Path of the Tiger, стр. 442
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William winced instinctively as he heard the gunfire breaking out two floors below him. Despite the knowledge that he was safe from the hail of bullets that were flying, protected up here by many layers of concrete, he could not suppress a feeling of panicked anxiety for the safety of his friends. A powerful urge spurred him on, driving him to charge down the stairs and join the battle – especially since his archenemy, the object upon whom all of his hatred and desire for vengeance was so vehemently centred, was down there. It took every ounce of self-control he possessed to refrain from doing this; indeed, it took even more willpower than it took to resist a hit of heroin. He knew, however, that he had a very specific and a very important role to fulfil in this mission, and that part would be coming into play in the next few seconds, when the Huntsmen Board Members would come scurrying around the corner in their panicked flight from the attack. It was a flight path they thought would lead them to the secret door, which in turn led to a self-powered elevator, which would drop them down a shaft to an impenetrable bomb shelter ten metres below the ground, where they could hide until reinforcements arrived to wipe out this motley band of Rebel fighters.
With the switching up of the Rebels’ plans, however, this flight path would lead them not to safety, but directly to William, waiting in a crouch in the shadows with his AK-47 pressed firmly to his shoulder and his finger resting on the trigger, ready to spit out a storm of death-fire lead as soon as the devils rounded the corner. He had been practicing for weeks for this moment; hundreds of hours and thousands of bullets had gone into training for this exact juncture. William had always been a fairly decent shot, but now, for this mission, he had attained the same level of accuracy as that of any professional sniper.
Something seemed wrong here, however; the board members should have come at least a minute ago, yet there was no sign of them at all. Having blown up the doorway two floors below, this was the only flight path now open to the Huntsmen, so where were they?
Anxiety was building with mounting pressure inside William’s head. What was going on here? Why was this taking so long? He swallowed slowly, acutely aware of how dry the inside of his mouth felt. A bead of sweat inched a tortuously slow passage down the side of his neck, and it took a tremendous strength of will not to pull his left hand off of the stock of his rifle and swat at it, as if the salty liquid were a biting fly or mosquito.
‘Come on, come on,’ he muttered under his breath, as the seconds seemed to drag, gum-sap like, into hours and days. ‘Damn you devils, where the hell are you?!’
He waited in the shadows, the weight of the rifle increasingly ponderous in his hands, doing his utmost to maintain his focus and keep his concentration levels at a peak. For all his effort and determination, though, his resolve was beginning to falter.
Minutes that felt like hours passed, and eventually he slackened his grip on the stock of the AK-47 and glanced at his wristwatch. The sounds of firing had long since stopped, and still there had been no word from anyone. The walkie-talkie remained dead, and the fate of the mission was a complete mystery. His wristwatch told him that seven minutes had now passed; something was very, very wrong.
With his heart thumping like distant cannon fire in his chest, pumping a potent concoction of raging emotions through his every vein and artery, William stood up and lowered his firearm; for whatever reason, the Huntsmen were not coming. He pulled off his bulletproof helmet and dropped it onto the floor; as foolish as it was to remove it, he was feeling suffocated with it on, and it had started to feel like a cage closing ever tighter around his skull. He could not continue to wait here any longer; if his friends were dead and the mission had failed he had to flee, and he had to flee immediately – and he knew exactly where he needed to go to get out of this place as quickly and safely as possible.
With his heart thumping in his chest, pumping a torrent of fear, panic and crippling anxiety through his veins, William took off at a jog down the corridor, heading straight for the elevator shaft.
69
BATTLE PART II
The noises of Ranomi and Joao snorting, grunting and slamming into each other were reverberating loudly through the corridor, but all Njinga could hear was CC-105’s breath, hissing in and out through clenched, blood-browned teeth, while the assassin tightened his chokehold with ever-increasing ferocity. As tenacious as a rabid bullterrier, the dying man held fast, the whites of his eyes popping in the gloom with murderous fury. Njinga struggled with all her might, yet she could not fight against the precision of the jiujitsu hold; the more fervently she railed against it the more agony it caused her, and the closer it took her to a broken arm and torn-out shoulder.
With his free hand, CC-105 grasped for the only weapon in reach: a bowie knife sheathed on the hip of a dead soldier nearby. His fingertips brushed the handle, but it was just too far for him to grip. He continued choking Njinga out and tried to lean closer but found that it was physically impossible; if he wanted to grab the weapon, he would have to loosen his chokehold.
CC-105 only had a second in which to