Tom Weaver - The Dead Tracks

A second later he dropped to the floor.

Fnip. Fnip .

To my right, the SFO's head exploded into a shower of blood. His gun flipped off to the side, landing with a thud in the grass. Fnip. Next to him, the PC went down, a bullet pounding into his chest, close to the heart. I dropped to the floor. Rolled towards the grass at the opposite tree line.

Fuck. It's a set-up .

From behind where I'd been standing two men in balaclavas emerged from the woods, both armed with silence pistols. At the crate, the SFO lifted his MP 5. Fnip. Another uniform went down, falling against the crate and crushing it beneath him. Fnip. Someone else. Maybe Hart. I couldn't tell any more.

The SFO started firing.

It was a thunderous noise, ripping across the woods and echoing away. The two men retreated back into cover, into the trees and bushes. The remaining SFO was left out in the open. One man against the darkness.

I grabbed the MP 5 lying on the ground next to the dead SFO and made a break for the other side of the trail, where Jill was now disguised by the night again. Fnip. Fnip. Bullets hit the path close to my feet. My body automatically tried to avoid them, and the move unbalanced me: I stumbled forward, hitting the undergrowth hard beyond the tree line. A split second later, another bullet hit a tree about six inches to my left. Bark spat out, dusting me as I tried to move deeper into the darkness.

Fnip. Fnip. Fnip .

Someone cried out. A woman.

The paramedic.

Fnip.

Close to me, the sound of a body hitting the grass. Then the dogs barking. I wasn't sure who was still standing and who was already dead. MP 5 gunfire erupted, brief flashes of light illuminating the trail. I could see Crane flat to the floor. Bodies strewn next to him. Torches on the ground — one facing off along the path, one into the side of the woods the men were in.

And right on the edge of its light: a shape.

He was hunkered down behind a tree trunk. Changing magazines. The SFO wouldn't hit him from the crate. He wouldn't even see him.

But I could.

I brought the MP 5 up slowly to my shoulder. Stock against my body. Finger around the trigger. I was surrounded by oily darkness, as thick as the inside of a tomb. But as soon as I fired, I would give my position away. I had to get it right.

Aim.

Concentrate.

I thought of my dad teaching me to fire guns. Of him running through the woods behind our farm with me when I was a teenager. Firing a replica Beretta at targets he'd assembled.

Concentrate .

I squeezed the trigger.

The noise was immense. It crackled across the path seconds after the bullet went through the gunman's face. One side to the other. In the periphery of the light, I could see a flash of red. And then he was down. Slumped to his side. Half in the woods, half on the path.

I got to my feet and ran.

Fnip. Fnip.

Bullets hit the space behind me. I clipped a tree with my shoulder, unable to distinguish it as I moved further away from the two torches on the path. Then I hit another and almost knocked myself out. I fell back into the undergrowth.

Quiet.

Nothing now. Just the gentle patter of rain against the canopy. My thoughts were racing: would they hear the gunfire from the road? How long would it take them to get support teams here? It had taken us thirty minutes to walk this far. That probably meant half that at a run. I rolled over. Grass and fallen branches cracked under me.

On the other side of the tree line, about thirty feet away in a diagonal to my right, was another dead PC. His torch was pointing towards him, right up close to his face. It turned his skin red, and the blood at his mouth even redder. Beyond that, further up the trail, was what was left of the crate, just a vague shape against the night. I could see a dead PC lying alongside it. Back the way I'd come, Crane was still down on the floor. He hadn't moved. It meant the last SFO was still alive — or the remaining assassin couldn't be sure. If he knew for certain, Crane would just get up and walk off.

Movement.

Opposite me, across the trail, on the other side of the woods. I squinted into the darkness. Nothing now. Just the tree line and the swathes of black beyond.

But then it came again.

More movement.

Suddenly, gunfire erupted from the direction of the crate, and the whole area lit up. The bodies on the trail. Jill strapped to a tree, further back in the direction I'd come. Crane on the floor of the path. The SFO, MP 5 to his shoulder, was firing towards the space I'd seen movement. And the source of the movement: the other assassin, hidden behind a tree, facing in my direction.

We were looking at one another.

And his gun was aimed.

I ducked — late - as two bullets whipped across the trail and hit the tree behind me. They'd missed me by an inch. Through the undergrowth, on my side, I saw him for a second. And then he was gone. The SFO had stopped firing.

The Dead Tracks were black.

No sound but the rain.

I very gently sat up and shifted sideways, moving on my backside, dragging myself through the undergrowth as quickly and as quietly as I could. After about ten feet, my arm hit a tree. I stopped. Lifted the MP 5 to my shoulder and aimed it back in the direction of the gunman.

Click .

The SFO was reloading. I was closer to the crate now, could hear the gentle sound of the magazine being fitted back into the gun. A brief moment of silence.

Then more gunfire.

The SFO's bullets hit the tree the man was using as cover. But he was protected. His cover was good.

Except he'd made a mistake.

He was still facing the same position I'd been in before. As soon as the MP 5 lit up the woods, he fired twice into the space I'd been. But I wasn't there. Through the sights I could see his balaclava, eyes showing: a moment of hesitation as he realized I was somewhere else. He scanned the woodland, moving left along the edge of the trail. Then surprise as he picked out my position about thirty feet across from him.

Aim. Concentrate.

Hit the target.

I fired.

His head ruptured, blood spattering against the tree, and his body fell backwards against the floor of the woods. No sound. Through the corner of my eye, I saw the SFO look in my direction and nod. He'd known I was there. He'd tracked my movement from the first time I'd fired. I nodded back. We both realized he'd used me. He'd given me enough light and enough time to take the shot and banked on me hitting the target. I wasn't an expert marksman. With less time to line up the shot I might have missed. But I knew enough to hit two stationary targets, both of which hadn't seen me first. Maybe he knew what I could do. Maybe he'd read what the police had on file about me. Or maybe he'd just taken a chance. Either way it had worked.

Movement to my left. I swivelled.

Crane was up and on his feet, sprinting away.

I headed after him, bending down to pick up the torch lying next to the dead PC's face. The burnt, nauseating stench of gunfire drifted along the trail, and there was the tang of blood in the air, thick and fresh. Crane looked back at me, then veered right, into the woods. I followed. I shone the torch out in front of me and saw him about fifteen feet ahead, my heart thumping in my ears, my hands greased with sweat and rain. He was trying to get some distance between us. Trying to pull away. Trying to lose me and fade into the night. But without a torch, the woods were like a maze.

A second later he fell.

Out of the night, a huge oak tree emerged, springing from the dark like a wall of wood. He clipped it with his shoulder as he went to avoid it. Stumbled. Shifted to his left. As he tried to stop himself from falling, a bramble grasped at his foot, reaching up from the forest floor. He lurched forward and toppled over, hitting the ground hard, the wind thumped out of him, his wrists - locked together — catching under his body. He rolled over, looking up, breath forming in front of his face.