Their decreasingly gracious host simply glared.
‘Only joking, old chap. No, this one died from something far more acute. And I think he may not have been alone. Does that look like a leg just behind his head, there?’ he asked Davie. It did.
‘Make that two dead bad guys,’ Davie confirmed.
‘Which might explain the subsequent haemorrhage of hostages from the vicinity. Let’s see what else we can find.’ Vale delicately fingered the tab key again. More corridors, more walkways. Lifts. Restaurants. Bars. Bowling lanes. Cinema auditoria. Rows of empty shopfronts. He was about to tap the key once more to dismiss the current image, when some movement stirred in the current picture, staying his hand.
‘More baddies,’ Davie mused, looking at the silhouettes of two armed figures, their backs to the camera. The pair then scurried across the hall and crouched for cover in a shop doorway opposite, their unmasked faces now clearly visible. And very, very familiar.
Davie’s surprise at seeing Matt Black squatting there, determinedly gripping an Uzi, was matched only by Gavin’s at recognising the shotgun-toting woman beside Matt as his own wife. Both of these, however, were thoroughly eclipsed by Gavin’s appalled astonishment as he watched the pair exchange a brief but unmistakably affectionate kiss.
‘I’m sure that was just for luck. A heat-of-the-moment thing,’ Vale offered, with gleeful insincerity.
‘What the hell are they doing?’ demanded Gavin, as they made a dash to the next corner and disappeared from the frame. Vale opened another window and tiled all three frames on the screen, keying a location shortcode into the blue bar above the newest one. Another row of shopfronts appeared, but no people.
‘Damn,’ he muttered. ‘Wrong one.’ His fingers rattled the keyboard, cycling through different images in two of the windows. Matt and Simone became visible again a few seconds later, by which time they were positioned in opposite doorways, firing their weapons towards one end of the hallway. Spent cases were cascading around Matt’s ankles like popcorn, while Simone pumped and fired, pumped and fired on the other side. Ahead of them, glass was shattering in surreal silence, spraying all over the tiles in front of the ravaged window-frames.
‘Oh my God,’ gasped Catherine. ‘Oh my God.’
Davie was silent, Gavin speechless.
Vale continued to toggle the spare window, trying to find a view of who or what they were shooting at. After two more stretches of empty mall, he revealed another scene of flying glass and splintering debris, another Uziblazing gunman at its centre, madness in his angry eyes.
‘Oh, God help them,’ Catherine breathed. ‘He looks like a maniac.’
‘Quite,’ Vale agreed, a degree of surprise detectable even in his phlegmatic tone. ‘I’ve come across a few armed lunatics in my time, but I must confess, I’ve never seen one in tartan pyjamas.’
23:13 fipr gunfight at the k-mart corral
Dear Matthew Black,
‘Let’s meet up in the year 2000!’
Your former classmate Gavin Hutchison cordially invites you to an unmissable reunion event. Join your fellow ex-pupils from St Michael’s Auchenlea in the incomparably luxurious surroundings of Delta LeisureTM’s Floating Island Paradise Resort on Saturday, August 12th, for an evening of food, drink, dancing, reacquaintance, reminiscence and nostalgia.
Oh yeah, plus murder, mayhem, hijackers, machine guns, power-tools, dismemberment, disembowelment, destruction, horror, terror, insanity and lots and lots and lots of bullets. Thanks a fuckin’ bunch. Wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Let’s do it again soon. It’s been very.
Matt shook more tiny nuggets of glass from his hair, grateful that the panes had been shatterproof, otherwise he’d have been either impaled or flayed alive by now. The tinkle of the falling fragments subsided eventually, a few moments after the last volley of machine-gun fire from down the hall. The sound of his own breathing seemed deafening. He could see neither Simone nor the enemy, just wrecked shopfronts and piles of glinting glass. Their own private Krystalnacht.
He was supposed to have provided covering fire while Simone made a run for the other side of the mall, part of a zig-zagging retreat strategy they had devised to get themselves out of this potentially nonmetaphoric dead end. The most impressive aspect of his weapons-handling so far had been that he hadn’t shot himself, so it was no surprise when the Uzi jammed after two rounds, with Simone only a few paces out of the doorway, caught in no man’s land. The trigger clamped stiff against the stock and refused to release, nothing doing at the business end.
There’d been a slow-motion pause for one eternal, infernal moment as all three parties sussed what had just happened. Simone must have responded a fraction of a second before the bad guy, or maybe she was merely lucky that the bad guy initially aimed towards the doorway from where Matt’s truncated burst had issued. Whatever, she blew out the window opposite with her shotgun and dived through the gap, out of sight.
The bad guy’s continuing volley seemed to go on and on, completely demolishing the two semi-hexagonal frontages that jutted out in front of where Matt was crouched. The enemy was positioned somewhere inside a shop at the end of the corridor, where it formed a T-junction with the adjoining stretch of vacant lots. Matt was, it appeared, just outside his angle of fire, but he could do nothing more than cower there with his arms around his head and wait in hope for the shooting to stop.
He glanced across towards where Simone had disappeared, looking for movement, any sign of where she was. There was nothing, only more shattered glass, and shadows beyond where the lights of the mall reached into the darkened shop. He had to get over there. She could be injured, unconscious, out of ammo, anything. There was ten or twelve feet of open floor to cross, but he felt he had no option. The danger seemed temporarily outweighed by the need to get to her, the need to know she was all right. It was an unaccustomed emotion, this selflessness. Blame it on extreme circumstances, he told himself, nothing else.
He dropped the useless Uzi to the ground and pulled the pistol from his belt. Holding it in both hands, he leaned out of the doorway and began firing in distraction, preparatory to making his move. The pistol jammed, same as the Uzi, after two rounds.
Matt threw himself back against the double doors as a retaliatory burst issued from down the hall. He examined the handgun, trying to think of what they did on telly when their weapons jammed, then remembered with a shudder that the answer was usually: get shot.
‘Fuck,’ he grunted, looking down at the ugly hunk of metal. It offered no clues, as all the lettering on it was Cyrillic. He then felt his stomach lurch for the hundredth time that evening, and quickly realised that this was because he was actually falling backwards. The double doors had opened suddenly and he tumbled through them, before being grabbed under the oxters and dragged further inside the shop. He attempted to struggle, but the man, whoever he was, had already loosed his grip and scuttled swiftly forwards to retrieve the discarded machine gun. Going by the lack of a ski-mask and the fact that Matt was still alive, he was able to deduce that the newcomer was on his side.
‘Are you—’ Matt’s voice had caught whatever disease he’d given both guns, jamming after two words. He cleared his throat. ‘Are you Jackson?’
‘No, Tim Vale’s the name, surveillance and security consultant. Delighted to meet you, Mr Black.’ He offered Matt a hand to shake. ‘I’m a friend of Simone’s. Where is the good lady, by the way?’
Matt pointed across the hall, through the empty window-frames. ‘She’s over there. I’m not sure how she’s doin’. How did you know we were here?’
‘Trade secrets, old chap. All in good time.’
‘But how did you get in here?’
Vale pointed behind himself and Matt saw that the shop was S-shaped. Around the corner more light was streaming in from where a second entrance gave on to a parallel corridor.
‘We can stealth your friend along the hall here with a bit of a pincer-movement,’ Vale said. ‘But w
e’d better hurry, because with all the racket you’ve been making, the chaps upstairs are bound to take an interest at some point.’
‘What do you mean, at some point? Who do you think’s shootin’ at us?’
‘I honestly couldn’t say, but I’m rather sure he’s not one of them.’
‘How?’
‘As I said, all in good time. Which is somewhat of the essence at the moment, so, ehm, may I?’ he asked, indicating the handgun.
‘By all means,’ Matt obliged. ‘Be safer for both of us.’
Vale turned the weapon over in his hands. ‘Nagan automatic. Nice. I take it it’s not yours.’
‘I procured it earlier.’
‘Quite a heavyweight. Massey-Ferguson of the gun world. I’m sure its owner would have been disappointed to lose it.’
‘Aye, he was gutted.’
‘KGB assassination favourite, once upon a time. Those were the days. Now they’re all over the bloody place, since the Wall fell.’
‘It’s jammed. So’s the Uzi.’
Vale flexed his thumb and an empty magazine dropped from the pistol-grip. ‘No, just out,’ he said. He picked up the Uzi and did the same thing. A cartridge clattered to the floor.
‘I thought they went “click” when they were empty,’ Matt said sheepishly. ‘The triggers both stuck. I thought – never mind.’
‘Any more ammo?’ Vale asked. His tone was optimistic rather than desperate, as though Matt saying “no” wouldn’t be a total fucking disaster. The man’s calmness was almost disconcerting.
Matt reached into his jacket and handed Vale a mag for the Uzi, then fished a clip for the Nagan from one of his trouser pockets. Vale slapped the magazine smartly into the stock of the machine gun and offered it back to him.
‘You’d best stick with this one,’ Vale said, grinning. ‘Play the percentage game.’
Matt delicately placed the handgun clip upright on the floor beside him, freeing both hands to hold the Uzi once more.
‘Aye, fire off another couple of hundred rounds and I might even fuck—’
Vale’s eyes had suddenly gone from the glint of a smile to the glint of cold steel as he reacted to movement elsewhere in the shop. Matt saw him grip the Nagan by the barrel with his right hand and slam the squat stock down on top of the waiting clip, then flip the gun a hundred and eighty degrees with a flick of the wrist, simultaneously grabbing the slide with his left, slotting the first round into the breech. He pulled the trigger the first of six times almost before the slide had returned to cock the hammer.
In the time it took Vale to spot the intruder, load his pistol, prep it and prolifically ventilate the guy, Matt had just about managed to turn his head and watch the dead man fall. To his credit, he had also managed to pull the trigger on the Uzi, mainly by reflex, but less impressively, it was pointing at Vale at the time. Fortunately, once again, nothing issued from it.
‘Good thing for me you forgot to slide the bolt,’ Vale remarked, indicating a lever on the weapon’s right-hand side. ‘You’re lucky I don’t confiscate it until you’ve learned to use it properly. Fortunately for you, this fellow over here won’t be needing his any longer, so there’s one going spare.’
Matt stared open-mouthed. Up-close, Vale looked like some RSC thesp who’d played his last Dane and would now unavoidably be moving on to the Lears and Shylocks. But in action, Jesus. Schwarzenegger wouldn’t spill this guy’s pint.
‘Who are you?’
‘There isn’t time,’ Vale replied, stripping the dead intruder of his armaments. ‘I need you to do the talking. You look like you’ve had a more interesting evening than me so far, so why don’t you tell me about it. And quickly.’
‘All right,’ Matt said, mentally rewinding, still aghast at what was on the tape. ‘I’ll give you the edited highlights. I killed a guy named Booth and took his guns and radio. I’ve been listenin’ into the show ever since, and replyin’ to his messages. They know he’s dead now, but the fact that they bought my voice up until then suggests they’re not the best-acquainted bunch. I don’t think they’re terrorists. Nothing political’s been mentioned, and one of them said somethin’ about there being millions of pounds at stake, so my guess is they’re here to shake Gavin down: a ransom-for-hostages deal.
‘But it’s not exactly runnin’ like a dream so far. One of them, somebody called Jackson, switched sides and freed all the hostages while the others were away searchin’ for Gavin. Not the kind of development your average bad guy generally has a contingency against. They’re dug in somewhere, ready to make a stand.’
‘The Carlton,’ Vale stated, getting up from the dead gunman. ‘There’s a siege getting underway there at the moment. Potentially rather messy.’
‘Right. Also, someone called Dawson has buggered off on a motor-boat. I got the impression he was a main player. From what was said, he took off because he clocked which way the wind was blowin’. The leader, name of Connor, didnae sound too pleased aboot it. On top of that, they’ve suffered a few casualties: as well as laughin’ boy in the corner there and the guy I lit up, they’ve lost two to this Jackson punter, one to electrocution, and there’s another one MIA.’
‘Electrocution?’
‘Somebody wired a door handle to the mains. Gavin, presumably. That’s who they were lookin’ for at the time. Impressive bit of improv, if you ask me. He’s still on the lam, far as I know.’
‘Yes, he’s downstairs in the laundry, where I’ve just come from. The mains trick doesn’t sound much like him, though. Perhaps the other chap.’
‘What other chap?’
‘Murdoch, I think he said his name was.’
‘Davie Murdoch?’
‘Yes, that was it. He struck me as rather more practical-minded than Mr Hutchison.’
‘That would be one way of puttin’ it, aye. Anyway, Simone and I reckoned our best bet was to try to get ashore an’ raise the alarm. We were makin’ our way down to look for a boat when we ran into your man, here. That’s the story so far: now we go over live.’
‘Very well,’ Vale said. ‘Here’s the plan. I want you to fire down the corridor at two- or three-second intervals, in short, controlled bursts, aiming high, to keep our man distracted while I go around the other side. When I give you the shout, you cease firing. Think you can handle that?’
‘Short, controlled bursts. Two or three seconds. Aim high.’
‘Good. You ready?’
Matt took a breath and nodded, lying. He felt about as ready as King Ethelred. ‘I don’t tend to get a lot of this in, you know, in the average week,’ he explained.
Vale grinned and slapped him on the shoulder.
‘By the way,’ he said, pulling the double doors open for Matt, ‘how did you two manage to evade the hijackers in the first place?’
‘We weren’t in the ballroom when it all went down. We were over in the Majestic.’
He nodded, a little too sagely for Matt’s liking.
‘I know it’s none of my business,’ Vale said quietly, ‘but I’m rather fond of Simone. So if you don’t treat her as she eminently deserves, you’ll have me to answer to.’
Matt swallowed. ‘Got it,’ he said.
He crawled through the gap and knelt just outside the doorway once again. Noticing movement across the hall, he looked up. Simone was staring back at him from inside the shop opposite, pulling spare shells from her sanitary disposal bag and feeding them into the shotgun. She had cuts on her forehead and down the left side of her face, and her dress was ripped at the left shoulder.
‘You all right?’ he mouthed.
Simone rolled her eyes and shrugged, as though to say ‘You mean apart from this?’ Matt signalled to her to get down and stay put, then commenced firing, ducking in and out from his covered position to do so.
He glanced back across at Simone during each of the prescribed two- or three-second intervals.
‘What’s going on?’ she mouthed.
Matt leaned out and fired
again.
‘Vale,’ he mouthed back.
‘Wha?’
Another burst.
‘Vale,’ he mouthed again.
She shook her head, a look of frustration on her face.
After the next volley, Vale’s voice sounded loudly from down the corridor. ‘That’ll be all, Mr Black, thank you.’
Simone furrowed her brow upon hearing it. ‘Tim Vale?’ she said in apparent disbelief. Matt nodded with a wry smile. He hadn’t been the only one in for a surprise, and he suspected Simone wouldn’t be the last.
‘Sir,’ Vale called out. ‘Man in the pyjamas, are you listening?’
Matt and Simone exchanged gestures of bewilderment.
‘We know you’re not one of the hijackers,’ he continued. ‘We’d like you to know that neither are we, so it would be a dreadful shame if we shot each other, don’t you think? Now, we have you in our sights from two directions, and in light of that advantage, I’d advise you to throw your weapon through the front of the shop and come out with your hands raised. You’ll get the gun back as soon as we’ve all become sufficiently acquainted as to be sure you’re not going to kill any of us, at least not intentionally.’
Matt couldn’t see where Vale was, neither could he see the man he was alleging to have in his sights. He assumed that at least Vale knew what he was doing, then assumed that he’d find himself assuming that a few times more before this horrible night was over.
There was a few seconds of silence, then: ‘Get tae fuck. D’you think I’m an eejit? If you can fuckin’ see me, fuckin’ shoot me.’
Matt heard Vale fire two rounds from his handgun. It was met by a yelp of ‘Jesus fuck!’, then followed immediately after that by the sight of an Uzi flying through the air and skidding along the hall amidst the squillion pieces of glass.
‘Close enough?’ Vale asked rhetorically. ‘Now, come on out, and quickly, before the balaclava brigade get down here en masse.’
One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night Page 30