them off.
'STAY THE FUCK DOWN!' shouted Fitzduane again. 'THIS ISN'T SOME WAR GAME. IT'S REAL. STAY RIGHT DOWN AND DO NOT MOVE!'
The laundryman nodded frantically and then squeezed himself up as small as he could in the angle formed by the wall and the path.
Fitzduane got ready, waited until the focus of fire had moved away for a moment, and then launched himself at the trolley. Linen flew in every direction as he threw himself flat on the top and propelled it through the open doorway into the corridor. It shot down the corridor and smashed into a mirror.
'Seven years bad luck,' said Fitzduane savagely to himself, 'and I was doing so well.'
He picked up a piece of mirror and used it as a crude periscope to check around the next corner.
A hooded terrorist clad in the familiar black was moving carefully up the corridor. As Fitzduane had feared, they were moving down to finish the job. But there just could not be that many of them, or they would be checking the rooms too. There should be at least one backup, but he could see no one. It was bad military practice, but this seemed like a lone scout.
The terrorist came around the corner. As he did so, Fitzduane pushed his weapon up and rammed the mirror splinter into his throat.
The man gurgled, and then blood poured through the fabric of his hood and he slumped. Fitzduane broke his neck. A dying enemy could still be a dangerous enemy.
The man was carrying a Russian version of the M16, and AK-74. It helped to explain the intensity and accuracy of the fire. The weapon was equipped with double forty-round plastic magazines on a neat device that allowed a magazine change by simply sliding the empty magazine to one side and the one into place. It also came with an unusually effective muzzle brake, which allowed more-accurate automatic fire. The downside was that the gases were deflected to either side wit a considerable risk of doing not good to your companions.
Fitzduane checked the ammunition pouches of the dead man. He had come loaded with fifteen magazines, six hundred rounds, and only three spare magazines were left in addition to the two on the rifle. That, and the sheer risk of local law enforcement being alerted eventually, suggested that the terrorists would be pulling out soon.
He lay down and rolled over once so he could check the corridor while presenting a minimum target. He knew he should have used the mirror trick again, but the sliver he had used before was deep in the terrorist's throat and he did not feel like going back to the broken mirror. He wanted to link up with Kilmara and Shanley, and quickly.
Muzzle flash blinded him and rounds sliced through the air above his head. If he had been standing or even kneeling, it would have been inconvenient. There was a backup man, and he had fired instinctively from the hip when he had seen movement. He was very fast, but his target was not where he had expected it to be.
Fitzduane fired back low, and then as his assailant buckled, he put a second burst into his head.
'KILMARA! SHANLEY!' he shouted. He could not remember where Shanley's room was, and this was no time for playing hide-and-seek.
There was an answering shout from down the corridor. Then a door opened and the long muzzle of a Barrett emerged.
Fitzduane thought through the next action. The block they were in had three stories and the one across the way had five. So if they went up on the roof they would still have the low ground. Worse still, they would be exposed.
They could head through the main body of the hotel and try and get up to the higher roof that way. That would take too long, and who knew what shit was going down in the middle.
The best solution seemed to be to fire form the second floor from the cover of a room window. They would be shooting at a diagonal and up, but since the Barrett round could travel eight miles, gravity at that short range should not be much of a problem. The distance across the pool area to the parapet was less than a hundred and fifty meters.
'One floor up,' said Fitzduane.
'My thoughts exactly,' said Kilmara.
Shanley made to lead, but Fitzduane beckoned him to one side. The Barrett had many fine qualities, but close-in fighting going up stairs was more the job of a lighter, short-barreled weapon. The Barrett weighed well over twenty pounds. You could drop it on someone's toe and put him out of action.
The stairs were empty. The second-floor corridor was empty.
Fitzduane kicked at a door with the flat of his foot and the room door splintered at the lock and sprang open. The room was empty. The blinds were drawn, but the glass had been blasted away by terrorist gunfire from across the pool area. The walls of the room were pockmarked with bullet holes.
He could hear a series of other crashes from the corridor as Kilmara kicked in the doors. First, he did not want any surprises, and second, they wanted to be able to move from room to room at will. It made no sense to present a static target when you could move around.
Kilmara would watch their back from the corridor while he and Shanley took on the other side. It was not something they had discussed. They had worked together for so long and trained so often that the moves came naturally.
They could hear the whump of rotor blades but could not see it from their position. He tried to judge the helicopter's location. It sounded as if it had landed on the roof of the main block. The terrorists were withdrawing. The parapet was still manned, but any second now they would start pulling away out of sight.
'I've only got seven rounds,' said Shanley apologetically. He had remembered to put acoustic plugs in his ears, Fitzduane observed. A very good idea, given the decibel count of a. 50 in a confined space.
'I'm going hot,' said Shanley.
Fitzduane put his fingers to his ears and was glad he had. There was a deafening crack, and a large chunk of parapet blew away, carrying a black-hooded gunman with it.
Shanley fired again and again in a measured sequence, demolishing a long chunk of the parapet. A figure rose from the rubble, and Fitzduane snapped the AKM to his shoulder and dropped him.
The terrorist helicopter rose from behind the dome of the main block and swiveled its machine guns toward their position.
Shanley was taking aim with the Barrett. Fitzduane grabbed him and pulled him down.
A long, intense burst of fire raked along the second floor and blew every remaining window apart.
Fitzduane and Shanley crouched down below the window as the air was filled with fire. Then they could hear the helicopter pulling away. They stood up and Shanley raised the Barrett hopefully, but already it was out of sight behind the cover of the hotel and receding into the distance.
'How many rounds have you got left in that thing?' said Fitzduane.
Shanley removed the magazine. It was empty. He worked the bolt. The round was ejected. 'One,' he said.
Fitzduane contemplated his companion. The man was surprisingly calm for someone who had seen action for the first time. His forehead was beaded with sweat, but he was in control.
'Shanley,' he said. 'You are a piece of work.'
Kilmara came in brushing plaster dust from his clothing and eyed the damage to the parapet across the way. It looked as if a demolition crew had been at work for a morning. 'The hotel may not like you,' he said.
'Don was planning to take on the helicopter with one round,' said Fitzduane. 'This is a man who believes in his weapon.'
Kilmara was still eyeing the destruction. 'One round, one helicopter! Well, by the looks of that mess it would probably be enough.'
Shanley did not say anything. He could not stop it. Tears flooded from his eyes. He felt confused, tired, and terribly sad. As he looked up at the wrecked parapet he could see only Texas still alive. And then she was blasted apart and falling through this terrible red mist.
It could not have happened. It was his imagination. All of this was some elaborate war game. It was simulated. Soon everyone would get up and walk around and the music would start up again.
He looked down to the poolside below.
It was a mistake.
Her body was still there. Nothing had changed. It was not a dream. The water was now a solid, glowing,
