Exit Wounds (31 page)

“We’ve got to go now! Before it’s too late!” Dean shouted.

Giacometti smiled, “No, it’s already too late.”

Dean stared, “You’re just giving up?”

“I am prepared to die for what I have done. For what I believe in. Rest assured, my friend Dean, I shall never see the inside of a prison cell.” He walked over and patted Dean on the back. “Go. Try to escape if you can. I wish you every luck.”

Dean hesitated for a second and then ran.

Giacometti turned again to look down upon the slaughter below. The slaughter he had caused.

He walked over to a table by the side of the door and picked up a long Falchion sword. He ran his finger tips along the blade. The sword had been passed down to him by his father. It was a heavy, single edged weapon used in battle. It had been expensively restored to its former glory and looked as new now as it did in the fourteenth century.

Giacometti had no doubt in his mind that he had done God’s work in ridding the Earth of the false idol. But he also knew, in his heart, that his murderous lust would forever prevent him from crossing paradise’s gates. Despite his crusade, he would burn.

Giacometti gripped the heavy weapon in both hands. He was going to burn, and he was going to take as many infidels with him as he could.

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Andrew Colgan watched the fire fight from his car parked up across the road adjacent to the airfield. Another explosion ripped through one of the hangars and bodies flew through the air like rag dolls. It was a massacre, not a raid. Most of the airfield was on fire already. The red flames flicked up into the orange sky, hypnotic and terrifying.

Suddenly he noticed movement from the far side of the airfield, away from the fighting. A man with a shaven head emerged from the control tower and started to run off away in the opposite direction, unnoticed.

Dean Reynolds!
Colgan climbed out of his car, recognising him from his mug shot. Colgan shouted for him to stop.

Dean turned at the call of his voice but carried on running in the opposite direction.

Andrew quickly drew his weapon and chased after him.

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Richard shot down two of Giacometti’s men down in quick concession. None of the teams had made it to the control tower yet and Richard was more than aware that there was hole in their net around it, widening with every passing second. Giacometti’s men were spreading them out too thin.

Richard spotted Tony Horton crouched behind the front tyre of a parked car. He fired off a short volley of rounds before ducking back down.

“Tony!” Richard shouted over, waving his weapon. “We need to press on to the control tower!”

Tony nodded. He signalled to three officers to join him and sprinted over towards the tower, firing off short bursts at regular intervals.

Richard began to run after them but stopped in his stride. Through the flames Richard thought he saw two men running towards the other end of the airfield. He suddenly realised that it was Dean Reynolds being chased by Andrew Colgan.

Colgan! What the hell is he doing here!?
Richard couldn’t understand how the old director had learnt their location but he knew that he couldn’t let him go after Dean on his own. He
broke away from the group and ran after them.

Colgan squeezed off a couple of rounds as he ran. They turned up the concrete beneath Dean’s feet and he quickly darted behind one of the large concrete markers at the side of the runway. Colgan quickly followed suit, flattening himself up against the other side.

Colgan was out of breath, he wasn’t a young man and whilst he did his best to keep in shape, he rarely found time for the gym and this was the fastest he had run in years. He ignored the pain in his chest and took a deep breath. No doubt he would spend the rest of his life in prison for what he had planned for Reynolds and Giacometti. He would hurt them as they hurt his little girl. He’d make Reynolds beg for death and he’d make him tell where Giacometti was hiding. He’d kill them both and anyone else who was involved. He was in this to the end. He was going to avenge Becky no matter what. He wouldn’t fail her again.

Dean slowly drew out his weapon from inside his jacket. He pushed his head out ever so slightly to peer out from his cover. Just as he did, he felt a push at the top of his back, between his shoulder blades.

“Drop it,” Colgan ordered. “Now.”

Suddenly Dean spun round, pushing his free hand up to knock the gun from Colgan’s hand. In the same move pushed his own gun into Andrew’s stomach and pulled back the trigger.

The muzzle flash lit up Andrew’s face. His eyes wide and sad. He clutched his torso and stumbling, fell forward onto Dean. Dean quickly pushed him away onto the runway, letting him fall to the ground on his back.

“NO!” Richard screamed.

Dean jumped at the sudden sound of another voice. He raised his weapon but Richard was already firing. Rounds whizzed past him on either side and he ran as fast as he could towards the nearest outbuilding.

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Giacometti walked up behind the man nearest to him and fed his sword through the man’s chest. He hadn’t even bothered to notice if he were a police officer or one of his own men.

What’s the difference?
He thought to himself.
We’re all going to burn in the end.

Giacometti looked over the balcony and spotted three police officers coming in through the hangar doors below. He quickly snatched up the weapon of the man he just killed and fired at them. They fell with short screams, as bullets rained down piercing through them.

Giacometti began his descent down the stairs. One of the fallen officers was crawling, reaching out for his gun. Giacometti fired the Uzi again, finishing him off. He walked over and rolled the dead body onto its back with his foot, examining his kill.

Somebody ordered him to stop and lowers his weapons. The words seemed distant and distorted as if he were underwater. Giacometti turned slowly. The officer was a tall, blonde man wearing glasses and dressed in a suit. He clutched his weapon in both hands and stared down the barrel at him.

Giacometti spun low and quick, slashing a spray of bullets across the officer’s knees. Tony dropped instantly, his legs suddenly giving under his own weight.

Giacometti crossed the distance between them and kicked the gun away from his hands. Tony trembled, moaning in agony, desperately trying to reach his weapon. Giacometti tossed his own gun aside and crouched down behind him. He brought the sword up around Tony’s neck. He flinched as the metal pressed against his skin.

“Shush now,” Giacometti whispered. “I’ll make it quick.”

Suddenly the top of his head exploded in a blast of blood, skull and brain matter. Giacometti’s arms fell limp, dropping the sword into Tony’s lap as his dead body fell backwards onto the concrete with a fleshy thud.

Paul stepped forward and fired another four rounds into Giacometti’s lifeless corpse. Just as quickly, he turned to Horton. The intensity in his eyes made Tony recoil as he reached out to help him.

“What are you doing here!?” Tony said, struggling to pull himself away from the entangled corpse behind him.

“Saving your life by the looks of it, pal,” He lifted Giacometti’s arm left arm up over Tony’s head. “Where’s my brother?”

“You’re not supposed to be here!” Tony told him, between gasps as he clutched his legs.

Paul stepped outside the control tower hangar and looked around. He waved the nearest officers over to him and led them back inside. “This man needs urgent medical attention. He’s suffered multiple gunshot wounds.”

One of the officers nodded and pressed his finger against his ear as he requested a medical team to their position. The other man crouched down and tried to tend to Tony’s wounds until further help got there but Tony kept pushing him away.

The first officer turned to Paul, “Sir, I’ve just been informed that Andrew Colgan has been found shot on the second runway. Just South-East of our position, on the other side of the control tower.”

“Colgan?” Paul asked. “I thought he was relieved of command?”

The officer frowned, “Um, yes sir, that’s why you’re our new director.”

Tony’s eyes widened. He pushed the tending officer to one side and shouted, “He’s not Richard Russell! He’s Paul! His twin brother! Arrest him! Arrest him!”

Paul had already started running in the direction of the second runway. The officers called after him but he sprinted harder. He needed to get there quickly. Something in his gut was starting to move, turning and knotting its way around his heart.

Why is Andrew Colgan even here?

Paul didn’t know the answer, but he knew something bad was happening and he knew had to get to Richard now.

Two officers were knelt around Andrew as he lay on the floor. One of them held his finger to his ear and kept shouting for someone to send a medical team to their location. The other held both his hands down on Andrew’s stomach, keeping pressure on the wound.

Paul crouched down next to him, and spoke loudly, “Andrew? Andrew? It’s me, Paul. Paul. Remember me?”

Andrew’s eyes were faint but they did seem to fix on Paul in acknowledgement.

“Where’s my brother, Andrew? Where’s Richard?”

Andrew’s head rolled slightly.

Paul quickly scooped his head back up in his hands, “Come on now, none of that. You’re going to be fine. Med evac’s on the way. It’s going to be fine. I need you to tell me though. Richard. Have you seen him? Where is he? Where’s Richard?”

Andrew raised his hand up slowly behind Paul’s head.

“What? What is it?” Paul leaned in closer, turning his ear to Andrew’s lips.

“Tell... Tell Becky... I’m sorry.”

Andrew’s eyes lost their focus and Paul knew he had gone. He slowly rested him down on the ground and closed his hands gently.

Paul stood up and spun round, scanning the area. His eyes zoned in on the nearest out building. A group of Giacometti’s men were running towards its open door. Paul stepped over Andrew’s body and chased after them. The moment already forgotten. Andrew Colgan was just another man to have died in Paul’s arms.

Paul opened fire and dropped two of Giacometti’s men mid sprint. The third was quicker and fled inside as bullets ricocheted off the door frame.

Paul flattened himself beside the door and checked his magazine. Empty. He was out of ammo. He could go back and try to retrieve a weapon from one of the officers but there was always the danger that Tony had gotten through to them and they would arrest him on sight.

He had no choice. He had to push on unarmed. He took a deep breath and moved inside.

The interior of the outbuilding was in complete darkness. Paul couldn’t even see his own hand in front of his face. His ears were still filled with the exchanges of opposing gunfire behind him. It reminded him of his days as soldier. The bloody trade of bullets flying from one direction to another.

Paul had told the Brick Shit-house that he had felt nothing being in a combat situation again. But that wasn’t true. There was one emotion that he had felt, although he denied it, even to himself. Nostalgia.

Paul tried to focus. When he was a soldier he prided himself on his fast reactions and his ability to react immediately to almost any given situation. But now it was a battle to just concentrate on anything for any amount of time. He kept drifting off into the past in his head. He kept seeing those faces whenever he closed his eyes. All he wanted was to sleep.

Now here, shrouded and surrounded by darkness, when it would be so easy to just slip and fade away to somewhere else and pretend that he wasn’t here and that none of this was happening, Paul felt more determined than ever to see this out to the end. He forcefully cleared his mind of all thoughts.

Paul rested his fingertips atop the wet, brick wall, feeling his way through the darkness, as he slowly but purposely, proceeded deeper and deeper into the black. He placed one foot in front of the other, with quiet precision. He really wanted to run, shouting out his brother’s name until he answered. But Paul knew better than that. Anything could be waiting for him in this darkness, he was unarmed and he still didn’t even know if Richard was safe. For all he knew, somebody could have already shot his brother. For all he knew that third gang member had watched him enter and was now waiting for Paul to open his mouth to know where to shoot next.

Paul’s foot came down unexpectedly on something hard and metal. It crushed and scraped along the floor under the pressure of his weight and made a significant noise in the otherwise continuous silence. Paul cursed himself silently but was about to carry on when the corner of his eye lit up and an explosion ripped into the brick next to his hand.