room, opposite me. I'd have to cross over twenty feet of open floor space.
As I moved my head back into cover, I heard the cardboard of the twenty-four-pack being ripped farther open, then the hiss of a ring-pull.
They were going to be here a while.
Should I wait it out? No, they could be up all night. Besides, if they moved they would see me. I lay there and thought for a while, and felt the blood pumping in my neck.
If I burst into the room and tried to hold them in position, it wouldn't take them long to work out that I could maybe take on one of them, but the other two would be climbing all over me before I could reload, restring, or whatever it's called.
There was only one thing I could do, and that was to try to cross the room without being seen. If I got pinged, I'd just have to 'deal with the situation as it develops on the ground'--the last thing the Firm always said when giving orders; it meant they could transfer any blame onto you if it went wrong, or take the credit for a success.
I pushed myself away from the stairs with the heel of my hand and slowly stood up. I checked the arrow position for about the hundredth time and moved onto the final step. I edged out, and was in the room.
With my back pressed against the wall, I started to move toward the next flight of stairs, moving one leg in front of the other very, very slowly, my eyes riveted on the three watching the TV, my left hand on the bow, my right on the arrow, holding the cable one quarter drawn.
I got to the kitchen door and could hear the microwave working overtime.
I moved on. They had eyes only for Robert De Niro. I silently thanked him for such a spellbinding performance.
The light of the TV was projected onto the faces watching it. MIB was totally absorbed, as were the other two on the sofa, Too Thin To Win and the younger of the two who'd arrived today. I was maybe twenty feet away from them. MIB was squinting as he inhaled on a cigarette held between the index and middle fingers of his right hand, the glow illuminating his face even more as he played with his beads in the other hand.
As he blew out the smoke, the screen went blank for a second, then a bright graphic appeared, accompanied by machine-gun fire.
'Back soon with movies for guys who .. .'
I had fucked up big time. I hadn't taken into account the commercial break. A pain hit me in the throat and shot down into the pit of my stomach.
Too Thin To Win gob bed something off to the others and moved his head a bit to the right just a bit too much.
He must have seen me, but these things take a while to sink in when you're not expecting them, and especially when you've been concentrating so intently on something else. But he had detected movement in his peripheral vision and I knew what was coming. It would take him maybe two seconds, no more, to register that something was wrong. Straightaway, the body reacts to that: fight or flight. Blood surges into your hands to fight and into your legs to flee, and you can feel it. I had just two seconds up on him. It was all going to be over soon, one way or another.
To me it was all happening in slow motion. As I brought up the bow, Too Thin To Win jerked his head farther to the right, did a double take and stared straight at me. By the time his eyes were widening with shock the bow was in the aim and at full draw.
He shouted something, but I didn't know what. Everything closes down in a situation like that. All I could hear was the voice in my own head, and as my knees started to bend automatically to make me a smaller target it was screaming, Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
Too Thin To Win became a non-target as he threw himself to the left and jumped down below the settee. It was MIB that presented himself as the nearest threat, and at the same time the easiest target. He was up on his feet and had already turned and was facing me, trying to absorb and interpret this new stream of information. I kept my eyes fixed on his and brought the bow around. As soon as I had what I hoped was the correct sight picture, I released the cable and hoped these things were as good as the salesman had said. I was aiming at the center of the body mass, the center of what I could see in front of the blinding glare of the TV screen.
He took the hit with a dull thwack and went down.
I didn't know where the arrow had got him because I was too busy loading the next one and wishing I'd practiced archery as much as I'd practiced firing pistols over the years. I stretched out my left arm and, at i the same time, pulled back the cable with my right, quickly trying to feed j the head of the arrow into place above my left hand. Then it was straight | back up into the aim, the arrow being held in position on the cable by my fingers. I still couldn't see Too Thin To Win; I was aiming at the young one, who had now decided to run around the settee and try to get to me before I could release. In fact, he was so near that I didn't so much have time to aim as just vaguely point it at him.
There was a whoosh and a twang as the cable released, then a thud as the arrow punched into him. He didn't make a sound. I didn't care whether or not he was dead; there was still one more to deal with.
As I moved toward the settee I could see that Too Thin To Win had remained on the other side of it; I didn't know what he was doing, and I didn't care. I just had to get to him. There was no time to reload. I pulled an arrow out of the quiver and launched myself at him.
He was leaning over one of the aluminium boxes I'd seen them unload from the wagon. I swapped the arrow from my left hand to right, gripping it firmly like a fighting knife, making use of that extra blood now pumping through my hands.
As I fell on top of him, my weight pushed him down onto the box. We both grunted with the impact. While trying to cover his mouth with the crook of my left arm, I jammed the arrow into his neck with my right.
Only one of these actions worked. I had managed to cover his mouth, but as I thrust with the arrow I felt it hit bone. Arrowheads are designed to zap into the target at warp speed, and I'd done no more than rip his skin. He was screaming big time beneath my arm. I increased the pressure to try and get better coverage over his mouth.
I raised the arrow in the air again and rammed it down hard. It hit against the bone again, but this time slid off and lodged deeper into his neck. I felt him stiffen, his muscle tensing up to resist the penetration. The gardening glove gave a good grip as I pushed harder, twisting the arrow shaft to maximize the damage. I was hoping to cut into his carotid artery or spinal cord, or even find a gap to penetrate his cranium, but instead I ended up severing his windpipe. Now I just had to hold him as he asphyxiated.
I put all my weight on him to press him against the edge of the box, trying to stop his body-jerking from getting out of hand and becoming noisy. Once I knew I was in control, I looked quickly around me to make sure that no one else had arrived on the scene as I waited for him to die.
Finally, he was going down. His hands started to scrabble behind him, toward my face. I bobbed and weaved to avoid them, and his movements gradually subsided to no more than a spasmodic twitching in his legs. The last reserve of strength he'd found as he saw his life slowly get darker was now exhausted. By the flicker of the TV I could see dark blood oozing out of the wound; it followed along the shaft of the arrow to my glove and dripped onto the floor. When I moved my arm away from his mouth he made no sound.
Still on top of him, I turned around, and could see that MIB had taken a poor shot but I'd been lucky: I'd been aiming at the center of body mass, but the arrow had entered his head above the left eye and there was about four inches of arrow protruding out the back. His beads lay at his feet.
I didn't have a clue about the young one. He was slumped with his chest on the floor. Blood was coming out of him from somewhere and being soaked up by the rug.
I started to shake. I'd never been so scared in my life, nor so relieved that something was over. Lesson learned: always get a pistol, whatever it takes.
Young One was still alive; blood was gurgling in his throat as he tried to breathe. I lifted myself off Too Thin To Win, guiding his body as it slumped from the box onto the floorboards. I went over to Young One and checked him. His glazed eyes turned to follow mine as I moved my body around him, feeling him for any hint of metal. He wasn't carrying. His eyes were reflecting the TV screen as they pleaded with me for help.
As I looked away, my eyes caught the aluminium box. When I saw what was inside, I felt much better about what I'd just done. Too Thin To Win must have been flapping big time trying to get to the contents; if he had managed it, I might not be here now.
