Killing for the Company

‘ GET DOWN! ’ Luke barked at Suze and Harry. ‘ GET DOWN! ’ The priest drew himself up to confront Luke and was rewarded by the force of the Regiment man’s forearm against his chest, pushing him to the side of the aisle and towards the pews.

‘ FUCKING GET… ’

The gunshots were inaudible, clearly fired from a suppressed weapon. Their consequences, however, were there for everybody to see.

The boy was the first to go. The round hit him in the side of the head, just in front of the left ear. There was a spray of blood over the stone floor of the cathedral, but he didn’t fall fully to the ground because he was still being pulled along by his mother, who looked over her shoulder in annoyance that he appeared to be slouching.

One glance, however, and she realised what had happened.

By now Harry had crumpled to the floor and slid slightly along the stone, smearing the spatter of his own blood as he went. Luke saw Suze silently mouth her son’s name, her face melt into an expression of the purest horror and anguish. Then he heard her voice. ‘Harry! HARRY! ’ Behind him the choir, still oblivious to what had happened, soared towards another mighty climax.

‘ Hit the ground! ’ Luke bellowed at Suze. ‘ HIT THE GROUND! ’

The shooter was standing in the shadows of the third arch along, and had her suppressed handgun pointed, ready to take another shot. Suddenly she was knocked sideways. An old lady appeared where the woman had stood, wearing a grey woollen overcoat and brandishing a heavy, old-fashioned handbag that she’d just swiped at the assassin. The have-a-go-heroine was clearly furious, but in an instant the barrel of the assassin’s gun was touching her head. There was a flash of blood and skull as the old lady’s body absorbed the cartridge and the propellant.

The shooter had turned again. Suze was kneeling in the aisle, cradling the body of her son. A dreadful, desolate moan escaped her lips. Luke had dropped the bronze cross with a clatter. As he ran towards her he sensed the vicar chasing him. He could see that the top three inches of Suze’s head were visible to the shooter above the pews.

The third shot, like the previous two, made barely any noise, but there was a sickening thud as it slammed into the top of Suze’s skull, ripping out a chunk of her head and throwing her about a metre backwards so that she clattered into the pews behind her. When her body came to rest, she was spread-eagled, her arms stretched out to either side, her back leaning against the edge of the pews and her face a bloody and unrecognisable pulp.

Luke dived to the ground, falling hard on his shoulder and turning on to his back to take in the situation. A few members of the choir had realised now what was going on. The music began to falter and suddenly there was a scream from one of the schoolboys in uniform — a little kid who couldn’t have been more than nine. The priest, who had been chasing Luke, was standing among the dead. His face had turned grey with horror and now he was looking directly at the assassin.

Luke hurled himself forward, diving over the child’s body to wrestle the vicar to the floor. But he was too late. The fourth round caught the man on the side of his skull just before Luke’s shoulder made contact with his legs. As Luke barged him to the floor, his blood sprayed an arch over the flagstones.

There was chaos now in the ranks of the choir. Panic echoed around the cathedral. Screaming. Kids and pensioners alike were running from their position in front of the main altar, seeking cover from the sniper in the shadows, while some of them looked around desperately for somewhere to hide. Others were frozen by fear. Why shouldn’t they be? They hadn’t been trained to keep calm under fire. Luke’s head rang with the shouts of terror rebounding off the stone walls and around the dome. He did what he could to ignore them.

Still on all fours in the aisle, and under the cover of the pews, he scrambled back to where he had dropped the bronze cross — his only weapon. Looking forward, he saw three old men who had formed a ring around five frightened kids. He grabbed the cross and scrambled along one of the pews to his right. He had to try to get his hands on the shooter, but that meant keeping out of sight until he was almost upon her.

It took him ten seconds to crawl the length of the pew. He emerged seven or eight metres in front of the small altar where he’d been talking to Suze. He kept low and peered round to his right, his eyes sharp for the woman in the shadow of the arch, ready to take cover again at the first sign of being in her line of fire.

He saw her, but it was fleeting: just the shadow of a black figure stepping over the cordon of the stairwell fifteen metres away and leading down into the crypt. Was that a dead end? She had made her first mistake. Luke jumped up from his hiding position between the pews and sprinted towards the stairwell, where he stopped.