A Killing Air

by Nigel Price

  Reluctantly Harry slid the pistol back into his pocket. “All right. But the slightest sign of trouble and get back here,” he said. “Straight back. Run. Is that clear?”

  Herbert nodded. “And keep that gun out of sight. It might antagonise them.”

  “It’ll do more than that if they don’t back off.”

  With a wave that was almost cheery, Herbert set off in the direction of the advancing villagers. His brave figure retreated from the grove, heading up the muddy slope, each trudging step cloyed with earth. His shoes were ruined, his coat a water-logged sponge of rain, his hair matted against his narrow skull. For a second Harry watched him go, then turned quickly to gauge their position.

  The trees around them were sparse. There was nowhere they could set their backs if it came to a fight. He feared that Herbert was right. It would be more of a last stand. Hopeless, as last stands tended to be.

  Lisa stood to one side, staring hard in the direction of the villagers. Herbert was closing on them. He raised a hand in greeting. Harry was struck by the image of starry-eyed missionary encountering cannibals. I come in peace. Take me to your leader. He very much feared the cannibals had an appetite for more than Herbert’s sermon.

  “What are you looking for?” Lisa snapped, irritable. She was at the end of her tether. The shock of finding the body had dimmed. This fresh injection of terror was pushing her to breaking point.

  “A Plan B,” Harry said.

  She muttered something, returning to her scrutiny of the encounter up on the hillside. Harry glanced at it too. Herbert had stopped. He was holding up both arms, showing he was unarmed. One of the men had taken a step towards him. The other villagers had edged around the flanks, forming a semi-circle around Herbert. They stopped, allowing the single man to do the talking. To Harry’s relief the man had first handed his long-handled rake to his neighbour. It was difficult to tell from this range, but Harry thought he could see teeth. Smiling. That was good, wasn’t it?

  Behind the grove where the smaller clearing with the girl’s shallow grave lay, Harry remembered spotting footprints in the mud. It was not a single marking, but looked more like a track that had been in regular use. The clearing with the children’s graves on the other hand, seemed contained by a ring of trees. A dead end. Thick scrub was visible beyond the tree-line. Difficult to pass through.

  “Wait here,” he said to Lisa. She ignored him. Her whole attention was on the two men on the hillside. The exchange was impossible to hear but it looked calm.

  Harry went quickly through the trees towards the shallow grave. Trying not to look at the partly exposed body of the girl, he found the footprints and followed them. The ground quickly started to fall away. Within thirty yards the incline became steep, dropping into further trees below. Water ran down it, cascading in places to form miniature waterfalls. He slipped and lost his footing. A grab at the thin trunk of a sapling saved him.Okay. A way out perhaps. It was hard to tell though. Where would it lead? Simply down to more of the same? But at least it was a route out of the glade and away from the village.

  He hauled himself back up the slope, his feet losing grip at every step. For every two forward, he slid back one. He reached the grave clearing again. Crossed it. Went quickly through the trees.

  “How’s things with Herbert?”

  Lisa was shielding her eyes with her hands, squinting into the rain. She turned quickly and flashed a nervous smile. “It’s looking good. They’re laughing!”

  “Bloody hell, what’s Herbert saying?” Harry asked.

  “I think it’s going to be all right,” Lisa said, looking back at the hillside encounter.

  As they watched, they saw Herbert turn towards them. They could just make out a big grin on his face. He raised an arm and waved at them. Then again.

  “I think he wants us to join him,” Lisa said uncertainly.

  As if to confirm it, Herbert raised his arm again and waved. Still smiling broadly, he shouted. The wind was in their faces. It brought his call with it. Slammed it into their gaping stares.

  “Run!”

  Twenty Seven

  Harry didn’t see the knife until Herbert toppled forward. He went headlong into the mud. Behind him stood the man with whom he had been negotiating. In his fist, the knife he had kept out of sight in his jacket. Light caught at the tiny blade, enlivening it. The small flash of steel against the hillside was like the first star in a dark night sky. On the ground Herbert raised his head and shoulders. His attacker was onto him. A single thrust between the shoulder blades finished the job. Herbert’s face slumped forward.

  Lisa was silent. No scream. Nothing. Just that stare. She might have been dead herself. The pistol was in Harry’s fist. His thumb pressed off the safety. He steadied into a two-handed grip, taking aim. Cold hatred filled him. At the end of the tiny iron blade sight on top of the weapon, the figure of Herbert’s murderer stood full before him.

  It was too far. The effective range of a pistol like this was fifty metres at best. From experience Harry knew it was more like thirty. Beyond that the shot would be wasted. And in this wind? Pointless.

  “Shoot him,” Lisa shouted, finding her voice. Then as a scream. “Shoot him!”

  “Too far,” Harry snapped, lowering the gun, still in the two-handed grip.

  She snatched at the weapon. Harry wrestled her for it. “Give it to me,” she snarled, lashing at his face with her nails. Harry took a step back. She came on, going for the gun again. He slapped her across the cheek with his open hand. She froze.

  “Lisa,” he said. She stared right through him, shock petrifying her to stone. “Lisa!” he shouted in her face.

  Slowly her eyes found his. They struggled for focus, for understanding. Her brow furrowed with the effort. Her lower lip trembled, unable to form words. Harry took her firmly by the elbow and led her towards the trees and the path leading to the shallow grave of the dead girl. Lisa stopped dead when she saw where they were going. She shook her head firmly. In her mind, Harry reckoned she could see herself alongside the corpse. She tugged away from him, yanking her arm free.

  “Come on!” he shouted. “We have to get away.”

  It was too late. Herbert’s murder had been the sign. As his lifeless body toppled into the mud after the second blade thrust, the villagers put up a single cry and ran headlong down the hillside towards the glade. Harry looked up when the shout reached his ears. There was probably a score of them. Farmers, mostly young, but with a leavening of older men. The youths moved out in front, hurtling towards the two outsiders. Now that Herbert had been murdered, Harry realised the villagers would have to finish the job. He and Lisa were as good as dead.

  He pushed her back towards the nearest of the trees. A row of thin saplings met their backs and he braced himself against them, Lisa to one side. He tried to tuck her behind the thin screen. She seemed in a trance. Unlike before, she let him move her like a rag doll.

  As the first of the youths closed on the far side of the glade, Harry brought the pistol into the aim. He was spoilt for choice. How many rounds did the magazine hold? He thought it was seven but couldn’t be certain. One had been fired at the car long, long ago. So six left. He longed for a good old Browning with its thirteen-round mag. That would have given him a fighting chance. Or its replacement as the standard British side arm, the Glock with its magazine of seventeen rounds. Now that would really have been …

  His mind was running away with itself. Thought processes accelerated as his body prepared itself for action. It was always the same with combat. You either froze or the brain went into overdrive, speeding up. Ready to take on multiple incomers.

  His body was rock solid, feet planted apart, knees flexed, arms braced, the small gun in a two-handed grip. He was aiming for the centre of the line the men had formed. His eyes swept their ranks. They were loosely spread in front of him, watching for his weakness. His moment of distraction. Three of them were the boldest of the bunch. They edged a pace in front of the
others. Each hefted a long-handled implement of one kind or another. They held them like pikes, business end pointing at the westerner and the girl.

  They spoke to each other softly. Eyes fixed on Harry. In Harry’s head the tiny unobtrusive thought popped up and waved at him. You’re going to die. He stuffed it back in its box. Fuck off.

  Harry slammed a step forward. He screamed. In the gym it would have been a kiai. It came from his gut. His will. His spirit. Come on you fuckers. Let’s be having you. Who’s first for a bullet?

  “Come on you fuckers? Let’s be having you. Who’s first for a bullet?” In the flesh it didn’t sound quite so impressive. A bit thin. Diluted by the wretched bloody wind.

  The men stared blankly at him. But the three in front had flinched. There was surprise that the westerner wasn’t frightened. That’s not how it should have been. By now the older men had closed up behind them. They seemed less certain about what was going on. Harry could see fear in their eyes. All of them were taking careful note of the gun in his fists.

  In his best Chinese, he called out to them. “If you come on, some of you will die. Which of you want to die?” He thought he had translated it correctly. Their puzzled stares made him wonder. To make his point, he aimed very deliberately first at one of the closest youths, fixing him with an eye-to-eye stare. “You?”

  Then he tried one of the older men, one who looked particularly doubtful. “What about you, Grandpa? Are you ready to go?” The man took a full step backwards. It was working. He longed to fire a shot over their heads. Or even to take down the meanest looking bastard facing him, a big sod with a rake. A shot in the thigh would do the job nicely.

  He couldn’t spare the bullet. And it could take things the other way. It might ignite them with rage. Then they’d rush him as a single body. And he and Lisa would be finished. It would all be over in a minute or so. He wouldn’t risk that.

  The stand-off was holding. Maybe, if he could just …

  There was a commotion at the back of the line. Heads turned. Harry peered between their ranks. It was the old man. The one who had fired at Herbert’s car. He was gabbling something to them. Harry strained to hear. The bloody wind …

  He turned his head side-on, jinking until he caught some words. “Go on.” “What are you waiting for?” There was more, but that was the nub. It was easy for the old bastard, hanging back behind the screen of cannon fodder. Harry took aim. Take out the leader and the rest would back off.

  The old man was staring at him. Looking right into the barrel of the gun Harry had taken off him. There was a smile on his face. He lifted his arms to present a broader target.

  “Shoot,” he called. His smile turned nasty and he barked something at the others.

  Harry felt Lisa move at his side. A glance at her showed her face alive again. She was back, but her expression was as fateful as before. “He says the gun has no more bullets in it.”

  The sentence entered Harry’s brain like botox, stiffening it solid.

  Was it possible? Of course it bloody was. He hadn’t checked the magazine. There hadn’t been time. Everything had happened so quickly.

  Of course there had been time. His inner sergeant major was merciless. He had been alone with the women and the old man, guarding them. Ample time to go through the standard drill. Would have taken only seconds. Slip out the mag. Cock to eject the round in the chamber. Check all clear. No stoppages. Count the rounds. Then reload. Knowing how many sodding rounds there were in the sodding magazine. You slovenly officer. Sir. The scathing disdain of those words came back to him from a thousand years before. The humiliation on the training grounds of Sandhurst.

  Had it served any purpose he would have punched himself repeatedly in the face. That would teach him.

  Concentrate Harry.

  Would the youths believe the old bugger? One of them smirked and took a step forward. Harry thought he was the one who had killed Herbert. He aimed straight at him, centre chest. He wanted nothing more than to kill the bastard. He could see the struggle in the man’s brain. Gun loaded or not? One of his mates goaded him on. The youth took another step. Confident, he lifted his chin. He knew the old man had been telling the truth. Harry could see the new strength coursing through the youth like raw alcohol. He took another step. Harry dropped his aim to the youth’s thigh and pulled the trigger.

  The gun fired.

  There was the snap retort of the shot, amplified in the glade. Followed a second later by a scream from the youth. He collapsed on the ground rolling in a heap. His rake fell aside as both hands clutched at the wound where blood was pumping from between his fingers. For a moment Harry feared he’d hit the femoral artery. Though it would be satisfying to see justice done, he realised it wouldn’t serve any purpose for the youth to bleed to death in front of him. Then he saw that the flow was being stemmed. And the blood was the wrong colour.

  Harry sought out the old man. He found him still at the back, gaping at the weapon. Mouth open. Harry pointed the weapon at him. Do you want some?

  Some of the villagers were muttering angrily, directing it more at the old man rather than at Harry. In answer the old man spat out a sentence. His eyes bored into Harry, furious.

  “What’s he saying?”

  Lisa shook her head. It wasn’t her dialect. “I think he says … ‘Maybe the gun had two rounds.’” Harry almost burst out laughing. He would have done so had they not been in danger of being torn apart by a mob.

  He felt Lisa’s hands going through his pockets. Fine time to be nicking his wallet. “What do you want?” She didn’t reply.

  More of the villagers were berating the old man. One of the youth’s friends had stepped to his side to help him. With the gunshot wound as an example, none of them seemed up to the challenge of a second go at the cornered westerner.

  The old man felt the sting of the comments levelled at him by his fellow villagers. He barged his way through their centre heading straight for Harry. Bring it on, you old bastard. An image of the half-buried girl swam into Harry’s head. And Herbert’s words. She was buried alive. Harry aimed dead centre chest and pulled the trigger again.

  The firing pin clicked on an empty chamber.

  The old man stopped dead. Stared into the muzzle of the pistol. A slow smirk spread across his face. Harry went into action. Standard drill. Cocked the gun, tipping it onto its side to look. Checked the chamber. Empty. No rounds in the mag. Sod it. Standard drill. Just a bit late, that’s all.

  The old man opened his mouth to cry out. A rallying cry. A battle cry for attack.

  Before the words could escape him, Harry strode forward and punched him in the mouth.

  Twenty Eight

  Harry’s fist had barely separated from the old man’s bleeding face before he was set upon by the enraged mob. They closed about him, stabbing and slashing with their weapons and fists. Harry lashed out on all sides, trying his best to stay on his feet. He felt the stab and blow of farm implements raining down. It would only be a second before one of them punctured the skin and went in deep. And then it would be over. His fists made contact with flesh and bone, no longer neat, well-placed blows, but the laying-about him of a man fighting for his life.

  In the muddle fussing in his head were images. Among them, his earlier impression of the approaching villagers as spartoi, the warriors sprung from sown dragon’s teeth. It popped irreverently into his mind, misting his approach to death.

  Myths, Harry. They encapsulate universal truths. Elements from the Unconscious clothed in the stuff of tales.

  He gripped his mind tight to shut out the chatter.

  How did Jason overcome the spartoi?

  Then the villagers were bowing before him. First one or two, then in great clods. No. Not bowing. Scrabbling at the ruined ground, fingers at work in the churned mud. Others were jumping in the air, weapons flung aside, hands snatching at the wind. They were fighting each other too. Harry was forgotten. Punches were being swapped. Kicks and screams. The vill
age had gone mad.

  Harry stared about him thunderstruck. His hands were still tight fists, now unemployed. Slowly he lowered them. What the …?

  A blown leaf stuck to his face. He swatted it away. Clammy with rain it plastered itself across his mouth. He spat it aside. Not a leaf. A bank note. The air was full of them. All denominations. Yuan. Then a cascade of loose coins. He turned round. Standing by the saplings Lisa hunted through his emptied wallet, tracking down the last of its contents. She looked up. Her face was screwed with concentration.

  “Get out of there!” she screamed.

  He didn’t need to be told. He was already carving his way through the grovelling bodies. He saw the old man on his knees going after a one hundred note being scuttled away by the wind. As he passed him Harry booted him in the ribs as hard as he could.

  He reached Lisa, snatched her hand and together they shot down the path towards the shallow grave of the murdered girl.

  “My wallet,” he said, “How did you know?” A treasure had been tossed into the middle of the spartoi, turning them upon each other in the race to grab it.

  “Know what?”

  “About … never mind.”

  She thrust the gutted wallet at him. “Your driving licence and credit cards are still there.”

  “Wouldn’t they take American Express?” he said, stuffing it in his jacket. “Come on.” They both knew they had only seconds before the orgy of greed abated and a cold, killer sense took hold of the villagers again.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “I think there might be a way out.” He realised that while he had located a track that led down the wooded hillside, he had no idea what lay at the bottom of it. They would still be in the middle of the wilderness and a long way from safety. But at least they would be out of immediate danger. That would give Harry time to think.

  He found the track and thrust Lisa in front of him, launching himself down the wet slope behind her. Saplings and wet branches slapped at him. Lisa was passing herself down the slope from hand-hold to hand-hold, snatching at low-hanging boughs. Each time she released one it sprang back into Harry’s face. He could barely see where he was going. He went down on his knees twice but was up in a second, slithering and sliding ever downwards.