Heathen/Nemesis

Sixty-Seven

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.

He grinned. She dropped the saucepan as she saw him raise the pistol and aim at her.

He fired twice and Julie threw herself down as bullets ploughed into the kitchen table. Another hit a vase on the sideboard. It promptly disintegrated in a cloud of dust, pieces spinning in all directions.

He fired again.

Julie rolled over, finally propping herself against the back door, touching the bolts there to reassure herself that it was locked.

She almost screamed when she felt the blows raining against it.

Donna emerged on the landing, momentarily frozen, unsure what to do. She had heard the shots from downstairs, heard Julie’s shouts, but what to do? Go back downstairs or try and get a better shot at one of the bastards from up here?

She chose to move on.

The door to her left was open slightly; she could feel cold air blowing through.

Donna shoved the door open, steadying herself against the frame, the Beretta raised.

Stark was caught completely by surprise.

For one moment he looked as if he was raising his hands in surrender, then he leapt forward.

Donna got off two shots before he crashed into her.

The first missed and blasted a hole in the far wall.

The second caught Stark in the left shoulder. The bullet ripped through his deltoid muscle and pulverized part of the scapula as it exited, the impact enough to spin him almost three hundred and sixty degrees.

He yelled in pain, then crashed into Donna, both of them falling, hitting the floor with a thud that knocked the wind from her.

The Beretta flew from her hand, bounced against the wall and skidded down the stairs.

She reached for the .38 jammed into her waistband, trying to pull it free as Stark grabbed for her throat.

Donna didn’t manage to get her finger around the trigger but she did pull the weapon clear, closing her hand around it and using it as a club.

She drove it into the side of his head as hard as she could, hearing a crack as she smashed his temporal bone.

Stark fell to one side and Donna scrambled out from beneath him. He tottered drunkenly to his feet and reached inside his jacket. She saw his fingers close around the butt of a .45.

Donna fired twice.

From point-blank range the first bullet hit him in the stomach, doubling him up as it punched a hole just to the left of his navel, ploughing through intestines before lodging close to his spine.

The second hit him in the right shoulder, the impact lifting him off his feet and sending him toppling towards the head of the stairs.

He threw out a hand, clutching at empty air, then fell backwards, tumbling head over heels down the steps, finally crashing to a stop at the bottom, where he lay in a spreading pool of blood.

Downstairs, Julie looked across and saw Stark hit the floor, her attention diverted only momentarily from the blows still raining against the door.

She felt sure that, any second, the wood must splinter and the attacker would be inside.

She looked around desperately for something to defend herself with.

The tool box was lying in one corner of the room, close to the cellar hatch.

Jesus, the cellar.

That was it.

She crawled across the floor in the darkness, her body drenched in sweat, her eyes stinging from all the smoke.

She grabbed a hammer from the tool box and crawled back towards the cellar hatch. Lifting it, she peered down into the blackness below, feeling the first rung of a rickety ladder as she dangled her foot into the yawning gap.

She eased herself down a few rungs, praying it wouldn’t collapse under her.

The stench of damp that enveloped her was noxious; she tried to take short breaths. Gripping the hammer in one fist and propping the hatch up with her free hand, she crouched low so that she had about an inch gap through which she could see the back door.

The door was starting to split from its merciless battering.

One of the hinges was coming loose.

Julie gripped the hatch and waited. She almost screamed when she felt something soft touch her face.

A spider the size of her thumbnail dropped past her in the gloom, its legs brushing her cheek.

She gripped the hammer and waited.

The door was practically off its hinges now. One more blow and the attacker would be inside.

Julie swallowed hard, closing her eyes.

There was a final crash and the door, and Ryker, hurtled into the kitchen.

Upstairs, Donna heard the sound of forced entry, her eyes still fixed on the barely moving form of Stark.

Had she turned round quicker, she might have seen Kellerman advancing upon her.