Gregor ducked down again. He saw Piet running up the stairs and so he stood up to give him some covering fire. Before he could aim, his head exploded as he was shot from behind. Gregor’s body shuddered, and then he fell as he was impacted with more bullets, his machine pistol firing wildly before falling silent.
The roller shutter door had been rising so slowly that the policemen outside decided to lie flat on their stomachs to get an angle of fire into the building. When they saw a masked man raising a machine pistol, intending to fire at their colleagues, three of them shot at once. Usual protocol; one to the head two to the chest, except that this time it was three to the head and six to the body.
Johnny had dropped to the floor when the firing began, and was now lying spread-eagled as speedcuffs were fastened onto his wrists. He wondered why Sonny was not being subjected to the same treatment, but then he saw why. He looked across the floor into the flat, dead eyes of his boss. Gregor had unknowingly sprayed Sonny with bullets as he fell to the floor in his death throes. Two bloody holes were left where 9mm slugs had pierced Sonny’s coat, and the third slug had taken off part of Sonny’s right ear as it passed into and out of his skull at an angle of forty five degrees.
***
Dee pulled Lavender to her feet and stood protectively in front of her as she heard someone running up the stairs. A second later the door crashed open and Piet burst in. He wasn’t wearing his mask, which was a pity because his face was contorted with rage, and Lavender whimpered.
“This is your fault! Die, bitch!” Piet snarled as he raised his gun.
Dee braced herself, spreading herself wide to offer Lavender maximum protection. She closed her eyes just before the shot.
***
Rik heard the shot upstairs and took advantage of a lull in the firing to race up the metal staircase. As he ran he was accompanied by a symphony of clanging metal as bullets hit the staircase. One bullet grazed his leg and another gouged out a wickedly painful groove in his left side just below his ribs. He dived through the door.
***
Dave had been dozing when the explosions woke him into instant awareness. He took off his mask as he saw the police burst in, mob handed. He put his gun down on the table and decided to leave the girls where they were. They were probably relatively safe in there, he thought. Then the lunatic Gregor shot a policeman, and within seconds it had turned into carnage. From his window he could see Johnny being cuffed, Sonny lying dead, and the twisted ruin that had once been Gregor’s body.
Piet rushed in to the accompaniment of gunfire and went straight to the girls’ room. Dave reacted instantly, reaching for his gun. As he closed his hand around the grip he heard Piet screeching “Die, bitch!” and watched as Piet raised the gun, ready to fire. Dave’s finger found the trigger but he wasn’t sure he would find his target in time. His gun was still swinging in an arc when he bit his lip and fired.
***
Dee opened her eyes to see Piet’s hands drop to his sides. There had been time for Piet’s brain to register shock before half of it hit the wall beside him. He collapsed onto the floor. Lavender was hysterical, and a moment later Dave came running in.
He wasn’t wearing a mask, and his face registered concern, not for his colleague but for the girls. He could see that both were fine. He spoke in a reassuring tone. “It’s OK now. It’s almost over.”
“Is it really, soldier boy?” Dave turned to see Rik standing in the corridor with his gun aimed at Dave’s chest. Dave lifted his arms and held his gun away from his body, to show that he wasn’t a threat.
“Come on, Rik. It’s all over. There’s been enough killing. We need to give ourselves up.” Dave kept his voice calm, but Rik shook his head.
“Well, I don’t think it’s over. Not yet. We still have two hostages.”
“Rik, I can’t let you do this. It’s insane.” Dave was watching for any sign that Rik might shoot, and he saw it in his eyes. Dave brought his gun down into shooting position and began to move into a crouch to offer a smaller target, but he was too late. Rik’s bullet took him in the chest and threw him against the wall.
A smear of blood streaked the wall as Dave slid down into a sitting position, his head lolling to one side.
Rik came into the room, holding his gun ready in his left hand. When he was satisfied that Dave was no longer a threat to him, he turned the gun on Dee.
“Move out of the way! I’m taking the girl.”
“No, you’re not! “ Dee spat out defiantly.
“Come on, lady, you’ve already been shot once today. I don’t want to kill you.” Dee held her ground whilst Rik found a position to shoot her where the bullet wouldn’t pass through her and hit Lavender. Then he fired.
Dee spun around when the bullet hit. Her leg gave up and she fell to the floor. The room was spinning. She was on the verge of passing out again. How much blood had she lost today? She clamped her right hand around her upper left arm. At least this time the bullet had gone right through.
The blood was oozing through her fingers, but she had to get to Lavender before that madman got them both killed by a stray marksman’s bullet. Dee tried to stand up, but couldn’t, so she dragged herself along using her good right arm.
She got to Dave when she heard Rik say to Lavender, “We’re going down the stairs now. Behave yourself and you’ll be fine.”
He took Lavender by the arm and led her through the door. “Get back!” he shouted to the figures below. “I have a hostage.”
Dave opened his eyes. He was alive, just. He lifted his gun.
“Take this, get Lavender,” he grimaced, and coughed. There was blood on his lips but he still tried to smile.
Dee took the gun from him and shuffled towards the stairs, inch by agonising inch.
***
Once Rik pushed Lavender ahead of him onto the staircase, the policeman on the stairs backed away and the others pointed their weapons towards him. He was probably the only hostile left standing.
Keeping Lavender in front of him with his right arm across her throat, he pressed his gun into her neck with his left hand. Step by step he moved down the stairs, not allowing anyone to get a shooting angle. The Armed Response team were frustrated, but they kept him in their sights all the way. Sooner or later one of them would get a clear shot.
***
Dee had managed to drag herself to the door and look out. Rik had Lavender by the throat, and they were almost half way down the stairs. Dee lay down on her stomach and, ignoring the pain in her left arm, she levelled the gun and took aim.
Dee knew that a poor shot could injure Lavender, and so she took a deep breath, then aimed and fired.
***
Rik was concentrating so much on the policemen below him that he had no idea he was in Dee’s sights. Suddenly he felt a great pain in his chest. It felt like his heart was exploding. He was almost right. Dee’s bullet had passed through his right armpit and careered through his ribcage before destroying his heart.
Rik let go of Lavender with a gasp. He collapsed and slid on his back down the stairs, landing in a heap on the concrete floor. He lay still, mouth and eyes wide open as blood pooled under his body, the effects of gravity draining the blood from his body in the absence of a working heart.
Lavender rushed up the stairs to cradle Dee in her arms.
“I thought you were dead!” the younger girl sobbed. “Oh, Dee, please don’t die! I can’t lose you!”
Two voices shouted “Clear!” and a paramedic raced up the stairs to attend to Dee.
“There’s a man in there who needs you more than I do.” Dee pointed to Dave.
The paramedic was back inside a minute. “I’m afraid he has passed, Miss. Nothing can be done for him now. Well, you’ve certainly been in the wars, haven’t you?” he remarked, somewhat undiplomatically.