Hidden Empire (Empire 2)

Chinma knew that this was the only way. Arty and Benny would defend them all if they could, but their arms didn't have the strength.

Chinma had the strength. He had never held a gun until this day. His family owned guns, but he had never been allowed to touch one. But he could copy what Mark was doing.

He took the pistol out of Arty's hand. He wished that the radio man would come and take it from him once again. The man must know how to shoot, and Chinma did not.

At that moment of hesitation, his peripheral vision showed a movement at the door, and before Chinma could look, Mark's gun went off. Chinma only saw the enemy soldier falling backward, out into the corridor, and Mark also staggered backward from the gunshot.

Off balance, Mark shot again as the other enemy soldier stepped through the door, already firing his automatic weapon. Mark's shot missed completely. The enemy's bullets, though, flung Mark backward onto the sick soldiers lying helpless on the floor.

Chinma didn't stop to look. He had seen bodies hit by automatic weapons before. He had known every person he had watched them kill. This time, however, instead of a camera he had a gun, and instead of being up in a tree he was in the same room with the killers. Mark had knocked down one of them. The other one was already firing again, starting to swing his weapon to put bullets into the men on the floor.

Chinma didn't have time to take the stance Mark had taken. Then again, he was only three meters away from the gunman. He pulled the trigger and the recoil threw his hand up and back.

The gunman twisted around, but he was not knocked down. He saw Chinma now, and was bringing his weapon to bear when Chinma fired again.

This time he controlled the recoil better, and saw where the bullet hit the man, high in his shoulder. The man cried out and staggered but he didn't drop his weapon. Chinma fired again, aiming much lower, and now the man crumpled and fell to the floor, dropping his weapon.

Chinma walked over to him, just as the gunmen in his village had walked over to the wounded and dying.

The man jammered at him in a language Chinma didn't know. Then in English he said, "Satan!"

Without thinking or aiming, Chinma shot him in the face, because that's what he was looking at, the hate in the man's face. The bullet went into the man's mouth and he was dead.

Then Chinma turned to the door and saw that the man Mark had shot was trying to crawl toward his weapon. Chinma shot him, too, and then walked out and stood over his body and aimed straight down at his head and shot him again. The body jerked and was still.

Behind him, he could hear a man saying something about cold blood.

"He just saved your butt," said the radio man.

The first man said, "We didn't come here to kill."

"You forget what people were saying a few minutes ago? That boy had to watch everybody in his village, everybody in his family, get murdered by men like these. Did you ever think that maybe he just didn't want to watch you die?"

Chinma heard them, and the words registered. There were no more enemy soldiers. Mark and he had shot them both. There was still firing going on outside, and it sounded close. More soldiers might come in. The work wasn't done.

Chinma walked back into the room, still holding the pistol. He saw the man with the booming voice—the "radio man," Mrs. Malich had called him—and he handed him the pistol. "Can you load it? Can you shoot?"

"Yes sir I can," said the man.

Chinma walked to where Mark lay on the floor. The caregivers had pulled his body off the men he had fallen on. There were only two wounds on his body, but one of them was right into the center of his chest. Chinma reached down and took the pistol out of his hand. Mark hadn't dropped the pistol, even as he died.

Chinma went back to where the box of ammo was and took out a couple of clips and put them in the pockets of his pants. Then he walked to the door. "Stop them at the stairs," he said to the radio man.

"Good idea." And the man followed him out into the corridor. The radio man paused at the body of the enemy soldier. "What about using his automatic?"

"I don't know how," said Chinma. "How many bullets are left?"

"I don't know," said the radio man, and he walked on, leaving the automatic where it lay.

They came to the top of the stairs as the shooting became a wild flurry outside—but farther away, or maybe it was just that Chinma's blood was pounding in his ears. He was more frightened now than he had been before. Maybe because now he knew he was going to be doing the shooting, and before, he had only realized it at the last second.

If I had been as smart as Mark, I would already have had my pistol ready, I could have shot the second man the moment he appeared. Mark had just shot a man, and yet he fired in time, and only missed because he was off balance. If I had shot at the same time, my friend would not be dead.

They waited at the head of the stairs, but the radio man said, "I think I heard choppers a minute ago. I think the Marines are here."

The

door downstairs banged open, and there was the sound of many feet, some running, some walking. Too many for them to fight off on the stairs.