The Last 10 Seconds by Simon Kernick Page B

room with four violent thugs. Three of them with knives. The fourth holding a gun only three feet from my head. The sweat poured down into my eyes, making me blink, and the adrenalin pumped through me as I hunted for a way out, telling myself that there had to be some way of extricating myself from this situation.
    ‘J-Boy, bring him over here,’ barked Mitchell, and the gunman grabbed me by the arm, pushing the barrel of the gun into my face.
    ‘Drop the bag, pussy,’ he hissed, showing teeth, a sadistic glint in his eyes, revelling in his moment of power.
    I did as I was told, thinking that this guy had seen too many films because he’d made a huge mistake by standing so close to me with the gun against my face. I’d been told once by an ex-SAS guy that all you have to do when a gun’s pointed to your head is knock the arm holding it out of the way, and by the time the gunman’s pulled the trigger it’ll be pointed elsewhere. Then all you had to do was deliver a gut punch, twist his wrist round until he let go of the weapon, and bang, you were sorted.
    It had sounded easy when he said it over a few beers one night. A lot less so when you can feel the cool, bare metal of the barrel against your skin.
    But I didn’t have much choice, because these guys weren’t going to let me go – not until they’d torn me into way too many pieces. So, as he gave me a shove, I made my move, knocking his elbow with my forearm and punching him in the gut at the same time.
    Just as my SAS man had predicted, I caught him completely by surprise. The gun went off with a tremendous bang in the confines of the room, deafening us all as the bullet ricocheted off the ceiling and the floor. The gunman grunted in pain and the other three instinctively hit the floor, buying me a couple of seconds. I grabbed his gun hand at the wrist, keeping the barrel pointed away, then butted him in the face, two, maybe three times, twisting his wrist at the same time. But this guy wasn’t going to give up easily and his grip on the gun remained strong as the two of us struggled around the floor together in a tight, awkward waltz, with him trying to bring the gun round so he could take me out with a shot, and me trying desperately to keep it pointed just about any place else.
    The others were getting to their feet now, and the one with the cleaver came striding forward with it raised high above his head, his mouth opened in a roar I couldn’t hear, and an expression of pure murder on his face. Behind him, Weyman Grimes followed, knife outstretched, while Mitchell jumped up like a jack in the box from behind the table, a weird grin on his face, his bloodshot eyes bugging out like they were on stalks.
    The gun went off a second time, almost taking off the top of Mitchell’s head before hitting the far wall. Mitchell went down fast, disappearing beneath the table like he’d been grabbed from underneath. Cleaver Man and Grimes froze like kids in a game of statues as they recovered from the blast.
    That was when I used the palm of my hand to smack the gunman on the underside of his nose in a classic martial arts move, and as he stumbled backwards I kneed the bastard hard in the balls.
    Finally, he let go of the gun and fell to his knees, but Cleaver Man had recovered and was now almost on me, and I had to dive backwards to get out of his way, landing hard on my shoulder blades. But I had the gun and, turning it round in my hands, I pointed it up at him, holding it two-handed, my finger tensed on the trigger.
    He kept coming, raising the cleaver, moving almost in slow motion.
    My reaction was a reflex. I didn’t make a conscious decision to pull the trigger. I just did it. Three times in rapid succession, the retorts muffled by the intense buzzing in my ears.
    One round struck him in the thigh, taking out a chunk of flesh as it exited and spinning him round wildly so that the next round struck him in the arse. I didn’t see where the third went, but I