Day 142

Don’t ease your way in; grab the reader’s attention by swarming them with flying bullets and dragging them on a roller coaster ride that simply doesn’t stop.

…

The bullet passed through my left sleeve, grazing the arm just below the shoulder.

I heard the shot, well, a rally of shots from the three men with automatic guns, and only realised one had almost found its mark when my arm started to hurt.

It was the least of my problems.  The three men were gaining on me, and their marksmanship could only improve as they got closer.

The darkness was supposed to cover us, but no one had predicted clear skies and a large moon.

“You said no one was home.”  The hissed statement came from the other person who’d been with me.

“Bad intel.  Shit happens.”

At the top of the hill, after running through a grove of trees to try and misdirect their aim, and skidding to a halt before going headfirst down.

Both of us were fit, but even so, the hard running, the dodging and weaving as bullets thwack into the trees beside us, we were still gasping for breath.

At least one part of the briefing had been right.

If we got into trouble, going down the hill and into the river would be the best escape route if things got bad.

“You’re joking.”  Alicia had stopped, bent over double, trying to suck air in and look at the slope at the same time.

“Death or glory,” I said.

A bullet hit the tree next to her head, and then I was following her down.  I doubted they would follow us.

A last glance back showed they had slowed down, and I got the feeling they knew something about the slope I didn’t.

Halfway there was a sudden explosion, the debris threw us sideways, and luckily, because there was another explosion just in front of where Alicia was heading.

“Mine,” I heard her gasp just before she started sliding on the loose scree.  I was right behind her.

A rocky ledge arrested the free fall, and we came to a sudden and abrasive stop.  Several bullets hitting rocks to the side of us forced us across and behind the dense shrubbery.

It was about another hundred yards to the water’s edge, but now, closer to the bottom, I could see a track.  We hadn’t been told there was a track around the lake.

And headlights in the distance.

Behind us, another two mines exploded, showering us with scree.

“Jesus.”  Alicia wasn’t used to being shot at or running through minefields.

“Better not look to the left then.”

She saw the approaching car.  “Oh, shit.  What else is going to go wrong?”

“Welcome to my world.  We need to be down and in the water before that vehicle reaches us.”

At that moment, a cloud covered the moon, and it went dark.  Or darker.

“Now.”

She didn’t need to be asked twice.

We were on the track before I could count to ten.  The headlights suddenly disappeared, perhaps going around a bend in the road.

“Ready to take a dip?”

“I always wanted to go for a midnight swim.”

The headlights started to reappear.

We slipped into the water and swam away from the shoreline, trying to make as little wake as possible, heading towards the island about eighty yards away, taking a circular track, keeping close to the rocky edge.

It took that car about forty-five seconds to reach the spot where we had got in the water, and by that time we had reached as far as the rocky outcrop that was the last cover before striking out towards the island.

At that point, we stopped to see what they were going to do.  Just as a light flickered to life.

A searchlight.

The beam slowly tracked out over the water towards the island.  Then, it slowly tracked back to the point where we had just slipped underwater.

Seconds later, we came back up for air, and I could see the search light reach the point where we had entered the water.

“What now.  They’re going to see us if we try to get to the island.”

“Go around the point and out of sight, give us time to consider options.  At the very least, get away from them.

We reached the other side just before the searchlight picked up the point where we had just been.  Around the corner was inky blackness, but it wasn’t going to last.  The clouds were breaking up, and the moon would be out again.

We climbed out and sat on the rocky ledge.  The slope leading down to the waterline was a rock climber’s paradise.  It wouldn’t have been too hard to climb up.

The thing is, we now have a new problem.

A motorboat was heading towards us, and in the distance, we could see a flashlight. At first, we pointed at the lake surface, then, when close to the shoreline, pointed at the cliff.

“We go up,” I said.

A few seconds later, we were climbing as fast as we could.

A few seconds after that, bullets started pinging off the rocks below us.

At the top and over onto the flat surface, bullets were still pinging off the rocks, but now harmlessly.

Alicia took a minute to breathe, as I did, that last part of the climb turning my legs to jelly.

“Are we safe now?”

“When we get to that treeline, about fifty yards, or a little more.”

She started running.

We’d both heard it, the thumping sound of a helicopter rotor.

These people were never going to give up.

…

© Charles Heath 2025