The Miernik Dossier - Charles McCarry [79]
No one but the leader, whom Kalash apparently inspired to stand upright and match testicles, was a very good target. He fell almost at once. It took the others several moments to realize that I was behind them.
When they did, they all turned around and started shooting in my direction. There was no way to move from behind my rock: rounds were slamming into it and throwing dirt all around it. There was a lot of fire coming from the camp, but it was doing the attackers no damage as they were all in the prone position behind boulders of their own. I fired a few bursts around the sides of my rock, but I’m sure I got no results. The bandits were firing whole clips at me. I could hear the M-1’s bang out eight shots as fast as the trigger could be pulled, and then the clang of the empty clips being ejected.
I thought I was a dead man. Then I heard another Sten gun and, looking up the hill, I saw Miernik. He was down in the kneeling position, firing just as he had done at the paper target a few days before—methodical bursts of two and three rounds. The bandits, screaming in panic, began shooting at him. I was able to start firing again. Almost as soon as I did, they began to run. The only way for them to go was straight into the rising moon. They were perfect silhouettes. I stood up and fired a burst. One of them fell. Miernik came down the hill, reaching me as I was putting another magazine in the Sten gun. He put his hand on my arm and said, “Let them go. We’ve done enough.”
Miernik walked over to the men we had shot and turned them over. Idiocy,” he said. “Idiocy.” He uttered a loud sob. He picked up their weapons by the barrels and flung them into the darkness. Then, without another word, he began to run down the hill toward the camp. I followed. The Land Rover, with Kalash at the wheel and Nigel standing up in the front seat with a Sten gun in his hands, went tearing out of the camp. Ilona and Zofia were unhurt, and very calm. For some reason neither of them had any clothes on. The sight of them filled me with joy. I was, after all, alive against all my expectations of a few minutes before. But I felt not even a fficker of sexual desire. Zofia tried to do something about my bloody nose. Both girls stood there, completely unselfconscious, making no effort to cover themselves, until Miernik went and got them a couple of blankets.
Kalash brought back the three men Miernik and I had killed, as well as one who was still alive. He sorted through the bodies and pulled the wounded man out of the Land Rover by the feet. Kalash tried to question him, but the man was too badly shot up to speak before he died. There was blood all over the place. Miernik moved away while Kalash worked on the wounded man, but the girls did not flinch.
Kalash and I searched the bodies. In a wallet carried by the leader we found a thick wad of Sudanese money and a photograph of Kalash. It was a perfect likeness. Kalash was wearing European clothes, and he was seated at a table in an outdoor café that I recognized as the one on the Ile Rousseau in Geneva. Kalash handed me his picture without a word, then took it back and tucked it away in his robe. The money he scattered over the ground. Kalash gazed thoughtfully at the hills for a few moments, then took my arm and walked me out of earshot of the others. “What do you make of all this?” he asked.
“I don’t like their having your picture,” I said.
“No. I wonder where they got it. I’ve never seen it before, and I didn’t notice anyone creeping about the Île Rousseau with a camera while I drank my lemonade. Ilona’s always clicking away, but one wouldn’t think any of these corpses ever knew her.”
“Did she ever photograph you on the Île Rousseau?”
“My dear Paul, she has photographed me everywhere except in bed. A lot of people have taken pictures of me. Total strangers snap me on the streets of Geneva—Germans and Japanese, usually. I find this whole episode very annoying. No sooner am I approached