Elysees.
Breathing a sigh of relief, he glanced again in the wing mirrors, only to see the big Range Rover following him through the arch, across the circular road, and onto the Champs Elysees right behind him. The man might have been trying to kill him, but Cole had to admire his nerve.
Cole drove on, leaving it until the last possible second, Vinh’s 4 × 4 just feet from his rear bumper now, the sound of the big V8 filling the cabin, until he pulled a sharp right onto Avenue George V. It was simply too late for Vinh to react, and the man sailed past, still on the Champs Elysee.
Cole smiled to himself as he carried on towards the river, happy to have finally lost the man.
His pleasure was short lived though, as he heard the big V8 off to his left. He stamped on the accelerator even as he turned his head to see Vinh piloting the big car the wrong way down the Rue Marbeouf.
The heavy black vehicle missed the rear side of Cole’s ambulance by under a foot, and Cole was gratified to see that Vinh was having difficulty controlling the car back into line after its high speed attack.
Cole used the opportunity to make it onto the Avenue de New York, following it west along the Seine. Cole glanced at the river, the black icy waters reflecting back the lights filtering in from the city of love around him, the illuminated mass of the Eiffel Tower looming over to his left, a symbol of the city itself.
Cole thought quickly. Even at this late hour, and even with the bad weather, surely there would still be tourists and sightseers at the Tower, maybe a bit of extra traffic he could use to shake Vinh off for good.
In the distance he could hear sirens, and he put his right foot further down in a reflexive action, burying the accelerator pedal into the cabin floor as he surged forwards along the riverside avenue.
Vinh had finally gained control of his car, at the same time still managing to monitor the direction of Cole’s travel.
Once on the Avenue de New York, Cole’s intentions were clear – he was going to try and lose him in the traffic he hoped would surround Paris’s most famous tourist attraction.
Racing along the snow-covered street, Vinh was determined to not let that happen. He owed it to his brother to kill the man.
Cole turned again sharply left onto the Pont d’Iena, fully aware that Vinh was back in the chase, again closing down fast behind him.
He careened over the bridge, struggling to find grip, surprised to see no other vehicles ahead of him. Where was everyone? Cole finally found the digital clock on the dashboard and risked a quick glance. Almost three o’clock in the morning. He sighed. He had thought it was late evening, not early morning.
He wasn’t going to be able to rely on the traffic, that was for sure; there simply wasn’t going to be any.
It left only one option, and Cole adjusted immediately, gunning the ambulance’s diesel engine and accelerating himself down the Avenue Anatole France towards the incredible tower, even as he reached underneath the dashboard to disconnect the fuse responsible for powering the brake lights.
The sirens sounded closer now, and he knew time had almost run out.
He then stamped hard on his brakes, bracing himself for the impact.