condensed master

The Reluctant Agent
A Compelling Story of Espionage
and now he was regretting it. Dan would be armed and he only had his bare
hands, damn! damn! damn! he kept saying to himself, over and over again.
Parking the car near the road he ran the final distance up the hill hoping to get
there without being heard. Dan's car was parked in front of the house and as he
climbed the stairs he could hear shouting coming from above him. He stopped at
the top of the stairs and looked through the aperture left by the partly open door.
Dan was gripping Margaret around the throat from behind with his left arm and
her right arm was pulled up behind her back. He was shouting in her ear and she
was powerless to do anything. He was edging her towards the deck and Will
pictured the twenty foot drop to the driveway. The consequences of waiting to
take any action were horrific, but Dan's back was turned and he had the perfect
advantage.
Will ran forward and grabbing Dan from behind pulled him off balance and all
three fell backwards on to the floor with Margaret on top of the heap. She quickly
wrenched herself free and rolled away to a safe distance. A struggle continued
between the two men and as Dan produced his gun, flashes of the fight with ferret
man surfaced in Will's mind, the years in between falling away. This time he was
determined that the outcome would be different.
Will tried to snatch the gun from his hand but he caught the hammer with his
finger and the gun exploded with a deafening sound. It caught Dan off guard, he
had a perplexed look on his face and for one fleeting second Will thought he had
been shot. Taking advantage of the moment he gave Dan a violent shove, and
losing his grip the gun rattled across the floor. Dan continued to roll backwards
through the doorway until he disappeared, falling down the first flight of stairs. He
just lay there on the landing, not moving.
Will sat at the top of the stairs, his chest rising and falling, like an old-fashioned
printing press, he looked across the room at Margaret. He could see that her
whole body was shaking, Will picked up the pistol and went over to her. Taking
her by the hand he led her to the nearest chair.
"It's all over now, take it easy for a minute."
"Is he dead?"
"I don't know, I'll go down and have a look." Will was dreading the next
moment as he approached the stairs, but as he looked down he could see Dan
moving. Helping him back up into the house, all three sat, trying to recover.
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