Stephen Leather - The birthday girl

Mersiha sat cross-legged on the concrete floor, cradling her Kalashnikov in her lap as she watched Freeman shave. She tilted her head from side to side like a small bird, and when he shaved under his chin she lifted her head up, gritted her teeth and tightened the skin around her neck as he did.

'Why do you do that?' she asked as he splashed water over his face.

'Shave, you mean? Because it feels better. Doesn't your brother shave?'

Mersiha giggled. 'His skin is like a girl's,' she said. 'Do all Americans shave?'

'I'm not American. I'm Scottish.'

'Scottish?'

'From Scotland. Next to England. The English come from England, the Scottish come from Scotland.' He rinsed his razor in the bowl of cold water.

'But you live in America?'

Freeman nodded. 'My wife is American. What about your father? Didn't he shave?'

Mersiha shook her head. 'He had a-' She screwed up her face as she sought the correct word.'-beard,' she finished. 'He had a beard.'

She fell silent as Freeman used an old green towel to pat his skin dry. 'I'm sorry about what happened to your father,' he said quietly.

She frowned. 'How do you know what happened?' she asked.

There was a hard edge to her voice and Freeman realised he would have to tread carefully. 'Your brother told me,' he said.

'Told you what?' 'That he died,' Freeman said, realising how lame that sounded.

Mersiha snorted. 'Not died. Killed,' she said. 'Killed by the Serbian butchers.' She stood up and Freeman noticed with a sudden chill that she'd slipped her finger through the trigger guard. 'Why do you deal with them? Why do you do business with the men who killed my parents?' Freeman held out the towel to her, hoping to break her train of thought, but she ignored it.

'Why?' she pressed.

'It's hard to explain,' Freeman said.

'Try,' she insisted.

Freeman took a sharp breath as he saw her finger tighten on the trigger. It was hard to believe she was the same girl who only minutes earlier had been giggling and mimicking the way he shaved. 'I have a factory, in America,' he began. 'We make things for the Army. If I don't sell the things we make, the people who work for me won't get paid. They'll lose their jobs, their homes.'

'Why do you make weapons?' she asked. 'Why do you make things that kill people?'

'We don't,' Freeman insisted. 'My company used to make arms, but I made them change. We make other things now.

Machines that tell you where mines are buried. My machines help people, Mersiha. They don't kill people.'

Mersiha frowned. 'Why did you come here, to Bosnia? Why don't you just sell to America?'

'Because the American Army doesn't want to buy what we make. The people here do.'

'Not people, animals. The Serbs are murdering animals. They killed my father, they killed my mother, and you are helping them…'

'Mersiha, I didn't know…' he began.

She waved the Kalashnikov at him. 'Of course you know.

Everyone knows what the Serbs are doing. Everybody knows, nobody cares.' Her eyes blazed with a fierce intensity and Freeman was suddenly afraid. 'My parents did nothing wrong, nothing. They were killed because they were Muslims…' She frowned as a thought crossed her mind. 'You,' she said. 'You are a Christian, yes?'

Freeman hesitated, knowing that the answer would only antagonise her further.

'Yes?' she repeated.

Freeman nodded. 'Yes,' he said softly.

The barrel of the gun was suddenly still, centred on Freeman's chest. It was as if time had stopped. Freeman was aware of her finger tightening on the trigger, the perspiration glistening on her brow, the small, almost imperceptible movements of her chest as she breathed, the slight parting of her lips, the smears of dirt on the knees of her wool trousers. A myriad images were compressed into a single second, and Freeman had a sudden fear that they would be the last things he saw. His knees trembled and he wanted to say something to her but he had no idea what words to use. 'Mersiha…' was all he could get out, but he could see that she wasn't listening. Freeman wasn't looking into the eyes of a thirteen-year-old girl, he was staring at a killer. He thought of his wife, and of his son, and the objective part of his brain surprised him by wondering whether the bullets would hurt.

Mersiha opened her mouth to speak, and Freeman knew with a dread certainty that her words would be the last he ever heard.

The words that tumbled out weren't English and Freeman couldn't make any sense of them. Tears sprang to her eyes and her face crumpled. 'I miss my mother,' she said, her voice trembling. 'I miss her so much.'

Freeman stepped forward. He wanted to hold her, to comfort her, but the chain tightened and he couldn't get close to her.

'Mersiha, don't cry,' he said, but she wasn't listening. Tears trickled down her cheeks and her whole body shuddered.

Suddenly there was an irregular tattoo of loud cracks from upstairs which Freeman realised were gunshots from automatic weapons. Mersiha's head jerked up and then she looked back at Freeman, her cheeks glistening wet. There were more shots, louder this time, and Mersiha turned to cover the door. They both heard screams from upstairs, followed by more shots.

Mersiha took a couple of steps backward, putting distance between herself and the door. There were muffled voices from outside, then something heavy thudded against the wood. The door bulged inward, the hinges screeched, then the thudding was repeated. 'Stjepan?' Mersiha shouted. 'Stjepan?' She stood next to Freeman, visibly shaken.

The thudding stopped. Mersiha looked at Freeman, her eyes wide. 'I don't know,' he said in reply to her unspoken question.

Freeman heard footsteps, running away from the closed door, then silence. 'Get down!' he shouted, and when she didn't react immediately he threw himself on top of her.

The sound of the explosion was deafening. Fragments of the door blew across Freeman's back and then he heard a rapid footfall on the concrete. He looked up. A large man stood in the doorway wreathed in smoke like some sort of demon, an assault rifle in his gloved hands. He was wearing grey and black camouflage clothing and his face was streaked with black and grey stripes so that Freeman had trouble seeing where the uniform ended and the flesh began.

'Freeman?' the man said.

'Yes,' Freeman replied, his voice little more than a guttural whisper. His ears were still ringing from the explosion. 'Who are you?'

'We're here to get you out,' the man said. He had the bluest eyes Freeman had ever seen. Two more figures appeared behind him, similarly dressed and carrying identical guns. More shots were fired upstairs, singly and with a different sound to the earlier reports. Pistols rather than automatic'fire.

'Get up.'

Freeman clambered to his feet, the chain tightening around his waist as he stood up. He reached out to help Mersiha.

She was lying on the ground, stunned, her Kalashnikov out of reach.

'Step to the side,' said the man at the door, gesturing with the rifle. Freeman started to obey automatically. The man's voice broached no argument. But as he moved, Freeman saw the man swing the barrel of his gun down towards Mersiha.

Freeman began to shout, but he knew even before he opened his mouth that there was nothing he could say that would stop what was going to happen. The man with the gun had his eyes fixed on Mersiha and his jaw was set tight in anticipation of the recoil. 'No!' Freeman yelled, and he threw himself at Mersiha, trying to push her out of the way, trying to protect her from the man with the killer blue eyes. Bullets raked Freeman's legs and he screamed in agony. Mersiha began screaming too, and Freeman covered her with his body. His last coherent thought was that if the man with blue eyes wanted to kill the girl, he'd have to shoot her through him.