Stephen Leather - The birthday girl

Someone was walking towards the balloon.

Mersiha looked around for something to use as a weapon, but there was nothing she could use against men with guns.

Something rustled behind her and she flinched, then realised that it was only the balloon moving in the wind. Outside, she heard another footfall. She pinched her father's arm. He moaned but still he wouldn't wake up. Mersiha's heart began to race. She had a sudden urge to rush out of the basket, to go down fighting rather than being shot like a trapped animal. In front of her, the large stainless-steel burners clicked as they cooled. She realised how lucky they'd been that the tanks hadn't been hit. The pilot lights still flickered blue. If the propane had escaped they'd have died in an inferno. She grimaced. Burned to death or shot – did it really matter? The end result was going to be the same. Away to the left, she heard another footfall. She focused her attention on the unseen man, turning her head slowly from side to side as she listened and tried to pinpoint his position. She imagined that she could hear his breathing, rapid and shallow.

Tim's arm was lying across her left foot and she pulled it away, but the movement caused a shifting in the balance of the basket and it squeaked. She stopped. The approaching man stopped, too. Mersiha closed her eyes and played dead. If he thought that they'd died in the fall, maybe he'd just go away. She tried to keep her breathing as still as possible.

The man started to move again. Only one man, Mersiha realised, though there had been two on each of the snowmobiles.

The urge to open her eyes was almost irresistible. She could picture the man standing at the open end of the basket, a gun in his hand, watching her and waiting for the moment when he'd pull the trigger and end her life. She didn't want to die with her eyes closed, she thought. Better to see the face of her killer. Better to look into his eyes so that he'd feel her hatred and contempt. She opened her eyelids a fraction. Still there was nothing to see but the snow and the sky. Her father's head moved, slumping forward. His breathing seemed heavier and more laboured. Mersiha closed her eyes again. Another footfall.

Definitely louder this time. How close would the man get, she thought? Would he try to touch them, to see if he could find a pulse, or would he just shoot them where they lay? Something rocked the basket, a light tap at first and then a hefty kick.

Mersiha trembled.

When the man spoke, his voice seemed only inches away.

'Freeman,' she heard. 'Freeman, wake up.' When her father didn't reply, the man crunched through the snow, then there was silence. Mersiha opened her eyes.

The man was standing less than six feet from the open end of the basket, his gun levelled at Freeman's face. 'No!' she screamed. The gun began to swing in her direction. She cowered in the bottom of the basket, trying to push herself away from the weapon. The propane burners were between her and the gun but the man had only to move to the side to get a clear shot. He smiled evilly, showing yellowing teeth. His hair and eyebrows were crusted with melting ice, and he had a soaking-wet red scarf around his neck. He was shivering, either with the cold or with excitement, but the hand holding the gun was steady. The pilot lights in the burners flickered as a gust of wind blew into the wicker basket. Mersiha tore her gaze away from the man with the gun and stared at the huge burners, a frown on her face. Suddenly she realised what she had to do.

She screamed as she threw herself forward, her hands clawing as she groped for the metal levers. The man took a step back, confused by her attack, as if he thought she was trying to get at him. Before he could aim his gun again, Mersiha grabbed the lever that operated the left burner. She pulled it with all her might. The propane hissed as it escaped and then roared as it ignited, sending a tongue of bright yellow flame shooting out of the basket, engulfing the man. Mersiha was so close to the burner that the heat was scorching, but she kept it full on, turning her head away and closing her eyes tight.

The man screamed, and when Mersiha opened her eyes he'd dropped his gun and was staggering back, his hands clutched to his face, his jacket in flames. His screams chilled her. His hair caught fire and immediately her nostrils were filled with the stench of burning hair and flesh. The man turned to run but his feet were trapped in the snow and he twisted awkwardly, falling to the side, still screaming. Mersiha knew she had only seconds in which to act. She scrambled out of the basket and looked for the gun. For a wild moment she couldn't find it; then she realised it had sunk into the snow. The second gunman was still sitting on the snowmobile, his attention focused on his injured colleague. Mersiha sank up to her knees in the snow as she dug frantically with her hands like a dog trying to uncover a buried bone. The man she'd burned was screaming and rolling over and over, trying to extinguish the flames, then suddenly he stopped moving and his screams turned to whimpers. Mersiha's fingers touched hard metal and she pulled the gun free from the snow.

.She had no time to check if the safety was on or off as she struggled to her feet and fired. She was surprised at how quiet

the gun was with its silencer, no louder than a cough. The first shot went wide. The man on the snowmobile turned towards her, a look of disbelief on his face. Mersiha took another step forward and fired again. The man made no sound, but she knew she'd hit him because his shoulder jerked backwards and blood sprayed across the snow. The look of surprise on the huge man's face turned to one of pain. He had a large machine pistol in his right hand and he swung it around, gritting his teeth as he tried to aim. It was obviously a heavy weapon, best suited to a two-handed grip. Mersiha took no chances. She dropped flat on the ground and fired, just as her brother had taught her years earlier. He'd drummed into her that she had to fire at the widest point, the place where she had the most margin for error – the chest. She hit him dead centre. The man tumbled backwards off the snowmobile, the gun falling uselessly from his hand. Mersiha got to her feet, ignoring the snow that covered her clothes, and waded towards the snowmobile. The man lay still, but Mersiha wasn't prepared to take any chances – she shot him again in the chest. His legs jerked once and then were still.

Blood continued to bubble from the holes in his chest and soaked into the snow around him, like raspberry-flavoured slush. Behind her, the burnt man stopped whimpering, like an exhausted baby who had finally dropped off to sleep.

Mersiha went back to the basket and knelt down beside her father. She stroked his forehead. 'Dad?' she whispered. His eyelids flickered. She shook his shoulder, hard. 'Come on, Dad.

Wake up.' There was no reaction, so she grabbed a handful of snow and rubbed it on his face. Freeman snorted and coughed.

'Dad, we have to go. Come on.'

Mersiha tucked the gun into the back of her trousers under her jacket and helped her father out of the basket and over to the snowmobile. Freeman stared blankly at the bloody corpse in the snow.

'We have to get away from here,' she said. 'The other snowmobile's still around.'

Freeman stood and listened, his head on one side. 'No,' he said. 'We'd hear them if they were coming. Something must have happened to it.'

Mersiha bent over the snowmobile. It had sunk into the snow and she could see that there was no way to pull it out. They'd have to go down the mountain on foot. She took his hand.

'Come on.'

Maury Anderson poured himself a glass of cold water from his kitchen tap and carried it through to the sitting room. He'd read somewhere once that a glass of water helped. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror above the sideboard containing his wife's golf trophies, and he flinched. He looked terrible, like a man who'd been involved in a dreadful accident.