his way out of the mess – but he only managed to sink deeper inside the morass of wooden slats.
He still had his gun in his hand. But by this time he was lying on his back like a stranded cockroach. He shot wildly over his head, hoping, in that way, to keep Bale’s head down until he was able to disentangle himself.
It didn’t work.
The last sensation Macron had on earth was of Bale kneeling on his gun-hand, levering his mouth open and forcing a pistol barrel across the swollen barrier of his tongue.
Bale had instantly moved away from the girl after kicking out the stool legs. The Legion had taught him never to stand for too long in one place during a firefight. His drill instructor had drummed into him that you always move about a battlefield in a series of four-second bursts, to the tune of an internal rhythm that you keep on repeating in your head: You Run – They See You – They Lock and Load – You Drop. The old discipline saved his life.
Macron’s snap shot passed through Bale’s neck, puncturing his trapezius muscle, just missing his subclavian artery and shattering his clavicle. Bale immediately felt his left hand and arm go numb.
He twisted towards the danger, his gun arm rising.
There was a crash, as whoever had come in by the back way encountered his barricade. Then a second shot smashed into the ceiling above Bale’s head, showering him with plaster.
Still pulsing with adrenalin, Bale darted towards the shooter. He had seen the man silhouetted in the light of the gun flash. Knew where his head was. Knew what a mess he had got himself into with the barricade. Knew where the man’s pistol was instinctively aiming.
He speared the man’s gun-hand with his knee. Levered the man’s mouth open with the barrel of the Redhawk. Then shot.
Police. It had to be the police. Who else would have a pistol?
Bale ran for the back window, his left arm hanging loose. Civilian clothes. The man had been in civilian clothes – not paramilitary kit. So it wasn’t a siege.
He levered himself backwards through the window and fell to the ground, cursing. Blood was cascading down his shirt. If the bullet had nicked his carotid artery, he was done for.
Once out of the Maset, he cut to the right, towards the stand of trees in which he’d tethered the horse.
No other way out. No other way to go.
60
Alexi was holding Yola up in his arms, taking all her weight. Protecting her from the certain death that her own body mass would inevitably have afforded her.
Sabir felt blindly above her head until he encountered the rope. Then he followed it down with his fingers until he was able to undo the noose that had tightened around her throat. She drew in a great, ragged breath – the very inverse of a death rattle. This was the sound of life returning. Of the body succouring itself after a great trauma.
Where was Bale? And Macron? Surely they hadn’t killed each other? Part of Sabir was still expecting the fourth bullet.
He helped Alexi lay Yola out on the floor. He could feel the warmth of her breath against his hand. Hear Alexi’s sobs of pain.
Alexi lay down beside her, with Yola’s head cradled against his chest.
Sabir navigated his way by feel across to the fireplace. He recalled seeing a box of matches on the left, near the fire tongs. He felt around with his fingers until he encountered them. While he did this, he listened with all his concentration for any alien sounds inside the house. But the place was silent. Only the murmur of Alexi’s voice broke the hush.
Sabir put a match to the fire. It flared into life. He was able, by its light, to focus on the rest of the room. It was empty.
He moved across to the fallen footstool, dried off one or two of the candles and lit them. The shadows played off the walls above him. He was consciously having to control the panic that was threatening to send him at a fl at run back out of the room and towards the welcoming darkness outside. ‘Let’s take her over to the fire. She’s drenched. I’ll get a blanket and some towels from one of the bedrooms.’
Sabir had a fair idea by now of what he would find out in the corridor. There had been blood all over the floor near the stool. Thick gouts of it. As though the eye-man had blown an artery. He followed its trail until he came to the tangle of chairs encircling Macron’s body.
The top of the man’s head had been blown off. A flap of skin covered his one remaining eye. Dry-gagging, Sabir levered the gun out of Macron’s hand. Averting his eyes from the rest of the mess, he felt blindly around for the cellphone he knew Macron kept in the front pocket of his blouson. He straightened up and continued on down the corridor. He stood for a while contemplating the fresh blood trail where it crossed the ledge of the rear window.
Then, glancing down at the illuminated VDU of the cellphone, he walked into the first available bedroom in search of blankets.
61
‘I’ll take that.’ Calque held his hand out for Macron’s gun.
Sabir tendered him the pistol. ‘Whenever we meet, I always seem to be passing you firearms.’
‘The mobile phone, too.’
Calque pocketed the gun and the cellphone and moved towards the corridor. He shouted back over his shoulder. ‘Can we get the electricity reconnected here? Someone call the company. Either that, or hitch up a generator. I can’t see to think.’ He stood for a moment over Macron’s body, playing his torch over what remained of his assistant’s face.
Sabir moved up behind him.
‘No. Stand back. This is a crime scene now. I want your friends to remain by the fireplace until the ambulance comes. Not wash their hands. Not tread in anything. Not touch anything. You, Sabir, will come outside with me. You’ve got some explaining to do.’
Sabir followed Calque out of the front door. Temporary spotlights were being levered into place outside, giving the area the look of a floodlit, all-weather football pitch.
‘I’m sorry. Sorry about your assistant.’
Calque glanced at the surrounding trees and breathed in deeply. He felt in his pockets for a cigarette. When he didn’t find one he looked temporarily bereft – as if it was the lack of a cigarette he was mourning and not his partner. ‘It’s a funny thing. I didn’t even like the man. But now he’s dead I miss him. Whatever he might have been – whatever he might have done – he was mine. Do you understand that? My problem.’ Calque’s face was a frozen mask. Impossible to read. Impossible to touch.
A passing CRS officer, noting Calque’s search for a cigarette, offered him one of his own. Calque’s eyes flared angrily in the rush of the lighter flame – an anger that was just as suddenly extinguished. Catching sight of Calque’s expression, the man gave an embarrassed salute and passed on.
Sabir shrugged his shoulders in a vain effort to mitigate the effect of what he was about to say. ‘Macron called it off his own bat, didn’t he? Your people were here ten minutes after he moved in. He should have waited, shouldn’t he? He told us the shooters would take two hours. That they had to come from Montpellier and not Marseille. He was lying, wasn’t he?’
Calque turned away, grinding out his freshly-lit cigarette in the same fluid motion. ‘The girl is alive. My assistant secured her life at the cost of his own.’ He glared at Sabir. ‘He injured the eye-man. The man is now on
