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Running feet to my left bring me around, the Glock raised to shoulder height. I relax, slightly, when I recognise the figure as Moses. He spots me and skids to a halt.
I raise my hand to indicate silence and gesture to the cell where Marlon and his would-be rescuers are now conversing in rapid Russian. I don’t need a command of the language to know they’re panicking. Clearly, their plan did not take account of the fact that Marlon might not be the only one down here.
Fucking amateurs.
Moses activates the digital lock and nudges open the door of the cell next to him, on the opposite side of the corridor. He drops to a crouch, and from his vantage point he has a better view than I do. Moses knows his job, and I rely on him now to do it and do it well. So, I watch him for the signal to move.
The instant his head bobs, I roll out into the middle of the corridor, stay close to the floor so as not to get in Moses’ line of sight, and I start shooting. Bullets fly over me in both directions. The din is deafening in this enclosed space. Smoke is clogging my nostrils, and I can barely see more than a few inches in front of me, but I know the moment the firing stops.
“Moses?” I call.
“Here, boss. You okay?”
“Been better,” I concede, shoving myself up onto my knees.
Beside me, the lifeless eyes of a man I have never seen before gaze at the ceiling. I help myself to his gun and move to check the others.
Marlon is also dead, caught in the crossfire. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bloke, though Ethan won’t be pleased. He still had plans for this piece of shit.
A moan from a few feet ahead of me suggests there’s a survivor. I scramble forward, gun at the ready in case he decides to try his luck again.
The other intruder took two bullets, one in the shoulder, the other in the leg. He’ll live, probably. Or he would if we decided to let him, which is about as likely as Moses being picked to perform a ballet solo.
He squints up at me, naked fear in his eyes. Whether it’s me he’s scared of because I could end him right here and now, or his bosses because the ‘rescue’ attempt failed, I really don’t know. And I don’t give a fuck.
“Give me a hand to shift this motherfucker,” I snarl.
Moses rushes forward, and between us we drag the injured man across the corridor, past the bodies of his colleagues, and back into the cell
“Please, no die.” He’s panting, fighting for every breath. The idiot shouldn’t waste it begging for his miserable life.
“Who are you?” I demand.
He shakes his head, as if it’s up to hm whether he talks to us or not.
I settle that little bit of confusion by clubbing his temple with the butt of my gun. “Answer me, arsehole.”
“Not…no one…”
I smirk at him. “So you’ll be dying for no one? For nothing? You’re even more dim-witted than you look.”
“Please, I am…no one.” Blood dribbles from between his lips.
He really doesn’t have long, and neither do I if I’m going to get anything useful out of him.
“Moses, I need your boot.”
The soldier is beside me. “Sure, boss.”
“Put it right…there.” I point to the gaping bullet hole in the man’s leg. Blood is pumping copiously from it. “Apply a bit of pressure. Or maybe a lot of pressure…”
The wounded man lets out a strangled, gurgling scream when Moses places the heel of his boot on the bloodstained limb and applies all his weight. At over six two, Moses is built like a brick shithouse. It does the trick.
“We were sent for Marlon.”
“I figured that much out myself. Who sent you?”
He starts to shake his head but Moses grinds his heel into the wound again and he thinks better of it. This time, after he stops screaming, he’s more forthcoming. “His mother. She want her boy back…”
