Chapter 9,

7 a.m,

Michael shuffled back until he could rest against a wall, his ankle was swollen up over double it's normal size, still it could of been worse. Pete had definitely made sure he couldn't run anywhere. He looked up at the medic who was checking a drip line on one of his patients. "Thank you." He said.

The man looked at him. "I didn't do it for you." He said. "You try anything else and I'll gladly let him kill you."

Michael didn't bother to reply, but took another look at his ankle. After a moment he asked "Could I have an icepack or a bandage."

The medic ignored him, so he turned his attention to the others. Realizing for the first time how much damage Sam and Fiona had caused. Two seriously wounded and unless his math was wrong the appeared to be another of the black tee shirt brigade missing. That wasn't including Brett and Honey who both had bruises and headaches. He could see and feel how nervous and tense the group was, it wouldn't take a lot to send them over the edge.

9 a.m,

Sam set up the Barret rifle on top of Seymour's pickup to watch the house. He loved that rifle, with the thermal imaging he could see everyone in the house, he could even make an educated guess as to which one was Michael. He noted two people upstairs by bedroom windows. Two more downstairs who were heading towards the front door, close by another was tending to what he guessed were the wounded, that left another sat on a chair and one on the floor, that was the one he figured was Michael. He watched as two of them stepped out from the house, he changed from the thermal image scope to a normal one to keep an eye on them.

"Sam, we have a -" Fiona was in the back of the pick up going through the supply of weapons with Seymour.

Sam cut her off. "Not now Fi, we need to stay down, and quiet they're scouting out the area. Checking out the landing site.I don't think they'll risk coming out this far. Now I've had a good look at the house, once they're back inside we can get set up"

"I wanted to talk to you about that." She told him. Keeping her voice low. She climbed outside to look up at him.

He didn't like the tone or the determined look on her face. He had seen both before, and it usually led to her getting her own way.

"Really?" He raised an eyebrow at her. Bracing himself to listen to a reckless amendment to his plan.

"I think we should go in and get Michael. The longer he is in there the bigger the risk that they'll kill him."

And there it was, he sighed. He hated this about the pair of them. One would rush off without a thought for their own safety, then the other would panic, and run headlong into saving them. It was one of the many circles of drama that made up their relationship.

"Fi, he wants to find out who set up the contract on him, so he needs to be there when they come to collect him." He explained.

"That's the point Sam, the paymaster might not turn up, or if he does, he may turn up with even more men or he could just decide to kill him on the spot. We need to be in there controlling the situation."

Damn it, she seemed to have a point. "So what do you want to do?" He asked.

"They only have three maybe four men in there who could give us a problem."

" The are six of them Fi. I've just been looking, remember?" He tipped his head at the rifle.

"I mean three or four who could give us trouble. We nearly out number them." There was that determined look again, daring him to disagree.

"Ok, How do you intend getting in there?" He wondered if she had plan, or was this going to be one of her go in all guns blazing and hope for the best ideas. "The is no way in the back, and they're watching the front." He pointed out.

"We keep them busy, firing on the front, and using that," She nodded at the specialized rifle. "We'll know exactly where they are which means a couple of us can go in through the side door and take control of the room." She smiled at him.

"Just like that?" Sam wasn't convinced. "Who is going to man the gun and who is going in?"

"I'll fire the gun, with the bodyguard backing me up, while you go in with Seymour, he is quite a good shot you know. He's been practicing." She tried to sound re-assuring.

Sam thought about it for a moment, the strategy was good, but the wasn't a lot of time to organize. Then the was Seymour, could he be trusted to not so much to follow orders, as remember them.

When he didn't answer straight away, "Sam," She smiled at him, "it's a good plan I'll be out here giving covering fire. Once you're inside I'll join you as quick as I can." She cajoled. "And when you free Michael, you'll have an extra set of hands anyway."

Sam knew he was beat, she would do it her own way regardless of what he said. He nodded agreement with one proviso, "Ok but Seymour leaves the RPG out here."

.

10 a.m

It wasn't until they were back inside the house that Pete felt safe even with snipers watching out from above. The was no sign of Sam Axe or Fiona Glenanne but he knew that didn't mean that they were gone.

"How much ammunition have we got for the rifles?" He asked Quinn.

His brother looked at the supplies, frowning. "What are you thinking about doing?"

"Lighting up the whole area, firing blind. We might drive them back, or even make them show themselves. Hell we might even manage to hit one of them."

Quinn continued to frown. "You don't honestly expect to hit them do you? The only thing it might do is drive 'em back long enough to get him into the helicopter." He looked over at Michael. "If we time it right."

"You know when I took this job, I thought it would be easy. Get him away, make it look like he'd left. What the hell went wrong?" He shook his head, none of them had slept much in the last thirty six hours.

"Not the time to be thinking about it Pete. We'll get set up, upstairs it will take all of us firing when the chopper is a few minutes away. Afterwards you'll have to have Westen ready to go out of the door straight away and be quick on the transfer. Make sure you get that money cos we're gonna need it to run."

Honey was ordered to watch Michael, she wasn't to go near him at all. If he moved she was to shoot him. She nodded her agreement she had learnt a very painful lesson from Fiona. She sat watching him the handgun on her lap.

Pete called the medic over to one side. "When this is over we're going to have to run. You know that means we might have to leave the wounded behind." He spoke quietly.

"What the hell happened to leave no man behind Pete?" He replied angrily. "I won't leave them."

"I don't like it, but we only have that old air boat and if we can't get to it we'll have to go on foot and we can't carry them. Besides, I don't know about the woman, Westen's girlfriend. But Axe, he'll see they get to a hospital and that's more than we can do."

"Even though they helped get his friend shipped off to-" He looked across at Michael. " Shipped off to god knows where." He changed his words.

"Sam wouldn't harm an injured man." Michael spoke loud enough for them to hear. "Just like he wouldn't trade a man's life for two million dollars."

Pete turned towards Michael and rapidly crossed the room to the prisoners side. He looked down at him and brought a foot back, but then stopped himself.

"Maybe he would if the man was a traitor to his country, I saw the file that's floating about. You sold secrets, planted bombs and did a whole lot of other nasty stuff probably for more money than we're getting." He spat the words out.

"You believe everything you read." Michael retorted. He had seen that file and knew how bad it made him look. Now it was being used by his enemies to set him up.

Pete's cell phone rang, accepting the call he didn't speak. After a moment he hung up grinning. "He's on his way." He turned away from Michael. " Honey. Remember to watch him real careful girl. The rest of you. Lets get started."

10.30 a.m

Fiona had climbed up onto of the pickup after the scouting party had headed back inside, she was spending her time acquainting herself with the weapon. she had been surprised when Sam had agreed to her plan so easily. She looked through the scope, watching Sam and Seymour move into position, she smiled at the thought of careful, methodical Sam trying to cope with the erratic arms dealer. Seymour's bodyguard was next to her with one of the other rifles. She changed over to the thermal imaging again it was nearly time to start the show. she tensed when she saw that most of the people inside were going upstairs.

She picked up the radio. "Sam something is going on. Hold until I say."