The Martyr's Curse Read Free

to be right. The compound was deserted and empty apart from a parked row of Jeeps in Korean People’s Army colours.
    ‘We’ve taken them all out, that’s why,’ said Hannah. ‘There’s hardly anyone guarding this place. Which means we need to turn around and go back inside and get the stuff. Right now. Before it’s too late.’
    Streicher said nothing. He stood still, his head cocked a little to one side as if he was smelling the air.
    ‘She’s right, Udo,’ Schilling said. ‘We have time. We can still do this.’
    ‘It’s what we came here for,’ Hannah said. ‘It’s why we chose this place, remember? That’s what you told us. Our best chance. Our only chance.’
    Streicher said nothing.
    ‘I’m up for it. Or else we came all this way for nothing,’ Roth said.
    ‘And Dieter died for nothing,’ Schilling said.
    Streicher said, ‘There’s no time. It will have to wait.’
    ‘Wait how long? Months? Years?’
    ‘As long as it takes.’
    ‘No. I want to do this,’ Hannah said.
    So did Streicher. He wanted it more than anything in the world. But he shook his head. ‘Listen.’
    He’d heard it the moment they stepped outside. It had been barely audible over the sirens, but now the sound was growing. It was the growling rumble of vehicles approaching. Hard to tell how many. Enough to be a serious problem. Enough to have made him absolutely right about getting out of here, this minute.
    ‘Oh, shit,’ Hannah said, as she heard it too.
    Then they saw where the sound was coming from, and suddenly things were very much worse.
    The line of military vehicles emerged at speed from the jungle, roaring along the road right for the main gate. Six of them, ex-Russian GAZ Vodnik troop carriers, each carrying up to nine men. The column made no attempt to slow for the gate. The first vehicle crashed straight through, steel frame and galvanised wire mesh crumpling and folding underneath its wheels as it stormed inside the compound followed by the rest of the convoy. The vehicles fanned out and skidded to a halt. Their hatches flew open and a mass of men spilled out. More than fifty fully armed troops. Against nine.
    ‘Fuck them,’ Torben Roth said. He snapped another magazine into his Uzi. Hannah raised her pistol. Gröning and Hinreiner looked at each other, then at Guidinetti.
    The clatter of small-arms fire filled the compound. Roth held his ground. A burst to the left; a burst to the right. Then he staggered and dropped his Uzi and blood flew and hit the wall behind him. Streicher ducked down low and ran to the fallen man and saw that his face had been ripped open by a rifle bullet. Streicher grasped him by the arms and began dragging him behind cover, helped by Gröning. Hannah kept on firing. Several of the soldiers were down, but now the Russian GAZ Vodniks were advancing and bringing their on-board heavy machine guns into play. The roar shattered the air; 14.5mm bullets ploughed through the parked Jeeps, gouged craters in the buildings, chewed up the concrete.
    Streicher now knew beyond any doubt that he’d been right. Things were bad enough already. If they’d stayed inside the building a minute longer, none of them would have made it this far alive.
    ‘Help me,’ he yelled, dragging the bleeding, disfigured Roth. Between them, he and Wolf Schilling and Miki Donath managed to manhandle the injured man out of the field of fire and between the buildings while the others did what they could to hold back the soldiers.
    The firepower coming at them was overwhelming. Hannah fell back when her pistol was empty. Guidinetti was hit in the shoulder and Evers was supporting him as they made their retreat. How so many of them made it back to the hole in the wire without getting shot to pieces, Streicher would never know. Staggering through the undergrowth towards the trees with Roth’s weight slippery and bloody in his arms, he was praying that the soldiers hadn’t already intercepted the waiting