figure of the man appeared in the doorway, silhouetted against the bright sunlight outside. With his weapon to his shoulder he took a careful step inside, then paused, head slightly cocked to one side as though listening intently for the tiniest movement, blinking to adjust his eyes to the low light.
Nothing stirred inside the building. The only sound was the gentle crackle of the wind on the plastic sheeting stretched over the bare roof beams.
The man took another stealthy step into the house. Then another.
Then the shovel blade swung humming through the air faster than the man could react.
If Ben had hit him with the blade edge-on it would have separated the top of his skull above the eyes, like taking the crown off a boiled egg with a knife. Instead, the flat of the blade caught him just over the bridge of the nose with a resonating clang and laid him on his back. The MX4 spun out of his grip and fell to the ground.
Ben stood over him with the shovel poised in his hands like an axe. The man’s face was a mess of blood. He was moaning incoherently, disorientated and only about half conscious until two swift, harsh kicks to the head knocked him out entirely.
‘Still got the soft touch,’ Roberta muttered from the shadows.
‘He can take it,’ Ben said, snatching up the fallen weapon. The submachine gun was bulky with the big sound suppressor screwed to the end of the barrel. There were still twelve or thirteen rounds in the pistol grip magazine and one in the chamber. Ben set it aside and quickly checked the unconscious man’s pockets. He had no ID, no wallet, no phone, not even loose change. Nothing on him but a car ignition key on a leather fob and, clipped inside a belt pouch, two spare steel thirty-round magazines for the MX4. There wasn’t time to wait for the guy to come round to interrogate him – and Ben’s first priority at this moment was to get Roberta to safety.
He grabbed the two spare mags and the keys and thrust them deep into the left pocket of his borrowed trousers. Picking up the submachine gun, he stepped over the comatose body and checked from the doorway that the coast was clear. He signalled to Roberta. ‘Let’s move,’ he whispered.
Ben wasn’t one of those guys who loved weaponry for its own sake. He’d handled just about every variety of small arms ever made, witnessed with his own eyes the butcher’s-shop carnage they could be used to inflict on the human frame, and at times had wished he’d never see another. Yet there was no denying the deep sense of comfort in going from being totally unarmed and vulnerable to cradling something in your hands that helped even the odds against a dangerous opponent. The Beretta felt like an old friend who’d come to the rescue.
With his finger on the trigger, Ben took a winding path between buildings and pieces of construction plant machinery in the rough direction of the site gates. With any luck, they could be through them and heading back over the field towards the park before the second shooter realised what was up.
Every few steps he glanced behind him to check that Roberta was still following close behind. She was still limping slightly on her twisted ankle, but keeping pace. They cut across a ploughed-up dirt patch that would eventually become a row of neat little back gardens, and then cut through another narrow alley between two scaffold-covered houses. Approaching the corner of the house on the left, the unchained gates came into view just twenty yards across a piece of open ground. Ben slowly, carefully peered around the edge of the wall. To the left he could see only empty buildings and a half-built wall. To the right, nothing moved among the stacks of concrete blocks. The coast seemed to be clear.
‘Let’s go,’ he said to Roberta.
He’d taken half a step out into the open when masonry chips exploded from the wall inches away. A hard impact to the left thigh almost knocked his leg out from under him.
Ben staggered backwards under cover of the wall and almost fell over, his whole body jangling with shock as he expected to see the first fountain of blood spurting from a ruptured femoral artery.
Roberta cried out. Ben dropped his weapon and clasped his hands to his leg. It felt numb from hip to knee. He saw the bullet hole through the black fabric of his trousers.
His trembling fingers connected through the material with the Beretta magazines in his pocket. He pulled them out, saw the huge dent and the strike mark in one of them where the bullet had hit it dead on and crushed the pressed steel box almost flat. Nothing had passed through. The magazine had absorbed the full force of the impact. Ben felt something burning hot against his flesh, dug deeper into his pocket and found the jagged, squashed lead and copper disc that was all that remained of the 9mm bullet.
His heart began to beat again as a mixture of relief and ferocity welled up inside him. He tossed the ruined mag away and snatched up his fallen gun.
‘I thought you were hit,’ Roberta gasped.
‘I’ve always been lucky with bullets,’ Ben said. He stepped quickly back to the corner and darted a cautious look round it. The shooter was out there, and he wasn’t far away, maybe twenty or thirty yards, hidden behind cover with his sights trained at his mark and just waiting for Ben to step out again. Where was he? Behind that low wall? Those cement bags, or that stack of bricks?
Ben poked the barrel of the submachine gun around the corner of the house and let off a sustained blast of return fire at his unseen enemy. The row of cement bags burst apart. The tape holding together the stack of bricks parted, and it toppled over in a cascade onto and behind the section of low wall. There was a yell. The shooter scrambled out from behind the wall and started scurrying towards the houses behind him. Ben chased him with a stream of bullets, but then his magazine was suddenly empty. The man darted out of sight.
Ben swore and rammed in his last mag. He scanned the buildings where the man had disappeared. There was no sign of him.
Silence.
Ben’s mind worked fast. Having been caught out once, there was no way he was about to try again to cross the open ground to the gates. But he was just as reluctant to retrace their steps in the direction they’d come, and find out the hard way that the shooter had doubled back on himself to head them off.
Ben had a decision to make. And the wrong choice could kill them in a second.
He chose a third option. If in doubt, head for higher ground. ‘That way,’ he said to Roberta, pointing up at the scaffolding attached to the house. Most of the feeling had returned to his left leg now, and with it the ache from the bullet impact. Ignoring the pain, he guided Roberta to the vertical ladder that led up to the scaffold and stood guard as she clambered up to the first level, then climbed up to join her on the rickety planking. A second ladder led to the next level up, where the builders had been fitting the A-frames for the roof.
Ben led the way as they skirted around towards the back of the house. The scaffold was enclosed with a wire mesh safety barrier. Through it Ben could see where the builders had poured the footings for the neighbouring house. Judging by the slick, shiny surface of the wet concrete, like grey porridge that had been scraped smooth with the back of a knife, it had been their last job of the day.
‘Did I ever tell you how I feel about heights?’ Roberta said, clutching the railing and not looking down.
Ben said nothing. He surveyed the ground below. Thirty feet up, there was a much better view of the building site, but still no sign of their opponent. He moved silently along the planking, his eyes picking out every possible hiding place among the houses and garages and construction equipment. Nothing.
Roberta’s sudden gasp made him wheel round in alarm.
The man hadn’t doubled back to flank them. He’d done exactly the same thing Ben had done, move to higher ground and work his way around the back of the house to creep up on them from behind. He had one arm around Roberta’s throat, his squat, muscular body pressed up against hers to