Someone was rushing Dander from behind, but she seemed to have matters under control: even Whelan felt the resulting blow, and he was twenty yards away. The villain hit the ground like a cartoon piano. Dander’s glee outshone the helicopter’s searchlight; evil and innocent at the same time, it made a pumpkin lantern of her face. And then someone blew her candle out.
It was the man she’d been chasing, the one she’d had spreadeagled against the carrier a moment before. Whelan couldn’t see what he’d hit her with, but her baseball bat dropped to the ground, followed by Dander herself, and then she was scooped up and tossed inside the van: all this while fighting raged on; the Service troops heavily outnumbered, but not, on the whole, too bothered by that. Various lumps on the gravel were conquered invaders, their groans audible now the alarm had ceased. The carrier’s door shut and Dander’s attacker was easing into the driver’s seat. The helicopter shifted overhead, and the world tilted as its spotlight slid across the ground. Whelan said, “Wait here,” and let go of the wounded security man, who remained on his feet, which was a good sign. The whirring rotor blades were artificial weather, and Whelan crossed the forecourt like a mime. Someone backed into him, avoiding a truncheon; Whelan pushed and the man staggered forward, straight into the truncheon’s upswing. There was a spray of blood, a destroyed face: all a blur, even with one hand holding his glasses in place, but Dander’s abandoned baseball bat was there at his feet and he collected it without thinking. The people carrier lurched forward, Dander inside, the man she’d been chasing at the wheel . . .
Whelan stood, bat in hand, as the vehicle careered onto the lawn and headed off round the building.
This was what you got when you took your eye off the ball. Something landed on your head; either part of that helicopter—not an essential part; it was still airborne—or an improvised sledgehammer put together by the Italian thug who was just now learning to drive. Shirley had been flung across a row of seats, but rolled onto the floor as the carrier went into an interminable curve. A car was bleating close at hand, and ignorant armies were leathering away at each other, their repetitive clatter and thwock the motor’s backbeat, but all she could see was carpet. A pain at the back of her head was coursing through her body, and when she tried to pull herself up, her hands slid from the seat covers. Whatever the bastard had hit her with, she wanted one. Any moment now she was going to make her way to the front of the vehicle and feed him whatever came into reach, but for the time being was lost in a pinball machine, rocking and rolling with every lurch of the van, which was off the gravel now, crashing over the lawn, swerving the copper beech, and scattering the residents who’d gathered behind the building after evacuating their rooms. And then they were on gravel again. Full circle. The van was back on the drive, heading for the road, and taking her with it—mission accomplished, presumably, though she’d yet to discover whose mission, and what outcome they had in mind.
It occurred to her that the evening’s row of triumphs, from ushering one invader through an upstairs window to kicking another repeatedly in the head, was washed away by this end result, her having become a piece of luggage. As soon as her headache went, she’d do something about that. But meanwhile—
But meanwhile an angry metal howl ripped the night, as the van ran over something which brought it screeching to a halt. Uomo Uno swore loudly and thumped the steering wheel. Now’s the time, thought Shirley, and was halfway up when the van reversed with a lurch, scraping another scream of inanimate agony from whatever lay under its wheels. She went sprawling again, and then, after a rabbit hop and another tearing sound, the van was away once more, turning right, past the stable block she’d wandered round this morning.
Its motion was lopsided, its balance punctured by its recent encounter.
A moment later she flinched, as something crashed onto the roof.
Still holding the bat, Whelan ran for his car. He might have been wearing a magic ring, rendering him invisible; on all sides, the San’s defenders and attackers slugged it out, but he moved unhampered past them. The truth was, he was of no consequence; a pencil pusher, pointless in a brawl. If the marauders won, one or other would snap him in two as an encore, but while there was fighting to be done, he was surplus to requirements. Which suited him. He reached his car, but it was hors de combat. And the people carrier was out of sight.
He kept running, the San’s geography returning to him; there was a stableyard by the gates, or where the gates had been. He remembered a staircase, a vantage point. From there he could see which direction the carrier went . . . It was less a plan than a displacement activity, but he had to do something. Besides, his body was on automatic, pursuing an agenda he hadn’t known was there.