But another helicopter flew overhead to the field where the other two had landed. The group coming up the hill stopped and Marik went off to the field. That gives us a little time. Annelie had fallen behind the rest of us coming out but finally showed up. “There is another way out of that corridor,” she said, “maybe we can get that loot out of there while they are waiting.” “Okay, let’s give it a try,” I said and waved to the others to come along. We carried the gold and jewels out first and hid them in a secret passage that Annelie had found. Then Annelie stayed to carry the money out while the rest of us went back out to see what was going on.

Marik and someone else were just joining the others and were standing around talking. Then they began coming back up the hill toward us. We were all in our positions waiting for them to get a little closer. “Meow!”, I called out and Muffin shot one of her flares which lit up the area where the men were. Just like daylight, we could see everyone, easily spotting the leaders, though I could not see Vinny anywhere. Annelie came out right then and a shot came ringing out from the left of us. Annelie lay motionless on the ground, bleeding badly.

“Meow!”, I said again and another flare flew up. That is when we started shooting, aiming for the leaders first. Kristina and Adela started shooting too, but too quickly and they were very soon out of bullets. I had told them to shoot slowly, oh well, they do not know how to use a gun. Kat then ran back to Annelie and another shot rang out from the shadows to our left. Kat was motionless on the ground. She had been shot in the back. Jennifer came to me. “I’m going after Vinny,” she said angrily. “Come here,” I said, “make sure you come back.” She smiled, “I’m planning to, you go after the fat man, don’t let him get away.”

“That’s what I am planning to do,” I said. Jennifer disappeared in the shadows of the night. I ran to the right, I had seen the fat man and his bodyguards heading in that direction. They obviously wanted to come up behind us as best they could. So I figured I would save them a few steps by meeting them halfway. While I was going to meet them, Adela must have gotten scared and tried to run away. Vinny shot again and she was down. “Vinny!”, Jennifer called out from behind him. He turned to shoot, but Jennifer shot first, three times, and Vinny fell. Then she shot two more times. She wanted to make sure he was dead, she knew how dangerous he was.

While that was happening Kristina ran and grabbed Kat’s gun just as Mr. Bowman and 3 others jumped over a little wall we had been hiding behind. Kristina shot at them, emptying the clip and all 4 of them fell. There was the fat man and his two men in front of me. I shot at the bodyguards just as they also shot towards me. They missed, but I did not. “Hey, PI man!”, the fat man called, “I am unarmed, why not come fight me like a man?” “Gladly,” I answered him and tossed my gun on some rocks. I knew he never carried a gun, only that short whip of his, so I was just going to walk up, keeping just out of range of that whip, then run the last part right at him.

Then I felt a tearing across my chest…he had a longer whip! Then he wrapped it around my legs and pulled, knocking me down on my back…on a pile of rocks. My back was in pain, plus I hit my head, but I did have a knife which I threw the best I could hitting him in the chest, but not close enough to his heart to stop him. He did bend over briefly, but then kept coming. I couldn’t get up, but suddenly…”Thwock!”, and the fat man fell. Muffin came running over. “Thanks Muffin,” I said, “you are just in time!”

Right then two helicopters showed up flooding the area with bright lights while police started coming up from the parking area. There was a short gun fight, but the remaining men quickly gave up when they realized that all their bosses were dead. I told the police about 3 more men in the town and they quickly went and rounded them up. No matter how hard I tried, I could not get up on my feet. “Don’t try to get up Steve,” called Jennifer as she came running over. It seems the cats, Jennifer and Kristina were not hurt at all. Kat, Annelie and Adela were alive, but injured badly.

To Be Continued.

©2021 Steve McLeod.