(10) Firefight

Pinned down and out numbered, Ulrich and Pia fight for their lives.

Ulrich didn’t like it at all. They were walking blindly towards their ticket home, and there was something constantly clawing at the back of his neck. Some lingering doubt, some paranoid sensation of surveillance, some… fear. Stop it, he thought. Harden up. You cry baby.

 

            But that darkness…

 

            There was nothing like it. Nowhere else in the world. No place had ever been as dark as this, nor would be again. But that’s why they chose it, he thought. This is a safe place.

 

            But still…

 

            Where was Harley? There were no lights on anywhere. There was no sign of him at all. Not a car, not a shadow, not a footprint. What if he’d been intercepted? What if he never arrived? What if he sold them out and the cops were lying in wait? Or worse. This was the perfect place for an ambush, he thought. So much cover. So many angles. So hard take the advantage. It was almost perfect. Ulrich’s eyes were almost used to the dark but it did little to put his mind at ease. His vision still couldn’t penetrate every corner, every shadow, every window. There were buildings lining the road on the left. Offices, most likely. Ahead there was a storehouse, the door hanging open. Unused building materials were littered everywhere, and the foundations of a never-realised construction protruded from the ground on the right. In some places the trees and shrubs had started to reclaim this land. Well, they can have it, he thought.

 

            “Wait here,” Andrea Huttner said, pacing forwards. In the gloom ahead Ulrich could make out a number of people, but just how many he couldn’t tell. Maybe four? But if you can see four, it means there’s eight. That’s what they taught him back at the academy. Military Intelligence is a misnamed concept.

           

            Huttner began to speak with a man whom Ulrich could not see. He was too far away to make out the words, and he risked a frightened glance at the two women beside him. Pia’s face was stern and serious, and Heather was watching intently. Neither were looking at Ulrich, to his relief, as he could feel that his own face was not able to maintain such strength. Once they got on the boat he’d be alright. Once they were on their way. Once they were going home.

 

            “Bring him out here,” Huttner said, his voice carrying to Ulrich’s ears for the first time. But it wasn’t the Huttner he knew. Not the strong, fearless leader, not the voice of a commander and an officer. It was the voice of warning. It was a call to arms. At that moment, Ulrich realised that Harley was most likely already dead.

 

            And he would be soon, too.

 

            Inside his chest, Ulrich’s heart went into overdrive. A shiver ran the length of his spine and his body began to sweat. He was primed, and he was terrified. He reached for his pistol as subtly as his shaking hands could manage, and flicked back the safety.

 

            Nine years for this…

 

            Huttner was reaching into his bag, he was withdrawing the serum. He was going to hand it over and buy their way onto the boat. Such a naïve idea, Ulrich thought, but it seemed the only point of hope he had right now. They were in the open and outnumbered. There was little chance for escape.

 

            Bang.

 

            The first gunshot. Ulrich felt it in his chest and in his head, in his ears and in his gut. It took him a second or two to realise he hadn’t actually been hit, but one look at Huttner told him exactly what had happened. Ulrich didn’t even bother to run, he raised his gun and prepared to fire. Before he could pull the trigger he was caught in the stomach by something much larger than a bullet, and as the clatter of machinegun fire tore into the bitumen he was dragged sideways behind a stack of steel beams. It was Pia, gun in hand, who had saved him. Now she cowered low behind the steel and checked her weapon, but to Ulrich their tiny pistols seemed like pea shooters compared to the artillery that was pounding down around them. Why did Harley have the rifle? They could sure use it now.

 

            There was a break in gunfire and Ulrich could here little over his and Pia’s panting. Being scared to death really took it out of you, he thought. But where was Heather? Ulrich glanced back at the road where they’d been standing, and his question was answered. Heather lay on the bitumen, spread out on her back. A dark pool glistened in the moonlight as it seeped away from her, and though her hand was still grasping at the empty air he knew that she was gone. His breath evened at the sight, and having seen the worst case scenario with his own eyes sense began to return to him. They needed a plan, and they needed one fast.

 

            “Are you hit?” Pia asked frantically. “Jesus Christ, where’s Heather?”

 

            Ulrich met her gaze and shook his head. Pia shook her whole body. It started at her head, like a little bobble head on the dashboard of a car, and then it rocked her whole being. She was going into panic.

 

            “We have to move,” he said as calmly as he could, and grabbed her by the shoulder before she had time to argue. Another hail of bullets shredded the air around them but they made it through the open door of a water damaged office and threw themselves behind a row of tables. Moonlight streamed in through the windows, illuminating the dust they’d kicked up in their mad dash as it swirled in the air. Ulrich threw himself against the wall and slid to the floor as another round of gunfire shook the air around him. On the other side of the doorway he saw Pia do the same.

 

            “Three shot bursts,” she shouted. “Go!”

 

            Ulrich sprung to the window and spotted a target. A thickset man with a tight visorless cap was creeping forward, a large and heavy looking weapon suspended from his shoulder by a strap. He clasped it with both hands and had it trained on the doorway, which bought Ulrich half a second. He fired three shots in the direction of the machine gunner and hurled himself further along the inside of the wall before he could tell if he’d landed a hit. He scooted along the floor as the wall was torn apart by bullets meant for him.

 

            “How many?” he shouted at Pia as she, too, fired a burst out a window.

 

            “I count four,” she shouted back, reloading her gun. She’d fired more shots than Ulrich had realised. “One down.”

 

            An agonising groan reached out across the battlefield. It was a disturbing, mindless moan that asked for nothing but an end to pain, a rescue by any means. It was pure survival instinct, akin to that of a wounded deer. It was inhuman. No, it was the enemy.

 

            “There are far more than that,” he called back, and fired another burst out the window. “Six at least.”

 

            Bullets were flying thick and heavy into the office, and Ulrich had lost his will to aim. Instead he raised the pistol to the window and fired blind. There was no option except death, and he’d be damned if he died with bullets left. Pia was laying low, and there was silence from her end of the room. Ulrich looked at her, lying on the floor. His heart sunk at the sight. The wall where she’d been sheltering was torn apart, the flimsy material dangling loosely from the large bullet holes. I’m alone, he thought. Last man standing. That counts for something, at least.

 

            As he stared, a man lunged through the doorway with a submachine gun at the ready. He was facing Pia, facing away from Ulrich, and it took him only a moment to see the lady face down in the rubble and spin towards Ulrich. Ulrich pulled his trigger, but nothing happened. There was a dull click, but no bang. No kick. No bullet. He was done for…

 

            There was a gunshot, and Ulrich mistakenly thought it was meant for him. The gunner in the doorway cried out and collapsed to his knee, blood spattering from his thigh. Behind him Pia was aiming her second shot more carefully, and when she fired she ended the man’s life. She’d been playing dead.

 

            “Thanks,” he nodded.

 

            “I’m out,” Pia replied, her voice shaking. She was not hit, but there was nothing left but death in her eyes. Just grim acceptance. No more fight.

 

            Ulrich reached inside his pockets and felt around for another clip. Just one more clip, and they’d have two guns again. All he’d have to do was throw it to her and they had a fighting chance. Not much of one, but they might be able to take one or two more with them. But there was nothing there. He had the four bullets left in his gun, and no more. Four bullets… and at least four more out there. What was he thinking? There was a submachine gun on the floor.

 

            “Grab his one,” he called, gesturing, but before she had time to act something heavy landed on the floor with a thud. Ulrich stared at the metal cylinder as it rolled into the corner, failing to bounce. It looked almost like a can of deodorant, except that Ulrich knew what it was. He’d used them before, and it didn’t bode well for them. He had only a couple of seconds before it exploded.

 

            Thousands of small pieces of debris pelted his body at very high velocity, and the noise… it was as if the whole world had exploded. It shook him completely, laying a sudden and unforgiving force upon everything that was Ulrich Classon. He felt as if god himself had reached down and crushed him with a gigantic finger, pinning him to the ground and smothering his every sense, his ability to think, and his ability to breathe. For a moment he wasn’t Ulrich Classon, he was a pile of bone and flesh, blood and cartilage. But he recovered.

 

            Pain was the first thing that came back. In his chest and face, but mostly in his leg. He felt around the back of his calf with a hand to find that the fabric of his pants had been torn open, and the skin beneath cooked in an instant. He opened his mouth to scream but he could take in no air, nothing at all but smoke and soot. He tried and tried again to scream but there was not a sound that his mouth could make, not a sound that his ears could hear but a constant growing throb that hammered on his chest and skull, and he wasn’t even capable opening his eyes. But there was one thing that stuck in his mind through it all, one thought that pushed him to battle the crippling pain and anguish gripping his mind.

 

            Four bullets. He still had four bullets.

 

            With the help of his fingers he pulled an eye open, but he was unable to determine where he was. He couldn’t find the wall, he couldn’t find the door. Hell, he couldn’t even feel which was down. But something was reaching him now. A sound was pushing through the suffocation. Was it real or in his head? Was it a sound at all or an imagination, hallucination. No, it was someone screaming. Pia? Where was she? No. It wasn’t Pia. It was him screaming. The sound came from his own throat, and swirled around in the air, taking its time to come back to him. There was still gunfire, and as he tried to locate its source he saw Pia on one knee, classic firing position, with the submachine gun pressed to her shoulder. The mouth of the gun was screaming too, belting out metal notes that seeped into Ulrich’s brain though his stomach, or so it felt. She was saying something. He could see her lips moving but he couldn’t make it out. Was it her speaking or the gun?

 

            “Ulrich!” she was screaming, he could hear it now. His name, oh how good to hear his name! Yes! Ulrich is still here!

 

            He tried to call back to her but there was something caught in his throat. He had to cough it up first, and after he did he raised a hand to make a point of himself, but stopped short. Was that another hallucination he heard? Or could he really hear police sirens? They were wavering around his head but he couldn’t be sure.

 

            Before him Pia had taken shelter with her back pressed tightly against the wall. She was breathing heavily and clumsily fumbling through the dead man’s pockets for more bullets. A loud, low voice shouted a sudden order, though Ulrich couldn’t understand the words. He rolled onto his stomach and tried to push himself into a sitting position, feeling the pain all down his back.

 

            “Pia,” he moaned. “Pia what’s happening?”

 

            She looked at him, pale as a ghost. There was a flash of relief on her face and she laughed. Ulrich couldn’t hear it but it looked like an ugly laugh, brought forth from some dark part of the human soul. She peered over the window sill.

 

            “They’re retreating to the boat,” she said, staggering to her feet. “We made it!”

 

            Pia cautiously crossed the doorway with her weapon raised, and crouched by Ulrich’s side. She kept her eyes on the outside of the office the whole time, and didn’t even look down as she took Ulrich’s pulse. A second later her gun was on the ground and she rolled him over, hastily assessing his injuries.

 

            “Oh, Jesus,” she muttered. Ulrich was impressed with the level of hearing he’d already regained, but disheartened at the same time by her grim diagnosis. “Do you think you can walk? We’ve got to get out of here.”

 

            In response Ulrich pushed himself up onto his elbows, and strained to get his body upright with as little pressure on his injured leg as possible. It was is right leg that had nearly been blown away, but his left was fortunately sheltered from the blast. He was able to support his own weight, but not capable of a quick getaway.

 

            “There’s a back door,” he stammered, trying to draw Pia’s attention away from himself. “Let’s go.”

 

            Ulrich raised himself to his full height, and Pia propped her shoulder in his arm pit. She had the sling of the submachine gun on her shoulder and was able to hold it reasonably stead with one arm, and when they got to the back door she kicked it open. Together they limped outside into the overgrown dunes behind the pier, with no real idea of where they were going. But they’d pulled through, the two of them. It’d be a shame to fall into the hands of the police now. They had to keep moving.