TWENTY NINE
In the drawing room, Fox had remained with Cobb and his family, his MP5 clutched in his hands. The power-cut meant they didn't have time to get to the cellar, the access to which was the other side of the house. Cobb had whispered that the fuse box was down there, so once the power went out they knew the Panthers would be coming in from that side. Porter and Chalky had left them in the Drawing Room, moving off into the large dark Hall, playing the deadliest possible game of hide and seek. Huddled behind a chaise-longue, Cobb's wife had her hands over her two boys’ mouths, who were crouched shivering in their pyjamas, terrified. Fox stood in front of the chaise-longue protectively, his MP5 locked and loaded, Jackson’s blood still on his overalls, Cobb beside him with the Glock, both men staring at the two separate doors that led into the room.
The Hall beyond was eerily silent. The only sound they could hear was the rain tapping against the glass. They waited, knowing there were other men in the house, hunting them, coming to kill them.
Outside the main door, there was a sudden noise. Very faint, but audible. There was a muffled whimper from one of the boys behind them in response.
Fox looked at Cobb, who nodded.
The ARU officer rose and crept towards the door slowly, his MP5 in his shoulder.
To his left, the curtains were open.
The moonlight illuminated the room with its cold light, breaking through the grey clouds as the falling rain continued to drum against the windows.
Suddenly, there was a smash, thud and a tinkle of glass.
Fox fell to the floor, as the two boys gave muffled yelps under their mother's palms. Cobb dropped down too, his eyes raking the windows. Fox had dropped his MP5 and was clutching his leg, blood already pooling on the floor around him, a bullet deep in his left thigh.
Cobb belly-crawled along the floor to the wounded officer, his pistol in his hand. Fox's eyes were wide with shock and pain. Cobb could feel the warm blood on his stomach as he lay by the man. He pulled off his tie and wrapped a tight tourniquet around Fox's leg as best he could. Then he grabbed his officer's hand and dragged him back across the ground, making sure to stay low and out of view of the rifleman outside who had taken the shot
Upstairs, Spider was creeping along the corridor, his footfalls silent on the carpeted floor. He had just cleared two bedrooms, one by one, moving inside each, ready to shoot anyone inside, man, woman or child. He knew Cobb's family were here, but he would have no hesitation killing them too.
However, the two bedrooms had been empty. The sheets were disturbed however, recently used, the covers thrown back, the pillow imprinted with someone’s head.
They were here.
Somewhere.
He stalked on. Glancing out of a window to his left, he saw the dark shape of the helicopter on the lawn. There were policemen here somewhere too. No matter. They were used to street arrests and broad daylight. The dark and the night were the Panthers' world. They would be irritations, only. With his night-vision goggles and his silenced MP5, his strength back after all those years in the prison, Spider felt invincible. Many men had tried to kill him before. None had succeeded. And tonight would be no different. English police officers were no match for him and the rest of the Panthers.
The door to the next room was ajar and Spider pushed it back gently with his toe, moving inside, checking left and right.
This room was different from the other two bedrooms. It had been rearranged, a cluster of chairs, stands and a desk gathered in the centre of the room away from the walls. The curtains were drawn but as he slowly checked out the room through his goggles he could see there were white sheets and blankets laid around the place, some cans of paint on the floor beside rollers and brushes, a paint-stained radio resting on a brown desk, plugged into a small generator on the ground. He saw that the room was being redecorated. Beside the paint cans and roller trays, he could make out the metallic sheen of some black floodlights, the reflector behind the dark bulbs silver and covered by long lens caps.
The painters weren’t here. The place was quiet and still, the only sound the constant drumming of raindrops on the shielded windows.
He saw a closed door across the room and stepped forward softly towards it.
Then he heard a click.
Suddenly, the room was filled with blinding light. It seared into his retinas through the goggles, and he fell back, tearing them off, his eyes burning with pain.
Across the room, Chalky took his hand off the generator button for the lights. He moved fast round from behind the desk and shot the big soldier through the head.
The man dropped like a marionette with the strings sliced, his weapon clattering to the floor, blood and bits of skull sprayed all over the floor, splinters flying from the wall as the bullet buried itself in the old wood behind him as it exited the back of his head.
The gunshot echoed around the house, faded and then was gone.
Chalky clicked the switch on the generator, the lights turned off again, and he waited, aiming at the far doorway, willing another of the Panthers to walk inside into his crosshairs.
But no one came.
He moved forward silently, keeping his weapon trained on the doorway, then stepped to the side, pushing the door shut with the softest of clicks. He looked down at the dead soldier at his feet.
Kneeling by the body, Chalky pushed the pressel on his uniform, the only other sound the constant rain hitting the window behind him .
‘This is Chalk,’ he whispered. ‘One down.’
Ripping the night goggles from the man’s head, he quickly wiped off the blood and brains that were on the back leather strap.
Then he pulled them over his own eyes, and raising his weapon, his vision now clear as if it was daylight, he moved on into the dark mansion.
A hundred and sixty yards outside the front of the house, Flea lay motionless on the earth, his Dragunov rifle in his shoulder, his breathing long and slow and smooth.
When they'd arrived, pulling off the main road and parking in the forestry, the rest of the team had headed off to the house whilst Flea moved right, taking up a position facing the giant Hall just beyond the main lawn.
The rain was falling harder now, drenching him, droplets of water flicking onto the scope. But he remained still and focused. He was pissed at himself that he'd snatched at the shot of the cop in the main room, but then again he was unfamiliar with this rifle and the guy had moved just as he fired. He'd only hit the man in the thigh. However, hopefully he may have hit an artery, or even if he hadn't, the guy would need urgent medical attention or he would bleed to death there inside the house.
Then he would be another kill to Flea's name. 323. Another step closer to Hayha's record.
But he'd just heard a faint gunshot from somewhere inside the house. Good. It meant another of the policemen would be dead. It was inconceivable to him that any of them could kill one of the Panthers. They were cops, not soldiers. They were hopelessly out of their league, and had sealed their own fates by coming here to defend Cobb when they should have left him to die.
At that moment, through one of the large ground floor windows, he saw another of the officers from the police unit creeping along a corridor on the lower level. He moved ahead, tracing the man's path, predicting where he would move, leading the target. He had a feeling for the rifle now, and adjusted his aim accordingly.
This time he wouldn't miss.
He lay as still as if he was dead, his pupil looking down the scope, ignoring the heavy rain obscuring the moonlight and falling on him from above.
He saw the man had stripes on the shoulder of his uniform.
A sergeant.
Flea smiled as the reticule moved just ahead of the man.
And his finger tightened on the trigger.
Moving silently down the main corridor, Porter glanced out of the window to his right, looking out into the dark and wet night. He kept walking slowly, checking behind him, making his way to the drawing room.
The door was slightly open.
Taking a deep breath, he ducked in, then froze.
The big man they had held captive, Wulf, was in there, looking straight at him. He was wearing a set of night-vision goggles, the visor pushed up, his face smeared black.
And he had a gun to Cobb’s head. Beside him, a smaller man with scarring all over the side of his face and neck had a silenced MP5 against the temple of Cobb’s wife, the two kids standing beside them, terrified and helpless. He saw Fox lying on the ground, unconscious, bleeding from a wound to his leg, blood all over the floor. Porter knew from the amount of blood on the ground that he’d need medical attention soon if he was going to survive.
‘Drop your weapon,’ Wulf said, in English, only the whites of his eyes visible to Porter. ‘Or they die.’
‘If I drop it, they’ll die anyway,’ Porter said, his MP5 trained on the man.
‘You don’t have a choice. You’re alone. No one is coming to help you.’
'Yes, they are,' another voice said, from the left.
Porter glanced to his left and saw Chalky had entered the room, his MP5 aimed at the two men. He had a pair of night-vision goggles over his head which he ripped off with his left hand and tossed across the room to the carpet.
'I just killed your friend,' Chalky said. 'So much for the Black Panthers. You guys are like pussies.'
They stood there, in a stand-off. Through the sights of his MP5, Porter saw Wulf's eyes narrow at the insult. Chalky moved and Wulf and the other soldier tensed, but all he did was move to his right, towards Porter, keeping his hair-trigger on the smaller man beside Wulf.
‘If you kill them, I’ll kill you,’ Chalky said, speaking along the stock of his MP5.
‘So what. We have nothing left to live for. Our work here is almost complete.’
Pause.
‘Let him go. He didn’t know what those men did until today.’
‘But he saved them,’ Wulf said, pushing the gun harder into Cobb’s temple.
He pulled back the hammer.
‘Don’t do it,’ Chalky said, his MP5 tight, the trigger aimed at Wulf’s eye. 'Or you die.'
Wulf didn’t respond.
He smiled, victory in his eyes.
And Chalky felt something cold and metallic touch his neck.
It was the barrel of a gun.
‘Drop it,’ a voice said.
Chalky glanced over at Porter, defeat in his eyes.
'Drop the guns,' the voice said again.
Porter looked at Chalky. They were beaten.
And together, the two men dropped their MP5s, the sub-machine guns clattering to the carpet, as a third Panther held a pistol to Chalky’s neck.