DELIVERANCE: a gripping action thriller full of suspense (12 page)

‘She’ll live,’ Groth tells him, as he draws a gun. ‘You, however, will not. Now then, down on your knees.’

‘You taking orders from Quinn?’ Marshall asks as he kneels. ‘Big boy like you? Can’t you think for yourself?’

Marshall feels that he needs to anger this guy. Get him nearer to where he can deal with him.

‘I’m pretty good at thinking for myself, thanks,’ Groth states. ‘It’s just that Quinn and I think alike.’

‘If you kill me, Quinn won’t be happy,’ Marshall tells him.

‘I’ve heard all about you, Marshall,’ Groth replies, mockingly. ‘The famous soldier! But you don’t really live up to the legend, do you? I’m not even a fully trained combatant, and look how easily I have brought you to your knees.’

Marshall wonders what the hell he is talking about, but he seems to like the sound of his own voice, that’s for sure. Perhaps Marshall can draw this out for a little longer.

The gun that the guy is holding is a Glock-17, presumably loaded with a round chambered. He is aiming directly at Marshall’s chest with his right hand, and using his left hand to steady his aim. It is a good firing stance.

There is nothing else in the alleyway. Nothing at all. And everything happened so quickly, Marshall can’t assume that they were seen going into the alleyway, either.

But he knows that he needs to play for time, and if possible find a way to switch positions.

‘What’s your name?’ he asks.

‘Groth. Although most people know me as
the pimp
.’

‘Where were you trained? You certainly seem very capable.’

‘Now that would be telling,’ Groth responds, laughing idiotically, ‘but our training wasn’t so different, y’know.’

‘Yours and mine?’ Marshall asks.

‘Yep,’ Groth gloats. ‘We were cut from the same cloth, Marshall; but I was silk and you was cotton.’

Marshall felt like laughing out loud at this, despite the fact the guy was pointing a gun at him, but was careful to hold his tongue and keep a straight face. ‘Ok Groth,’ he says calmly, ‘let’s assume that you are going to kill me anyway. Do you really want to fire towards the street?’

‘Like I care,’ Groth sneers.

‘It could get messy, y’know. Why not switch positions with me? That way you are only firing into the alley.’

Groth realizes that Marshall has a point, but what’s he playing at? ‘What’s in it for you?’ Groth asks, still holding the pistol rock steady.

‘I get to take one last look at Sarah before I die,’ Marshall says.

‘Fine. I was told not to kill you anyway. Quinn wants to kill you herself.’

‘Excellent,’ Marshall says. ‘Let’s hope she makes it in time then.’

‘But you know what?’ Groth continues, ‘I think I’d quite like a shot at the title myself.’

As he plans his next few moves, Marshall begins to wonder if Groth is insane, as well as thick. The alley is narrow, so he will be within reach of Groth for at least seven seconds whilst they swap positions, which is easily enough time.

But then Groth scuppers the plan.

‘As you’re probably going to try something stupid,’ Groth says, ‘we will do this a different way.’

He walks over to where Sarah is lying, crouches down, and holds the broken bottle so that it is touching her neck.

‘You will walk all of the way past us, as close to the other wall as you possibly can,’ Groth says. ‘I have enough pressure applied to her neck to ensure that any sudden move will see me slice her jugular wide open, so no heroics.’

Marshall nods, and begins to walk further into the alleyway slowly, inching his body along the wall. As he reaches Groth and Sarah he has to struggle with the urge to snap the guy’s spine, but he can’t do that without killing Sarah also. So he will just have to see what the next few moments bring.

***

At about that same moment, not far from the alleyway, Officer James Avens strolls along North Street with a song in his heart. Maybe the flowers will lead to a date? Maybe the date will lead to a future, who knows?

He is still thinking about Jasmine, which is why he keeps walking a few paces whilst his mind catches up with what he has just seen. He has just walked past an alleyway, and happened to glance down it. In the alleyway was a man pointing a gun at another man, and a girl lying on the floor.

He reaches for his weapon.

It’s not there.

He has left it secured in the glovebox of his police car.

Cautiously, he moves back towards the entrance to the alleyway and peers around the corner. The two men have now somehow switched positions, but the guy with the gun looks ready to fire.

Officer James Avens assesses his options.

He has none.

He turns and begins to walk back the way he came.

Chapter Seventeen

Marshall realises that now he and Groth have switched positions, he must put Sarah in the line of fire. He is not being selfish: Groth has made it clear that Sarah must survive this encounter if possible, so Marshall is pretty certain that he will not immediately fire if she is in the line of sight.

Or so Marshall hopes.

He moves over to Sarah, leans down and kisses her cheek. Then he stands back up, keeping Sarah to his rear and directly in Groth’s line of sight.

Groth raises the pistol again.

‘Any last requests?’ he says.

‘A lottery win and a date with Joanne Guest,’ Marshall says, without missing a beat. An automatic response from way back in the services.

‘Sorry, punk, I’m all out of both. Now then, eyes open, or eyes closed?’

Marshall understands now that as this guy really does love the sound of his own voice, maybe he can stall him a little while longer.

‘So then, are you some white version of 50 Cent or something?’ Marshall asks.

Groth stares bank blankly.

Not the sharpest tack
, Marshall notes.

‘Your nickname,’ Marshall states. ‘The pimp?’

Groth smiles proudly.

‘Let’s just say that I am the general manager of a very lucrative local business.’

‘That’s a shame,’ Marshall says sadly.

‘What? Why?’

‘I think the world needs more white rappers. Eminem’s first two albums were excellent.’

Groth doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about, but he’s not going to let on. ‘Funny guy,’ he says, with a faux laugh.

‘I try.’

‘Well, here’s a rhyme for you,’ Groth begins. ‘Marshall the legend, down on his knees, whilst the pimp towers over him, very pleased. He came all the way here, just to die, by the hand of a lesser soldier, but more competent guy.’

‘It’s not bad.’ Marshall begins.

‘Thank you.’

‘For a primary school child,’ Marshall adds.

Groth responds by raising his gun.

‘Eyes open, or eyes closed?’

‘Open,’ Marshall states. ‘Make it up close, like a man.’

‘We’ll do three inches,’ Groth says, grinning obscenely. ‘My favourite. Enough to leave burn marks from the powder, but far enough away for a massive exit wound.’

‘I don’t care,’ Marshall explains. ‘I’ll be dead.’

‘Place your hands behind your back and set yourself seven paces away,’ Groth orders.

Marshall does as he is told.

‘I will count back from five,’ Groth says, ‘and as I do, you will take a pace forward with each number. Zero will be me pulling the trigger. Any sudden moves and I pull the trigger early. Do you understand?’

Marshall nods solemnly. ‘Yes. I understand.’

‘Then I shall begin counting.’

Marshall thinks to himself that if this were a movie, then this would be the point where the cavalry would show up.

But they don’t of course.

He had hoped that perhaps Charlie would arrive to help by now, but he must face the facts: he is on his own.

Marshall has had a lot of psychological training. When he was in the SAS, he questioned a lot of people, and often without much time to do it in. Since leaving the services he has continued to study psychology on a purely amateur level.

He hopes all of this training and study will pay off now.

‘Five,’ Groth shouts, louder than he needs to, because his adrenalin level is pumped right up.

Marshall takes a step forward.

‘Four,’ Groth shouts, slightly quieter now, as he brings himself slowly under control.

Marshall steps forward again.

‘Three,’ Groth says, barely louder than a normal speaking voice now. Again, Marshall paces forwards.

Groth mentioned that he has received the same training as Marshall, so Marshall knows he won’t get to zero. That wasn’t the way Marshall was trained. Groth will fire on one.

‘Two,’ Groth says, calm again now, completely under control: his gun hand completely steady, and aiming directly at Marshall’s head.

Then Marshall takes a step back.

Groth freezes and his mind locks up. He has been presented with a situation he did not expected, which gives Marshall a crucial extra second and a half advantage.

‘Freeze!’ a voice calls from the end of the alley.

Groth instinctually turns around to look.

Marshall does not hesitate.

As Groth’s head turns, Marshall leaps forward and covers the gap between them in half a second. He pulls his left fist back, and lands an epic punch to the back of Groth’s neck.

200lbs of moving muscle.

Groth pitches forward, whilst the bullet with Avens’s name on it harmlessly hits the dirt five feet away. Marshall then places his hands around Groth’s right arm and forcefully tugs it backwards, the way it’s not supposed to go; breaking Groth’s elbow and causing him to instantly drop the pistol.

‘I said freeze!’ Avens calls out again.

Marshall pauses to look up towards where the voice is coming from. A cop for sure, from the way he is standing there holding what looks like a piping set from a flower stand, rather than an actual gun. Very clever. It was obviously enough to fool Groth for a crucial moment, anyway.

Also, only cops shout freeze.

‘I just saved your life,’ Marshall calls out. ‘This guy was just about to end mine, and hers,’ he adds, pointing towards Sarah. ‘Your call, justice.’

Avens stares down the alley at the unconscious body of Sarah and is stunned by the likeness to Jasmine. He knows what he should do as a cop, but this man has just saved his life. That is the best way he can rationalise it. For only the second time in his entire police service, he does something he knows is wrong.

‘I’ll be in the coffee shop,’ he says. ‘And I would appreciate an explanation.’ Then he simply turns and walks away.

As soon as the spell is broken, Groth attempts to turn and kick out at Marshall.

I don’t think so pal
, Marshall thinks as he shakes Groth’s broken arm violently.

Groth screams in agony.

Marshall spins him around by the same arm and then shoves him to the ground.

No mercy.

Once on the floor, Marshall stamps heavily on Groth’s remaining good arm at the wrist joint.

Not getting back up now, are you?
he thinks. But he is wrong. Groth obviously has very strong abdominal muscles, and he immediately bends at the waist and sits up. Marshall kicks him in the throat purely as a reflex, and puts him down on his back again.

With Groth side-lined for a moment, Marshall looks across at Sarah and realises she is still suffering at his expense. He pushes his boot beneath Groth’s back and flips him painfully onto his front. Then Marshall wraps his right arm around Groth’s throat. Groth tries to free himself, but Marshall’s grip is like steel.

‘How far away is Quinn?’ he whispers to Groth.

Groth just stares blankly at the ground.

‘I’ll ask you once more. Use your fingers to show me in miles.’

Again, no response.

Marshall drives his right knee into Groth’s spine, exactly halfway down. Groth screams out in agony.

‘I’ll break it next time. Now tell me.’

Groth looks holds out his hand and bends all but his middle finger. It has a gold ring on it that seems familiar to Marshall.

‘You don’t mean one mile, do you?’ Marshall asks him.

Groth shakes his head.

Marshall punches his knee into Groth’s back once more, whilst pulling back on his shoulder, and snaps his spine.

It crosses Marshall’s mind to do further damage, but he decides that whoever it is that sent him will probably do far worse when they find out that he has failed, especially if it is Quinn. So, he leaves Groth alone with his memories of being able to walk. He picks up Sarah, and begins to carry her towards the café. He briefly wonders where the hell Charlie is, and how the hell he will find Jefferson, but for now he must take care of Sarah.

Quinn is walking steadily towards Richmond.

The old guy used every trick he knew to urge the glider onwards and managed to get them there within thirty-six minutes. He was tired when they landed from wrestling with the controls, but now he is sleeping.

Forever.

The second they landed on the same golf course as Sarah did, Quinn checked her watch and smiled at the old man.

‘Thirty-five minutes,’ she told him.

The old guy beamed back at her proudly.

‘Which means you lied to me,’ Quinn continued.

The old man’s face froze.

‘No… it was just luck!’ he blurted out.

But Quinn was not listening. She was undoing her seatbelt and then moving towards him. When her head connected with his nose, there was an almighty crunch as the old man rocked back against the inner panel opposite, blood exploding from his broken nose. Then without hesitation, she jumped onto his lap and pushed her thumbs into his eye sockets until his eyeballs imploded. He screamed out and desperately flailed his hands towards her, but she caught his right arm in her left hand, and slammed it down hard against the steering column, snapped his wrist. He screamed out again, but weaker this time, as if bowing to the inevitable.

Then as Quinn continued to sit in his lap, watching the pilot edge slowly towards death, an idea came to her. She tied him securely to the steering column, before jumping down from the glider. Then she set it alight.

Most people assume that fiberglass is fire retardant, but this is not true. The glass fibres are fire resistant, yes, but the epoxy polymer matrix that they are ebbed into is often highly flammable.

It took Quinn a little time to get the fire going properly, but once it was roaring she stepped back to admire her work. The pilot would soon realise that he was about to burn to death. The terror would be overwhelming, but the pain would be far worse.

Quinn licked her lips.

Then the pilot began to scream.

Quinn was so excited by the sound of the man’s screams that she began to slip hand down inside her underwear. But then she remembered.

The guns were in the glider.

‘Fuck!’ she screamed. She had let herself get too carried away this time.

The shell of the glider was well lit and there was no way she could retrieve the weapons now.

She sat and listened to the continuing screams of the pilot for a further five minutes. Then she turned and walked away

She knows she has to meet her contact, but he will need to find her rather than the other way round. It’s safer that way.

Still carrying Sarah in his arms, Marshall shoulders the door to the café open and immediately evaluates the room.

Eight tables occupied.

One table of four, three tables of three, two tables of two and two singles.

Four female customers, six male customers.

One guy behind the counter, one woman in the kitchen, and one girl moving between the tables looking put-upon.

But no obvious threats. Most of the customers glance up at Marshall, but then look away as if nothing unusual is happening. They don’t want to get involved.

A country and western song is playing from a radio somewhere.

‘This girl needs a glass of water,’ Marshall calls out to the fat man behind the counter.

‘Mariah!’ the guy shouts, making the young waitress jump. ‘You heard the man.’

‘She looks busy enough,’ Marshall says, not taking his eyes from the guy for a second. ‘And I can see the fridge is right behind your fat ass.’

The guy behind the counter does not move. The customers look up cautiously to watch the potential cabaret.

‘I've had a very trying morning,’ Marshall says, still maintaining perfect eye contact.

Then the mood breaks.

‘Certainly, sir,’ the guy says as he turns around and pulls a bottle of water from the fridge.

‘Thank you,’ Marshall says turning his back on the guy and heading for the single table at the back of the room.

The cop.

Marshall grins as he makes his way sideways past the other patrons with Sarah in his arms. It’s exactly the table he would have chosen. Back of the room, and with a perfect line of sight. Marshall sits awkwardly in one of the seats with Sarah laid across his lap. A moment later, the guy from the counter politely brings the water to the table.

‘The name’s Craig,’ he says in an exaggerated Australian accent. ‘I’m the owner. Say, is she okay?’

‘No,’ Marshall answers, with a definite inflection in his voice, that’s meant to mean
this conversation is over
.

Craig gets the drift. One thing he doesn’t want is any trouble. ‘The water’s on the house,’ he says nervously, and heads quickly back towards the safety of his counter.