A Hostile State by Adrian Magson (reading eggs books txt) 📗

right of the group recovered first, shouting and swinging his rifle up. Isobel opened fire with the Kahr, letting off two shots. She missed him but hit the man in the middle, who skipped round with a scream and fell over, dropping his gun. I switched aim and centred on the first man as a hail of wild shots went over our heads and disappeared towards Syria. I fired three times, knocking him off his feet.

The man on the left decided not to join the party. Instead he dodged sideways and scurried into the rocks at the side of the track like a rabbit followed by more shots from Isobel’s gun. I got the feeling she was annoyed.

‘I’ll go after him,’ I said. ‘Stay here and watch your back.’

I was taking a chance on the lesser of evils. If we drove down the track he’d be able to pick us off as we went by. What he wouldn’t expect us to do was follow him into the maze of rocky outcrops where he’d have the advantage and lots of cover.

First I ran forward and checked both the men we’d shot. The one in the centre was wounded, with blood oozing from a shoulder wound. His eyes were glassy and he was out of it. I checked him for secondary weapons but he was clean. The man who’d fired first was dead.

Instead of following number three into the rocks I ran further up the track until I reached higher ground. The air seemed thinner up here, although maybe that was the rush of adrenalin messing with my breathing. There was no sign of the gunman but with the extent of rocks and crevices he could be hiding anywhere. I slid into a gap between two massive outcrops and waited, listening.

A predator bird high up in the sky above me gave a lonely call, no doubt telling others that there were good pickings to be had down here and just to wait. I ignored it and stepped forward, feeling the heat coming off the rock and seeing a snake slithering away into a hole. I preferred not to think about snakes and stepped past it quickly.

There was a natural path here, with animal prints in the soft wind-blown surface. No man prints, though. I moved forward towards a bend in the path around an out-jutting rock the size of a house. Then I heard a scuff of noise from nearby. Someone wasn’t accustomed to moving quietly.

I bent and picked up a piece of rock the size of a golf ball and tossed it ahead of me along the path. There was an immediate blast of shots, tearing up the ground and zinging off the rocks in a mad hailstorm of lead.

I gave a groan and waited. The feathered predator up top had fallen silent, maybe out of expectation or surprise. I wondered if the shooting could be heard from the road. If any military traffic came along and heard it, they might take it on themselves to venture up here. I hoped not. They wouldn’t necessarily stop the gunman and would start asking us some serious questions about what we were doing here. That’s if they didn’t come in shooting in which case we’d all be losers.

There’s a time for waiting and a time for precipitating action. I figured we’d been here long enough and had better get moving. As I stepped forward three paces I caught a glimpse of a shadow to my right. But it wasn’t at my level. It was higher and looking down at me.

I spun round and dropped to the ground to reduce the target. The third man was standing on the rocks above me. He’d been casting around looking for me, and had just turned my way, bringing his rifle to bear on the path where I’d been standing.

He sprayed the area with a volley of shots, but the rifle barrel was too high and the shots ricocheted off the hard surfaces like angry hornets, one of them clipping my right leg. By the time he adjusted his aim it was too late. One shot and he went down, tumbling off his perch to land across the path in front of me.

I got to my feet and watched him. He wasn’t dead and tried to get up, a patch of blood spreading across his side. I used my gun to motion him to stay down and he put up both hands to show he understood. I stepped closer and checked the wound. It had torn a groove in his side but it wasn’t a life or death issue. He stared up at me with eyes like puddles of ink and I knew what he was thinking: this kind of situation went one of two ways. Either I was going to finish him off or let him go – and by his expression he wasn’t an optimist.

I patted him down. His shirt pocket contained a pack of cigarettes, crumpled where he’d fall off the rock, and his pants pockets held a few small notes, a lighter and a driver’s licence with another man’s face.

But there was no photo of me, which was good.

Satisfied he wasn’t about to jump me I checked where the stray shot had nicked my leg. It was a graze which stung rather than hurt but could have been a lot worse. I was still mobile. What was it in the Monty Python film – always look on the bright side?

I took the man’s rifle and extracted the magazine, then threw the gun over one side of the rocks and the magazine over the other. If he got a second wind he’d have to go searching all over before he got to be a threat.

I motioned for him to stay where he was. He nodded compliance with what looked like cautious relief, so I walked back to the Suzuki where Isobel was sitting in the shade of the car. She was holding the gun