Delatour said, ‘I’ve used one of those before.’ He gestured at the RPG. ‘I could take over if need be.’
‘All right.’ Purkiss headed for the doorway. ‘Rebecca, you stick with me. We’ll find somewhere to hole up among the ruins. Tony, you separate out and lie low nearby.’
On the ground once more, they moved out among the ruins. Purkiss found a stretch of wall, about six feet high, along the eastern aspect of the hillock. He signalled to Kendrick to position himself on the other side.
Purkiss sat with his back against the wall, Rebecca beside him. All there was to do was wait. The tinnitus from the grenade blast was still there, not as overwhelming as before but thin and high-pitched and distracting. It meant it would be difficult to hear any footfalls.
Rebecca murmured, ‘How did they find us?’
‘They found us at the hotel,’ said Purkiss. ‘So they may have traced us from there on. Maybe the clerk who organised the boat for us told them where we’d gone.’
He twisted round to look up at the tower. Gideon’s face appeared in the window on the east side. He appeared to be staring into the distance as if he’d spotted something.
As Purkiss watched, Gideon raised the RPG launcher, propping it on the window ledge.
Purkiss shuffled to the end of the broken wall and peered round in the direction Gideon was looking.
At least four men were advancing, picking their way up the rocky slope in much the same way that Purkiss and the others had done, running from boulder to boulder.
Purkiss looked back up at Gideon in the window. He wasn’t going to be able to hit all of them, but there were plenty of grenades in his stash. He was going to do it by a process of attrition, picking them off however he could, individually if necessary.
In the next instant, Gideon’s forehead erupted in red and he dropped out of sight.
Purkiss recoiled instinctively behind the wall as the shot rang out over the island.
Rebecca drew close, confusion in her eyes. Purkiss said: ‘Gideon’s down.’ He ratcheted the shotgun.
From the other side of the wall, he heard yells as the men broke cover.
For a split-second, Purkiss had thought one of the men out there had used a long gun. But Gideon had jolted forward, not back, as the wound had bloomed in his forehead.
It was an exit wound. The shot had come from inside the tower.
‘Delatour did it,’ Purkiss said. ‘Get ready.’
Rebecca didn’t reply, and Purkiss didn’t wait to see what effect his words had had. He strained his ears to try and gauge how close the men were.
When he felt he could delay no longer, he lunged beyond the wall, the shotgun extended.
A man loomed ten feet away as he hauled himself over the edge of the hillock. Purkiss pulled the Remington’s trigger, feeling the shotgun buck in his hands. The blast caught the man in the chest and he dropped back with a scream.
‘Tony,’ yelled Purkiss, without turning. ‘Watch the other side of the hill.’
A second man rolled over the ridge, further down. He was fast, but Purkiss swung the shotgun across and pumped the slide and fired again. The man went down.
Purkiss stared up at the tower. Delatour had appeared in the window. He sighted down the RPG. It was aimed directly at Purkiss and Rebecca.
Purkiss threw himself into Rebecca, knocking her sideways, seizing her awkwardly with the Remington still clutched in his grasp and rolling with her, over and over, the rough rocky ground painful beneath them.
He felt the detonation of the grenade like a sonic punch to his entire body, the heat of the flame that roared behind him. A cascade of rock and stone rained down and he ducked his head, shielding Rebecca’s averted face beneath him. The shock of the blast was almost paralysing, but Purkiss hauled himself to his knees and grabbed Rebecca’s arm and dragged her upright.
Agony seared up his leg. He looked down and saw that his right trouser leg was on fire. Purkiss shook his leg, grabbed handfuls of gravel and sand and flung them over the flame until it had ebbed. He slapped the rest out with his hand.
Delatour would follow with another grenade, was likely taking aim at that very moment. Purkiss saw a shape from the corner of his right eye, whipped his head round, saw a third man a few feet away on top of the ridge with his rifle aimed and knew that this was it, that he hadn’t time to bring the shotgun across.
The man jerked like a marionette as the bullets stitched across his torso, lifting him off his feet before he slammed supine on the ground. Kendrick stood among the ruins to the left, the M16 in his hands. Once again his face was contorted in a grin.
‘Slow, Purkiss,’ he said.
Purkiss said, ‘Up there. Delatour,’ and as Kendrick swung the Armalite to bear on the tower, Purkiss scanned the side of the island nearest to him. There’d been four men approaching. They’d despatched three. The remaining one was unlikely to climb the hillock now, and would be regrouping with the others.
The M16 chattered and bucked in Kendrick’s hands. The wall of the tower around the window shot off chippings of wood and stone. Delatour might not get hit, but at least the return fire kept him from taking aim with the RPG.
‘Three down,’ said Purkiss, thinking aloud. ‘At least seven more, plus Delatour now. Eight against three.’ He jerked his head in the direction of the far side of the island. ‘We need to get to Gideon’s boats.’
‘Nah,’ said Kendrick. He’d stopped shooting, but continued to stare up at the tower. ‘I’m going to get that bastard up there. Fucking turncoat.’
‘No time, Tony.’ Purkiss grabbed at his arm. ‘You’ll waste ammo. And if you go up there, he’ll be waiting, or the others will pick you off.’
‘Shit.’ Kendrick’s grin had been replaced by an ugly clenched-teeth snarl. He glared up at the tower again, but lowered the rifle.
‘We spread out,’ said Purkiss. ‘They’ll be expecting us to come down the western side of the hill, over there, because that’s the side where the boats are. So we go down this side and work our way round.’
They spaced themselves along the top of the hillock, Kendrick glancing up repeatedly at the tower. There was nobody visible on the plain below. Purkiss scrambled down the side and waited for the others to do the same.
If they made their way round the northern aspect of the hillock, they’d pass beneath the façade and the tower. On the other hand, the men would probably be around the southern end since they’d approached from that direction.
Purkiss nodded. ‘Tony,’ he said, keeping his voice low. ‘You head round that way. You’ll be able to keep the tower in sight, and you’ve got the range to hit Delatour if he appears in the window. We’ll take the other way.’
Purkiss and Rebecca moved quickly along the circumference of the hillock, keeping close to its slope. The shotgun looked too large for her hands, but she seemed to handle it with familiarity, Purkiss thought.
The first of the men darted his head around a jutting pillar of rock in the hillside a few feet ahead. Purkiss fired the Remington reflexively, from the hip, blasting away a chunk of rock and dust, and he heard a cry of pain.
They charged forwards, Purkiss and Rebecca, and on the other side of the outcropping found the man reeling, clutching his bloody face where the shot had caught him, while a second man tried to shove him out of the way. Purkiss and Rebecca fired at almost the same time, hurling both men back against the rock.
Five down, thought Purkiss. Maybe five left, plus Delatour. Maybe more.
They worked their way rapidly round to the western side of the hillock. Kendrick emerged from the other direction, walking sideways some distance away from the base of the hill, his gaze trained on the tower. Purkiss scanned the rocky plain.