Stephen Leather - Breakout

‘Up!’ he shouted, but had to repeat it at the top of his voice as, ears ringing from the blast, they failed to hear him the first time. He glimpsed Ricardo peering over the barrier, then saw the thug who had been hiding behind the table burst from cover and, knife arm extended, launch himself into a dive towards Lupa and Ricardo. He was still airborne when Harper whipped one of his home-made pistols out of his belt and aimed and fired in one fluid movement. He aimed for the centre of the body mass - the percentage shot with such an unreliable weapon - and saw the round strike home, punching a hole through the man’s rib-cage and sending pink, aerated blood from his lungs frothing out of the wound. The man’s knife spilled from his hand as he crashed into the bed-frame in front of Ricardo and Lupa, and she was quickest to react, snatching up the knife and driving it through the man’s eye-socket and into his brain.

The flames, the shots and the explosion had given the remaining thugs pause for thought but after a flesh-creeping silence lasting almost three more minutes, two more of them, probably more terrified of what Don Lorenzo would do to them if they returned empty-handed, than whatever fate awaited them inside Harper’s cell, came bursting through the window together. Harper drilled the first one, armed with a knife, with a shot from his remaining loaded pistol and heard shots from both Ricardo and Lupa, but one missed and the other struck the other man in the left shoulder. He went down but sprang up again at once, still clutching an axe in his other hand.

Harper knew that none of them now had any shots left and he launched himself at the attacker, making a pile-driving hit that a rugby player would have been proud of. He crunched his shoulder into the man’s ribs just below his heart. The thug went down again with Harper on top of him. He swung his axe at Harper’s head, but he ducked under the blade and head-butted him, connecting with the bridge of the nose and shattering the bone. Before the man could swing his axe again, Harper drove his knife through the thug’s diaphragm and pierced his heart. He gave the knife a vicious twist before withdrawing it, just as he’d been taught in bayonet practice as a rookie Para recruit many years before. As he pulled the knife out, blood flooded out over his hand and arm, and the man gave a last shuddering breath and lay still.

Harper was already back on his feet, crouched in a fighting stance, facing the window. There were still two more of Don Lorenzo’s private army of thirty-year men outside who might have to be dealt with, but of equal concern, either his primitive flamethrower or the exploding gas cylinder had ignited the filthy rags of curtains around the window and flames licking up the walls had now set fire to the boarded ceiling, that was also the floor of the cell above them.

‘Lupa, Ricardo,’ he shouted. ‘We’ve no water, so you’ll have to beat those flames out with blankets or coats or something. There’s still a lot of black powder in the other room and if flames get even close to it, we’ll all be putting our heads between our legs and kissing our arses goodbye.’ Without waiting to see if they had reacted, he sprinted to the window, dived through it and rolled as he hit the ground, coming up with his knife gripped in his hand, ready to take on the last two thugs, but the yard was deserted. The two men had fled rather than risk sharing the fate of their comrades, but he could see faces at every cell door and window across the yard, where the other prisoners had evidently been enjoying the show. As Harper relaxed out of his fighting stance, he heard a few shouts and whistles from the watchers and one of them called out ‘ Olé !’, while another shouted ‘ Que hombre !’

He smiled and bowed, acknowledging the applause, then grabbed a bucket that was standing by the piscina , scooped a bucketful of water out of it and, shouting to Ricardo, passed it through the window. It took half a dozen buckets to extinguish the last of the flames, and each time he filled it again, he kept a wary eye open for any sign of Don Lorenzo’s men returning but the yard was still deserted when he climbed back through the window. Water was still dripping from the walls and ceiling and the room stank of smoke, singed cloth and burnt flesh.

Harper double-checked that each of the thugs was dead, then said ‘Okay, good work, but we need to follow up on this straight away, which means paying Don Lorenzo a little visit at his place. So we need to reload at once.’

‘Already doing it,’ Lupa said, busily loading powder and shot into one of the crude pistols.

‘Great, but be gentle with that ramrod or you’ll be picking your fingers out of the ceiling with your other hand. And chuck the gun that misfired. We can’t trust it to fire next time either, but five will still be plenty for what we need to do. Ricardo, we need to take those bamboo bombs with us as well. We might well need a couple of them to get Don Lorenzo’s attention and anyway, if we leave them here, one of our neighbours might climb through the window and help himself to them. Lupa, when you’ve finished loading those, get a can of that Caiman stuff and bring it with you, will you?’

Within ten minutes they were ready. Harper checked the yard - still empty, though a few of the spectators were still standing at their windows, awaiting any further developments. ‘I still can’t believe you can fire weapons and detonate a gas cylinder inside a prison, and the guards don’t even turn out to find out what the hell is going on,’ Harper said.

‘Maybe they’re afraid it’s a diversion to lure them away from the gates,’ Ricardo said, ‘so some prisoners can escape.’

Lupa snorted. ‘Yeah, or maybe they’re just afraid.’

‘Let’s hope so,’ Harper said. ‘It’ll make getting out of here a bit easier.’

They made their way through the maze of yards and passageways leading towards Don Lorenzo’s cell, then waited in the deep shadow of the passage opening into the courtyard in front of it. After a few minutes, a bar of light stabbed out into the yard as one of Don Lorenzo’s remaining goons stepped outside. Harper tightened his grip on his knife, ready to take him down if he came their way. However, having scanned the yard and the entrance to the passage, the man merely leaned against the wall and lit a cigarette. Harper watched the end of it glow red as the man drew on it and blew out a stream of smoke. If he stayed out there on watch, it would make a surprise attack on Don Lorenzo’s cell almost impossible, but to Harper’s relief, having taken a last pull on the cigarette, the man flicked the butt away, hawked and spat, and then went back inside the cell and closed the door.

Harper waited a few more seconds, straining his eyes into the darkness and listening intently, but then he smiled. ‘It sounds like he’s not even locked the door,’ he whispered to the others. ‘They must be confident that no one would dare to challenge Don Lorenzo in his own lair, so let’s surprise them, before anyone else comes out for a cigarette break.’

He led them out into the yard, hugging the wall and moving without a sound from shadow to shadow until he was standing alongside the cell window. A blind hung over the window but one of its slats was slightly twisted, leaving a narrow gap through which Harper could peer into the brightly lit room. There was no sign of Don Lorenzo, but three more members of his army, including the smoker they had seen, were sitting around a table, talking. The door to the next room stood open, and the moving shadows on the wall by the door, suggested at least one more person was in there, pacing to and fro.

Harper hefted one of the bamboo grenades in his hand and gestured to Lupa to pour some Caiman spirit onto the fuse from the can she was carrying. He then gave her his lighter, put his mouth close to her ear and breathed ‘Hold the lighter ready and when I nod, light the fuse.’