The Martyr’s Curse

Chapter Sixty-Six

Ben and Silvie turned. It was Streicher. Their guns were lowered, but his was raised and pointing right at them. In his other hand, he was clutching a plain metal canister that looked like a large stubby aerosol.

‘I know you, bitch,’ he said to Silvie.

‘Not as well as you think, Udo,’ she replied. ‘Or you’d put that gun down and give this up, right now.’

Streicher sneered and ignored her. He turned the pistol a few degrees to point at Ben. ‘And who the hell are you?’

‘The guy you should have left alone,’ Ben said. ‘The guy whose friends you shouldn’t have messed with. And the guy who’s going to kill you. Apart from that, nobody much.’

‘Think you can beat me?’ Streicher said.

‘It’s a done deal,’ Ben told him. ‘Pull that trigger, you die. And I’ll shoot you if you don’t. You don’t get a choice.’

‘Maybe you think you can beat this, too.’ Streicher held up the canister with a smile. It dangled lightly from his fingers, upside down with the high-pressure nozzle pointing at the floor. ‘I only have to drop it, and this whole place will be contaminated instantly.’

‘That’ll make three of us dead,’ Ben said. ‘What about all the other millions of people you’re planning on wiping out?’

Streicher shook his head and his smile broadened. ‘No, only two. That is to say, the two suckers who haven’t had the antitoxin.’

‘Then drop it,’ Ben said. ‘Go ahead, if you trust the antitoxin so much. Let’s see what happens.’

Streicher didn’t move. His smile faltered, just a little.

‘See, you don’t look that confident to me,’ Ben said. ‘In fact, you look like you’re about to crap your pants. You know you can’t save yourself either way. Even if that was a grenade in your hand, you’d die with us. And if you drop it, we can still take our time shooting you to bits. Face it, there’s just no way out for you.’

As Ben talked, his hand was inching towards the pistol grip of his rifle. He could see Streicher hesitating, baulking. Most of all, he could see that Streicher wasn’t paying attention to what Ben was about to do. The trick was going to be to shoot him before he could fire the pistol, and without letting him drop the canister.

Streicher’s face twisted with sudden intent. Decision time. Ben went for his gun, jerking it into a centre-of-mass aim. His finger touched the trigger.

BOOM.

The heavy punch of the gunshot that filled the tunnel didn’t come from Ben’s rifle, or from Silvie’s. Nor from Streicher’s pistol. Ben was kicked forward by an impact that lifted him off his feet.

The rifle flew out of his hands and the ground rushed up to meet him. White light obliterated his vision for a moment and everything seemed far away and in slow motion. As if from the bottom of a murky pond, he heard Silvie scream out in fear and anger. Heard Streicher laugh, and another voice he didn’t recognise.

Then the muffled clap of a pistol shot.

He felt no pain, but he was badly hurt and he knew it.

He rolled on his back, looked up and saw a woman in black standing over him with a combat shotgun in her hands.

Blond, spiky hair. Red lips. Pale grey eyes, narrowed and full of hatred.

Hannah Gissel.

Silvie was down and bleeding from Streicher’s bullet. Ben tried to reach her, but he couldn’t move. That was when he realised that his left arm and shoulder were broken. Warm blood was soaking his back and spreading in a pool under him.

Hannah Gissel stood over him and shouldered the shotgun for a second shot at close range that would take his head right off. Her cheek settled on the stock. Her knuckles whitened on the pistol grip and her finger began to curl around the trigger.

Then she keeled over sideways to the sharp crack of a rifle shot and a streak of blood flew from her mouth. Silvie struggled up on to one elbow and shot her again, one-handed. The bullet caught Hannah Gissel in the throat and blew it wide open in a bright red splash. Hannah crunched to the floor.

In the terrible moment before it happened, Ben saw Streicher’s mouth open in a silent scream of fury and his gun come up as if in slow motion. He saw the jet of flame from the muzzle and the slide slam back and the fired case being ejected. Saw the recoil kick the muzzle in the air, and Silvie knocked back down as if she’d been punched, and the vertical splat of blood hit the wall behind her. Her rifle clattered out of her hands. Ben groaned and tried once more to reach out to her, but then the darkness came gushing in from everywhere and he was gone.

Udo Streicher could see that Hannah was finished. Blood was bubbling from her mouth and the mess of her throat. Her eyes were rolling wildly in their sockets. Her lips moved, but all that came out of them was another gout of blood and a gurgling sound.

Streicher bent down over her. He put his pistol to her head and pulled the trigger. Goodbye, Hannah.

He stood. Looked down at the inert, bloody shapes of the Faban woman and her male friend. Streicher didn’t know his name. What did it matter? Just another dead fool. There’d soon be plenty more.

He frisked the man’s pockets and quickly found what he’d come looking for. The remote was slick with blood. He wiped it on his trousers, then turned and hurried back towards the buggy.

This was it. No more stop signs. If he was the last man standing, so be it. He’d release the plague on the world single-handed, one city at a time.

It wasn’t over. It was just about to begin.

One eye fluttered open. Then the other. Light filtered through like a lantern in the mist, and slowly the darkness receded enough for him to understand where he was and what had happened. He moved, and the pain made him cry out.

He didn’t care. He could worry about the pain later. He dragged himself up on his knees and elbows and managed to shuffle across the floor to where Silvie lay. So much blood. Hard to tell what was hers and what was his. They were mingling together with the spreading pool from the corpse of the woman with the spiky blond hair, now matted red around the massive gunshot wound to her skull.

Ben ran his hand over Silvie’s pale, blood-spattered face, touched his dripping fingers to her neck and could feel the tiniest pulse. She was still holding on, but she might not for long.

Him too. He could feel strength ebbing out of him about as fast as his blood was leaking out. He was cold and his vision was blurring.

Streicher was gone.

He was escaping with the plague.

He was going to take off in the helicopter.

Ben blinked. He swayed to his feet and staggered a few steps, his feet slipping on the slick wet floor of the armoury. His left arm was dangling from what the shotgun blast had left of his shoulder. Fighting down the pain, he seized his useless hand and shoved it through his belt to stop it swinging about.

‘This is nothing,’ he said to himself, and smiled grimly.

It wasn’t nothing. He knew the darkness would rise again soon, and that this time maybe it wouldn’t give him up. He didn’t give a damn, not about himself. Bring it on, he thought. But first, let’s get this done.

The first thing he saw on the armoury rack was what he took down. It was heavy to carry in one hand. He gripped it tightly in his bloody fist and went after Streicher.