Death is Forever

as he connected. The smaller attacker went facedown in the sand and stayed there.
    One man remained standing. Two others had staggered back to their feet and were closing in again.
    “Erin!” Cole said.
    She tried to answer but couldn’t. She still couldn’t breathe, much less speak.
    “Erin.”
    Only silence answered.
    Cole looked at the three attackers who were still standing. “You’re dead men.”
    With an inarticulate sound one of the three reached inside his windbreaker and drew out a long, oddly shaped gun.
    Swiftly Cole bent, straightened, and turned in a blur of motion, sending sand hurtling into the man’s eyes as the two unarmed men leaped forward. Cole rolled with the attack, taking the blows in order to get in close and finish off at least one of the attackers before the gunman got his vision back.
    Erin struggled to her knees with wrenching sobs as breath slowly trickled into her lungs. She saw Cole go down beneath the two men and heard the man with the gun cursing in a heavy Cockney accent. He was on his knees, clawing at his eyes and swearing, temporarily blinded. She hadn’t the strength to stand, so she did the only thing she could. She crawled closer, gathered a double handful of sand and flung it in the man’s face.
    His frantically moving fingers ground the new sand into his eyes. Screaming curses, he came to his feet, flailing around with the gun.
    Even as Erin thought of making a grab for the gun she knew she was still too weak. She dug out more handfuls of sand and threw them into the man’s face. Grunts and curses came from the darkness beyond, followed by the unmistakable sound of a breaking bone. In the sudden silence the metallic click of the gun being cocked was like thunder.
    “Get down!”
    At Cole’s command Erin flattened out, rolled over and over, and then hugged the ground as the blinded man began firing wildly, shooting in the direction the sand had been coming from. She’d expected shattering noise from the gun. All that came were thick spitting sounds.
    Cole had also thrown himself to one side, knowing that the next bullets would be aimed in the direction that his shout had come from. Instants later two bullets kicked sand where he’d been, proving that while the gunman was temporarily blind, he wasn’t deaf or stupid.
    Erin lay utterly motionless, trying not to breathe, knowing that any sound she made would send a bullet in her direction. Because it was so quiet, she thought that Cole was also hiding by not moving. Then she caught a suggestion of motion from the corner of her eye. She turned her head very carefully. It took all her self-control not to cry out at what she saw.
    Slowly, relentlessly, timing his movements so that they were covered by the faint lapping of the waves, Cole was easing closer to the gunman.
    Fear washed coldly through Erin. If Cole made one mistake he would be shot down before he could do anything to prevent it. It was the same for her in this lethal game of blindman’s buff. Only if they were motionless would they be safe. Yet only if they moved could they ultimately survive.
    The gunman wouldn’t stay blind for more than a few moments.
    She dug her fingers further into the coarse sand, gathering grains to fling into the gunman’s eyes. She looked from the gunman to Cole, measuring the distance yet to be covered.
    Cole’s head moved once in an emphatic negative gesture. He’d seen her hands clenching in the sand. He didn’t want her to move suddenly, calling down bullets on herself before she had any chance to get away.
    Silently Cole slid closer to the gunman, who was between him and Erin. If Cole threw his knife or hit the attacker with a flying tackle, there was a very good chance that the man would topple, gun blazing, right onto Erin.
    To prevent that Cole had to be within arm’s reach of the man, so close that the sound of the waves no longer offered any cover for his movements, so close he couldn’t even breathe without warning the gunman of his presence.
    Erin’s hands closed in the sand with such force that her fingers ached. Slowly she began gathering herself with a series of small movements.
    Cole’s heart hesitated, then slammed hard as more adrenaline pumped through him. If the gunman sensed Erin’s movement he would turn and shoot before Cole could do anything. If she would just lie still, she’d be safe. But she wasn’t lying still. She was trying to get close enough to fling more sand into the man’s