She gazed down at the wounds with a detached expression on her face now, as if this were all happening to someone else.

Court pulled dressings from a sterile pouch in the medical kit and began wrapping the woman’s wrist tightly. While doing this he said, “I need a sat phone and another weapon.”

Her gaze rose from her shattered hands to the man kneeling over her.

“Why?”

“I’m going after the prisoner.”

“But . . . you’re alone.”

“That’s kind of my thing, ma’am.” Court tied off the bandages. “Weapons?”

“I’ve got more mags for the SIG in the go-bag in the closet.”

“Anything else?”

She winced now, as if the pain was just beginning to reveal itself. “There’s . . . there’s an M320 in the go-bag with a bandolier full of high-explosive and tear gas rounds.”

Court looked up to the closet. “A grenade launcher. Well, that’s handy.” He began bandaging her other hand.

Looking out the passenger door, he saw they were nearing the main buildings of the airfield. The G-IV rolled by a row of tied-down light aircraft, all bearing the markings of the Air Training Corps, a youth military group run by the Ministry of Defense to teach flying to the next generation of RAF pilots. This must have been some sort of flight training center for them, and immediately it gave Court an idea.

The woman said, “The go-bag has everything an officer needs. Surveillance gear, commo gear . . . Shit, my wrist hurts. Uh, medical equipment, surgical supplies.”

Court again headed back to the cockpit to bring the wounded Gulfstream to a stop while the last few rounds of gunfire trailed off behind him.

CHAPTER 3

   The black van raced up the A41, heading northwest away from Ternhill airport. In the front passenger seat, a thirty-year-old man named Anthony Kent wiped sweat from his face while he conferred on the radio with his surviving teammates. The lav truck and the catering truck had been left on airport grounds, and the other men had climbed into a nondescript gray four-door. Kent had taken the opportunity to leave the van to check on those still alive, and now they’d resumed their escape out of the area.

Behind Kent in the back of the van, a black man with an unattended shoulder wound reached out with his good arm and ripped the hood off the prisoner.

With a British accent he said, “Name?”

The man seemed to be in a mild state of shock. He did not answer, only stared blindly for a moment.

“What’s your bloody name, mate?”

The prisoner coughed. “Visser. Dirk Visser.”

The wounded gunman pulled a sheet of paper from his pocket, pain evident on his face. On it was a color copy of a passport. He turned and shouted towards the front of the van. “It’s him. He’s not hurt.”

From the front passenger seat Kent said, “Understood.”

The man with the bloody hole in his shoulder put the hood back over the banker’s head.

The other gunman in the back pulled off his ski mask to reveal a bushy red beard and a sweat-covered face. “Fuckin’ hell! How many did we lose?”

Kent said, “Four men wounded, including Davy here. Six men dead.”

“Six?” the driver shouted. “Six?”

Kent looked to the men with him in the van. “Martin’s KIA. Saw him hit by a gunner firing out of the jet as it taxied off.”

“Fuck!” the driver shouted now.

Kent added, “And Mickey took a bullet in the neck. Bled out right next to me.”

All of the men in the van, the driver included, stared at Kent in disbelief now. The man on the floor in the back by the prisoner struggled to position a compress on his wound to stanch the bleeding. While doing so he said, “Martin and Mickey are both dead?”

The driver slammed his elbow hard into the door next to him. “Martin was in charge! Mickey was his second-in-command. The fuck we gonna do now?”

Davy said, “Kent here was number three. It’s his bleedin’ op.” After a pause he said, “Innit, Kent?”

Kent realized only now that this was true. When Martin first met the men hired for tonight’s job, he ranked them from one to fourteen, and Kent had been three, put in charge of the van and its crew.

Reluctantly he said, “Right. I’m in charge now.” And then, “Fuckin’ hell.”

The driver said, “We were told it would be a quick hard hit and they’d all be put down fast.”

Kent responded, “Yeah, well, we were just a mishmash of blokes thrown together for a hit. No bleedin’ trainin’. No bleedin’ coordination.” He took a few calming breaths. “Still, we got the banker.”

The driver shouted, “Who we now gotta protect shorthanded!”

Kent looked out the window a moment. “I’ll call London. They’ll send in another crew to help us out.”

The driver said, “That’s what I’m worried about. You know they’ll send in some Russian gangsters. I don’t wanna work with the bleedin’ Russians.”

“Dunno,” Kent said, and then, “Probably.” He slammed his own fist against the dashboard. “Fuck!” he screamed.

It was becoming clear to all in the van that Anthony Kent wasn’t exactly leadership material.

After a moment he got control of himself and clicked his walkie-talkie, connecting him to the surviving team members in the other vehicle. “All right, lads, treat the wounded best you can. We’re not goin’ to the safe house. I have another place in mind. My turf, where I know the lay of the land. I can make a call and get us more blokes. It will be safer for us all there, but it’s a two-and-a-half-hour drive, so keep eyes open for any surveillance.”

“Two and a half bloody hours?” someone exclaimed into his radio.

Kent shouted back. “Those were government agents back there! Don’t you think they’re going to tear up the West Midlands lookin’ for the shooters? We’ve got to put some distance between us and all that shite at that airport.”

Kent pulled out his phone and made a call, and in minutes he had support on the way to meet him at his destination.

The ride in the van continued in tense silence.

* * *

• • •

After Court throttled back the Gulfstream and stepped on the brakes, he scrambled to the flight attendant, still on the floor in the cabin.

He helped her with her cell phone, then pulled the go-bag with the grenade launcher from the closet. His Ruger .22 was still there on the shelf, and he tossed it into the go-bag as well. He ran down the length of the cabin, hefted his own backpack, still on a chair in the back, and slung it over a shoulder.