‘Sorry?’ I said.
‘Nothing,’ he replied, shaking his head and rousing himself. ‘But sometimes it is nice to be right.’
He said this, more to himself than anyone else, allowing a small smile to crease his features.
‘So what's your story, Mr CIA man?’ I asked, turning to the anonymous agent. ‘Have you got any questions for me?’
‘Oh don’t worry,’ he said. ‘You’ve given me all the answers I could possibly ever want to know,’ he added cryptically.
I looked at him quizzically, but he just shook his head. A small Mona Lisa smile briefly flitted across his lips. Enigmatic, isn’t that what they called it? I was just about to say something else, when my sixth sense kicked into overdrive. I caught the merest flash of movement beyond the window. I didn’t hesitate.
‘Down,’ I shouted, as the window came crashing inwards in a shower of glass and cordite.
Chapter 31 – Ambush
18th May 2011 – Eight days after the Storm.
Then ye shall rise up from the ambush, and seize upon the city: for the lord your God will deliver it into your hand. – Joshua 8:7.
‘Is everyone okay?’ I whispered into the intense silence, as the last shard fell to the ground with a tinkle.
They all nodded dazedly and I realised what was wrong. I could see them. I rolled sideways, grabbed the gun, turned onto my back, and shot out the light, all in one smooth fluid motion. I felt the gossamer pinpricks on my face, as the hot bulb fragments fell like snowflakes.
The dark was much more comforting.
I unscrewed the silencer, turned and fired two shots out through the open window. In the confined space of the small room, the bark of the reports was temporarily deafening.
‘That should give us a couple of minutes,’ I muttered softly.
I turned my attention to the front panel of the couch.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ whispered Roussel savagely.
I put a finger to my lips and then grabbed the panel with both hands. I jerked it towards me forcefully. There was a sharp popping sound, and then the panel dropped free, revealing the small storage cavity behind it. I grabbed two more pistols and associated clips.
The agent was in the process of retrieving his weapon from the easy chair, so I thrust the brace of newly liberated guns at Roussel.
‘Here,’ I whispered to him sharply. ‘Take one of these and give the other one to Foster.’
As Roussel worked, I continued whispering.
‘I presume everyone knows how to handle a gun?’ I asked, in a low stilted voice.
All I could hear in response were the abrupt metallic clicks, as clips were loaded and chambers were primed. I considered the professions of my erstwhile colleagues and allowed myself a small smile; silly question really.
I beckoned them all near, so that I could keep my voice down.
‘Roussel,’ I whispered. ‘Seeing as you came in via the lane and through the yard, you’ll have the most familiarity with the back of the house. Take Foster with you and cover the rear.’
‘You,’ I whispered, pointing at the agent. ‘You stay with me and we’ll cover the front.’
‘Hold on a second,’ whispered Roussel questioningly. ‘How do we know these aren’t police?’
I picked up a shard of glass from the shattered window and showed it to him.
‘Since when do the police shoot first and ask questions afterwards?’
His face contorted as he thought about it and then formed into a grimace of apology. I motioned them towards the kitchen and Roussel crawled out slowly, picking a route gingerly through the broken glass. Foster followed him on his hands and knees, equally carefully.
The door frame through to the kitchen was splintered, where some of the bullets had found their mark, but the equally damaged door still swung open noiselessly enough. I waited until they had both passed through, and what was left of the door closed behind them.
I strained my ears to catch the whispered shout.
‘In position!’
I gestured to the agent and we both sat back against the base of the couch. We were directly underneath the window sill, the one that faced the street. It was definitely the safest place in the house at that particular moment.
I glanced across at the CIA man. He blinked his eyes a couple of times in response. He’d heard it too; uncertain and forceful whispering, wafting through the damaged window. I strained my ears again, elongating the sense to its maximum reach. And then the shouted question, as the agent looked across at me in surprise.
‘Thomas?’
The name was loudly yelled, and I almost didn't recognise it. I still wasn’t tuned back in to the local dialect, and people had not called me Thomas in a long time.
‘Or should I call you Eugene?’ shouted the stranger. ‘Which is a pretty shit name, if you ask me? Are you shit, Thomas? Or shitting yourself maybe, like the snivelling little coward you are?’
I said nothing. I didn’t think he would be able to help himself and I was right.
‘We know you’re in there,’ he shouted. ‘And don’t think your little pop gun frightens us. We’ve got some serious weaponry out here.’
I flinched in surprise rather than fright, as another burst of automatic gunfire came through the shattered window. A wound magically appeared on the opposite wall. I watched with a detached disinterest, as the scar opened and spread, consuming everything in its path. A picture and a mirror disintegrated under the relentless assault.
I glanced across at the agent. His eyes were closed, but his face was relaxed. His grip on the gun was firm, but not tense. He had definitely been under fire before.
I wasn’t sure about Roussel and Foster. As long as they stayed low, they should be fine. Foster was an unknown quantity, but Roussel and guns would definitely not be strangers.
‘So what’s it to be, Thomas?’ shouted the mystery voice.
The agent opened his eyes and looked at me. I gestured for him to move to his side of the window frame. The walls of the house were a foot thick. Unless they had cannons, there was nothing coming through them. We slid around each side of the couch with our backs to the walls, and used our knees to slowly inch our way up, until we were both standing.
When I had redecorated the house, I had specified a heavy full length drape curtain. I was now seriously glad that I had. I motioned to the agent with my hand, trying to demonstrate what I was about to do, and then slipped between the drapes and the wall, relieved when I saw the agent doing the same. I crept as close to the outside edge of the frame as possible, trying to get a sense of what was happening outside, and how many assailants there were.
We were lucky in some ways, even though we were the ones purportedly trapped. Since I had shot the bulb out, we had the slimmest of advantages. We would be able to see out, but they would find it very difficult to see in. Unless we made any silly sudden moves, we would be able to keep our positions camouflaged and thus retain a slight superiority.
From my place of concealment, I positioned myself slowly and carefully, trying to manoeuvre the scene outside as far into my field of vision as I possibly could, without giving myself away. My eyes had long since adjusted to the gloom. I let them wander over the tableau, building up a slow and steady mental picture.
There were two high-sided panel vans parked on the other side of the road. I could make out the barrels of three machine guns. As I watched, two other men came briefly out of cover. One of them was signalling to another group of men further down the street. The signals were fairly easy to interpret, and if I was reading them right, four guys were being sent down the lane and around the back.
I made a sharp and loud psst! sound under my breath. The agent’s face slowly materialised from the gloom between the drape and the wall. I signalled with my hand below the level of the wall. Five men were out front and four were heading around the back. He silently confirmed that he’d understood.
‘What’s it to be Thomas, time’s running o
ut for you?’
I inched back behind the relative safety of the solid masonry.
‘Fuck you,’ I shouted. ‘You want me? Come and get me!’
I knew that he couldn't afford to wait much longer. The amount of gunfire had been too great. Knowing who they were, I would have taken bets that my neighbours on both sides were already jamming the local emergency switchboard. There were only so many car backfires you could rationalise away in a given night. No, his time was running out. He would have to try a full frontal assault. That’s when the balance of power would shift. I knew it and the agent knew it too. I inched back into my position of surveillance. It looked like the two men I’d glimpsed before were readying themselves for the charge.
We shrank back behind the walls again as the three machine guns laid down covering fire. The room literally exploded in a shower of wood chips, pottery fragments and plaster dust. I heard activity on the front step. They had made it that far at least.
‘Roussel; there are four coming around the back! Be careful.’ I shouted.
‘Roger,’ came back the muffled acknowledgement.
I threw myself across the room to lay prone in the opposite corner. The agent shrank further into his place of concealment, and there was a split second of unnatural silence.
The next thing, the door seemed to explode inwards. I could see the muzzle flashes and the next thing I saw was the toe of a boot, as someone kicked away the splintered remains of the door.
I saw the agent tense from his corner, and as the doorway filled with shadow, neither of us hesitated.
As if unconsciously connected, we started firing at exactly the same time, matching each other bullet for bullet, report for report, until the clips were exhausted. It was the first time I had emptied a full clip in anger.
The time for superstitions was over.
We waited a couple of seconds. The agent crawled over and knelt down next to where the bodies had fallen. He felt for a pulse on one then the other, shaking his head slightly twice; two dead, seven to go.
No sooner had silence descended, than the shooting started again, this time from the kitchen. We waited, more tense than we had been during our own action. It was over in about ten seconds.
‘Roussel?’ I whispered hopefully; expectantly.
‘Still here,’ he replied softly, and I could hear his voice cracking. ‘We’re coming back in.’
The two of them crawled back, keeping below the level of the window. They were covered head to toe in dust and debris. They appeared like war-painted warriors.
‘It was a turkey shoot,’ whispered Roussel, his plaster mask cracking with a smile.
‘As easy as shooting fish in a barrel,’ said Foster, but he was shaking a little.
‘Good job,’ I said.
‘One managed to crawl away, but he won't be making any more attacks.’
‘So, you can handle a gun.’
‘Me and Foster both,’ said Roussel.
‘I have shot a gun the odd time,’ acknowledged Foster with a fleeting smile.
He surreptitiously covered his gun hand with the other to stop it trembling.
The agent scrambled over to where we lay.
‘Sorry to butt-in on this NRA reunion, ladies,’ he said, ‘but there are still armed men outside this house who want to kill us, and I’d say they are seriously starting to get pissed right about now.’
As he spoke, there came a hesitant shout.
‘Boss, are you all right?’
When no one answered, he tried again.
‘Boss, are you in there?’
‘I’m afraid he can’t come out to play again, on account of his being dead,’ I shouted.
I heard a strangled cry, followed by a car door opening and slamming.
Then a shout rang out.
‘Jimmy, what the fuck are you doing? Not that, you fucking madman.’
I heard, rather than saw the object; the swish, as it sailed through the gaping hole where the window had been. The agent had seen it too; the unmistakable profile against the glow from the streetlights.
‘Grenade!’ he shouted.
Foster and Roussel were up and through the kitchen door like greyhounds. I was right behind them, smashing my way through the frame. I made a dive through the shattered remains of the back door, and landed heavily on the concrete tiles that lined the back yard.
Just before I hit the deck, I felt the ground swell of the explosion lift the air under my body, and then the garden became a seething mass of dust and debris.
As I hit the ground again and rolled away, the force of the explosion seemed to collapse the house in on itself. It appeared to shrink and fold inwards, before the sound of the detonation reinforced what my other senses were telling me.
It seemed to last for minutes, but in reality, it was over in seconds. There was no sound; not even the tweet of a bird. A dangerous calm descended on me; the white heat of anger.
‘Is everyone okay?’ I asked matter-of-factly, as I allowed the rage to course through my body.
‘As well as can be expected, given the circumstances,’ coughed Roussel.
‘Same here,’ said Foster, gently feeling himself for broken bones.
‘Has anyone seen the agent?’ I asked.
They shook their heads collectively.
‘I think he went the other way,’ said Roussel. ‘Towards the explosion....’
His voice trailed off.
‘Give me your gun,’ I said to Roussel.
He looked at me and then looked at the weapon, and then back to me again, before handing it over reluctantly.
‘You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you?’ he asked.
I stared at him for a second, but didn’t answer. I ejected the spent clips and loaded another two with venom. I walked into the ruined house, through the gap where the rear door had been. Continuing on into the sitting room, I noticed that the couch was completely and miraculously untouched. The centre of the house had taken the worst of the blast. There was no ceiling anymore, and I could see all the way to the sky.
I marched into the hallway and kicked the front door cleanly off its hinges. The crash as it hit the pavement startled the three men into silence. They had been laughing, joking and high-fiving only seconds earlier. One of them actually swallowed hard as he saw me.
‘That was my mother's house,’ I said, loudly and distinctly.
One of them tried to bring up the muzzle of his gun. A single shot took him down. As the other two tried to bring up their weapons, I fired with left and right hands, not stopping until both weapons clicked on empty chambers.
‘That was my mother’s house,’ I whispered to their prone bodies.
All those memories and ghosts destroyed, before I had a chance to face them. Somebody was going to pay dearly for this.
I walked back into the house and made a very brief search of the ground floor. There was no sign of the agent. Maybe a good thing; maybe he survived.
Foster and Roussel joined me in the ruins of the sitting room. I spotted what I wanted and pulled the holdall out from under some wreckage. I extracted the rest of the guns and ammunition from their place of concealment in the couch, zipped up the bag and threw it over my shoulder. I didn't wait to see if the guys were following me; to be honest I didn't really care.
At the spot where the three guys lay dead, I turned and glanced back at the ramshackle ruin. I was only vaguely aware of Foster and Roussel either side of me. When Roussel patted me on the shoulder, I looked at him.
‘That was my Mother’s house,’ I said, as if it would answer all his unspoken questions.
‘Come on,’ he said gently. ‘We need to get out of here.’
We rounded the corner briskly and onto the main road, just as the first squad car went tearing in, sirens wailing.
I waited until we had got about a kilometre away. We stopped and sat on a low stone wall to get our breath back. We had been moving fairly briskly.
‘Gun ple
ase,’ I said to Foster, holding out my hand.
He hesitated.
‘Have it your way,’ I said.
I took another gun from the bag and thrust it into the hand of a surprised Roussel. I dropped the bag of weapons on the floor in front of me and put my hands up theatrically.
‘You win, you got me. I’ll go quietly. I won’t cause any trouble.’
Foster studied me evenly for a minute or so.
‘And what if we don’t want that?’ he asked. ‘What's the alternative?’
‘How about we pool our resources; find out about this Storm. Find out who’s trying to kill us. Find out who blew up my mother's house and kill them all.’
Roussel and Foster exchanged a look. They seemed to come to a decision, and as one, wordlessly handed their weapons back. I smiled humourlessly; I wasn't feeling amused.
‘Let’s find out who these fuckers are?’
Chapter 32 – Rebellion
18th May 2011 – Eight days after the Storm.
Repression will provoke rebellion. – Hugh Williamson.
The sweat dripped down his nose and formed a large tear shaped bubble. Ordinarily, it would annoy him intensely, but when he was on the exercise bike, he didn't even notice it. When he was in the zone, nothing mattered.
Exercise was his leveller. It was his drug, his weapon of choice in the fight against stress and modern life.
He was acclimatised to the political bullshit at work; the constant schmoozing of colleagues and peers, knowing who to talk to and when to talk to them. So it always felt brilliant to expend the maximum effort on honest endeavour, a cleansing of the soul. It also gave him pause to think, to neatly order his thoughts for the coming day.
His thigh muscles and calf muscles begged for mercy, but his response to their inadequacy was to push them harder. Eighteen point six km; he wasn’t anywhere near finished yet.
He was working more intensely this morning; there was always a reason. He was annoyed and pissed off. He always pushed harder when he was irritated with himself; it was a punishment of sorts.
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