Life Goes On by Tayell, Frank (large ebook reader txt) 📗

he was about to leap up again, shards of white plastic erupted from the stone-effect balustrade as, from inside, someone opened fire.

“Police!” Tess yelled, while Clyde ducked down, and got another burst of automatic fire in response.

“I could have told you that wasn’t going to work,” Mick said calmly.

“Tell me what would work?” Tess hissed back.

“Get ready to follow me!” Clyde hissed, before pulling a spare magazine from his belt. “Someone give me a grenade!” he yelled, at the top of his lungs before flinging the magazine over the balcony. “Fire in the hole!” he yelled, flinging himself up the bookcase and over the balcony.

As Tess clambered up onto the table, she heard glass shatter, and plaster erupt as Clyde fired a suppressed burst into the house.

“Clear!” Clyde called, even as Tess rolled over the rail.

The man lay inside the room beyond the glass doors, by a pushed-aside bed with crumpled, blood-stained sheets.

“Jeans. Bullet-proof vest,” Tess said, taking in the corpse, while keeping her finger close to her trigger.

“Carrying a B&T APC submachine gun,” Clyde said. “Swiss. It’s not military. Not our military, anyway.”

“Get everyone else up here,” Tess said, crossing to the door. It was polished wood with a wooden frame rather than the white plastic panels covering everything outside. She tried the handle. The door was closed, but not locked.

“An APC9,” Toppley said, making a beeline for the gun.

“What can you tell me about it?” Tess asked.

“That this man had a rich benefactor,” Toppley said. “It’s the kind of weapon you pick from a catalogue. Showy rather than tried-and-tested.”

“But still deadly,” Clyde said. “What do you want to do, Commish?”

“Wrong question, mate,” Mick said. “Why aren’t we running back to the plane?”

“I’m giving them a chance to steal it,” Tess said. “Elaina, Bianca, watch the windows, but stay out of sight.”

“You’ll let them nick my plane?” Mick asked.

“Yes, because we know what it looks like, and exactly how much fuel it has in the tanks,” Tess said. “We’ll borrow a couple of those cars, drive to the refugee camp, commandeer another plane, and then start scouting the outback for that Beechcraft. Mick, you and Teegan watch the gardens. Elaina, Bianca, Zach, watch this door. Clyde and me will flush them out. We don’t want a gunfight, understand? Let them run.”

“You know what happens when people split up in movies,” Mick said.

“That’s why I’m glad I’m not wearing a red shirt today,” Zach said. “What’s the call sign so we know it’s you?”

“Remember rule-one,” Mick said. “Rule-two is the counter sign.”

Reflexively, Tess looked down at her boots before she reached for the handle, and pulled the door open. Silently, Clyde pivoted outside, ducking into a crouch. Tess followed, keeping her back to him, her gun raised. They were in a wide and long corridor with walls covered in minimalist monochrome abstracts set in ostentatious gilt frames. Four doors were on the garden-side of the property, with a fifth at the far end of the corridor.

“On me,” Clyde said.

Tess pivoted around, taking up position behind and above Clyde as he ran in a crouch towards a set of glass doors. Beyond, the corridor opened, became lighter, brighter, airier. Just before the glass-fronted doors was an open doorway. Clyde slowed as they neared.

Tess kept her aim on the glass doors at the far end. Beyond them, she could make out a gold-coated bannister, a wraparound staircase mirrored on both sides of a large hall.

“Clear,” Clyde whispered, moving on, and beyond the open doorway.

Tess glanced inside. A sitting room, judging by the green-leather sofa and five matching chairs.

Without warning, Clyde pushed her sideways, into the room, even as he fired, and someone else fired back.

Bullets shattered the glass doors, slamming into the corridor’s wall, splintering the gold picture frames, shredding the artwork.

Clyde eased his gun-barrel around the door, firing a pair of shots which she heard thud into a wall. Half a magazine tore down the corridor in reply.

They had taken refuge in a large room, sparsely furnished. The chairs were arranged in a circle in the middle. In the near corner stood a bar dotted with glasses and bottles. An ill-hidden projector faced the other, blank wall. On the far side were tinted glass windows, all closed. There was no other door.

Outside, the second half of that magazine shredded plaster and paintings.

“Hope you’re a good shot,” Tess whispered. “I’ve got an idea, but it’ll only work once. Be ready.” She holstered her gun, and stepped closer to the door. “Hold your fire! We’re friendly! Hold your fire!”

No shots came in return, which she took as a step in the right direction, but she didn’t take one of her own out into the corridor, not yet.

“We’re friendly,” she called again. “We’ve come from Canberra.”

“Why are you here?” the man called back.

Tess nodded. Pick a name, and she had a fifty-fifty of it being the right one. Pick the wrong one, and she’d never know. “Kelly sent us,” she said. “I’m coming out. Unarmed.”

Empty hands first, she stepped around the door and out into the corridor, but stayed close to the wall as she took a step, then another towards the now-shattered glass doors.

She saw the gun, the man’s eye close to the barrel, the top of his head, and the spray of blood as Clyde’s bullet smashed bone and scrambled brain.

Even as she breathed out in relief, he overtook her, dashed past, and to the doors, pushing them open.

“Clear,” he said. “Don’t do that again, Commish.”

“Here’s hoping,” she said.

“Main doors are barricaded,” he said. “That’s the front entrance. Looks like more rooms on the other side of the hallway. Down or along?”

“Along,” Tess said. “Quick, though.”

The other end of the hall was marked by another set of