STOP AT NOTHING: 'Mark Cole is Bond's US cousin mixed with the balls out action and killing edge of Jason Bourne' Parmenion Books (25 page)

Before leaving the small cyber café, he spent some time chatting to the heavily tattooed proprietor. When he left, it was with the pen drive and a new, secure laptop computer.

He would continue his search elsewhere, and he would get answers.

62

Sarah was now sure this must be the man from the yacht. He was relentless, that much was clear, and it was a realisation that made her stomach turn.

She tried her best to hide the reaction of recognition, and thought she had done a good job, even though her heart seemed like it was instantly trying to punch its way out of her chest.

No matter what, she promised herself, she was going to keep this man, and anyone else he was with, away from Ben and Amy.
No matter what
.

Albright could tell that Sarah Cole wasn’t watching the scenery – the focus of her eyes indicated that she was instead watching the interior of the carriage in the reflection of the window.

He wondered momentarily where the children were. Still on the train? Or had they got off at the station, been picked up by an unseen contact? At this stage, it would hardly matter anyway. Still, it was a shame they weren’t present – children could always be used effectively as extra leverage.

He sat down across from Sarah and smiled. She glanced at him, just another attractive, lone female passenger being admired by a lecherous male. ‘Do I know you?’ she asked him in German as he continued to stare, trying hard to keep her voice steady. Her hands gripped the ends of the chair arms, and she could feel her knuckles turning white.

All she needed to do was to string him along for fifteen minutes. Just fifteen minutes. She’d chosen her seat carefully, next to the emergency stop lever. A quarter of an hour, and the train would be in just the right place. All she had to do was hold out until then.

‘Mrs Cole,’ Albright said cheerfully in English, ‘please don’t play games with me. And let go of those arms before you tear them off the chair.’

Sarah looked at her hands, saw the way she was gripping them, and released them immediately. It was no good; she just wasn’t used to this.
Get yourself used to it,
she told herself.
Ben and Amy are depending on you.

She considered the emergency cord nearby. They were several miles away from the RV, but they could hike the distance. She hoped it would distract Albright long enough to escape. The train would jolt violently to a halt and people – hopefully the blond man included – would be thrown from their seats, with total chaos presumably to follow shortly after. Sarah would then be able to grab Ben and Amy and jump from the train, escaping in the dark.

‘Please, don’t even think about going for the cord,’ Albright continued. Like a magician’s conjuring trick, a gun appeared in his hand, covered by the jacket laid over his lap. ‘I promise you, you wouldn’t like the consequences.’

Sarah looked at the gun.
Shit.
‘You wouldn’t shoot me in front of all these people,’ she said, and even she could hear the lack of conviction in her voice.

‘Try me,’ he said coldly, and the smile was gone, his eyes glistening with anticipation.

Sarah believed him.
What now?
Sarah began to think of another plan, but Albright interrupted her thoughts. ‘Get up. Now,’ he commanded. When she didn’t move, his eyes grey colder, greyer.

Sarah could sense that this man in front of her was capable of irrational violence, and she got up out of her seat as he demanded. With her dead, her children would have nobody to protect them.

Albright ordered her to turn around, and she did so with no comment. He urged her to start walking, but the fear that was starting to flood through her body like iced venom caused her body to freeze on the spot, unable to move.

‘
Move,
’ she heard the blond man whisper and, slowly, she started to walk. She wondered where he was taking her, but then it hit her.
The toilets. He knows they’re there!

Sarah felt the gun in the small of her back and carried on walking.
What can I do?
, she asked herself, the panic rising inside.
I can barely put one foot in front of the other.

They got to the first toilet door – where Ben and Amy were playing their silent game – and Albright pushed it.
Please don’t make any noise
, she pleaded silently.

But Albright didn’t even wait for a response from behind the door, he just tried the next one along. It opened, and he ushered her urgently inside.

The relief hit her like a wave.
He doesn’t know they’re there. And as long as they keep quiet, he won’t find out
.

Okay
, she decided, steeling herself.
Don’t make any noise, Sarah. Whatever he does to you, don’t make a sound. If Ben and Amy hear your voice, they might say something
.

Albright shut and locked the door behind them and turned to her. Without an introductory word, he raised the heavy steel pistol and cracked it straight down into her face.

Her nose shattered instantly, blood flying everywhere. Stars flickered across her vision and her knees buckled, sending her tumbling to the floor.

‘That was just to illustrate that I’m serious,’ he said. ‘I won’t be so nice again.’

Sarah looked up at him through her dazed vision, saw him glaring down at her with those cold, grey eyes, and knew he meant it. She wondered briefly whether he blamed her for the damage to his own face, and was about to extract a measure of vengeance.
Put yourself somewhere else,
she urged herself.
Put yourself somewhere else, and don’t make a sound.

Albright reholstered his pistol and withdrew a pair of calfskin gloves from a jacket pocket. He looked at the woman, kowtowed down at his feet, and was satisfied that he could break her. Most women simply weren’t used to being hit, especially in the face. The dazed look in Sarah Cole’s eyes told Albright that this one was no different.

‘Now,’ he began, left hand wrapping itself around her long, dark hair and pulling back her head, forcing her to look at him, his right hand raised, poised to strike. ‘We’ll start with an easy one. Where are you supposed to meet your husband?’

But Sarah Cole simply looked up at him, not saying a word.
Defiance?
, he wondered, pausing with momentary disbelief.
Well,
he thought, even as his right hand lashed out towards her,
it won’t last long.

63

Ben tried as hard as he could to help Amy ignore the sounds coming from the cubicle next door, holding her small head to his chest, covering her ears.

He didn’t know what all of the sounds were – a low, male voice, distorted through the wall, followed by a series of bangs and crashes and thuds – but it had been going on for well over five minutes.

Amy sobbed into his shoulder, and Ben was doing his best to hold back his own tears. Whatever was happening next door, it wasn’t good. But they couldn’t leave until Mummy gave them the special knock.

‘Shhhh …’ he whispered to his sister. ‘It’ll be alright. Mommy’ll be here soon. It’ll be okay. Don’t worry, Amy. Don’t worry.’

Suddenly, a muffled scream broke through from the other side of the wall. And before Ben could stop her, Amy’s head was up, alert. ‘Mummy!’ she cried.

64

Albright’s ears pricked up instantly. ‘Mummy?’ he repeated, a grin spreading across his face.

This Sarah Cole had been one tough bitch. He had beaten her black and blue, but she’d made no noise at all – no grunts of pain even, let alone any useful information. He’d been starting to think that she was just in shock, and therefore unable to give him anything useful.

So, just to be sure, he had screwed a silencer onto his pistol and shot her in the foot. The scream had been genuine, and the fact that she had tried to muffle the sound told him that she still had control of her faculties.

The cry from next door that followed told him everything else; she’d been hiding the kids there and was being quiet to protect them.

Admirable,
he thought as he looked down at her, clutching her foot and writhing in agony, gouts of blood spilling over the dirty floor.
But ultimately fruitless.

‘You’ve been impressive Sarah, I’ll give you that,’ he said, again reholstering his gun. ‘You can handle your pain well.’ He cleared his throat and rotated his neck with a crack. ‘But I wonder how well little Ben and Amy will handle it?’

He looked down at her and her saw her looking at him, eyes changing. Was it fear? Worry? Panic? Albright couldn’t tell for sure.

A second later, he realized it was something different entirely. The look on Sarah Cole’s face was
rage
, plain and simple.

The cry of Amy, the look on the blond man’s face, his direct threat to her children; all of it immediately erased all of the pain, the fear, the shock, replacing them with anger.

Ignoring the pain, Sarah leapt up from the floor, supercharged on the adrenaline which was flooding her body, and attacked, her hands sliding their way up to Albright’s face, scratching the skin, her thumbs finding his eyes; she felt the left thumb slip into the socket and she tugged at the soft, gooey flesh there.

She felt the blond man writhing in pain and she pulled his face forwards, sinking her teeth into the cartilage of his nose, her head whipping violently from side to side as she tried to tear it from his face.

She then felt the man slipping, and she saw her chance, senses suddenly so clear and pure, and helped him on his way, forcing his head down as he lost his balance.

Albright tried to fight her off in rising panic, but she was like a wild animal, a fireball of pure fury, energy focussed entirely on his destruction.

His balance was finally broken, and Sarah used the momentum to drive the side of his head down onto the sharp corner of the sink unit next to them. There was a dull
crack
, and the man fell heavily to the floor, blood pouring from his nose, eyeball hanging lazily and perversely from the gouged socket, scalp torn by Sarah’s raking fingernails, the side of his head torn open from the impact of the sink.

Sarah wasn’t sure if the blond man was dead or not, but knew she couldn’t pause, knowing that if she did, she would simply collapse in shock. She had to keep going, keep moving until they were safe. She checked her watch; they still had two minutes until the train would be in position.

She grabbed her handbag, searching with shaking hands for the two things she needed. Sunglasses to hide the black eyes, and a headscarf to try and disguise the ugly swellings that covered her head and face. She didn’t want her appearance to frighten her children.

She worked quickly, then washed the blood off her hands and checked the mirror. Far from perfect, but it would have to do. She kicked the blond man, but he didn’t move.

It was then she realized that she was stood up, despite having been shot in the foot. She looked down and saw the bleeding had stopped. In the back of her mind, she understood that it was the adrenaline that had stopped the blood flow, constricting the wound so that she could continue to function. The rest of her mind just screamed
Go! While you still can!

She burst out of the toilet stall and turned to the next cubicle. ‘Ben! Amy! It’s Mummy, come on, it’s time to go!’

The door swung open and she saw her children there, terrified. They both ran into her arms, sobbing, and then she was sobbing too.

But there was no time. ‘Come on,’ she exhorted, grabbing their hands and running back to the carriage, not giving them a chance to have a look directly at her face.

They raced down the carriage towards the exit doors. Checking her watch, Sarah quickly got herself and the children braced against the door support. Seconds later they heard the deafening sound of an alarm claxon, and then the wild screech of brakes as the train was made to come to a sudden, violent stop. They watched as passengers were catapulted from their seats, across the floor of the carriage. Chaos had well and truly ensued.

65

Stefan Steinmeier stood by the side of the train tracks, stamping his feet to keep warm. He was dressed for the weather, but staying stationary would make it easier for the cold to find its insidious way past the various layers.

He had been diligent in his preparations, as was his custom, and the brightly coloured yellow saloon car had been placed by the side of the road earlier in the day.

Upon getting to the emergency RV point, he had hidden his own vehicle, then moved quickly to the yellow saloon. Getting the revs high, he slowly moved it up the embankment, until it straddled the tracks at a slight angle.

The track at this point was straight for over a mile; with the headlights left on, and the garish yellow bodywork, the car would be seen by the train driver in sufficient time for him to slow down to a stop without crashing. Although snow had been falling for most of the afternoon, the night sky was now exceptionally clear, giving perfect visibility.

If the plan went perfectly, the Cole family would hop off the train just by where he’d parked the robust Nissan 4 × 4. He situated himself just off the embankment, H&K sniper rifle at the ready beside him.

He checked his watch. 1810 – it was nearly time.

It was just seconds later that he heard the first dull roar of the train approaching in the distance, at speed. He stamped his feet a few last times and picked up the rifle, settling into position, the high-resolution optical sight up at his right eye, left eye already closing even as he sank down to the cold ground.

Seconds after that, he saw the glaring lights, just a pinprick in the distance. Instants later, the noise of the train’s 120 decibel horn cut through the cold night air, and for a terrifying moment, Steinmeier thought that the driver wasn’t going to stop, would instead just try and plough straight through.

The hissing screech of the brakes soon assuaged his momentary fear however, and he watched through his night vision scope as the huge locomotive started to shed its speed.

The process of stopping a four thousand tonne piece of metal travelling at two hundred and fifty kilometres an hour was not a quick one, and Steinmeier watched expectantly as the train grew nearer and nearer to the bright yellow car.

He tracked the night scope along the carriage windows, watching the passengers screaming in terror, some frozen in their seats, others falling over in the aisles.

Everyone seemed to be panicking, except for one lone woman and her two children, who were waiting by the exit doors next to them, gripping tightly to the grab rails but otherwise waiting calmly to jump off the train when it stopped.

Steinmeier smiled to himself through his big, bushy beard.

Perfect.