Old Enemies Read Online Free PDF

bank details, even the text he’d got from Casey first thing that morning. It had been so simple. ‘2nite,’ it had said. And now the bastard was going to get it all.
    The gunman flapped his hand in impatience, once, then again, demanding the phone. Ruari saw that the screen was lit, he’d succeeded in calling someone, though he couldn’t tell who.
    ‘Give it to me, little shit!’ The gunman was stretching, insisting, holding out his fingers like a bird’s claw, but in the restraints of his harness he couldn’t reach far enough to grab it, and Ruari didn’t want to give it. He hated this man so much he’d do anything to frustrate him, and there was also another thought buzzing around inside his head. If they hadn’t killed him so far, they wouldn’t kill him now, not for a miserable phone. It was a gamble, but in the end his hatred proved stronger than his fear. He hurled the phone out of the open door.
    The gunman stared impassively through his reflective glasses. He gave no immediate reaction, there was no obvious anger, save for a slight setting of the lips, and he said nothing. Then he hit Ruari, in the face, with the gun. It sliced through the cheekbone and across the nose. There was no pain, not at first, that would come later, but for a few seconds Ruari’s senses were scrambled and a ball of light exploded inside his head, blinding him. When eventually he regained his sight, he saw blood pouring down his chest, like a stuck pig, gathering in a darkening pool on his lap. That was when the pain began. Someone was holding a blowtorch to his face. He knew his nose was broken.
    Directly across the cabin, the gunman’s lips parted, briefly spreading into the thinnest of smiles. It was the first emotion he’d shown of any sort.
    Tears now began to mingle with the blood, but Ruari didn’t cry out, wouldn’t give the bastard the satisfaction. He sat, eyes closed, and desperately frightened, waiting for whatever was to come.

    Always in that damned hurry yet, despite it, Harry was late. Not even an Old Testament prophet could have parted the traffic and made it from Passport Control to Downing Street in an hour, not when some idiot had somehow managed to turn his car over on the approach road to Heathrow, bringing the entire circus to a halt. How was it possible to do that in a forty-mile-an-hour zone? But Mary, having rearranged the diary to fit him in, had rearranged things yet again. That in itself made Harry’s new ear tingle in anticipation – yes, he could feel it, not as well as the old one, but it seemed to respond to his mood and was telling him that something was about to erupt. It wasn’t every day that the Prime Minister’s diary was so blithely reshuffled. That usually meant at least a minor war or a major bankruptcy, or that something lurid and deeply personal was about to appear in the press.
    ‘What’s up, Danny?’ Harry enquired as he handed his suitcase into the care of the Downing Street doorman.
    ‘I hav’nae the foggiest,’ Danny replied in a broad Scots accent that came from somewhere north of Glasgow.
    ‘And that is one thing I’ll never believe.’
    Danny saw it all, the comings and goings, the strangled tears, the less frequent triumphs. He was a master at interpreting the gyrations of the prime ministerial eyebrow that might imply delight but usually foretold of disasters to come. No matter who crossed the threshold Danny was always there to offer a smile of congratulation or conspiracy or, when needed, of condolence. The trick for visitors like Harry was to know which one it was.
    ‘I think you’ll be knowing the way, sir,’ Danny said, testing the weight of Harry’s suitcase as the black steel door closed behind him. ‘Good luck.’
    Harry’s heels clipped out across the black-and-white marbled floor of the hallway. He passed the hooded leather chair in the corner that in days long past had shielded Danny’s predecessors from wind and rain, and came complete with a