Pay the Devil - Jack Higgins [71]
Something seemed to flicker in her eyes and she took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “Yes, I’m fine. But what are we going to do? The wood in this house is three hundred years old. It will burn like tinder.”
“Is there another staircase?”
She shook her head. “Only the main one down to the entrance hall.”
A blast of hot air swept along the corridor, moving them on before Clay could consider the position further. What was happening down at the front entrance, he had no means of knowing, but it seemed they were going to find out. There was no other choice.
The floor was warm under their feet and smoke rose from the carpeting as it started to smoulder, and then, almost in slow motion, a plank heaved and buckled a few feet in front of them and a tongue of flame flickered through. Clay realized that the whole of the ground floor must be alight, but he held up an arm before his face to ward off the heat and staggered on, pulling Joanna behind him.
Through the crackling of the flames, he could hear the sound of shooting and a confused babble of voices, and then as he descended two steps into a lower reach of the corridor, a figure stumbled out of the smoke and lurched into him.
It was Burke, and a thin trickle of blood oozed sluggishly down one side of his smoke-blackened face from a gash below his left eye. “There’s no way out for you here, you dog,” Clay said, pushing Joanna behind him.
Burke reeled back against the wall and started to raise the Dragoon Colt. Clay kicked the weapon from his grasp, and as it clattered to the floor, kicked it again along the corridor. They came together, breast to breast.
Clay forgot the pain in his arm, forgot everything except his desire to smash this man into the ground. They rolled together upon the floor, hands tearing at each other, and once Clay screamed as flames licked through the floorboards, touching his bare flesh.
And then they were on their feet, Burke a shade faster. As Clay rose, the agent kicked him in the chest, sending him crashing back against the floor. Clay felt as if the very air had been driven from his lungs. He was conscious of something hard pressing against his back, and scrabbled for it as Burke moved forward and raised a boot to stamp down onto his unprotected face. Clay’s right hand came out from under him, clutching the Dragoon. He cocked it and fired in the same move at point-blank range.
Burke was pushed back against the wall as the heavy slug tore into his vitals. A strange expression compounded of agony and bitterness appeared on his face, as if he was angry that fate had cheated him to the last. Then blood erupted from his mouth. He folded his hands over his wound, as if to hold in the life which drained from him, sagged slowly at the knees and rolled over on his back.
Clay tried to sit up and Joanna appeared beside him, hair dishevelled, face black with smoke. “Get up!” she screamed. “We haven’t got a moment to lose.”
He was still holding the Dragoon in his right hand and he thrust it into his pocket and followed her. As they reached the head of the stairs, the smoke cleared. The floorboards of the landing were already on fire and so was the staircase itself. Down below, four of Burke’s men still fought desperately behind their barricade, firing out through the side windows.
As Clay pulled out the Colt and started down to the hall, one of the men began to pull away the barricade from the door. “We’ll be burned alive if we stay here any longer,” he screamed.
At the same moment, the stair carpet burst into flames, and Joanna gave a cry of pain and moved down a step hurriedly. The men turned and looked up and Clay raised the Colt. “Get that door opened before we all roast,” he cried. “Do as I say and I’ll see no one harms you.”
One by one, they dropped their weapons and started to clear the barricade. Clay