AllFreeNovel
Share Us
They ignored Zoya as they did this, and there was no response over the radio.
More gunshots cracked.
Court grabbed Zoya and Fitzroy and took them to the side of the room near the stairs so that they were far from the windows.
Tudor saw this and rushed up behind Fitzroy, his two bodyguards on his heels.
“What is it?” he asked Court.
Two-way gunfire launched in earnest now, still down below and in the front of the hacienda grounds. Court detected fully automatic submachine gun fire in the melee, but he also heard the louder, lower booms that had kicked off the gunfight seconds earlier.
To Court’s expert ears, the incoming gunshots sounded like they were being fired by a sniper rifle. A .308 Winchester, a 6.5 Creedmoor, or perhaps a .260 Remington. Regardless of the caliber, he could tell there were at least two shooters working against multiple security men armed with pistols, shotguns, and submachine guns, and the attackers were in close, perhaps even at the front door of the large building.
Zoya looked to him. “There were three cops at that checkpoint up the road. They’ll call this in, but it’s going to take a while for police to respond in force.”
“Who’s doing this?” Tudor asked Court, because his own men hadn’t been able to answer the question.
Court said, “Your client, most likely.”
Tudor looked to Fitzroy now. He barked, “You led them here!”
The Englishman shook his head. “That’s impossible.” He turned to Court. “Isn’t it?”
To Tudor he said, “Maybe they busted your woman at the ops center and know you are trying to get intel on their operation. They targeted us for less.”
“Shite,” Tudor muttered as the weight of Court’s words settled on him. “What do we do?”
Court did not hesitate. “You give us weapons.”
Tudor looked to his two guards. “Hand them your backups.”
Zoya took a Glock 26 from one man, drawn from his ankle, and Court accepted a Glock 43 from the front pocket of another, and then one of the guards put his hand on Tudor’s arm. “Señor Tudor, we have nine officers downstairs to deal with this. We’ll put you in your library for now, close the shades on the window to the courtyard there. We’ll keep you safe until this is over.”
Tudor motioned to Fitzroy now. “You’re coming with me.”
Unsure, Fitz looked to Court. “What do you think?”
“We can’t use the balcony if there’s ISR back there. Go with Tudor and hunker down; we’ll deal with the threat.”
Tudor and the two guards began running back across the great room, putting them in front of the tall curtained windows as they moved.
Fitzroy addressed Court and Zoya now. “Do be careful.” Then he turned and began shuffling well behind the others as they raced towards the library on the far side of the great room.
Zoya lowered to a knee and aimed down the stairs as a furious battle raged below.
Court stood behind her, looking back over his shoulder to the balcony, knowing that was another potential entry point for whoever these attackers were.
He watched Sir Donald struggle to catch up with the younger and fitter men who by now were now halfway across the room. Court noticed the gap in the curtains, but just as he started to call out to them to halt their run, the window glass there shattered inward as if shot by a bullet, and one half second later a large object flew into the room at high speed, slamming into one of Tudor’s two bodyguards.
Fitzroy was no more than twenty feet away from where the impact occurred, but Court turned away from him and instead dove onto Zoya from behind, launching both of them down the stairs. They descended just beyond the lip of the second story as an explosion ripped through the great room above them. The force of the blast propelled them farther; they tumbled out of control, slamming backs and legs and arms into the unyielding stairs, but Court managed to reach out and take hold of one of the vertical rails with one hand while grabbing Zoya with the other, stopping their descent about halfway around the spiral and halfway down to the ground floor.
Zoya lay under him, so he rolled off, then shook his head to clear the disorientation. Looking down, he saw her Glock 26 within his reach, so he grabbed it and pointed it down to the ground-floor east-west veranda.
Thick smoke drifted through the air down there next to the large open courtyard, but through the blowing black obscurant he saw flashes of outgoing gunfire. Soon he was able to make out a single security man kneeling behind an enormous stone planter, and he held a pistol-grip pump shotgun. He fired around the side of the fountain ahead of him towards some unseen enemy across the courtyard and closer to the front of the property.
Zoya sat up with a gasp, then immediately looked down at her body, checking her arms, legs, and chest for missing parts or spurting blood. Satisfied she was still intact, she saw the Glock 43 that Court had been carrying just one step down from where she sat. Snatching it up, she shouted over the gunfire. “What the fuck happened?”
“You’re okay,” Court said just as the guard downstairs forty feet away rose again to fire the shotgun. Before pressing the trigger, however, he lurched violently back. Blood ejected from the back of his head as he was shot by a large-caliber weapon, and he dropped dead on his back on the veranda tile.
