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61
KIAN
I picked up a howling three year-old who’d gotten lost in the crowd and held him up above my head. Then, as soon as I heard his mother shout in relief, I pushed through the sea of bodies and handed him to her. The evacuation was going as well as could be expected. People were scared but they weren’t shoving and crushing each other and in another ten minutes we could maybe have the stadium clear.
That’s when Colton yelled in my earpiece. “You’ve got guys in maintenance uniforms running down the field with gas! Don’t let ‘em get to the air conditioning!”
I looked, and saw three guys running onto the field. Shit. “Bradan!” I yelled. “Sierra!”
I raced down to the barrier and vaulted it, the other two close behind. We spread out in the middle of the field, arms spread to tackle them.
That’s when three more guys ran onto the field, making six in total.
“Feck,” said Bradan. “We’re a little outmanned.”
“No we’re not,” I said. “I brought the family.” And I turned towards where we’d been sitting and shouted. It was loud, in the stadium, but this shout had been honed on a Belfast housing estate to cut through a playground or a busy street when a brother was in trouble. “Oi!”
Heads turned. Three in particular.
Then my brother Aedan came racing down the stairs. Already, he was stretching his shoulders and neck, getting ready to hit something. He pulled off his hooded top as he ran and tossed it over his shoulder. Sylvie, his wife, plucked it out of the air.
Behind him, Sean, looking almost respectable in a white shirt. “Take Grace,” I saw him say as he pushed a red-haired little girl to Louise, his wife. Then he was running towards the football field.
And finally Carrick, who could never look respectable, in his Hell’s Princes biker kutte. He kissed his wife, Annabelle, then ran for the field.
As they vaulted the barrier onto the field, I yelled and pointed. “Don’t let any of those fuckers in blue get to the other end!”
Maravic’s men were focused entirely on Bradan, Sierra and me as they thundered down the field towards us. They weren’t expecting three big and very determined Irishmen to slam into them from the side. Aedan, Sean and Carrick tackled three of them and took them down to the ground, then started punching them into submission. Bradan grabbed the fourth and did something to his neck, so fast I couldn’t see it, and the man dropped, limp. Sierra spun and kicked the fifth man in the face and he crashed to the ground. And the final man was running right at me.
I lunged at him but he shoved me aside, sending me stumbling back. I sprinted and threw myself at him, managing to grab him around the legs. But he was a big guy and he just kept going, dragging me along with him—
I heard the sound of an almighty punch landing and the guy who was dragging me crashed to the ground.
I rolled over onto my back and looked up, squinting against the stadium lights. Carrick was standing over me. “You’ve gone soft,” he told me.
“Fuck you,” I took the hand he offered and hauled myself upright, panting. All six of Maravic’s men were down and Sierra was carefully gathering the canisters they’d been carrying.
“The rest of us all tackled our guys,” said Carrick. “That’s all I’m saying.”
I made as if to punch him, then hugged him instead. Then I looked up at the catwalks high in the roof. Things were under control down here. But what was happening up there?
62
TANYA
All of us, Maravic included, watched, breathless as the tiny blobs of blue and red far below were intercepted by other blobs. I felt my heart start beating again when the last one fell. And up here on the catwalks, Colton’s team had subdued the rest of Maravic’s men. We’d nearly done it.
But not quite. Maravic was still free, still facing off against Colton and me. And he still held the last cylinder. Through the circular eyeholes of his gas mask, I could see him glancing around as he weighed his options. Then I saw him reach for the cylinder’s valve. He’d kill me and Colton, the team…and then the gas would drift down into the panicked crowd below, invisible and deadly. Even one canister would still kill thousands.
There was only one thing I could do. I took two running steps and leapt at him. If his hands had been free, he could have easily batted me aside, but he was clutching the cylinder and I managed to climb his body and cling on with my legs like a monkey while I clawed at his face. He reached up with one arm, grabbed my wrist and brutally ripped me off him, flipping me over his shoulder. I cried out as the force of the throw wrenched my shoulder. Then I slammed into the metal catwalk behind him. I lay there limply, bruised and aching, panting in pain. But I’d done it.
