Ben suddenly wanted to burst out laughing. Go, Boonzie. Looked like there was life in the old dog yet.

Carter and Banks still had their guns pointed right at Ben, but the muzzles were wavering with uncertainty. And that was when the second thing happened. Which was that Hacker’s phone rang. He thrust his pistol in his belt, ripped the phone from his pocket, slammed it to his ear and almost screamed, ‘WHAT?’ In the next instant his anger turned to alarm. ‘Graham? What happened?’

Ben could hear the caller’s distressed voice on the line, hoarse and high-pitched. He couldn’t make out the words. But Hacker heard them up close and clear. His eyes popped wide and his jaw sagged. He gasped, ‘She what? What the fuck do you mean, she stabbed you?’

In that moment, Stuart’s plan had suddenly unravelled all the rest of the way. Because somewhere up there inside the castle, Grace Kirk had just managed to turn the tables on her guard.

And that was a game-changer, not just for her but for Ben as well.

Hacker and his associates were stunned by the news. Only for an instant, but an instant was long enough for Ben to see his second and last window of chance open up in front of him.

Banks and Carter were standing roughly three feet apart and five feet away from Ben, Banks to the left and Carter to the right, marking two points of an isosceles triangle with Hacker as its third point in the middle a few steps beyond. This time it was Banks who was closer to Ben.

And so Banks was the target Ben chose now. In one lunge he slammed into him, twisted the gun out of his hand, felt the pencil-snap of finger bones as the weapon ripped free, turned it around and shot him square in the middle of the face.

One down.

Even as the 9mm bullet was still in the air and the spent case was spinning from the cycling breech, the muzzle of the gun was swivelling the three feet to the right to engage Ben’s second target. By the time it was pointing at the astonished Carter a tiny fraction of a second later, the next round was chambered and the trigger was reset, and before Carter could even flinch or crap his pants Ben double-tapped him, centre of the chest. Two down. Carter and Banks were always the weakest links. They’d never really had a chance, once the right moment came. And it had come.

But Carl Hacker wasn’t going to be so quick and easy to take out.

Chapter 54