The Forgotten Holocaust

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Ben ran on through the villa as fire spread rapidly everywhere around him. Smoke filled his eyes and nose. Tears and sweat streamed down his face. He felt the walls shake from an explosion; then again, and again. He knew what the blasts meant. The killers were intent on reducing the whole place to a smouldering ruin. And if he didn’t get out soon, he’d be buried in the ashes.

The villa was a labyrinth of passageways and connecting rooms. He sprinted from doorway to doorway, driven back repeatedly by curtains of flame that surged up at him, threatening to engulf him. The heat was intolerable. Just as he thought he’d taken a fatal turning, he suddenly found what he was searching for: a back stairway leading upwards. Only the first few steps were on fire. He bounded up them, heat scorching his shins and calves. Another shattering explosion rocked the building, far more violent than the others, and he had to duck as plaster rained down from the ceiling.

‘Jesus,’ he muttered, but the deafening noise drowned out his voice. It felt as if the building had just taken a direct hit from a bomb. He cringed on the dark stairway for a second, half expecting the whole ceiling to come crashing down on his head.

Onwards, upwards: he reached the landing and came to a door, pressed his hand against it to feel for the telltale heat of fire in the room behind it. It was cool to the touch. He burst through into the shadowy room, blinked sweat out of his eyes and made out that he was in a spare bedroom Brennan had used for storage. Beyond silhouetted stacks of boxes and piled books, he saw the single small window that overlooked the front courtyard, ringed with ivy that flickered orange from the glare of the fire. He ran over to it, threw it open and clambered out. Cool night air hit him and his parched lungs sucked in oxygen. He grabbed fistfuls of the prickling ivy and swung himself right out of the window, clinging to the wall like a spider. He twisted his head to the right and saw that his bearings had been accurate — the balcony of the annexe bedroom was just twenty feet away. As long as the ivy held his weight, he could make it and get inside. Flames were surging from windows below and to the left of him. He could only hope that the annexe wasn’t on fire too.

Ben began inching his way along the wall, finding handholds and footholds wherever he could and praying he wouldn’t fall. The balcony edged closer. Closer. Almost in reach now—

And then he heard the shout from below. He barely had time to glance down and see the two masked men standing below in the courtyard before they’d raised their weapons to aim at him and started firing.

Ben leapt the last few feet across to the balcony as bullets stitched the wall and snipped ivy leaves into confetti. He scrambled over the stone rail and fell into a crouch behind the balustrade. Bullets ricocheted off the stonework inches away as he kicked open the French windows and scrambled through. To his dismay, he was met by a wall of heat, the choking stench of smoke and the flicker of flames inside the bedroom. He struggled to his feet and battled through it. Spotting his leather jacket and bag lying on the floor, he snatched them up. The drapes of the four-poster were ablaze, flames licking dangerously close to the volumes of the journal that he’d left on the bed. The one he’d been reading was beginning to smoulder. He grabbed it and beat out the flames.

Coughing from the smoke, he quickly stuffed the books into his bag. Now he’d got what he’d come for, and it had better be worth it. It was time to get out of here.

Gunfire from the window told him there was no escape that way.

The en-suite bathroom. Ben crashed through the door. He was almost blind from the thickening smoke but managed to find the bath towel hanging from the rail. Ripping it free, he plunged it under the taps of the old-fashioned bathtub. With the wet towel pressed tightly over his nose and mouth, he ran back out into the bedroom into the scorching heat. The fire was spreading all across the bed, greedily devouring the carpet, approaching the door in a liquid tide that seemed to move as if it was alive. Ben got there first and dashed out into the corridor.

Both ends were on fire. He was trapped. There was no way to run, no way out.

Except straight up. Ben yanked hard on the cord dangling from the loft access hatch. The trapdoor dropped down and a telescoping ladder slid with a clatter from the hatch. The aluminium rungs were hot to the touch as he went clambering up it into the dark attic space. Reaching the top, he lay across the rough attic floor and hauled the ladder up, slamming the trapdoor shut behind him. He couldn’t block the spread of the fire, but he could at least slow it down.

A little. It wouldn’t be long before the first flames began to get a purchase up here. Already he could see the telltale flickering glow shining up through the cracks in the floorboards, and the smoke trickling up between them. In the dim light he could make out the attic junk carelessly dumped up here, old chairs, packing cases, bits of spare timber left over from some carpentry job.

He got to his feet, dizzy from smoke inhalation and well aware that he might faint any time soon if he didn’t get some air into his lungs. The attic space was low enough for him to grope blindly at the underside of the roof. He needed to find a skylight, some way to get out onto the roof, or it would be all over for him. He could find nothing, just the rough wooden beams, battens and roofing felt above him. He was getting desperate now, his chest heaving involuntarily hard and fast and drawing in nothing but smoke. The pouring sweat was stinging his eyes. Just seconds of consciousness remained. He had to do something.