Aaron Elkins - Fellowship Of Fear

Gideon uncoiled and launched himself at the dark figure a fraction of a second before the feet touched earth. He wanted to hit him at the precise moment he landed, when he would, for the barest instant, be concentrating on his equilibrium. Coming at him from behind, Gideon whipped the broom handle down at the back of the man’s right hand.

Three things went wrong. First, Gideon’s left ankle seemed to give way under him as he came out of his crouch, and he slipped. Second, the bulging, slippery garbage bag somehow got in his way and nearly overturned him. Third, the man landed awkwardly and twisted his body around to try to keep his balance. Thus Gideon’s blow was tardy by about a third of a second; the figure was nearly facing him instead of landing with his back to him; and the target-the gun-holding right hand-was flailing around on Gideon’s left instead of hanging motionlessly on the right, where it belonged.

The broom handle, as a result, came down on the side of the man’s neck, sloppily but hard. The look on his face was so innocently astounded that for a preposterous second, Gideon wanted to apologize. He was only about twenty, lean and powerfully built but smaller than Gideon. Even in the dark, Gideon could see that he was badly shaken.

They stood looking at each other for a ridiculously long time. Then Gideon said suddenly, "Look, this is crazy. I don’t want to hurt you-"

The boy leaped back and pointed the gun directly at Gideon’s face. Gideon ducked and grabbed for his wrist with his left hand. Instead, he caught the barrel of the pistol. He held it off to the side, pointing away from them and, off balance, tried to twist it free. Somehow, the boy held on to it and managed to fire a shot. Immediately there was a shout from the other end of the bridge.

"Marco!"

Marco, his wrist bent nearly double, but still hanging onto the gun, gave a panicky gasp and hit Gideon weakly on the forehead with the flashlight in his left hand. Gideon sent it spinning to the ground with a backhanded swipe of the stick just as they were both lit up in the glare of the others’ powerful flashlights. He knew he had only a few seconds. The other men were no more than a hundred feet away and would not be much deterred by the uneven ground. He had to get the gun away from Marco, and he had to stay close enough to him so they wouldn’t dare shoot.

He twisted the pistol barrel with all his strength. Marco’s wrist seemed to turn a full, boneless circle, but still he held on and clawed at Gideon’s face with his other hand. Gideon hit him in the face with the broom handle. Marco made a dreadful mewing noise but held on and kept clawing. He had gotten his fingers inside Gideon’s lower lip and was twisting hard. Gideon felt something give, and hot blood gushed onto his chin. Tears jumped to his eyes with the sudden pain.

"Drop it!" he shouted thickly through the ripping fingers. His cheek flapped hideously. He clubbed Marco again and then again.

The boy’s fingers held rigidly onto the gun, although his face was suddenly smeared with blood and weirdly awry. Gideon kept smashing with the broom handle. He was wild-nearly hysterical-with pain and horror.

"Drop it, damn you!" he screamed. "Drop it, drop it, please, God, drop it!" Then he heard himself shrieking wordlessly to drown out the rising scream from Marco’s mangled, bloody face.

Finally, Marco sagged and Gideon wrenched the gun out of his hand just as the two others got to them. Gideon brushed off a grasping hand and swung the semiconscious Marco around, getting his arms through the boy’s armpits so that he supported the limp, moaning form between himself and them. He pressed the end of the gun barrel under Marco’s heart and glared crazily at the two men. He tried to speak but couldn’t. Marco’s damp, greasy hair was against his nose; he could smell sweat and cheap hair oil.

In all his life, Gideon had never been so wildly out of control. He couldn’t stop gasping, or maybe it was sobbing, and he was full of an awesome rage. To be hunted down by maniacs with guns; to be standing there in the dark, covered with blood and slime, his lip torn off for all he knew; to be pressing a gun into a boy’s abdomen; to be forced to club that juvenile face into a gory…

One of the men addressed him in a lazy, arrogant drawl. "Oliver, if I were you-"

Gideon shouted at him to shut up, only what burst from him was not words but an inarticulate, savage bellow that seemed to come from some beast-some literal, material beast inside him.

So ferocious was it that both men jumped back. Even Gideon was shocked by its violence; stupidly, he patted Marco reassuringly.

While the two men stared at him with pistols leveled at his chest-at Marco’s head, to be more exact-Gideon tried to review his situation. He knew he was hurt and weakened and that his thinking was fuzzy. He wasn’t sure how much of the slop on him was blood, nor how much of the blood was his own. He couldn’t free a hand to explore his mouth, but he was sure it was terribly lacerated. He thought his face was cut in other places, too. Most important, there had been a sharp pain in his ankle when he had swung Marco around and propped him up. He had done something serious to it, and he knew he couldn’t run on it or even drag himself and Marco away on the threat of killing the boy if they followed. Moreover, he wasn’t sure that Marco’s life would carry any weight with them anyway; they were older than the boy-harder, a different breed. And when it came down to it, he knew he couldn’t fire into that helpless, battered body. The other two, he thought, would know he was bluffing.

The older of the two men, the one who had spoken before, appeared to know what he was thinking.

"Oliver," he drawled again, "this really won’t do any good, you know. I’d rather not endanger our poor friend there, but if it can’t be helped, I assure you I’ve no qualms about it, none whatever." His speech was English public school, self-assured and superior, with strong Italian overtones.

Gideon didn’t answer, but kept the gun pressed to Marco’s belly. He had less reluctance about shooting the two others, but he knew he could never get them both. He doubted he could hit even one. He didn’t even know whether you had to push back the hammer or simply pull the trigger. From the way they held their weapons, it was clear that the other two were on intimate terms with them.

Marco stirred and tried to plant himself more firmly on his feet. His hands came up to Gideon’s forearms and then explored his own face. He groaned; Gideon shuddered, but tightened his hold and braced himself against the boy’s body.

"Oliver," the older man said once more, "do let’s be reasonable. We’d simply like to talk to you, you see. I’m not really sure how we’ve arrived at this ridiculous juncture, and I’d be a great deal happier if we weren’t pointing these things at one another, wouldn’t you?"

He smiled, and it wasn’t a bad smile. Gideon said nothing, but kept watching him. He had a lined, high-nosed face, aristocratic in the Italian way, and his smile lent warmth to his eyes. Standing in a Sicilian mud puddle in the middle of the night seemed no more plausible for him than for Gideon.

"I’ll tell you what," he went on. "Why don’t I put mine away, then?" He did so, slipping it into a shoulder holster underneath a well-cut suit jacket. Then he held up his empty palms.

"Take the light out of my eyes," Gideon said.

The man lowered his flashlight and gestured at the other one to do the same. "There," he said, "is that better? Now suppose that on the count of three, you and my friend here, who is really much more sympathetic than he looks, both lower your weapons until they’re pointing at the ground. Then you can both drop them at the same time and we’ll have our chat. Now, how does that sound?"