Page 119 of Hang on St. Christopher

A .50-caliber machine gun was chewing up the Land Rover’s cab and engine, digging deeper into the armor with every pass. Men were yelling from inside. Crabbie had his pistol drawn, but what he was supposed to do with that against a heavy-duty machine gun, I had no idea. He might as well charge them with a samurai sword for all the good it was going to do.

It wasn’t the first time Crabbie and I had been in a Land Rover that had come under attack—shit, we were probably in double figures now—but this appeared to be the last time such a thing was going to happen.

We were well fucked.

“You see Clare or Preston or any of those guys?” I asked.

“No.”

“Did they get out of the cab?”

“I can’t tell. They’re not returning fire, anyway.”

We had our bloody own problems. There were three peelers trapped in my Land Rover’s main cabin, and eventually the .50-caliber would punch through the armor plate and kill them all. Lawson and that dick with the soul patch and the other trainee with the intelligent eyes—what was her name?

Black sky.

No stars.

“Sean, are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Why do you keep asking?”

“You keep passing out. Are you bleeding?”

“I don’t think so.”

I tilted my head up into the rain and it cooled my face.

Sitrep.

We were safe in the sheugh for now, but sooner or later the AK-47 men would move in with hand grenades and machine gun fire and finish us off too.

Because we were still on the Irish Republic side of the border, we couldn’t expect help from the British army. Even if they found out about our ambush, army helicopters would not cross the border without permission from the prime minister, and he would have to inform the Irish prime minister first. All that would take hours.

“Did you call in a mayday?” I asked Crabbie.

“No time. All I did was drag you out.”

I poked my head above the sheugh and looked over toward the vehicle. Bullets were thumping through the windscreen and ricocheting around in there. I could see the radio in pieces on the Land Rover’s upside-down roof.

I ducked back down into the sheugh. “Radio’s shot to hell anyway... Are you okay?”

“A few scratches. You?”

“I don’t know. Am I bleeding?”

“That’s why I asked you. Stay still.”

Crabbie did a lightning triage. “You seem to be okay.”

“Lawson and those others in the cab are going to die unless we can get them out of there,” I said.

Crabbie handed me his gun. “You’re right. You cover me as best you can. I’ll try to get the back doors open.”

“They’ll kill you.”

“I’ll be all right. I’ll keep low.”