The Bach Manuscript

Chapter 52

They stalked their way down the rocky slope, moving cautiously from boulder to boulder, tree to tree, so as not to be spotted from the compound. No yells or alarm sirens sounded from below. No rifle shots cracked out. Reaching level ground they trotted fast towards the cover of the woods.

The ring of forest was about a hundred metres deep, after that they would reach the fence. They walked a few paces apart, treading softly through the trees. The carpet of leaf litter was spongy underfoot and made silent movement easy for people who had been trained to slip unnoticed through hostile territory. Madison Cahill might never have been a soldier, but she worked like one. I’m damn good at my job, she’d told him. And he believed it.

Ben’s nose picked up the faint, acrid tang of cigarette smoke. A second later, he heard the crack of a breaking twig from about thirty metres away through the trees. He froze and made a fist sign for Madison to do the same. They stood very still, listening hard.

Voices. More crackling and shuffling as the pair of guards circled the perimeter with all the stealth and noiselessness of a rhinoceros herd.

In total silence Ben unslung the Excalibur from his shoulder. Cocked, loaded and ready to go. His right thumb found the push-off safety button and pressed it to the fire position.

He could see them now. The original two they’d observed from the ridge earlier, the bearded one and the longhaired one. They were walking side by side through the trees, just a pace or two apart. Following the contour of the perimeter counter-clockwise, with the fence a couple of dozen metres further away to their left. Their rifles were cradled loosely in their arms. Both were smoking cigarettes.

Ben waited, barely breathing. The two men kept walking. The bearded one on the right was about half a head taller than his companion closer to the fence. Neither of them remotely suspected the presence of intruders. Maybe if they didn’t smoke so much on duty, they might have smelled them. Ben would have.

Ben slowly raised the bow stock to his shoulder. Madison was standing to the side, hiding behind a tree with her knife out. She flashed him a look, and he knew what she was thinking. With one shot he could only take down a single guard. Even if he made the cleanest kill in the world, the other would still have all the time he needed to fire off a hundred rounds while Ben struggled to recock the bow, and make enough noise to alert everyone inside the compound. Element of surprise, somewhat compromised.

Ben took careful aim through the scope. The centre of the crosshairs was an illuminated dot. You could choose between red and green. Green was brighter for visibility. At exactly the right moment, Ben let the shot fly.

The release of the bowstring made a dull thwack, as soft as a kid’s airgun. But there was nothing soft about the impact downrange. The bolt whooshed through the air and hit the taller bearded guard in the neck and passed straight through into the shorter one’s head.

The taller guard’s knees folded under him and he went down like a demolished chimney tower crumpling into its own footprint. The shorter one remained standing, his body posture sagging slightly, long hair drooping limply forwards from under his beanie hat, hands still clutching his rifle.

For an instant Ben half-expected the guy to turn and start shooting — then realised that he was pinned to the tree trunk next to him by the crossbow bolt that had skewered him through the right temple and protruded from the left.

‘Holy fucking shit,’ Madison breathed.

Ben walked up to the dead men. Stepped over the body of the first and tugged at the end of the bolt holding the second one up. The aluminium shaft was bloody and dripping. With a couple of sharp twists and yanks, Ben plucked the tip out of the tree bark. He caught the body as it began to fall, and lowered it to the ground. He left the bolt embedded in the guy’s skull and wiped the blood off his hand on the guy’s trouser leg.

‘Talk about killing two birds with one stone,’ Madison whispered, still shaking her head in amazement.

‘I won’t get that lucky again,’ Ben whispered back. ‘Might have to use our knives next time.’

‘Lucky my ass, William Tell.’

He bent down to pick up one of the fallen M16s. It was the proper military deal, with a three-way selector switch to choose between single shots, three-round bursts and fully automatic fire. Thirty-round magazines loaded up with mil-surp 5.56mm NATO ammunition. Thousands of these assault weapons had been circulating in all kinds of the wrong hands since the end of the Bosnian wars. Now two of them, at least, were back in good hands. Ben tossed one to Madison, took the other for himself and slung it over his shoulder. ‘For after. You know how to use one of these things?’

Madison arched an eyebrow at him. ‘Probably not. I only came second in my urban combat rifle course at Thunder Ranch in Oregon last year.’

‘Only second?’

‘The guy who beat me was ex-Delta Force. Now he got lucky.’

Ben recocked the crossbow and fitted a fresh bolt from the quiver. They gathered up all the spare magazines the dead men had been carrying, then kicked leaves over the bodies and moved on towards the fence. They were stalking their way through the trees some twenty metres short of the wire when Ben gripped Madison’s arm.

The second pair of guards were coming straight towards them. Ben and Madison each ducked behind their nearest tree and pressed themselves tight against it. Ben nodded to her. She nodded back, tense and urgent.

The path of the guards took them between the two trees. They were just ambling along, looking sullen as though they were pissed off with patrol duty. Ben and Madison waited until they had passed by, then stepped out from behind the trees.

Ben went, ‘Psst!’

The guards glanced quizzically at one another, then both turned round to look behind them. Ben let loose with the crossbow and the one on the left fell straight back with the end of the bolt sticking upwards out of his chest. The other one clawed for his rifle. Ben dumped the spent bow and unslung his M16. Now the shooting would begin and their stealth approach would be over.

Or not. Something flashed through the dappled sunlight between the trees. The remaining guard made a wheezing sound like ‘Dooff’ and dropped his rifle, both hands going to his belly just below the ribcage. He fell heavily to his knees and then toppled sideways, sprawled out in the leaves. Madison’s knife was buried in him up to the hilt.

Ben looked at her. She shrugged. ‘As a little girl I could bullseye watermelons at twenty paces. Now I nail ’em at thirty.’

‘What an enchanting child you must have been.’

‘Admit it, you’re impressed.’

‘Let’s get through the rest of today first,’ Ben said.

He left the crossbow where he’d dropped it. The attack would soon be entering its next phase, where the sneak approach would blossom into open combat and noise wouldn’t matter. Reaching the fence, he unclipped his own knife from his belt and fastened it together with its scabbard to turn it into a wire cutter.

Three minutes later, he and Madison had both wriggled through the hole he’d made. He used some cut branches to mask the hole.

Now they were inside the open ground of the compound.

‘So far, so good,’ Madison said. ‘Four bad guys down, only about another zillion to go. Walk in the park.’

Ben checked his weapon. Said nothing.

They moved on.