Blackout - By Tom Barber Page 0,98

even if he hadn't, the guy would need urgent medical attention or he would bleed to death there inside the house.

Then he would be another kill to Flea's name. 323. Another step closer to Hayha's record.

But he'd just heard a faint gunshot from somewhere inside the house. Good. It meant another of the policemen would be dead. It was inconceivable to him that any of them could kill one of the Panthers. They were cops, not soldiers. They were hopelessly out of their league, and had sealed their own fates by coming here to defend Cobb when they should have left him to die.

At that moment, through one of the large ground floor windows, he saw another of the officers from the police unit creeping along a corridor on the lower level. He moved ahead, tracing the man's path, predicting where he would move, leading the target. He had a feeling for the rifle now, and adjusted his aim accordingly.

This time he wouldn't miss.

He lay as still as if he was dead, his pupil looking down the scope, ignoring the heavy rain obscuring the moonlight and falling on him from above.

He saw the man had stripes on the shoulder of his uniform.

A sergeant.

Flea smiled as the reticule moved just ahead of the man.

And his finger tightened on the trigger.

Moving silently down the main corridor, Porter glanced out of the window to his right, looking out into the dark and wet night. He kept walking slowly, checking behind him, making his way to the drawing room.

The door was slightly open.

Taking a deep breath, he ducked in, then froze.

The big man they had held captive, Wulf, was in there, looking straight at him. He was wearing a set of night-vision goggles, the visor pushed up, his face smeared black.

And he had a gun to Cobb’s head. Beside him, a smaller man with scarring all over the side of his face and neck had a silenced MP5 against the temple of Cobb’s wife, the two kids standing beside them, terrified and helpless. He saw Fox lying on the ground, unconscious, bleeding from a wound to his leg, blood all over the floor. Porter knew from the amount of blood on the ground that he’d need medical attention soon if he was going to survive.

‘Drop your weapon,’ Wulf said, in English, only the whites of his eyes visible to Porter. ‘Or they die.’

‘If I drop it, they’ll die anyway,’ Porter said, his MP5 trained on the man.

‘You don’t have a choice. You’re alone. No one is coming to help you.’

'Yes, they are,' another voice said, from the left.

Porter glanced to his left and saw Chalky had entered the room, his MP5 aimed at the two men. He had a pair of night-vision goggles over his head which he ripped off with his left hand and tossed across the room to the carpet.

'I just killed your friend,' Chalky said. 'So much for the Black Panthers. You guys are like pussies.'

They stood there, in a stand-off. Through the sights of his MP5, Porter saw Wulf's eyes narrow at the insult. Chalky moved and Wulf and the other soldier tensed, but all he did was move to his right, towards Porter, keeping his hair-trigger on the smaller man beside Wulf.

‘If you kill them, I’ll kill you,’ Chalky said, speaking along the stock of his MP5.

‘So what. We have nothing left to live for. Our work here is almost complete.’

Pause.

‘Let him go. He didn’t know what those men did until today.’

‘But he saved them,’ Wulf said, pushing the gun harder into Cobb’s temple.

He pulled back the hammer.

‘Don’t do it,’ Chalky said, his MP5 tight, the trigger aimed at Wulf’s eye. 'Or you die.'

Wulf didn’t respond.

He smiled, victory in his eyes.

And Chalky felt something cold and metallic touch his neck.

It was the barrel of a gun.

‘Drop it,’ a voice said.

Chalky glanced over at Porter, defeat in his eyes.

'Drop the guns,' the voice said again.

Porter looked at Chalky. They were beaten.

And together, the two men dropped their MP5s, the sub-machine guns clattering to the carpet, as a third Panther held a pistol to Chalky’s neck.

THIRTY

Across the room, Wulf smiled. Bird had got the jump on the cocky cop. Reaching to the cop’s thigh, keeping the muzzle of his pistol jammed in the kid’s neck, Bird pulled out what looked like a Glock pistol from a holster and tossed it to the rug. He then pushed the cop over towards the group huddled by the far wall. Wulf released Cobb and