the pistols.  I  didn't have  a clue
what it  was,  only that, going  by  the markings, it was made  in China.  I
looked  in the mag. The rounds were  9mm.  I loaded and made ready  with one
mag, and took a few rounds out of another and looked inside. These mags held
nine rounds a piece. I didn't  know why I checked. I never counted them as I
fired, I was always too busy flapping.
     I  replaced the  rounds and  put the five spare mags in my jeans.  This
Chinese thing looked quite good. If total  silence was required, there was a
catch that would keep the working  parts in place when  you fired.  You then
had to manually  unload and then reload. If not, and you could get away with
a suppressed weapon on semiautomatic,  all you had to  do was take the catch
off and the working  parts  would move  and  feed another round to fire. The
baffling would still do its job in stopping the weapon report;
     you'd just  hear the  working parts moving. With my thumb I pulled down
on the catch, then jammed it into my jeans.
     I  got hold of Young One's arms  and pulled him up  against the settee,
and as I did so  I could see where he'd been hit. The arrow had  entered his
stomach, and  as  he'd  fallen it must  have been pushed right up  into  his
ribcage. I got him so that he was sitting on the floor with his head lolling
over to the left-hand side, resting on the seat. His eyes were still begging
me as I placed a cushion under his head, stepped back,  and gave him a round
in the head.
     There was just  a noise like someone tapping the edge of a wooden table
with their  finger. The cushion  and  settee helped to  suppress  the  round
completely as it came out of the  back  of his head. He just lay there, eyes
still open, blood shining in the TV light.
     I'd never worked out how I  felt about things like this.  He would have
killed me if he'd  had the chance, and I'd just put him out of his misery. I
took the catch off, unloaded and fed another round into the chamber, letting
the catch down to lock the working parts in place.
     I  stood, watched  and listened. There  were  a couple of plates on the
floor covered with dried sauce and stubbed-out cigarettes, two or three full
ashtrays, countless crushed cans of Bud and now these three bodies.
     TNT told me they were now going to show Road House with Patrick Swayze.
I  wiped the  blood from  my  gloves onto the  settee and changed magazines,
gently pushing a new,  full one into position, listening for the click  that
told me it was engaged.
     As  I moved away from the TV set,  a loud  ping! sent my  heart leaping
into my throat. I  spun my  head and  weapon around,  expecting  to  have to
react. The rest of  my body followed  about  half a second  later, both eyes
open  and the weapon up in the aim. I found myself pointing at the microwave
oven in the next room.
     I needed a minute to calm down and sort my shit out  and decided to put
the weapon  into semiauto mode. Time  to move on. I  was still left with two
that  I  knew of, the  American  and the Bossman,  plus Sarah and there were
still another two floors to clear.
     I didn't need the bow anymore so  I left  it on  the  floor. The TV was
still bumping its gums: "Guys who like guy movies ..."
     I started to  move slowly  but purposefully, trying to  keep  the noise
down, both eyes open, weapon up. I had the light from the  TV screen shining
behind me, projecting my shadow on the wall. I got to the stairs and checked
upward. It  was dark  up there. Eyes  and weapon  glued  to the  top of  the
stairs, I started to move.
     I knew this feeling all too well. My heart was pumping so hard  I could
feel it banging against my chest wall,  and  I had a  horrible, dry, rasping
feeling in my throat. My head was so far back that sweat was running into my
eyes and  down the folds of skin at the back of my neck. I nicked my head to
the side, attempting to get rid of it.
     It started  to  get darker and quieter  as the glow and noise of the TV
faded, and soon all I could hear was the  sound of my own  breath. I did  my
best to suppress it because  I imagined three people upstairs listening  and
following my progress.
     Moving upstairs like this is physically  demanding. Every movement  has
to be so  slow and deliberate that  all  your muscles  are tensed; your body
needs oxygen, and your lungs,  in  turn, need to work harder, but  you don't
want them  to  because that  makes noise, and  on top of  all  that,  at any
moment, somebody could be trying to kill you.
     I reached the landing of the second floor. I immediately noticed a nice
polished smell up  here, a different world from the one I'd just left behind
me.
     There was a  wall to my left, with a  door that faced the corridor that
ran to  my right. It must be  the  bathroom where  I'd heard a toilet  being
flushed last night.
     As I looked to the right, I could see  that the corridor ran the length
of the house. Right down the middle was a single strip rug, which would help
muffle noise. In the light thrown from  a door that was slightly ajar at the
far end I could see a table about ten  feet away, on the left. The open door
showed a sink  shining  in the light. It didn't sound as  if anyone  was  in
there, and  I  didn't hear water running or a cistern filling up. Maybe they
were just scared of  the  dark and wanted a light on for when they  came out
for a piss. I looked  at the crack under each of the other doors to  see  if
there were any signs of life or light from within the rooms. Nothing.
     Across from me were the stairs to the top floor.  I stayed where  I was
and  listened. I could  just about hear the  low drone of the TV downstairs,
but the  sound of my heartbeat seemed louder. I could feel my carotid pulses
banging in my ears. I couldn't just wait here all night until she needed the
toilet.
     With my knees bent, shoulders hunched  over, arms out, staring down the
thick baffled barrel of the weapon,  I  started  to move along the center of
the corridor, using the rug. I reached the first door on the right and edged
over, putting my ear to it, but kept the pistol where it was.
     I could still hear the TV and the rain. My antennae were out, trying to
take in every possible sound, but it was very distant, very indistinct. From
inside the room came the noise of snoring. Sarah never snored, but there was
always a chance she could be sleeping with someone who did.
     I carried on  along the corridor to  the next room. I  listened outside
it.
     Nothing. As if I were going to hear her singing along to a CD.
     I went  on, passing  a fire exit  on my  left, which  I hadn't  noticed
earlier.
     It  had  bolts top  and  bottom,  which  I  gently  eased  back, and  a
pin-tumbler lock in the middle, which I also undid.
     I  moved on to the next two  doors past the  table, hearing nothing.  I
stood by the lit-up bathroom. This could go  on  forever. Fuck it, there was
no time to do  anything but take  my chances with whoever  was back down the
corridor. I just knew I had to do something, and quickly.
     Holding  the pistol  in my  right hand,  I  checked with  my  left that
everything  was in place.  The Tazer was  in  my  right-hand  bomber  jacket
pocket, with the handle outward, ready to grab.
     I got out the flashlight, placed the lens against the wall, and twisted
it on to  check it  still worked. The light hit  the  wall but wasn't  going
anywhere else.  I turned it  off and kept it  in my left hand, with my thumb
and forefinger at the ready.
     I put my right  thumb on  the  weapon's  safety catch and pressed down,
checking it was off and ready  to  go. Then  I pushed the mag in  the pistol
grip to make sure it was engaged.
     With my left hand I lifted  the latch. I  wasn't going to try  to do it
gently;
     once  you've decided you're  going  in, you might  as  well get it over
with.  I pushed the door open a few inches, and at the same time  brought my
left hand up and  switched the flashlight on, using my body to open the door
fully.
     As I came into the room I  moved to the right to avoid silhouetting  my
body in the doorway. I three-quarters  closed the door with my shoulder, and
the flashlight  beam hit a pile of men's  clothes on the floor. I also saw a
watch and a glass of water on a bedside table. There was a shape in the bed.
I knew  straightaway by  its size that  it wasn't Sarah.  The body  stirred,
maybe as a reaction to the change in air pressure as the door opened, or the
fact that light was shining in his face.
     As  he  turned  I  saw  that he was  bald  and  dark-skinned and had  a
mustache.
     It was Bossman.  His  eyes  opened fully as  he settled. He wouldn't be
able to see me, just the flashlight.
     I moved quickly, getting  my  left knee on one side of him and my right
on  the other so I was astride him,  pushing him down onto the  bed.  He was
pinioned by the sheet across his chest and gave a quick grunt of protest.
     I dropped the Maglite  onto the bed. I  didn't want him  to see my face
and, in any case, I didn't need light for what I was about to do.
     With  the  pistol jammed  against  his  clenched teeth he  gave a  long
drawn-out  groan as he tried to resist. I  got hold  of the back of his head
with  my  left hand  and  forced the weapon down harder.  The  metal  of the
silencer scraped against his teeth and he eventually opened up. I pushed the
muzzle in until it was nearly at the  back  of his throat and the suppressor
was filling his mouth good style.
     He struggled on for a while, not trying to escape, just wanting to work
out  what was going on and to breathe.  He was flapping and snorting  like a
horse. I moved with his chest as it went up and down. At length he lay back.
No one will fuck around once they realize they have a pistol in their mouth.
     I leaned toward his left ear.  In my bad, fluctuating American accent I
whispered, "If you speak English, nod slowly."
     He did. I could feel the pistol moving up and down.
     I heard him slurping and retching as his Adam's apple worked overtime.
     With his jaw wide open he'd lost the ability to swallow.
     "You have two choices," I said.
     "Die if you don't help me, live if you do. Do you understand?"
     It's always better to take  your  time at moments like  this. If you've
got somebody  who's flapping and you say, "OK, where's Sarah?" he can't talk
because  he's got this  thing stuck  in  his mouth, so he  gets all confused
about  what  you  expect  of  him. It's better  to  do  it as  a  process of
elimination, and then you  know you have the right information. That  is, if
he knows it in the first place.
     There  was still  a  bit  of hesitation here. He was still flapping too
much and not thinking enough. I said,  "Do  you  understand?" and underlined
the point with a  jab  of the  pistol. He finally got the message and I felt
the pistol move up and down.
     His body  smelled of  shampoo  and soap. Shame  he  hadn't  cleaned his
teeth. His breath smelled like road kill.
     Now that he understood the facts of  life, I whispered, "You've got one
woman in the house. Yes?"
     I felt his immediate sense of relief. His body relaxed; it wasn't him I
wanted. He nodded.
     "One woman?"
     He nodded again.
     "Is she on this floor?"
     The pistol shook from side to side.
     "Is she on the floor above this one?"
     Up and down.
     "Do you know which room she's in?"
     I could hear his breathing and slurping, but there was just a touch too
much  hesitation: he  was  thinking about  what  to say.  He  shook his head
slowly.
     I gave a weary sigh and said, "Then you're no good to me, and I'm going
to kill you. I think you're lying."
     No response.
     I said, "Last chance. Do you know what room she's in?"
     I started to rise. He got the idea. He nodded. I came back down to  his
ear.
     "Good. Now  think  about  this. Is  she on  the left-hand side  of  the
corridor as you go along it from the stairs?" I was assuming it was the same
sort of configuration upstairs as down. I didn't know yet, but it was a good
enough place to start.
     He thought about it and nodded.
     "Good. Is it the first door on the left?"
     He shook his  head. Saliva was oozing out of his mouth and running down
his chin. I could feel  his chest rising and  falling more and more quickly;
he was fighting to get oxygen in and there were too many obstructions.
     "Is she in the second door on the left?"
     He nodded.
     "Good. If you're lying, I'll be back and I'll kill you."
     He nodded that he understood, semi choking  on the suppressor because I
pushed it a  little  more to the back of his throat, just to the point where
he  was starting to gag. At the same time, I reached down with my left hand,
closed it around the Tazer, slid off the safety catch and gave him  the good
news  right on  the pectoral  muscle. I  counted the crackle  for about five
seconds.  If I remembered correctly, that should result in the  person being
"dazed for some minutes afterward." He jerked about, and then got very dazed
indeed.
     I  climbed off  him, picked up the flashlight  and put it  in my mouth,
then  turned around and started to  look for his  socks amongst the  clothes
that  were on the  floor. I found one and shoved the toe  end of it into his
mouth, pulling down on his jaw to force him to take it all. Noise comes from
the throat and  below, not the mouth; for  an effective gag, you have to ram
obstructions down there as far as they can go, so that when the person tries
to scream the sound can't amplify in the mouth. A strip of gaffer tape  over
the face  isn't enough to achieve the  desired effect. A sock stuffed in the
mouth also calms people down, because they become more worried about choking
than about raising the alarm.
     I could  hear  moans and groans from the back of his throat as he began
to  come around. I couldn't  have  him alerting  the  others, so I gave  him
another three-second burst. That settled him down again, and gave me time to
finish filling his mouth. Once that was done, I got his shirt from the floor
and wrapped the sleeve around his face to form a seal over the sock.
     I kept his nose free because he had to be able to  breathe, but wrapped
the sleeve as tightly as I could around his lips.
     I pulled  a leather belt from his trousers that was about an inch and a
half wide, with a brass  buckle, and grabbed the tiebacks from the curtains,
lengths of rope with shiny tassels. I tied his knees together with the first
tieback; if you can move your knees, you can crawl and maneuver, if not, you
haven't got much scope for movement.
     Next I tied his  ankles together. He was semiconscious,  breathing  and
moaning in the back of his throat. I turned him over on  the bed and got his
hands  behind him, tying them  tightly together with  the belt,  making sure
that I'd left the  buckle and some  of the  other end  free. It was going to
hurt him, and he was going to have  hands like balloons  by the morning, but
he'd live.
     By  now  my breathing was almost as labored as  his. This was  physical
stuff, spinning him around, trying to do it quickly, but also trying to keep
everything  quiet  to cut down  on  noise.  I  got hold of his shoulders and
pulled  him down gently, so that  his  head and his  shoulders were  on  the
floor, then I grabbed his legs and dropped them down, too.
     There was still a little bit of moaning, especially when I got hold  of
his ankles and brought  them up toward his tied hands. I put the ends of the
belt around the tieback that secured his wrists, did up the buckle, and that
was him trussed up like an oven-ready chicken.
     He was coming around again.  I held the Tazer on his thigh and gave him
the good news for another five seconds. He tried to scream, but the sock did
its stuff.  As  I  lifted the  Tazer  away from him I still had  the  button
depressed; the bolt of electricity crackled brightly as it arced between the
two  terminals. The glow that it cast added  to the flashlight's beam, and I
could see the suit carrier, now open, hanging  on the wardrobe. Inside was a
gray business  suit,  white  shirt  and  patterned tie, already knotted  and
hanging around the hanger.
     I got to  the  door, checked the  corridor  and  turned left toward the
stairs.
     This  flight was  different, the  stairs turning  back on themselves to
reach the top floor. As I climbed and turned left,  up the  next flight, the
distant TV  mush disappeared, its place gradually taken by the constant bass
drum rhythm of rain bouncing off the roof. It was almost soothing.
     I  got to the top and  lay down on the stairs. I looked left  along the
corridor, but this time there was no light to help me and I couldn't see any
coming from under the doors.
     I twisted the Maglite on and headed  directly to the second door on the
left. There was no rug up here. I moved slowly. Between the first and second
door, against the wall, there was a semicircular table with a lamp on it.
     I got  to the door. It was exactly the same as the one downstairs, with
the latch on the right. I crossed over and  got against the right-hand wall.
I just  had to get in  there, be hard  and aggressive, grab  her and get out
before my new mate downstairs started trying to become Houdini.
     I listened for a few seconds,  just in case she was in  there expecting
me  and loading up her 53. Then, with the Maglite in my mouth, I put my hand
on the latch and pressed.
     There  was a small  bundle  in the bed, and I knew at once that it  was
Sarah. I could smell the familiar fragrance  of her  deodorant.  It  was the
only one that didn't leave white powder marks on her clothes.
     I started moving toward her. Her jeans were on the floor, crumpled,  as
if  they'd just been pulled down  and  stepped  out  of. There was a bedside
cabinet with some water and headache pills by the lamp.
     I was going to have to grip her so  hard that  she  thought there  were
twenty people  piling in on her. I had to confuse her, scare  her, faze her,
because I knew that, if I didn't, she was more than capable of killing me.
     moved toward her, Tazer in my left hand, pistol in my right, flashlight
in my mouth, adjusting my head to keep the beam pointing into her face.
     The sound of the rain hitting the window was louder than my footsteps.
     She  started to turn, and her eyes reacted  to the light as I moved the
final pace,  dropped the pistol on the bed, then smacked my  open hand  over
her mouth. She  gave a muffled scream and fought against me and her mouthful
of bloodstained glove. The Maglite got knocked sideways, scraping against my
teeth, as she thrashed about. I heard  the pistol fall off the bed and  onto
the floor. I hit the Tazer's "on" button and her eyes widened as she saw the
current  crackling between the metal prongs, inches from her nose. Then  she
hit her own "on" button and began struggling so violently I thought  she was
having a fit.
     She got the good news in her armpit. The 100,000 volts shot through her
body  and fucked  her up big time. With  her body jolting up and down, I was
finding it hard to keep my hand on her mouth to dampen the scream.
     The  bed springs  sounded as if she  was having sex. Five seconds later
she was a  rag doll,  just a little groan as  she fell back onto the bed. It
wouldn't last for long.
     I needed the pistol. I got the flashlight out of my mouth and retrieved
the pistol from under the bed, shoving it into the waistband of my jeans.
     Next, as weak coughing told me she was starting to regain her senses, I
got out the two  sleeves I'd  cut  from  my shirt. She  coughed again and  I
looked at  her. The bedclothes had been kicked off during the struggle,  and
she lay spread out on the mattress like a starfish, in just a  white T-shirt
and
     white  panties.  Outside, the wind  had  come  back. I  could  hear  it
thrashing the rain against the windows even more now.
     With the Maglite back in my mouth I was  soon  dribbling  and breathing
like the Bossman downstairs. I prized open her  jaw and started  ramming the
first sleeve  into her mouth. She  was just conscious enough to realize what
was happening, and tried her best to resist.  I  had to give her another two
or three seconds with the Tazer, getting  my hands out of her mouth just  in
time as it snapped shut in the first of another series of convulsions.
     When she  relaxed,  I stuffed in the  material until  it must have gone
halfway down her throat. I then got the second  sleeve, placed  it over  her
mouth  like a conventional gag and tied the ends tightly at the back of  her
neck with a double knot. There was going to be no noise from her now.
     I pulled the belt from her jeans and used it to tie her hands together,
front loading her. She was now ready to go and so was I nearly. All that was
left was  to  gather up as much of her ID  as I  could find.  A  T104  meant
leaving no trace, which wasn't going to be easy. I didn't know where all her
stuff was.  I hoped it wouldn't be  too much of a drama if anything was left
behind;  with any luck  she'd be using cover docs that she'd got by chatting
up some gay woman in an Australian bar.
     I found her bag on the floor near the bottom of the bed. It was a small
black nylon  affair with a shoulder  strap;  inside was a nylon  sports-type
purse, passport and a few loose dollar  bills. I quickly scanned the rest of
the  room with  my  light. A green  sports bag lay  open  on  the floor, and
clothes were strewn all around it. A glint  of metal  caught my eye. I shone
the  light  beyond  the  bag  and  saw  the  barrel  of  an HK53.  Its black
Parkerization had been worn off over the years. I also saw four mags,  taped
together to form two sets of ammo.
     She started moaning and retching, trying to expel the material from her
mouth. She still didn't know who was doing this to her; it was too dark, and
even if she could  see  straight  at the moment, all  she was getting  was a
powerful beam in her eyes as I moved toward her, putting her bag  strap over
my head.
     It  was  time to grip her  and  get the  fuck  out of there before  the
authorities screamed  in or whatever was going to happen after 5  a.m. I got
back to her,  switched off the  Maglite and put it in my jeans. With my left
hand I got hold of her at the point where the back of her head met the neck,
and banged the web of my right  hand hard up under her nose. I felt her jolt
as it  slammed into her face. Bending my legs,  I pushed up with both hands,
making sure that all the pressure of the  lift was against her nostrils. Her
hands  raised, then fell again. She couldn't resist, she had  to go with it,
her moans of pain getting louder.
     I got her sitting bolt upright, and put the crook of my left arm around
the front  of  her neck, jamming her  tight against  me. Her face was  still
tilted upward. With  the  pistol in my right hand, I  moved my right forearm
behind  her neck to complete  the head lock,  and stood up. She was fighting
for oxygen. No way was she not coming with me.
     I started  to move and she  didn't like it at all. Her back arched more
as  her legs hit the floor and she tried to take more  weight off her  neck.
She  was  recovering  quicker now  that  she was in pain,  but  I  had total
control. If she fought back too  strongly I'd just give her another bulletin
with the  Tazer, but that would be a last resort. I  wanted to move quickly,
not be dragging a dead weight.
     I made my way across the room and, checking the pistol's safety with my
right  thumb,  opened the door.  The corridor was still dark and  silent.  I
reinforced my  hold  on her by jerking  my knees  and gripping her neck more
tightly. She seemed to be concentrating on holding on to my left arm so that
she could relieve  some of the pressure  on  her neck,  probably too worried
about being asphyxiated to resist.
     I stepped  out into  the  corridor, her  head still jammed  against  my
chest, the rest  of her  body following behind me. She gave no resistance at
all, and once we got  past  the table I understood why. She  started to buck
and spark up, her legs kicking  out as she held  on to my arm for  even more
support.
     She kicked  the table sideways, knocking the lamp onto  the floor.  Its
stained-glass lampshade shattered across the floorboards.
     It had gone noisy; no need to tiptoe around anymore. I started to motor
toward the stairs, dragging her with  me. At first she continued to buck and
kick, her feet banging on the wooden flooring, then she  must  have realized
that  if she didn't  help  herself by trying to keep her back arched and her
legs on the floor, she could break her own neck.
     We got to the staircase, and I was just about to turn right and go down
when I heard the sound of a latch lifting to my left.
     I swung around as the door opened and light burst from the room.
     Sarah swung  with me, a muffled scream coming  from her  throat  as the
movement wrenched her neck.
     It was the American. His reactions were quick. I fired into the door as
he shoved it closed.  I gripped her and started moving aggressively down the
stairs.
     The American was thumping  on the floor,  screaming,  "Wake up! Attack,
attack! Wake up!"
     Sarah's  heels  and  calves were  taking  a  good  hammering;  she  was
squealing like  a stuck  pig  inside  the  gag, and trying to  tense  up her
muscles to help with the pain. We were sounding like a herd stampeding, with
my heavy footsteps and her feet bouncing off the wood.
     I didn't look behind me, I just ran for it.  I wasn't going to head for
the fire exit on the next floor as I'd thought  I might. There were too many
rooms on either side of that corridor, and I had no idea if there was anyone
else in the building that I hadn't accounted for. The way my luck was going,
there was bound to be. My new plan was to get down to  the garage, a route I
knew, then just make a run for it.
     I  turned right to  go down  the next flight of  stairs. As I took  the
first few steps I could see that the second floor corridor below  me was now
lit up like a football stadium.
     Above me the American screamed, "Sarah! One of them has Sarah!
     They have Sarah!"
     From below me a voice shouted above the babble of the TV, "Where?
     Where are they? Help me here."
     I  froze  no  more than  six feet  from  the bottom of the  stairs.  It
wouldn't be long before these two got their act together and I'd be dead.  I
just wanted five seconds in which to calm down and think.
     A shadow approached from the left on the corridor below. It turned into
Bossman, now in jeans  and carrying an  HK53. Fuck, how  did  he get free so
quickly? I kept looking down on him, weapon  in the aim, gripping Sarah even
tighter to stop her disrupting my sight picture.
     He turned  and looked up. I  blatted  three quiet rounds until  he went
down, not dead, just screaming and writhing on the ground.  The 53 clattered
down the stairs to the floor below.
     Above me the American half groaned, half yelled, "What's happening?
     Talk to me. Someone talk to me here."
     I  went  down more  stairs, stopped  short  of the corridor  and, still
holding Sarah with my left arm, put my pistol around to the left  and loosed
off the rest of the rounds blindly. Being suppressed, it wouldn't have quite
the  same effect as rounds going  off  with a loud report, but people  would
hear  them splintering  the  woodwork and get  the  general idea.  I  willed
Bossman to carry  on screaming and scare the  shit out of anyone  listening.
Maybe it worked, because there was still no firing  back at me. Either that,
or there were no more people.
     I  ran  out  of rounds and  started  to change  mags.  Pressing the mag
release catch I jerked my hand downward to help the mag fall out. It hit the
stair  and bounced  down, onto Bossman's back. I looked  at him, facedown on
the floor, his  blood spilling  across  the polished  wood. Then, turning to
look up  the stairs, waiting for the  American, I placed a new mag into  the
weapon right next to Sarah's face. As I turned back to check the chamber, we
had eye contact for the  first time. The shock of  recognition  was plain to
see; her eyes  were wide with amazement and disbelief.  I looked  away, more
concerned about the job in hand.
     I moved  straight  across the  gap without looking, just making sure  I
didn't trip over Bossman, whose screams were fading. I rammed  down the last
flight  of  stairs,  feeling  and  hearing  Sarah  bumping down  behind  me,
sometimes lifting up her feet to take the strain, sometimes stumbling.
     I carried on straight across the room toward the garage stairs, passing
Too Thin To Win and his friends.  Shouts and screams  came from the TV as we
passed the kitchen door.
     Just as I  neared the bottom of the flight  and was about to enter  the
garage, I heard shouting upstairs, and then four or five rounds went off.
     I wondered  what  the  American was firing  at,  then I  realized: he'd
probably run downstairs, seen figures by the  TV  in semidarkness  and fired
off  at  them straightaway  without looking.  The flickering  light from the
screen, and the scariness of the situation, had probably got him jumping.
     It certainly had me.
     I  closed the  door behind me  to add a  bit  more to the confusion. He
wouldn't dare barge straight through; he couldn't guarantee what  was on the
other side. We moved alongside the Explorer, and I could hear the American's
voice above me. I  couldn't make  sense of what he was saying, but he didn't
sound too happy about the way his day was shaping up.
     The rain stung as it lashed my face.  It was then that I remembered the
bergen, but it was too late now. Fuck  it. I  turned left, toward  the other
house, and had taken no more than three steps when the proximity lights came
on. With my head down I started pumping, but was restricted  by the weight I
was dragging.
     I'd covered maybe ten or fifteen meters when the  first burst from a 53
was fired from one of  the upper floors.  Its  short barrel and the power of
the round makes the muzzle emit a fearsome  flash;  it's the only weapon I'd
ever  seen that  looks  like the ones  you  see in films. It  was  great for
closeup work as it scared the shit  out of people. I kept on running; I'd be
out of the light in a few more strides.
     As soon as we hit darkness  I glanced back. All the lights in the house
were blazing. Smoke was drifting from the windows on the second floor.
     It looked  almost like that house in The Amityville Horror, shrouded in
rain and mist, except that it wasn't mist, it was cordite from the rounds.
     A couple of lights were on upstairs in the place next door. My new plan
was to get in there, point a big fat gun at them, take their pickup and fuck
off. The next thing I knew, however, the external light on the family's 4x4,
mounted   on   the   driver's   side   wing,   burst   into   life,   and  a
million-candlepower  beam  sliced through  the darkness  toward us.  A man's
voice shouted a warning: "Don't come near stay away! I'm  armed  I've called
the police!"
     For good measure he whanged down a couple of rounds at us from a rifle.
He probably  had "My  land, my country, my gun"  on his  bumpers, and a  few
other stickers that he'd bought at Jim's, but he  was protecting his family,
and that was a fair one.
     I felt a thump as  one  of  the rounds rammed  into the  ground far too
close to me. Either he was good, and he meant to aim a  warning  shot, or he
was trying  to hit us and this  time we'd been  lucky. I didn't want to find
out which. I jinked left and ran between the two houses,  uphill, toward the
dirt track. Change of plan  again: we  were going to make it on foot back to
my car, as I'd been aiming to do all along, but without all this drama.
     Another rifle shot rang out, but this time  I didn't hear the answering
thud. There was the burst of a 53; fuck knows where that went.
     I got to  the  track, crossed  it and stopped to  try  and  assess  the
situation.
     We were in darkness  and  on higher ground.  I  heard  shots and  saw a
couple of foot-long muzzle flashes  coming from  the direction of the target
house, and more from the area around the pickup. Shotgun Ned must be zapping
and shouting  at  anything that moved.  His spotlight  swept left and right,
looking for targets.
     It wasn't the only light I could see. Red and blue flashing lights were
glistening in the rain on the other side of the lake and I suddenly realized
that I stood more chance of being struck by lightning than  I did of getting
back to my car. Acting as the situation demanded, I changed plan again.
     We were  going to get out of here on foot. I  stood  still, knees bent,
waiting  to regain my breath.  It was colder than before, and  the  wind and
rain were loud against the leaves.
     I  started moving  through the forest  again.  Sarah's bare  flesh  was
getting zapped left and right by branches, and I could hear her suffering. I
put my head down and pumped  uphill, leaving everybody down there  to get on
with it. It seemed that my lucky number for house clearing  was  the same as
for shopping trolleys: zero.
     gripped Sarah  and plunged on,  slipping and skidding on  the wet mush,
stumbling over rocks and fallen branches, nailing to regain my footing.
     She  was screaming as best she could beneath the gag, partly because of
the tree  branches that whipped at her bare body and the ground  cutting her
legs, partly just trying  to keep her airway clear. At least I knew she  was
breathing.
     I tripped  again and went down. The pain as my knees hit rock made them
feel as if they were on fire. She moaned loudly under  the gag  as she  took
the  brunt of my fall, and she had to arch her back to relieve the strain on
her neck. I  stayed on my knees,  screwing  my face up as  I took the  pain,
waiting for it to die down. There was  nothing I could  do but  accept it. I
just hoped I hadn't smashed a kneecap. My chest was heaving up and down as I
tried to catch my breath.  Sarah gave up the struggle to keep her  body  off
the ground. She collapsed in the mud beside and slightly below me, her head,
still in the neck hold, resting in my lap and moving  up  and down in unison
with my breathing.
     There was plenty of commotion going on behind, the odd  rifle round and
automatic burst, followed by shouts. Looking down and behind me  through the
trees and rain,  I could make out the lights of both  houses some 150 meters
away.  I wasn't in dead ground yet,  and it was going to be  light  soon.  I
needed to get distance.
     Shotgun  Ned was having a ballistic fit, screaming  and hollering, like
something out of one of the movies for guys  who like guy movies. I couldn't
tell whether he was enjoying it or hating it, but he was vocal, that
     was for sure.  I got myself to my feet,  pulling Sarah upright with me,
and started moving again.
     I could hear rotor blades in the sky behind. Moments later a blindingly
bright Night Sun  searchlight penetrated the darkness and began to sweep the
area  toward the houses as the  helicopter  hovered over the lake. It wasn't
venturing too near the scene just yet, probably for fear of someone taking a
potshot.
     More  gunshots echoed  in  the background.  Almost immediately I  heard
returned bursts of fire and saw the brilliant, almost white, muzzle flash of
a 53.1 turned back and started to move off.
     My throat was  parched; God  knew what Sarah's was like. She must be in
shit state. I kept checking behind me as I moved and could see the lights in
the houses slowly fading into  the dark and rain. We would be in dead ground
soon.  As I moved,  the Night Sun briefly lit  up the area around  me  as it
realigned itself while the heli orbited the lake, making hundreds of shadows
in the trees as  the rotor  blades groaned,  trying  to keep it in  a stable
position in the wind. The campers  were no doubt outside their tents, trying
to watch the reenactment of the Waco siege from the safety of the other side
of the  lake, pleased  that  their washed-out  holiday had turned  out quite
exciting after all.
     Below me I could see only the  flat roofs  of the two houses. More blue
flashing lights cut through the trees, but this time on my side of the lake,
coming from the left  along the  track. Yet more  police  vehicles were also
arriving in the  car park across the lake. They'd all got here too  fast. My
guess must have been correct.  My  report must  have confirmed Elizabeth and
Lynn's speculation about what was going on, and they wanted Sarah out before
the  seventh  cavalry moved in. It  seemed that I'd fucked that up a bit; it
wouldn't  be  long before the area  was choked with police and FBI trying to
stop the Third World War.
     Shotgun Ned would be a national hero after this. He'd probably be given
his own  fucking  talk show. The police, however, had mortgages and kids  to
think about; while  it was dark they would do no more than contain the area.
By first  light, however,  they'd  have all their shit together, maybe  even
have the Army or National Guard on standby.
     I crested a  rise, and as I moved downhill it blocked out all the noise
behind me. My first priority was to put as much distance as possible between
us and the target before first light.
     As I  moved,  I  could feel  Sarah  shivering  and shaking  beside  me,
screaming inside her gag. If I was feeling bad, she must be in shit state.
     I crossed another small ridge, started to move  downhill, and  lost  my
footing in the  mud. As I slithered and tumbled Sarah  fought to break  free
and save herself. I had a split second in which to decide whether to hold on
to her or let go.
     The decision was made for me. We took another half tumble and slide and
came to an  abrupt stop  against a tree trunk.  I'd landed  on my back, with
Sarah on top of me, her wet hair in my face, breathing hard through her nose
like  a Grand  National winner. My pistol, which  had been pushed  into  the
front of my jeans, had gone.
     I  let  go  of  Sarah; she wasn't  going anywhere,  the weapon was  the
priority.
     I never  wanted  to  be  without  one again. Maglite in hand,  the bulb
covered by my fingers to minimize the spill of light, I crawled around on my
hands and knees sifting through the leaves and mud  like a kid searching for
a lost toy.
     My knee  caught a metal edge as I moved.  I picked up the pistol, wiped
off the worst of  the mud and shoved it back into my jeans.  Scrambling back
toward  Sarah,  I  noticed she was breathing much  more loudly. That  wasn't
right. Then I heard a loud,  hoarse  whisper, "What  the  fuck do you  think
you're doing? Get this belt off me now!"
     She had somehow untied the gag,  and was coughing and trying to relieve
the soreness in her mouth.
     "Come on!" She lifted her hands.
     "Get this fucking thing off!"
     She couldn't  see it, but  I  was  trying  to hide a laugh. People with
accents like hers  shouldn't swear,  it just  doesn't work. Besides, she was
practically naked, streaked with mud, yet trying to order me around.
     "Do it, Nick. Hurry, we must keep moving!"
     There were  no more weapon reports from behind us, and  a megaphone was
now being used, probably to give instructions  to  anyone left in the house.
The rain  prevented me from  hearing  what was being said. The  heli was out
there somewhere, the throbbing of its rotors carried in on gusts of wind.
     What  did  she  mean, we  need to keep  moving?  I  looked at her,  and
couldn't help it I started to laugh, and that pissed her off even more.
     "Don't be ridiculous, hurry up and untie me!" She held her arms out.
     "Get me out of here before this becomes even more of a nicking fiasco!"
     The  rattle of the helicopter  getting closer made us both shut  up. It
was hard to tell which direction it  was coming from. I was peering  up, but
could see jack shit.
     "Come on,  get this belt  off me and give me your coat!" She started to
use her teeth to pull the knot apart. It wasn't working. The leather was too
tight and wet, and she was shivering too much to get a good grip.
     The helicopter roared overhead. I caught a  glimpse  of its  navigation
lights through the trees. At least it wasn't hovering, or moving in a search
pattern not yet, anyway. I guessed it would be soon. I could see the glimmer
of first light beyond the canopy.
     She wanted my attention again.
     "Nick,  get  this off me and give me  your coat. Please." Her arms were
still thrust toward me. I grabbed hold of the  belt and started  to drag her
along in the mud.
     First light had started to penetrate to the forest floor, relieving the
gloom just enough to show my footprints.  The rain was starting to ease off;
the noise of it  hitting  the leaves was dying down, along  with the wind in
the trees. I was starting  to  feel depressed; I  was soaking wet, cold  and
confused. What was worse, we were leaving an unmissable trail in the mud.
     She  could  obviously see that I  was in  no mood  for discussion as we
moved  and she shut up. We came over another  rise. Down below us, about one
or two hundred meters away  at the bottom of  a steep gradient, was a river.
Maybe thirty meters wide, it was in full flood, a  maelstrom of fast flowing
water and foam.
     As we  scrambled downhill, all I could hear was the  rush of  water  in
front of us. Sarah called out, "Slower, slower," trying to get her  footing.
I wasn't listening. We had to find a way  across. With luck  it would be the
psychological boundary  of the  search;  hopefully they would start from the
house  and fan out as  far as the  bank, assuming that no  one  would be mad
enough to try and cross.
     At that moment I had to be the  only  person  in the world  with a good
thing to say about El Nino. In theory, it should have been nice and sunny at
this  time of the year in the Carolinas. Conditions like this would slow the
searchers down, and if the weather closed in any further the  heli might not
be able to fly.
     Closer to the water the tree canopy started to thin. Out in the open it
was virtually daylight, and looking  up I could see  a  really thick,  gray,
miserable sky. It had stopped  raining, but  in  dense  woodland you'd never
know that; all the moisture is held on the leaves and it still works its way
down to the floor. What the fuck, I was soaked to the skin anyway.
     Sarah's  hair was wet and flat against her head. Dried blood ringed her
nostrils; I  must have slammed my hand into her face quite hard on  the bed.
She was bleeding from several cuts on her legs, with goose bumps the size of
peanuts,  and  in   any  other  circumstances  she'd  have  needed  hospital
attention.  She  was  covered in mud, sand,  bits  of leaves and twigs,  and
shivering uncontrollably in her drenched and  now transparent  underwear and
T-shirt.
     I let go of the belt and studied the river, trying  to look for  a safe
place to cross. It was pointless. If I'd doubted the strength of the current
I only  had  to  look  at  the  chunks of uprooted  tree  that were  surging
downstream and crashing over the rocks. Wherever I chose, it was going to be
a major drama. So what was new?
     Sarah was switched on; she knew what I was thinking. She sat in a fetal
position against  a rock on the bank with her arms wrapped around  her legs,
trying to cover her body for warmth. She looked at the river, then at me.
     "No,  Nick. Are you mad? I'm not  going, not here. Why don't we " I cut
her  off mid-sentence,  grabbing  hold  of the belt and dragging her a short
distance back into the canopy for cover. I didn't talk to her; there was too
much stuff churning around  in my head. Instead I  started to  pull  out  my
shirt from my  trousers,  then  the  bottoms  of my jeans where they'd  been
tucked  into  my  boots.  I  undid  the  cuffs  on  my  jacket sleeves until
everything was nice and loose and water could flow more freely around me. If
your shirt is tucked  in when  you  swim, the  weight of trapped  water that
collects can slow you down, then it might drown you. The gloves came off; it
was  pointless  wearing  them  at  the  moment,  and  besides,  they  looked
ridiculous.  Sarah was  all right, she had fuck-all on anyway. I stuffed the
phone and  all my  docs, plus hers, into one of the gloves, then pushed that
inside the other one and put it back in my jacket. I wondered about the bag;
fuck  it, I'd have to take it with me. I didn't want to leave any more  sign
than was necessary.
     The  wind had started to gust strongly and the  trees at the top of the
canopy on the opposite side of the  river were bending and swaying. I looked
at  Sarah hunching down behind a tree for shelter. Only feet away  the water
crashed angrily against the rocks.
     I looked along the opposite bank, following the river's current, trying
to work out where we might land up.  I could  see downstream for  about  250
meters, then the river bent around to the  right and disappeared from  view.
The opposite bank was about two or three feet above water level, with plenty
of grab provided by  foliage  and tree roots exposed by  the  current as  it
carved  into the  soil. I had to assume the  worst, that there was a massive
waterfall just after the bend, and that meant that we had just 250 meters in
which to make our way across and get out.
     The ambient temperature wasn't freezing but  it  was bitterly cold.  On
land, we  wouldn't die of exposure if we kept moving, but the river would be
another matter. Sarah  saw  me  looking at  the  water  and back at her. She
dropped  her  head  and  buried it  in  her  arms. The  gesture  was  one of
resignation, and recognition of the fact that, if she were telling the truth
about wanting to get away, I was her only means of escape.
     The heli was somewhere behind us, doing its stuff between the river and
the houses; I couldn't tell exactly where it was, but it had to be near or I
wouldn't be able to hear the rotor blades groaning as it tried to keep a low
hover.
     I went  over  to  her, grabbed  hold of the belt and pulled her  to her
feet.
     She looked into my eyes.
     "Nick, why not  take this thing off? Please. I'm not going anywhere, am
I?"
     I ignored her. Gripping the belt with my left hand, I moved down to the
water's edge, keeping my eyes lifted to the  sky. I tried to convince myself
that the only thing that mattered right now was the helicopter.
     A spit of rocks extending about five meters out  looked as if it  would
give us some sort  of platform to begin our crossing; water sluiced over the
top and there was no way of telling how deep it was  on either side. I hoped
Sarah could swim, but if she couldn't, tough, she should have said. I looked
at her eyes and suddenly  saw fear there, then I looked at  the river again.
It was a fair one. There  was no way I couldn't remove the belt. I needed to
keep her alive. Her death had to be at a time and place of my choosing.
     As I undid the knot she said very quietly, "Thank you."
     I caught her  eye, trying to read  the message there,  then  nodded and
moved  on, throwing  the  belt into the bag.  She  stepped gingerly over the
small stones at the water's edge.
     "Come on!" I snapped.
     She kept her head down, watching her footing.
     "I'm  trying, it's hurting my  feet." As  we  started to  wade  in  she
gasped, "Oh, fuck, it's so cold!"
     She was right;  the water  temperature had to be near freezing. I  told
myself just to get in  there, get it  done, and worry about warming up again
on the other side.
     I fought the current  until I was up to my waist,  with Sarah behind me
grasping the strap of her bag that was still over my shoulder. Then, with my
next step, I was  into fast-flowing water,  the current tearing at  my  leg,
threatening to throw me off  balance. I grabbed her hand, whether to support
myself or to help  her,  I didn't know, but no sooner had  I lifted my other
leg than  the weight of water  whipped it away from under me and I was being
swept downstream. I  still clung to Sarah, both of us kicking  and thrashing
to keep  afloat  and make some progress toward  the  opposite bank,  but the
current was starting to drag me under. If you're trapped  against a  rock by
water that's just half a meter high and moving at 12 mph, you'd  need to  be
able to bench press 550 pounds to lift yourself away. We were no contest for
the tons of water surging downstream.
     My head was forced under and I swallowed a  mouthful of freezing river.
I kicked back to the surface, forcing myself to breathe in through  my nose,
only to choke as I inhaled yet  more water. I let go of  her. We each had to
fight our own battle now. She looked at me, her  eyes the size of saucers as
she realized what I'd done. That wasn't my problem; it would become one only
if I  couldn't  find her  body before they  did. She still  had to disappear
without trace.
     I saw her through wet, blurred vision,  trying to  keep  her  head  up,
kicking  and swimming  and wading like a seal. Then she was  sucked under by
the current and I couldn't tell how far  across I was. The water kept taking
me under,  and I was more concerned about sucking in air than getting to the
other side. I couldn't see Sarah at all now, but there  was nothing  I could
do about that. I was in enough shit of my own.
     As I came up again and snatched a lungful of air, I heard a scream.
     "Oh, God! Oh, God!"  I looked around for her, but saw nothing above the
torrent.
     I was dragged back down and inhaled more river water. Scrabbling my way
to  the surface,  I  saw that this  time I was almost  at the far side.  The
current wasn't  dying  down, though, because  the river curved around to the
right and I was on the outside of the bend, where the force of the water was
at its fiercest. An eddy caught  me and the  momentum threw  me against  the
bank.  I threw out my  hands,  trying to  grasp an exposed  tree root  or an
overhanging branch, anything I could.
     I  shouted for Sarah,  but all I got in  reply  was another mouthful of
river.
     I coughed, trying to force my eyes open again, but they stung too much.
     Thrashing around blindly, my left hand connected  with something solid.
I I made a grab, but whatever it  was gave way.  The  next  thing I knew, my
right arm had booked into a large tree root. The current swung me around and
pressed me  against the bank,  and  my feet  connected with  solid ground. I
clung to the roots and took deep breaths to slow myself down.
     Downstream, nothing was moving in the  water but  branches and lumps of
wood.
     I  struggled against  the weight of water until I  could reach with  my
free hand and grab another root higher  up the bank. I finally hauled myself
up until only my feet were left in the water,  being  forced sideways by the
current.
     One more  grab  and pull  and  I  was lying  on  the bank, fighting for
breath. I'd never  felt  such relief. I lay there  for  more  than a minute,
coughing up water and slowly feeling some strength return to my limbs.
     As my head cleared, I realized my  problems weren't  over. I'd now have
to  find  Sarah, and she could be anywhere  downstream.  Clearing  the banks
would expose me to view from the ground,  and the river was a natural  route
for any follow  up to be taking. As if that wasn't bad enough, the heli,  if
it came back, would ping me at once.
     There was nothing I could do about  any  of  that; I just had to get on
with  it  and retrieve what I could from this gang fuck.  Turning my head, I
could make out  the river behind me,  blurred by the water in my eyes. There
was still no sign of Sarah.
     My  soaking clothes weighed  me down as I started  to stumble along the
bank, leaning over  the  edge  from time to time  to  double  check that she
wasn't concealed behind rocks or in some kink in the ground below me.
     If I couldn't find her  and  she was discovered downstream,  or even on
the coast,  I'd just have to accept that it was a  big time fuckup. However,
not yet.
     As I moved, I kept my  eyes skinned for  somewhere to hide her  body if
she  were dead.  Hiding her  wouldn't be  the ideal solution,  but there was
fuck-all else I  could do. It would slow  me  down, carrying her out  of the
area, and I could always  come back in a month or two and finish the job. It
needed to  be a spot that I could ID at a later date, perhaps after a change
of season, and one that wasn't near a hikers' route or a water course.
     As the current reached the bend and changed direction, its noise became
almost deafening.  I followed around, the  dead ground gradually coming into
view. I couldn't  believe it. Just 300 meters farther downstream, resting on
timber supports driven into the riverbed,  was a small footbridge. The story
of my life. If I'd been looking for one, it wouldn't have existed.
     I stopped, looked and listened. The bridge would be on their maps,  and
anyone sent to follow us would use it to cross.
     As I got  to within maybe 150 meters of the structure, I could see that
it was made of three thick wooden supports rising up  from the river on each
side. The  walkway,  made of what  were probably old  railway  sleepers, was
maybe two meters above that.
     In any search pattern the police would  use this bridge as a key point,
somewhere that it  would  be natural  to  go  to.  Maybe  they  had  already
identified it and had a team hidden, waiting for us to cross.
     Should  I move into the canopy  a bit and then come  back to the  river
farther down once I'd boxed around it? No good: I needed to search the whole
bank.  The  way things were  going she was  probably  just a meter from  the
bridge, dead. I watched for  a  while longer. The wind bent the treetops and
the water crashed along at warp speed.
     At  first I  thought it was  the white water pushing itself against the
middle support, with the occasional plume of foam being thrown into the air.
     It  wasn't. It was Sarah, clinging to the post and reaching  up, trying
to  make  the two meters to  safety.  Time and  again her hand  moved up the
support, only to be ripped away again as the current  got hold of her. For a
split  second  I hoped she'd  be  washed away; then I  could  concentrate on
saving my own ass and getting away,  taking any  flak when I got back to the
U.K. Then reality kicked in. There was  still a chance  I could pull her out
and do my job properly.
     I  moved back into  the canopy and made my approach toward the  bridge,
lying down about twenty meters short for one last look.  She wasn't making a
sound.  Either she was switched on enough to know not to  scream, or she was
just too scared. I didn't care which, as long as she stayed quiet.
     There  didn't seem to be  any other activity,  but then  again,  if the
police were switched on I'd be  very  lucky  to  ping them.  It was decision
time: I  could either  get  her out and  complete  the task, or let  her get
carried away and drown. Then it  hit me that  there was a  third option. She
could be swept away and survive.
     I looked  around for a branch that was long enough to do the job. It  |
didn't  have to be strong, just long. Jumping up, I  grasped one  with  both
hands  and pulled  down with all  my weight. Water  sluiced onto me from the
leaves. The branch snapped. I twisted and pulled, and it finally parted from
the tree. I didn't  bother stripping it of its smaller branches, just headed
down toward the bank.
     I stopped to  pull off  first my boots, then my jeans.  For a  moment I
fantasized that maybe I could be doing the world a great service here. Maybe
London knew  that she was going to be the next Hitler. Then  my jacket  came
off and  the wind bit  into me. What the fuck was I doing, freezing cold  in
the back of beyond, with the police after  me, taking my  kit off  to save a
woman's life just so I could kill her somewhere else?  I gave myself another
reality check.
     "Shut the fuck up. Stone. It's pointless honking, you know it has to be
done."
     I secured my weapon and the contents  of my jeans in the bag and put it
back over my shoulder. With my boots  back on, but my jeans and jacket in my
hands,  I left the canopy and ran out toward the bridge. I must  have looked
like  someone doing  a runner after  being  caught in bed with another man's
wife.
     As I hit the railway sleepers that made up the walkway, I could see her
still  playing the limpet, the current pushing her head against the  support
as she fought to keep it out of the river.
     She saw me.
     "Nick, Nick. I'm here ... here!"
     As if I didn't know. I leaned over the handrail.
     "Shut up!" I had to holler above the noise of the water as I started to
pass down the end of one  jeans leg, knotted to help her grip. The other was
tied to one of the sleeves of my jacket. I could never  remember the name of
the knot. If  I'd wanted to know it I would have  joined the Navy. The other
sleeve also had a knot at the end, to help me.
     "Take the jeans end only," I shouted.
     "Now listen to me, OK?"
     She looked up,  shaking the water from her face. Her eyes kept flicking
toward  the knotted  jeans leg  that was  her lifeline. They  were wide with
fear.
     I kept hold  of the knotted sleeve as I dangled the material so that it
would  be easy for her to get  hold of,  yet still keep in  contact with the
support.
     Her teeth made contact  with  the  material first  and  she  bit  down,
turning her head to bring it closer to her  hands. Once there I could see by
the determination in her expression that she wasn't going to let go.
     "Sarah,  look  at  me."  I  wanted  her to understand exactly  what was
expected  other. When  people flap they nod and agree to everything  without
really understanding what's being said.
     "I'm going to drop the rest of this lot into the water, and retrieve it
on the other side  of the bridge. When I shout, I want  you to let go of the
support and just hold on to the jeans.
     Got it?"
     "Yes, yes. Hurry."
     "Here  goes."  I checked again to see  if anyone  was  watching, then I
threw the rest of the makeshift rope under the bridge.
     I switched  to the other side, lying on  my stomach on the sleepers and
leaning down. My jacket was snaking from side to side in the current.
     Looking back upstream under the  bridge, I  could see  her coughing and
spitting out water, only to take another mouthful.
     Moving  the branch down  into the water, I  made  contact on  the third
attempt and pulled  up the free  end of the  rope. Wrapping the  knotted end
around  my wrist, I braced myself against the wood supporting  the handrail,
ready to take the strain. I could no longer see her.
     "Now, Sarah. Now!"
     She must have let  go  and the current swept her under the  span. There
was an almighty jolt, then what felt like the world's biggest dog pulling on
its lead. I held on to the jacket sleeve like a man possessed.
     "Kick, Sarah. Kick."
     She didn't need telling  twice.  The combination of her efforts and the
pendulum effect of the current swept her  in toward the bank like  a  hooked
fish.
     I got to my feet and managed to  reel in two more twists of the jacket,
taking a  few steps toward the end of the bridge. By the time I reached  the
bank I had hands full of jeans. I  dropped to the  ground  above her and  we
linked arms. She didn't need to be told what to do next. I heaved and rolled
and she  used  my body as a climbing frame. A moment later and she was lying
beside me on solid ground.
     I thanked whichever guardian angel was looking over me that day.
     She was coughing and fighting for breath. She wasn't going to be in any
condition to help herself for a little while, and  we had  to get away  from
here.  I  hauled myself  to  my  feet, bent down and  scooped  her  up in  a
fireman's lift over my shoulder. I picked up the knotted jeans and jacket as
I moved off, staggering more  than running into the trees. I needed us to be
out of sight of the helicopter, and to find some shelter.
     Ahead of  me was a steep rise. I put  her down while I  got some breath
back. I was shivering violently, and  Sarah moaned  as she, too,  fought the
cold  and shock. I wanted to get  beyond the rise  into another lot  of dead
ground, so we couldn't be seen from the other side of the river.
     Her head lolled over my shoulder, her face close to mine. I was looking
straight ahead and focusing on the trees, but I still heard the words.
     "Thank  you.  Nick." I  tilted my head  toward  her and  did my best to
shrug.
     It felt strange to be thanked like this, and for the second time.
     Safely  inside the tree line, I stopped and helped her to the ground. I
turned away and leaned against a tree, my lungs greedily sucking in air.
     "Can you manage on your own?" I asked.
     To my  surprise, the reply came from very close. I  felt her hand on my
shoulder as she said, "I can do it. Let's go."
     I moved off with her following, over the  rise and onto dead ground. We
couldn't be seen from the opposite bank anymore,  but we still needed  cover
from the air and the  biting wind. It wasn't  as strong  as last night,  but
wind chill could really slow us down after what we'd just been through.
     Normally, when  looking for shelter  from the  elements, the last place
you  want to be is in a  valley bottom  or a  deep hollow, because  hot  air
rises, but we needed the cover. We also needed to try and find a place where
we  could preserve  what little  body warmth we had  left, and away from the
noise of the river so I could listen out for pursuers.
     As I bustled her through  the canopy, needles pushed themselves sharply
into my face, and bucketfuls of water spilled off the disturbed branches.
     The best hide I could find was a massive fir about 100 meters  from the
river, whose  branches hung down to the ground. Sarah was clearly in pain as
she crawled toward the base of the trunk. The branches started about a meter
up the  trunk and met the  ground about a meter away  from us.  There was no
noise here, except for the  wind against the outer branches. It was  just as
wet inside as out,  but  it  felt  wonderful just  to be under cover. It's a
psychological thing; get  up against, or under, something  and you  begin to
imagine you're a bit warmer.
     We huddled against the trunk, both of us shivering and shuddering.
     Adrenaline had kicked in when we were on the move, but its effects were
subsiding. I  just wanted to lie there, but I knew  that if I made an effort
it would pay off. I pulled the strap of Sarah's bag over my head and dropped
it  on the  ground. Then I  took  out  the knots  with  cold,  numb and very
fumbling hands and teeth. With my foot on the collar of  the  jacket, I  got
hold of the rest of it and started to twist out the worst of the water.
     Sarah looked at me like  an abused  puppy,  huddled up and shivering. I
untwisted the jacket and threw it at her. I wanted her to stay alive for two
reasons now: I still didn't want to  have to carry a dead  weight out of the
area, and I wanted her to answer some questions.
     She put the jacket around her shoulders and hungrily wrapped herself up
in it. Then she wriggled  backward until she  was resting against  the tree,
cuddling herself, trying to tuck the jacket around her legs.
     I  took off my  shirt and  T-shirt,  and  wrung them  out, too.  I  was
shivering so badly that it felt as if my muscles were in  spasm,  but it had
to be done.
     I had to get the water out and some air into the fibers so that my body
heat what was left of it could sustain itself. Not that cotton has that many
air pockets.
     "Cotton  kills,"  the  saying  goes in outdoors circles, and  for  good
reason, but what  I was doing was better than nothing.  It made  me think of
Shirts KF, the thick woolly shirts we had to wear in the infantry.
     I'd never found out  what the letters KF stood for; all I knew was that
the material used to itch and scratch, and in summer made you feel as if you
were wearing a greatcoat, but in the field during winter they were great wet
or dry, the fibers retained heat.
     I put the shirt  and T-shirt back on, then knelt  to take off my boots,
fumbling to undo the laces with numb, trembling fingers. Finally I wrung out
my jeans, taking care to keep the pistol away from Sarah's grasp.
     When I was dressed again I tucked everything in, trying to minimize the
number of ways in which the wind could get  to  me. I pushed the pistol into
the back of my  jeans by the base of my spine, where she wouldn't be able to
get at it.
     I  sat  back against the trunk, with Sarah on my left. She was still in
the  same position as before,  sitting  in a curled up  ball and  using  the
jacket as best she could to keep herself  warm, her hands keeping the collar
pulled up around her face.
     It's always best to share body warmth, and two people of opposite sexes
huddled together generate five percent more warmth than two of the same sex.
I nudged  her with my elbow, held out my arms and motioned with  my head for
her  to move over. She  shuffled across,  sniffing, her hair soaking wet and
plastered over her face.
     High above, a strong gust of wind made the tree sway. I straightened my
legs and she arranged  herself in my lap with her left side against me, then
I lifted  my legs to press her closer to my chest,  which insulated her from
the ground, and got more  of her skin in contact with mine. Her wet hair was
over my shoulder as  her  body pushed into mine. I put  my  arms around her.
Neither of us could control our  shivering.  She snuggled into  me, her head
against my chest, and I could feel the benefit almost immediately.
     There was a silence during which we  both willed ourselves to get warm.
I looked down on  her wet, muddy hair, flecked with pine needles and bits of
bark.
     It almost took me by surprise when she spoke.
     "I  suppose  they told  you I'm  a  runner?" Her body was shaking.  She
didn't move her head  for me to see, but  I could tell  by her tone that her
period of compliance was coming to an end.
     "Something like that." I bent my head to listen for  any follow up, and
raised my knees more to pull her nearer for warmth.
     "And  I suppose  you believed  them? Christ,  I've  been  putting  this
operation together  for over four  years,  Nick.  Now it's destroyed by some
dunderhead who's sent to fuck me over."
     The dunderhead bit pissed me off.
     "Four years to do what? What operation?
     What the fuck are you talking about, Sarah?"
     Her speech was slow, the  tone  that of a schoolmistress trying to show
patience as she  explains simple things  to tiny minds.  It was only  partly
working; her shivering was making her speech disjointed.
     "Four years to infiltrate deep enough to discover  their network in the
U.S. and Europe-that's what I am talking about."
     "Infiltrate who? What? Why didn't London know?"
     "London..." She paused.
     "The reason London doesn't know is because I don't know who I can tell.
I don't know  the whole network yet, but the more I learn, the more I know I
can't trust anyone."
     There was another pause. She intended it  to give me time to think, but
I  left it for  her to fill. After pulling  the collar up farther around her
face to fight the cold, she took the hint.
     "I suppose they sent you to kill me?" Her voice was slightly muffled by
the jacket.
     "No, just to get you back to the U.K. for questioning. It seems you are
becoming an embarrassment."
     She scoffed at my answer. I could feel  her  shoulders  shaking as  she
covered her mouth to hide the noise of her coughing laugh.
     "Ah, London..." The laughter stopped and the coughing took over.
     She looked up at me.
     "Listen, Nick, London has got it wrong. This isn't about embarrassment,
for Christ's  sake. It's about assassination." I must have  had that  vacant
expression  on  my face  again,  because she  reverted  to  her kindergarten
teacher voice.
     "The team in the house; they were planning a hit on Netanyahu."
     To be  honest,  I  didn't  really  give  a  shit about Netanyahu,  so I
couldn't help a grin.
     "The hit has failed. They're all dead, apart from one."
     Her head started shaking like a mechanical toy. She was deadly serious,
or as serious as  you can be when all your extremities are purple, including
your nose.
     "No, you're wrong.  There are still two more members  of the cell. They
were going  to RV with  us at the  house today. You don't  understand, Nick;
it's not a  job to them, it's  a quest.  They will carry on." There was real
frustration in her voice.
     "Believe me, ifNetanyahu dies, you will give a shit. It will change the
way you live, Nick. That is, if you do."
     I  hated all this  beating  around the bush; it  was like being  in the
middle of a conversation with Lynn and Elizabeth again.
     "What the fuck are you on about, Sarah?"
     She thought  for a while  as she buried her  head back into  the jacket
collar.
     The sound of the rotor blades kicked in to join the wind above us, then
died as quickly as it came.
     "No, not  yet. I'm going to keep that  as  my insurance; I need to make
sure you get  me out  of here. You see, Nick, I don't believe you're here to
take me  back  to  London.  It  must be more  important than that,  or  they
wouldn't have sent you."
     She was right, of course. I would do exactly the same  if I were in her
position.
     "Look,  Nick.  Keep me alive and get me  out of here, and I'll tell you
everything. Don't let them use you; give me time to prove it."
     I hated not having control. I  wanted  to know more, but  at the same I
wasn't so desperate  that I would lie  awake at  night with worry. I  didn't
reply;
     I had to  think. And  I was  going  to  take her  out  of there anyway,
whether she liked it or not.
     She adjusted her body on  my legs,  and looked up again and stared into
my eyes.
     "Nick,  please believe me. I've got involved in something  where nobody
can be trusted and I mean nobody."
     She  kept her eyes locked on mine. She had just  opened  her  mouth  to
speak again  when we  both heard the  sound of somebody crashing through the
trees.
     Whoever it was wasn't having much luck with their footing. They hit the
ground with a loud curse.
     "Shittt!" It was a man's voice.
     I didn't need to say anything to Sarah. She jumped  away from me and my
hand reached for the pistol.
     The man must have got up,  only  to fall down again immediately with  a
grunt as he scrambled to recover.
     "Oh, fuck, fuck ..."
     On my hands  and  knees,  I moved slowly  to the  edge of our  hide and
pushed my face against the  branches.  It was the American. He was stumbling
around in  the mud, his clothes soaking, his mustache looking like a drowned
rat.  He was heading  in our general  direction, looking as bedraggled as we
were. But  he  wasn't just  running, he was looking for ground  sign. He was
tracking us.
     I crawled back to Sarah and whispered in her ear, "It's your American.
     Go bring him in."
     She shook her head.
     "It won't work."
     "Make him."
     "He won't fall for it."
     "You're the one that needs his clothes, not me."
     She thought about  it, then  nodded  slowly and  took a  deep breath. I
watched as she turned away from me and crawled out of the hide.
     I heard her call, "Lance! Over here! Lance!"
     I  moved to the  opposite  side of the  tree,  pushing back  under  the
branches, just in case Sarah decided to become Lance's best friend again.
     I  lay down and  brought my  pistol  up  into the aim,  the barrel just
clearing the branches.
     I  could hear her talking to him as they got nearer. It was Arabic, but
spoken  rapidly. She was still gob  bing  off to  him at  warp speed as  she
shuffled  backward into the hide. I started to  feel vulnerable now. Why was
she talking to  him like this? I'd already heard him speak English. It could
only  mean trouble.  But fuck it,  whatever  she  was planning was  about to
happen.
        H9
     The  first things  to appear were his hands,  the  backs of which  were
covered in hair and  looked way  too big for  his  wrists. Then his head and
shoulders, face down to avoid  the  low branches as he pushed his way in. He
was nodding  and  agreeing with whatever it was that Sarah was saying as she
followed him in.
     e didn't look up until he was right inside the shelter. When he did, he
saw me crawling out of the branches opposite him. His eyes widened as he saw
the weapon, and he shot a glance  back at  Sarah,  looking for some  kind of
clarification  or  reassurance.  He  looked back at the weapon, then  at her
again,  trying to work it out. After a couple of seconds he gave a deep sigh
and lowered his head, rocking it slowly from side to side.
     Sarah  was level with him now, and jerked  her head to indicate for him
to  crawl  forward a bit  more;  he  did as he was told.  She  ran her hands
underneath his jacket.  I watched  her like  a  hawk, ready to react if  she
tried to grab his weapon and draw down on me.
     She looked at me and shook her head.
     I motioned him to move to the left of the  hide and he shuffled over on
his hands and knees. I stopped him before he was too close to me, in case he
fancied his chances.
     The  black bomber jacket he was  wearing had a Harley Davidson motif on
the left-hand side and looked warm. I motioned with the pistol.
     "Clothes."
     Still on his knees, bent over with  his back parallel to the ground, he
started to remove  the  jacket.  His gaze switched between me  and Sarah; he
didn't  say  a word, still  trying  to  work it all out. Sarah  was  sitting
against
     the tree with her hands in her jacket pockets and her knees against her
chest.
     I grabbed the American's jacket and started to put it on, making sure I
put Sarah's bag back over my shoulders.
     "Now the rest of your stuff," I said.
     "One hand."
     He put his left  hand on the ground and  fiddled with  his belt  buckle
with the other. Sarah was impatient and very cold, and she snapped at him in
Arabic. She must  have been feeling grim, covered from head to toe with mud,
leaves and pine needles, and her legs were wet, dirty and bleeding.
     Lance was  wearing Nike  trainers, and Sarah  decided to  help  him  by
pulling  them off  from behind.  His Levis were next, and when he'd finished
she stretched out on the ground, arched her  back and raised her backside to
get the big jeans on. She was doing up the belt and he was pulling  off  his
T-shirt when I heard  the  helicopter again. The two  of us looked up, which
was  pretty fruitless  considering the tree's  canopy  meant we couldn't see
anything. Lance's T-shirt was over his head but not his shoulders.
     I put my left hand on the back of his neck and rammed his face into the
mud, the barrel of my pistol pressing into his neck.
     The  throbbing  of  the  rotors  was virtually  overhead. The heli  was
hovering.
     It  stayed  there for  several  seconds,  the  trees  flexing under the
downwash.
     Shape,  shine, shadow, silhouette, spacing and movement: those  are the
telltales that can betray your location. But we were in good cover;
     Sarah knew that, too, and continued slowly pulling on the warm clothes.
     The heli moved away about fifty meters, hovered again, then moved on.
     The sound of its rotor blades disappeared completely. I took the muzzle
away from the American's neck and told  him to  carry on. He finished taking
off his T-shirt. Sarah took off the jacket, put on the T-shirt, and replaced
the jacket. All that was left were his socks and boxers. It was Lance's turn
to shiver, the thick hair on his back plastered flat by the rain.
     I could see in  his eyes that  he was starting  to flap. He  must  have
thought he was going to be killed,  and started mumbling some sort of prayer
to himself. But it wasn't a plea, the tone was more of acceptance.
     I said, "It's  OK, Lance, you don't need Allah yet, you're not going to
die. Just shut the fuck up."
     Sarah was  sorted, kneeling  with  her hands  in  her  jacket  pockets,
wearing size eleven trainers and jeans with the gusset hanging halfway  down
to her knees, with  turn ups so big they  looked like some  sort  of fashion
statement.
     The boy was still mumbling away to himself on his  knees, bent  forward
with his  forearms resting  on the  ground,  his hands  clasped together  in
prayer. He was trying his best to be the gray man.
     Sarah looked at me.
     "What about him?"
     I said, "Let's get moving while the  heli's  gone. I'll tie  him to the
tree with my belt. He'll be fucked off, but he'll live."
     She shook her head.
     I  said,  "No, just  leave  him. Come  on, let's  go. We  need  to make
distance."
     She gave a  sigh as I  took the belt from the bag and kicked Lance over
to the tree and began to secure him to it. An hour or  two and he would free
himself; if  not, he  deserved  to  die anyway.  He  was still  muttering to
himself, and as I tightened the knot he  blurted out some insult to Sarah in
Arabic.
     He was probably telling her  what a bitch she was  for fucking him over
like this,  after all they had been through together and all that shit.  She
ignored it. I felt like telling him I knew how he felt.
     I had a quick look around to check we hadn't left anything, and started
to crawl out of the shelter. Sarah followed, or at least I thought she did.
     The Arabic mumblings got fainter.
     I was  still on my  hands and  knees,  my head just  emerging from  the
branches, when the loud  report of a  weapon came from  behind  me. Instinct
flattened me to the ground. In almost  the same instant I realized it wasn't
me who'd been shot and slithered out of the way.
     My  first thought was that he'd somehow got Sarah.  I jumped to my feet
and ran around  the tree to approach him from the  other  side. I started to
crawl in, weapon at the ready. Pushing through the branches on my stomach, I
saw him.  He was still being held up by his secured hands,  but his body was
sagging  and  his legs were splayed, like  the crumpled  victim of  a firing
squad. There was no way Lance would be feeling the cold anymore.
     Sarah had head-jobbed him with a  semiautomatic. She was on  her knees,
putting the weapon into her jacket pocket.
     What  the fuck  was it with  this woman? Every time she was left  alone
with a man she landed up killing him.
     "Give me the gun, Sarah ... Give it."
     She looked up into  the  sky, as if I were being boring, pulled it from
her pocket and threw  it over to me. I  crawled  back out.  It was pointless
keeping a low voice now; half the state would know where we were. I snapped,
"What the fuck are you doing?"
     "He wouldn't stop, believe me. He would try and join up  with the other
two or carry on himself. I know these people. I know Lance very well.
     Look, the other two they know  where, how and when  to do the hit. What
you did this morning won't stop them." Her face had taken on a manic look.
     "For rack's sake, Nick, I'm beginning to wish I'd  just killed  you and
opted to carry on with him."
     There was no time for debate. We'd been compromised. We had to  be like
animals now and run as fast as we could; it didn't matter where, we just had
to get out of that immediate danger area. Only when  we were a safe distance
away could I stop and assess.
     Assuming the shot had  been heard, there  would be chaos at the  police
control center as it  was reported over  the radio net. They would just have
been  starting to work  through  all  their  post-incident  procedures when,
literally, bang!" another problem. Initially they'd  be confused, but they'd
soon  figure  out where  it had  come  from, and  direct the helicopter  and
follow-up our way.
     We legged  it. We  could  move much faster  now than before,  even with
Sarah wearing her size-eleven Nikes.  I was severely pissed off with her for
what she'd done, but  fried  to  control it. Once  you allow yourself to get
angry, you stop  concentrating on  the aim,  which  in this case was to make
distance.  Whether or not she  was  lying wasn't an issue  at the  moment, I
didn't care. The only thing that mattered right now was escape.
     The helicopter  swooped  over the canopy. We stopped  in our tracks and
took cover beneath the trees. But the aircraft wasn't hovering this time, it
was moving fast and low.  It crossed directly overhead, blasting torrents of
rain water from the trees onto our heads, then roared away at speed.
     I decided to keep going in  the  same  direction, a straight  line away
from  the house. I wanted to find a road  or some habitation. A house should
mean a vehicle.
     It was fully light now. Our faster pace had got some body warmth going,
and if anything I was starting to  overheat. Just like me, Sarah was puffing
and panting  as  we scrabbled  up the rises and stumbled headlong  downhill.
There was no need to explain  to her  what I was doing. She was  actually  a
help, because it was so much easier to have two sets of eyes and ears.
     After thirty minutes of hard running we  finally hit  a road.  It was a
single carriage  way potholed and  no more than three or four meters wide. I
paralleled it to the  right, running through the  trees about ten meters  to
its side. We hadn't gone far  when I heard a vehicle. We stopped,  got down,
and  I  rested on my elbows  and knees  to  keep myself  out  of the mud and
preserve body warmth. It was approaching fast from behind us, engine roaring
and tires splashing on wet tarmac.
     A blue and white appeared and sped past, its roof-mounted red  and blue
light bar flashing brighter than was normal in daylight because of the cloud
cover. The  police would have things squared away by now; they were probably
placing a cordon  around the  whole area. They'd  then either wait for us to
emerge, or come in and flush us out.
     The  moment  the  cruiser disappeared from  view we got up and  started
moving. The wind had  strengthened  and  I  could  see waves of heavier rain
coming  in  ahead. After twenty minutes of  running  through deeply  rutted,
puddled ground we came to a large open area, a  perfect square of about five
acres cut out of the forest, with a white cattle fence around the perimeter.
Sitting in the middle,  and approached  by a  driveway  from the road, was a
two-story ranch house built of wooden slats, with a pitched roof, tiled with
gray slates. A square extension had been added onto the far end, and I could
see  an  open garage at ground level. Inside were a  pickup truck, two other
cars and  a small powerboat on a trailer. The  building and two of the three
vehicles looked as if they'd seen better days.
     There was no approach to the garage that avoided open ground. I guessed
there  would be windows on every side of the house, to take advantage of the
views. Six  or  seven  horses  were  loose  in the field, but there  was  no
evidence of dogs and the house itself  seemed quiet  enough. Maybe everybody
was still tucked up in bed.
     "You stay here," I whispered to Sarah.
     "I'm going to go and get a wagon. When you see me drive out, move up to
the road."
     "Why aren't I coming over with you?" She sounded suspicious,  as if she
thought I'd get in a vehicle and just leave her stranded. If only she knew.
     She was in no position to question my decisions, but I answered.
     "Number one, it's quieter if I go on my own I know what  I'm doing, you
don't. Number two, I don't  want you killing anybody else. And number three,
you have no  choice. I have your documents in  here."  I half turned to show
her the bag on my back.
     "You want me to help you, you wait here."
     The  plot of land was  as flat and green as a pool table, not  a single
fold in the ground. Checking the road for  vehicles and the sky for helis, I
set off  across grass that was about three inches high and full of moisture,
running but trying to keep as low as possible. I didn't know why, because it
didn't make me any less visible, but it just seemed the natural thing to do.
I was leaving a clear track in my wake through the wet grass, but I couldn't
do anything about that.
     I kept looking at the windows for movement. As I got closer I could see
that  the upstairs curtains were  drawn. I wondered if  Mr. and Mrs. Redneck
were sitting in bed watching the  news  about  last night's events down  the
road.  For sure, there'd be more news  crews at the lake  by now than  there
were police.
     Reaching the house, I bent down below a side window with open curtains.
     In this weather  there would have been a light on if people were up and
about, and there wasn't,  but even so I didn't chance looking inside. I held
it there for a few seconds and listened. Nothing. Now that I was close up to
them  I  could see that the slats weren't wood at all, but aluminium painted
to look that way, and the roof was just felt, masquerading as tiles.
     I moved  around to the  opposite side of the  house,  toward the garage
extension, making sure that I kept low to avoid the windows.
     I shook my head to get the rain out of  my face. There were no wet tire
marks on the garage floor or rain  on the wagons. There had been no movement
since at least last night.
     The first  thing to  do  was check  whether  any  of  the vehicles were
alarmed.  I  couldn't  see  any  warning  signs,  flashing  LEDs,  or  other
telltales.
     An alarm would probably have cost more than the two cars anyway.
     I tried  all the doors on the vehicles, starting with the pickup truck,
then the two  others a small, rusting red Dodge, a bit  like a bottom-of-the
range Rover, and an elderly, olive-green estate car, with fake wood paneling
along the sides that made  it look like a stagecoach. Everything was locked.
The rain was drumming on the garage  roof as I went  back to the muddy white
Nissan pickup. It  had a double  cab, with a flat bed on the back, protected
by a shaped, heavy plastic liner. I had  a quick mooch in  the boxes next to
it against the wall, then moved aside the plastic bottles  of two-stroke mix
for the boat engine, looking for something to jimmy the door open with.
     I found a toolbox  and was bending over it,  moving  the  tools  really
slowly and carefully so I didn't make any noise, when there was a shout that
made me jump.
     "Don't move! Freeze, yo' sum of a bitch!"
     Whoever  it was, he  must have  spent his  life stalking animals in the
woods, because I hadn't heard a sound. I didn't move a muscle.
     "Keep still or  I'll shoot yer so'ry ass,"  he said in  a really  cool,
calm, deep Southern drawl. He was directly behind me.
     Fucking right  I stood still. I also made sure he had a good view of my
hands. I had a pistol tucked  down the  front of my jeans, and another in my
jacket,  but they were  staying  where they were. I didn't know what he  was
pointing at  me, or even whether he had anything  at all, but I wasn't going
to take the chance. I stayed bent over the toolbox and kept my mouth shut;
     I didn't want to say anything that might antagonize  him, especially in
my bad American accent.
     I could hear his feet scraping on  the concrete floor  of the garage. I
listened intently; I wanted to estimate how far away he was.
     "Sum of a bitch, stay whar yare."  He  sounded an oldish man,  maybe in
his early sixties.
     He was  shuffling toward me. I moved  my eyes so that I could catch his
reflection in the door  window of the  pickup.  As  he moved closer  I could
clearly see an outstretched hand holding a snub-nosed revolver.
     "D'ya know whose truck this here's is, feller?"
     I shook my head very slowly.
     "Muh sum's. Muh sum's a  state  trooper.  He's out thar lookin' fer yer
ass right now. But yer in muh house. You belong time. Sums o' bitches, shit,
dammit..."
     Either I was right they had been  watching breakfast TV or Mr. and Mrs.
Redneck's little boy had been on the telephone to fill him in on events.
     He carried on.
     "The troopers is comin' now t'drag yer ass in, feller.
     Shit, thet's muh sum's truck, he worked dadbumed hard fer thet .. .
     mutherfucker, shit..."
     I kept watching the reflection in the window. He took another couple of
steps  toward me, but he shouldn't have  done;  you never get too  close  to
someone when you're holding a pistol what's the point, it's designed to kill
at a distance.
     Another step  and I could see the detail of  the weapon. It was a  .38,
the  same  type as  the young black guy had been  buying  at Jim's.  As  the
salesman had  told him, "Just point  it like your  finger at the center mass
and it will take them down." The hammer was back, which wasn't good for me.
     Revolvers work  on a double  action: to fire,  you have to make  a very
positive  squeeze  on  the trigger, which works  both  actions, pulling  the
hammer all the way back, and letting it then go forward.  That serves as the
safety device on a revolver, instead of having a safety catch, which you get
on most semiautomatics.  But he'd cocked it; the hammer was pulled back, the
first action  had already been taken  up all he  had  to do  now  was gently
squeeze that trigger with less than seven  pounds of  pressure and the thing
would  go off. A year-old baby can exert seven  pounds of pressure  with his
index finger, and this was a big old boy who was pissed off and sparked up.
     I remained passive. He had me; what could I say?
     The  reflection  moved and he was almost on top of me, and then I  felt
cold metal  in the back of my neck. He  jabbed the pistol,  moving it up and
down, and, knowing that he had his finger on the trigger, I started to flap.
I closed my eyes, ready to die.
     "Fuckin' sums o' fuckin' bitches," he ranted.
     "Why dim't you  fucks git a  job  like  ev'ry other  mutherfucker? .. .
Shit.. . not jest come an' take .. .
     yer not gonna take here ..."
     I opened  my  eyes and  looked  in  the  window. He  had his  arm fully
extended and  the muzzle  was still in contact  with my neck. Either  he was
going  to kill me by  accident if that second pressure was pulled, or  I was
going to get fucked  over well and truly once the son and his trooper  mates
arrived on the scene.
     If I was quick enough on the initial move, I'd be safe for a second; it
was what  I did afterward that would decide whether  or not  I lived. I  was
going to get caught or I was going to die, so anything I did before that was
a bonus.
     I didn't  want him to see me taking the three  deep breaths to fill  my
lungs with oxygen, so I just let him get on with jabbing the  muzzle into my
neck while I closed my eyes and got ready. He cackled at his own humor as he
said,  "Muh sum's gonna kick yer sorry ass, you fuck." He  was  getting more
angry as he gained confidence.
     "Why is you here doin'  yer kinin'? Git home an' do yer kinin' thar ...
shit..."  He  was  thinking  of something  to  add. He found  it:  "sums  of
bitches."
     I took the final breath and opened my eyes. Fuck it, just go for it.
        ARRGGGHHHHHH!
     Stepping forward with my right  foot, and at  the  same time  swiveling
left on the other, I raised  my  left arm, bellowing like  a  lunatic. I was
hoping for two  things: that it would confuse  him, and that  it  would also
spark me up. It didn't matter to me which part of my left arm hit his weapon
arm,  as  long as it did. My arm connected  and I could no longer feel  cold
metal against my head.
     My  left  forearm  now  had  to keep  contact with his weapon arm as  I
carried on swiveling around so that I was facing him. He was bigger than I'd
expected. His  unshaven face looked like crinkled leather and  it was topped
with a riot of uncombed gray hair. I grasped the material of whatever he was
wearing on his weapon arm, trying to keep the .38 facing anywhere but at me.
     A round went off, and the report echoed around the garage.  He probably
didn't even realize he had pulled the trigger.
     I kept turning, and  he  started  to scream  back at me  and holler for
"Ruby."  His face was  no more than six inches  from mine, and I could smell
his bad breath and see his toothless mouth, wide open.
     For the full two seconds my move  had taken, my eyes had never left the
pistol.  In theory, the rules of squash apply: never take  your eye off  the
ball. But  I'd  always  found it hard;  sometimes I reckoned it  was just as
effective to look at  the other player, because just before he hits the ball
his eyes will tell you if he's bluffing a hard  one and is in fact going  to
hit it gently. It wasn't something I'd been taught, it  was just something I
found myself doing instinctively in that situation; maybe that was why I was
such a crap squash player.
     As I  turned farther, so did he. The look on the old boy's face was not
a  happy one.  A couple of seconds ago things had been going really well for
him, and yet  now he thought  he was about to  meet his  maker. His head and
body  were turning away from me, presenting his back, and with my right hand
I  was able  to slam his  head  against the wagon. There was a thud  on  the
window as he made  contact, with  me still gripping what I could now see was
the blue  overall  sleeve  on his  left arm. I pushed  him  hard against the
pickup with  the weight of  my  whole body, knocking the air  out of  him. I
pushed with  my  right knee against  the back of one of his kneecaps  and he
buckled. I held his head to control his fall.
     I  didn't say  a  word.  I  didn't  have  to.  He  was  on  his  knees,
spreadeagled against the wagon, his face pressed against the door. I gripped
his weapon arm and shook it. The .38 clattered to the floor.
     But  that  wasn't the end  of it.  This boy wasn't giving  up. Spit and
blood flew out of his mouth as he raged, "You sum of a fuckin' bitch, thet's
all yer want t'do, come here an' take .. . shit."
     I  was worried about his wife; was Ruby on the phone to  the police, or
getting out the shotgun? I stepped back and drew my  own pistol, kicking his
left  arm to get him right down on the floor. Then I delivered  a couple  of
persuaders for him to get under the pickup. Now what? I ran.
     I sprinted out of the garage, turned left  past the front of the  house
and  legged it across the grass, following the track I'd made on the way in.
The rain was pelting down.
     I heard a woman shout behind me, but I didn't look back.  There were no
shots.
     I vaulted the fence and made my way through the woods to Sarah. She was
on her haunches, against a  tree. I collapsed  next  to  her, panting  on my
hands and knees. I  looked up  and we exchanged a glance. What could  I say?
I'd  fucked  up. You can  be so close to civilization, yet  when you're wet,
cold, hungry and don't exactly know where you are, it can seem so far.
     There was a gap that she filled.
     "What now?"
     "Let me think ..." I looked back at the house. There was no movement.
     Ruby was  probably in  the  garage, dragging her husband out from under
the pickup before heading back to the phone.
     My mind was racing through all  the options, but  the decision was made
for me. A cruiser ripped along the road from the opposite side of the house,
a blue and white blur in the driving rain. No sirens, no lights, just a foot
flat down  on the gas pedal. If it was Mr.  and  Mrs.  Redneck's  little boy
responding to the call, he wasn't going to be happy with  the way I'd abused
his father's Southern hospitality.
     I got up and  started to move. They  would be  following  up big  time,
tracking the  sign I'd  left in the grass. I  ran back the way we  had come,
then  hung a  right toward  the road. At that moment I  heard the helicopter
rattling through the sky. We got  into tree hugging again. The moment it had
flown past, and  not even bothering  to look behind me to check for Sarah, I
started motoring through the forest. She would just have to keep up.
     Reaching the edge of the wood near the road,  I  dropped onto  my hands
and knees, watched and listened. The only sounds  I could hear  were my  own
labored breathing and the rain hammering on the tarmac and leaves.
     Sarah flopped down beside me.
     I crawled to the  very edge of the tree line and  looked out. The  wet,
potholed, single-carriage way road was deserted.
     e  both  lay  there  in  the  mud, lifting  our heads  and checking for
movement like a pair  ofmeerkats. I couldn't see  anything, just solid walls
of rain.
     Finally I nodded to her. She acknowledged. I got up and sprinted across
the road, but instead of  going into the tree line,  I cut  left and started
following the edge of the tarmac.
     She  shouted, "Nick,  what  are  you  doing?  Come on,  let's get under
cover!"
     I turned and waved her toward me.
     She hesitated a moment, then understood and  ran to join me. I kept  to
the roadside  for  another  thirty meters,  checking  backward, forward  and
upward for movement. I chanced about  ten meters more and knew I was tearing
the ass out of it. I ducked to the right and moved into the tree line.
     Even  if  they  followed  up  with dogs, it would take them a  while to
reestablish our trail, for the surface scent would be washed  off the tarmac
by the  heavy rain, slowing  the  dogs down severely. It would then be up to
the trackers to cast for sign in both directions and along both sides of the
road, because for all they knew I might have doubled back. Only when, or if,
they refound our trail could they get the dogs back on the scent.
     For the next half hour I picked my way through dense forest. The ground
was undulating and littered with knolls;  it was hard  going, but  excellent
cover, the sort of terrain that a light aircraft might crash into  and never
be found. I was  heading  in this direction for no  other reason than that I
wanted to; sometimes there is no absolutely correct answer.
     Every  ten minutes or so  the heli  clattered  across  the sky, casting
around for movement or visible sign.  This time  it got  a bit too near.  We
stopped and hid, using the chance to catch our breath. Both of us were still
soaked to the skin with rain and sweat. As the heli came in low over us, the
trees swayed with  the downwash and another sixty  gallons  of rain cascaded
through  the canopy. My throat was dry and rasping as  my chest  heaved, the
only  positive thing being that  all this  effort was  keeping  my body core
nicely heated.
     Still  the helicopter  didn't  move  out  of  the area.  He was  there,
somewhere;
     low and slow. I looked  back the way we'd come and saw the ground  sign
we'd left. It would be easy enough even for the untrained eye to follow, but
for anybody  who knew what  they were  doing, possibly with  dogs, it  was a
floodlit motorway.
     Deep down, I knew it wouldn't take them long to find where we'd crossed
the  road.  From  there  it would  be simple; we were  traveling through wet
forest, over stinking ground, in rain and fog perfect terrain and conditions
for  keeping  a  scent  glued in  position.  What  was more,  they  would be
following on fresh legs and  able to call  up reinforcements  at  will,  and
after a while they'd  be able  to predict  our direction  of  travel so that
others  could  intercept  us.  Then  again, maybe  they didn't have dogs  or
trackers on the case yet;  it wasn't as if  such things were on  twenty-four
hour  standby. Visual tracking is not the most popular skill for a person to
take  up, and exponents are in short supply; maybe  it would take them hours
to mobilize  somebody, and maybe they  lived on the other side of the state.
Maybe ...  maybe. Whatever, every man, but hopefully not his dog,  would  be
out looking.
     I had to admit to myself that I had no idea where we were going, and we
were gradually exhausting ourselves. A decision had to be made: Did we  hide
up and wait until dark to move out of the area, preferably by vehicle?
     Or did we take our chances now?
     The heli's blades chopped  the air above us. It didn't seem to be going
anywhere.  This was strange;  it wouldn't be  able to see a thing under  the
canopy, and in a backwoods area like this it was unlikely  to be fitted with
thermal-imaging equipment. It was a full ten minutes before I heard a change
in engine pitch, and the  aircraft  rattled off into the distance.  I  moved
from under the tree and continued running. Our pace was slowing perceptibly.
I  was  fucked. My footprints were getting closer and closer together  as my
strides  shortened:  to a  visual tracker  or trained dog  it  would be  the
encouraging sign of a slower-moving quarry. I glanced behind me.
     Sarah looked like death on legs.
     I tried to think of  positives. If you run at 10 mph for one hour in an
unknown direction, you could be anywhere in a circle of just over 300 square
miles. An hour later that will have become an area of 1,256 square miles.
     In The Lone Ranger, Tonto used to stop and say, "Five wagons, two hours
ago.  That way,  kemo  sabe." Luckily, real  life isn't that easy and  Tonto
lives in Arizona.
     I decided to lie up and wait until last light. With no compass or stars
to guide us, I could be going  around in circles for weeks. During darkness,