Mason’s heart lurched into his throat. Quaid fell face forward into the grass, but there was no telltale red bloom spreading across his back. Mason returned fire with Roxy even as he scrambled towards Quaid.
As they approached, the Englishman sat up. There was a look of shock on his face.
‘Shit,’ he said. ‘That was close.’
‘Close?’ Roxy echoed. ‘We thought you’d been hit.’
‘No. The bullet whizzed past my head. I guess I ducked too late, but it was a gut reaction.’
Mason reached down and pulled Quaid to his feet, still firing. ‘Get moving or the next one will hit you.’
As a team, they raced behind the crates, laying down cover fire. Mason was down to his last magazine. Seventeen rounds between him and empty. The enemy were relentless as they pushed forward, now creeping behind the building pile they’d been using just a few moments earlier. Mason watched Roxy fire off a few shots.
‘Make them count,’ he breathed.
She nodded. She knew what he meant. Their enemies appeared far better equipped than they were. Bullets constantly sheared the air between hideouts, slamming into the crates and tearing chunks off the wood. Minutes passed. Mason sent a look at Hassell.
‘You got a way out of this?’
Hassell was scanning the terrain, looking for another escape. The field extended quite a way, becoming less cluttered as it terminated at a far road. The road itself looked busy with traffic and lay behind a high fence. Between here and there, Mason spied several more clusters of material, but hardly anything substantial.
They would have to make a stand right here.
Their enemies seemed to know it too, unleashing wave after wave of lead into their hiding place. They were pinning them down.
And seconds later, Mason understood why.
Around the corners of their barricade, mercenaries appeared. They were running hard and, mostly, blind. They came around the edges with their guns held out as if they’d been ordered to jump right into the thick of the action.
Mason reacted instantly, shooting at the bulk of the men and women. He rose quickly, grabbed a wooden spar and smashed it into his attackers. Roxy did the same at his side. They waded into the figures at close quarters. Mason dropped the timber as a man went down with blood all over his face. Roxy grabbed another by the arm and twisted until it broke, slipping around to his rear and elbowing another in the face. Mason shot a woman in the chest, the same one he’d shot earlier it seemed, and watched her stagger back and then fall to the ground, her face stretched in a rictus of pain.
On the other side of the barricade, Hassell and Quaid were meeting another attack. Bullets flew haphazardly, most of them hitting the ground or skimming high into the air. Everyone was grappling for something, the figures too close to bring their weapons to bear. Sally was at the centre of the barricade, her back to it, staring from side to side with wild eyes.
Mason tripped one man and then threw another into the one beside him. He took several punches and escaped the thrust of a knife quite by accident as one man pushed him out of the way of an attacker.
He fell back. A man kicked out, striking Mason’s shins. The pain stabbed through his brain. Mason ignored it. There were four men and a woman in front of him. Roxy was there, too. It was a melee of arms and legs and bodies. Nobody could shoot for fear of hitting a colleague. Roxy kneed one man, grabbed hold of his neck, and twisted. He fell, groaning. She punched another in the face.
Mason couldn’t hold them back. There were too many. He knew that as soon as the enemy got behind him; it was game over. There was too much space. They could just step back, draw their weapons and fire. The only way was to keep them in the choke points around the side of the barricade.
But they were losing the battle. One man slipped past Mason and ran into the open, already reaching for his gun.
Sally stepped forward. She fought like she’d been taught, capturing the man’s attention with hard jabs and searching for vulnerable areas. The guy wore Kevlar and a bulky jacket, so it wasn’t easy getting through. He was trained too, and able to guess Sally’s every strike. He didn’t fall back.
But she slowed him down.
Mason had already fallen back a little. Now he stepped back some more. Three of his opponents were on their knees. On the other side, Quaid and Hassell were holding their own. From somewhere, there came the sound of a gunshot, a merc taking a potshot, trying to take someone out. Mason grabbed one man and hurled him into the rest, watched them all stagger. To the left, he saw two mercs push their way past Quaid and Hassell, moving out into the open. Sally was still diverting the attention of the other one. Mason saw their tentative safety net falling apart.
Leaving the closer battle with Roxy, he moved away and lifted his weapon. He was a fast shot. He fired off two rounds. The bullets crisscrossed those fired by his enemies in the air. Mason felt the tug of hot lead pass through his jacket. The sensation sent fire through his brain, fear that wouldn’t chase away. That was how close he’d come to getting shot. Mere inches.
His own bullets struck true, one smashing into the arm of a merc, the other striking another’s Kevlar tactical jacket. Both men fell to their knees and Mason ran towards them.
On the way, he passed Sally.
He wanted to help, leaned towards her. The merc struck out and Sally blocked. Mason was a few feet away. He slammed a fist out at the merc, making him stumble. He ran on, reached the two he’d shot, and waded in.
Using his knees, he sent them both crashing to the ground. To his right, Quaid and Hassell were taking on just two mercs and matching them, grappling for weapons and throwing punches when they could. Mason fell on his opponents, giving them no chance for respite. He smashed the first in the face with the butt of his gun, saw the blood fountain, and then turned to the other.
The guy was already on his knees, reaching for a weapon.
Mason flung himself at the man, grabbed the gun hand and broke it. The gun slipped away. Mason knocked his opponent unconscious with a few well-aimed punches and then swivelled, trying to take in every aspect of the battle in one go.
The man fighting Sally appeared to be doing the same. He could see what Mason saw. That only three other mercs remained in the fight, all being held at bay by Roxy. Including him, there were just four mercs remaining.
The man appeared to make a split-second decision. He waded into Sally, grabbed her roughly by the neck and started hauling her towards Roxy. Mason jumped to his feet. Right then, Roxy fell to her knees, staggered by a punch to the gut, and the three mercs pushed past her to join the fourth who had hold of Sally.
To her credit, Sally fought back hard, making him regret his decision. It was only when one of the other mercs stepped in that they were able to subdue her.
Mason raised his gun. ‘Let her go. Let us go. You’re done here.’
‘You won’t shoot as long as we have her,’ the merc she’d been fighting said. He had a thick accent, possibly Croatian. Mason wondered what the hell he was doing.
‘We’re taking her,’ the man said.
By now, Quaid and Hassell had paused. The two mercs they were fighting backed off and came around to join their brethren. They were all injured, most of them limping. Sally struggled in her captor’s grip.
‘Don’t follow us,’ the merc said. ‘We will shoot her in the arms and then the legs.’
‘You’re making a mistake,’ Mason said, hiding the fear he felt for Sally. ‘They sent you here to kill us. Do anything less than that, they’ll kill you.’
‘You don’t even know who they are.’
‘Maybe not, but I have a good idea. And I know anyone connected with Cassadaga won’t brook any slip-ups.’
The merc blanched but then recovered. ‘Cassa who?’ he said.
As one, the mercenaries started moving away. Mason kept his gun trained on them. Roxy was back on her feet, her face dark with storm clouds. Hassell and Quaid walked to his side, all holding their guns low.
‘What do we do?’ Quaid asked.
‘We won’t be letting them take her,’ Mason said.
The sun came out from behind the cloud that had passed over it, lighting the scene for a few moments. All four mercs started walking away with Sally – two of them covering her with their guns and two covering Mason and the others. The man holding Sally had a firm and severe look on his face, as if he wasn’t exactly sure he was doing the right thing.
Mason wasn’t about to let this happen.