NATIONAL TREASURE Barry Faulkner (the little red hen ebook .txt) 📖

goons were too intent on checking the cars than to worry about people on the pavement or in the road; an ideal assassin scenario, I would have the jump on them. That felt good. Why do I always feel good when I am about to hurt somebody? Gotta get counselling someday.

I let them pass me by checking cars further up the line and then I slowly stepped back into the pavement crowd and moved along until I was nearly level with them. My first two bullets were easy; I was right behind goon number one and he probably felt the steel barrel against the back of his head before the bullet went through it. Goon number two hardly had time to register what was happening as he turned around before bullet number two buried itself in his heart. I still had the advantage, as goons three and four’s tiny brains had to work out whether it was their partners shooting at somebody or somebody shooting at their partners. Before they could work that out, I moved in a stoop round the back of the car they were looking at and took them out; goon three fell to the ground with the hole in his neck pumping blood onto the road, and goon four slumped over the car bonnet, his body twitching. I stepped forward and finished him with one to the back of the head which went right through, and then through the bonnet and lodged somewhere in the car’s engine. I shrugged an apology at the terrified driver and passenger before quickly running off. The crowd nearest to the incident were not sure what to do; some stood aghast, others fled. Those fleeing would be looking where they were going and wouldn’t realise I was the shooter as I sped past most of them.

Gold was a good two hundred yards up the road where the traffic had cleared and was parked at the kerb. I slipped into the passenger seat. She raised her eyebrows.

‘All clear?’

‘All clear.’

‘Debrecan then?

‘Yes.’ I could see she had already got the route to the airport up on the dashboard satnav. I looked at the inside mirror and could see Janie sitting quietly in the back. I spoke to Gold loud enough for Janie to hear. ‘I think there’s a young lady in the back who might have a lot of questions.’

Gold nodded. ‘Okay, but let’s get out of the city unscathed first. The Bogdans won’t be very happy people now and they will be throwing everything at finding us. Explanations can come later.’ As usual Gold had the priorities in the right order. Yes ma’am.

I turned to Janie. ‘You okay with that?’

She nodded and said with a smile, ‘I’m beginning to think I might have strayed onto the set of a James Bond film.’

I returned the smile. ‘Well let’s hope it doesn’t turn into a Johnny English one, eh?’

We all smiled. I busied myself putting a new magazine into the gun – six bullets is better than two. I got on the mobile to the charter plane pilot and told him to register a flight plan with Debrecan Tower for the UK and be ready to take off at ten minutes’ notice. Marcia Johnson was going to have a heavy bill to pay, but what’s money compared to a daughter’s life?

We cleared the city limits without any trouble, nobody was following us – well, nobody we could see. Time to update Janie. I took her from the first meeting I had with Harry Cohen and her mum up to getting into The Amsterdam Club and finding her. I left out most of the killings.

‘The rest you know.’ I relaxed, wondering what was going through her mind. It was Harry Cohen.

‘I never trusted Harry Cohen. I told mum time and time again to get another agent – he’s lightweight, no clout in the business. Her best work comes direct from people in the business who know her, know how good she is – always has. Cohen is all commercials and soap operas. She won’t leave him, she’s too loyal. The only time he takes his finger out and gets her work is when I have a go at him and threaten to take her and myself elsewhere. She’s not got a contract with him, you know – I wouldn’t let her sign one, no way.’

The big surprise was Janie didn’t mention her father.

‘You haven’t said anything about your father, James Randall, so I assume you knew about him all along?’

She gave an audible smirk. ‘Him, yes – another of Harry Cohen’s little surprises. I never worried at all about who my father was, he never was in my life and I had no thoughts or wishes of being in his, whoever he was. Mum and I were good together – I introduced her to many suitors.’ She laughed. ‘Imagine that, the single daughter introducing her mum to suitable men. Anyway, Harry called me into his office one day and acted like some benevolent older relative and introduced me to James Randall, and dropped the bomb that he was my father. Knowing Harry, I knew there must be an angle in it for him. I didn’t think it would lead to all this though. I was quite rude, told him and Randall that I and mum had absolutely no need of either of them, and for Harry to foist that on me was about as low as he could get, and I stormed out.’

‘Did you tell your mum?’

‘No, as far as I was concerned that was the end of that. Harry was round to my flat later that day and apologising – said he had made a terrible mistake and I wouldn’t hear from Randall again. And I didn’t. I looked him up on Google and press cuttings – I have a press cutting agency that monitors all