Whiteout(106)

She reached out with one arm and picked up her gun, lying on the snow nearby.

Craig put the car into first gear.

The car phone said: "To erase this message, press three."

Daisy looked into his eyes and pointed the gun at him.

He let out the clutch and stamped on the throttle.

He heard the bang of the gun over the bellow of the Ferrari engine, but the shot went wild. He kept his foot down. Daisy tried to drag herself out of the way, and Craig deliberately turned the wheel in her direction. An instant before the impact he saw her face, staring in terror, her mouth open in an inaudible scream. Then the car hit her with a thud. She disappeared beneath its curved front. The low-slung chassis scraped over something lumpy. Craig saw that he was headed straight for the tree he had hit before. He braked, but too late. Once again, the car crashed into the tree.

The car phone, which had been telling him how to save messages, stopped in mid-sentence. He tried to start the engine, but nothing happened. There was not even the click of a broken starter motor. He saw that none of the dials was working, and there were no lights on the dashboard. The electrical system had failed. It was hardly surprising, after the number of times he had crashed the car.

But that meant he could not use the phone.

And where was Daisy?

He got out of the car.

In the driveway behind him was a pile of ripped black leather, white flesh, and gleaming red blood.

She was not moving.

Sophie got out and stood beside him. "Oh, God, is that her?"

Craig felt sick. He could not speak, so he nodded.

Sophie whispered, "Do you think she's dead?"

Craig nodded again, then nausea overwhelmed him. He turned aside and vomited into the snow.





8:15 AM

KIT had a terrifying feeling that everything was coming unglued.

It should have been a simple thing for three tough crims such as Nigel, Elton, and Daisy to round up stray members of a law-abiding family. Yet things kept going wrong. Little Tom had made a suicide attack on Daisy; Ned had stunned everyone by protecting Tom from Daisy's revenge; and Sophie had escaped in the confusion. And Toni Gallo was nowhere to be seen.

Elton brought Ned and Tom into the kitchen at gunpoint. Ned was bleeding from several places on his face, and Tom was bruised and crying, but they were walking steadily, Ned holding Tom's hand.

Kit reckoned up who was still at large. Sophie had run away, and Craig would not be far from her. Caroline was probably still asleep in the barn. Then there was Toni Gallo. Four people, three of them children— surely it could not take long to capture them? But time was running out. Kit and the gang had less than two hours to get to the airfield with the virus. Their customer would not wait very long, Kit guessed. If something seemed wrong he would fear a trap and leave.

Elton threw Miranda's phone onto the kitchen table. "Found it in a handbag in the cottage," he said. "The guy doesn't seem to have one." The phone landed beside the perfume spray. Kit longed for the moment when the bottle would be handed over, never to be seen again, and he would get his money.

He was hoping that the major roads would be cleared of snow by the end of today. He planned to drive to London and check into a small hotel, paying cash. He would lie low for a couple of weeks, then catch a train to Paris with fifty thousand pounds in his pocket. From there he would make his leisurely way across Europe, changing small amounts of money as he needed it, and end up in Lucca.

But first, they had to account for everyone here at Steepfall, in order to delay pursuit. And it was proving absurdly difficult.

Elton made Ned lie on the floor, then tied him up. Ned was quiet but watchful. Nigel tied Tom, who was still sniveling. When Elton opened the pantry door to put them inside, Kit saw to his surprise that the prisoners had managed to remove their gags.

Olga spoke first. "Please, let Hugo out of here," she said. "He's badly injured and he's so cold. I'm afraid he'll die. Just let him lie on the floor in the kitchen, where it's warm."

Kit shook his head in amazement. Olga's loyalty to her unfaithful husband was incomprehensible.

Nigel said, "He shouldn't have punched me in the face."

Elton pushed Ned and Tom into the pantry with the others.

Olga said, "Please, I'm begging you!"

Elton closed the door.

Kit put Hugo out of his mind. "We've got to find Toni Gallo, she's the dangerous one."

Nigel said, "Where do you think she is?"

"Well, she's not in the house, not in the cottage because Elton's just searched it, and not in the garage because Daisy's just been there. So either she's out of doors, where she won't last long without a coat, or she's in the barn."

"All right," Elton said. "I'll go to the barn."

* * *

TONI was looking out of the barn window.

She had now identified three of the four people who had raided the Kremlin. One was Kit, of course. He would have been the planner, the one who told them how to defeat the security system. There was the woman whom Kit had called Daisy—an ironic nickname, presumably, for someone whose appearance would give a vampire a fright. A few minutes ago, in the prelude to the fracas in the courtyard, Daisy had addressed the young black man as Elton, which might be a first name or a surname. Toni had not yet seen the fourth, but she knew that his name was Nigel, for Kit had shouted to him in the hall.