Sharp Shot

“We didn’t agree,” Rich told her. “You decided. An agreement requires the consent of both parties.”

Jade sighed, deciding it wasn’t worth an argument. “You sort out the shopping,” she said. “I’ll do the box after I’ve had a shower. Deal?”

“I suppose.”

Jade grinned. Her twin brother drove her every bit as mad as her dad did. But she couldn’t imagine being without him. She went into the bathroom, thinking how lucky she was really to have Dad and Rich. How lucky she was that no one had tried to kill her for months now.

But that was about to change.

Rich watched as Jade dragged a large cardboard box in from the spare room. She sat cross-legged on the floor beside it. Her shoulder-length fair hair was still wet, and she’d pulled on a sweat shirt and jogging bottoms.

“Anything good?” Rich asked.

“Books, papers, magazines.” Jade pulled out a handful of magazines and spread them on the carpet beside her. “I mean, why does he keep this stuff?”

“You can always put it away again.”

She was leafing through the different magazines—National Geographic, The Rifleman, The Economist, History Today, Jane’s Intelligence Review…The books were just as varied. There was a battered hardback copy of Oliver Twist stacked with a book about the Falklands War. Jade pulled out a paperback thriller published in the 1970s. The cover was a photograph of a woman dressed in combat uniform. Or rather, half dressed in it. Jade tossed it to one side.

“That looks good,” said Rich, kneeling down beside her.

“No it doesn’t,” she told him. “Leave it where it is. That’s the rubbish pile.”

“Dad might want to read it again.”

“You think he got past the front cover the first time?” Jade threw another paperback after it, it landed face down.

“What was that one?” Rich asked eagerly.

“You don’t want to know.”

“You mean you don’t want me to know.”

Jade had lifted out another stack of books and magazines. There was an old newspaper on the top. The headline read, ‘Government Denies SAS Involvement in Hostage Rescue’. Underneath it was another paper—a lurid tabloid from the same day. Its headline was: ‘Our Boys Give ‘Em Hell’.

“Wonder why he’s kept these?” said Rich.

“Like we can’t guess.”

“Shall I put them with the photos?”

Jade nodded. “Good idea.”

There was a small desk in the corner of the room, by the French doors. These opened on to a small patio overlooking the back garden. The desk had a sloping front that folded down to become a writing area. Behind it was a rack of pigeon holes and compartments. Jade had found a stack of old photos in one of Dad’s boxes, and put them inside the desk. Since then they had found several more to add to the collection.

The newspapers were too big to go with the photos, so Rich put them in an empty drawer in the bottom part of the desk. Jade seemed busy unpacking the box, so Rich opened the lid of the desk and took out the bundle of photographs.

There were maybe twenty or so, taken at different times in different places. Most of them showed John Chance—in army dress uniform, in a dinner suit, on an assault course covered in mud, but grinning. There was a crumpled picture of Rich and Jade’s mother. It was a small, creased, passport-sized shot, and it looked like it had been kept in a wallet or a pocket for years.

But the picture that intrigued Rich was a faded snapshot taken in the desert. At least, it looked like the desert—there was lots of sand, but the four men in it were standing in front of a low wall. All four were dressed in khaki army uniforms. One of them was a younger John Chance, another Rich and Jade knew was Dex Halford, who’d been in the SAS with their dad. They both looked so young—in their mid-twenties, Rich guessed.

One of the other two men was slightly shorter and stocky with a thin, dark moustache. He was standing beside John Chance, looking slightly wary. The fourth man was wiry and had a shock of hair the same colour as the sand. He was grinning and pointing at the camera with one hand, while his other hand was resting on Dex Halford’s shoulder.

On the back of the photo was written in biro: Iraq —November 1990. JC, DH, Mark and Ferdy.

“What’s that noise?” Jade asked suddenly.

Rich pushed the photos back inside the desk, dropped the newspapers in front of them, and closed the lid. “I didn’t hear anything.”

“Sounded like thunder.”

Rich pulled out his mobile phone. “I’ll check the forecast.” He started up the web browser. It drained the battery, but he enjoyed using it.

“Gadget man,” said Jade. “Why don’t you just look outside?”

“It’s dark,” Rich protested as he waited for the webpage to load.

“You can still tell if it’s raining. Rain—you know, that wet stuff that drops from the sky.”

“Nothing forecast,” Rich told her.

He pushed his phone back into his pocket and opened the French doors. The evening was quite warm for late autumn. There was a half moon and the sky looked clear. Rich stepped out on to the patio. The security light on the wall above came on at once, detecting Rich’s movement as he walked.

The small garden ended with a wooden fence made of thin panels. There was a gate that led out to the small wooded area beyond. Behind that were fields and a small stream snaking through the hills. To Rich, brought up in an American city before the twins’ mother brought them home to Britain, it seemed very isolated and quiet.

Now the quiet was shattered by the sound Jade had mistaken for thunder. Standing outside, Rich could hear it much more clearly. It was coming from the woods behind the house.

It was gunfire.

Rich stepped quickly back inside and locked the French doors.

Outside, the security light went off. The doors were reflective panels of black. Rich found himself looking at his own reflection, Jade standing beside him.

“Fireworks, do you think?” said Jade.

“No. Guns.”

Typical, thought Jade. Just when it seemed like we could finally settle down…

“Might just be hunters,” she said, hopefully.

“At night?”

Jade sighed. “OK, we’d better take cover. And call the police.”

At that moment the security light came on again, bathing the patio in harsh white light.

Rich and Jade took a step backwards, as a dark shape approached the cottage. It crashed into the doors, bursting them open. A man staggered into the room, his eyes wide and staring. His face was caked in blood and his clothes were tattered and dirty.