Modern military longarms were fitted with muzzle flash suppressors to conceal the telltale blast of flame from enemy spotters. The BAR belonged to a generation before those kinds of refinements. So when the torrent of gunfire tore through the storeroom roof and sliced down through the building all around him, Ben knew the bright yellow-white flash that pulsed from the barrel of the heavy rifle had given away his position to the pilot of the third chopper.
Fragments of tiles and torn roof beams rained down on him. Windows exploded and chunks of masonry flew as the third chopper hovered over the building and poured down the combined fire of at least two or three assault rifles.
Ben rolled, grabbing the big Browning, dragging his bag with the spare magazines across the floor after him. He hefted the weapon up vertically and fired back up through the roof at the belly of the chopper. Dust showered down into his face.
The craft veered away, spinning towards the house. Ben leaped to his feet, looped the bag over his shoulder, scrambled down the creaking steps to the ground and burst outside into the blinding sunlight.
He was in the junk-strewn alleyway between the storeroom and the ruins of the cowshed. Thirty yards to his left was the gutted-out shell of a dead tractor. Fifteen yards closer, sitting up against the walls of the buildings either side, were two shapeless heaps covered with tarpaulins. Various farm debris was piled up around them.
To his right, beyond the gap between the buildings, the third chopper was hovering steady above the farmyard. As Ben watched, six men streamed down from its sides and hit the ground. He flattened himself against the wall. The men didn’t see him as they dispersed among the buildings, signalling to one another.
But the pilot had spotted him. The machine’s nose dipped and it came on, tracking up between the buildings, gaining speed, the front tips of its skids almost raking the ground.
Ben sprinted away from it, heading towards the cover of the wrecked tractor. Gunfire crackled behind him as he sprinted between the two tarp-covered heaps either side of the alley. He ran faster. Threw himself behind the tractor as bullets whipped up a snake of dirt and dust in his wake.
He raised the rifle. The helicopter was bearing down on him, just a few yards away, sending up a violent dust storm.
Now it was right between the tarp-covered heaps.
Right where he wanted it.
He fired. Not at the chopper but into the heap on the left. Then the one on the right. He emptied the magazine into them, in a scything arc of fire. Then he dropped the empty rifle and hurled himself flat on the ground behind the old tractor.
The blinding flash of light obliterated everything.
He’d found the tall propane gas cylinders in the barn earlier, spares for the old kitchen stove. Next to them he’d found the sacks of four-inch nails that he’d bound to them with rolls of duct tape, wrapping each one up tightly in turn as Ira held the cylinder steady. Hidden under the dirty tarps, they were a crude, giant version of a nail bomb.
Just one problem: he hadn’t intended to be this close when they went off.
In the closed space between the buildings the effect was devastating. The massive explosion took the chopper straight in the face.
It was as though it had hit a wall. It was flung down to the ground like a child’s toy, buckling and crumpling. The windows burst inwards. The rotor blades flew into shards. Then the fireball from the gas cylinders touched off the petrol bombs and jerrycans he’d set up along the sides of the walls, hidden behind farm junk. A sheet of flame closed in on the chopper, rolling in through its open sides like liquid, rinsing it out, incinerating everything that lived in there. Burning men tumbled out, screaming, flailing, falling, dying.
Ben kept his face to the dirt as the spreading fireball rolled over him. Its heat seared his back and for one terrifying instant he thought he was going to burn. But then the hot breath of the flames drew away from him and he staggered to his feet.
Everything around him was destroyed. The shattered buildings were on fire. Bodies lay strewn across the ground, and the stench of charred flesh filled the air. The chopper was a blazing skeleton.
Ben stepped out from behind the tractor. The rifle was lying in the dirt a few yards away. He went to snatch it up, then saw that a piece of flying shrapnel had crushed the receiver. He swore, grabbed the pistol from his bag and emptied out the useless BAR magazines.
Then suddenly, the troopers that had landed from the third chopper were back. All six of them, darting between the shell of the burning aircraft and the wrecked buildings. Weapons raised, fire reflected on their goggles.
And now Ben realised with an icy shock that he was in trouble. More men were coming down the other way. Their leader’s face split into a wide grin.
A dozen men in all. Maybe three hundred and fifty rounds of high-velocity rifle ammunition, all for him. And he was trapped right in the middle, with no time to get back behind cover.
‘Got you now,’ Jones yelled. ‘You’re all alone.’
Chapter Fifty-Four
When Ben heard the next gunshot his body involuntarily tensed up solid like a boxer tightening up to take a punch. In that suspended-animation breath of time that is all a man has to ready himself for sudden death, he waited for the impact of the bullet that would kill him.
What happened instead was that one of the troopers was suddenly jerked off his feet as though someone had hooked him up with a cable to a speeding train. He landed spreadeagled in the dust, his rifle clattering to his side. The boom of the gunshot echoed across the farm.
‘Not quite alone,’ a voice shouted.
Suddenly there was chaos. Shots seemed to be coming from all directions. The snap of a small-calibre rifle and another trooper went down, clutching his head. The rest scattered, flinging themselves down behind whatever bits of discarded farm machinery, rusted-out drums, stacked tractor tyres, offered them shelter.
Whoever was shooting was moving from cover to cover. It had to be someone who knew the layout of the farm blindfolded. Another rolling boom, and a trooper screamed as his thigh burst open with a spatter of blood. Another snappy report and the man next to Jones fell forward without a sound.
Two shooters. The.22 Marlin and the Ithaca shotgun. Riley and Ira had joined the party.
Ben dived back behind the tractor. To his left, four troopers were pinned down under cover near the burning chopper. To his right were Jones and his team, crouched behind a pile of firewood logs. They were firing sporadically at nothing, panic showing in their movements. Ben punched the pistol up and shot one. Return fire ricocheted off the tractor’s fender. He fired again. Hit another.
But then he saw something that made his heart stop. At the end of the alleyway between the wrecked and now blazing cowshed and the storeroom building, ten yards from Jones and his remaining men, Ira was stepping out into the open with the.22 Marlin in his hands. His chin was high and there was a glint of pride in his eyes. Old Riley Tarson hobbled out behind him, the shotgun clamped in his fists, thunder in his face. ‘You people have no right to be here,’ he yelled.
Jones whipped his rifle round towards the two men. Ben let off four rapid rounds from across the alley and Jones flung himself back down in the dirt behind the log pile.
Then it was mayhem, shots rattling back and forth across a wild V of fire. Ira went down, grimacing in pain. Riley stood his ground, working the pump on his old Ithaca, loosing off blast after blast. The Beretta kicked and boomed in Ben’s hands until it was empty.
The gun battle was over as quickly as it had begun. A strange silence hung over the farm. The alleyway was littered with dead men.
Jones was the only intruder left alive. He burst from cover, threw down his empty rifle and ran for all he was worth, shielding his face with his arm as he stumbled through the flames of the burning chopper and disappeared
