It wouldn’t be a problem if the door on the right was hinged on the right, but it’s hinged on the left, which means to get to the safety of the bar, I’ll have to go far enough past the door that it closes behind me, and then turn left.

  In the end, I decide to try the right door first, and if being sneaky doesn’t work, I can always revert to using the one on the left. I’ve already locked the door I used to enter the kitchen, so if they work out I’m in here, they’ll have to come in after me rather than sneak round behind me.

  Before I start to go through the door, I cross to the griddle and grab the squeezy bottle of cooking oil that’s always to hand. Next, I check the side door that has the blind, in case the terrorists I killed earlier have been replaced.

  They haven’t, so I check to make sure the door is bolted shut and return to the service doors.

  I bend down and aim the squeezy bottle’s nozzle at each bolt in turn and dribble a few drops onto their barrels. Once the oil has had a few seconds to run down the length of the barrels, I tease the bolts open.

  Thanks to the oil, neither bolt makes so much as a whisper of sound.

  Undoing the top bolts is a little trickier thanks to the circular windows in each door.

  To make myself as inconspicuous as possible, I rise to my feet in a slow, deliberate movement. I have my side to the left of the ‘in’ door, which allows me to look through the window and survey the majority of the dining room.

  I can see Hannah, Clipboard and one other terrorist. They all have their guns at waist level and are training them on the hostages.

  My left hand raises the bottle of oil and I tear my eyes from the window long enough to glance and aim a healthy squirt of oil at the bolt. A second later I have the bolt undone and I’m bending down to cross beneath the windows so I can repeat the action at the right-hand side of the door.

  With both bolts undone, I’m ready to go through the door and effect my rescue.

  Except I’m not.

  My hands are shaking, and my head is filled with doubts. When I go through the door, should I lie on the floor and use my shoulder to open it, so I can snipe at the three terrorists I can see? Or should I burst through and charge at them, so the shock and awe will make them hesitate for the split second it will take me to gun them down? Maybe it would go better if I tossed the fragile side plate at the wall behind them, so they turn, and I can shoot them in the back?

  In the end, I do nothing … yet. I know where three of the terrorists are, but that leaves four unaccounted for.

  My best guess is that two are still stationed by the windows, and the other two have been sent part way along the corridor – perhaps to where the restrooms are.

  I check my watch and see that Fleming’s ten-minute wait after returning to the dining room has yet to pass.

  There’s no chance of me succeeding if I don’t have Sharon armed and able to deal with the two men by the windows.

  I rise to my feet with my left shoulder against the central column between the service doors.

  My legs feel rubbery, but unless I see something that forces me to act, I can do nothing except wait for a few minutes until I’m sure Fleming has passed the pistol to Sharon.

  Chapter 77

  Sharon sees Fleming move a little. He’s inching her way, but he’s still got a few feet to make up.

  To help him, she shuffles her backside in his direction.

  With nine feet separating them, and four people filling that gap, there’s no easy way they can get close enough for him to pass on his message without it being obvious to the terrorists that they’re up to something.

  She catches Brooke’s eye and gives the girl a distinct nod.

  Brooke rises to her feet and goes towards the bald guard.

  The predictable way his eyes go to Brooke’s chest sickens Sharon, yet she knows his lechery is the best distraction they have. The girl’s skin is blue from the cold and Sharon can see goosebumps all over her upper body, but that doesn’t seem to bother the lecherous guard.

  ‘Come on, please let me go to the restroom?’ Brooke’s voice is loud enough to carry across to Sharon.

  ‘No. You can piss in the corner or piss your pants. Your choice.’

  ‘Don’t be so gross. I mean, right, look at me, look at the size of me, I’m no threat to you. All I want is to go to the restroom.’

  The bald guard has a smile on his face as he points at the corner again.

  ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Bet you’d love to see me pull down my pants and squat in the corner.’

  Brooke’s voice has risen to a shout and her performance is giving Sharon the distraction she needs to close the gap between her and Fleming.

  As Sharon is crawling one way, the manager is coming the other, and they end up side by side, wedged between two of the kitchen porters.

  Sharon feels Fleming reach behind her back and press something metallic between her and the wall she’s leaning against.

  His lips brush her ear. ‘When Jake Boulder comes in, he wants you to take out the two terrorists at the windows.’

  ‘Got it.’

  As soon as the words have left her mouth, Fleming is off again, shuffling away from her. She reaches behind her back and feels the reassuring shape of a pistol grip.

  She leaves her hand behind her back and watches as the female terrorist approaches Brooke and the bald guy.

  When Brooke sees the woman coming her way she goes to back off, but she’s not quick enough. Her punishment for haranguing the guard is a slash from the female terrorist’s knife that leaves a wide horizontal canyon through her nose.

  It’s a terrible price to pay and Sharon feels guilty for asking the girl to get mixed up in her scheming.

  Sharon knows it’s her imagination, but she feels as if the pistol in her hand is calling to her, asking for the chance to put a bullet in the female terrorist’s brain.

  As much as she wants to give the pistol its wish, she stays her hand. She can accept dying if she’s able to kill the female terrorist first, but her issue is that the other terrorists will fire her way with their submachine guns.

  Sharon is aware that, even in trained hands, submachine guns aren’t famed for their accuracy. She knows that a large portion of the bullets fired her way will miss her and will instead strike the bodies of those around her.

  It’s one thing for her to sacrifice her own life, but to risk the lives of others is unthinkable. She was brought up in a staunch Catholic household and, while her faith has lapsed, she knows she’ll never find absolution if she causes the deaths of others.

  As she fights her anger, she takes solace in the fact that when Boulder makes his appearance, as Fleming has suggested he will, she’ll be in a position to help him eliminate the terrorists.

  Chapter 78

  The scream I hear goes right through me but I hold my nerve. From what I’ve witnessed and overheard, a near topless woman has gotten into it with one of the guards over a requested restroom visit.

  As much as I don’t like to think Sharon or Fleming would endanger someone else, I suspect the girl’s behaviour is a distraction that one of them has created so the gun could be passed between them.

  The minute or two I’ve been looking through this window, not moving, has given me time to think about the terrorists’ goal. Every possible scenario has run through my mind as the night has passed, and it’s only now I think I may have the answer. To verify my thinking, I have a couple of questions for any one of the customers who’ve been taken into the office, but that can wait.

  I shrink back a little as Hannah returns to where Clipboard is. When she’s beside him, she gives a ‘come here’ wave. If she’s summoning the other two terrorists she’s playing right into my hands. Having all five in a tight group will make shooting them a whole lot easier.

  When I have that thought, I’m attacked by a crisis of confidence. Not only will I be killing them in cold blood, which is something Riley has warned me not to do, but I’ll also be killing a woman.

  It’s not that Hannah doesn’t deserve to die; her actions tonight alone have proved many times over that her death would make the world a safer place. It’s that I don’t know if I can gun down a woman, regardless of how much she may deserve it.

  I suspect it will be different if she attacks me and I have to defend myself, but other than a playful tap on a girl’s ass in the window between goofing and fooling around, I’ve never hit a woman and I’m not sure I can bring myself to do it.

  I see a pair of terrorists emerge from the corridor end of the dining room to join the group of three, and that’s when Hannah waves the other two forward.

  This is a sudden change I’m not at all comfortable with. If Hannah has got all her troops in the one place she must be leaving. Had she been leaving along the corridor, she’d have called the ones by the window forward to join her, and then left. The same goes if she was leaving via the balcony, she’d get the corridor guys first and then go towards the balcony.

  The way she’s called all her men into one place tells me she’s got one last thing to do before she leaves. I suspect her plan is to kill all the hostages and use the time until dawn to look for me. If all seven of them are together and using proper cover, they’ll be a lot safer.

  As I burst through the door, with my automatic rifle chattering away, I’m aware of someone moving at the far end of the room. It’s one of the hostages and I think they’re trying to get outside, but I don’t give them any more than a fleeting thought.

  The knot of five people isn’t as tightly tied as I’d like, and while I see my bullets transform Clipboard’s head into a bursting watermelon and thud into the bodies of Bald Man and one of the other guards, I miss Swimmer altogether.

  I’m unsure whether or not I’ve hit Hannah but, amid the clatter of my rifle, the shrieks of the hostages and the acrid smell of gunfire, enough of my senses are untainted for me to witness her dropping her weapon and clutching her right arm with her left.

  Swimmer runs off at a tangent, which prevents me from trying to shoot him as he’s running in front of the hostages.

  It’s fair to assume that he’s about to start shooting back, so I plant my right foot into the carpet and turn to run for the bar.

  How Sharon is getting on is unknown to me, but for the time being I’m more concerned with not letting Swimmer put any holes in me.

  When I’m three paces from the bar I launch myself into a headlong dive. It’s not a moment too soon as Swimmer opens fire.

  All the bottles and glasses at the back of the bar, that I’d polished until they gleamed, explode in a shower of fragments.

  I don’t like how vulnerable I am. With all the glass that’s raining down, I can’t look up to see if Swimmer is standing over me as I’ll be blinded.

  Chapter 79

  Sharon has the pistol in her hand, pointing at the nearest guard, before Boulder has the chance to squeeze his own trigger.

  The guard is ten feet away and she’s used a pistol often enough to put two rounds in his chest before he can react.

  It’s not so easy for her to get a shot at the other man she’s been tasked with taking out.

  This guy has a buzz cut and fast reactions.

  Even as she is rising to her feet and swivelling her body to face him, he’s bending over and grabbing one of the hostages.

  The man he’s got in a headlock is around sixty and has a pallor that comes from a lifetime spent under artificial lighting. Sharon has taken his lunch to his room on each of the days he’s been here. The scene was always the same: he’d have his laptop on the writing bureau and he’d chat for a moment before pressing a generous tip into her hand. As much as she liked the guy, she’d never taken to his waspish wife.

  The terrorist hauls the old guy to his feet and jams a pistol in his ear.

  They’re twenty feet away, and at that distance Sharon isn’t confident that she won’t hit the wrong man.

  If she had a pistol she was familiar with, and two working eyes, she may have taken a chance and made the shot, but in the current circumstances, she wasn’t going to add the extra ounce of pressure to the trigger unless the pistol was turned on her.

  She flicks her eyes across for a fractional glance to see how Boulder is getting on.

  Three of the five terrorists he ambushed are down, and the woman is clutching her left wrist. She’s down, but not out. The fifth guy is firing at the bar, where she presumes Boulder is taking cover.

  Sharon is tempted to put a shot past the guy with the buzz cut and into the guy shooting at the bar, but she knows, as soon as she pulls her trigger, the guy with the buzz cut will pull his in the mistaken belief she’s shooting at him.

  The fact that the other guy is an extra ten feet away makes the odds of hitting him low, so she’ll have to fire a few shots to make sure she takes him down. That’s not something she’s prepared to do as it’ll give the one with the hostage more than enough time to shoot her. Plus, she’s no idea how many bullets are in the pistol’s magazine.

  She trusts that Boulder would have given her a full magazine if he could, but she can’t ask him right now, and the only other way to find out is to keep shooting until the bullets run out.

  The old man’s lips are moving in a soundless motion.

  Sharon sees he’s looking down at his wife and telling her that he loves her.

  When he lifts his head, he catches Sharon’s eye and winks at her.

  His lips move again. He’s speaking without sound, but Sharon doesn’t need to be a lip reader to recognise he’s saying, ‘on three’.

  ‘One.’

  ‘Two.’

  Sharon adds a half ounce to the pressure on her finger and centres her aim on the old man’s forehead. Once he makes his move, her aim will be at the centre of the terrorist’s face.

  ‘Three.’

  Everything in Sharon’s world crawls to a halt. There are no sounds, or external movements, all she sees is the old man starting to slide down the terrorist’s body.

  The terrorist is pulled forward by the old man lifting his knees, so his entire weight is being supported by the arm that the terrorist has around his throat. He reacts to the old man’s movement by pulling his trigger a fraction of a second before Sharon pulls hers.

  Chapter 80

  I’m not sure where Swimmer is, but I need to find out before he kills me. Glass is still raining down on me, but I figure he can’t have much ammo left in his clip.

  I half wriggle, half roll myself onto my side with my back against the bar’s rear wall. In front of me are bottle fridges full of various beers.

  I slide a fridge door open and take out three bottles.

  I then draw my feet up and manoeuvre myself until I’m in a squatting position. I lean right and toss a bottle of beer over the counter in the general direction of where I think Swimmer is.

  The next bottle I toss is sent from where I’m squatting, and I lean left before tossing the third.

  I grab my rifle and set off running to my right, straightening to my full height as I go. My bare feet are crunching on the broken glass that litters the bar floor and, for once tonight, I’m grateful for the cold that has numbed them. They’ll hurt like hell when they thaw out, but until then their numbness is giving me a chance to fight back.

  When I burst out from behind the bar, I see Swimmer is ten yards back and he’s shooting left of where I was, which means he’s fallen for my ruse.

  There are hostages cowering behind him so, when I start firing, I make sure any of the bullets that miss him fly high enough to also miss the hostages.

  It’s a good job I’m aiming high, as not one of the three rounds I fire before the ammo runs out hits its target.

  My luck changes for the better when, the moment he turns his weapon my way, Swimmer’s submachine gun clicks on empty as well.

  I don’t waste time offering prayers of thanks to any deity. Instead I keep running and launch myself at him.

  As I fly through the air I’m swinging the rifle in my hands at his head.

  He sees me coming and, rather than trying to strike out at me or defend himself, he drops his weapon, grabs my arms and lets my momentum roll him backwards.

  The sole of his boot gets planted into my stomach and when he straightens his leg I find myself flying backwards and upside down through the air until I land in a heap.

  By the time I’ve squirmed my way upright he’s standing in front of me. With great care and deliberation, he removes his pistol from its holster and his knife from its sheath.

  My first thought is that I should rush him. He’s ten feet away and, while at that range it’s not likely he’ll miss, it’s not guaranteed that his first shot will kill me.

  My second thought is that I’m about to die; that everyone else in this room will die because I’m a rotten shot and missed my chance to shoot him.

  My third thought tells me to get over myself and do something.

  Swimmer isn’t doing anything. He’s just standing there. Waiting for me to make the first move.

  I do the same thing. As soon as he goes to move, I’m going to attack him with everything I have. I’d sooner go down fighting than cowering.

  ‘You killed my brother and a lot of my buddies. You’re going to pay for that. I’m going to peel your face off and shove it down your throat until you choke.’

  When he’s finished speaking he tosses his gun behind the bar.

  It’s clear he wants to punish me and make me pay for the deaths of his brother and his buddies.

  I’m comfortable with how he feels. I’ve been there myself and know exactly how an internal rage can dominate all other thoughts.