by Mark Dawson
He found the junction box without too much difficulty. He had already located the cable that connected the house to the grid, and it was a simple enough matter to follow it as it traced a path between the join of the ceiling and the wall. The wire disappeared into the kitchen’s large walk-in larder and terminated at the back of the larder in a junction box. It had a simple plastic hinged cover, and when Milton pushed the cover back, he saw all of the switches. The master switch was red and at the end of the line; Milton pulled it and all of the lights were immediately extinguished.
There was a door at the end of the kitchen, and Milton pressed himself against the wall to compose himself. The flames were close, the heat singeing his clothes. There was a tremendous crash as a fresh span of the ceiling, already weakened, was dislodged by the fire that had rushed across it. Flaming plasterboard slammed onto the floor.
Milton had to move. Fabian was in the house. Olivia might be. He wanted them both.
He took the Sig from its holster and glanced around the edge of the open doorway into the hall beyond.
He saw a man with his back to him who was toting a handgun. Milton drew a bead on him, stepped out of the doorway, braced his gun in a tight two-handed grip with his left hand canted toward the ground, and fired twice. It would have been impossible to miss from close range, but he put both shots into the man’s torso to be sure. The man stumbled forward and then fell to his knees. Milton approached, his gun up, the fire roaring at his back. The man buckled, propping himself up with his right arm. He turned. Milton doubted that the fallen man would be able to recognise him, silhouetted as he was against the brightness of the conflagration, but Milton could see him.
It was the detective.
Bruce’s pistol was in his right hand, pressed to the floor. He tried to pull his hand up to aim it, but the attempt merely overbalanced him and he collapsed onto his stomach. He dropped the pistol. Milton stepped up to him, kicked away the pistol, and rolled the older man onto his back. He lowered himself to a crouch and pressed the barrel of the Sig against Bruce’s temple.
“Where’s the girl?”
“What?”
“The journalist. She’s here somewhere. Where?”
Bruce tried to speak, but, when he opened his mouth, his words were so quiet that they were inaudible amid the din.
“Say it again,” Milton pressed, leaning down a little closer.
Bruce gasped, unable to speak. Instead, his eyes flicked up to the stairs and the first floor.
“She’s up there?”
Bruce nodded.
“Fabian?”
Bruce’s eyes flicked up to the stairs again.
Milton stood. The policeman was done for. Both shots had taken him in the gut, and he would bleed out unless he received treatment. There came another huge crash as a beam from the kitchen ceiling worked loose and slammed down onto the floor. Flames burst out, as if blown into the hall on a vicious wind, and the paint on the walls started to blister. The house was finished now. It was going to burn to the ground. Milton had neither the time nor the inclination to help the policeman, and neither was it his responsibility; the man had brought it upon himself. But he had given him a tiny amount of help, and he would recognise that.
He aimed down with the Sig and fired one more time. A mercy shot.
“Status?”
Milton recognised the voice of Richard Higgins across the troop net.
“Status?”
“Milton was wrong.” It was one of the unit. His voice was ragged; he sounded out of breath.
“What?”
“He was either wrong or he was lying. It’s a trap. Fabian was waiting for us.”
“What’s happening?”
“Gillan is hit.”
“Can you exfil him?”
“Negative. He’s dead.”
“Pull back.”
“Negative. I’m pinned down. There’s too many of them.”
Movement from the stairs. Someone was coming down. There was a door opposite him. Milton pushed it open and, his Sig raised before him, hurried inside.
Chapter Sixty
SPENCER FABIAN COUGHED. The kitchen was on fire, and clouds of smoke were billowing out into the rest of the house. The corridor was dark without the lights, but the fire was throwing out enough of an orange-red glow that he could see his way. He held the pistol up ahead of him, working to keep his hand from shaking, and made his way forward step by step. He reached the end of the corridor and turned to look into the kitchen. A wall of radiant heat slammed into him. The ceiling was burning and, as he watched, a huge chunk of singed and smoking plasterboard was dislodged. It crashed down to the tiled floor, landing across the body of a man who had been lying there. He glanced down and saw that it was Bruce. His shirt was red with blood and there was a neat hole in the centre of his forehead, right between the eyes.
Spencer looked up to the end of the corridor. A run of flames rushed ahead, pouring out of the kitchen as if they were alive. They spread out, quickly multiplying until they covered the walls and the ceiling and the furniture, and then they started to advance.
Spencer felt a twist in his gut, the sensation that he was not alone. He turned, the gun held up before him, but he never had the chance to use it. A dark shadow separated from the smoke and slammed into him. The impact was sudden, launching him against the wall, driving the breath from his lungs. He felt a strong hand grasp his right wrist and was helpless as his hand was pushed up and away, impotent as the pistol was prised out of his fingers. His assailant was behind him now. Whoever it was had one arm across his throat and the other clasped at a right angle to it, pressed up vertically against his head. Spencer felt the pressure increase and suddenly found that it was almost impossible to draw breath. He gasped, taking in as much smoke as air, but then the pressure was ratcheted up again and he couldn’t breathe at all.
He felt his eyes bulging. He struggled, but the man behind him was much too strong. He tried to breathe, but he could not. Darkness gathered at the edges of his sight.
He felt something touch against his ear and then he heard a soft voice over the roar of the flames.
“This is for your brother.”
#
HICKS HAD ADVANCED to an excellent vantage point. He was at the southern edge of the lake, with the wide expanse of the water ahead of him, which meant that he had nothing between him and the house. There was a muddy slope half a metre away, a sharp gradient that ran down to the water. The conflagration rendered his night-vision sight almost redundant. His main problem had been the glare from the security lights that blazed out over the water, but Milton had extinguished them when he cut the main power supply. Now, he had more than enough indirect light to pinpoint his targets and nothing to distract his aim.
“What’s happening?”
“Gillan is hit.”
Hicks had taken out three of Fabian’s guards. He had been presented with several opportunities to take down other men, but he had passed up those shots. He didn’t want to make things easy for Woodward and the others. He wanted them to struggle. Milton would be compromised if either the attackers or the defenders found success too soon. Deadlock was to be encouraged, so Hicks had waited and observed.
“Can you exfil him?”
“He’s dead. Shot to the head.”
“Negative. He’s dead.”
“Pull back.”
“Negative. I’m pinned down. There’s too many of them.”
Hicks pressed the sight to his right eye and slipped his index finger through the trigger guard until it was against the trigger. He squeezed, just a little, feeling the tension in the mechanism.
Woodward’s voice was fraught with tension. “Hicks—do you copy?”
“I see you.”
Woodward was sheltering behind the wall of one of the cottages. The cottage was between him and the main house, the cover protecting him from the guards that were hunkered down behind the parked cars. Hicks placed Woodward squarely within
the targeting reticule. He breathed in and out, nice and even, and then drew in a breath and held it.
He started to squeeze the trigger, slowly applying pressure and drawing it back.
#
THE FIRE had taken hold of the house with alarming speed. The heat blistered the paint on the corridor walls and, as Milton laid Spencer Fabian’s body on the floor, small patches of flame bloomed ahead of him.
He stepped back into the hallway and heard the voice of one of Higgins’s soldiers in his ear.
“Hicks—do you copy?”
Hicks responded, “I see you.”
The other man’s finger must have been on the switch to open the channel. Milton heard the single report of the sniper rifle, a groan of pain and then, as the finger came off the switch, the channel was closed.
“Woodward?” It was the general. “Woodward, report.”
There was no answer.
“Hicks? What’s happening?”
Hicks did not respond. Milton reached down to his belt and switched the dial to channel twelve.
“Hicks, it’s me.”
“Where are you?”
“Inside. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“How many left?”
“Gillan and Woodward are down.”
“Fabian’s men?”
“I can still see six. They’re all in cover. I think there are others.”
Milton heard a clatter of gunfire; it sounded close to Hicks.
“Hicks?”
“I’m okay. They got Connolly. There’s only Shepherd left.”
“Pull back.”
“What about you?”
“Don’t worry about me,” Milton said. “Go and get Higgins.”
“How are you going to get out?”
“Leave that to me. Go.”
“Copy that. Good luck.”
Chapter Sixty-One
MILTON CLIMBED the wide stairs to the first floor. There was one flight, then a half landing, then a second flight. He stayed low, beneath the level of the balustrade, and paused halfway to observe and listen. The fire was everywhere on the ground floor, with smoke pouring from all of the rooms. Milton had anticipated that it would be easy to set the kitchen thatch alight, but he was surprised by how quickly the blaze had spread. The noise was thunderous, punctuated every now and again with the popping of burst windows and the thudding impacts of beams and rafters that were sent crashing to the ground.
He edged around the corner formed by the banister and the balustrade, saw that the next landing was clear, and ascended the stairs quickly.
The landing was generous, with hallways leading into it from two directions.
He took the turning to the left.
There were doors off the corridor on both sides. He remembered the plan of the house. There was a large family bathroom off this corridor and four bedrooms.
Milton would have to clear the rooms one at a time until he found either Olivia or Fabian.
He moved quickly and carefully. He held the Sig with his right hand, pressed himself against the wall and reached for the door handle with his left. He turned the handle and pushed the door open. Nothing. He concentrated, listening for any sound from inside the room. Still nothing. He took his flashlight in his left hand, switched it on and held it against the Sig, and then stepped quickly out from behind the wall. With the gun and the torch aimed into the darkness, he swung the beam of light across the room beyond the door. He moved from left to right, his finger on the trigger and ready to fire.
The room was empty.
He went back to the corridor and tried the next door.
#
FRANKIE FABIAN HEARD yet more gunfire and then a tremendous crash as a part of the house collapsed. Both he and Marcus had taken a risk by going to the window a minute earlier, and they had seen the flames that reached up into the darkness, the fire gorging on the roof of the kitchen. The crash must have been the skeleton of the roof collapsing.
“We can’t stay here,” Frankie said. “We’ve got to get out.”
“How? It’s a war zone out there.”
“There’s the Land Rover out the back. We could drive to the north gate.”
Frankie had been thinking about it. It was the only way out he had been able to come up with. The activity seemed to be centred on the front of the house. His guards were there, and they would make it difficult to get around to the back. It would be dangerous to go outside, but it might be more perilous to stay. They had an old Land Rover, battered but still reliable, parked in the barn at the rear of the house. If they could get to it, they could drive to the north gate, get through it and onto the road beyond. There was something to the idea. At least they would be doing something, anything, rather than waiting here for Milton and whoever it was outside to find them.
“All right,” Marcus said. “Better than staying here. We get Spencer and go.” He took his shotgun.
“Give that to me,” Frankie said, exchanging his pistol for the long gun.
Marcus stood beside the door. Frankie stood before it, the shotgun pointed ahead as Marcus turned the handle and opened it.
“Clear,” he said.
Marcus stepped out into the corridor, pausing to check to the left and right. He glanced back into the room. “Clear. Come on.”
The sound of the conflagration was louder out here, and Fabian could feel the prickle of the smoke against the back of his throat.
“What about the girl?” Marcus said. “We can’t leave her.”
“No,” Frankie agreed. Marcus was right. They couldn’t. “We’ll sort her first.”
#
MILTON OPENED the fourth door.
He heard something and raised the Sig.
“Help.”
The voice was low and quiet. Female.
“Olivia?”
“Help!”
“It’s John Smith. Are you alone?”
“Yes. Please—help me.”
Milton flicked the switch of the flashlight and the narrow beam played down onto the floor. He brought it up and aimed it in the direction of the voice. He saw Olivia Dewey. She was sitting on a four-poster bed, her hands behind her back. Milton crossed the room and put the flashlight on a bedside table so that the beam bloomed against the wall, leaving him enough light to address the length of rope that had been knotted around her wrists, the other end secured to one of the bed’s columns.
He pulled the balaclava off his head so that she could see his face. “Hold on,” he said.
He took the knife from his belt and sliced through the knot that held her wrists together. The knot came apart, Milton tugging at it until Olivia’s hands were released.
“We need to get out of here,” Milton said. “Do you understand?”
She stared up at him, her eyes blank. Her mouth opened and closed soundlessly. Milton diagnosed shock.
“Olivia,” he said, “the house is on fire. We need to leave.”
She nodded.
Milton told her to stay on the bed and, the Sig in his hand again, he went back to the door. He opened it a fraction and heard the sound of the blaze. He saw the angry colour of the fire from the end of the corridor, the fingers of smoke reaching up from below. The flames had spread with frightening speed. The house, with all the old wood, was one big tinderbox.
He thought about Frankie and gritted his teeth in frustration. He couldn’t leave Olivia here and he couldn’t take her with him. She would impede him, and it would be dangerous. And they didn’t have time. The house was burning down. They needed to move fast.
“Come on,” he said, pulling on his pack again. He reached out, took her hand, and drew her after him into the corridor.
Chapter Sixty-Two
HICKS WATCHED THE SHOT GO. Woodward had been fifty metres away from him, crouched in a static position and presenting himself in profile. He made for an easy target. The bullet took but a heartbeat to cross the distance that separated them, and Hicks watched as Woodward
’s head snapped to the side, bouncing back up from his left shoulder even as his body went limp and collapsed. Woodward lay flat, still and unmoving.
Hicks had his rifle in his right hand and pushed down with his left until he was on his knees. He thought he heard something and, turning in the direction of the sound, he saw a flash of motion as a dark shadow passed across the gathering flame and rushed at him. He was knocked onto his back, and as he twisted his head so that he could look up, he saw the grim flash of a blade as it was thrust toward his chest. He threw up his left hand and reached for the knife. His palm was cut open as the edge of the blade sliced into the flesh. Hicks blocked the pain and pushed, closing his hand around the wrist of the man who was now kneeling astride him, feeling the warmth of his own blood as he tried to secure his grip. Warm gobbets dropped onto his face, into his eyes, his mouth. The blood was slick, and he found it difficult to maintain a firm grip. The man atop him leaned forward to exert more pressure and, as he did, he revealed his face.
Higgins.
The general’s mouth was twisted into a grimace of effort as he pressed down. The flames cast his features in a diabolical light, little pinpricks of fire that danced in his black eyes. Higgins had the benefit of leverage and Hicks’s left was not his strongest hand. He dropped the rifle and tried to punch up at the general with his right. Higgins managed to get his knee across Hicks’s right arm, pinning it, and then pressed down harder. The blade jerked lower and lower, the point wavering just inches from his face, switching in and out of focus as Hicks fought.
