Pirate - Duncan Falconer [52]
Stratton swung the weapon back up on aim.
‘Down,’ he said softly but firmly, gesturing with a hand at the same time.
The two guards dropped to their knees, their hands still held high.
Stratton stepped around and behind them and pushed them forward to lie on their bellies. They kept their hands stretched out. Stratton stood between their prone bodies, decided what to do with them. There was only really one solution. He raised the carbine and brought the butt down heavily on to the neck of the first guard. There was a crack. Before the other guard could react, Stratton smashed the butt down on to the critical vertebrae of his neck and separated those too. He shuddered like the first one as the life left him.
Stratton rolled the third guard off the girl, who remained lying still. She appeared to be unconscious. Then a sound startled him and he moved to the side of the house, pressing his back against the concrete block wall beside the window. He was an arm’s length from the porch. The front door had opened. It had to be Lotto.
Stratton heard a couple of footsteps move on the wooden boards of the porch. They stopped. Silence followed. Stratton held the gun close, ready to use it, either as a club or as it was designed to be used. The pirate chief’s three guards lay at his feet.
But Lotto didn’t venture to the end of the porch, he looked out on to the street. He struck a match, his grim, toughened features illuminated briefly. He lit a fat cigar that he held in his bright white teeth and blew the smoke into the air.
Stratton waited. It dawned on him that killing the pirate was not such a bad idea. It might throw the rest of the gang into disarray. But then again in operational terms it would be better if their ground-to-air missile programme remained functional until the entire network could be brought down. A change in hierarchy might make everything less predictable. Stratton would take the man down only if he had to.
He heard the front door close and sounds from inside. The clink of a bottle like Lotto was pouring himself a drink. Stratton went to the corner of the building, dropped to a knee and looked between the rails on to the porch. He couldn’t see any movement on the dark street. It was time to get out of there.
He turned his attention to the girl and rested his gun against the wall of the building. It was hard to tell in the poor light whether the marks on her skin were injuries or dirt. He felt her throat. Her heart was racing.
He quickly pulled off the unconscious guard’s trousers and shirt. This was not the time and place to dress her. He stood the girl up, bent down and let her fall forward over his shoulder. He stood. She was light, something he was thankful for. He grabbed the rifle off the wall and made his way uphill between the houses and away from the pirate leader’s house. The wind was strengthening. He got to the top of the town without seeing anyone. The houses stretched out to his left and right, straight ahead nothing but a black, arid wilderness.
He walked into the wasteland with the naked unconscious girl over his shoulder.
9
Stratton headed deep into the darkness, doing his best to go south. It was difficult to gauge by the stars because of the cloud cover. He had gone about a kilometre from the town when he came to a gravel road running across his front. It looked well used. He decided to follow it east. The higher ground had been in that direction as they’d approached from the sea. And he could see a few trees. Which increased the chances of finding water. He walked down the centre of the dusty road.
The girl was drifting in and out of consciousness. He had maintained a brisk pace, which couldn’t have been comfortable for her. But they needed to put as much distance as possible between them and the town. Lotto would no doubt be fuming when he found out, with Stratton as well as with his guards. To escape yet again was a slap in the face. He would not be impressed with the final body count the pirates had suffered that night either.
The track they