fired again, and again.
Movement by the window.
Donna fired.
The glass exploded outwards and rain suddenly came pouring in through the hole. The curtains billowed madly as the wind caught them and Donna dashed across to the light switch and slapped it hard, plunging the room into darkness.
With her ears ringing from the massive blast of the weapon she threw herself down and crawled across to the wall by the front door, able to see back through the sitting-room to the kitchen.
She could see Julie also crouching down, one hand closed around the handle of the frying pan.
Outside she heard footsteps in the sucking mud.
The lights upstairs were still on; if she could only get to a window she might be able to see what the men outside were doing.
Rain continued to sweep into the cottage, driven by the strong wind that screamed around the building.
For interminable seconds the only sounds were the wind and rain and the heavy beating of her own heart.
Donna crouched where she was, the Beretta held close to her, the stink of cordite strong in her nostrils.
The attackers had obviously been surprised by the ferocity of their defence. Perhaps, she reasoned, they had left, not expecting to be greeted with guns.
There was no sound from outside, although it was difficult to pick out anything in the torrential rain that battered both cottage and landscape.
Donna got to her feet, still keeping low, and moved towards the small round window close to the front door in the hall.
If only she could get a look, see what they were up to ...
It was pitch black; she could scarcely see a hand in front of her. Her breathing was deep and she tried to control it, tried to stop herself hyperventilating. She gripped the pistol more tightly as she reached the wall beneath the window and rose slowly.
Her heart thudded madly against her ribs and the blood sang in her ears.
She steadied herself, ready to look through the window.
Then the first burst of gunfire tore across the front of the cottage.
The roar of the UZI sub-machine gun was deafening. In the howling wind and driving rain the burst of 9mm fire looked and sounded like man-made thunder and lightning. The muzzle flash illuminated Farrell and the yard around him for several feet as he raked the sub-gun back and forth, spent cartridge cases spewing from the weapon; smoke and steam rising into the damp air.
Windows were blasted inwards by the fusillade. Bullets drilled into wood or stone or sang off the walls with a loud whine. Lumps of plaster were torn free. Part of the guttering at the front of the cottage was blown away.
The hammer finally slammed down on an empty chamber. Farrell angrily ripped the empty magazine free and rammed a fresh one in.
A dark figure appeared at his side, limping.
‘She locked the back,’ said Frank Stark, wiping blood from his broken nose away with the back of his hand.
‘I didn’t expect her to have a gun,’ said Brian Kellerman, peering at the cottage, shielding his eyes from the driving rain.
‘I don’t care if she’s got a fucking cannon in there,’ Farrell snapped, pulling back the slide on the UZI. ‘Get inside.’
He fired another short burst from the sub-gun, blowing in an upstairs window.
Fragments of glass and shattered window-frame fell. He raised his eyebrows.
The porch was directly beneath the window. Anyone managing to get on top of the porch could easily clamber up through that bedroom window.
Farrell grabbed Kellerman and pointed at the window.
‘You and Stark get in through there,’ he said. ‘Ryker, you go round the back again. Listen, all of you, we need Ward’s wife alive, got it?’
‘What about the other woman?’ Stark wanted to know.
‘Who gives a fuck?’ said Farrell and opened fire.
More bullets spattered the front of the cottage, drilling lines back and forth in the stonework. Dust was washed away as the rain continued to pelt down.
Stark and Kellerman ran towards the house, keeping low, as anxious about Farrell’s erratic covering fire as they were about Donna’s possible retaliation.
Three bullets suddenly hit the ground only inches ahead of Stark.
The muzzle flash that accompanied their arrival came from inside the house.
He pitched forward, throwing himself down in the glutinous mud, covering his head with his hands as Farrell replied, bullets slicing through the air and singing above the prone man’s body, missing him, it seemed, by mere inches. He kept his face pressed to the muck as bullets drilled holes in the wall and door. Lumps of wood were blasted free.
More shots from the Beretta came back, one of them striking the car. The 9mm slug exploded one of the Orion’s headlights, smashing the housing and causing Farrell to jump back and seek cover behind the vehicle.
Kellerman reached the porch and hauled himself up onto it, hoping that the wooden canopy would take his weight. He looked down and saw his colleague still lying in the mud, not daring to move. Kellerman wondered if he’d been hit. He turned and saw that the window ledge was about three feet above him. He steadied himself, then shot out both hands and gripped it, hauling himself up the wall to the beckoning entrance.
Farrell saw him and smiled.
Donna scrambled through the hall to the sitting-room, the automatic smoking in her hands.
‘How many of them are there?’ Julie asked frantically.
‘It’s hard to tell,’ Donna said breathlessly. ‘I think I might have hit one of them.’ She crept towards the shattered front window and peered out.
Stark was no longer lying in the mud.
‘Shit,’ snapped Donna, sinking back down to the floor.
Rain was still driving through the broken window.
‘Oh God,’ gasped Julie, pointing towards the kitchen.
Donna saw it too and her eyes widened in panic.
One of the men had set fire to the kitchen curtains.
Flames were licking hungrily at the material; it was blazing fiercely. She could smell petrol.
‘Put it out,’ she screamed at Julie as another burst of fire from the UZI spattered the cottage.
Donna sucked in a deep breath and headed for the stairs, intent on getting a clearer look at what was going on outside. From a vantage point up high she would be able to see their attackers.
Julie meanwhile was filling a saucepan with water, trying to stay clear of the flaring curtains. Thick black smoke spread through the room, thousands of tiny cinders filling the air like black snow. She coughed as she felt the heat searing the air in her lungs. It made her eyes water but she stayed where she was until the saucepan was full, then tried to douse the flames. One curtain went out, extinguished by the shower of water. Julie tugged hard at the remains of it and pulled it down. The other one continued to burn. She refilled the saucepan, sweat soaking her body despite the cold wind and driving rain blasting through the smashed window.
Ryker loomed at her through the flames and she hurled the water both at him and at the fire.
