Free Sure Fire by Jack Higgins Page A

too late. Just get out. Make sure the sample is safe and get out before…” His words were smothered by a fit of coughing. A red trickle ran from the corner of his mouth.
    â€œDon’t be stupid,” Jade told him. “We can’t just leave you.”
    â€œGet out!” the man said again, more forcefully. He tried to heave himself up, but the effort was too much and he collapsed back on to the sofa. Hereached inside his coat with his other hand, and when it came out again he was holding a gun – a flat, black pistol. “I’ll do what I can for you,” he said.
    Rich stared at the gun. “Maybe we should do as he says.” But he didn’t think the man was threatening them. He was warning them about something – someone else. “You’ve lost a lot of blood,” he said.
    The man coughed and Rich realised he was trying to laugh. “Just a bit. Go on, get out of here. While you still can.”
    It was then that the window exploded. Glass showered across the carpet, followed by the wooden support struts as a large dark figure crashed into the room. Rich just had time to see that he was holding a handgun. It was pointing straight at Rich and Jade. They hugged each other close.
    There was the crack of a shot. Rich flinched. But it was the man on the sofa – Phillips – who was shooting. Two shots in rapid succession.
    The man from the window staggered back. His own gun went off, firing a single bullet into the ceiling. Then a third shot from Phillips cannoned into the man’s chest and he was thrown backwards – back out of the window.
    If the man cried out, his voice was lost in the sound of the front door shattering. Rich ran to the window, trainers crunching on broken glass and splinters of wood.
    â€œWe can’t jump!” Jade yelled at him and he realised she was right. There was a rope hanging outside – how the man had got in. But it ended at the level of the window. He’d come down from the roof.
    Jade grabbed Rich’s hand and pulled him away, back towards the door from the hall.
    â€œWe can’t go out there,” Rich hissed at her. Already he could hear the thump of running feet.
    But Jade pulled him into cover behind the door. Just as two black-clad figures arrived in the opening.
    Phillips had managed to twist round on the sofa. Rich could see the man, teeth gritted with pain, as he brought his gun to bear, shooting over the top of the sofa’s back.
    One of the figures in the doorway seemed to stumble. The other was holding a larger gun – like a rifle, but with a stocky barrel. A machine pistol. The noise it made was deafening, echoing round the room.
    The force of the gunfire moved the sofa across thefloor. Phillips had disappeared from sight. Ragged holes appeared in the plaster on the wall the other side of the sofa, and Rich shuddered to think what was happening to Phillips himself. Then the bullets raked across the wall, cracking into the television, which exploded.
    The man with the machine pistol had run into the room as he fired. The other man stumbled after him and dropped to the floor, aiming a handgun. Rich could see his black jersey was wet on one side, and guessed it was blood from where Phillips’s shot had hit him.
    But he didn’t wait to see any more. He pulled Jade with him out of the unguarded door, desperate to be out of the room before either of the men turned and saw them.
    He was almost quick enough. Almost, but not quite.
    The man on the floor was reaching back to examine where he’d been shot, and must have caught sight of Rich and Jade out of the corner of his eye. He cried out and raised the pistol.
    A bullet ripped into the wall of the hall as Rich and Jade ran for the front door. A second later, adeafening burst of automatic fire stitched a line of holes after them.
    The front door was a shattered mess of wood. The hinges were twisted and broken. Rich and Jade pushed