The Nemesis Origin

IX

‘Get down!’

Ethan hurled himself across the lounge and grabbed Lucy’s collar as he pulled her onto the ground between the couches and shielded her body.

The gunfire sprayed around the room as it shattered the windows and spat choking clouds of plaster, wood and dust through the air. Ethan pulled himself along the floor in a belly crawl as he reached behind him and pulled the pistol from out of his jeans, then rolled along to the window and watched the bullets hammering the ceilings and walls.

The deafening gunfire ceased abruptly and Ethan could hear the wind rumbling outside the window. He glanced at the damage to the interior of the cottage and noted that all of the bullets had gone high, spraying mostly across the ceiling and the beams rather than down towards where people would be walking or sitting.

In an instant he knew what was coming next. He scrambled to his feet and ran in a low crouch as he grabbed Lucy.

‘Move, now!’ he whispered.

They ran out of the lounge and into the tiny kitchen just as Ethan heard two metallic thumps come from behind him followed by a loud hissing sound. He turned to see a pair of smoke grenades roll across the lounge, one of them landing on the sofa. Ethan pushed the kitchen door closed and then pointed at the corner of the room.

‘Stay there and stay down,’ he said as he turned to the back door.

Lucy crouched into a tiny ball in the corner of the kitchen as Ethan opened the back door of the cottage and crept outside, careful to close the door behind him and turn the key in the lock. He pocketed the key and then hurried around to one side of the cottage.

Behind him, the hillside soared up towards low tumbling clouds that were darkening in the late afternoon light, low enough to conceal the peaks of the hills. The terrain was rough but it was at least a hundred yard climb to reach the cloud line and the safety of the fog, and he knew that they would not be able to make it without being spotted.

Ethan peered around the corner of the cottage and saw two men standing with automatic weapons pointed at the front of the cottage, both of them wearing masks and both of them apparently waiting for the smoke grenades to take effect.

Whoever they were and whatever they wanted, they did not want either Ethan or Lucy dead or they would not have bothered using smoke grenades — they would have tossed live ones inside. Ethan peered at the weapons they were holding and recognised instantly the ubiquitous shape of the AK-47. A tough, simple and hardy weapon, it suffered from one fatal flaw: its huge inaccuracy. It was a widely known feature of the weapon that a man could stand fifty yards from a barn door, open fire on full automatic and not have a single bullet hit the door due to the violent flexing of the rifle’s barrel that sent rounds flying everywhere but at the target.

Ethan hurried back to the kitchen door and opened it as he reached out for Lucy’s hand.

‘I hope to hell you can run fast,’ he said as he pulled to her feet and pointed up the hillside behind them.

‘We’ll be seen,’ Lucy protested.

‘That’s what I’m hoping,’ Ethan replied as he propelled Lucy up the hill. ‘Let’s go!’

Lucy, still grasping the bone cylinder in one hand, hit the hillside at a pace that surprised Ethan as he began sprinting in pursuit. He had quite forgotten that Lucy was probably ten years his junior, and likely not shy of running given her slim physique. Ethan pumped his arms and leaped with surprising agility for his age as he followed her up the hillside, but almost immediately his muscles began to burn and his lungs began to ache as they climbed away from the cottage.

Ethan risked a glance over his shoulder and saw smoke billowing from the interior of the cottage windows, the smoke inadvertently veiling their escape from the two men watching the front of the cottage. But the smoke only lasted as long as the wind was in a favourable direction, and moments later he heard a shout and one of the men pointed up at him.

‘They’re on to us,’ he called to Lucy. ‘Keep moving!’

Lucy did not look back as she kept running toward the top of the hills, their peaks lost in thick cloud. Ethan powered along behind her and risked another glance behind him to see the two masked gunmen already climbing the hill. Ethan turned and dropped to one knee as he aimed down the hill and fired two shots, the rumbling wind snatching the sound of the gunfire away and making them seem feeble and mute compared to the destructive symphony of the AK-47s.

Their pursuers hurled themselves flat onto the ground of the hillside as the shots rang out, but Ethan had purposefully aimed high. He had no idea who the men were but Ethan was not in the business of killing in cold blood and he had every intention of catching both of their pursuers alive. Ethan turned again and ran hard, surprised to see Lucy already reaching the cloud line as she scrambled up the hillside.

A rattle of gunfire pursued Ethan up the hill and he flinched, but he kept moving. Ethan’s lungs and throat felt rough from the exertion of climbing the hill and his thighs felt numb as he struggled through the damp grass and over wet rocks as the clouds began to close around him.

The gunfire from behind ceased and Ethan took one last look back down the hillside to see the two men standing and watching him. In an instant they both raised their rifles and with a start Ethan realized that this time they were aiming directly at him. He saw the two weapons’ muzzle flash flare brightly and he hurled himself to one side as a series of deep thumps impacted the soft soil around him.

Ethan scrambled to his feet and sprinted as fast as his wearying lungs would allow up the hillside as he plunged into the fog and cried out breathlessly.

‘Lucy?!’

He heard his name called out distantly from somewhere above and he kept moving, a little slower now as the gunfire behind him ceased and he began trying to conserve his energy.

‘Keep calling until we see each other!’

Lucy, her own voice breathless, called several times over until he saw her emerge from the gloom ahead, her hands resting on her knees as she sucked in air. Ethan struggled his way to her side, his own breath sawing in his throat as he rested one hand on her shoulder and pulled her gently along with him.

‘We have to keep moving,’ he insisted. ‘They’ve got vehicles and they’re not going to give up easily.’

Lucy struggled on alongside him and he could hear the concern in her voice. ‘We can’t survive out here without jackets and protection.’

‘I know, we just have to keep moving a little longer.’

Ethan crested the ridge and despite his exhaustion he began jogging gently down the opposite side and encouraged Lucy to follow him at the same speed. Lucy recovered more quickly from her exertions than he did and she followed him down the steep hillside toward the valley below. The damp and foggy air clogged their eyes and hair with globules of moisture that clung to their clothes and skin, a faint drizzle falling all around them and the dense fog deadening all sound.

Ethan moved as quickly as he dared on the slippery, dangerous hillside, conscious of the risk of breaking a leg or ankle. He reached the valley floor and emerged from the fog with Lucy close behind, and instantly he dropped to one knee and controlled his breathing as he tried to focus all of his attention on the muted sounds around them.

The rumbling wind that had alerted him to Lucy’s vehicle was now likely concealing the approach of the gunmen’s vehicle from the east, which was where he felt certain they would attempt to intercept him. There were a number of farmer’s tracks that wound up the hillside and descended into this valley perhaps a mile to the east, tracks that the vehicle could easily negotiate.

‘We should have taken the car,’ Lucy said.

‘We would never have got to it.’

‘I can’t believe they found me here,’ Lucy shook her head. ‘I was so careful.’

‘We don’t know that they’re Russian yet. They did have AK-47s but so does just about every other criminal gang in the world. It’s entirely possible they may have anticipated this move on your part and instead been looking for me for some time.’

Lucy managed an unconvincing smile of gratitude. ‘What do we do now?’

‘We get caught,’ Ethan replied. ‘Follow me.’

Ethan ignored Lucy’s quizzical look as he set off across the valley, hoping that he could reach the next hilltop and the cover of the fog before the gunmen’s car could reach the valley and spot them. He walked hard, getting into his stride and hoping that Lucy would dig in behind him and keep moving. After a couple of minutes he looked behind and saw her keeping pace, her head down and her breath puffing in dense clouds as she focused on nothing more than keeping up. Suitably impressed, Ethan began climbing the next hillside.

He was halfway up when he heard the sound of an engine and turned to see the gunmen’s vehicle careering down a hillside less than a mile away behind them, the driver evidently struggling to maintain control on the rough terrain as he turned onto the valley floor and accelerated.

‘Get into the fog cover as fast as you can!’ Ethan shouted at Lucy.

Lucy climbed past him and kept moving as Ethan watched the jeep approaching the foot of the mountain side on which he stood. It was probably a hundred yards below him, too far to use a pistol to take out the tires or even the engine. Such small weapons were simply not capable of that kind of accuracy. But with both men inside the vehicle he realized he could delay them a little longer.

Ethan crouched down onto one knee, then rested his left elbow on the top of his left knee to support the weapon as he aimed carefully at the approaching vehicle. The wind was blustering from his right sufficiently that it would affect the travel of the bullet, and at a hundred yards there would be a small amount of drop to the bullet due to the effect of gravity. Ethan had thirteen rounds remaining and he knew damn well the first one would probably not be a hit, but that was not what he needed.

The jeep closed in as Ethan arrested his breathing and squeezed the trigger.

Ethan fired five shots, each of them closely grouped in the hope that a couple of impacts would be enough to force the gunmen to fall back.

On the third shot the jeep suddenly swerved to the left and broke away from the climb as it sought to escape the salvo of gunfire. Instantly Ethan stopped firing and capitalised on his success as he turned and continued running up the hill, determined to put as much distance between the jeep and himself and Lucy.

Ethan ran up into the cloud cover, the incessant mist and drizzle drenching him and chilling his skin as he caught up with Lucy where she was waiting for him on the ridgeline, her breath coming in ragged gasps.

‘I can’t do that too many more times,’ she protested.

‘Me either,’ Ethan replied, ‘but we have to keep moving. Go, now!’

Ethan jogged down the hillside with Lucy close behind, but this time he could hear the jeep in the distance, its engine struggling and whining, and he realized that the gunmen had abandoned the track and instead had charged the hill directly.

‘They’re coming right for us!’ Lucy yelled as she realized what was happening.

‘Get down!’

Ethan grabbed Lucy as he dashed towards a particularly large tuft of grass and a mound of shiny black rocks jutting from the bleak hillside. He threw himself down behind them and huddled in with Lucy alongside him.

There was no way that they could outrun a vehicle, and Ethan knew that they had no chance of survival unless they stayed in the fog where they could not be seen. If you couldn’t run away then you could only hope to sneak away.

The jeep broke over the crest of the hill, its headlights on and casting dim beams through the foggy air as it began to descend toward the far side of the valley. It skidded to a halt and sat for a moment on the valley hillside, and then the two gunmen got out and began surveying the terrain around them.

‘They know we’re hiding,’ Lucy whispered.

‘But they don’t know where,’ Ethan replied. ‘We’ve got to hope they’re not any good at tracking and that they’ll go past us in the fog and give us a chance to escape.’

Ethan peered around the edge of the boulder behind which they were hiding and saw the two men ease away from the cover of their vehicle as one of them knelt down and studied the grass around them. Almost immediately he looked up directly toward Ethan’s hiding place.

‘You were saying?’ Lucy whispered urgently.

Ethan saw the two men jerk to their feet and aim their rifles at the boulder as they began marching across the open ground toward them. Faced with an impossible fight, Ethan knew that there was only one thing he could do.

Ethan leaped up and rested the pistol on the top of the boulder as the two gunmen exposed themselves and opened fire, several shots cracking out. The two gunmen threw themselves down onto the muddy wet grass.

‘Go, now!’

‘Go where?’ Lucy shouted as she leaped to her feet.

Ethan was about to answer when a fresh voice rang out loud above the gunshots.

‘Halt, stop where you are!’

Both Ethan and the two gunmen looked down the hill through the fog and saw figures running toward them, cradling their rifles and shouting commands as they advanced. The two gunmen whirled and opened fire on the advancing group of men as they began retreating back towards the jeep.

In an instant the shadowy figures dropped into prone positions and began returning fire up the hillside with a deafening clatter of SA-80 rifles as the British infantry began advancing by sections and rapidly closed on the fleeing gunmen. Ethan got up from behind the boulder as heard a vehicle’s engine start up, and he saw the jeep swing around and accelerate away back over the ridgeline and vanish from sight.

The British soldiers advanced on his position and he hurriedly slipped the pistol back into his jeans and showed his hands as empty as the troops rushed up to him and one of them grabbed his collar.

‘That was far too easy, sunshine,’ the infantry corporal said as he looked Ethan over. ‘And Major Wilkinson has a bone to pick with you.’

Ethan glanced at where the jeep had vanished over the ridgeline. ‘Good, he might be able to help us.’