First Strike. Justin Richards

leaped at him, hands moving rapidly, chopping through the air.

      Chance parried the blows and managed to get in a punch of his own. It connected with the assassin’s stomach and she doubled up, staggering away. Chance moved forward.

      She looked up at him, still bent over in pain. Her face was contorted with hatred and anger. Her eyes, he saw, were different colours—one green and the other blue. He stepped towards her.

      The sudden sound of the siren made them both glance away. A police car was turning across the oncoming traffic outside as it sped into the car park, headlights flashing in time with the blue lights on top. An ambulance was close behind it.

      In that moment, there was another noise. An engine roared into life and a red Toyota shot out of a parking space nearby. It reversed rapidly, tyres screeching, right at John Chance. As it reversed, the back door swung open.

      Chance leaped out of the way as the car skidded to a halt right where he had been standing. Seconds later it was moving again. It swerved round the approaching police car and accelerated past the ambulance out on to the main road.

      Inside the car, Chance could clearly see an oriental woman with a long plaited pigtail of black hair.

      Jade felt helpless. She stood back to allow the two paramedics to tend to Ralph. One of them replaced the wad of napkins, with gauze and bandages. The other readied a wheeled stretcher and set up a drip.

      “This your dad?” one of the paramedics asked.

      “No, my dad’s chasing the gunman.”

      The paramedic raised an eyebrow.

      Police were moving people back and starting to take statements. Chance pushed his way to the front and spoke quietly but urgently with the policeman in charge. Jade and Rich hurried across to join him.

      “And put a guard on the wounded man’s hospital room.” Chance was saying. “I’ll have someone call your superiors with authorisation.” He turned to call across to the paramedics: “How is he?”

      “Not good,” came the reply. “Right, everyone stand back please, stretcher coming through.”

      “Did you get him?” Rich asked as they watched Ralph being loaded into the ambulance.

      Chance shook his head. “Her, actually. I got the number of the getaway car, and called it in to Ardman, but they’ve probably dumped it already.”

      Ardman was Chance’s boss. He ran a secret group of agents that handled missions deemed too sensitive for the main security services. Chance was one of Ardman’s senior operatives.

      “I hope Ralph’s going to be OK,” said Jade.

      “So do I,” Chance agreed. “He wanted to tell us something important. Important enough for someone else to try to kill him. But what was it?”

      “And who was the assassin?” said Rich.

      His father was staring past him, his attention suddenly fixed on one of the many TV screens. The music had stopped, and above the muted hubbub of conversation, the newsreader’s voice was just audible.

      “As well as Marshal Wieng, there is also no sign of his second in command, Colonel Shu—who has already been indicted by the international courts for war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

      The picture on the screen was of an oriental woman with long, jet black hair. One of her eyes was emerald green. The other was sky blue.

       1

      They sat in the corner of the hospital caf? Visiting time was over for the evening and the place was quiet. Even so, John Chance and Hilary Ardman’s conversation was barely louder than a whisper.

      Rich and Jade listened, but said nothing. Rich was eating biscuits. Jade had an unopened carton of orange juice in front of her. Chance was on his third black coffee and Ardman had a stainless-steel pot of tea that he seemed unimpressed with.

      Ardman was holding the note Ralph had sent over to Chance with the champagne. “I’ll get this to the forensics people; they might be able to tell us something. Where the paper was made, how long ago it was written, if it’s actually Ralph’s handwriting. Something.”

      “We can find all that out, but I’m not sure it will help. What we really need to know what is it means,” Chance pointed out.

      “Yes.” Ardman sniffed. “He could have been more helpful.”

      “He was expecting to speak to me,” said Chance.

      “So why send the note?” Jade asked. “Why not just come over and chat?”

      “Perhaps he felt guilty about what happened last time we met,” said Rich.

      “Guilty—Ralph?” Chance shook his head. “Yes, I know he set us up against the Mafia, and planted a bomb on you, Rich. But he won’t have any regrets about that. His overriding concern is always for himself and how he can turn a profit. So it’s more likely the champagne was a peace offering. He wanted to make sure I’d hear him out, not punch him out.”

      “It was a risk,” Ardman said. He opened the lid of his teapot and poked at the teabag inside with a spoon. “He’s a wanted man in this country, remember. Oh, he can slip in and out on a false passport easily enough, but making contact with someone who’d recognise him is a big risk. He has no reason to think you’d be friendly towards him. Yet he wanted to tell you something. And not over the phone, but in person.”

      “And he got shot,” Rich added.

      “Which suggests whatever he had to say was important.” Ardman gave up on the teapot and read the note again. “I don’t care for his choice of the word nuclear.”

      “He might not mean it literally,” said Chance.

      “It’s a shame we can’t ask him yet.”

      “How’s he doing?” Rich asked. The doctors had been vague when they had spoken to them, but he thought they might have been more open with Ardman.

      “Not good,” Ardman said. “They’ve operated, as you know, and removed the bullet from his lung, but he’s still in a coma. He may come out of it in the next day or two. Or the next month or so. Or never.”

      “So the note really is all we have,” said Jade.

      “Well, we do have a good idea of who the sniper was,” Chance pointed out.

      “I’d almost rather we didn’t.” Ardman leaned back in his chair as he considered. “Another false passport job, I suspect. I really must talk to the borders and immigration people about how she got here undetected. But a more pressing question is, why does Colonel Shu, one of the most wanted war criminals in the world, go to the trouble and expense of coming to an out-of-town diner in deepest, darkest Gloucestershire to kill a gentleman—I use the term loosely—who runs one of the most successful crime syndicates in Eastern Europe?”

      “And why do it just as the province she’s trying to liberate is being invaded by the Chinese?” Rich added.

      Ardman frowned. “Not invaded, please. It is a Chinese province; they’re just asserting their rule.”

      “Is she working for this Marshal Wieng?” Jade asked.

      “Almost certainly,” her father told them. “They’ve fought together since the rebellion really got going in the 1990s. Not that Wiengwei was ever quiet. Marshal Wieng claims to be a direct descendent of the original Emperor Wieng Tso—an equally war-like man who founded the province, and gave his name to it.”

      “And is he a descendent?” asked Rich.

      “Doesn’t matter,” Ardman said. “The point is that the claim has focused the rebels