particularly outrageous remark and struck his arm lightly.
You are terrible. She leaned against him. I'm dying of thirst, won't
you get me something to drink?
A glass of cold white wine? he suggested.
Lovely, she said, smiling up into his face. For a moment they studied
each other, and suddenly David felt something dark welling up from
within him, a terrible despair, a premonition of impending loss. It was
a physical thing and he could feel the chill of it enclose his chest and
squeeze out all the happiness and the joy.
What is it, David? Her own expression altered in sympathy with his, and
she tightened her grip on his arm.
Nothing. Abruptly he pulled away from her, trying to fight off the
feeling. It's nothing, he repeated, but it was still strong in his
belly and he felt a wave of nausea from it. I'll get you the wine, he
said and turned away.
He made his way towards the bar, pushing gently through the throng. The
Brig caught his eye and smiled bleakly across the garden at him. Joe
was with his father and he called to David, laughing, with one arm
around his bride. Hannah had her veil pushed up and her freckles were
beginning to emerge from under the makeup, glowing vividly against the
snow-white lace. David waved at them but went on towards the open-air
bar at the end of the garden, the mood of sadness was still on him and
he didn't want to talk to Joe now.
So he was cut off from Debra at the moment when, with a flourish, a
procession of white-jacketed waiters came in through the iron gate of
the garden. Each of them carried a huge copper salver from which, even
in the warm sun, rose tendrils of steam, and the odour of meat and fish
and spices filled the garden. There were gasps and cries of
appreciation from the guests.
A way opened for them towards the high table on the raised terrace which
led to the kitchen doors and the house.
The procession of waiters passed close to David, and suddenly his
attention was drawn from the display of fine food to the face of the
second waiter in line. He was a man of medium height and ark
complexion, a mahogany face with a thickly drooping mustache.
He was sweating. That was what had drawn David's attention, his face
was shiny with sweat. Droplets clung in his mustache and slid down his
cheeks. The white jacket was sodden at the armpits as he lifted the
gigantic platter on high.
At the moment that he drew level with David their eyes met for an
instant. David realized that the man was in the grip of some deep
emotion, fear, perhaps, or exhilaration. Then the waiter seemed to
become aware of David's scrutiny and his eyes slid nervously away.
David felt suspicion begin to chill his arms as the three figures
climbed the stone stairs, and filed behind the table.
The waiter glanced again at David, saw that his gaze was still locked
upon his face, and then he said something out of the corner of his mouth
to one of his companions. He also glanced at David, and caught his
stare, and his expression was sufficient to send alarm flaring urgently
through David's chest and brain. Something was happening, something
dangerous and ugly, he was certain of it. . Wildly he looked about for
the guards. There were two of them on the terrace behind the line of
waiters, and one near David beside the gate.
David shoved his way desperately towards him, mindless of the outraged
comments of those in his way. He was watching the three waiters and so
he saw it begin to happen.
It had obviously been carefully rehearsed, for as the three waiters
placed the salvers upon the table to the laughter and applause of the
guests crowded in the garden below them, so they drew back the sheet's
of plastic on which a tin display of food had been arranged to cover the
deadly load that each copper salver carried.
The brown-faced waiter lifted a machine pistol from under the plastic
sheet, and turned swiftly to fire a traversing burst into the two
paratroopers behind him at point-blank range. The clattering thunder of
automatic fire was deafening in the walled garden, and the stream of
bullets slashed through the bellies of the two guards like a monstrous
cleaver, almost cutting them in half.
The waiter on David's left was a wizened monkeyfaced man, with bright
black berries for eyes. He, too, lifted a machine pistol from his
salver, and he crouched over it and fired a burst at the paratrooper by
the gate.
They were going for the guards, taking them out first.
The pistol shook and roared in his fists, and the bullets socked into
human flesh with a rubbery thumping sound.
The guard had cleared his Uzzi, and was trying to aim as a bullet hit
him in the mouth and snapped his head back, his paratrooper beret
spinning high into the air.
The machine-gun flew from his arms as he fell, and it slid across the
tiles towards David. David dropped flat below the stone steps of the
terrace as the Arab gunners turned their pistols on the wedding crowd,
hosing the courtyard with a triple stream of bullets, and unleashing a
hurricane of screams and shouts and desperate cries to join the roar of
the guns.
Across the yard, a security agent had the pistol out of his shoulder
holster and he dropped into the marksman crouch, holding the pistol with
both arms extended as he aimed. He fired twice and hit the monkey-faced
gunman, sending him reeling back against the wall, but he stayed on his
feet and returned the agent's fire with the machine pistol, knocking him
down and rolling him IJ across the paving stones.
The yard was filled with a panic-stricken mob, a struggling mass of
humanity, that screamed and fell and crawled and died beneath the flail
of the guns.
Two bullets caught Hannah in the chest, smashing her backwards over a
table of glasses and bottles that shattered about her. The bright blood
spurted from the wounds, drenching the front of her white wedding gown.
The centre gunman dropped his pistol as it emptied, and he stooped
quickly over the copper salver and came up with a grenade in each hand.
He hurled them into the struggling, screaming throng and the double
blast was devastating, twin bursts of brightest white flame and the
terrible sweep of shrapnel. The screams of the women rose louder,
seeming as deafening as the gunfire - and the gunman stooped once more
and his hands held another load of grenades.
All this had taken only seconds, but a fleeting moment of time to turn
festivity into shocking carnage and torn flesh.
David left the shelter of the stone steps. He rolled swiftly across the
flags towards the abandoned Uzzi, and he came up on his knees, holding
it at the hip. His paratrooper training made his actions automatic.
The wounded gunman saw him, and turned towards him, staggering slightly,
pushing himself weakly away from the wall. His one arm was shattered
and hung loosely in the tattered, blood-soaked sleeve of his jacket, but
he lifted the machine pistol and aimed at David.
David fired first, the bullets struck bursts of plaster from the wall
behind the Arab and David corrected his aim. The bullets drove the
gunman backwards, pinning him to the wall, while his body jumped and
shook and twitched. He slumped down leaving a glistening wet smear of
blood down the white plaster.
David swivelled the gun on to the Arab beside the kitchen door. He was
poised to throw his next grenade, right arm extended behind him, both