Blackout (36 page)

But one gun is all you need.'So long as it has the right finger on its trigger.

He toyed with the pistol, lining it up to his eye and making sure that its aim was true. He had twenty rounds of ammunition, and he didn't want to waste any of them on practice shots. The Wildey was a gun he knew almost

310

nothing about: he'd seen Charles Bronson use one in Death Wish 3 but that was the only time he'd encountered it. Still, if it was good enough for Charlie, then it's good enough for me.

Experience had taught Josh that every gun was like a woman: unique, temperamental, and to be handled with care. They fired a fraction to the left or to the right, they had to be held up or down, and their triggers liked to be

, squeezed hard or gently. If you didn't know their winsome

I* little ways you didn't stand a chance.

) I've got a few hours to get to know your character,

I thought Josh as he examined the Wildey. And my life may

J depend on it.

5 So for the next twenty minutes, Josh stripped the Wildey

down, checking that every part of the gun was working just as it should be.

A quarter-moon was hanging in the sky. Josh was sitting just outside the smelter, on what might once have been a kerb but was now just a broken piece of rock. He glanced along the empty street, and for a moment he could see it as it must once have been, filled with people, horses, noise, dirt and life. To watch it all winding down, he reflected to himself. That must have been hard. To have seen the families quit one by one, and then to be the last person left, alone.

Time to go home, thought Josh. Time to see my girl again.Time to hold her in my arms, take her to McDonald's, pick her up from school, take her to the cinema, build her a swing in the garden. Do all the things that a dad is meant to do. But it's a long and nasty twenty-four hours from here to there.

Even if I survive tomorrow, the bloody system will still want to arrest me. No, Josh told himself firmly. I'll bloody fight them, the only way I know how. So long as I get Azim, they can't court-martial me. They can throw the bloody book at me. They almost certainly will. But the man

311

who brings in the head of one of the most wanted alQaeda terrorists in the world -- well, they can't throw him out of the Regiment. They might want to, but they haven't got the guts.

Josh kicked up a piece of dirt from the ground in front of him. He was struggling to control the anger inside him: it was surging through his chest, making his pulse race and his blood boil. Bruton had stopped him from taking down Azim twice already. He's not going to stop me a third time.

Josh squeezed the soil between his fists. Tomorrow his blood will be soaking this ground.

'What are you thinking about?' asked Kate.

She was holding a bottle of water in her hand. Sitting down next to him, she slipped an arm around his back and nestled her cheek into the side of his face. Her skin nuzzled against his, and he could feel the passion running beneath the surface.

'I'm thinking that you should get the hell out of here,' he laid. His tone was flat and blunt.

Kate drew her face away and looked at him. Anger flashed in her eyes. 'I'm staying right here.'

'No,' said Josh sharply. 'It's too dangerous.'

Kate laughed: a hollow, shallow laugh that seemed to mock Josh. 'Like digging you out of a ditch wasn't too t dangerous? Like taking you into my house wasn't too dangerous? Like hiding you from the cops? Like rescuing your butt when you were about to crack under torture?' She paused, the words choking ^her as her face reddened with anger. 'Like watching my father die as he tried to save you?'

A pang of guilt stabbed at Josh. Marshall took a bullet for me, he realised. But that's soldiering. You put yourself on the line, and you take a bullet for your unit. That was the way it worked. Marshall was an old soldier. The rules of the trade were familiar to him.

312

'That's the point,' he snapped. 'You've done enough for me. I can't let you take any more risks.'

'I can handle myself.'

Josh stood up. 'You've no idea how bloody dangerous this is going to be. I don't know how many men are coming to get us tomorrow. Five, six, maybe a dozen. How the hell can I tell? I've got one pistol, some home-made landmines, and a teenage boy who's never been closer to combat than a game on his PlayStation. My chances? Pretty bloody miserable.'

'Then why are you doing it?'

'I've no choice.'

Kate tossed back her mane of red hair. 'Everyone has a choice.'

'I'm a soldier. We don't have choices. We have orders.'

'Your orders were to shoot Luke and Ben.'

'I have my own orders -- those are the ones I follow,' said Josh. 'My orders are that I keep my word to Luke. And that I take out Azim, because he is an evil, dangerous man. And I don't care what the Ruperts say. I do it my way.'

'And my way is to stay right here,' said Kate. 'I don't care about the danger -- I want to see it through.'

Josh shrugged. 'I've warned you. It's your decision.' He paused, looking straight into her eyes.'But stay out of danger. I owe you my life. The least I can do is pay that back by keeping you safe.'

313

TWENTYSIX

Thursday, June 18th. Dawn.

Josh took a swig from the water bottle, letting the liquid splash over his face. He glanced up at the sky. It was already a blazing, fierce blue, even though it was still only eight in the morning. He glanced anxiously along the main street of Swansea. Empty, as always. Yet in a few hours it would be as full of life as it had ever been. And as full of death as well.

In the past hour, he had walked down the side of the mountain, traversing rough, difficult terrain. Probably no man had walked across it for half a century or more. He surveyed the dirt-track crossroads where Porter-Bell had been told to leave the money if they wanted Luke's software. The place was empty, just as Porter-Bell had promised. The attacks of the past week, used by Luke to communicate with Josh, must have scared the company witless. Perhaps now they just wanted to hand over the money, get the software, and close the whole miserable chapter. After scouting the area tp make sure that it was still empty, Josh pinned a note to a stick and stuck it down in the middle of the crossroads. We'll meet you in Swansea, it said. As soon as you can be there.

As he surveyed the empty town again, Josh ran the plan through his head for the hundredth time. It was eight now. In half an hour the Porter-Bell team would find the note Assuming they had some all-terrain vehicles with them --

314

maybe Jeeps, maybe quad bikes, maybe sports bikes - they would be here half an hour later. We should expect them at nine.

Late last night, he'd told Luke to send a public email confirming the time, then another one, encrypted, just to Porter-Bell, changing the meeting time from eight to eight thirty. With any luck, Azim should only intercept the first message, telling them to meet at eight. That way he would be here first -- at eight-thirty. His neck delivered straight into my hands.

Azim gets here in half an hour. We kill him, then the Porter-Bell mob show up. We get the money, give them the software. Job done. Then we get the hell out of here.

Bruton can burn on his own stake, decided Josh. If they want robots for soldiers, they should bloody well build some. From now on, I make my own decisions on how this war should be fought.

'You ready?' said Josh, glancing across at Kate.

She was standing in the shadows of the abandoned hotel, ten yards away, ready to let fall some of the petrol bombs on its roof. 'Ready,' she said firmly.

'When I say so, just get up on the roof, and toss the bombs into the street,' he said. 'Don't worry about aiming, that's not the point. They'll make a big enough explosion to take out anyone who gets in the way. Got that?'

'Got it.'

'You ready?' called Josh, glancing towards Luke. The boy was standing in the doorway of the old sheriff's office, fifteen yards away.

'Hell, man, can't wait,' said Luke.

Josh could hear the bravado in the boy's voice, but he could also see the fear in his eyes. Don't do anything stupid, Josh said silently to himself. Don't be too tough. Combat is bloody frightening, and you have to know when to hide as well as when to fight.

315

'Stay alert,' he snapped. 'We're not expecting anyone for at least another twenty minutes. But they may come at any time. The worst thing you can do in any battle is get taken by surprise.'

The stage is set, let the battle rage down,Josh told himself. And if it consumes us all in its fire, then so be it. He fingered the trigger of the Wildey Survivor. If I could change anything, I'd have more guns, he mused. Some assault rifles, a machine gun, some grenades. Maybe a battalion or two as back-up. In the meantime, I'll have to make do with this pistol.

Soldiers don't choose their weapons or their battlefield. If they did, there wouldn't be so many military cemeteries in the world.

A noise. Josh's head spun around. The sound of a distant rumbling, as if thunder was rolling through the sky. He glanced up. The sky was clear. Holding the gun in his hand, he slipped behind the doorway of the hardware store. Some dust drifted down onto his head.

Another noise. Louder this time. A motorbike.

Eight-twenty. There shouldn't be anyone here yet.

Josh listened harder. The rumbling of the machines was maybe a mile away but getting closer all the time. It was a low roar, echoing out across the barren countryside. A f minute away, maybe. Perhaps only thirty seconds.

Azim, decided Josh. It must be him. And this time we meet on equal terms.

The noise of the bikes was getting louder. Josh could almost smell the fumes of their exhausts. He could sense the wheels churning up the dusty ground, and the swirling plumes of black smoke trailing behind them.

Josh slipped out of the doorway and started to move down the main street. He kept close to the wall in case there were any snipers taking up position anywhere in the mountains.

316

He was planning to charge the attackers once they were in among the landmines. Kate and Luke would stay back, away from the danger. Maybe we can finish this without involving them at all, he decided. With luck.

'Take cover,' barked Josh towards Kate in the hotel. 'You see anyone you don't like, bomb the fuckers.' Then he glanced at Luke, still waiting in the doorway of the sheriff's office. 'Keep your head down.'

'I'm coming with you,' shouted Luke.

'No, you're bloody not,' snapped Josh.

Luke stepped forward. 'I'm coming,' he insisted.

'Stay where you bloody are,' yelled Josh. 'And that's a fucking order.'

He walked further forward, taking care to keep out of sight, each movement a careful step into the unknown. He could feel the sweat breaking out on his fist as he gripped the Wildey tight. He could also feel his ribcage vibrating as his heart thumped hard against his chest. As he reached the end of the street, he leaned hard against the last fissured stone wall and looked carefully out across into the wilderness that tumbled away from the edge of town.

/'// draw them into the minefield. And let the explosives send them back to whatever hell they crawled out of.

The three bikes arrived on the horizon. The machines were Honda XR650s: big, powerful off-road bikes, with raised handlebars, mud flaps, and huge spiked tyres, designed for cutting through mud and dust. A man weighing at least two-hundred and fifty pounds was sitting on each one. They were clad in leather from head to foot, and had shades pulled down over their eyes and helmets over their heads.

It was strange. They looked like Flatner's men, but whether they were his or Azim's, decided Josh, it didn't matter. Either way the choice was a simple one. / kill them or they kill me.

Fifty yards in front of him, he could hear the bikes halt, a man shouting, then the roar of throttles as the three bikes

I

317

leaped into action again. The first bike was speeding out across the sand, the other two following closely in its wake. Great clouds of dust swirled around the accelerating machines. As he watched the lead biker, Josh could see him drawing a pistol, holding the gun in his right hand and the handlebars of his Honda in his left.

The minefield that Josh and Luke had prepared was twenty feet in front of them.

A shot.The bullet bounced off the stone wall, ricocheting harmlessly away. Josh knew that he'd been seen and kept his head down. The bikes must by now be tracking through the start of the minefield, gliding across it like stones skimming across the surface of a lake.

Nothing.

Christ, thought Josh. If those mines don't work, I'm already dead.

The explosion erupted against the morning sky as Josh looked over the wall. The mine had detonated, the blast shooting up into the innards of the Honda. The front wheel spun upwards, throwing the rider back. Already, the petrol tank was on fire. It would take just a moment for the fuel to react to the flame, blowing the tank and consuming the bike in a deadly fireball.

From every battlefield he'd ever been on, Josh knew that you saw your enemy die before you heard him. He had seen the rider spin into the air, his massive bulk now working against him. He fell heavily beside his machine, the petrol spilling from the tank and cascading over his denim trousers and his thick leather jacket. A hail of sparks was spitting out of the engine. Then Josh heard the second explosion. The wave of noise rocked him backwards. Somewhere from the middle of the inferno Josh could hear the pitiful screams of a man burning to death.

One down. Two to go.

Josh looked from behind the wall. The second bike had

318

veered sharply to the right, the third to the left. Josh had planned the minefield precisely, taking into his calculations all the lessons he'd learned in the Army. When you were putting down mines, you placed them to destroy your enemy, sure - but you also worked out that enemy's likely escape route and laid traps for them there as well. The second biker was already learning that lesson as he rode over another mine and triggered another deadly blast. Another fireball. Another scream.