Extreme Hard Target Mission 1 - Redeemer by Chris Ryan

Author:Chris Ryan
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Coronet
Published: 2011-02-17T00:00:00+00:00

11

1249 hours.

Gardner had slotted five Messengers but they’d kept on coming and their number had swelled to twenty. Each one decked out in the gang’s unofficial uniform of Ray-Bans, football shirts and PP-2000s. To conserve ammo, Gardner restricted himself to single shots whenever a Messenger slid his head above one of the four brick parapets strewn about the street.

Two guys, a few years older than the rest, yelled at each other. They suddenly leapt out from behind separate spots of cover. Mounted red-dot sights lasered the window. Gardner crouched, just as they pulled the triggers in tandem. Cooked air stroked the back of his head as the Luger rounds pelted the frame, slapping into a metre-high china statue of the Virgin Mary. Five seconds of fury, then Gardner detected a lull. Must be reloading, he thought, as the statue disintegrated into a dust cloud.

The lull was only two seconds, but that was all he needed. He shot to his feet and saw the two guys feeding fresh clips into the housing receivers. One of them was a fraction ahead of his mate, tugging the bolt lever into the closed position at the rear of the barrel. Poised to let Gardner have it. Gardner peered down the Colt’s iron sights and gave the bastard a .223 black eye.

The bullet entered the Messenger’s right socket, flinging brain matter and skull out the back of his head in a frenzied spurt, like uncorked champagne. His mate ditched his PP-2000 and scarpered.

With the other Messengers content to put down rounds from their concealed positions, Gardner pulled back from the window and tended to Falcon.

‘Wal-ah,’ Falcon said. Gardner could see his lips were dry as bread crust. He retrieved Falcon’s canteen and tipped a precious few drops into his open mouth. Falcon swallowed greedily. Gardner had a sip himself. Wished it contained something a little stronger.

Falcon was slipping in and out of consciousness now, his eyes glazed over. Gardner gave him a hard slap on both chops.

‘Wakey, wakey. We need to get arses into gear.’

‘Where am I?’

‘In Rio, mate.’

‘I’m dying.’

‘Bollocks. You’ll be fine.’

Falcon mumbled something that sounded like a prayer.

‘Do yourself a favour and look at the ceiling,’ Gardner said, as isolated bullets pinged against the front of the school. He rolled up Falcon’s left trouser leg, unlacing the combat boot to get a close-up view of the trauma wound.

‘How is it… bad?’

Gardner didn’t reply.

The lower portion of Falcon’s leg was totally fucked.

Beneath his knee the skin was singed and covered in burn marks, like his leg had been used as an ashtray. The bullet wound was a smooth, inch-wide circle bang in the centre of his shin, blowing out the bone and everything else with it – muscle, skin, a piece of his trousers. The lower half of his leg flopped like a rag doll.

‘Want the good news first, or the bad?’

‘I’ll take the good.’

‘It could have been worse,’ Gardner said. ‘You’ve been shot in a part of your body that’s mostly bone. If

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