The Lost Testament

82

In a situation like this, speed is everything.

Bronson reacted instantly, dropping the cardboard box to the ground in front of him and spinning to his left as quickly as he could, slamming his left arm down and backwards to knock away the weapon that his unseen assailant was carrying.

As the side of Bronson’s hand smashed into the assailant’s arm, the man’s weapon discharged, the noise deafening in the confined space. The bullet ploughed into the concrete floor of the corridor before ricocheting away somewhere down the passageway. Bronson was determined that the man would not be able to fire a second time.

He continued to turn, forcing the man’s gun hand away from his body and at the same time bringing his own right hand, the solid lump of the Beretta pistol giving it extra weight, on a collision course with his attacker’s left ear.

Less than a second after Bronson had felt the barrel of the pistol jammed into the small of his back, it was all over. The moment the butt of the Beretta crashed into the man’s head, he collapsed in a heap on the floor, instantly knocked unconscious.

But that, of course, was only the start of Bronson’s problems. The sound of the gunshot would obviously have alerted everybody else in the building. He had just seconds.

He reached down with his left hand and grabbed the automatic pistol which the man lying on the floor had dropped, then took a couple of steps forward before easing himself into the doorway of a room on the left-hand side of the passage. For a few seconds, he waited, the Beretta held steady in his right hand, the muzzle aimed squarely at the open door.

But nothing moved. There was no sound from inside the office, no indication that anybody had even noticed what had happened in the corridor.

That left only two possibilities. Either the man who’d attacked him and the man he’d seen at the end of the passage were one and the same person, which he didn’t think was possible, or there was another way out of the room at the end, a fire escape perhaps, and the other man had already left the building.

Then a third possibility occurred to him, and he quickly moved two steps back into the office and dropped flat on the floor. Under a second later, two shots rang out, the bullets tearing jagged holes through the thin partition walls precisely where he’d been standing. Because in that instant he’d noticed the closed-circuit TV camera positioned above the office door at the end of the corridor, the lens pointing directly at him. The man or men in the other room didn’t need to actually look down the passage: they could watch him on the building’s internal security system.

He’d have to do something about that, and quickly.

The gunman wouldn’t know whether or not either of the two shots had hit him, because Bronson had moved out of sight of the CCTV camera, but the moment he stepped out of the office his position would be obvious. He had to destroy the camera, and try not to get shot in the process.

He didn’t risk standing up, instead opening the office door wide and lying on his stomach on the floor, presenting the smallest possible target to the unseen gunman. He crawled slowly towards the open doorway. The moment he could see the side of the camera he took careful aim with the Beretta, eased out another few inches and squeezed the trigger twice.

The pistol bucked in his hand, and he immediately rolled back inside the office. He thought at least one of the bullets had hit the camera, but he obviously needed to find out for sure.

He slid across the floor once more and risked a quick glance down the passage. The camera was still in place, bolted high on the wall at the far end of the corridor, but one side had been blown off completely, and wires dangled from the jagged opening.

The opposition had lost their biggest advantage. Again there was complete silence.

Four more shots rang through the building, two double-taps, which suggested that the gunman knew his business, the bullets driving more holes through the partition walls at about waist height, the copper-jacketed slugs passing well above Bronson, who was still lying on the floor.

Speed seemed to be more important than stealth at that stage. He stood up, stepped out of the office in which he’d taken refuge and trotted as quickly and as quietly as he could down the passageway, tucking away the Glock he’d taken from the unconscious man who was still lying motionless a few feet behind him.

At the door to the office he stopped, ducked down and snatched a quick glance into the room, registering the scene there in an instant. He immediately took two quick paces backwards. It was just as well that he did so.

Two bullets ripped through the wall just a few inches in front of Bronson, who ducked down, then raised his own weapon, aimed it through the hole that the gunman had just blasted and fired twice. The man might now have moved, but it was worth a try.

There was a yell of pain from inside the office, followed almost immediately by a clattering sound and a heavy thump, and then the unmistakable noise of a body collapsing to the floor.

He stepped forward again and took another quick look.

The man he’d seen in those few microseconds was sprawled on the floor, lying on his back, a dark stain spreading across the front of his shirt.

But that wasn’t what concerned Bronson at that moment. His attention was drawn to the far end of the large room, where a figure sat slumped in an upright chair, his ankles secured to the legs with plastic cable ties and his arms twisted behind his body. Even though the bound man’s head was hanging down, obscuring his features, Bronson was quite certain he was looking at George Stebbins.

Freeing him — assuming he was still alive — would be the work of a few seconds, but right then he knew there was no guarantee that either he or Stebbins would be able to leave the room alive.

Because crouching right behind the bound man was another figure, a pistol resting on Stebbins’s shoulder, the muzzle touching his ear and the man’s finger caressing the trigger.