Someone opened fire in the hallway then, a rapid series of shots, the muzzle flashes dancing on the walls. Elna pressed herself flat against the floor, screaming at the fierce pain in her back, and tried to brace her Beretta against her left forearm. The door had swung all the way against the wall, but she couldn’t see the shooters. Only smoke, flashing lights, and vague movement. Still, she took aim as best she could and opened fire with the Beretta.
She couldn’t tell if she was hitting bodies in the hall or just shadows and reflections, but she continued to fire, even as gunfire in the hallway answered her. Soon, others had joined in. She saw Malin and Cat firing toward the open door. The noise was absolute skull-shaking madness, and the smoke and dust were so thick she could scarcely breathe. Suddenly, she realized she was out of bullets. In the madness of the moment, she dropped the magazine and checked to make sure. How had she fired every bullet? She couldn’t remember squeezing the trigger that many times. She set the gun aside and looked for some other weapon. There was nothing close at hand.
Malin continued to fire, but Cat stopped and took a few steps to her left, as if trying to get a better angle into the hallway. Elna could scarcely see anything beyond the door now, just shapeless light shining through a wall of smoke. Malin finally stopped firing as well.
“Is anyone hit?” Prig shouted from behind the gray veil.
“Not me, sir,” Cat replied.
“Me either,” Golf replied. “I don’t think.”
Elna didn’t think to respond. Her ears were ringing like crazy, and it felt like her skull was still shaking from all the violence. Her whole body was stiff and suffering. Another burst of gunfire came from the hallway. Though she couldn’t see them, Elna sensed people in and around the door. This was it. The final push of the mercenaries as they tried to get into the room.
They waited until we emptied our guns, she thought.
There was shouting, screaming, someone cursing at the top of his lungs. Were people being killed around her at that very moment? Elna couldn’t see anything. The smoke had closed around her like a blanket. All she could do was press herself against the floor and try to make herself as small a target as possible.
“Die. Die. Every single one of you, die!” Whose voice was that? Not the basso profundo of the mercenary commander. One of the other mercenaries, perhaps. He sounded furious, enraged, out for blood.
She couldn’t tell who was firing—if anyone—inside the room. Prig and Golf still had ammo, didn’t they? At this point, she couldn’t make sense of anything. The whole world had disappeared in the smoke and noise.
At some point, she realized Malin had found her in the smoke. She grabbed his hand as he sidled up next to her, and then he put his arm around her.
We’ll die together, then, she thought, as she buried her face against his shoulder.
And then the shooting stopped. She heard a final string of profanities, shouted by a voice that was quickly going hoarse, that ended in a strange, wet gurgle. Someone dying, but she couldn’t tell who it was. After this, silence returned, a silence so profound that it seemed to settle in the walls and floor. Nobody moved, nobody spoke. Elna didn’t even hear breathing around her.
Maybe they’re all dead. A fleeting thought, but for a second she was convinced.
When she finally pulled away from Malin, she realized the smoke had settled again. She looked back and saw her father still huddled against the wall, but he didn’t appear to be injured. She looked the other way and saw Prig curled up beneath the console. The door was still wide open, a single light wobbling against the walls in the corridor beyond.
Then she noticed the big puddle of blood on the floor, quickly spreading and filling the cracks between the floor panels. The source of the blood was a body lying facedown in the middle of the room. Her arms were above her head, a pistol still clutched in her hand. Elna pushed past Malin and crawled toward her.
“Cat,” she whispered.
She’d been hit more than once. Elna could see two bullet holes in the back of her shirt, but most of the blood seemed to be coming from the side of her head, just above her right ear. Elna had just started to reach for her when a sound caused her to freeze, her hand poised in the air above Cat’s right shoulder.
A footstep in the hall. A heavy boot against the metal floor. A shadow appeared at the edge of the open door. Prig raised his gun and took aim.
“Do it, scumbag,” he muttered. “Show your face.”
The light shifted, moving from the hallway past the doorframe into the room.
“Don’t shoot,” a voice shouted. “Boss, it’s me. It’s Spence!”
As if to prove it, the flashlight beam rose and revealed the face. A muscly young man with a pockmarked face, deep set eyes, his lip curled as if he were exerting himself.
“Spence!”
The impact of those in the room was electric. Norman and Malin hopped to their feet, and Golf clapped. Daniel, who had been quiet, resumed crying loudly as his dad hugged him. Dr. Ruzka turned on a flashlight of her own and shined it toward the door.
“Help me out here, guys,” Spence said, as he stepped through the door.
An AK-47 hung from his right hand, and he set it on the ground as he entered the room. His right arm was around Mac, the young man limping along beside him, a pained looked on his face. A strip of cloth had been hastily tied around the young man’s leg just above the right knee, dark stains running down the front of the pant leg all the way to his boot.
Dr. Ruzka, like a moth drawn to a flame, immediately rushed toward the injured Marine. Norman joined
