DELIVERANCE: a gripping action thriller full of suspense (6 page)

Chapter Ten

Marshall is calculating their options before everybody is settled into the four-by-four, and there is only one way they can get away.

‘Charlie, detach the scope from the rifle.’

‘Why?’

‘Did you ever drive a tank?’

‘No. You?’

‘No,’ Marshall responds. ‘I’ve ridden shotgun though, and that’s what we are going to do now.’

‘What the fuck?’ Charlie asks.

‘No lights,’ Marshall says. ‘We are going to drive on night scopes.’

‘Are you fucking crazy?’

‘Possibly,’ Marshall says with a broad grin. ‘We won’t lose them if we hit the lights though.’

‘Roger that,’ Charlie confirms.

Charlie runs round to the boot where he has stowed the rifle and returns twenty seconds later with the scope.

‘You realise the rifle is now useless.’

‘I hope to God we won’t need it then.’

Marshall guns the engine and raises his night scope to his eye.

‘Check behind,’ Marshall calls out.

Charlie promptly swings himself around in his seat and points his scope through the rear window.

‘It’s a four-by-four with high suspension,’ he replies. ‘Better suspension than this vehicle, that’s for sure.’

‘Shit.’

Marshall knows that better suspension will make all the difference in a chase. The pursuing four-by-four could probably outrun their truck over fifty feet, let alone the four miles they have to cover.

Not good news.

The going is slow. There are lots of ruts and rises that need avoiding and it’s costing Marshall valuable seconds.

‘You know if we make it out of this, it’s going to be a fucking miracle,’ Charlie says.

‘I don’t believe in miracles,’ Marshall responds.

‘Me neither.’

They drive on another fifty yards before hitting the next patch of bad ground. Charlie checks behind again to find the pursuing four-by-four is nearly at the house.

‘It’s all down to which way they approach now,’ he tells Marshall. ‘If they swing in north, we will be lit up like a Christmas tree.’

Marshall slows to five miles per hour and keeps an eye on the wing-mirror. From the way the lights are dipping he cannot see which way they are turning, so he holds his breath and waits.

Inside the approaching four-by-four are three men and one woman. Each of them is armed with a Beretta-92 automatic pistol. They are competent and focused, and only a mile from the house now.

‘Shall we swing in north or south?’ the driver asks.

‘North,’ the woman responds sharply. ‘It won’t hurt to get a sweeping view of the area. Especially as we know that Marshall is on his way.’

As the driver of the pursuing four-by-four begins to swing in towards the house, he notices something up ahead.

‘There is a large rut in the ground to the left,’ he says.

‘So?’ snaps the woman.

‘It means parking to the north will need a wider turn.’

‘Just get fucking parked!’ the woman screams. ‘Turn to the south if you must. Let’s just get in there and get this kill confirmed!’

The driver nods, turns the wheel the opposite way, and parks. Then he kills the engine, and looks to the woman for instruction. The other two men do the same.

‘Everyone lock and load,’ she orders. ‘Safeties off and shoot to kill.’

The three men nod solemnly.

‘We are going in to ensure a kill has been made. If for any reason it has not, our mission is to finalise the kill by any means necessary. Are we all clear on our orders?’

‘Yes, sir,’ chorus the three men.

‘Don’t fuck this up people. Or I will make sure you regret it.’

Once Charlie confirms that they have not been spotted, Marshall speeds up again.

‘This plane will be there, right?’

‘Yes,’ Charlie says.

‘If it isn’t, we are fucked.’

‘I know that,’ Charlie replies as calm as ever.

They arrive at the clearing where the plane should be after a further five minutes.

The plane is there. The pilot is there.

But the pilot is dead.

He looks to have been bitten by something. His skin is pale, verging on green and his wide eyes are bloodshot and dark to the pupils.

He is still tied to the plane.

Marshall raises an eyebrow at Charlie.

‘How the fuck was I supposed to know that would happen?’ Charlie asks defensively.

‘Well, I hope you can fly this fucking plane, Charlie,’ Marshall says bluntly.

‘Of course I can fly the plane, little brother. I only brought the old guy along in case we needed to fire from the air.’

But Marshall is not listening. He is wondering what the strong smell is. Then he realises.

Kerosene.

He looks at the plane to find the old pilot has opened the refuelling port on the wing and jammed a long stick into it. From the length of the cinder, he probably did so about twenty minutes previously. The top of the stick has a rag wrapped around it which is burning at the lip of the refuelling port.

‘Move,’ Marshall orders.

The three of them run in separate directions and get thirty feet before the plane explodes.

Nobody is injured, but Sarah watches a twisted piece of metal fly past her face. It misses her by about four inches.

‘Well that’s pretty bad luck,’ Charlie announces.

Then the truck explodes.

It was parked next to the plane, and was hit in the fuel tank by a stray piece of super-heated metal.

‘They will have seen that,’ Charlie says.

‘People in fucking Thailand will have seen that, Charlie!’ Marshall exclaims.

‘I was just saying.’

Marshall tries to form a new plan in his mind, but he can’t see one.

Equipment:
Knife
and
night scopes
.

All of the guns were in the truck.

Destination:
Unknown
.

Mission Objective:
Get Sarah to safety and kill all hostiles
.

Marshall realises they have about twenty-six minutes before the chase team arrive. They will have seen the explosions and will track it immediately.

Marshall calls out to Charlie.

‘What do you remember from your boy scout days, bruv?’

‘Bits and pieces,’ Charlie answers.

‘Good. Let’s go back to nature,’ Marshall enthuses. ‘I reckon we have about twenty minutes.’

The four members of the chase team assemble outside of their vehicle. The woman – who is noticeably in charge – is called Quinn. The driver is Foster, and the two other men are Malloy and Smith. Quinn orders multiple entry. Two through the back door, and two through the shattered patio doors.

They are about to separate when the plane explodes in the distance. All four of them have their weapons in hand in half a second.

‘Tactical change,’ Quinn orders immediately. ‘Foster and Malloy in the patio doors, now.’

The two men move without hesitation. They approach the patio doors with quick caution, and then enter. They return within thirty seconds and give a full report to Quinn.

‘Let's move,’ she says, just before the second explosion happens and Marshall’s Jeep goes up in flames.

‘They are already ahead of us,’ Quinn states. ‘Your lives depend upon you catching them. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir,’ the three men chorus.

‘Then why the fuck are you looking at me? Move it!’

As Quinn’s team approach the explosion site the driver slows down to take the larger bumps and coast towards the area.

‘Park twenty yards from the plane wreck,’ Quinn orders. ‘Light up that clump of trees.’

‘Shit,’ Foster calls as the engine revs high and the wheels spin. ‘We’re in a rut.’

‘Here is good enough,’ Quinn says quietly. ‘At least we have the trees covered. If they aren’t hiding there, then they are running. We will quickly sweep the area. If we turn up nothing else, we find footprints and we follow them.’

They exit the vehicle simultaneously and group together.

‘Listen up,’ Quinn says. ‘Expect hostile response so keep your safeties off. Sweeper formation.’

They fall into an excellent synchronisation with each other immediately, spreading out in a V-shape. Two close together at the rear and two spread wider at the front. As they head slowly towards the lit up clump of trees they hear a noise, at least twenty feet up, high amongst the branches.

Quinn smiles. Now she knows they are unarmed: if they had weapons, then a member of her team would be dead or wounded already.

She waves her team onwards pointing upwards in case anyone missed the noise. Nobody did, and all barrels are now pointing towards the source of the sound. Quinn and Foster are leading, whilst Malloy and Smith bring up the rear. Malloy and Smith are only three feet apart, while Quinn and Foster are almost ten feet apart. A perfect formation, as long as you are facing the right way.

Which they aren’t.

Suddenly the four-by-four’s engine roars into life behind them and heads straight for Malloy and Smith, who are run down before they even turn around.

Then – behind the steering wheel – Charlie has a choice. The woman, or the man.

He chooses wrong.

He throws the wheel to the right and heads for the man, Foster. But Foster pre-empts the move and dodges left, the off-side wing missing him by inches. He is now behind the four-by-four, staring with blank eyes at Marshall and Sarah who are stood directly in front of him just thirty yards away.

Easy targets.

Marshall had guessed that the four-by-four would stop approximately twenty to thirty yards from the plane facing the clump of trees. Twenty to thirty yards so as not to suffer any damage from the burning wreckages, and the clump of trees were a simple psychological pull as the only safe hiding place.

Except it wasn’t.

Charlie had dug out ruts with Marshall’s knife to catch the four-by-four, whilst Marshall had knocked what was left of both wings from the side of the aircraft. He had carried them round and stacked them at odd angles against the front of the plane. To the casual eye it would look like twisted metal, but to Marshall it was enough cover for two people.

Marshall and Sarah.

Charlie had opted for the most dangerous hiding place.

He always does.

Charlie and Marshall had then dug a shallow grave, and Marshall buried Charlie in it. It was a close thing though. The four-by-four parked nearer to Charlie than they expected, and Foster had nearly stood on Charlie’s arm as he headed for the clump of trees. Once the four hostiles had passed Charlie’s hiding place, he stood up slowly and threw a stone high up into the trees to keep their attention. Then Marshall and Sarah made their way carefully to the back of the four-by-four, ready to push as hard as they could the second Charlie gunned the engine.

Which was when the logistical problems began.

Charlie would now need to kill all four hostiles in one go. Anything less would leave Sarah and Marshall as sitting ducks. Even Charlie said it would be a long shot.

It hadn’t paid off.

But Marshall realises he is now looking down the barrel of a Beretta-92, and has about two seconds to think of something. He shoves Sarah hard to the left, and falls to the right just as a bullet passes between them into the space where he was half a second earlier.

A lucky move, but that’s it; he’s out of options.

But then he looks up to see the gun swinging back towards him, just as Charlie reverses the four-by-four into Foster’s back. Marshall watches him disappear beneath the large suspension.

‘Get in now!’ Charlie shouts from the open driver’s door.

Marshall runs to meet the four-by-four and collects the fallen Berretta on the way.

The dead guy won’t need it any more.

He glances around to see Sarah standing immobile six feet away. He is about to shout at her to move when he realises she isn’t shell-shocked. She is looking at something specific. Something Marshall can’t see because of the four-by-four.

The female hostile he guesses.

He fires a shot into the air to buy Sarah another second to live, and to alert Charlie.

Or so he hopes.

Charlie notices and stamps on the accelerator, sending the four-by-four surging forwards. He swings the wheel left and aims for the woman, Quinn. She drops the gun to her side and stands stock still until the four-by-four is almost on top of her. Then, as the bonnet gets within a few inches, she vaults upwards. As her feet land back on the bonnet, she jumps again and clears the vehicle completely. She lands perfectly behind the four-by-four and stares into Marshall’s eyes.