Free Love is a Stranger by John Wiltshire

which meant possibly two guards left with them. Allowing for miscalculation, there were at least five to kill. Ben felt a surge of hope for the first time that night. As he watched, Ibrahim and Usama left the room. The remaining thug brought his gun up to the ready, its sights fixed on Nikolas’s head. The odds were falling in Ben’s favour. He couldn’t approach the kitchen from the gardens at the back because there was an automatic intruder light, something that had often woken him when a stray fox or cat crossed the lawn. He retreated to the offices, checked them through one by one, and then took the back stairs to the first floor landing. From there, he eased silently down the servants’ stairs to the rear passage. He could hear voices in the drawing room but ignored them and slipped into the kitchen. Silent and fast, he broke the neck of the man watching Nikolas. He hefted the body into his arms, noted that Nikolas was immediately up and following him, and they went up the stairs to the very top of the house and into what had once been an old nursery. He dropped the body behind a bed, pulling off his balaclava.
     
    “You took your time.”
     
    “You’ve had new fucking codes installed on the armoury. I had to break in. New Year’s Eve? Hello?”
     
    Nikolas smiled. “Do not swear at me, Benjamin. It is good to see you, though.”
     
    “What’s the situation?”
     
    Nikolas was relieving the guard of his weapon and checking it over. Ben handed him a handgun and a knife as well, slightly surprised at how professionally Nikolas was handling the rifle. “They have everyone in the drawing room. Philipa and eight guests. Ibrahim Allouni, his brother, and they have four men with them that I have seen.”
     
    “Two now.”
     
    Nik smiled. “Good. They will know I am gone very soon and realise that you are here. I do not think they were convinced by my call to you.”
     
    “Yeah, well, you said please. Totally suspicious.” Ben turned to the door. “Why don’t we give them what they want?”
     
    Nikolas froze. “You?”
     
    “Go down and offer me for all the hostages. You drive them out, and I celebrate the New Year by finishing off the rest of the Allouni family.”
     
    “No.”
     
    “It’s what you’ve trained us—”
     
    “I said no.”
     
    “Sir, it’s standard operating—”
     
    “I do not care about standard operating procedures, Benjamin. This is you . Come, I have an idea.”
     
    “But—”
     
    Nikolas came right up to him. “Shut the fuck up for once, and do as I say.”
     
    Ben shut up.
     
    Nikolas led the way cautiously back to the second floor and toward the oldest part of the house. He moved like a cat, silent and graceful. Ben couldn’t help an inappropriate surge of desire, or his thoughts spiralling to how he would like to explore that innate grace. They entered a bedroom, working as a silent, effective team. Ben’s eyes swept the room, and he knew immediately despite the dark that it was Nikolas’s. It was austere but intensely personal at the same time, like the man. The furniture was minimalist, bleached woods and white coverings, one wall covered in black-and-white photographs of, as far as Ben could see, empty, windswept beaches. “Stop gawping and help me, Benjamin.”
     
    Ben came back to himself, frowning, as he helped Nikolas move a large bookcase. Behind it there was a panel, which Nikolas slid to one side, revealing a dark space beyond. “Priest hole.”
     
    Ben chuckled. “I’ve always avoided priests’ holes, especially in my bedroom—hell and damnation and all that.”
     
    “And Benjamin manages the inappropriate comment.” But Nikolas was smiling as he spoke. They stepped in, crouching, and Nikolas slid the panel back.
     
    Ben murmured, “Great plan. We hide up here until everyone gets bored and goes home?”
     
    Nikolas snorted and began to press on the back wall. There was a click as he turned on a flashlight, and then the wall