Carte Blanche - Jeffery Deaver [145]
Bond had a good shot and took it, but the guard went to cover the instant Bond fired. He missed again. Slow down, he told himself.
Four rounds left. Four.
Jordaan and Bond scrabbled into a dip near a small field filled with succulents and a pond that would probably be home to stately koi, come the spring. They looked up, over the grass veld, scanning for targets. Then what seemed to be a thousand shots, though it was probably more like forty or fifty, rained down on them, striking close, shattering rock and spraying water.
The two men in khaki, probably desperate and frustrated at their delayed escape, tried a bold assault, charging Bond and Jordaan from different directions. Bond fired twice at the man coming at them from the left, hitting the man’s rifle and left arm. The guard cried out in pain and dropped the weapon, which tumbled to the bottom of the hill. Bond saw that, though the man’s forearm was injured, he’d drawn a pistol with his right hand and was otherwise capable of fighting. The second guard made a run to cover and Bond fired fast, tapping him somewhere on his thigh, but that wound too seemed superficial. He vanished into the brush.
One round, one round.
Where was Dunne?
Sneaking up behind them?
Then silence again, though silence filled with ringing in their ears and the internal bass of heartbeats. Jordaan was shivering. Bond eyed the Bushmaster, the rifle that the injured guard had dropped. It lay around ten yards away.
He studied the scene around them carefully, the landscape, the plants, the trees.
Then he noted tall grasses swaying fifty or sixty yards distant; the two guards, invisible in the thick foliage, were moving in, keeping some distance between them. In a minute or two they’d be on top of Bond and Jordaan. He might take one out with his last bullet but the other guard would be successful.
‘James,’ Jordaan whispered, squeezing his arm. ‘I’ll lead them off – I’ll go that way.’ She pointed to a plain covered with low grass. ‘If you fire, you can hit one and the other may take cover. That’ll give you a chance to get to the rifle.’
‘It’s suicide,’ he whispered back. ‘You’d be completely exposed.’
‘You really must stop your incessant flirting, James.’
He smiled. ‘Listen. If anybody’s going to be a hero, it’s me. I’m going to head towards them. When I tell you, go for the Bushmaster.’ He pointed to the black rifle lying in the dust. ‘You’re qualified to use it?’
She nodded.
The guards moved closer. Thirty yards now.
Bond whispered, ‘Stay low until I tell you. Get ready.’
The guards were making their way cautiously through the tall grass. Bond surveyed the landscape again, took a deep breath, then rose calmly and walked towards them, his pistol pointed down at his side. He raised his left hand.
‘James, no!’ Jordaan whispered.
Bond did not respond. He called to the men, ‘I want to talk to you. If you help me get the names of the other people involved, you’ll receive a reward. There’ll be no charges against you. You understand?’
The two guards, about ten paces apart, stopped. They were confused. They saw that he couldn’t hit them both before the other shot him, yet he was walking slowly in their direction, calm, not lifting his pistol.
‘Do you understand? The reward is fifty thousand rand.’
They stared at each other, nodding a little too enthusiastically. Bond knew they were not seriously considering his offer; they were thinking they might draw him closer before they fired. They faced him.
And as they did so the powerful gun in Bond’s hand barked once, still pointed downward, letting go its final bullet into the ground. As the guards crouched, startled, Bond sprinted to his left, putting a row of trees between him and the guards.
They glanced at each other, then ran forward to where they had a better view of Bond, who dived behind a hill as their Bushmasters began to clatter.
It was then that the entire world exploded.
The muzzle flashes from the men’s