Shooting in the Dark

The moon walked the night sky and Geordie watched.
    There was a moment when the orb seemed to become blood and he reared up involuntarily in the bushes. Sam pulled him down again and he felt the older man’s arm around his shoulders. He watched their breath turn to ice as it mingled together, listened to the call of an owl and the tiny far-off shriek of something caught in a beak.
    ‘If anything happens to them,’ he said, ‘I’ll never get over it.’
    Sam pulled him closer. There had been tight spots in the past, and they’d managed to come through. But back then it had been Sam and Geordie who were facing danger and the danger was an acceptable risk because that was their job. It was what they did for a living. Janet and Echo didn’t deserve to be held like this. They were innocents. They shouldn’t have been here at all, in this house with Angeles.
    Geordie wondered if he should go to the house and explain to the guy. Tell him to let Janet and Echo go, take him instead. Take anyone else in the whole world, but don’t hurt Echo, for the love of God don’t do anything to Janet and Echo.
    It became a chant for him. He felt himself swaying as he silently intoned the words, Jan-et, Ech-o, Jan-et, Ech-o. Geordie had once been to a Sufi dhikr, years back, when he was on the street. Someone invited him and he went along because they said there’d be food. After every prayer the Sufis did a mime of washing their hands and faces. He remembered them sitting around in a circle, the men with hats, the women with scarves covering their heads, together chanting the name of God: All-ah, All-ah, All-ah... They said it brought Him closer.
    Sam touched his arm and the chanting in his head stopped, became one with the silence of the frozen night. He followed Sam’s eyes and peered through the gloom at the house. The curtains that had covered the glass of the patio door had been drawn back. Inside the house was the tall blond man, Rod Jenkins. He was kneeling at the feet of Angeles. Geordie shifted his position slightly to get a better look, but Sam told him to be still.
    Geordie could see that Angeles had her arms tied behind her back and that Jenkins was untying a rope from around her ankles. The blind woman was frail and unsure of her balance. Even from this distance it was clear that her lips were trembling.
    Jenkins removed the rope from her ankles and tied it around her neck. He led her to the patio door and there was a crack as he unlocked it and slid it open. As the house became accessible Geordie wanted to rush over there and find his wife and daughter. Sam’s grip of him hardened. ‘Sit it out, kid,’ he said softly. ‘He’ll come to us. The longer we can keep shtoom, the better our chances’ll be.’
    The man led Angeles across the garden. As they approached the swimming pool it was clear that Angeles was murmuring softly to herself. Geordie couldn’t make out if she was uttering some kind of prayer or if the sounds coming from her throat were incoherent ramblings. She stumbled and almost fell, but Jenkins tugged at the rope around her neck and pulled her upright.
    The guy’s eyes were staring. He wasn’t observing what was going on around him. He could see Angeles and he could see where he was leading her, his intentions for her. But he was blind to the possibilities of anything interfering with his plans.
    He had the rope in his right hand, Angeles tethered to the end of it; and he carried a heavy crowbar in the same hand. In the crook of his left arm was a small bundle. Geordie wished he had some kind of weapon, but it was too late now. If he was to get past the guy, he’d have to be able to dodge the crowbar. One good crack with that would split a skull like a coconut; it’d fertilize the winter soil with cerebral spinal fluid.
    Geordie’s eyes kept being drawn back to the open patio door. Were Janet and Echo in there? Maybe he’d been wrong and they’d gone somewhere else instead. Janet had a couple of friends on the other side of town, Margaret and Trudy, and she’d been talking recently about taking Echo to see them.
    Then he heard Echo’s cry. It wasn’t a cry of distress, just the noise she made when she wanted attention. The problem with the cry was that it didn’t come from the house at all. The sound hadn’t travelled from the patio door; it was much closer than that. Echo was wrapped in the bundle of clothes under the guy’s arm. She was a joint hostage with Angeles, and the two