Free The Vanishing by John Connor Page B

Please stop and think …’
    ‘That’s Janine,’ she said. She started to shake. She had to bring her eyes off the sight. ‘Look at her. Look what they’ve done …’
    He stared through the slit. He didn’t need the scope. They were close enough to see. There was a woman kneeling on the ground, next to the pile of bodies. The woman he had met last night, perhaps – Janine Mailot. But she looked different now. She was naked, he thought, blood streaked across her skin. She was crying hysterically. Just kneeling there, hands behind her back, crying. In the thick of the nightmare. He gritted his teeth. He could guess what they had done to her. ‘Christ,’ he whispered. ‘Christ Jesus …’ There was a white guy in view, standing behind her. He had a gun, though it wasn’t pointed at her. Was he holding her hair in one of his hands? Another guy – also white – was walking around the edges of the area, saying something. Nearer to the big house two black men were leaning against the wall, one squatting, smoking, both armed, both just watching the woman, as though something perfectly normal was going on.
    ‘There’s nothing we can do, Sara,’ Tom said. ‘The only thing we can do is get down from here, get to that phone and try to get help …’
    ‘They’ll kill her …’
    ‘No. They’re using her …’
    Even as he spoke he heard a loud shout. Not the man standing beside Janine, but the other, who was out of sight now. What had he said?
    ‘SARA EATON!’
    They both heard it clearly this time. He was shouting her name.
    ‘SARA EATON. I HAVE YOUR FRIEND, JANINE MAILOT. I HAVE HER HERE. IF YOU COME TO ME THEN SHE WILL NOT BE HURT. YOU TOO WILL NOT BE HURT. THAT IS MY PROMISE. I WILL GIVE YOU TEN MINUTES. TEN MINUTES, THEN I KILL HER.’
    There was a heavy accent to the voice. Tom took his eyes from the scene and moved closer to Sara, so his face was almost touching hers. ‘Let’s go,’ he said urgently. ‘It’s a trick. We have to get away from here.’ But she had her eyes on the scope again. ‘Don’t touch me,’ she said. ‘Don’t move.’ He heard her take a breath, then hold it. He reached a hand to pull the gun away from her. His fingers were less than an inch from the stock when she squeezed the trigger.
    Suppressed or not, the report was deafening, the recoil kicking back into her so hard the entire platform moved. His jaw dropped, but his eyes were still focused on the scene ahead. He saw the man behind Janine punched backwards, on to his knees, then over on to his face. She’d hit him. She’d actually aimed the thing, fired and hit him. Tom was dumbstruck. He couldn’t believe it. She had just squeezed and fired while he was lying there uselessly, right beside her.
    While he was still getting his head round it she fired a second round, making him jump again. He had imagined she would have to do something with the bolt first – maybe she had, but so quickly he’d missed it.
    The black guys began to run now. ‘Stop. For God’s sake stop,’ he hissed. But it was too late. Someone started firing an automatic weapon. One of the black guys stumbled, then brought up a gun and started shooting towards them. Suddenly, there was tracer whipping through the air above them. He could hear the singing crack as bullets went over his head and thwacked into the tree trunks. He cowered down, pressing his chin into the boards, but Sara was still going, pulling a magazine from the gun, slotting in another, working the action. He kept his eyes open, squinting through the slit. He wanted to move, to get up and leap backwards, run. But his limbs were frozen with fright. All he could do was watch. The tracers came in short bursts, arcing upwards and zipping away to the left of them.
    The man she’d shot was crawling towards Janine, reaching a hand out to grab her. Janine was still kneeling there, in the middle of it all, howling and trembling. Sara got the gun down and fired once more. The man on the