Free The Prisoner by Robert Muchamore

gangplank, but Fischer was hopeless, his bullets splintering the wooden handrail and clanking against the hull several metres off target.
    ‘You’re better off dead,’ Fischer shouted, furious at his poor marksmanship. ‘I’ll shatter every bone in your body.’
    At the top of the gangplank Marc faced double doors in one direction and a section of warped decking leading up to Adler ’s bow in the other. He crouched low, but before he got a second to think a fourth guard who’d heard the shots charged through the doors.
    ‘What’s going on?’ he shouted, unaware that Marc was so close.
    Marc grabbed a life-preserver ring and used everything he could muster to whack the guard in the face with it. As the guard crumpled, clutching a bloody nose, Fischer was charging up the gangplank with his pistol poised.
    Marc jumped on top of his victim. His first thought was to snatch the rifle hung over the dazed guard’s shoulder, but the man’s jacket was open, exposing a ceremonial dagger with a red and black swastika embossed in the handle.
    ‘Hands up,’ Fischer shouted, as he came around the top of the gangplank, aiming the pistol from less than three metres.
    Marc had decided to die rather than surrender. With a single movement, he rolled off the guard and threw the knife. Marc was an expert knife thrower so his aim was no accident, but you need to gauge the weight of a knife and throw it a few dozen times before you get any sense of how it flies, so it was more by luck than judgement that the blade speared Fischer’s heart pointy end first.
    Fischer squeezed the trigger as he staggered backwards towards the bow. Marc sniffed gunpowder and felt a thud. He thought he’d been hit until he saw the shattered hip of the guard lying on the ground beside him.
    Blood poured across the deck as Marc freed the rifle.
    Fischer was thrashing about, trying to rip the knife out of his heart as blood foamed out of his mouth.
    Marc worried that another guard could burst out of the doors behind him, but there was enough light escaping the guard hut for him to see Osterhagen sprinting towards the telephone by the main gate. Marc took two shots with the rifle. The first only tore a lump out of the quayside concrete, but the second smashed Osterhagen in the base of the spine.
    Marc ripped the pistol out of Fischer’s hand, guessing that there could only be one or two shots left. The fat guard was still around somewhere and Fischer had just told Osterhagen that there were usually six on duty, so Marc kept low as he crept down the gangplank.
    When Marc reached the bottom, fatty was squatting with his hands raised in surrender. He looked harmless, but Marc didn’t have time to faff about disarming him or tying him up.
    What would Charles Henderson do?
    ‘Please,’ the German begged, backing up as Marc swung around with the rifle and squeezed the trigger.
    The muzzle lit up and the fat man’s head clanked against the Adler ’s hull before splashdown in the river. Marc did a 360, looking for more guards, then slung the rifle over his shoulder as he limped quickly towards the gate.
    Osterhagen was a mess, face down with a bloody hole in the back of his jacket and passed out in shock. Marc felt guilty as he crouched down and ripped the blood-soaked keys off his belt.
    The telephone receiver was dangling and Marc heard a crackly voice on the other end going, Did we hear shots? We’re sending a response team over , as he tried the keys in the lock. Marc considered telling them things were fine, but while he spoke decent German he reckoned his age and French accent counted against passing himself off as one of the guards.
    When Marc got to the fifth key he remembered that Osterhagen worked on the Oper , so why would he have the key for this gate?
    Marc decided to look in the hut. If that failed he’d have to go back up the gangplank to get them off Fischer. When he turned back towards the Adler , Marc noticed a few prisoners out on the deck,