Chapter 29
The machine gun fire began the moment Gawain stepped into the compound, denting the heavy metal shutter that had fallen down and fenced her in a moment ago. She sprinted along the wall to her left, umbrella in hand, swatting workers away and taking cover behind some containers.
"Miss Izaks!" Garth's voice exclaimed over the PA system. "How nice of you to join us. Why don't you just surrender?"
Her hand went to the buttons on her glasses, and pressed the one that would link her with Esclados.
Static.
"You have ten seconds to surrender. After that, I'm going to stop playing nice. Ten! Nine! Eight!"
Gawain flicked aimed her pistol to the right, towards the corner of the container box.
"Seven! Six!"
She turned and aimed it at the left.
"Five! Four! Three!"
Something clattered against the container beside her. Gawain turned, saw the fragmentation grenade and kicked out with one foot, sending it clear of herself, bouncing off another container and back around the right corner.
The grenade went off with a deafening bang! and Gawain turned back to the left corner, blowing a hole in a mercenary just as he emerged.
Thun-thun-thun.
Gawain aimed upwards and fired, her bullets ricocheting off Antoine's umbrella. She got up and rounded the corner to her right, jumping over the bodies of the mercenaries who had been shredded by the grenade.
"It's futile, Miss Izaks!" Garth boomed. "Just give up and we might not kill you!"
Right, Gawain thought to herself. She opened her umbrella just as a pair of Harker's men leaned out from cover, their TAR21 and MP7 spitting fire. Gawain twisted the handle, changing the setting to "Shotgun", and-
Her right shoulder jerked back as a bullet entered and exited it.
She rolled left and raised her umbrella as Antoine emptied his entire clip at her. With a pull of the trigger, she fired a hail of shotgun pellets at him.
The umbrella opened just as she fired, deflecting the bullets.
Gawain took steps back, watching Antoine drop down from atop the container, slamming a new clip into his pistol, and Harker's men rounding the corner to stand beside him.
"I really don't want to kill you," Antoine said.
"Well, I personally want to kill you," Gawain said. "That's Charlemagne's umbrella."
"Your technology moved on without me." I simply found another way of leveling the playing field; is that how you say it?"
Gawain changed her umbrella setting to "Lethal", swung the targeting reticle towards one of the mercenaries and pulled the release button. As he dropped, she moved the reticle to the other one and fired again.
Antoine was suddenly in front of her, a sword in his hand, and he thrust it through the umbrella material, the tip whistling just past her right ear.
She twisted her own umbrella handle, the sword scraping out of its scabbard. Gawain kicked what remained of her umbrella away, leaving it hanging on Antoine's weapon. She twirled her sword and praised her pistol.
Antoine ducked under her first shot, swinging the sword in a wide arc towards her abdomen. She jumped back a little, arching her body to avoid the blade. Her sword came up, catching Antoine's as he brought his sword down.
Gawain pointed her pistol at his head and fired a few times, only for him to bend his neck sideways, the bullets flashing past his head.
The barrel of Antoine's pistol jammed itself against her ribs, and she felt as if a heavy object had just smashed into her chest, driving her back.
Something felt wet.
Gawain kicked out with one leg, connecting with Antoine's own thigh and making him stumble back. She brought both her feet together, clicking the heels just as Antoine managed to re-aim is pistol.
In the smoke cloud that formed, Gawain rolled sideways, avoiding the ricochet of the bullets on the concrete ground. She threw open a door and ducked inside, to a dark warehouse with shelves stacked high with crates. She ran down one of the aisles, slipping in between two large wooden boxes.
Antoine's footsteps echoed in the high-ceilinged room.
She moved her hand to her chest, to where Antoine had fired against her, and found a hole in her jacket. A slug was nestled inside, but couldn't penetrate the shirt.
The wet something, she found, was her own blood.
Antoine's bullets hadn't managed to pierce her bulletproof suit, but the impact had been enough to drive her flesh against the metal plate in her ribcage.
No, she thought. He aimed for it.
"Valerie, do the smart thing. You're outmatched and outgunned and your swordfighting skills are crap. No offense," he added.
She said nothing, ejecting the clip in her pistol and counted the bullets. Two rounds gleamed inside the magazine.
"I've a lot of grenades, you know. Not your fancy cigarette ones, but actual grenades. Would you like me to demonstrate?"
With a loud boom, the crate across the aisle from her was blown to splinters, soda bottles tumbling out and shattering.
"Was that good? Did you see that?"
Gawain raised her pistol and pointed it out of the crack she was in, aiming at the second shelf, at head height.
"I know you've two bullets left; yes, I counted." His footsteps neared the boxes she was between. "Me? I've five more mags."
Her hand shook in front of her.
"You think you have the element of surprise, but that's wrong. I know exactly where you are."
Antoine's pistol poked around the corner, his finger squeezing the trigger.
Gawain ducked and grabbed the gun, twisting it upwards and pulling the trigger until it clicked, and broke into a sprint into the aisle. The edge of Antoine's sword sliced across the back of her jacket, cutting it open. Behind her, she heard the clacks of Antoice ejecting his old clip and slapping in a fresh one.
The door was only a few metres ahead of her, and at that range, he might not be able to land a headshot-
She suddenly heard gunfire from outside.
The "Exit" sign above the door exploded, sparking.
Gawain leaned forwards, putting all her momentum into one shoulder, and burst through the door.
Jonas stared straight at her through the scope of his Accuracy International AX50, from where he stood next to a Huey. "Val, Duck!"
Gawain threw herself onto the ground, her ribs hitting the concrete and sending a jolt of pain through her entire body.
A brilliant orange flame blossomed out of the end of Jonas' sniper rifle, and the .50 calibre bullet exited the barrel spinning, travelling through the air over Gawain's prone form, through the doorway and straight into Antoine's chest.
Gawain opened her eyes, to see Caradoc leap out of the helicopter and sprint towards her. She turned over and looked back through the doorway, where Antoine laid with a massive hole in his chest.
Karma's a bitch, she thought, before getting up and dusting herself off.
Cardoc wrapped his arms around he so tightly the flesh wound in her shoulder was beginning to throb. "You're okay?" he whispered into her ear.
"I'm not going to be if you don't stop squeezing me."
"Sorry." Caradoc let go of her and gave her a smile. "I'm just glad you're okay, that's all."
"Where's the shooting coming from?"
Caradoc pointed up.
Gawain tuned her vision skywards to see a Eurocopter Tiger strafing in the air, its machine gun firing at Harker's men, who were obscured from her by the containers outside the warehouse. "Who's flying that?"
"Michael," Jonas said. "Let's get out of here!"
"No, wait! Garth's in there." She pointed at the office building on the other side of the complex. "Can you tell Michael?"
Jonas' hand went to his earpiece, and he shook his head. "Some sort of jamming signal.
"Doesn't matter; I called in reinforcements," Caradoc said, looking up again. "Oh, here they come!"
With a roar, a large grey transport airplane flew overhead, and out of its open cargo ramp, three figures in black HALO suits fell.
"Galahad, Lancelot, and...who's that? Perceval?" Gawain asked, hands on her hips.
"No. Nassor."
"Isn't he undercover?"
"Not since Harker turned himself in." The figures in the air were jerked up slightly as black parachutes blossomed out of their packs, and they drifted towards the compound. "So I called him in."
Jonas' rifle went off.
"What are you doing?"
Jonas fired another deafening round...straight into the support struts of a radio tower. "Taking down the jammer!" With one last shot, the antenna, like a drowsy giant, toppling over a stack of containers and crushing its transmitters in the process.
Galahad connected to them immediately. "Three of you, a pair of cargo ships are heading out west. We'll take Garth, you go stop them."
"Affirmative," Caradoc said. "Heading there now."
"I'm going to find Karlien," Jonas said, running off between the containers.
Gawain ran towards the pier, where two massive cargo vessels were steaming out of the harbour. "Shit, they're too far away."
"Thank you, captain obvious," Caradoc said, jumping into the driver's seat of the closest speedboat, which was painted blue. "What are you waiting for?"
Gawain chuckled and climbed in next to him. "Hit it!"
The boat shot off towards the closest cargo ship. "Which one?"
"There aren't any life signs on the closer one," Merlin said over the the comms. "Go for the other one."
"How many on that one?" Gawain asked.
"Two."
"Easy peasy," Caradoc said. He pulled the boat up next to the other cargo ship's ladder. "Jump!"
Gawain leapt off the edge of their boat, and grabbed one of the middle rungs, scaling it quickly and rolling up onto the deck. "Merlin, where's the closest lifesign?"
"Bridge," he replied. "The other one's in the engine room."
Caradoc climbed up onto the deck. "Let's go." He put put hands on the wheel of a door in the superstructure and turned it. "We should split up," he said.
"No." Gawain placed a hand on his shoulder. "We stuck together remember?"
Hesitantly, Caradoc nodded. "Engine room or bridge?"
"Bridge."
The heavy door swung open, and Gawain flew up the stairs, her pistol in front of her.
"Still in the bridge," Merlin said. "Whoever it is, they're not moving."
Caradoc and Gawain took either side of the bridge door. "Ready when you are," he said.
"I'm ready," Gawain replied. She grabbed the wheel of the door, spun it, and pulled it.
Caradoc leaned in, gun aimed and ready to shoot.
He didn't fire.
Gawain poked her head in the doorway.
Karlien Ahlers was tied to a chair and gagged in the middle of the ransacked bridge, a pleading look in her eyes.
Caradoc walked over to her and pulled off the duct tape covering her mouth.
"Help me!" she shouted instantly, struggling against her bonds.
He produced a pocket knife and sliced through the thick ropes.
Karlien buried her face into Gawain's chest and sobbed. "Please get me out of here!"
With a loud clank, the bridge door swung closed, and the wheel spun, locking itself. The radio began producing static.
Caradoc walked over to the radio console. "Everything's broken but this."
"Answer it," Gawain said, stroking Karlien's hair.
Caradoc lightly pressed on a button.
"Hello, Mister Beumers, Izaks. I see you've found Miss Alhers. Too bad none of you will be leaving this place," a familiar voice said.
"You son of a bitch," Gawain whispered. She set Karlien on the chair and walked over to the console.
Caradoc was staring, appalled, at the radio. "How did I not see this coming?"
"Because I'm good at what I do," Doctor Fischer said through the radio. "Now, do me a favour and die."