The Grotto

Chapter One

The Siege

The horrified occupants, gathered in the kitchen situated at the front of the large 1930s detached house, watched a BMW car crash open the gates, speed up the gravel driveway and screech to a halt outside the front door.
Four armed men emerged. Two ran to the rear of the building while two men approached the front entrance. A burst of sub-machine gunfire shattered the lock on the front door, and a gunman kicked it wide open and rushed inside the empty hallway spraying bullets in all directions. With nobody in sight, he dropped to one knee, stopped firing and knew he would have to search for his targets, Mike Randle and Suzie Drake.
Waiting in the kitchen for the shooting to stop, Mike Randle whipped open the door. The surprised gunman sprang to his feet and swung his Uzi sub-machine gun round. Mike fired three quick shots, two to the body and the last one to the forehead, sending the gunman crashing into the wall. He slid to the floor with a trickle of blood running down the centre of his face, his life at a brutal end.
‘One down, three more to go, but it’s not a good idea for all of us to be trapped in here,’ Mike announced to the others in the kitchen as he flung the door open and dashed across the hallway to the living room.
Outside, a second gunman saw him scramble across and dashed through the front doorway. He let loose a volley of shots aimed at the fast moving target from his Uzi as Mike flung himself into the room. The gunman took three steps into the hallway, heard the kitchen door open and turned to see the attractive Suzie Drake holding two Walther pistols. As an ex-mercenary she was familiar with a variety of weapons, knew how to use them and had no hesitation in pulling the trigger.
Before the gunman could react to this new danger, Suzie fired four quick shots, two from each pistol. All four hit the gunman in the body. He staggered backwards with a look of disbelief across his face and tried to raise his gun. Suzie fired one more bullet, hitting him between the eyes. The impact drove him into the wall and he slumped to the floor next to his accomplice.
‘Two down, two to go,’ Suzie hissed.
She glimpsed at Mike, who struggled to his feet and peered around the living room doorway. They exchanged glances, Mike, also an ex-mercenary, gave her the thumbs up in recognition of her kill. The pair scanned along the hallway, searching for the last two intruders who had dashed around to the rear of the house.
The sound of shattering glass announced the arrival of the other gunmen breaking in at the rear. Mike beckoned Suzie to climb the stairs and watch the utility room door on his side, while he kept an eye on the dining room and study doors situated across the hallway below the stairs.
Suzie climbed the carpeted wooden treads quietly and stopped three-quarters of the way to the top, where she had a good view of the slightly ajar utility door through the ornately carved banister railings.
All movement came to a halt and the house fell into a nervous silence with the smell of cordite hanging heavy in the air. The only sound breaking the silence was the ticking of the grandfather clock stood at the rear of the hallway, and the muffled voice of someone in the kitchen speaking quietly on the telephone.
The dining room door opened a few inches and Mike kept back out of sight and signalled to Suzie, pointing with his gun. She acknowledged his gesture with a slight nod. They now knew that at least one of the intruders was hiding in that room.
The gunman glanced into the hallway and grimaced at the sight of his two dead colleagues sprawled on the floor. He withdrew for a moment before glimpsing along the hallway once more and spotted Mike peering around the living room doorframe. He thrust his gun forward and rattled off a volley of shots from the Uzi. Mike ducked back into the room as bullets splintered the wall and woodwork frame with others flashing into the room, tearing lumps out of everything in its path. He fired back blindly in the direction of the gunman who immediately ducked back into the dining room for safety.
The second intruder entered through the utility room, stayed back and glanced through the half-open doorway. Unseen by Suzie, he signalled to his man opposite, pointed to Mike in the front living room and gestured that he would sneak back around the outside of the house. He retreated and returned to the garden.
Seconds turned into minutes with no further movement from the dining room. Suzie crept to the top of the stairs to be above all the doorways. She made her way around the landing to the opposite side and looked down on the dining room door. The door was only slightly ajar with the gunman hidden, a pace back into the room.
Outside, the second gatecrasher made his way around to the front of the house. Crouching, he approached the living room window and glanced in to see Mike standing by the doorway with his back to him, peering down the hallway. The gunman pulled the trigger on his Uzi, smashing the double glazed window with a volley of shots aimed at his target, who crashed to the floor.
Hearing the shooting, the gunman in the dining room stepped into the hallway and strode towards the living room. Suzie lent over the balcony and fired two shots. The man staggered backwards, looked up at Suzie with a contorted snarl on his face, as a third bullet drove into his forehead propelling him back into the stairway. He slumped to the floor, joining his companions, his life also at an end.
Suzie rushed down the stairs shouting, ‘Mike, Mike. Are you alright?’
As she reached the bottom tread, the last gunman stepped through the open front doorway and put a gun to her head.
‘Your boyfriend’s dead. I shot him, so it’s no good you shouting for him. Drop your guns,’ he ordered.
Turning to see the Uzi aimed straight at her face, Suzie’s green eyes turned cold with contempt. She knew when the odds were not worth taking a risk at that moment and dropped the weapons. They fell with a muffled thud on the carpeted hallway floor.
‘You and your boyfriend have caused me a lot of trouble,’ the man stated, looking at the three dead gunmen sprawled on the hallway floor.
‘But not enough it seems,’ she replied.
‘No, not quite, so all that ends here and now,’ he proclaimed.
The gunman’s finger tightened on the trigger as Suzie calculated the chances of her successfully diving for one of the guns on the floor. She knew the odds were not good, but it was better to die trying than to stand still and be shot.
Out of the corner of his eye the gunman was aware of movement and saw the kitchen door open. At the instant that Suzie dived to the floor, he turned to see a half-naked man with a blood-spattered chest pointing a gun at him.
‘You talk too much,’ exclaimed Zenon Horak.
He pulled the trigger as the man swung his gun round in a desperate attempt to foil this new threat to his life.
A single bullet struck him in the forehead catapulting him backwards. He crashed to the floor, his body resting alongside his two dead gunmen.
‘Now it’s ended,’ Horak proclaimed.
Suzie scrambled to her feet and rushed to Mike who had a slight nick from one of the bullets, and suffered only a superficial wound.
At last the siege was over. The last gunman, Mark Tyler, was dead.
Calm had returned to Mike and Suzie’s home, though the hallway and living room looked like a war zone.
They thanked Zenon Horak, a Ukrainian hit man, for his help in thwarting the gunmen and he returned to his home in Odessa. Mike and Suzie’s house had sustained a lot of damage where bullet holes had carved lumps out of the hall and living room walls, and the front door.
‘I vote we go on a short sailing holiday on Quester while we get the house fixed up. What do you say?’ asked Mike.
‘Sounds good to me,’ replied Suzie. ‘I’ll ask Reg to get the yacht ready and you can sort out someone to do the work while we’re away.’
‘I know just the man. I’ll give Len a ring, he’s handled maintenance for us before.’
Following his telephone call, Mike reported, ‘Len’s got a bloke who does occasional jobs for him and he’s free to do the work. He lives in nearby Chichester and his name’s John Hill. Len says he’s okay and has asked him do the decorating.’
‘Decorating? Does he know what sort of work he’s being hired to do?’ asked Suzie.
‘Yeah, I’ve more or less explained to Len what happened. He’s an understanding bloke and is trustworthy; he’s worked for us before and won’t gossip about anything he sees here.’
‘Good. I’d hate to think what our neighbour, Mr Lockhart, would say if he found out we’ve had a gun battle in our house, assuming he hasn’t heard all the shooting of course.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. It might add a touch of excitement into his dull life.’
‘And what makes you think his life is dull?’
‘All he ever seems to do is walk his dog along the beach.’
‘That’s because he’s retired and it’s to give them both exercise. Something you could do with a little more.’
‘Right, okay,’ said Mike, not wishing to pursue the subject any further.
It was the middle of June, and time for Mike and Suzie to take a five-day trip along the French coast with their boatyard partners, Jim and Jenny Sterling, on their luxury yacht Quester II.
Meanwhile, Len accompanied John Hill to the house to instruct him on the necessary repairs. Len was unperturbed at the damage he saw, but John Hill was curious about the nature of the vast number of holes in the walls, but was instructed by Len simply to do the work and refrain from being curious about the cause. John Hill shrugged. He needed the money he was being paid to do the job, stopped asking questions and got on with the ‘decorating’

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