Free Flesh Wounds by Chris Brookmyre Page B

did, but his emotions had caused him to misinterpret what it was telling him.
    Up ahead he saw a helicopter rise above the trees, banking as it crested the hillside. Then he caught a flash of blue light in his rear-view mirror and saw the BMW pull out to overtake the Skoda that was sitting between them.
    There was no question now. The blue light had been placed on the dashboard and the police car was closing on the Defender. Behind the Skoda he could see three more vehicles similarly identifying themselves and joining the chase. Instinct had told him what that BMW was, way back on the motorway, just as instinct had told him he was making a mistake a few hours before that. In both cases it was now far too late to do anything about it.
    Christ.
    He remembered about the gun, still secured in its hiding place under the chassis. There was no way of getting rid of it now.
    Another glimpse in the mirror showed the BMW gaining. Something inside urged his right foot down, though it was laughable to think of trying to outrun the thing in this battered Land Rover; not on the open road anyway. The BMW had plenty more in reserve; it wasn’t readying itself to overtake or cut him off, just closing in and watching to see what he would do. Behind it, two of the other cop cars were slewing across the tarmac to form a roadblock, stopping any following traffic from passing that point. Something was about to happen, and soon.
    He stared forward again as the Defender approached a bend, the road curving steeply to the right, mirroring the course of the nearby river. The woodland was still a long way off.
    He tried to recall whether there was a break in the hedgerow coming up, a route over fields that would take him into the forest. The BMW was close enough that if its driver read his intentions, he might well be able to floor the accelerator and cut the Defender off. Glen would need to be absolutely committed to it, prepared to risk flipping the vehicle by making the turn at the latest possible moment and the highest possible speed, and that’s why it wasn’t going to happen. He didn’t see what hiding could achieve now, didn’t really understand why he was still driving. Flight was an instinct, not a plan.
    It was over, then, even before he rounded the bend and saw the two police cars nose to nose, a van tucked sideways behind them, blocking the road less than two hundred yards ahead. Not just cars, either: it was an Armed Response Unit, two men in position on either side of the roadblock.
    Glen knew there were four Heckler & Koch G36 assault rifles pointed at his vehicle, capable of firing at a rate of seven hundred and fifty rounds a minute. Even if he slammed on the anchors for an emergency stop, the Defender would come to a standstill at a distance of roughly an eighth of the carbines’ effective range.
    He braked steadily and deliberately, the BMW and the Vectra behind it decelerating in response, maintaining the same distance.
    The Defender came to rest roughly fifty yards from the roadblock, at which moment two more armed officers leapt from the Vauxhall, each packing HKs. There were now one hundred and eighty rounds primed to come at him at nine hundred metres per second. The response team from the roadblock began to move forward in formation, keeping him covered at all times, while the two behind took up kneeling positions on the ground.
    Glen thought once more of the pistol stashed under the chassis, momentarily entertaining a grimly fatalistic thought. That would be giving them what they wanted, wouldn’t it? That would end all of this: cut off the tentacles reaching out from his decades-old misdeeds to the people he loved. But would it protect them? Would it keep them safer than he could if he were still alive?
    No.
    Glen put his hands in the air, high and wide and highly visible. He heard a voice scream at him to get out of the vehicle and lie down on the ground. He climbed out of the Defender, felt hands upon him before he