Bestselling Conspiracy Thriller Trilogy: Sanctus, The Key, The Tower. Simon Toyne

Чтение книги онлайн.

      48

      Before the driver’s airbag even started to deflate Gabriel was beating it down, unclasping his seat belt and reaching for the door. He kicked it open as hard as he could, rolling into the rain before it had time to swing shut again. It happened so fast that Liv was still looking at the empty driver’s seat when her own door opened.

      She turned, and came face to face with the muzzle of a gun.

      ‘Out!’ a voice shouted from somewhere behind it.

      She looked past the black hole of the barrel at the young man holding it. He wasn’t much more than a boy. Acne scars showed through the fuzz of a sparse blonde beard and rain poured from the peak of a baseball cap pulled low over pale blue eyes.

      ‘Out!’ he shouted again.

      He leaned forward and grabbed her with his free hand just as the glass behind her exploded, showering the interior with tiny, glittering shards. The boy jerked backwards, pirouetting as if someone had yanked hard on a rope attached to his left shoulder. Liv glanced back to see Gabriel framed in the jagged remains of the window.

      ‘Run!’ he shouted, then in a flash of movement he was swept from view.

      Liv whipped her head back and stared through the open door at the pale-eyed boy lying where he had fallen, staring up at the stinging rain. A shower of glass jewels fell to the floor as she fumbled for the release button and her seat belt slid across her body. She splashed past the corpse towards the shadows on the far side of the street. She expected to hear the crack of a gunshot behind her at any moment and feel the thump of a bullet punching her in the back and spinning her to the ground.

      She made it to the sidewalk and skidded across it to a verge of low bushes and grass. Given two years’ growth and kind winters the wiry shrubs might have offered some sort of cover, but in their current state they served as little more than obstacles. She zigzagged between them, slithering over ground so saturated it was like running on ice. She shortened her stride. Risked a glance behind her.

      Visibility was practically zero through the thick curtain of rain. She could just make out the outline of the car and the van in front of it, but nothing else. Something whacked into her, throwing her violently backwards. She lay there for a few moments, blinking up into the rain as the coldness of the earth seeped into her body. For the second time in as many minutes she thought she’d been shot, then she became aware of a shape in front of her, stretched across the darkness like a huge spider web. She followed its faint outline until she saw something thin and sturdy jutting up from the ground. A post. She’d run smack into a chain-link fence.

      She risked another glance in the direction of the two cars and saw her cell glowing on the ground near her head, thrown from her grasp when she’d fallen. She grabbed it, terrified that its meagre light might act as a beacon for whoever might be stalking her. She smothered the display with her hand, pressed hard on the off button. From her new position she could no longer see the car or the van. It made her feel better – but only for a second.

      A shot rang out, followed by the sound of an engine starting up and the tortured shriek of tyres on tarmac. She heard the whine of bullets against metal from somewhere down the street and a window blowing out. The fleeing vehicle powered round a bend and was gone.

      She looked back up towards the road. Saw nothing but the yellow haze of the streetlights. She imagined someone standing beyond the shallow ridge, gun in hand, scanning the darkness. Looking for her. But who was it? One of the guys who’d ambushed them, or Gabriel? All she wanted was to lie perfectly still, not run, not draw attention to herself. But when she had bolted from the car she’d headed straight to the first bit of cover she’d seen. She hadn’t even run at an angle. She was lying in the first place whoever was up there would look. She had to move.

      She looked to her right, in the direction they’d been driving. A row of service buildings marked a junction. Storage units, most likely. Full of luggage or freight, and maybe even people working night shifts – just a few hundred yards away from her. In the other СКАЧАТЬ