A Death in Sweden(52)
Chapter Thirty-two
They drove away in silence and they were passing back through the village before Inger said, “How dangerous is this?”
“They don’t know we have it.” He shook his head in amazement, and said, “Jesus, thanks to Bergeron, no one even knows it exists. But I think it tells us why Brabham’s coming after me the way he is, and why he sent someone after Patrick White. This means a hell of a lot more to him than shutting down former CIA contractors.”
“So we have to get this disk to Patrick. It’s the only way.”
Dan nodded, and said, “I haven’t spoken to him in days. Do you know where he is?”
She held up her hand, her fingers crossed, and said, “He was in London, but he told me he was coming to Paris, I think either today or tomorrow.”
“Good.”
He’d taken a left and only realized after a few hundred yards that he’d made the wrong turning. They were on a long narrow lane, overgrown woods forming a hedge on one side, open flat fields stretching out on the other to more woods and another village in the distance. He was just thinking about turning when he noticed a motorbike appear in his rearview, a trails bike with the rider sitting high in the saddle.
He kept driving now, but said, “Could be nothing, but we might have someone following us. Guy on a motorbike.”
“But how?”
Dan shook his head, trying to think. He looked in the rearview again—he was certain of it, some quality about the guy that suggested he didn’t just happen to be on the same road as them. Then he thought of the car itself, knowing that he hadn’t been as thorough as he should have been.
“There must be a tracker on the car.”
She threw a quick glance over her shoulder and said, “If there’s one guy, there’ll be more, surely?”
“I guess so.” The guy was gaining on them now, and fast. Within seconds he was close up behind them, looming in the rearview, reaching into his jacket. “Brace yourself.”
Dan hit the brakes hard as the guy pulled the gun clear, the rider’s concentration just a shade enough off for it to catch him unprepared.
Bike and rider hit the back of the SUV with a multiple thump and clatter as if they’d been caught in a rockslide. The back window cracked but held. Dan drove forward, saw the guy on the floor behind them then, with the bike further back. He reversed fast until they hit the guy again, the bump throwing them out of their seats a little, then a gentler, somehow queasier bump as he once more drove forward and stopped.
Inger said something under her breath in Swedish. He looked at her, but then back in the mirror. The guy was lying motionless, but a black car had appeared in the distance behind them.
As if sensing it, Inger turned and said, “CIA?”
“I’m not sure it matters now, especially out here.” He could hear another motorbike somewhere, then saw it approaching from the distant village to the far right. The lane they were on curved around to the right up ahead, but he could also see a turning into the woods.
He drove on until they reached the turn. The road through the woods was straight for as far as they could see, and he was pretty certain there was another car, just visible, at the very far end of it.
He turned to the left, into the woods, and Inger looked behind again and said, “Don’t you think this is what they want? They have us surrounded.”
He didn’t answer, but said, “There’s a rucksack in the back. Put everything you need in it, including the disk. Then open my bag—you’ll find another rucksack inside—it’s already got everything I need.”
The final comment seemed to throw her, perhaps leaving her wondering if he lived constantly in readiness for flight, but she put the question on hold and clambered into the back seat. He carried on slowly along the track. The car ahead was approaching but at a crawl, and both the car and the bike had appeared in the sunlit opening from the woods behind them. Five guys in total, by his reckoning.
“Okay, I’m done.”
She was about to climb back into the front when he said, “No, don’t bother.” He stopped the car now, turned off the engine. “I loved this car.”
He turned to face her, and she said, “So this is your plan, to make a run through the woods? To where?”
“My plan is to get into the woods, kill five guys if I can, then make a run for it.”
“If we kill all five we could come back for the car.”
“The tracking device isn’t on us, so it must be in the car, and we haven’t got time to find it. We’ll make our way into Auxerre somehow, take the train back up to Paris.”
She thought about it for a second, then said, “Okay, it’s a plan. I still don’t know that it’s a good plan. But let’s do it.”
In the rearview he could see that the two guys had got out of the car behind them, and even from here he could see one had a rifle, so he said, “We’ll head for the right, along that path. Let’s go.”
Inger jumped out of the door on the right-hand side, Dan out of the driver side on the left. He knew if they took a shot they’d go for him first, so that would give her enough cover to get off the track and into the woods. But he was quick, and if there was a shot in the time it took him to catch up with her, he didn’t hear it.