‘I’m shootin’ the breeze with our English friend here.’

But Phil clearly wanted his boss’s attention urgently. It had to be the van. As if they were telepathically connected, all three now had their weapons in their hands, each of them close enough to get a clean shot but not so close that Tom could do anything about it. Welcome to Texas.

Chapter 58

58

‘Is there a problem?’

Tom maintained the dismayed-visitor pose but he knew it was timed out.

Colburn was keeping his weapon in his hand below the waist but his eyes fixed on Tom. ‘In the back, motherfucker.’

Tom raised his hands.

They reached the doorway of the back office, where a desk was piled with paper and a monitor showed the CCTV. Phil was already through the door so there was going to be a second pair of eyes and another weapon on him when he passed through.

This was Texas; their buddy was dead and they were looking at the reason. Tom knew there was no thinking about what he had to do, he just had to get on and do it – and maybe come out of it the other end. He kept his eyes down, focused on Colburn’s gut with the weapon in the right hand, down by the thigh. He slammed his shoulder hard into Colburn, who toppled over, taking Don with him. This gave Tom just enough space to get past and through the doorway. He started towards Phil.

Everything was now in ultra-slow motion. Phil and Tom had eye-to-eye. Phil should have known what Tom was going to do; he could have stopped, he could have put his hands up.

Tom heard shouts behind him. He caught the reaction in Phil’s eyes as he jinked to the left and out of sight of the other two just outside the office, his left hand reaching down. Tom kept looking at the target. With his left hand he grabbed a fistful of his own shirt front and yanked it up, his elbow held high to make sure he could clear the material from his stomach and expose the pistol grip of the suppressed Glock. He’d only get one chance.

They still had eye contact. Phil started to shout but Tom didn’t hear. He pushed the web of his right hand down onto the pistol grip. If he got this wrong he wouldn’t be able to aim correctly: he would miss and die. As he felt his hand make contact with the pistol grip, his lower three fingers clasped tight around it. His index finger was outside the trigger guard, parallel with the barrel. He didn’t want to pull the trigger early and kill himself. Phil was still looking, still shouting.

Phil’s hand was nearly at his pocket.

Nothing else mattered for Tom, apart from bringing his weapon into the right position all in a fraction of a second.