A thousand suns

‘Be very quiet,’ he heard a voice mutter quietly; a younger man by the sound of it. ‘What do we do now? This wasn’t part of the plan.’

The older man replied calmly, his voice muted, speaking gently. ‘I’ll call him.’

Chris heard the tones of a mobile phone keypad, and then a pause.

‘No signal. Shit. We had a signal earlier, dammit.’

‘What are we going to do? Kill him?’

‘If we do, it can’t be here.’

Chris squirmed in response, his arms flapping around, blindly searching for something to grab on to.

His ribs exploded with pain as another swift kick landed. ‘Shut up and stop moving, or we will do you right here,’ the younger man hissed. ‘Try the phone again,’ he said. ‘Go over by the window, you might get a signal there.’

Chris heard the older man walk across the room towards the small window and once again he heard the key tones. Whoever it was they were trying to get in touch with would presumably decide his fate right now, one way or the other.

Oh Christ, I’m in deep shit.

He wondered where the hell Mark was. These bastards must have made enough noise to alert him in his room next door. Then he remembered, Mark had said he was taking the Cherokee up the coast to refill the air tanks. But surely he should have been back by now? It was gone nine in the evening.

Or maybe these sons of bitches had been next door dealing with him when Chris had entered his room.

‘No signal again.’

‘We’ll have to take him with us, until we meet up for the briefing tomorrow morning,’ whispered the man holding Chris down.

‘Yeah,’ the older one replied. ‘But it’s getting him out without attracting attention. Shit… maybe if I open the window and lean out — ’

Suddenly, Chris heard the door to the room swing open with a thud, and the sound of three heavy footsteps across the small bedroom followed swiftly by a metallic clang.

The hand that had roughly been holding the back of his head and forcing his face into the quilt went slack, and Chris found he could lift his head up and look to the side.

Just in time to see a lean, middle-aged man, with short, crewcut, greying hair turning round and pulling his gun out. He turned his head to see Mark holding up one of the air cylinders in front of himself.

‘Hit this and we’re all history!’ growled Mark.

Chris could see this stalemate would hold only a second or two. He pushed the unconscious form of the younger man off his back and found another gun lying on the bed beside him. He picked it up and levelled it at the grey-haired man, his hands trembling, fingers fumbling for the trigger.

The older man switched his focus and brought his gun to bear on Chris. ‘Put the gun down, son,’ he said in his calm voice.

Cool under pressure. The thought raced through Chris’s mind. Very bloody cool.

Without warning Mark hurled his cylinder at the man, who swung his aim back around towards him just in time to be knocked off balance by the heavy cylinder.

Chris got to his feet in a second and scrambled for the doorway. As he hurled himself out of the room he felt a hum of hot air whistle past his ear and a window overlooking the seafront in the hallway outside his bedroom exploded.

‘Fuck! He’s shooting!’ Chris heard himself shout as he pounded down the hallway after Mark.

He heard the man tumble out into the hallway after him, thudding against the wall opposite, feet crunching on the broken glass.

Another thread of hot air burned past him and the wall ahead erupted with a shower of plaster dust.

‘Pissing hell! Run faster, Mark!’

Both of them took the stairs down to the lobby four at a time and hurried outside into the night, gasping cold air into their lungs as they ran across the open parking area of the jetty towards the Cherokee parked up next to the two Runcies trucks.

‘Key! You got the key?’ Chris yelled.

‘Yeah I got it, got it. Lemme just find it.’

As Mark fumbled with the keyring, Chris looked back at the motel entrance. There was no sign of the older man just yet.

‘Come on, Mark!’

The door locks on the Cherokee popped, and both men dived in. Chris kept his eyes on the motel entrance as Mark fired it up and spun the vehicle round in a hurried loop so that they were facing the exit leading onto the coast road and out of town. With the tyres spinning, sending a cloud of dust and pebbles up into the air, the Cherokee leaped forward and out of the parking lot just as a silhouette appeared in the doorway of their motel.

Chapter 34

Mission Time: 30 Minutes Elapsed

2.35 a.m., 29 April 1945, outside Nantes