Without thought, Tamara threw herself under the Peugeot.
Susan did the same.
There were screams of terror from the people crossing the bridge. Looking that way, Tamara saw that they were all trying to run back the way they had come. But she could not see anyone firing.
The man Tamara had been watching had not deployed his weapon. Lying under the car, her heart thudding, Tamara said: ‘Where the fuck did that shot come from?’ The uncertainty made her more scared.
Alongside her, Susan said: ‘From above. From the vehicle bridge.’
Susan had a clear view of the high bridge when she poked her head out on her side, whereas Tamara could see the pedestrian bridge without moving.
‘The shots smashed the windscreen of the other car,’ Susan went on. ‘I think one of the guys got hit.’
‘Oh, Christ, I hope he’s all right.’
There was another roar of agony, this one longer.
‘He doesn’t sound dead.’ Susan looked to her right. ‘They’re dragging him under their car.’ She paused. ‘It’s Corporal Ackerman.’
‘Oh, hell, how is he?’
‘I can’t tell.’
There was no more yelling, which Tamara thought was a bad sign.
Susan looked out and up, with her pistol in her hand. She fired once. ‘Too far away,’ she said with frustration. ‘I can see someone pointing a rifle over the parapet of the vehicle bridge, but I can’t hit him at this distance with a damn handgun.’
There was another burst of fire from the bridge, and a terrifying cacophony of breaking sounds as bullets tore into the roof and windows of the Peugeot. Tamara heard herself scream. She put her hands over her head, knowing it was useless but unable to resist the instinct.
However, when the burst ended she was unhurt, and so was Susan.
Susan said: ‘He’s firing from the high bridge. Now would be a good time to draw your weapon, if you’re ready.’
‘Oh, fuck, I forgot I had a gun!’ Tamara reached into the holster attached to her vest under her left arm. At the same moment the soldiers began to fire back.
Tamara lay flat on her belly with her elbows on the ground, holding her pistol in both hands, taking care to point her thumbs forward so that they would be out of the way of the slide when it sprang back. She set her Glock to single-shot firing – otherwise she could run out of ammunition in seconds.
The soldiers paused their fire. Immediately, there was a third burst from the bridge but, this time, within a split second, the soldiers fired a returning burst.
Tamara could not see the high bridge from her position, so she kept an eye on the pedestrian bridge. There was something like a riot as those desperately fleeing the near end, where the shooting was, shoved into less-terrified people at the far end who probably were not sure what the bangs meant. The two border guards in camouflage trousers were at the back of the crowd and panicking just as much as the civilians, beating the people in front of them in their attempt to get away faster. Tamara saw someone jump into the river and start swimming for the far side.
At the near end, she saw the two jihadis clambering down to the riverbank. As she inched the sight of the Glock towards them, they took cover under the bridge.
The firing stopped, and Susan said: ‘I think we got him. Anyway, he’s vanished. Oh – oh – he’s back – no, this is another guy, different headdress. How-the-fuck-many of them are up there?’
In the brief quiet Tamara again heard someone shout: ‘Al-Bustan!’
Susan used her radio to call for urgent reinforcements and an ambulance for Pete.
There was another exchange of fire between the soldiers and the high bridge, but both sides had good cover and it looked as if no one was hit.
They were pinned down and helpless. I’m going to die here, Tamara thought. I wish I’d met Tab a bit sooner. Like five years ago.
On the pedestrian bridge, the jihadi with the gaunt face reappeared, on the riverbank where the parapet ended and the roadbed of the bridge blended into the stony ground, only about twenty yards away. As she moved the sights towards him he got down on the ground, and she knew he was about to lie flat and take careful aim and shoot at all of them sheltering under the cars, something she felt sure he would do with no remorse.
She had only a second or two to do something about it. Without thought she got the man’s face in the sights of the pistol, looking through the notch of the rear sight and getting the white dot of the forward sight between his eyes. Some distant corner of her mind marvelled at how calm she was. The barrel of her pistol followed the slow downward movement of the man’s head as he settled to the ground, moving quickly but not hastily, knowing as she did that anything but a quietly calm shot was likely to miss. Finally, he steadied himself and gripped his rifle and brought up the barrel, and then Tamara squeezed the trigger of her Glock.