The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike) Part 1604 by Angharad Copyright © 2011 Angharad All Rights Reserved.

Thomson’s plan was simple, I hoped that the team sent to kill us were equally simple. If not, there could be trouble. Because our farmhouse was a little isolated, they could afford to use it for a fire-fight if it became necessary. I thought that was a silly idea, we had children present and if they became collateral damage I’d feel like killing the whole damned lot on both sides.

With some help from a group of men who I suspected were soldiers, we temporarily reinforced one of the rooms–my study, would you believe–with sand bags and a metal door shield on the inside. If the house became under fire we were to retreat to the secure room and stay there until told everything was clear.

I got the kids to practice evacuation into the safe room though I wasn’t too sure about the whole place being lined with sandbags–it would take hours to clean up afterwards.

There was no real expectation of an assault in the next few days, they’d lie low and then hit us when we least expected it. However, had I been planning the hitm not the defence, I might have hit the second night because it wasn’t expected.

Reinforcing the room had taken several hours and the front door and back door also had some sandbags built around them to offer some safety to anyone trying to defend them, sort of like Sahara porches. By tea time the squaddies had gone and all we had were Chas and Dave, Jim having gone to do more research on the woman we’d saved and the one who claimed it was she who’d visited us.

Despite my disagreement, we were left a Heckler and Koch pistol which was handed to me, and the copper whose chest I’d kicked earlier, told me not to let the children play with it. Another quickly showed me how to use it and explained there were twenty rounds in it. What were they expecting, the Gunfight at the OK Corral?

Where was I supposed to keep it? I knew Trish would love to have a closer look at it and I suspected Danny might too. So it needed to be somewhere safe, away from small hands but accessible at short notice–I was not going to tuck it down my pants nor was I going to walk round with a holster, looking like a cross between a cowgirl and Modesty Blaise.

In the end I shoved it in my desk drawer and locked it, hoping that no one saw me placing it there. I left the key under my blotter in case I needed it quickly.

I was tempted to make the children sleep in my study but the rest of the adults considered it was safe for them to use their own beds, after all C&D were patrolling outside and both were armed.

So at midnight, I reluctantly went to bed tired, but the adrenalin meant I wasn’t sleepy. I lay there with Simon, talking very quietly and straining my ears in case something happened. I did eventually go off to sleep but my dreams were troubled by all sorts of horrible things including a flashback to the escape from the cottage in Scotland when we were ambushed as we met up with the police. Instead of the car going into the loch and staying there, the men inside it got out and came after me, seemingly bulletproof despite my emptying the Kalashnikov into them. I woke up sweating and with pulse racing.

I was pleased that it was only a dream, and slipped off to the loo. Coming back I looked out of the bedroom window. Somewhere not too far away I thought I heard a fox yelp. A moment later another answered it then a third. I’d never heard foxes like that.

I ran back to the bed and shook Simon. “Wassamatta?”

“There’s something going on, get the kids into the safe room.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Take a look.”

“No you’re not, let Chas and Dave deal with it.”

“Yeah, okay.” By now I had my jeans on and was pulling a couple of sweaters over my bra–it was cold out there tonight. Next came a black fleece jacket and Simon’s ski mask. Black shoes I laced onto my feet were rubber soled I reached into the wardrobe and withdrew the bow and arrows, placing them in a quiver.

Simon was busy escorting the sleepy children down to the safe room as I grabbed the image intensifier and slipped out through the window and onto the veranda outside our window. I was aware that anyone with a similar device would see me but counted on not too many of them being about.

I surveyed as much of the garden as I could see from my vantage point and sure enough someone was moving about, though I couldn’t see if they were ours or the bad guys. I loaded my bow, just in case.

He was carrying some sort of rifle. It wasn’t Chas or Dave, they had small automatic weapons, Uzi’s or something. Now the problem was, could it be a soldier or a bad guy? He looked towards me and I ducked behind the wall.

Next thing he seemed to be aiming at the back door. He was going to shoot one of our defenders. Not if I could help it. He was standing leaning his rifle against a tree, probably sixty feet from me and seventy from the porch he was aiming at.

To my horror, I saw another two moving round behind him. I considered the range was within my capability and hoping he was a bad guy, I loosed the arrow and ducked down. I heard the screams–in Spanish as I slipped back inside the window and bolted both it and the shutters.

“What the hell are you doing?” demanded Simon as I turned to face into the room.

“Giving Chas and Dave a hand, why?”

“There are ten thousand frightened children down there waiting for you to comfort them.”

“My wardrobes over there, put on a dress and pretend to be me, I need to see where the other two blokes went.” I ran out of the room and across to Tom’s. Thankfully he wasn’t there but down protecting his grandchildren.

His window faces more or less over the back door, I couldn’t see either of the two who’d run behind the one I hit, but I could hear sounds of hissed instructions being called between Chas and Dave. I’d been told to leave them outside, they were ex special forces men who knew what they were doing. I hoped so.

I slipped open Tom’s window just enough to be able to see what was happening outside. I called quietly, “I hit one of them, there’s at least two more.”

“Copy,” called back Chas.

I heard a sound like a whizz and then a phutt. “Incoming,” called Chas and I spotted one shooting at him and another trying to outflank him.

“Bandits at two o’clock and twelve o’clock,” I called and he fired a couple of bursts, the two attackers threw themselves on the ground. I withdrew back to the house and locked the window.

Simon had called the number we’d been given and the next moment a helicopter sounded overhead and a searchlight began to shine into the trees and bushes. The cavalry had arrived.