Somehow, Michael had got behind her, and was pulling her from the room. With another loud hiss, she sent more foam into the room, this time at random. As Michael pulled harder on her arm, she swung the cylinder in her right hand, and threw it at where Robert had last been standing. How it landed she wasn’t able to tell. Within seconds, she and Michael were stumbling downstairs into the lighted areas of the house.
At first, this was as still and silent as they’d found it. But the noise made far above had been noticed, and, as they hurried down the main staircase, they came face to face with a bearded Arab. He lunged up at them, sword in hand. Michael swung his own sword, and, with a crunching of bone, got him across the face. The Arab fell back with a scream, and they stepped over his writhing body. By the time they’d reached the foot of the stairs, though, the main hall was filled with men, all shouting in a cacophony of Arabic and English. One of the Arabs lifted a rifle to his shoulder and took careful aim. Crying out in two languages, Jennifer tried to pull Michael down. But the gun jumped up as it was fired, and whatever came out of it missed by a mile.
Michael took hold of her, and, shouting in Greek, got her back to the main landing. This time, they took the right turn and hurried into a now brightly lit corridor that might have been the mirror image of the one they’d just passed through. There was another loud crash of gunshot behind them, and an exultant scream. Except a vase far ahead of them burst into a mist of fragments, the shooter might have saved his bullets. Jennifer thought for a moment she could hear someone shouting over and over in English—it might have been Radleigh. But Michael now pushed down on one of the door handles and got the pair of them into a grand bedroom. Jennifer pushed him away from the door once he’d closed it and turned the lock. She felt a momentary tremor of fear, then got a chair propped under the door handle.
Michael looked about the room. “Can you get the window open?” he asked with surprising calm. Jennifer nodded and tried not to make any noise as she raised the bottom sash.
He stripped the bed, and, paying no attention to the loud shouting outside in the corridor, used his sword to start ripping each of the sheets in two. Someone rattled the door handle. There was a loud thump as someone tried to knock in one of the heavy wood panels. Then Radleigh was there. “No shooting!” he roared. “I want neither of them harmed.” Regardless of what he said in English, someone outside let off a bullet that smashed a two inch hole through the topmost door panel. But the old man who spoke Arabic was now outside, and was passing on the instruction.
Jennifer looked at the sheets that Michael had quickly twisted about and tied together. She hurried over to the window and looked into the bright stillness far below. “We can’t go down that!” she whispered. There was a loud crash of men against the door, and shouting in many languages.
Michael put his head out and came back in, a scared look on his face. He thought for a moment, and picked up the end of his strip of twisted sheeting. “I suppose not,” he said with a return to the decisive. “But we can make it look as if we have. Tie this round that ring there that holds the curtains.” He hurried over to the bed and came back with some pillows that he threw down. He looked about. “Can you make that light go out for good?” She grabbed a bolster from the bed and swung at the light fitting. With a dull pop, its bulb went out at her second attempt. Before she could draw breath, Michael was pushing her under the bed. He was hardly beside her when there was an immense splintering of wood, and, in the light from the corridor, she could see the feet of a man who was shouting in Arabic.
Radleigh was second or third into the room. “No shooting!” he demanded. “One more shot, and it’s Ireland for all of you!” Just as urgently, someone repeated him in Latin, and what may have been the old man spoke in Arabic. Jennifer saw five pairs of feet gather by the window. Someone spoke in Arabic and laughed. The old man gave an order, and two pairs of feet hurried back to the door. She could just hear them padding along the corridor. There was more distant shouting.
“They can’t get far,” the old man quavered. “But who is the boy? What is he doing here?” In the silence that followed, Jennifer forced what control she could on her ragged breathing. This was lunacy, she could have told herself. But she knew that already—and it was suddenly as if she were reading about herself in one of those novels. It was a strange feeling, but came with a growing feeling of serenity that did now get her breathing under control.
She heard the click of a cigarette lighter. Two polished shoes moved slowly toward the door. She saw what was left of it pushed into the frame. “If you ask me, they haven’t gone far at all,” Radleigh laughed. There was the unmistakable smell of Lambert & Butler. “I knew that all those American films I used to enjoy would come in handy.” He turned towards someone who was wearing dirty trainers. “Tell that French oaf to give me his revolver,” he ordered.
Robert’s first answer was an obscenity. Then, after a whispered argument through the interpreter: “One hair of her head, and any deal you’ve made with us is off.” More whispering. Whatever Radleigh’s answer, she heard the rasp of gun metal on chain mail. “But wasn’t my Little Bear ferocious tonight?” Robert staggered slightly, and laughed. “That stuff she sprayed was like quicklime.”
“Go and open that wardrobe properly,” Radleigh muttered. The old man said something she couldn’t hear. “Must I always be surrounded by fools?” Radleigh snapped. She watched his feet move softly to the big wardrobe. She heard the whoosh of air as its door was pulled wide open. “So, if they aren’t in there,” Radleigh said with a quiet laugh, “There’s only one other place they could be.” He lowered his voice. “Tell the oaf to go and stand on the other side of the bed. Tell him to bend down when I raise my hand.”
For some reason, the interpreter put this as a command for Robert to take his gun back and leave the room. But Michael seemed to have understood. While Robert went for Radleigh, and he swore back, Michael swung quickly from under the bed and pulled Radleigh down. “No one moves, or I kill him,” he said in English.
Jennifer scrambled out, to see Michael with his sword at Radleigh’s throat. “Come, Jennifer!” he said evenly, hands stretched out before him. “Be a love and tell our nude young god to stop this silliness. There must be two dozen suicide bombers in this house. You’ll not get more than a few yards whichever way out you care to try.” Cigarette still between his lips, he allowed Michael to pull him to his feet. “I know who the boy is,” he said after a quick drag. He lifted his right hand slowly to take out the cigarette, and blew out a long stream of smoke. He smiled. “Do tell him that neither of you will be harmed if he puts the sword down. You can add my assurance to the oaf’s demand. You don’t know the half of what’s going on. Your father didn’t know.” Jennifer’s tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Radleigh laughed. “Look, do get him to use his common sense and put the sword down. We can then have a civilised discussion over a late supper.”
Jennifer’s answer was to make for the revolver that had fallen unregarded to the floor in the struggle between him and Robert. Even as she moved, though, she could see Radleigh reach quickly down and stub out his cigarette in Michael’s side. Michael gave a sudden yelp, and let his right arm go limp for a moment. She didn’t see how on earth Radleigh managed to get free without a scratch. But he did nearly beat her to the gun.
Nearly! That wasn’t good enough. With a shout of rage, Michael pulled him back by the collar, and Jennifer had the gun between two shaking hands. “Get back against that wall!” she shouted—“all of you!” She repeated herself in Latin, and pointed the gun at Robert when he didn’t stop his increasingly ludicrous cries of endearment.