Brian Freemantle - Charlie Muffin U.S.A.

He was on Ocean Boulevard, moving towards the turning into Flagler Drive, when the first of the police cars swept around the corner, siren wailing, roof cones flashing red and blue. Charlie walked unhurriedly, keeping close to the hedges and shrubbery, tensed against a challenge that never came.

Terrilli’s telephone call for help had been radioed to all the converging units and the police chief alerted. The police operation was excellently co-ordinated, four cars sweeping through and then two others swinging across the highway either side of the sliproad, creating a road block which effectively prevented more than half of Pendlebury’s force ever reaching their objective.

The police were bewildered by the number of people involved in the attack on Terrilli’s house. The two officers in the first car snatched their riot pump guns from the rack between the two front seats and the driver, a nervous youth of twenty-two responding to his first major call, loosed off a burst scarcely above the heads of the scrambling F.B.I. men. The following police cars did not recognise the shots as coming from one of their own men. Having been told by their despatch officer to respond with force, they crouched mob-control fashion behind the protection of their vehicles and began shooting into the milling shapes they could see in their headlights.

In that first flurry of shots, five F.B.I. officers were killed and eight wounded, two with injuries from which they later died. When there was no answering fire, the two lead police cars flooded the entrance with their manoeuvrable spotlights, using their foghorns to tell everyone to place their hands against the roofs of the cars.

Thirty men did as they were told, which meant that less than forty managed to get by the blocked cars and follow Pendlebury and the other three agents into Terrilli’s property.

Pendlebury was moving around the edge of the lawn that fronted Terrilli’s mansion, knowing it was the long way round but guessing he would need the cover of the border hedges. The floodlights brilliantly illuminated the area immediately in front of the mansion and the moon was so bright that it would have been like crossing the remainder in broad daylight had he tried to go straight across.

The years of indulgence slowed him, as well as his customary reluctance when faced with gunfire. The two operatives from the radio car were leading, Pendlebury next in line and then Gilbert.

The Cubans had left two men as a rearguard, expecting the explosion to bring the authorities, who would have to be slowed while they made their escape along the beach, a decision they had reached in the ditch, seconds before blowing the gate. So close were Pendlebury’s group and so powerful the bullet from the Armalite rifle that the first shot actually killed both the lead man and the one behind him. Pendlebury whimpered his fear as he plunged to the ground. He hoped Gilbert would think the sound was the breath being knocked from him.

‘You all right?’ whispered Gilbert.

Pendlebury grunted, to maintain the impression of being breathless.

‘Can’t see him,’ complained Gilbert, crawling up alongside.

Nearer the house there broke out a sudden snatch of firing and from where they lay they could hear the sound of breaking glass.

‘Bloody war up there,’ said Pendlebury.

‘But who?’ repeated Gilbert. He could see figures ducking through the floodlighting like some bizarre son et lumiere, with gunfire instead of words and music.

There was the sound of movement behind and both men twisted on their backs, trying to swing their guns around in time to fight off an attack. Then a figure spoke. ‘It’s me,’ and they recognised Al Simpson.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ demanded Pendlebury.

‘It’s chaos back there,’ said the man who had headed the Boynton Beach group. ‘Police have fired into our guys. Some have been hit. It’ll take some time to sort out.’

‘How many do we have here?’

‘Maybe twenty. Perhaps a few more. I don’t know.’

From the darkness ahead, the Armalite was fired again, the bullet stripping leaves off the nearby bush with a hissing sound, and then the second Cuban fired, driving their heads down against the grass.

‘You got rifles?’ asked Pendlebury. The grass got into his mouth as he talked.

‘And a hand-set,’ said Simpson.

‘Thank God for that. We’re being held down by people in that clump over there, marked by the outline of that tall tree. I want fire poured in there. Tell everyone to keep down. There’s fighting ahead but I don’t know between whom.’

Simpson twisted, repeating the instructions into his handset. Other shapes began to materialise, grouping themselves around Pendlebury, and at his signal they started firing in the direction from which Pendlebury had identified the snipers. There was sporadic answering fire and then, from Pendlebury’s left, the group Ramirez had taken into the grounds started shooting at the perfectly identified target. Simpson and Gilbert were killed immediately, and Pendlebury felt a thump in his left side and then numbness spreading from his shoulder to his thigh, and he knew he had been hit. He lay with his face against the grass, surprised that there should be a dampness to it, and wondered when the pain would come. He knew he wouldn’t be able to stand it and hoped they got him back to an ambulance with morphine before it got too severe. He started trying to find the wound and then stopped; if he felt anything too bad he knew the pain would begin.

‘Hit,’ he said, to a movement behind him, ‘I’ve been hit.’

He was distantly aware of someone muttering into the hand-set that Simpson had carried and then of another crash of shots as Ramirez’s group was flushed out. Ramirez tried to run towards the one Cuban who remained as a rearguard, but was mistaken for the enemy and caught full in the chest with a burst from the Armalite. Marked by the flash of the explosion, the last sniper was killed in the crossfire of two groups either side of the coppice.

Terrilli’s house was built upon a slight, man-made elevation and with the floodlights he was able to see perfectly what was happening outside, like a Caesar watching an ancient Roman spectacle. Bulz had gone down within seconds of coming around the side of the house, and as Terrilli watched he saw Bertrano suddenly jerk upwards, crying out, hand cupped to his head. Terrilli strained to see the figures darting from cover to cover, trying to identify Chambine. He thought he had him once and smiled as the figure toppled sideways, but then he realised it was someone attached to his own staff. He was aware of more people entering the grounds, far away beyond the reach of the floodlights and tried to detect above the firing the sound of the police cars. They couldn’t be much longer.

He saw Chambine at last. He was with three others, crouched behind some ornamental masonry that marked the very front of the house. Initially it formed good cover, but then two groups managed to work their way around either side, so that it became a trap. Chambine appeared the first to realise this. He looked hurriedly around, saw that the front door of the house was the only escape and darted towards it. The station waggon in which he had arrived so very few minutes before was pockmarked with bullet holes and only one side window remained unbroken. He crouched against it, using the cover. One man still by the stonework went down and the other two at last came to the same conclusion as Chambine. One was hit as he tried to dash to the car, but the other just made it.

Terrilli saw Chambine turn towards the house.

‘Is the door open?’ Chambine yelled.

‘Yes,’ Terrilli shouted back, sliding the huge securing bolts into position and twisting the keys in both the locks. He fled back to the gunroom at the very moment that Chambine and the other man made their run for the house. They were perfectly silhouetted as they reached the door. Chambine thrust himself against the woodwork so hard that the breath went from him. He stood back frowning, jerking at the door handle and shoving again, and then the Cubans opened fire, cutting into Chambine and Terrilli’s man like fun-fair targets.