“They were already well on the scrap-heap by the time they got as far as my office,” he said, sharply. “They were never going to be useful members of society, but they did have certain – talents, in other directions.”
He paused, settled himself. “All I did was tap into that latent talent and utilise their existing skills,” he said, as though he was expecting adulation. “In return for that I gave them order, discipline, and a suitable financial reward. I gave them more stability than most of them ever got from their damned families! I care about these kids! Where were
“So,” Sean bit out, “where do we go from here?”
“We?” O’Bryan asked with a nasty grin. “Oh,
Once he’d got the two of us disarmed, he’d urged Roger forwards, until we were only three or four metres apart.
I could see the sweat rolling down O’Bryan’s temples. Realised that he was as hyped up with the thrill as with the fear. I’d seen that look before, and it terrified me.
In the split second before he moved, it came to me what he was going to do. I had no time to react, to do anything to intervene.
I could only stand beside Sean and watch, horrified, as O’Bryan shifted his grip so he had Roger held firmly across the throat with his forearm. He looked straight at Sean, and he smiled.
Then he shot his brother in the back at point-blank range.
Roger’s body jerked with shock, limbs dancing. He gave a single hiccuping cough, then his eyes rolled upwards leaving only the whites showing, and he went down like a stone.
O’Bryan let go and allowed the boy to drop away from him without a glance, as though he was no more than a carelessly discarded cigarette wrapper. His eyes never left Sean’s taut face, and an expression of savage glee never left his own.
Sean stood locked, immobile. Both of us stared at the slumped figure, desperately searching for some flicker of life. A trickle of breeze ruffled a lock of Roger’s hair. Apart from that, there was nothing.
He’d landed half on his face, one hand stretched out towards us, the fingers curled in the dirt. The smell of cordite hung thick and bitter in the air. The hole in the back of Roger’s jacket, surrounded by scorched powder burns from the cloaked muzzle flash, seemed a damning confirmation.
I glanced at Sean, but could read nothing from the bleakness of his features. Surely the vest should have been enough to save the boy. Did they work at such close distance without the extra plates he’d mentioned?
I looked back towards Roger, but still he hadn’t moved.
“You bastard,” Sean whispered, giving me my answer. I turned my head numbly towards him, saw a cold death in his intentions, and was suddenly so afraid for him, what he might do, that it was like being dropped into a winter sea. “I swear you’ll burn in hell for that.”
“Very probably,” O’Bryan sneered. “But I’ll see you there first.”
The clock stopped. I turned my head back, so slowly it seemed, and watched with a mildly detached kind of interest as O’Bryan started to bring the gun up to fire.
My mind flashed ahead like a data-squirt down a modem line. One course of action came zinging back, almost blinding in its intensity. When I tried to analyse it afterwards it all seemed so cold-bloodedly simple, and so simply cold-blooded, that for a long time any thought of it made me shudder.
As O’Bryan’s hand came up, my feet had already started to stir. I felt the sluggish transfer of my own weight from even spread, across onto my left leg. The rugged sole of my boot twisted a little until it gripped into the dirt. I used that purchase to launch my body sideways.
I could feel my heartbeat slamming out at an accelerated rate. Heard the thunder of it in my ears. The roar of my indrawn breath as it seared down into my lungs.
All the time, I kept my eyes locked on O’Bryan. Watched minutely as the hand holding the FN reached a level attitude. Was acutely aware of the whitening of the skin round his knuckles as he began to take up the pressure on the trigger.
I had no intention of getting to O’Bryan. He was too far away. I achieved my real objective though, completing my reckless leap in front of Sean, arms raised out by my sides as though in surrender.
As I did so, I could sense rather than see Sean start to move, as though I could hear the rasp of air as he used the cover I’d given him to dive for the Glock, with its single loaded round.
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget the expression that passed across O’Bryan’s face at that point. Fleeting irritation, clearing rapidly as he recognised my intervention as a temporary one. One easily disposed of.
Then he shot me, twice, in the chest.
I saw the muzzle flash lance out as the first of the full-metal-jacket rounds launched from the end of the barrel at three hundred and sixty metres a second. Much too fast for the human ear to register the sound of the discharge. I was already reacting to the initial impact before anyone ever heard it.
I can’t accurately describe what it’s like to be shot while wearing body armour that isn’t fitted with a ceramic plate.
Damned painful is the first thing.
Somehow, I’d expected to be punched backwards. Instead, my body just seemed to absorb the double shock internally, collapsing in on itself like a tower block going down under the delicately-placed charges of the demolition team.
I think I heard someone screaming as I fell.
I don’t remember hitting the ground. I must have done because the next thing I knew I was on my back with an inconvenient half-brick cricking my neck back. Breathing was difficult and hurt like hell. I was gulping in air in short, useless little pants like I’d just gone into labour.
To be honest, to begin with, I’d no idea how badly I’d been hit. I hadn’t any past experience on which to base it. The whole of the front of my chest burned with a dead white heat. My eyesight started to buzz, graining my vision. All I could see was the heavens, cast orange from the distant sodium lights and the cloud-reflected looting fires along the next street.
Then another shot exploded into my awareness. It seemed so much louder than the first two, loud enough to make me twitch which was, I discovered, altogether a deeply bad idea.
From a great distance, I became aware of the sounds of a scuffle. Someone was crying out, in pain and anger. There came the squelchy thuds and grunts of blows landing. The dull, muffled crack of a breaking bone, and a final shrill, whimpering cry.
I listened to the noises like they were the sound effects in a radio play. Half my mind was screaming at me to get up, to join in. The other half told me another minute’s rest wasn’t going to make much difference to the outcome one way or the other.
I started to slide into unconsciousness, the clamour growing further away, as insubstantial as the cries of seagulls circling a plough.
It was only as I slipped beneath the final layer that I heard the fourth and final gunshot.
By then I couldn’t tell if it was real or imaginary. Whichever, it didn’t seem dreadfully important any more. My vision was blackening at the edges like burning paper. The darkness rushed up to meet me and gratefully, like a coward, I gave in to it.
***
“Charlie! Come on, come back to me!”
Gradually I became aware that someone was shaking me. Why couldn’t they just leave me alone? I was comfy where I was. Warm and dry.
They shook me again, more roughly this time, and I realised that actually I was freezing, and that damned brick was still under the back of my neck. To cap it all, I felt the first splashes of another burst of rain on my face. Just great.
I opened my eyes slowly and found Sean’s face a few inches from my own. His nose was bloodied and there was a nasty cut over his right eye. It took me several seconds to register that the wetness I’d felt was caused by his tears, running freely down his cheeks and dripping onto me.
I reached up slowly, and wiped one of them away with a grimy thumb. I realised with a sense of small wonder that it was the first time I’d ever seen him cry.
“Christ. Jesus,” he managed at last. His voice cracked. “Suppose he’d gone for a head shot!”
I gave him what passed for a shaky grin. “He’s not good enough, and he wanted to be sure,” I said,
