The Pure

their car.
    He ducked through the undergrowth and found his way on to a footpath heading towards the bank leading up to the road. The top of the Audi was visible above the barrier. The driver’s door was hanging half-open. Only a junior Katsa would make such a mistake, he thought. Or a complacent old hand.
    As he approached the edge of the wood he saw, out of the corner of his eye, the flicker of a shadow that didn’t belong. He spun, jabbing his R9 towards it; nothing. Perhaps it had been his imagination. But his gut told him it was real. He stood in silence, scanning the wood to the east, moving his gun in a slow arc. And then, from perhaps ten feet behind him, he heard the crunch of a pistol being racked.
    ‘Adam Feldman. It’s been a long time. Put your sidearm on the ground and turn around slowly.’
    The Audi was close, but not that close; if he tried to run, he would be dead. He turned around, but did not put down his weapon.
    ‘I said put your sidearm on the ground,’ came the voice, wavering this time, then rising at the end in an effort to sound authoritative.
    Sensing weakness, Uzi faced him. ‘Kahane?’ said Uzi. ‘Shimon Kahane?’
    The man shifted his weight awkwardly from one foot to the other. He was big, well over six feet tall, with burly shoulders and a grizzly beard. A streak of orange light from the setting sun slashed in a diagonal across his body; his Beretta glinted.
    ‘I’m sorry, Feldman,’ said Kahane, looking as if he had stumbled across his quarry by accident. ‘Put your weapon on the ground.’
    ‘You still working at London Station?’ said Uzi. ‘What happened, they run out of decent Katsas? They had to get in the amateurs? You left your fucking car door open.’
    Despite himself, Kahane smiled. ‘Never mind me,’ he said, ‘look at you, eh?’
    ‘I was thinking about you just the other day,’ said Uzi.
    ‘You keep those thoughts to yourself,’ Kahane replied.
    ‘Yeah, yeah. No, I was just thinking about the time in Brussels when you ate ten burgers in a row. You remember? How much did you win again?’
    ‘Five hundred dollars.’
    ‘Five hundred, that’s right. I couldn’t remember if it was five hundred or five thousand.’
    Kahane stiffened and raised his pistol.
    ‘Look,’ said Uzi, before Kahane could say anything, ‘you know I’m not going to shoot you. And you know I’m not going to surrender. I’m going to put my gun in my pocket and walk up to the road. Then I’m going to disappear. So I suggest you disappear in the other direction. Just go back into the wood and pretend this didn’t happen.’
    Kahane did not move. He made no sound.
    ‘ Shalom, chaver ,’ said Uzi. Goodbye, friend. Slowly, fighting his instincts, he lowered his R9 and slipped it into his pocket. Then he turned his back on Kahane, and Kahane’s Beretta, and walked slowly out of the wood and up the grassy bank. It seemed to last for an age; every second that passed Uzi heard gunshots in his ears, saw in his mind’s eye the bullet ripping through the back of his head, throwing him, lifeless, to the earth. But the shot never came; there was nothing but the noise of the birds, the traffic, Uzi’s feet pushing through the grass. Finally he reached the road. When he looked back over his shoulder, Kahane was gone.
    Uzi approached the Audi, running through in his mind the procedure for hot-wiring the car and disabling the GPRS device that kept London Station alert to the vehicle’s movements. He had one foot inside when he caught sight of a vehicle approaching. A black Maybach, followed by a BMW. It drew to a halt behind the Audi, and through the rear window Uzi caught a glimpse of the driver.
    Liberty stepped out of the car and walked towards him, her hand resting by her hip where her Taurus must have been concealed, looking around for danger.
    ‘What’s going on?’ she said.
    ‘How the fuck did you find me? What are you doing here?’
    ‘Tracking device in your car. We picked up erratic movements, followed your trail out here, and now we find you in the middle of a wood. Where’s the Porsche?’
    ‘You’ve been tracking me all this time?’
    Liberty shook her hair away from her face. ‘Of course,’ she said, looking him in the eye. ‘I want to make sure I don’t lose you.’
    Uzi’s fury dissipated like dust in the wind. ‘It’s the Office. I had to abandon the car.’
    Liberty froze. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
    They climbed into