The Glory Boys

When he looked back he saw the man at the far end of the table thrusting a way toward Sokarev, and the man closer to him was wrestling with a coat swinging the billowed shape of it up toward his shoulder.

Famy fired.

As the curtain exploded with the noise of the breaking glass, Jimmy's hand moved to the holster under the breast pocket of his jacket. His fingers found the harshness of the handle, fastening on the ridging there to aid his grip. Then there was the protruding gun barrel, barely thirty feet from him. The pistol was coming fast, out in front, arm extended, level with the eyes as he heard the shout from far in the night, and then the first shot. Fractionally later Jimmy pulled the hair trigger, without finesse and conscious of the need not for accuracy but for a volume of shots. Some were to hit the curtain, some to disappear he knew not where.

Jimmy had fired six times, shouting all the time in the direction of Sorakev.

'Get him down. Get the bloody man on the floor. Get him under the table.'

Elkin reached the scientist first, taking off in a leap when still five feet from him to pinion Sokarev to the floor among the tangle of chair and table supports and feet.

Jimmy saw the chairman sag in his chair and then fall forward, casually and without effort on to the open surface of the table.

Again and again the rifle at the window fired and with each succeeding shot Jimmy was surer in his knowledge.

'He's missed, the little mother fucker, and he knows it!'

It was almost a shout, exhilaration at the contact, half-smile playing on his mouth. But the eyes were cold – focused, taking in the scene around him.

The two Branch men along the same wall as Jimmy had begun to fire, not standing but crouched in the taught posture, classic but slower. He's not going to take it, too much for him, it'll finish him, the little rat, thought Jimmy.

He saw Sokarev far under the table, Elkin covering him, saw Mackowicz bring the Uzi to his shoulder, rid himself of that useless coat, and he began to make for the door.

He had reached it, elbowing aside the policemen, shouting for the door to be opened above the nerve-shattering noise of the long burst fired by Mackowicz, when from the corner of his eye he saw the puny, dark grey and rounded shape loop its way from the window toward the top table.

Mackowicz far back in the room shouted the one terrifying choked word, 'Grenade!'

It bounced, seemingly consumed with inertia, on to the floor between the table and the front row of the audience's seats, made a gentle parabola before bouncing again and then rolling unevenly, toward the shelter of the table where Elkin protected Sokarev. Mackowicz jumped for it. There was a moment when he was airborne and Jimmy could see the grenade wobbling, nearly stationary, then it disappeared beneath the big body. Stillness, fractional but complete. Then Mackowicz was lifted high toward the ceiling, Jimmy did not see him fall – he was through the door, now unlocked and running toward the main entrance.

The detonation of the grenade was still battering in Jimmy's ears as he went down the corridor through the confusion of the milling policemen. Because the shots and explosion had come from inside the lecture room every man, in or out of uniform, saw it as his duty to crowd as close as physically possible to the source of the gunfire.

Behind Jimmy as he shouldered his way through the advancing charge came a cry for 'Stretchers.' He knew where to go. He dug his heels into the soft gravel immediately outside the doorway, ran out into the night and to his left and then swerved again to get himself along the side of the building and to the marksman's position. In the shadows far in front he saw two men jump from the roof of a parked car and start to run for the low boundary wall that separated the university precincts from Malet Street and the free-flowing traffic. Still sprinting, Jimmy fired – stupid really – carried away with the cowboy game, only one shot, and the magazine was expended. There was a shot in return, wide and high and to the right, barely close enough for him to distinguish the 'crack' that signalled its incoming. As his finger moved uselessly on the trigger, bringing home the message of his wastefulness, he slowed, couldn't get close now, not with an empty bloody shooter.

Across the road he heard the frantic, piercing sound of dispute, and the noise, belatedly, of a car revving. Jimmy was panting now, out of condition, not enough time in the gym, striving to fill his lungs with air.

'Helen. Helen. Where in God's name are you?'

It seemed deep eternity before the car pulled up sharply alongside him.

'Get out. Get out of the bloody thing.' His voice came in short staccato bursts. She hesitated, disorientated by the distant noise of gunfire and now the heaving wild-eyed form of Jimmy.

'Get out, you stupid bitch. Get out of the bloody car.'