Bloody Passage - Jack Higgins [61]
"Only on Monday through Friday," I said and heaved back the sliding door of the boxcar with the machine gun on the top. "Just get in there and keep your head down." I gave him a push up and said to Simone, "You stay with him. All right?"
"He's in a bad way," she said.
"Aren't we all?"
"Now there speaks the hard-nosed bastard I've come to know and love," she said, and climbed up into the boxcar.
Langley was back at the entrance and now he called, "Better come quick, old stick. This looks interesting."
Masmoudi was half-way across the square waving a white handkerchief. Barzini said, "What do you think, Oliver?"
"I think you make ready to get out of here while I talk with our friend," I said and I shouldered my assault rifle and stepped into the open.
I went only a few yards in his direction then paused to light a cigarette, making him come the rest of the way. He smiled. "I like that. Nice and casual. Not a care in the world. Good psychology."
"You seem to know your business yourself," I said, more to keep the conversation going than anything else.
"I went to Sandhurst," he said simply.
Which was enough to take the wind out of anyone's sails. We stood facing each other against the backdrop of burning trucks looking, I suspect, faintly ridiculous. The assault group, under Husseini, crouched in the shelter of the wall. It had stopped raining and the sky was clearing fast.
I said, "What do you want?"
"I should have thought that was obvious. You are finished, you and your friends. You have failed. Why waste more lives? Better to give up now."
"And end like Wyatt? No, thanks."
"You are being very foolish," he said. "You cannot hope to last for long if I mount a general assault. At least let the girl leave."
"All right," I said. "I'll see what she says. Wait here."
I went back inside the engine shed. Nino was shoveling away for dear life and the smell of steam was heavy and pungent on the night air.
"What does he want?" Barzini demanded.
"Total surrender. Are we ready to go?"
He turned to Talif. "Well?"
Talif shrugged fatalistically. "As Allah wills, effendi. If you wish it, we go now, but as I warned you, we will be short of full power."
"Right, make ready and when I say go, you'd better get us out of here just as fast as you can because if we don't break that gate down at the first try, you're going to be just as much in trouble as the rest of us." I turned to the others. "I want one of you on top with that machine gun and really pour it on as we go across the square. Keep their heads down because that's going to be the crucial bit."
"Leave it to me, old stick." Langley climbed the ladder to the roof of the boxcar.
I nodded to Barzini who scrambled up onto the footplate. "All right, Aldo. When I say go, go."
I went out into the courtyard again where Masmoudi waited patiently. I said, "Sorry, she says she liked the champagne, but not the company."
"What a pity. On her own head be it then."
He turned and started to walk away and I hurried back inside the engine shed. "Okay, let's go, let's go!" I cried and I scrambled up into the boxcar beside Simone and Wyatt.
There was a hissing of steam, it billowed around the wheels as they started to turn, the clanging echoing between the brick walls. There was another great rush of steam, the wheels spun and then, quite suddenly, we coasted out into the open.
Masmoudi was only half way back to his men. He turned with a startled cry and raised an arm, calling on them, I suppose, to fire. He was in the way, which didn't help, but by then Langley was firing the machine gun, working it from side to side, knocking down several of the assault group and throwing the rest into complete confusion.
We were moving faster now, gliding across the square at perhaps ten miles an hour. Bullets started to fly when we were halfway across. I fired back from the entrance to the boxcar and behind me, Barzini and Nino were shooting from the footplate.
And then the first cars were inside the tunnel and I shouted to Simone. "Hang on tight, this could