Crisis Four Read Online Free PDF Page A

Sarah, we’ve got to go. Now!’
    She spun round, her face tight with anger. ‘Not yet.’ She almost spat the words. She jabbed her finger towards the direction of the contact as more rounds were fired. ‘That’s what they’re paid for. Let them get on with it. Your job is to stay with me, so do it.’
    Glen was at the end of the corridor, screaming to me at the top of his voice. ‘Get them out! Get them out now!’
    I moved across the room towards the Source. He was curled into a ball, like a terrified child. I grabbed his arm and started to drag him off the sofa. I hadn’t even put on the plasticuffs. ‘Let’s go, Sarah, we’re… going… now!’
    She turned, and as she did I realized that she was drawing down on me, her pistol aimed at my centre mass. She stepped back so there was too much distance for me to react to it.
    My new friend didn’t want anything to do with this. He just stood next to me, his arm still half elevated by my hand, gently and calmly praying in a low Arabic moan as he waited to die.
    Sarah had had enough. ‘Sit him down.’ She said something in Arabic which must have been to the effect of, ‘Shut the fuck up!’ because he jumped back on the sofa. She levelled her eyes on me again. ‘I’m staying here, what we are doing here is important. Do you understand?’
    It doesn’t matter who it is, if somebody’s pointing a gun at you, you get to understand very quickly. Whatever her agenda was, it must be important. She turned calmly, holstered her weapon and went back to work on the keys.
    I had one last try. ‘Can’t we just take him, plus the computers, and fuck off?’
    She didn’t even bother looking at me. ‘No. It has to be done this way.’
    I couldn’t do both – take her and the Source. I was still working out what to do when I heard Arabic voices inside the building. The best way to do my job and protect her was to go forward, to get out of the room and stop the threat before it came screaming in to get us.
    ‘I’m going outside,’ I said in an urgent whisper. ‘Don’t move until somebody comes to get you. Do you understand me?’ I checked my mag was on tight as she looked up from the computer and sort of acknowledged.
    I put the Car 15 into my shoulder, and holding the pistol grip to keep the weapon up, opened the door with my left hand.
    The lights were still on in the corridor and the sounds of contacts were louder to my right, but my immediate concern was the noises to my left in the corridor. I decided to move down to the next junction and hold it there; that way there would be a weapon at each end with Sarah in the middle.
    I closed the door behind me and started to run. After seven or eight strides I was moving past an external door when it burst inwards. The thud as it hit me full-on was as hard and sudden as if I’d walked into the path of a moving car. I was hurled against the opposite wall, stunned and winded. Worse, my weapon had been forced out of my hands. I had lost control of it.
    There was yelling on both sides; me from the pain, once I got my breath back, and the Syrian from the surprise. He jumped on top of me on the floor and we grappled like a couple of schoolkids. I tried to get to the pistol on my right thigh, but he had me in a solid bear hug around my armpits. I was pinioned with my arms out like the Michelin Man.
    I tried to kick and buck out of position, then to head-butt him. He was doing exactly the same. Both of us were screaming.
    The bloke stank. He had a week’s bristle on him and it was rough against my face and neck as he squeezed and squeezed, his eyes closed, snorting through his nose as he cried for help. He was a big old boy, packing maybe sixteen stones of solid weight.
    I needed help, too, and screamed for Sarah. There was no way she couldn’t have heard me, but she didn’t respond. I wasn’t entirely sure what this boy was trying to do, whether he wanted to kill me, or if he was just fighting to protect himself.
    I