"The Englishman" by David Gilman

An audio book.

Someone's chased through a wood by gunmen.

There's a battle to occupy caves - helicopter gunships, French legionnaires, suicide jackets, and kids carrying messages between caves.

London, Carter (a banker, married to Amanda) leaves home with his step-son Stephen, driven by a chauffeur. He's kidnapped. The boy escapes.

McGuire (MI6) investigates. He sends Abby to find Raglin in France. While Abby's asleep, Raglin flies to England, finds the boy (who knows him as Dan) and takes the boy home (he and Amanda were brought up together). He meets McGuire, who he's done work for. Carter was in MI6 for years. McGuire thinks he's stealing money and may have rigged the kidnapping.

Abby's father is a legless Sikh. She becomes Raglin's driver. She's multilingual and has her father's taxi-driving knowledge of London.

JD is the interrogator. They kill their driver (who we'd learnt about) and move to a new location. They want names and addresses from Carter. Carter had left cryptic clues in his room and with his son. JD had been in the cave mission. He'd worked for the Russian secret service and had killed 4 Russian policemen. A Russian policewoman comes over to track down JD. Raglin sleeps with her.

Raglin finds their hide-out. Carter dies in his arms, having given some info away, but not the most important. Raglin finds JD who escapes by helicopter, Abby being killed. Raglin's convinced that Carter wasn't a traitor. McGuire still seems unsure.

JD is caught, but given a light sentence to placate the Russian police - The Russian secret police want to re-employ him. With the help of the Russian policewoman Raglin is arrested in Russia and is put into JD's prison. He kills JD and escapes. He's the one being chased through the wood at the start.

I liked much of this at the start, even the knife-fights. There's little tension/plot in the final section set in Russia.