Sharks - Matt Rogers (classic books for 11 year olds txt) 📗

bullet-resistant glass. Through one visor, Kane saw the grizzled man’s face twisted in exertion as he hefted the enormous weight of the shields, barely able to balance the load. He’d wedged one on either side of the driver’s seat, creating a miniature portable bunker that he could use to manoeuvre the car through the storm of gunfire, and now he’d untethered them and was using them as a shoddy suit of armour.

It would have been insane if he had any intention of fighting.

But instead of fighting he ran as fast as he could away from the villa, down the side lane, taking direct hits to the right-hand shield. Both shields were pressed tight to his sides, and their curved shapes covered most of his surface area, so nothing got through the slim gap between the twin chunks of ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene.

Then he was gone.

Out of sight.

In the clear.

Kane’s head spun.

He whipped his gaze back to the path, where all four sentries were on their feet in the undergrowth, visibly exposed. They’d had to compromise their cover to be able to take potshots at the sedan during its barrage down the road.

Kane shouted, ‘No! Decoy! Get the fuck down!’

Too late.

84

King waited for Wayne Portis to begin the blitzkrieg.

And what a blitzkrieg it was.

Whatever the resisting forces had been anticipating, it wasn’t that. King could sense them collectively frothing at the mouth as the sedan roared into view, as if it were handing itself over voluntarily. He slunk through the entrance in the wake of its furore, skirting from cover point to cover point in case any of the remaining Walcott forces had their wits about them.

They didn’t.

One sentry dressed in a makeshift ghillie suit reared up from the bushes running the length of the tree line, and a domino effect followed. If one had done it, then it was permissible, so a second sentry joined him, bursting up so he had a clear shot at the side and back of the passing sedan. Thus began an unpreventable chain reaction, and before the vehicle had covered the length of the path and reached the villa, all four men had revealed themselves.

Considerably amateur, but what could you expect?

King waited a long beat in case there was a fifth or sixth who hadn’t yet followed suit.

Wayne buried the front half of the car in the villa and levered himself out of the driver’s seat with his bullet-resistant ballistic shields in tow. This was the most dangerous part of the whole attack. If a lucky shot snuck through the small gaps between the shields, an arms dealer would be dead, and King and Slater would have blood on their hands. But the five beers must have done their job — Wayne displayed impeccable athleticism as he hauled the shields down the side path between villas and vanished into the laneways of the resort.

A frantic warning shout emanated from the villa’s front garden.

King ignored it.

Leaning out from behind a tree on the opposite side of the path, he snapped the closest sentry’s head back with his first shot.

Then he slowly panned left.

He squeezed the trigger of his Glock three more times.

Being able to fire from a stationary position was a blessing, not to mention all the time he had to control his breathing and eliminate any nervous tremors that might have worked their way through his fingers. All of that was gone when he set his line of fire in motion, and the favourable conditions meant he didn’t miss a shot.

There was no need for a fifth round.

Four sentries fell back into the bushes with lead in their skulls.

Not even the last man realised what was unfolding before he joined his comrades in death.

King exhaled after the last shot was fired.

Then he ducked low behind the tree and set off for the next cover point.

85

In the bay that the villas overlooked, there wasn’t so much as a ripple on the surface.

Not even the crunch of a car slamming into brick or the apocalyptic noise of automatic gunfire disrupted the water.

Until something did.

The top of a dark bald head materialised close to the surface, then broke through. The rest of Will Slater followed. His appearance from the depths of the bay might have seemed nightmarish if not for the beautiful grounds he climbed up into. The setting was something off a postcard — a series of three beautiful modern homes erected right by the waterfront, their lawns shining under a cloudless sky. What wouldn’t fit in with the postcard snapshot was the war erupting on the other side of the villa. Gunshots popped one after the other and a plume of engine smoke rose from where Slater guessed the front door was positioned.

Clad in dripping wet clothes, he kept low as he closed in on the back verandah. Draperies billowed in through sliding glass doors, nearly identical to the ones their old bungalow had possessed.

He almost made it all the way to the back steps before his line of sight changed as he rounded a column.

It was then he realised the verandah was occupied.

Lyla Barrow sat at a circular glass table surrounded by patio chairs. It looked like all the life had been sucked out of her. She was aware of the chaos unfolding all around her, but she seemed detached from it. Like this was the cherry on top of a particularly nasty dream she’d soon wake up from. She had her head bowed, her hands over her ears, and her eyes closed, but there was something close to a strange calm in her features.

Denial can be a powerful coping mechanism.

But her nightmare wouldn’t end just yet, for a tall man with a receding hairline and round spectacles clipped to the bridge of his nose stood behind her, towering over her frail form. He had a Ruger pistol aimed loosely in her direction but the barrel wavered all over the place. His gaze was fixated inside the house, his attention seized by the cacophony of