43
26 July 2012
Bronson stepped soundlessly across to the partially open door. He eased it a fraction wider and for a second or two just listened.
Then he pushed it closed and looked back into the control room, the flashlight beam flitting around the room as he searched for a hiding place, for somewhere that Angela would be safe.
“Who is it?” she whispered.
“I don’t know,” Bronson replied, just as quietly, “but somehow I don’t think it’s some guy doing a guided tour of the mine. It’s most likely one of Marcus’s men, and it sounds as if he’s right down by the entrance, probably where we got in.”
“They followed us here?”
“I doubt it. I think it’s just Marcus covering all the bases. He and his men will have been looking for me ever since I shot my way past them at the house outside Berlin. He’ll have the British gang watching out for me, and if I’d been him I would have sent somebody here, just in case. The only clue he let slip was the expression ‘lantern bearer,’ and he must have known that that would only make sense in the context of the Wenceslas Mine. If they’ve spotted the car outside, they’ll know I’m inside, somewhere. But what they can’t know is that you’re here as well, and I’m going to make sure that that doesn’t change. You have to get out of sight.”
“And then what?” Angela demanded, her voice low and urgent.
“Stay hidden and stay quiet. I’m armed, and I have one big advantage. I don’t have to go searching for them, because they’ll come looking for me.”
“You mean you’ll kill them?”
Bronson looked at her pale face, barely visible in the gloom of the chamber, his flashlight pointing at the far wall, his fingers partially obscuring the lens to cut down the light.
“If it comes to that, yes,” he replied. “These men are utterly ruthless-I’ve seen that for myself, at first hand- and they have absolutely nothing to lose. Whoever has followed us inside will be carrying weapons-they’ve been sent here to kill me. I have no doubt at all about that.” Bronson smiled briefly. “So we’ll just have to make sure that they won’t succeed.”
He turned away from Angela and checked the room once again. Apart from directly behind the door, which was hardly a suitable hiding place, the only possible place of concealment was a cupboard with double doors built into the rear wall. Bronson strode over to it and pulled both doors wide, hoping that it wouldn’t be fitted with shelves or stuffed with equipment that would take time to remove.
In the event, it was virtually empty, just a few printed forms and other pieces of paper lying at the very bottom of the cupboard.
“Can you fit in there?” Bronson asked.
“Yes, but I really don’t like this.”
“I’m not wild about it myself, but right now I don’t see another option. Just stay in the cupboard and wait until it’s all over.”
“Just a minute,” Angela interrupted. “Are you sure that these people don’t know about me?”
“I don’t see how they can, so that’s why you need to stay hidden. If they don’t know you’re here, they won’t be looking for you.”
“So use me. We’ve got to find out what they’ve got planned for London. If they think they’ve got you cornered, maybe you can get some information from them that will help. I’ve still got your pistol, so I can be your insurance policy.”
“That only works in bad movies,” Bronson objected.
But then there was no more time for talking or planning, because they both heard the door at the end of the short passageway swing open, the unused hinges creaking a warning, saw the faint glow of a flashlight down the corridor, and then heard the sound of footsteps drawing steadily closer.
Bronson extinguished his own flashlight and, moving only by feel, ducked down behind the end of the heavy steel control panel, taking the Walther pistol out of his pocket as he did so, and quickly attaching the suppressor.
He could hear the man-only one man, he guessed, much to his relief-more clearly now, as he proceeded in a methodical fashion to clear each room as he reached it, exactly the way Bronson would have done if their situations had been reversed. And then the man stopped outside the door of the control room, presumably listening for the slightest sound that would confirm the presence of his quarry.
The door swung wide, kicked open, and the interior of the control room was filled with light as the man switched on a powerful lantern that he was carrying in his left hand. In his right he held a Heckler amp; Koch submachine gun.
Bronson registered all this in a split second as he crouched down low, peering around the base of the control panel and aiming the Walther.
But before he could pull the trigger, the intruder must have spotted either Bronson’s face or the pistol, because he immediately squeezed the trigger of the submachine gun and sent a lethal stream of nine-millimeter bullets toward him, the noise of the burst deafening in the confined space.
Bronson ducked back into his rudimentary shelter, bullets ricocheting off the steel plate and stone floor and howling around the room, almost as dangerous to the shooter as to the man he was aiming at.
Bronson risked another quick glance, guessing that the man’s next move would be to step inside the room and widen the angle so that he’d be able to see his target properly. The glare of the lantern was blinding, and Bronson could see nothing behind it. But he knew where the man had to be, so he adjusted his aim slightly and then squeezed the trigger.
The Walther kicked in his hand, but the only sound the weapon made was a flat slap, followed by the metallic noise of the slide being forced backward by the recoil, the ejected case clattering onto the stone floor, and a fresh round being loaded into the breech.
He had no idea whether he’d hit his target, but because the man made no sound, Bronson assumed that he’d missed. Semi-automatic pistols are notoriously inaccurate, even in experienced hands.
But then there was another shot, the crack of a small-caliber weapon, and immediately Bronson heard a howl of pain from the intruder, followed by the sound of something heavy and metallic falling to the floor. No way was he going to stand up to see what had happened, but he still needed to know the situation. He reached up and placed his flashlight on top of the metal control panel, aimed it more or less at the door of the room, and switched it on. At the same time, he ducked down again, aimed the Walther around the corner of the control panel directly at the lantern, and squeezed the trigger.
Immediately, the room plunged into relative darkness, and there, illuminated by the much weaker beam of Bronson’s flashlight, he saw the intruder for the first time, and recognized him immediately as one of the men he’d seen-what felt like months ago-in Marcus’s house in Germany. At his feet lay the Heckler amp; Koch, and he was clutching his stomach with both hands, his face ashen with pain.
Aiming the Walther straight at him, Bronson stood up and moved forward cautiously. In the light from the flashlight, he could see that the front of the man’s one-piece overall, somewhat similar to the ones he and Angela were wearing, was soaked in blood and, even as Bronson stepped near him, the man abruptly tumbled backward, falling limply to the floor like a marionette whose strings had suddenly been cut.
Bronson picked up the submachine gun and slung it over his shoulder, then stepped backward a couple of paces and glanced over to his right, toward the cupboard where Angela had taken refuge.
“Angela, are you okay?”
The cupboard door swung open and she peered out, her eyes moist in the dim light, her body trembling with shock.
“I just meant to frighten him,” she said. “I thought if I-”
“You did a lot more than frighten him,” Bronson said.
“I just pointed the gun at him and pulled the trigger.”
