The leader dropped to the floor and rolled behind one of the club chairs. While he scrabbled for safety, the man who was holding Holly dropped against the wall, reaching for his own gun.
As he did so, a vicious fire-fight developed out in the dark, the chattering slides of the silenced automatic weapons drowned out by the full throated roar of shotguns, and the berserker screams of bloodlust and pain. By now, the two groups were close enough to touch in the dark, close enough to be confused and die by a comrade’s hand. Blue yellow muzzle flashes illuminating the dark.
All in all, it lasted less than a minute.
After it was done, the leader moved carefully back. Then, hurrying through the kitchen door, he ran around the side of the building to view the scene from a safe vantage. Nothing moved except for a man, one of his by the look of the pack, who tried to crawl somewhere.
He moved forward, called out to his comrade, who lifted Holly back on to his shoulder and came out of the main doors.
The leader walked toward the wounded man, the one crawling and bent down.
“Sorry,” he said – and, putting the gun to his head, pulled the trigger. He did it for each of the three wounded, and the last, Carlos Benitez, proud and Latin to the end, spat in his face as he did so, the saliva laced with pink frothy blood.
Flies were buzzing and settling on something inside the wire and the Fairy, an experienced man in his forties, lifted the binoculars to his eyes to try and get a better look. It was mid-morning and he was sweating in his heavy tweed jacket. Sod these rush jobs, he thought. Going home for a pint at the local and suddenly we’re all on a bloody blue job special flight of to sunny Palma. Could have given us time to get a change of clobber at least. Focusing the lenses, he looked across the fence.
Oh fuck. Oh fuck. It’s on!
“Get Cockburn. Quick!” he snapped to his partner.
“What?”
“Dead dog. Rottweiler or something. This place has been hit. We’re going in…”
Bending down and speaking quickly into his radio, he scooped up his firearm from the seat of the car, slid over into the driver’s seat and started the engine.
Cockburn and Chloe Bowie sat with a Milburn driver in a maroon sedan a hundred yards up the road. A third car, this one with a team of three Fairies and a borrowed medic, had pulled in behind them.
Cockburn saw the man running back toward them and heard the crackle of the radio in the team vehicle at their rear, its wheels spinning as it tore around them, throwing gravel in the air.
“What’s happening?” he asked quickly
“Dunno. Frank’s called the troops. He’s going in. Do you want to follow?”
“Of course I bloody do!” Cockburn snapped as the runner arrived. “Well?”
“Dead guard dogs, sir. The governor reckons the place has been hit already.”
Oh Christ, not when we’re so close, please.If they tried to take him, there’ll be many dead around – and, if he survived, he’ll have gone back underground, deep underground.
“MOVE IT!” he thundered, and the runner bailed into the back seat with Chloe. Moments later, the driver gunned the engine and chased the other two cars down the long access road to the gates. Up ahead, the team leader hadn’t stopped; he’d driven straight through them, his bonnet buckled from the impact, and kept on going.
“One of ours, is it, sir?” the driver asked. They didn’t usually go in like the cavalry. Not damaging cars and things. That meant reports and claims and the admin men getting involved.
“I hope not. I hope he got away,” Cockburn replied. Flies rose from the body of the dog as they roared past. “But catch up if you can!” he shouted over the engine noise. “If he’s there, then he may think we’re trying to hit him.”
The big converted stone winery came up very quickly. As the driver pulled on the handbrake to slew the car sideways on the drive, blocking the road as he had been taught, Cockburn could see the two other team members running to a trellised rockery by the front doors, one stopping and the other going round the side of the house. As he threw open his door, he could hear them shouting Quayle’s name, calling out that they were friendlies.
“Over here Mr Cockburn!” one called from the rockery.
Cockburn ran over to him, certain already, from the man’s expression, what he’d found. Shouting for Chloe to stay where she was, he walked round the carnage.
“Any of these your man?”
“Jesus, what happened here?” he asked appalled.
The Fairy, a Falklands veteran shrugged. “Firefight. Two teams up close. The one lot locals by the look of the weaponry. They were probably guards. The others? Silenced Ingrams... Uniforms.”
The man who had run around the house appeared back again, shaking his head.
Shit, Cockburn thought. We’ve missed him.
He thought for a minute, then turned to the pair. “Any of these people killed by hand, up close?”
The man looked back down at the bodies, big blue flies hovering over terrible wounds now dried and darkened in the morning sun.
“Not so far. All GSWs, but this one here had his last up close.”
“What are you saying?” Cockburn asked.
“Someone went round and finished them off,” the Fairy replied. “Your man perhaps?”
“Not his style,” Cockburn replied.
Someone called something from the house and the young Royal Marines Medical Officer that Cockburn had borrowed grabbed his bag and ran inside.
“Live one!” the Fairy said. Then, flicking a look at the last man who had searched around the house, he called out, “Stay here!” and he too ran for the door.
Cockburn was hard on his heels, Chloe running from the car
