After it Happened Boxset: 1-6 Omnibus Edition, page 38
Dan saw a slight shadow of movement at the extreme distance of the gardens. Steve, he hoped.
If it was, he was in line of sight of Steve and his rifle. Dan turned and walked quickly to the building line before he sprinted around the back of the building and stopped behind the corner.
The man watching Dan's arrival had two choices: follow him or don’t. One of his mates had gone to see where the fireworks had come from and hadn’t come back yet. The other one was hidden on the other side of the shed where they had shut the others away. He chose to follow him.
He chose wrong and walked past the open door of the Discovery.
Dan watched from the corner of the building as the man’s shadow crept closer. He timed it right, releasing Ash.
“GET HIM!” he yelled, hearing a snarl and a scream as he saw the shotgun fall to the floor.
He ran forward to secure the weapon and stop Ash from killing the invader.
Two things happened simultaneously. The man who had gone to check the house and the source of the unplanned fireworks came back after hearing the raised voices to see Dan at the corner of the building. He crept up on this black-clad newcomer, and as he moved, the attacker raised the ugly gun to aim at the back of his head. He was about five metres away, close enough to decapitate Dan with a single twitch of his finger.
The other man hidden by the shed ran forward to help his friend, who was being dragged around the door of the Land Rover like in a horror film. As he stepped out, Steve saw daylight behind his target. No longer fearing hitting someone friendly, he fired.
The man aiming at Dan’s head smiled, and as he heard the shot from Steve’s rifle, he instinctively looked left.
Directly into the muzzle of Cedric’s shotgun.
The man froze. He had no idea what to do, and there was nobody there to make his decision for him. He raised the shotgun, meaning to scare the old man.
The old man wasn’t scared, and as soon as Cedric saw the man move, he pulled the trigger. The flame spreading from the end of the barrel was the last thing he ever saw as his ragged and torn body was flung backwards to slam lifeless into a low wall.
“Who’s that?” Dan’s voice called from around the corner, shaking Cedric from his entranced gaze at the dead man.
“It’s me. Cedric,” he said as he rounded the corner, shotgun held low. He saw Dan dragging Ash off another man who looked very pale and in obvious agony. A great lump of flesh was missing from his forearm, exposing fat and muscle. It reminded him of pictures he had seen of shark attacks.
“Maggie?” Cedric asked desperately.
“Shed, locked in,” replied Dan as he got his dog under control. “Another one down further up. Come out carefully – Steve’s down there with a rifle.”
Cedric held both hands in the air, still carrying the pump-action. With less regard for his own safety than he normally would have, he moved into Steve’s line of sight and rushed to open the doors.
He stepped over the last man, now lying where he fell with his arms in a grotesque pose, like a string puppet cut loose to fall to the floor. All that was missing was the chalk outline.
As the doors opened, Maggie threw herself into his arms.
Dan shut Ash in the Discovery and returned to the man on the floor. He slung his own weapon and picked up the sawn-off. Opening the breech, he found both barrels loaded. The man was whimpering where he lay, curled up, legs thrashing with the pain he felt.
No wonder, Dan thought; Ash had really taken a dislike to him. Blood loss was a concern, and he would probably never use that arm properly again. On the off chance he lived, that was.
“Don’t go anywhere, treacle,” Dan said with a worrying smile as he kicked the man onto his back. “I’m going to ask you some questions in a minute.”
CHECKMATE
Billy and his boys rolled down the hill towards the house. They had seen the fireworks much sooner than he anticipated and waited for the cavalry to rush out and leave the main prize unguarded. They didn’t disappoint him.
While the heroes were busy negotiating the release of their hostages, he would swoop in and take the house. Cruel, fast, simple and bloody.
I WANT A LAWYER
The man was hurting badly, grey with shock and blood loss, and shivering uncontrollably.
Dan dragged him to the front bumper where he sat him hard up against it.
Cedric had checked that everyone was unhurt and left them in Maggie’s hands. She was straight on the radio to the house to let them know they were safe. Cedric came back over, still gripping the Remington. Dan looked at him, saw him shaking, and asked him if he was OK.
“Yeah, fine,” he said unconvincingly.
Dan stepped closer to him. “Thanks. I owe you one. You did the right thing.”
Cedric cut him off. “It’s not that,” he said angrily, then took a breath and closed his eyes momentarily. “It’s not that,” he said more calmly, looking directly at Dan. “I thought I’d lost Maggie.” He closed his eyes again, letting the adrenaline wash out of his body.
“She’s safe thanks to you,” Dan told him softly.
Steve jogged up, having checked and disarmed his victim on the way up.
Dan saw him and nodded to convey his thanks for the good shot.
“Just three?” Steve asked.
“Looks like it. Let’s ask,” Dan said with a wolfish look on his face.
Dan turned to the pale man cringing against the front of his car. Dan drew his knife and cut a length of the man’s top, making him flinch. He tied it tightly around his savaged arm as a tourniquet. “Don’t want you passing out before you’ve told me everything you know, do we, treacle?” he said, giving him a less-than-playful slap around the face.
Dan stood. “Now. Who are you and why are you here, scaring my friends?”
“Fuck you,” the man said through gritted teeth.
OK, try the hard man act.
Dan bent down to his face and spoke quietly to him. “Let’s get something clear: there’s nobody going to drag me away if I get too rough. There’s no solicitor arguing for you. There’s nobody to complain to. There’s just us, and chances are if you don’t tell me what I want to know, then you’ll die slowly in a great deal of pain.”
He stood again, receiving an angry stare through teary eyes. “Are you going to answer my questions?” he asked calmly.
“No. Comment,” the man said, smiling through the excruciating pain as though he felt he had made a great joke.
“Very well,” said Dan in a formal tone as he walked to open the door of the Discovery. “I’ll give you a choice: talk to me, or talk to my colleague.” With that, he whistled once and Ash bounded out of the car and stalked over to him. He circled around his owner’s legs like a hunting wolf, never taking his eyes off the bleeding man.
“Watch him,” Dan said, and Ash slowly stepped closer. Inches from the man’s face, Ash gave him the full display of big, sharp teeth as he pulled his lips back and snarled.
“Watch him, Ash!” Dan shouted again, making the dog snap at his face and intensify the display with barking as he kicked it up a gear. “Good boy.” Turning back to the man, Dan said, “Now, which one of us would you like to talk to?”
He decided to talk to Dan, who told Ash to sit.
“Billy gave us the orders. His ‘dog’ told him everything about you,” he said in between gasps of pain.
“From the beginning,” said Dan patiently. “Who is Billy, and how did his dog tell him about us?”
“We found him around Christmas. Wanted us to come and kill someone for him,” he said.
“Who?” Dan asked impatiently, fearing the answer.
“You,” he said, smiling through gritted teeth.
Dan turned to Steve in horror as the truth dawned on him. “Kyle. He’s coming for the house,” he said.
He considered putting two bullets in the wounded man’s head, but he would have to wait.
“Cedric!” Dan bawled, running over to the rest of them. “Radio the house and tell them this was a diversion. Lock this place down and give those sawn-offs out.” He turned and ran to the Discovery. “And tie this piece of shit up. Ash wants another word with him later,” he yelled as he climbed behind the wheel. He reversed at speed, dumping the laughing man on his back painfully.
RAIDERS
Pete heard them first.
“Get yourself up there, lad,” he said to James, pointing to a higher patch of ground ahead to his left. “Stay behind the big tree and only come out shooting if I shout for you.”
James was white with terror but fought to control his breathing and find his courage. He nodded and ran, carrying a shotgun and cartridge bag.
Pete settled down on a large tree stump to look down the scope. He saw the two vehicles approaching and settled the crosshairs of his scope on the driver of the lead car.
He agonised over whether he should shoot or not. Everything told him that these people were coming to take what they had built. Wait, he told himself. Wait.
~
Neil had worked fast. With Rich helping, the GPMG was sitting ready and proud in front of the house in the bed of the truck. Nobody would risk driving straight up to it.
That made him pause. If they wouldn’t come here, they would go somewhere else. Somewhere undefended.
He yelled inside for Ian. Jimmy poked his head out to say Ian wasn’t there.
“Can you grab the keys to one of the lorries?” Neil shouted back. He told him what he wanted, and Jimmy didn’t hesitate.
~
Leah lay flat in sniper pose: right leg cocked at an angle to allow her diaphragm to move without affecting her shot. She had taken a G36 which she had fitted with a bipod and scope for distance shooting. Nobody else used the guns, so they were effectively hers. She lined three magazines up by her left hand and felt for them as she looked through the optic, ready to reload without looking at what she was doing. Ninety rounds ready to go, and she would make them count.
She scanned the scope up and down the driveway, waiting as Neil called up to her to stay hidden until he fired first. She yelled that she understood.
~
Rich knelt behind a large oak tree. He was scared. Terrified, in fact, but the carbine felt good in his hands. He looked through the holographic sight, checking the approach road. He was to the left of the house, closest to the ones who had gone to cover the rear access track, a fact he was acutely aware of when a single gunshot echoed through the trees from where they were.
They had put all their best guns up front, leaving two civilians with hunting weapons to defend the rear.
~
Pete waited for the car to reach the narrowest part of the track with mud either side before he fired, putting a bullet in the driver’s head. The car stopped, causing a pileup behind, as the others couldn’t get past. The driver of the rear car tried the mud to the side and got bogged down as Pete hoped he would.
Pete racked the bolt slowly on his rifle, lined up again, and shot the second driver in the neck, seeing him flinch and grab at the wound, which now sprayed blood over the inside of the windscreen.
They realised that their element of surprise was lost, and they started to get out. They pointed in his direction and began to fan out. Pete slid the bolt with a smooth, practised action to load another bullet into the chamber, and vowed to take as many of these bastards as he could before they got him.
~
Lexi lay flat on top of a metal grain silo on the farm. Joe was below her somewhere, eyes on the road. She saw the three cars drive into sight. They didn’t come to the farm but sped down the hill to the main house. She didn’t have time to get a shot off, and had to make a choice.
“Joe!” she shouted.
“I’m here. What do you see?”
“Three cars heading fast for the house. I’ll stay here; you move up to cut off the drive. Don’t go in sight of the house, as you’ll get shot by ours.”
“Moving,” was the only reply she heard.
~
When Rich heard the second shot, he knew he had to do something. He shouted for Neil’s attention, but the older man couldn’t hear him.
“NIKKI!” Rich shouted, using the abbreviated Nikita nickname as he usually did. He saw her scope swing towards him. He gave her three exaggerated hand movements: pointing to himself, then to the woods behind him, then a change of hand movement. He was telling her he was moving to flank the rear attack. Leah understood. She gave one flash on the torch attached to her weapon in acknowledgement.
“Go,” she said to herself, “go get them.”
~
The three cars raced along the drive, four hundred metres from the house. At three hundred metres, Jimmy did what Neil had asked him to: he drove the lorry forward and left around the ornate turning circle, exposing Neil with his legs braced wide and his hands on the machine gun.
~
Pete fired a whole magazine, killing three for the five bullets. He only had one magazine for the gun, so he had to load single rounds into the breech. It was quicker than trying to reload the mag. They were getting closer. He wasn’t going to take them all down before they got to him.
Twice more he fired, missing with one shot. He thought of his girls, and a tear pricked the corner of one eye.
“Bastards,” he growled. “Bastards.”
He lined up on another, this time close enough to see the features of the target’s face. He fell before Pete fired, his legs dropping like someone had switched his power off. They had. The twin reports of a double-tap from a gun with a different sound reached Pete’s ears, and he knew that he had been saved.
~
Rich ran a lung-bursting sprint through the ancient woodland thick with gnarled tree roots. He had almost a quarter of a mile to cover on bad ground. In his day, he would have covered that in less than three minutes.
He ran, slipping twice and scrabbling to his feet to continue as he counted more shots from ahead and to his right. He was blowing hard, but he knew there had to be more in the tank. He paused, finding where Pete had stopped the vehicles by killing two drivers. The cars were abandoned, the occupants gone forward on foot. The foliage was too thick to see into the distance, but the steady rhythm of gunshots still came, only now it was mixed with the staccato sound of return fire from something smaller firing automatic bursts. He turned to his left again and ran as hard as he could for two hundred metres to gain the high ground. He steadied his breath, checked his weapon and crept down towards the road, scanning.
Movement ahead, he raised the gun in a fluid motion and instinctively fired twice into the middle of the body in front of him. He moved forward, willing himself to go on despite his fear.
Movement to his right. Two of them. He dropped one knee and aimed, firing twice more into each shape. He forced himself to his feet to keep moving.
He was lost in himself, a machine designed to kill the enemy quicker than they could kill him. His weapon drills were slick and spoke of long hours of practice he’d feared he had forgotten. He was alive, he was angry, and they would be sorry.
~
“NOW!” Neil screamed.
Jimmy gunned the engine of the small lorry, making it jolt forward to unveil the heavy machine gun mounted in the bed of the truck.
Neil opened up on the lead vehicle, heavy bullets punching through metal and plastic easily. At that distance, it was butchery. The front vehicle swerved off the road into a fence where it stopped dead against a tree, exposing the second car in line to the murderous fire.
~
Leah took careful aim on the windscreen of the tail-end vehicle. As soon as Neil began to fire, she put four rounds in quick succession straight where the driver’s centre mass would be.
The car lost control and slammed into the rear of the second vehicle, which had ground to a halt. Leah scanned along the wreckage, searching for a target. A rear door opened on the last car on the side away from her, and a tentative head popped into view and looked forward to where it thought the danger was.
“Over here,” she whispered to herself, like in the film she shouldn’t have watched about the alien who killed all the soldiers in the jungle.
She fired, immediately searching for a new target.
Neil fired only occasional bursts now while she scanned for movement.
They were hiding in the dead ground on the other side of the vehicles. Rich would have been there, but he had gone to ambush the ones attacking Pete. She waited for a break in the firing and bawled Neil’s name as loudly as she could.
“What?” he shouted back.
“Fire under two,” she shouted. They had to be forced from cover before they had a chance to reorganise and fire back.
“What?” he yelled again.
“FIRE. UNDER. THE. SECOND. CAR!” she screamed, carefully pronouncing each word.
They heard her and started to move.
Neil sent three bursts under the car, splaying two of the attackers out on the ground and making another two run for the nearest cover of the treeline.
She lined up on the first one, judged his speed, and fired just in front of him. She fired a second and third bullet into him as he hit the ground.
The other one was gone.
~
Joe had thrown himself into the bushes to cut the corner between the farm and the road. He now lay flat, catching his breath.
He heard the undergrowth being trampled, and the sound was fast approaching him. He knelt up, rifle scanning the bushes ahead. Too big to be a dog – not even Ash – and no farm animals were anywhere near this woodland. The noise was coming fast, desperate sounds escaping the runner as they blindly fled the heavy firing coming from the house.
