“Hi!” I said, smiling sweetly, as I kneed him in the groin as hard as I could.
He fell forwards, clutching his damaged goods. I caught the lantern, and allowed him to fall to the ground. His falling made tremendous noise, so I grabbed his MP5 and pistol, diving to the darkest spot under the stairs, turning the lantern out. At that moment, two men ran from the other room, weapons drawn. They saw their comrade lying clutching his gonads and making faint squeaking sounds. One ran to his aid, while the other looked into the room in which Jon had been held.
“He’s gone!” he shouted.
The man called Omar, I think he was the leader, came out and shouted for them to check the rooms. He then swore very proficiently in Arabic, sending four men outside to check the perimeter.
Having checked the room Jon had been in, the two men in the hall dragged their injured colleague towards their room, while Omar called another man out.
“Check the girl!” he said, turning and following the others back into their room.
This man had a torch in his left hand and an MP5 in his right. He put the gun down and fumbled with some keys, until the fifth actually opened the door. He shone the torch into the room, while groping with his hand for his carbine, which I now held.
“Looking for this?” I asked, ramming the butt down on his neck. As he collapsed, his face was frowning. I took the magazine out of his gun, ejecting the single round from the chamber and tossed the useless weapon half way up the rotting stairs.
I dashed into the room, keeping my Beretta on the door, as I released Carlene.
“Rebecca?” she asked, astonished.
“Shh, come on!”
“How?”
“Later, here, can you use this?” I asked, handing her the Beretta.
“No.”
“Okay, then if any shots are fired, just get down very low and behind something very thick, okay?”
Two men came round the corner, but they weren’t prepared, for I shot them as they attempted to raise their weapons. I dragged the fallen man nearest me, the one I’d hit with his own weapon, taking two grenades from his harness.
“Is he dead?”
“Not yet!”
There was some shouting from a point outside, so I pulled Carlene into the room where she’d been detained. Childishly, we hid behind the door.
A grenade rolled across the floor into the hall, exploding against the unconscious man.
“Now he is!” I said, peering through the cloud of debris and dust
Shots were fired and two of the enemy rolled across the opening, taking cover behind the stairwell. They fired a couple more shots into the doorway. Receiving no return fire, one man approached and shone a powerful flashlight into the gloom. I held my fire. I had the advantage, I knew where they were and how many; whereas they hadn’t a clue who or how many they were up against.
“It’s empty, she’s gone!” he shouted, at which point two other men appeared, weapons levelled and ready. The problem was; their colleague silhouetted them against his light, so I shot all three before they could even identify where I was.
“Six down, and I think only three to go. It hardly seems fair!” I said, urging Carlene from behind the door and through the hall.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“I don’t even know where the hell we are, so at the moment I just want to keep us alive!”
At that moment, I heard automatic fire outside.
“Shit, they’ve found Jon,” I said, my heart sinking.
I ran through the room in which the men had been. It was the kitchen, and the remains of some half-eaten dry rations lay on the table along with three lit hurricane lamps.
I reached the back door as some shots shattered the doorframe next to me, making me dive to the ground beside Carlene.
Another grenade rolled across the floor and bumped into my leg. Instinctively, I simply grabbed it and lobbed it through the nearest doorway. It exploded as I was diving back to the ground. I felt a fiercely hot and painful stab in my side as I landed.
However, the screams from where I’d thrown the grenade told me that I had at least wounded one more.
“Now what?” Carlene asked, her voice quivering with fear.
I checked the magazine on the MP5. “Now, we take the heat to them,” I said, taking a grenade and removing the pin. “Stay down!”
I threw it through the same doorway, and was on the ground when it went off. No screams this time, so that meant they were trying to get round behind me.
I wondered how many were left, and whether I had just got myself stuck. Hearing the scrunch of glass under a rubber sole, I stood up and, using the MP5, fired six pairs of shots through the various doors and windows I could see. The second from last pair rewarded me with a shriek of pain and a thud of something heavy falling.
“Now, we gotta go for it,” I said, and was about to help Carlene to her feet when I head the amplified voice.
“Police! Ne déplacez pas, a mis vos mains au-dessus de votre têtes!”
“What they say?” I asked, as Carlene burst into tears.
“It’s the police, they’re telling them to stand still and put their hands above their heads.”
“Okay, this is often the tricky bit. If they’re real, that’s fine, but if not, as a bluff, it’s a cool one. Besides, even the police tend to like something to shoot at. We wait!”
So, we waited.
It was the whirring of the helicopter that made me curious, so, leaving Carlene where she was, I ventured out and peered cautiously through the back door. There was a forest of blue flashing lights, both police and ambulances. Several inert forms on stretchers were being carried to the backs of the latter, while four men were being handcuffed under the eyes and guns of a very ready French Police firearms unit.
“Mademoiselle Carter, s’il vous plait, you may come out now!” said the tinny voice in accented English.
I returned to Carlene.
“Are you okay?” I asked, helping her to stand.
She gasped, pointing at my side. “You’ve been hit!”
I glanced down. A sliver of shrapnel must have nicked me. It wasn’t serious, but I was bleeding profusely.
I grinned, “Come on, let’s go home.”
“I think not, little lady!” said another voice, much too close.
Turning, in slow motion, so it seemed, I found myself looking down the barrel of a handgun being held by Omar. He wasn’t smiling. He was covered in debris from the last grenade, with small cuts all over his exposed flesh.
I knew there was no way out of this one.
Chapter Thirteen
I watched as his finger tightened, but the sound of the shot still surprised me, as I closed my eyes and flung myself backwards, full of regrets, but thankful for the short time I’d had as Rebecca.
I wondered why I didn’t feel pain as I lay on the ground. Maybe my spine had snapped, or maybe dying didn’t hurt, just living did. I opened my eyes to see Carlene looking down at me with another face next to her.
It was Howard, with his still-smoking handgun in his hand.
“That, my dear, was a very close thing!”
I sat up, with my ears still ringing, seeing the inert form of the man who was going to shoot me.
“Is he dead?”
“I fear so, as he wouldn’t find life much of a challenge any more. He’s missing most of what used to be between his ears,” said my boss, as he reached down to offer me a hand to stand.