by G Mottram
Carl was at the other window, sitting more easily with his Kalashnikov propped against the wall next to him. He stared back at Jason for a moment then turned to open the window’s steel shutters. Still distant gunfire spattered in with the drizzle.
Erin and Eddie sat together on boxes further back into the room where it narrowed to the claustrophobic aisle between stacks of wooden cases and weapon racks. They both wore an earphone like Sergeant Smith’s and kept glancing at their walkie-talkie readout screens. Eddie gave Jason a casual wink that convinced no one.
Anna coughed behind him.
Jason turned around. She stood, hands on hips facing him from the closed door.
‘You slept through the alarms and the screeching bloody tannoys?’ She said, incredulously. ‘We thought…’
Smith nudged past Jason and reached for something lying on one of the packed shelves. ‘Tellin’ offs can wait, Anna. Here, put this on lad.’
Smith handed Jason a gun belt – an MK23 pistol was fastened into a holster on the right, a radio clipped on the left and ammunition pouches ran around the front and back. It was cold and heavy – much heavier than Jason remembered from training. He strapped on the hard leather, his fingers fumbling with the buckle. The holster pressed against his thigh – awkward and distracting.
Jason took in a slow breath. I might have to kill someone with this tonight – just point, squeeze the trigger and take a life.
Smith looked at him, shook his head and unclipped an earphone attachment from Jason’s radio. ‘Put it in your ear and press this button if you’ve something important to say. Otherwise just listen to what’s going on. Now sit down over there with your friends out of the way.’
Jason nodded and moved to take a box next to Eddie. It was getting hot in the packed room, hot and stuffy. His head was mugging up.
‘Right,’ said Smith, moving over to check the locks on the cloister door, ‘now listen in. We’re as safe as houses in here. It’s my job to baby-sit you youngsters and it’s your job to pass the ammo forward if need be. You know where everything is from this afternoon but chances are this will all be over before anyone comes knocking for some more bullets.’
Four more explosions rattled in through the windows but were quickly deadened by the heavy boxes and thick walls. Jason switched on his walkie-talkie and earphone. Immediately gunfire filled his head but a digital clear voice shouted above the zing of bullets.
‘… breached – repeat, main gate breached. Estimate thirty vehicles approaching at high speed.’
Jason glanced down at the readout window – the speaker was someone called “Eldridge”. Jason’s head filled with images of the massive gatehouse, its grand gates blasted from their hinges and twisting in the mud as enemy tanks rolled over them.
‘Good,’ Smith mumbled to no one in particular, ‘come and get it you buggers.’
The sergeant absently touched the Kalashnikov slung over his back and ambled over to join Carl at the window.
Anna, her hand to her own earphone, slipped over to Jason and leant back against a set of shelves. A faint trace of some spicy body spray reached Jason through the musty, metallic air.
‘Enemy coming through – can’t hold them,’ Eldridge shouted, breathless, his voice breathless.
Another voice, stronger and calmer oozed over the airwaves.
‘Captain Eldridge – hold the Main Gates unless they take you down to fifty percent - then fall back to secondary positions. You’re doing just fine.’
It was Brash.
‘Yes sir - understood, Mr Brash. We’ll hold as long as we can.’ Gunfire filled the speaker and it went dead.
It sounded like Brash was in a helicopter. Jason had heard the rotor blades throbbing through the radio. Was he going to run the defences from a few hundred feet up?
Jason forced himself to breathe in slowly – it must have felt like this in the Blitz air raid shelters – helplessly waiting for a direct hit while outside, destruction reigned all around.
‘Thirty percent casualties – defensive line buckling,’ Eldridge’s strained voice informed the rest of the abbey.
Jason brushed his fingers back through his hair – people were dying only a few hundred metres from where he sat - actually dying. Why had Brash told Eldridge to hold the gate area until half of the security guards were killed? All those men and machines disappearing into the woods around the gravel approach surely meant the ambush was set for there. Even Sergeant Smith had just mumbled “come and get it” or something. Did Eldridge have to stay there just to make the defence seem convincing… sacrifice lives so the Brethren didn’t suspect a trap?
‘Scared?’ Anna asked, cutting into Jason’s thoughts. Her tone was serious, stern almost. Jason guessed a pep-talk was on its way.
‘Realistically aware of the dangers,’ Jason said.
A tiny smile pulled at one corner of Anna’s lips and she nodded. ‘Good. Remember though - just treat this as more training. Sadly, we’re all too precious to be risked anywhere near the action… like Smith said, nothing is likely to get anywhere near us cooped up here…’
Eldridge’s voice flared back onto the open channel. He panted his report between running breaths: ‘Main Gate team falling back – sixty percent casualties... Brethren pushing through… heading for the approach at high speed… numbers higher than expected, perhaps one hundred and fifty.’
‘They’re in.’ whispered Jason. His heart began to thump.
‘Ready, Green Force. Seal the drive once they’re all through.’ This time it was Schmidt giving the orders.
‘Roger, Captain.’
Jason looked up at Anna. ‘This is all planned, isn’t it – let them break through and ambush them in front of the garages?’
Anna just winked at him.
Schmidt’s voice burst into life again. ‘Garage – quarter fire on first sight. Woods and guesthouse - hold fire. Make them think we are weak.’
Jason could see it all in his mind – guns pointing out of the small windows between the garage’s arched doors, the guards crouching in the guesthouse and the forces he’d seen disappearing into the trees edging closer for the order to begin their devastating cross fire.
‘Enemy sighted.’ This was a new voice, a woman – someone called “Celestine” according to Jason’s read-out screen. Her accent hinted at France.
The trap was working. The Brethren were racing down the main drive into a huge open bowl surrounded on three sides by solid walls or thick tree cover. There was only one way in and out for vehicles and it was about to be sealed behind them.
‘Quarter fire - commence.’ Celestine announced and intermittent rifle and Kalashnikov fire crackled then disappeared from Jason’s earphone as Celestine must have released her transmission button. The muted rattle of gunfire still reached him though. Jason shivered. A hundred and fifty Brethren were coming for him and they were only forty steps away.
‘All ambush forces…’ Schmidt’s voice was measured, unhurried. ‘Full fire – go.’
Lights blazed into life through the armoury’s two small windows and a storm of gunfire and explosions ripped through the night air.
And it didn’t stop. There must have been human sounds as well - screaming, men being riddled with bullets and torn apart by grenades, desperate orders being shouted - but no voices could be heard above the relentless outpouring of blazing lead, bursting shrapnel and exploding vehicles.
For minute after minute the slaughter went on.
Jason glanced at Anna, then across to Eddie and Erin. Their eyes were hard, their faces fixed. Jason stared down at the floor, trying to block out the noise. He could almost feel the lives being blasted out of the bodies just one building away.
‘When will it stop?’ Jason began, getting to his feet, ‘Surely they must all be dead by...’
‘There’s someone in the main firing range.’ “Joshua Mann” flashed up on the id screen. ‘We can’t pin-point the intruder but the alarms have…’ The transmis
sion stopped dead – there had been no hint of a struggle, not a single shot by the expert marksman.
‘They’re coming in from behind,’ Anna said, standing and snatching up a Kalashnikov. ‘How the hell did they get in without any warning?’
Orders filled their earphones - Schmidt’s voice again, a lot faster yet still clear and in control. ‘Code Red for Glimmermen inside perimeter One. Rear defences breached. Expect attacks from any direction. Green, blue and black teams cover the training halls. All patrols to your tree line and close positions. Snipers to infra-red. All entrances at amber seal. Full open area lighting.’
‘Sit down, Anna.’ Sergeant Smith said, glancing back from the window where he stood next to Carl. She ignored him.
Schmidt’s voice came through again. ‘Repeat – all entrances at amber – shoot to kill any visual i.d. not matching pin transmission.’
Jason chewed his bottom lip. Marakoff was out there somewhere. He’d said he’d be safer without his pin. Jason edged forward to look out of Carl’s window.
Smith leant across Carl and slammed a steel shutter across one half of the small window. Oliver quickly did the same on the other side of the door just as the cloister outside burst into light. The night air was immediately filled with drizzle, sparkling slashes of silver against the glistening black stone. Not a soul moved across the floodlit grass. The shooting had even died away from the ambush.
Smith left the window and stared at Jason and Anna. ‘Keep back and sit down.’
Reluctantly they both returned to their ammunition boxes.
Smith nodded and strode down the aisle to the door at the back of the armoury - their escape door. He checked it was locked then turned back to his charges.
‘We don’t want any uninvited guests coming in our back door now, do we?’ he said, then attempted a smile. ‘Now don’t go all worried on me lads and lasses. We half expected something like this – the whole point was to bring the Brethren in to us, as many as we can. We’ve reeled in a few more agents than expected at the front and maybe some nice glimmermen at the back if they’ve managed to get past without a twitch from the surveillance equipment or the teams. It’s nothing we can’t handle…’
‘Brethren helicopters – three choppers, four troop carriers – approaching west wall.’ Celestine’s voice shouted over intermittent gunfire.
‘Two choppers, four carriers – North Wall – five hundred metres and closing fast’ That was from someone called Captain Norris.
‘Six choppers, three carriers – South Wall. Seven hundred metres and closing.’ This from a Captain Sarandon.
Smith’s mouth tightened. ‘Now how did they get that lot here without anyone noticing?’
‘We have the surface-to-air missiles.’ Anna said, slowly standing up again.
‘Not enough of them, lass… we didn’t expect quite this many birds…’ Smith turned towards the cloister windows. ‘Keep an eye to the sky, lads. That amount of air transport means they have another hundred or more agents to drop wherever they like.’
‘Approach cleared of ground forces.’ Celestine’s soft French accent gave some good news. A moment later she spoke again. ‘Birds hovering at two hundred metres.’
Smith cocked his Kalashnikov, making Jason jump at the loud click-clack right by his ear. ‘Get yourselves set Stone, Slattery. It’s show time’ He glanced back at Anna.
‘Sit down, lass,’ he said, then rejoined Carl at the half shuttered window to stare up at black skies.
Anna stayed on her feet. Jason pulled out his pistol, flipped out the magazine and checked it was full. He’d at least another dozen in his belt pouches. His hands were damp around the knurled cold steel and he quickly put it back in his holster.
Outside the gunfire and explosions had all but disappeared. For a precious few moments it was almost peaceful.
Then the drone of rotor blades reached them.
Missiles screamed upwards to meet the invaders and moments later, three… four… five explosions shook the abbey.
Schmidt sent out his orders. ‘Surface to air missile stocks exhausted – five birds down. Remaining airborne are targeting the rear training halls and south side. Patrols hold close and tree line positions – we’ll catch them between us the moment they land.’
Jason edged further forward to peer out of Oliver’s half shuttered window and stubbed his toe against a box. Smith whipped around and opened his mouth to speak but Schmidt cut in across the radio. ‘Code Red – cloister. Chopper attack.’
Like two giant, bulbous flies buzzing up from hell, a matched pair of Brethren helicopters rose over the roof of the church and hovered over the floodlit green of the cloister.
A firestorm of bullets rattled up from all around the cloister. Carl and Oliver emptied their magazines in seconds and scrabbled for new ones. The noise was deafening, crashing through Jason’s head and fragmenting all sensible thought. Then one of the choppers exploded and a fire-filled torrent of shrapnel burst down over the cloister.
Oliver slammed his second shutter closed and jumped back from the window as whizzing edges of burning metal thudded into the shutters and door and screeched along the marble walls outside.
Carl hadn’t been quick enough. He yelped and threw himself to the floor as fragments of blazing metal and plastic burst in through his half open window.
Smith had flattened himself against the wall. ‘Slattery – are you hurt?’
In the red light, Carl got to his knees and pulled a four inch sliver of metal from his left shoulder.
‘Not enough,’ he said and staggered back towards the window.
‘Don’t be a hero, lad - get yourself bandaged up. Anna – sort his shoulder out.’
Smith steered Carl back down into the depths of the room then edged back towards the window from the side. Jason moved out of the way to let Carl reach Anna and peered out of the window from two metres back.
Small fires guttered around chunks of helicopter debris in an otherwise black night. The second helicopter had pulled back out of sight.
‘They’ve shot out the cloister lights but have flown higher.’ Smith said, peering up into the night sky. ‘Looks like things were a little too hot for them down here.’
Jason exhaled slowly. Behind him, Carl sank to the floor in front of Anna, with his right hand pressed to his left shoulder. Blood soaked his shirt, seeping thick and dark through his fingers.
‘Fancy trying to catch bits of an exploding helicopter,’ Anna muttered, pulling out a length of bandage from a pile of first-aid boxes.
‘Oliver’ Smith hissed across the door. ‘d’you see something against the far wall?’
Oliver slipped the safety catch off his Kalashnikov. ‘Where…’
Suddenly, both windows completely blacked out with a metallic “clang”.
‘What the…’ Oliver shouted and levelled his weapon at the window.
‘Hold fire.’ Smith yelled. ‘The ricochet will take your head off,’ he reversed his machine gun and hammered the butt into whatever was blocking the windows.
‘Steel shields. They must’ve come in under cover of the blast.’ There was no gunfire from outside. ‘Sounds like they’ve got us all blocked in.’
Smith tapped his ear phone and reported. ‘Enemy in the cloister – windows all blocked with steel shields, unable to counter attack,’ he tapped the transmitter off and spoke to his wards.
‘Anna – cover the door. Eddie, Erin, you cover the windows. Oliver, try to knock the plate away and dive out of the way if you manage it.’
Eddie and Erin scrambled over to stand just back from the windows with their pistols levelled. As soon as they were in position, Oliver and Smith hammered at the plates with the butts of their rifles. Oliver quickly gave up and tried pushing with both hands through the small window arch. The plates didn’t budge.
‘They could be landing half an army out there, right in the middle of the abbey,’ Smith panted between hammerings. ‘Clever little buggers.’
<
br /> Distant, muffled gunfire and explosions reached them in-between the hammering. Curt orders and reports burst across the open channel, the names of their transmitters flashed across the radio readout screens too quickly to take in. Battles were raging all around the abbey.
Suddenly three quick shots rang out from the cloister and Smith’s steel barrier started to slip away. Instantly it was slammed back in place however and a hail of gunfire rang out.
‘Damn it – should have been faster. Someone’s on our side out there,’ Smith cursed and hammered at the steel again.
Jason swallowed. Was that Marakoff who had tried to clear Smith’s window? Had the Brethren killed him?
‘Troop carrier approaching the cloister,’ someone reported over the radio, ‘lines dropping.’
‘This is useless.’ Oliver said. ‘We’re sitting ducks.’
Something smashed hard against their door.
‘Keep at it lad.’ Smith shouted. ‘It only takes one of us to get through then we can clear half the other windows and wipe the buggers out. Hit harder.’
Jason moved forward. Something crashed against the door again and this time the hinge bolts screeched a fraction out of the wall.
‘What the hell have they got out there?’ Oliver shouted in frustration, ‘…a bloody battering ram?’ He snatched up a sniper rifles from a rack to his side and hammered its heavier, longer butt against the steel. No effect.
‘Sergeant – I can do it,’ Jason said, just as the door was pounded another half inch inwards.
Smith stared at Jason for a moment then it clicked. ‘Of course, lad, use your Gift.’
Smith pulled back from the window and stood next to Jason. He snatched up a second Kalashnikov and cocked it.
‘As soon as you blast the shield away get right to the back – d’you understand me? The very second it’s clear. No bloody heroics – people are dying all over the abbey just to keep you safe.’
Jason stared at him. What did he say?
The door shuddered again.
‘Oliver – cover the window when I reload. Right lad, do it now.’