Candleburn

by Jack Hayes

  He fired another burst of bullets.

  Still high, they rattled 6 feet over Blake’s head – but they were lower than the first volley. Such is the evolution of a man in his first gunfight.

  “I don’t want to kill you,” Blake said. “Put your gun down and surrender.”

  The Somali kept coming.

  His weapon was lowering with each step.

  The barrel reached the horizontal.

  He raised it up to eye level to aim.

  Blake shot him twice.

  “Damn it.”

  Blake opened the back door of the barn. Another man sat shaking in the corner, rocking gently back and forth against a bale of hay. By his feet was another machine gun.

  Blake pointed his rifle at the African.

  “Don’t shoot,” the Somali said. “Please, please – I don’t want to die.”

  “Kick your weapon over here,” Blake replied.

  The Somali complied and Blake picked it up as it ploughed across the ground. He stuffed it in his backpack.

  “Where are you from?”

  “Puntland,” the Somali said. “I come to work on the farm. Please don’t kill me, I don’t want to die.”

  “How farm workers, other than you, are armed and here?” Blake asked.

  “Three others,” the man replied. “There were many of us. Every day there are fewer.”

  Blake had killed three already. That implied the sniper in the building was Russian.

  “Who else is here?”

  “Mr Aarez came home this morning,” the man replied. “Later five more men arrived in big cars. I had to park them in the garage.”

  “Russians?” Blake asked.

  The man nodded.

  Blake glanced around the room as he assessed the information. A dark patch of sand in the middle of the floor caught his attention. He bent by it, careful to keep the farmhand in his sight. Brown radial patterns arced outwards from a central circle, like an exploding star.

  “Someone was whipped recently,” Blake said, “then bled to death.”

  The man bowed his head and began to sob.

  “Mr Aarez and Mr Oassan killed Mr Chaiwat,” the Somali mumbled through his cries. “They took three of my friends out to bury the bodies. Only Mr Oassan and Aarez returned. They are evil.”

  “Is Aarez still on the ranch?” Blake asked.

  “Yes,” the man said, returning to his rocking.

  Blake gingerly walked towards the edge of the building. The planks were lazily slapped together and there were many gaps. Ordinarily, he’d have avoided the walls, worried that the sniper would take aim at any shadow that appeared but the sun was rapidly losing height. Soon it would drop behind the mountains and an early dusk would fall on the hacienda compound.

  He could take a rough guess at the sniper’s position – an ajar window on the second floor. He could make no better estimation on the hiding spots of the other four Russians.

  Blake's eyes scanned the earth around the unlined tarmac strip. There were no unusual discolorations in the soil.

  Good.

  That significantly lessened the chances of landmines or buried improvised explosives.

  There was a potential killing zone, where two trained henchmen could catch him in a crossfire, if he headed directly toward to the main house across the courtyard.

  Three 4x4s were parked sloppily in the garage, fronts facing outwards.

  Blake moved back from the wall and took aim.

  He put a slug in the engine block of one.

  He quickly rolled to another spot.

  He fired again at the second vehicle.

  Instantly he moved.

  Splinters of wood from overhead and the soil where he’d been half a second before puffed. He heard the report from the sniper.

  He picked a third spot and placed a final slug in the last car.

  He jumped to a new location just as the sniper took another pot-shot guess at his location.

  “That’s your vehicles out of commission,” Blake thought. “So you’re holed up here to make a last stand and there’s no way out.”

  He walked back to the Somali.

  “In a while, I’m sure those Russians will fill this building with bullets or throw in a grenade,” he said. “I suggest you leave by the back and head to the bottom of the farm. Wait a few hours and then it will be safe to leave. You must go, though, do not wait here or you will likely die.”

  The labourer slowly stopped his cradling his legs.

  “Thank you,” he replied.

  “One last thing,” Blake asked, “is there any way into the main building other than the front door?”

  The Somali thought briefly.

  “Out of here, next door, there are the animals,” the man said. “That goes into the bird house. There is a cellar inside. That leads to the kitchen in basement of the main house.”

  ***

  The Iberian lynx was lapping water from a small stainless steel bowl as Blake nudged past its cage. In the enclosure next door, barely ten metres across, a lioness stared at him forlornly. It must have been torture for these animals in the high heat. Their only saving grace was another corrugated metal roof that would provide a measure of shade and two side walls, which provided Blake with cover from the sniper.

  There were twenty cages in all. Each contained small wooden kennels for the animals to sleep in at night. Aside from the big cats, there were gazelle, chimpanzees, Oryx and antelope – Blake recognised the impala from their stripes, but the kudu and roan were unknown to him until the passed the white labelled descriptions tagged to their doors.

  The sun dipped behind the mountains and night fell fast.

  Blake hovered low to the earth.

  A moving shadow – man sized.

  “Are you a Russian or are you some kind of gorilla?” he wondered.

  He edged closer.

  Something rattled in a cage.

  As the dusk quickly swept through, he could see the animal’s food bowls were empty. Were the monkeys restless?

  Another rattle. A click.

  A creak of rusty steel followed by growls and barks.

  Blake saw blackened shapes rush towards him. He fired rapid bursts. Howls.

  One animal went down.

  Three more sloped between the cages.

  A flash in the dark. Then another.

  Blake hit the deck as he heard bullets ricochet through the cages. Pistol fire. He crawled forward. He reached a furry carcass – a jackal? Coyote? Another bullet. He heard the ground thud next to him. He couldn’t see where the hell the shooter was.

  The chimpanzees started a racket in the cage next to him, banging their bowls against the enclosure. Two more shots. An ape fell dead.

  Blake saw another shape. Definitely a man. He released three rounds. The shape twisted and collapsed.

  In the madness of gunfire and monkeys, the lion began to roar.

  Blake tried to get to his feet but his leg was grabbed from under him and he tumbled.

  More snarling.

  He rolled onto his back and stared directly into the snarling silhouette of an Arabian Gray Wolf, inches from his nose. He felt the hot and heavy hiss of its breath on his face.

  There was a glint of white as the moon reflected off its teeth.

  61

  The wolf, gaping jaws, snapped for Blake’s throat.

  Blake reflexively fired his rifle into the air.

  The blast startled the beast.

  The bullet bounced off the metal roof of the zoo.

  He fired again.

  The gunshot, so close to the wolf’s sensitive ears, caused a yelp.

  The grip was released on his leg.

  In a blur of motion the two canines disappeared.

  Blake laid his head on the gravel.

  He breathed deeply until his racing heart came back under control. The monkeys continued to shout and holler, banging their plates on any surface they could find. For the wolves to attack a pers
on they must be ravenous – Blake wondered just how badly mistreated all the animals were in this zoo.

  Cautiously, he got to his feet, wary of a second strike by the animals or flanking from one of Aarez’s men.

  “I can’t believe I shot an endangered species,” he thought as he stepped over the wolf's carcass.

  A few paces on lay the unmoving Russian. Blake patted the body down to see how he was armed. An automatic handgun. Nothing exciting. He’d hoped for a grenade or some other tactical advantage. The monkeys continued their chorus, loud as a prison riot.

  Blake hurried towards the falconry entrance.

  He stopped short of the doorway. Aarez had to have at least one Russian stationed inside. He checked his watch. Human pupils take almost 40 minutes to adapt fully to the dark. He was beginning to reach his peak potential for night vision.

  He needed an advantage.

  Stealthy, he criss-crossed back between the cages. He considered briefly giving the defenders a taste of their own medicine and unleashing the two hungry looking tigers into the bird mews. He immediately discounted the plan – if there were no Russians in the falconry, he would quickly find himself dealing with a new threat.

  Then, he spotted it: holding the drink tray of one of the gazelle pens in place was a long piece of string.

  He removed the cord and tied it to the latch of the falconry door.

  He trailed it through the grill of the monkey cage to hold it high and looped it back so that he could open the handle from any position of his choosing. Taking cover, he pulled the cord.

  The door swung wide.

  A hail of gunfire.

  “Good,” Blake thought. “Eventually, you’re going to have to come and check on your handiwork.”

  He waited.

  The chimpanzees began to calm. A leopard flopped onto its side and began playing through the bars kittenishly with the lynx.

  A presence loomed in the falconry door. It found and tugged on the string.

  Blake fired two shots.

  The figure fell.

  Blake was back on his haunches and creeping towards the mews. He held his breath. If there was another guard inside, he was taking a risk. Reaching the corpse, he rifled its clothes.

  A box of matches, a wallet full of receipts, another Skorpion machine gun, a set of car keys, six local coins and half a packet of gum.

  “Nothing of use...”

  Blake stopped himself.

  He was thinking like a journalist.

  He ran his mind through the list.

  “What do I have?” he whispered silently. “What do I need?”

  The unofficial motto of any Special Forces operative, the essence of all their training condensed to that single phrase.

  He removed the magazine from the Skorpion and took the top five bullets. Opening the gum, he began chewing on a piece as he unfolded the four half-page sized receipts.

  Twisting with the blade of his Sebenza between the slug and the shell casing, he prized the bullets open and tipped the contents into the central crease of each piece of paper. He cut short fuses with the string.

  “Metal,” he thought, “I need metal. Aluminium, magnesium, perchlorate...”

  He mentally ran quickly through his surroundings.

  “The soil here is red. Feldspar. Could that work? No... ignore that, the gunpowder will serve... the cages?”

  Knife in hand, he cautiously scraped rusting iron from the cage bars into one piece of paper. With each slow scrape down the metal, he felt more on edge.

  Where were the three remaining Russians? Would they counterattack? Why are they waiting?

  “What do they know that I don’t?”

  His muscles were tense, anticipating a surreptitious knife to the ribs at any moment.

  None came.

  He tipped and mixed the contents of each receipt together, placed some coins in to add weight and stuck the paper down with gum.

  Two improvised flashbangs.

  A heavy sigh.

  He lit a fuse, closed his eyes, looked away and tossed it in to the room.

  With the extra mass from the coins, he was surprised how far into the darkness it went. He was even more surprised when the jerry rigged stun grenade emitted a loud bright ‘bang’.

  A loud volley of gunfire.

  Blake had no idea where the bullets went. Whether they were shot into the ceiling in surprise or directly at the improvised device, he didn’t know. All that mattered was that they weren’t fired at the door and whoever was inside had lost that 40 minute night vision advantage.

  Blake was inside the falconry.

  Birds shrieked and blustered as the Russian fired bullets blind. Large flashes from muzzle retort flared in the dark. Fluttering wings. Blake rushed on. Twisting between cages, he reached a new spot near the middle of the hut. He held his breath and sniffed the air.

  The musty smells of dust and birds and hay were mixed with the sickly scent of stale aftershave.

  No help.

  The perfume could come from either the live Russian within or the dead one outside.

  A footstep.

  Blake inched forward.

  The birds stopped their cries as stillness returned.

  “Use the second flashbang?” he wondered.

  Even with his night vision intact, the ambient light in the falconry was so low it was difficult to see more than the vaguest outline of anything.

  He listened for breathing or the sound of movement.

  This guy was good.

  The only noise came from the gentlest batting of wings.

  He remembered back to his training. Long ago – another age, it seemed.

  “Sensing intention,” he thought.

  He’d hated the course, set amidst useful martial arts training: it involved closing your eyes and piercing the dark with your mind. Where others claimed it worked – an extension of humans’ limited magnetoception or proprioception – he remembered describing it as “hokey-pokey nonsense”.

  “Trust in your subconscious,” Blake remembered his trainer saying. “It’s a far more powerful tool than your conscious mind.”

  Here in the dark, death somewhere stalking him, he closed his eyes and blanked his head.

  He reached out, feeling for another person hiding in the black.

  Empty of thought.

  Empty mind...

  Nothing.

  “Utter bullshit,” he thought, opening his eyes.

  He shifted forward.

  A shiver in his spine.

  Stalked. He was definitely being stalked.

  He moved into a different column of the bird cages.

  He didn’t know how but the Russian had figured out his location.

  He placed his P90 on the ground with his bag.

  Pistol and knife.

  In such close quarters...

  He inched onward. Another gap between cages. He shuffled on.

  Another shiver.

  The beat of a bird adjusting its feathers.

  He stopped.

  Knife to hand, he turned and swung behind himself with relentless fury.

  A loud huff. Butt of his Sebenza crushed against an unseen skull.

  He jabbed with the knife at the invisible foe, he lashed and stabbed, then leapt on the stunned body.

  Stab, stab, a stab again.

  Gunshots.

  The Russian, fingers contracting in the spasms pulled the trigger of his pistol. Blake’s fingers found his enemy’s neck. He sunk the blade deep.

  With a rattling gasp, the Russian was dead.

  Blake’s body trembled with the power of his actions.

  “Some kind of ninja radar?” he wondered.

  A bird ruffled.

  Blake snorted a suppressed laugh.

  No.

  His subconscious was indeed smarter than he was.

  The birds – they only fluttered when a person was near.

  Blake swiftly changed location, back past his rucksack and P90,
lest another guard lay coiled in the sable night. He stopped.

  Even the birds went silent.

  He placed the P90 on top of a cage and switched on the small beam-light torch that ran along its muzzle. He stepped back three paces, pistol ready. Thirty seconds passed. No bullets. No randomly placed shots attempting to take him down.

  He returned to the weapon and began a sweeping search of the aviary. The body of the first Russian, shot through the door, lay curled in a foetal ball surrounded by a bloody puddle. Moving the rifle slowly around the room, the brilliant white cone of light illuminated a pair of twisted legs protruding from the walkway between a row of cages. The second Russian, whom he'd just dispatched.

  Continuing his exploration, his pupils expanded with surprise.

  A third body?

  Pegged out on the floor, some warped version of Da Vinci's vitruvian man, was an Egyptian male in his mid forties.

  “And you must be Zain,” Blake's lip curled as he knelt over the corpse.

  The body was a mass of talon scratches and gnarled holes. His eyes were pulled from their sockets and half devoured. Sand stuck grimly to the remnants of his intestines: he'd been disembowelled with a dagger and feasted upon by the birds.

  “You must forgive me but it's important I get to man responsible for your death. I'll have to send someone back for you later.”

  With resolve, Blake returned to his feet.

  He found the route to the basement in an annex, running down a low-ceilinged flight of rickety stairs that opened out into a store full of bird food. Blake moved carefully past table-top workshop stations for repairing lures and hoods, heading for a narrow passageway. Reaching the wall beside the corridor, Blake shone the torch beam down its length.

  A little more than 15 metres.

  The room ahead appeared to be a pantry that led to the kitchen.

  He switched off the light and took the flashbang from his pocket. He lit the makeshift grenade's fuse and tossed it into the room ahead.

  The brilliant flash stung his retinas even though he'd turned his head and closed his eyes.

  Nothing.

  “That makes no sense,” he thought. “You must know about this entrance to the building. You have two mercenaries left – one of whom is acting as a sniper. So why is this route unguarded?”

  Blake gasped with shock as the hand clasped tight over his lips. Conditioned reflex, he pushed out with his elbows and raised his forearms. He felt the cold steel blade cut across his hand as his attacker tried to drive it home between his ribs. Fumbling, grappling, the Russian placed a knee in his spine to pull him off balance.