by Jack Barnao
I’d noticed a big old sun hat on a peg in the kitchen, and I doubled back out there and grabbed it, then came back to the big room and rolled across to the wall beside the French window. There was a blue Chinese vase on a low table next to me, and I hung the hat on it and then sneaked the hat sideways until it showed at the corner of the window, moving it as carefully as if my head were inside. From the oak trees it would have looked like a living target, and a sniper would have snapped off a shot. But none came.
It meant either there was nobody out there or that he was smarter than me. There’s a lot of that going around, but I still had to try. The motto of my old unit is Who Dares, Wins, and I subscribe to it as one of the all-time truths. This was the chance to test the theory. I stood up and opened the French window, diving through it in a long roll, then crouching and diving the other way as I made for the east side of the house. There was a banked-up flower bed there, and I lay behind it for half a minute, sheltered from the orchard side by its height and from the hill by the bulk of the house itself.
I still had the old hat in my left hand, and I used it again as a target, holding it out by the brim, a few inches past the side of the house. From the way Chrétien’s body had been lying, I figured I was screened from the rifleman until I got to the north corner of the house, close to the shed and back door where I’d entered Constance’s quarters. If my hat trick was the litmus test, I was right. No shots came.
Staying low, I ducked around the corner of the house, past the dead dog, which was getting high and attracting most of the flies in the region. I ran to the corner, staying behind it, still out of sight of the hill, and looked around for a stick. There was an old olive tree near the wall, and I took out my knife and snicked off a low branch, taking care not to shake the top of the tree, which could be seen from the hill. Now came the daring bit.
I stuck the sharp end of the branch into the fabric of the hat and crept back to the corner. There I paused a moment to check behind me. Nobody there. Good. I lay down behind the corner, right hand holding my pistol, thinking. If the guy with the rifle was good, I would only have one chance at this. It was time to take the risk. Inch at a time, I eased my head around the corner until I was able to see up the hill out of my right eye. Then I raised the branch behind me and tilted it until the hat was showing around the corner. Within a second a rifle shot blazed off the wall, missing the hat but uncomfortably close to me. I pulled the hat back, dropping it behind me against the wall. I still had not seen the rifleman, but the angle of the shot narrowed my search area, and I saw the only place it could have come from. It was a bush, lower on the slope than he had been when he first fired.
The knowledge that he was moving cut down my options. There was no time to double around the house and take him from the other side. He might be gone before I reached it, already inside the house, where it would be harder to winkle him out. This was showdown time.
I dived and rolled to my right, coming up on one knee and putting three quick shots into the bush, combing it left to right. It worked. I heard a scream and a clatter and saw the rifle tumble away down the slope. I’d hit him.
There was no way of knowing how badly he was hit or whether he had a second weapon, so I played it smart, diving and rolling again, coming up close enough to the woodpile to huddle down and be out of sight of the bush. I crouched there a long moment, checking all around me and listening hard. The major sound was the sawing of the cicadas basking in the heat, but under it I made out the angry whimper of the wounded man. He wasn’t faking it; he was hurt.
I did the dumb, necessary thing. I left the shelter of the woodpile and charged up the hill, not directly at him but on the easiest path, heading to a spot thirty feet to his left and ten feet above the bush. I saw him almost at once, sprawled back but clenching both hands around the wound in his thigh. If he had a second gun, he wasn’t thinking of using it right then. He was wishing he’d gone straight when he was a kid. I took the final few paces and stuck my pistol in his face. All the French I know had flown from my mind, and I snarled at him in English, counting on the gun to do the translating for me. “Put your hands up.”
He looked at me helplessly, so I tapped his hands with the muzzle of my Walther. It was still warm from the shots, and he understood, putting both his hands on his head and lying back helplessly. I patted him down, finding no gun but taking a switchblade and a handful of rifle shells from his pants pockets. “Roll over,” I commanded, making a circling motion with the muzzle. He babbled something but did as I said, half-screaming as he put pressure on his wounded leg. He had nothing else on him, and I left him there, stuffing the shells into my jacket pocket and grabbing up the rifle as I ran past it down the hill.
It was steeper than is comfortable, and I ended up having to run almost to the drive shed before I could break speed. My adrenaline was pumping as if I were on street patrol under sniper fire in Belfast, and I checked the drive shed for other enemies before taking the stone steps three at a time and reaching the apartment.
“It’s okay. I’ve stopped him,” I said. “You can come down.”
Wainwright came out first, dangling the pistol from his right hand. He asked the practical question. “Is he dead?”
“No. He’s hit in the thigh. I was firing blind.”
“Good show,” he said enthusiastically. He turned and called, “Come on Amy, it’s all right, John has wounded the man.”
He came down the stairs and took the rifle from me. “A Kalishnikov,” he said wonderingly.
“No, it’s the Israeli copy, a Galil.” I took out the shells I’d found in the prisoner’s pocket and reloaded the magazine. Amy watched me without speaking. She was very pale.
“You’ve used one of these?” Wainwright asked.
“I know how to. We trained on everybody’s weapons in the SAS.”
“Good.” He nodded briskly. “What do you suggest now?”
“The phone’s out. We can’t call the police, but we can get information out of Alphonse there, on the hill.”
“Is he alone?”
“I’m not sure. If I’d been running things, I’d have put a second man in the driveway somewhere to stop us if we made a dash for it.”
“Then we can’t go for a phone,” he said.
“I’ll do it. I’ll take the rifle and head across country to the gas station.”
Wainwright frowned at me. “Is that wise? Wouldn’t it be better to neutralize the man on the drive?”
“Is that necessary? He’ll probably run when the gendarmes come down the driveway; he’s not counting on being taken from the rear.”
“What if he attacks when you’re away?” His voice was calm, but the question surprised me. The odds were against the guy’s making a move. If he was on the drive somewhere, he probably wouldn’t have heard the yell out of his partner. He’d be waiting down there, snug as a bug behind his bank until his buddy came down for him, grinning with the news that the mission was completed.
“I think we should mop up,” Wainwright said firmly. “Can you manage it?”
“I can try. Wait here and I’ll bring the other guy in.”
I took a moment to slip the magazine out of the rifle, eject the last round, and check that the barrel was clear. I didn’t want to blow my hand off with a back blast from a plugged muzzle.
It was clean, so I reloaded and cocked the weapon. “Stay low,” I ordered, and went back out to retrieve my man.
There was no one else around, and the guy was anxious to do as he was told, so I hooked his arm over my shoulder and steered him down the slope to the house, listening to his sobs of pain close to my ear as he took part of his weight on his wounded leg.
Amy had put the kettle on and was tearing up a clean sheet. “Put him on the couch,” she said briskly. I set him down there and cut his pant leg away above the wound.
“Right. Eric, keep your eyes open and the gun handy,” I said, and went back out, checking carefully, then heading to the east si
de of the house and making my way ahead to the far side of the oak orchard. I’d already worked out the best place for an ambush, down where the driveway was the ruttiest and a car would have to creep. There was a steep bank there with an ancient willow tree growing out of it, ideal cover, on the far side of the drive from the house. It figured to be the spot where trouble would come from, so I kept moving out until I was clear of the whole area, then slipped across the lane back where it doubled around from the old coach road toward the last bend in front of the house.
My clothes are chosen carefully in case I ever have to carry out this kind of maneuver on an assignment. I was wearing tan slacks and a light brown jacket, not camouflage exactly but neutral enough to blend in here among the deep shadows of the trees down the drive. Moving as carefully as if I were on jungle patrol, I eased through the undergrowth along the tiny stream that tinkled down beside the driveway. I made no sound.
It took almost half an hour to cover a hundred yards and reach a point twenty paces south of the big willow. There I paused, crouching and checking all around me for any movement. Nothing was stirring, but my first deep breath told me I was right. The bloody amateur was smoking.
In a few seconds more I saw him, lying at the side of the tree, holding a long-barreled shotgun, puffing away happily on his cigarette.
Infinitely slowly, I inched up behind him and then clubbed him between the shoulder blades with the butt of the rifle. He gasped and collapsed forward, clutching at his gun. I reversed the rifle and tapped him on the head with the muzzle. “En haute les mains.” My Gallic version of hands up.
He let go of the gun and pushed his hands up, craning around to see who had done this to him. I nudged his head again with the muzzle, doing it hard enough to hurt so he knew I wasn’t kidding.
“Combien des autres avec toi?” How many others with you?
“Settlement un.” If he wasn’t lying, it meant we’d won.
“Si n’est pas vrai, je te fusille.” I said grimly. If that’s not true, I’ll shoot you. My French would have earned a C minus in school, but here it was aces. He nodded and babbled something.
“Marche” I commanded, and he scrambled up, keeping his hands high. Out of sheer malice I paused long enough to stab the muzzle of the shotgun deep into the soft earth by the tree roots, then wipe it off so the gun looked normal but was a death trap for the unwary. I left it there and followed him, checking all around for other movement. There was none, and I made him double up the driveway until he was ready to collapse. Really, smoking is the pits for fitness.
I ran him around the corner of the house toward the drive shed and the door of the apartment. The speed saved my life. As I came to the corner of the shed, a man stepped out from behind the woodpile and blazed off a pistol shot at me. I cut him down with a squirt from the Galil. And then I heard Wainwright’s voice, hoarse and frightened. “Drop the gun, John, or they’ll kill Amy.”
If this had been a battle against rational enemies, I would have done it, trusting to the Geneva convention to protect us all. But I’d seen what these men did to prisoners, so I did the logical thing. I reversed the rifle and slammed my prisoner in the back of the neck, taking him out of the equation.
Wainwright shouted, “What are you doing? He’ll kill her.”
“Tell him I don’t believe it,” I said evenly. “If he harms her, I’ll blow his balls off.”
There was a confusion of voices speaking French, then a half scream from Amy. “John! For God’s sake. He’s got a gun.”
“Tell him to bring you outside.” I was assessing my choices and checking all around to see there was nobody else in view. It was clear. Whoever had taken them was inside with them.
“He can’t walk. You wounded him.” She screamed.
“Then tell him I don’t believe him. Have him bring you to the window.”
I backed away from the man I’d dropped until I was squarely in front of the window from which I’d seen Chrétien’s body. And I waited through another angry torrent of French until finally Amy’s face appeared at the window. And then at last I saw the sneering face of the man from the hill.
He had a pistol against her cheek. It looked like the Colt I’d given Wainwright. And the damn fool hadn’t even cocked it. It would take him a double pressure to cock and fire. I didn’t pause but raised the rifle and snapped off a single shot, right through his open mouth. It’s the shot they teach American SWAT teams, severing the spinal cord so there is no reflexive jerk on the trigger as he dies.
His body flew back out of my sight and blood spurted out, onto Amy, making her scream with horror, then lean through the window and retch helplessly. I paused long enough to check that my prisoner was still out of it, then ran into the drive shed and up the steps to the apartment.
Amy was still at the window, but the man I’d shot was sprawled back across the back of a couch, the back of his head smashed. Wainwright was crouching beside him, his own face chalk white.
“Good God. What have you done?” He almost screamed it.
“Saved all our lives, I’d imagine,” I said. “How did this happen?”
Before he could answer, Amy turned from the window and screeched at me. “His blood is all over me!”
“He can’t hurt you now,” I said.
“He wasn’t going to hurt me,” she said, sobbing. “He promised that. He promised.”
I ignored her. If I’d surrendered, both he and his buddy would have been tearing her clothes off by now, making sure Wainwright and I saw what happened. And afterward they would have killed all three of us, taking their own sweet time, getting creative with their knives. “How did this happen?” I repeated.
Wainwright spoke at last, standing up painfully, bracing his right hand on his knee.
“We were in here, dressing this man’s wound. And then the guy outside came in with that gun. He made me give the pistol to the prisoner; then he went outside to wait for you.”
“That second bastard told me there weren’t any more,” I said angrily. I was shaky myself now, coming down from the combat high, realizing how much explaining I’d have to do to a squad of bored French policemen who hadn’t been here to see what happened. For a moment I was almost glad that Contance had been murdered. That was a motive at least for what I’d had to do.
Wainwright didn’t help. He stood looking at me as if I were a leper. “You’re a cold man,” he said.
“Get some coffee going,” I told him. “You should be able to handle that.”
He disgusted me. I’d left him a simple job to do. If he’d done it instead of helping Amy play Florence Nightingale, the guy on the couch would still be alive—in lots of trouble but at least able to look forward to a fair trial. Now he was gone and with him part of my chance to clear things up with the gendarmes.
Amy passed me, running to the bathroom. The door slammed, and I heard her retching again, then the sound of running water. Wainwright slowly went to the kitchen and filled the coffeepot. By the time he had finished, Amy came out of the bathroom, her face cleaned up and blood sponged away from her T-shirt so that the stains hardly showed.
She stood at the door, looking at me down the length of the room. I saw her face set, and slowly she walked toward where I stood, the Galil cradled in my right elbow. I wondered if she was going to do something theatrical like slapping my face, but she surprised me. “I’m very sorry for what I said, John. You did what was right.”
“My job.” I nodded.
“Thank you. You saved all our lives,” she said, and she craned up on tiptoe to kiss me on the lips. It was more stunning than a slap would have been, and I didn’t know how to respond. But I didn’t have to. Faintly, from the roadway, then closer as they turned down the old coach road to the farm, came the sound of police sirens. Somebody had finally heard the shooting and called the gendarmes.
CHAPTER 13
Fortunately for me, Labrosse was in the lead car. Any other gendarme finding Frenchmen with my bullets in them
would have locked me up first, taken a statement second. But Labrosse was a pro. He took me aside and listened to my story without interrupting. He got a little tight-lipped when I told him I’d found Constance’s body the night before and made the decision to wait for morning before reporting it, but he said nothing until I’d finished.
Then he had two of his men carry the survivor into the apartment and set Amy to work on reviving him. I’d put the guy to sleep pretty deeply, but as soon as he opened his eyes, Labrosse started asking questions.
Wainwright had surrendered the Colt, and I gave up the Galil, and we sat on the couch waiting for Labrosse to get around to us. Wainwright was listening intently as the injured man talked. I couldn’t follow the conversation— it was too fast and idiomatic for me—but I could tell from a little nod that Wainwright gave that he felt justified in whatever he’d been thinking. However, it was Labrosse who spoke to me first.
“This man says he was out hunting rabbits when you attacked him.”
“How big do your rabbits grow that he needed double O buckshot?”
Labrosse’s face creased in a microscopic grin. “Not the usual load.” He turned back to the man, jabbing a finger into his face.
The man was recovered enough by now to realize the jam he was in, and he changed his tune. He sang it for five full minutes. At last Labrosse turned to me again. “Now he remembers better,” he said.
“Does he remember who sent him?”
“A gentleman from Marseilles. No name, unfortunately, but there is time for him to think more.”
“If it was Marseilles, then it had to be Orsini.”
Labrosse clicked his tongue impatiently. “Venez!” he commanded, then translated for me, although I had understood. “Come.” He led the way downstairs and outside to the flat area behind the house, where the bodies of Chretien and the second man I’d shot were still lying, covered now with sheets from the apartment’s linen closet.