Golden Serpent

CHAPTER 13

Mac hesitated, then lowered the SIG so it was at hip-height and popped the Asian man in the forehead.

Blood sprayed on the girl, but he was pretty sure he’d missed her with the slug.

The sound of voices and feet hitting fl oorboards came from next door. Urgent commands.

Hard-on keyed the throat mic. ‘Sonny, shit’s started. Bring it.

Bring it now.’

Almost immediately the staccato sound of short-burst machine gun fi re came from further down the building. Glass smashed and someone screamed. Shots fi red back, echoing inside the building.

Hard-on said, ‘Get the girl.’ Then he went to the doorframe, stood beside it and fi red in short bursts down the hallway. The air fi lled with thumps and male fear.

Mac knelt on the bloody bed, pulled the dead guy off the girl.

Two rounds came through the wall above him. He was full-on panting now, muttering to himself. The girl was Judith Hannah, he was sure. She was naked and from the breasts up she was covered in blood. There were bits of brain and bone in her hair.

She was tied to the bed head with cargo ties, both wrists, both ankles. He tried to get them loose. Reached for his own Ka-bar, fumbled, dropped the knife. He was not handling this well. Then he realised there was no response from Hannah.

‘Judith – how are you?’ He picked up the Ka-bar and slashed the ties on her wrists.

No response.

Panting, gulping and muttering like a madman, Mac checked for a pulse on her inside wrist. Pressed three fi ngers close to the bone.

Got it in one. Drugged? Catatonic?

He gave her a soft slap on the left cheek. Her eyes didn’t open.

‘Judith – talk to me!’

The shooting went on around him. He slashed the ankle ties.

Hard-on popped shots like a robot and yelled, ‘How we going, Pizza Man?’

‘Almost there.’

‘Where’s the other girl?’ shouted Hard-on before shooting again.

‘She’s not in here, mate,’ he yelled over the gunfi re.

He knew Hard-on would avoid fi ring in a downward trajectory until they knew where the younger girl was. Mac looked around in the gloom and realised he hadn’t looked behind the door. He pulled it away from the wall and looking straight back at him were big dark eyes under a fringe; a cuddly blanket clutched into a naked chest.

Total fear.

Minky’s girl, alive.

Splinters of doorframe fl ew into the room.

Hard-on yelled, ‘Fuck!’ and staggered in, clutching at his right bicep. ‘Fuck it!’

Minky’s girl screamed.

Mac leapt up, took a crouch at the doorframe. Two men down the end of the corridor were laying down indiscriminate fi re. It whistled around, sliced through the wooden walls, tore strips off the plaster ceiling. There were two sounds: loads fi ring and the building being torn apart. Mac pulled back in.

The radio crackled. ‘Blue team, this is Red. Ten more tangos from another building. We’re bogged down. Can you hang on?’

Hard-on winced, growled at his pain. Keyed the mic, said, ‘Red team this is Blue – we have both targets. Repeat both targets. We need cover. We need it now. Over.’

Radio contact ceased.

Hard-on took his hand away from his bicep. It was a mess. The shirt was torn and blood was seeping into it as Mac watched.

‘It’s a fl esh wound,’ said Hard-on. ‘But a bad one.’

‘Can you cover me if I get the girls?’ asked Mac.

Hard-on nodded, reloaded, moved back to the splintered doorframe. The shooting had died down. They were probably waiting to see if it was safe to approach. Hard-on did a quick peek, then pulled back.

Mac went to the bed, dragged Hannah up to a sitting position.

Kneeling on the fl oor he pushed her arms up, pulled them over his left shoulder and her body followed. He wrapped his left arm around the back of her knees and when he stood she hung limp down his back.

He turned for Minky’s girl. She would have to run.

Hard-on counted his fi ve then leapt into the corridor, laying down fi re. Mac would have maybe ten seconds to make a dash for it with the girls, before the return fi re came back twice as hard.

Smiling at Minky’s girl, he put his hand out.

She shook her head.

Mac smiled harder, wiggled his hand, tried to grab her wrist.

‘Come on. Let’s go.’ She pulled her hand away.

‘Come on, darlin’ – I’m here to help,’ said Mac, clicking his fi ngers at her.

Hard-on looked back to Mac. ‘On my fi ve, Pizza Man.’

Mac made another attempt at Minky’s girl and she pointed at her ankle. He looked closer: the girl was handcuffed to a pipe on the wall.

The fl esh around the steel cuff was worn and bleeding.

‘Fuck!’

With Judith Hannah on his back, he knelt to the dead rapist on the fl oor. But the guy was naked. Where would he keep his keys, Einstein? Up his arsehole?

Mac was seriously losing it. Hard-on was losing ground and yelled into the room, ‘Ready?!’

And then he smelled it.

Smoke!

The joint was on fi re.

A bullet passed inches from his face, thwacking into the opposite wall. It was time to go. Mac returned to Minky’s girl, pulled the SIG from the webbing holster, pointed it in close at the handcuff chain and pulled the trigger. Minky’s girl screamed as his fi rst shot missed.

Mac got the suppressor’s muzzle closer to the chain and tried again as the girl jerked around, scared of his gun. Her shrieks hurt his ears but this time the handcuff fell away. Mac put his hand out again and the girl took it.

They moved to the doorframe, which was now hanging by a few shreds of wood and plaster. Hard-on was ready to go, his right arm limp and dripping blood at his side. The M4 was in his left.

There was a lull in the gunfi re. Mac gripped tighter on the girl’s hand, but he could feel her pulling, scared witless. Hard-on fl icked his head and Mac took the two girls into the corridor, but as he did more gunfi re erupted. Hard-on fi red back but in the confusion the girl pulled free as Mac ran in a crouch towards the exit. He looked back and saw the wall and door give way as the girl disappeared back into the room. She was buried in wood and plaster.

Hard-on and Mac looked at one another and Hard-on shook his head.

Mac fi red back down the hallway with his SIG as Hard-on joined him, and they jogged out the way they’d come in.

The radio came back to life as they went down the entrance stairs and into the courtyard. A scene of carnage met them, fi re billowing out of the far end of building three and bodies lying on the red clay.

Spikey and Sawtell walked along the courtyard side of the building, aiming up at the spaces that fi ve minutes earlier had been windows.

Sporadic fi re issued from the windows. The Americans returned with interest.

The fi re was taking hold. More gunfi re came out of the building.

On the radio, it sounded like Sonny and Hemi were nailed down elsewhere. Mac wanted to drop Hannah and Hard-on in the bush and get back to rescuing Minky’s daughter.

Hard-on was in a bad way as they headed for the RV, groaning every time his feet hit the ground. Judith Hannah bounced rhythmically against Mac’s back. At least her legs were warm, which was a good sign.

Mac keyed the mic: ‘Red team, this is Blue. We have one target.

Repeat one target. Need help on the other. Over.’

No reply.

He tried again. ‘Red team, Minky’s girl is in building three, repeat building three, in one of the middle rooms. A wall has collapsed on her – can we get someone there?’

Hard-on, through his agony, shook his head. ‘It’s not going to happen, Pizza Man. This is one we’ll just have to live with.

Fuck it!’

They hit the cover of the jungle and made up the slope for the RV.

Mac dumped the girl softly on the mossy forest fl oor. Hard-on almost collapsed in the leaves. He was in shock, losing blood and in a lot of pain.

Mac opened Billy’s triage pack which had been left at the RV.

He peeled back the fl ap to reveal morphine vials, bandages, needles, scalpels, hypodermic syringes, horsehair sutures and much more.

He found a thick bandage then pulled a squirty bottle fi lled with pure grain spirit from the bag and tore open a packet of fi ve sterile pads. Ripping away Hard-on’s sleeve, he had a closer look. The bullet had passed on the inside of the bicep and out the other side. It had probably nicked an artery and chipped the bone.

‘What’s it like?’ asked Hard-on in a small voice.

‘A fucking mess,’ said Mac, already working on the wound.

Hard-on’s body spasmed at the pain of it, but he was a good soldier.

Tears ran down his cheeks, he gasped, moaned and swore through gritted teeth as Mac cleaned the gaping thing out with spirit and the pads. Finally Mac squirted spirit on the last pad, placed it on the wound and strapped the bandage around the bicep.

By now Hard-on was full into shock: pale lips, chattering teeth and eyes rolling back. Mac kept him talking, asked if he wanted a shot and Hard-on shook his head.

‘Just say no.’

They both chuckled, but Mac couldn’t do anything more for now.

He got on the radio. ‘Billy, I got a man down. At the RV. Repeat, man down.’

‘Got that, Blue team. There soon, over.’

Mac turned to Judith Hannah. Not much change. He still had no clothes for her so he took off his webbing, dropped his ovies and put them on her.

Fishing in the medic pack he came out with a cap of smelling salts. Tried them under her nose. She reacted slightly but was still in some kind of coma.

He grabbed Hard-on’s M4. Checked for load, checked for safety and then barrelled down the hill in his briefs and Hi-Tecs.

The fi ght was still going and the building was now completely enveloped in fl ame. Mac felt sadness about Minky’s girl. He gulped it back and moved to the end of the building where the shooting was still happening. Sawtell leaned out of another building, called him in. Mac raced around, ducked in a side entrance and joined Sawtell, Sonny and Billy in the room. Across a small fi eld, a posse of thugs fi red intermittently from building fi ve. Sonny, Sawtell and Billy fi red back.

‘Well that went to shit in a handcart real quick,’ said Sawtell as Mac joined them.

‘Cunts were waiting for us,’ said Sonny. ‘Had a whole backup team in number fi ve.’

They looked Mac up and down, taking in his briefs. Didn’t say anything.

Through the window they watched Hemi, behind a long-abandoned bulldozer, enthusiastically hammering away with a belt-fed. 50 cal machine gun. Every time he loosed a burst, whole sections of building fi ve fell away, as if someone were poking pieces out of a jigsaw puzzle from the inside.

‘I’ll give him ten more seconds,’ said Sonny, ‘then we roll, eh?’

Mac nodded. ‘Hannah’s okay. Local girl didn’t make it.’

Sonny nodded.

‘I tried,’ said Mac.

‘I know,’ said Sonny.

Sawtell asked, ‘How’s Hard-on?’

‘Not good. Needs a doctor.’

Sawtell looked at the blood on Mac’s hands, then looked away, sad.

‘You use the morphine?’ asked Billy, getting ready to go.

‘No,’ said Mac. ‘Didn’t know how.’

‘Good,’ said Billy, and he left.

‘Where’s Moses? Where’s Spikey?’ asked Mac.

A pause.

‘Didn’t make it – got caught in there.’ Sonny gestured at the inferno, shook his head. ‘Fuck that for a game of cards. I’d rather be shot.’

Sawtell nodded.

The evacuation went smoothly. Hemi carried Hard-on, Billy took Hannah. Sonny took point duty, Sawtell ran the sweep.

They got to the helo as fast as you could carrying two people.

They put Hard-on in a stretcher. Wrapped Hannah in a blanket and harnessed her into the back seat of the Euro. Her head lolled and Mac jammed a folded blanket under her left ear. He found a pair of orange ovies in the tool bay, put them on.

Billy got on the fl ight deck, made ready to fi re her up. The whole crew was defl ated, exhausted, sad, drained by the adrenaline come-down.

Sawtell suddenly pulled back from talking to a zonked-out Hardon. There was a commotion outside and voices raised, slides clicking and the sound of a rifl e being manhandled.

Mac grabbed the SIG from between his feet, poked his head out of the helo. Beneath him Sonny had his arms around Moses and Spikey.

They all looked down, smiling and crying at the little girl lying in Mosie’s arms.

Spikey’s left hand was held to his ear, blood was crusted down his neck. He was saying to Sonny, ‘Damned if Mosie don’t just pick up that wall like it was litter.’

They got back to the compound at sun-up. Sonny and Sawtell went drinking in the mess, played Stevie Wonder, Rolling Stones and Grand Funk Railroad. Played it loud, talked loud, tried to sing along – a couple of boys with some pipes to clear.

Everyone else hit the hay.

Mac lay awake, remembering one night his father had got home late. Mac had been ten years old at the time. It was hot, the middle of summer in Rockie, and Mac had got up after midnight to get a glass of water. Frank was sitting in the darkness of the kitchen, sipping Johnnie Walker and sucking back Pall Mall Plains, an ashtray fi lled with white butts in front of him. The dark red pack was going end over end on the formica table between Frank’s fi ngers. Mac got his water, and as he was going back to his bed Frank said, ‘You’ve gotta promise me, mate. Never mix alcohol and fi rearms – got it?’

Mac had nodded, freaked at his father’s slurred and bloodshot state.

In the morning the Bulletin ‘s front page was dominated by the story of a local girl killed while asleep in her bed. Her father had shot her. He was a wife-basher and a violent drunk who’d regularly threatened his wife with a Smith amp; Wesson. 38. On this night, he tried to scare his wife and shot at a wall beside her. The slug went through the wall and hit his nine-year-old in the head.

Mac remembered his mother telling Frank that he should have locked that bullying prick up years ago.

Frank didn’t tell her to shut up. Just wore it.

Mac thought about it.

Then he breathed again. It felt like the fi rst time in days.