Martyrdom is for people who espouse causes, and you don’t believe in causes. You’re a practical man. If you let him go tonight, you can find him again tomorrow. If you don’t, things are going to get messy, and noisy, right now. You’ll have gone to a lot of trouble to keep them clean and quiet, so I’m pretty sure you won’t want that. But whether I start shouting or you start shooting, you’re going to have an audience in just a few seconds from now. Unless you leave.”
Incredulously, Horn began to realize that it could actually happen. That an assassin hard enough to appear on Tommy Hanratty’s radar just might back down before the extraordinary courage of a passerby. Not because he couldn’t take him too—of course he could. But he was a professional, he had to think about the next job and the one after that, and to do them he had to keep a low profile. He didn’t have to let Horn go—he just had to let him go for now. In all probability Horn was still going to die. But there was now a chance that he wasn’t going to die tonight.
The pause could only have been a few seconds. It wrung Horn like the rack. Finally the man said, faintly aggrieved, “Bloody amateurs!”
The other man, the passerby, said softly, “You don’t know that. You don’t know who I am or what I can do. You can gamble everything on a guess. Or you can do the sensible thing, which is haul him out of there and drive away. That way there’s always another day, another chance.”
A few seconds more and it happened. A yank on his ankle landed Horn on his back in the wet road. For the first time he could see the two figures, dark against the rain-reflected glitter of the streetlights. They were about three meters apart. Far enough that the only weapons that would reach were bullets and words. Still he could see no faces.
But the one nearest to him got back in his car and shut the door. Horn heard the quiet electric whir of the window. “I won’t forget this.”
“I don’t imagine any of us will,” said the other man calmly. “But I’ll keep quiet about it if you will.”
The engine started and the car moved off, slowly at first, then gaining speed. Then there were just the two of them—Horn too weak with concussion and relief to clamber to his feet, and the man to whom he owed his life.
Who now turned back toward the main street and said casually over his shoulder, “Good luck, then.”
“W-w-w-?” It wasn’t just the concussion making Horn’s head spin. “Where are you going? Who are you? Why…?”
The man looked down at him with the same admixture of indulgence and exasperation he’d have worn if his puppy had fallen down the coalhole. “Do you want to pick one?”
The other man had been bad news—the worst—but his appearance had not come as a surprise. Horn had known he, or someone like him, would turn up sometime. He’d known why, and he’d known what to expect of him. What was he to make of a complete stranger risking his own neck to offer him protection?
He did as he was told and picked one. But first he crawled on his hands and knees to a handy bollard and hauled himself to his feet, and leaned against it to stop the world swaying. “You saved my life. Why?”
The man thought for a moment. “I suppose, because I hoped it was worth saving.”
The dull fear that had given way to tremulous hope was now yielding to a kind of uncomprehending rage, because none of this made any sense to Nicky Horn. When a large part of his world had collapsed about him, he’d consoled himself with the thought that—unlike most men—at least he knew how and why he would die. Now even that seemed to have been snatched from him. He felt he was owed an explanation. “You can’t know that! You don’t know me.”
The man moved a couple of paces closer. They stared at one another by the limited light reaching the side street. Horn saw a tall, rangy individual in a long, dark coat, short hair the color of moonlight. Narrow, clean-shaven face. A bit of an intellectual, you’d have said, if you hadn’t just seen him face down a hired killer.
For his part, the man saw someone physically and emotionally battered, with blood on his