Sophia's eyes flicked open. She was lying on top of the ruffled bedcovers, wracked with sweat. Her hand shot down to her USP .45, lying on her bedside table, and she brought it up in a practiced manoeuvre, swinging her bare legs over the side of the bed, and aiming the gun, more at her receding nightmare than at anything tangible within the room. Her right leg ached and throbbed, even weeks after the break had healed up. The policewoman waited a moment, waited for her breath to come back under control, waited until she felt confident enough to put down the gun and lie back down on top of the covers. After her fear receded, she realised how cold she really was. Sophia had taken to sleeping naked, not liking to feel closed in or constrained. Not since the events of the last case.
It was Van who had started it. They'd sent him in, at her behest, and he'd done his job, true enough. The thing that had attacked her, broken her leg, that thing was dead. The village was safe. But Van had killed too, unnecessarily; a girl named Fay who he'd been working with. If it had been an accident, or Van a conventional cop, then all would have been well. But it wasn't an accident, wasn't friendly fire. Instead it had been a targeted execution, two shots to the chest and then one to the head, the Mozambique Drill, Van's signature move. So they would have had to bring him in. But instead, Van had gone. He'd left. Perhaps he knew that his actions would cost him dearly, perhaps his infamous sense of danger had warned him, but in any case, he'd gone. Fled into the country, and lain low. The Inspector and Ford had masterminded a campaign to find him, to little avail. Thy both knew, despite their feelings for Van, that this time he'd gone too far. He wasn't even a proper policeman anymore, with the legal perks that came with the job. And the Inspector and his superiors knew just how deadly Van Helsinki could be. By the time Sophia had healed, by the time her leg had set, the search had become a full-scale manhunt. Eventually, they found him.
He was living not too far from his old home, in a low-quality flat somewhere in the industrialised slum area known locally as the 'Westers'. The police had surrounded the apartment. There were to be no mistakes. They'd sent Ford in first, to try and talk to Van. He seemed amenable enough to her, but as soon as the first policeman had stepped onto the bottom step of his stairs, he'd known. Sophia thought they'd all have died if Ford hadn't frantically restrained him, trapping his gun on the table. The plan was simply to stun him in some way, and bring him in for questioning. And like all plans, it had all gone horribly wrong. For starters, Van had far too many guns for Ford to stop him drawing. She'd got his main one from the table, but Van just drew one of his backups, a P99. He'd tipped his chair backwards, and opened fire at the ankles of the first policemen to enter the building. They'd gone down. Van had rolled into cover, and a standoff had ensued. Ford was stuck inside the building, hiding behind Van's table, gun drawn but unable or unwilling to use it. Eventually, Van had simply cut and run, out the window. He'd left six seriously injured police behind. Sophia had seen Van go. She'd been one of those stationed by the cars, her leg still giving her trouble while going up stairs. Sophia had watched Van plummet down from above, had seen him catch the wire stretched across the two buildings to slow him, then had to duck for cover as he landed, unleashing a flurry of fire from two M9 's he had concealed under his jacket. The two officers on either side of Sophia went down. Sophia drew her USP and returned fire, clipping Van's shoulder once. It was enough to make Van retreat, and as the hordes of police came charging out of the building after him, he slipped down a side-alley and disappeared. They had not found him again. But still, his face haunted Sophia. They had exchanged one last look before he fled, a look which spoke directly to her. Four simple words. I. Will. Kill. You. In his eyes, Sophia could see the blame for everything, for the betrayal of the force, for his need to run, for his injuries. And it scared her. She knew he would come for her. She knew it was only a matter of time.
Van arrived two nights later. The first Sophia knew was when her front door was kicked off its hinges. She awoke, seized her USP, vaulted out of bed and ran into the corner, hunkering down even as she heard the relentless tread of his footsteps on the stairs. Her bedroom door was also kicked open, and there he stood, in the doorway. Sophia had thought he'd be armed, but his hands were empty and his coat thrown open. Sophia tried to move around the door to fire, but Van's quick reflexes and her injured leg let her down. The ex-policeman seized her USP and wrenched it out of her hands. Sophia couldn't help herself. She screamed. Van turned the gun round in his left hand and gestured off to the bed. Sophia tried to get up, but Van kicked her in the back of the leg, forcing her down onto her hands and knees. She crawled over to the bed and sat on it. Van tracked her with her own gun.
'Please'. It was one word. Sophia looked up into the dark, soulless eyes of the shadow that loomed above her. Van shook his head. Sophia continued. 'Please Van. Let me live. Don't kill me. You loved me…once. You loved me.' Van paused above her. He loomed down , straight at her.
'I did. And now I don't.' Then he leaned in, grabbed Sophia's head, and as she fought back against him, he put her own gun to the side of her head. A watcher from outside the house would have heard a crack, then a dull thud, then silence.