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Where’s my pistol?
First things first.
Where’s my weapon?
Need to be armed.
There.
Near a crumpled piece of metal I see my pistol, crawl over and pick it up.
There’s lots of shouting going on.
Where’s Jeremy?
Over there, on his back. His arms and legs are slowly moving, like a turtle that’s been pulled from a pond and tossed on its back. I rub my face, turn around, look at what’s before me.
The sweeping, curved line of armed, brave, and confident French paramilitary men are gone. There are lumps on the ground, two shapes crawling, and about two meters away is Victor. He’s on his back, rolling back and forth. I get up and limp over to him. His helmet is gone and he’s looking up at me, face white under the glare of one of the remaining spotlights. The other spotlight, tilted backward from the force of the blast, points up into the sky.
Victor’s talking but I can’t quite hear him. My ears are still ringing.
But I don’t need to hear what he’s saying.
His left leg is gone below the knee, a bloody, pulpy, bone-exposed mess.
He’s bleeding out.
I tug at Victor’s protective vest, pull it off, free two of the straps, and tie off a tourniquet just above the bloody leg wound. Otherwise he’d bleed out and be dead in just a few minutes.
I give the scene another long look.
The van isn’t there anymore. There’s just strewn wreckage, an engine, and I make out one tire. A flicker of flame comes from part of the shattered chassis. The blast struck even the airplane, crumpling the near wing. The tail assembly is broken and shot through like somebody fired the world’s biggest shotgun at it.
A couple of the crumpled shapes on the ground are now stirring. I can make out the sound of an engine, and another Land Rover is racing down from the other end of the runway.
Good.
Reinforcements and initial medical aid are arriving.
I limp back to where Jeremy is sitting up, opening and closing his mouth, examining his body with both hands.
Good once more.
He doesn’t look too injured.
Now, where in hell is my other shoe?
The Land Rover we used is parked where we left it, though it has a flat tire and one headlight out. Another empty Land Rover sits a few meters away. A French paramilitary man emerges from around the rear of the first vehicle, coming our way. His helmet and balaclava are off, and I recognize him as Carlos Paqua—our bodyguard. It looks like he’s limping belatedly to our rescue. I wave at him and he waves back, and I look at the pieces of metal, wiring, and plastic from the exploded van, opening and closing my mouth, trying to ease the ringing in my ears.
I look back.
Carlos is walking straight toward Jeremy.
Right at him.
He has a pistol in his hand, and he’s coming right up behind him. Jeremy is still sitting on the runway, examining himself, evaluating, and Carlos is lifting his pistol and—
I shoot him right in the chest.
