Blackout - By Tom Barber Page 0,71

The guy cursed and dropped the empty Kalashnikov on the ground, then turned and ran towards the shopping centre, people on the pavement screaming and running in panic.

Archer threw his own door open, seeing the big guy sprinting towards the galleria.

'Cut him off!' Archer shouted as he jumped out, slamming the door and taking off across the road after the Panther. Fox roared off up Wood Lane, past the West Side of the shopping mall, the front of the vehicle riddled with bullet holes, Fox doing his best to see through the smashed-up windshield.

Dodging through the traffic, Archer sprinted across the street and ran as fast as he could after the fleeing soldier.

Outside the shopping centre, terrified people had rushed for cover when the man in black who’d fired the AK-47 sprinted past them, ploughing through anyone in his path as he headed for the galleria, followed forty yards behind by an armed policeman. The big man sprinted past a long Debenhams store, then took a sharp left and raced into the shopping centre itself, smashing unsuspecting shoppers out of his way. Archer dodged round a young couple, leaping over a pushchair, and chased after the guy as fast as he could, his MP5 gripped in his hands as he tried to keep pace with the fleeing man.

Inside, the arcade was busy for a weekday, lots of shoppers meandering around. Some people who had been near the entrance to the mall had stopped in their tracks, wondering what the unusual noise was outside. They’d all been taken by surprise as the huge figure dressed in black rushed past them, followed soon after by the young police officer carrying the MP5. Archer weaved his way through shoppers and kids, racing through the area crowded with people.

‘Move! Move!’ he shouted.

He saw the Panther racing up an escalator ahead. He moved fast for a big man and Archer was running as fast as he could to keep up, hampered by the MP5. He ran towards the escalator and took the steps two at a time, determined not to let the guy get away. All that morning time in the gym was paying off - he was in excellent cardiovascular condition and he was making up some ground on the Panther.

Archer arrived on the First Floor, looking left and right. He couldn't see the soldier, but there were more shoppers up here, who’d stopped in their tracks when they saw him with the sub-machine gun in his hands.

‘Which way?’ he shouted.

They pointed right. There were lifts and toilets there, but the door to a service corridor was open and Archer sprinted forward, bursting through it and racing down the side corridor. He could hear the slap of running footsteps up ahead and he chased after them, arriving at a flight of stairs. He leapt down two at a time, down past the ground floor and onto the lower car park levels. He caught a glimpse of black as the man turned a corner up ahead, and Archer jumped off the remaining steps, sprinting after him.

He rounded the corner, and then instinctively ducked. A steel pipe swung in the air, smashing into the wall where his head had been. From a distance the Albanian Special Forces soldier had cut a large figure, but up close he was huge. He kicked Archer’s MP5 out of his hands with his boot, breaking the strap, the gun clattering to the ground, and he swung the pipe at Archer’s head again as if he was going for a home run. The smaller man ducked and hit the man in the face with an overhand right, a hard punch. Although the blow landed, it didn’t seem to hurt the soldier at all, but Archer’s hand felt like he had just punched granite. The two men locked up, then the soldier head-butted Archer above the left eye, his head like a rock, smashing into Archer's forehead. Archer staggered back and pulled his Glock from the holster on his thigh, but the man was already out of the door.

Dizzy and disorientated from the head-butt, his eyes watering, Archer staggered and scooping up his MP5, he stuffed the Glock back in its holster and moved into a corridor, just as the soldier disappeared out of the other end, heading into the car park.

He took off after him as fast as he could, with blurred vision, and burst out of the door into the parking lot.

Just as he arrived, he heard a loud thump