Crisis Four

After a couple of trips, with the boys lifting what seemed to be heavy kit, the 4x4 was empty and everything was stowed inside the garage. The side door closed and the area once more looked as if nothing had happened all day. What was going on here?

Ever since we'd first met, it had seemed to me that Sarah was sympathetic to the Arabs. She'd been involved with them in one way or another for most of her life. Come to think of it, we'd even had a row once about Yasser Arafat. I said that I thought he'd done a good job; she thought he was selling out to the West.

"It's all about homeland, both spiritual and cultural, Nick," she'd say every time the subject arose, and nobody who'd been within sight of a Palestinian refugee camp could argue, but I wondered whether there was more to it than that.

A faint drizzle was starting. It hadn't penetrated my hide yet but could clearly be seen falling on the open ground in front of me. I could hear outboard motors in the distance as the intrepid fishermen set out in pursuit of a six-ounce carp. Lunchtime must be over.

There's more to surveillance than just the mechanics. A report that says, "Four men get out of vehicle, two men pick up bags and go inside," is all very well, but it's the interpretation of those events that matters.

Were they looking aware? Did they seem to know each other well? Were they, perhaps, master and servant? These people were meeting up, in hiding, and with kit. I had seen this before with ASUs (active service units).

The boxes looked as if they'd seen a lot of air time during their life, but not on this trip. There were no airline tags on the handles or on the bags.

Maybe they'd driven to an RV point and then transferred the kit. If so, why? Whatever was happening here, it wasn't about the turtles.

Things were starting to spark up and Lynn and Elizabeth needed to know that there were now four Arabs, one American and Sarah. Maybe London could make sense of what was happening; after all, they would know far more than they had told me. With any luck, Elizabeth would now be at Northolt, poring over my previous message and images, with her tea so strong you could stand the spoon in it.

It was 15:48, time to switch on the phone. It had been a couple of hours since my last transmission, and they should be calling me back with an acknowledgment and maybe even a reply.

I took it out of my pocket and switched it on, placing it in the shell scrape so I could see when I had a signal while I got out the codes from my jeans and encoded my sit rep. As I retrieved the 3C, I started to feel like I needed a shit. So much for the Imodium: it should have bunged me up, but maybe the combination of pizza, Mars bars and Spam weren't the most binding of materials. I knew from bitter experience that fighting the urge never works; if you've got the time, however inconvenient that might be, you never wait until the last minute: if you do, sure as anything, a drama will occur at the target the moment you get your trousers down.

I got the roll of plastic wrap from the bergen and pulled off the best part of a meter. Leaning over to my left, still trying to keep my eyes on the target, I undid the buttons of both sets of trousers with my right hand, and pulled them down, along with my pants. I then got the plastic in my left hand and tucked it under, ready to receive. I started to want to piss; I wasn't going to rummage for the gas can at this stage of the proceedings, so I just had to restrain myself while I got the main event out of the way. I wrapped the first handful in the plastic and put it to one side, pulled off another length, put it underneath, and carried on. Having to do this in the field is never an easy procedure, especially when you're lying on your side and in fits and starts, because it's got to be controlled. It's unpleasant, but there's no way around it.

The drizzle was now trying hard to become something more grownup.

I could hear the first raindrops hitting the leaves above me. I was about halfway through the second lot of plastic wrap when the LED on the phone told me I had a message waiting.

At the same moment, I heard a voice--male and American. I switched off the phone and thrust it and the 3C in my pockets. I looked out of the hide at the movement of the trees, trying to gauge the direction of the wind. It was still coming in from the lake. The American was on his own, coming out of the garage doors and heading toward the boat.

Trying desperately to control my sphincter and bladder, I watched as he moved the boat out of the way of the garage doors. I guessed he was going to park up the Explorer. He climbed into the driver's seat and revved the engine. All the curtains in the house were still closed and there was no other sign of movement.

There are quite a few times on tasks when you really have no alternative but to shit yourself, especially on urban OPs where you're in a loft space and there are people downstairs. You try not to do it, because you might have to go out into the street straight afterward and operate like a civilian, but sometimes, if there's no room to move, it's just got to be done. The only precautions you can take are to not eat before the op, drink as little as you can, and pop some Imodium--then hope for the best. It's a bit like the KitKat commercial, with the photographer outside the panda house at the zoo: you could have been lying in an OP for four weeks, but the moment you get the plastic wrap out, the panda emerges and does a quick impersonation of Fred Astaire.

I'd guessed correctly. By now the 4x4 was in the garage, the boat was back in position and he'd gone back into the house. I finished off the job with the plastic wrap and gas container and pulled up my trouser bottoms.

I was feeling quite sorry for myself; the only consolation I could think of was that plastic probably did the job better than the shiny stuff in the car park toilets would have done.

I tore off another big length of it, wrapped up all my offerings and popped them straight into the bergen. It would help to hide the smell, which in turn meant it wouldn't attract flies and animals. I then tucked the fuel canister back into the bergen as well, doing my bit for eco-tourism.

I'd learned my lesson. I dug around in the day sack for the Imodium and took another six capsules, probably enough to constipate an elephant. I lay down again with my hands resting under my chin, looking at the target, but after a couple of sniffs I decided to rub them with soil and keep them away from my face for a while.

On target, nothing else had changed. The curtains were still closed.

In the hide, it was now wet and miserable. The rain was starting to fall more heavily; the noise of it hitting the trees increased and it was dripping from the foliage, through the cam net, and running down my face and neck. I brushed away a small twig that had stuck to my cheek. Sod's law of OPs was at it again; I knew it would only be a matter of time before it percolated down onto me in a steady stream.

I got out the phone again. Sheltering it under my chest, I switched on the power, tapped in my PIN and dialed Kay's sweetshop then *2442.

They would be transmitting one-time pad number groups to me, exactly as I'd done to them, except that the groups would have been recorded on a continuous tape, which would keep running until I acknowledged that I had received it.

I cradled the phone to my ear and listened as I switched the Psion to word-processing mode. As the woman's voice recited groups of five digit numbers, I tapped them into the keyboard. It was easier than writing them down.

"Group six: 14732. Group seven: 97641. Group ..."

I knew it had got to the end of the message when she said, "Last group:

69821. End of message. Press the star key if you require the message repeated."

I did. I then had to wait a few moments for the message to repeat itself so I could receive the first five groups. Up it came again: "You have a" pause, different voice "sixteen" back to normal voice "group message. Group one: 61476. Group two ..."

When the taped message had come full circle, I switched off the phone, put it away and transferred the groups onto paper. I'd never been up to doing the math on the Psion, and by the time I'd got the hang of it I would have been up for retirement.

The rain was coming down in earnest. Keeping my eyes on the house, I pulled the hood up around my neck to cut out what was pouring through the cam net. I couldn't cover my head, however, because that would degrade my hearing.

Armed with the number groups, I was now going to do the reverse of what I'd done earlier: look for the recognition group on the one-time pad, then subtract each group from the ones that I had on my OTP.

Once I'd done that, I put the flash card back in my jeans pocket and got out the one that held the codes. They came up on the screen and I worked out the message. The first lot of groups were the introduction-date, time groups, all that sort of stuff. Then I got to the meat of the message:

61476 EXTRACT

97641 TARGET

02345 BY ANY MEANS

98562 CUT OFF TIME

47624 DTG (date time group, times local)

82624 APRIL 27

47382 0500HRS (times local)

42399 FOR

42682 T104

15662 ACKNOWLEDGE

88765 02442

"Extract target" was easy enough to understand: they wanted me to remove Sarah from the house by 5 a.m. tomorrow morning. Fair enough.

It was the next bit I couldn't believe: "T104."

"T" plus a numeral is a code within a code, for brevity. There are quite a few T commands, and they have to be learned parrot fashion, as nothing about them is ever written down by anyone, anywhere. They don't officially exist, and the reason is simple. T is a command to kill.

They wanted me to kill Sarah.

Not only that, but 104 meant without trace: the body must never be discovered.

Elizabeth must have been more pissed off at being summoned to Northolt on a Sunday than I'd thought. Either that, or they'd told me even less about the operation than I suspected they had.

The wind gusted and the heavens opened, as if to confirm my feeling about the T104.

redialed.

The recorded voice said, "You have no new messages." There was a pause, then she started to give out the introduction for the groups already sent. I checked them against the ones I'd written down, and went through all the codes again.

As I protected the 3C from the rain I knew there was no mistake. I took a deep breath and let it go slowly, wiping away some water that had splashed down my cheek.

I'd been a young infantryman when I'd killed my first man, an IRA terrorist.

I'd felt good about it. I thought that was how you were supposed to feel. After all, it was what the Army did for a living. Later, I got more satisfaction from stopping death than causing it. However, if the task was to kill, it didn't particularly worry me. I didn't celebrate the fact, but neither did I complain. I understood that they had sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, but they were players like everybody else, including me. And at its most basic level, if somebody had to die, I'd rather it was them than me. My only concern was to try to make it as quick as possible--not so much for their benefit, but to make it safer for me.

This T104 was different. This was the second time I'd had to kill someone I'd been close to. Considering there was only Josh left who resembled anything like a friend, I couldn't help wondering what the fuck was going on in my life. Euan had been my best mate for as long as I could remember, but he'd used me--worse than that, he'd used Kelly. Now the only woman I'd ever felt really involved with had got herself into a world of

shit that I had to wipe clean. I was starting to feel sorry for myself, and realized it. I had to cut out of this; I needed to get real.

I deleted from the flash card the groups that had been used for the two messages, and ate the small piece of paper I had used. No one would ever be using that combination again--that was why it was called a onetime pad--and no evidence of any T104 would ever be seen, since all details are destroyed once used. I put the two flash cards back into separate pockets in my jeans and turned off the 3C, getting it out of the rain.

Everything that Elizabeth and Lynn had said was making sense to me here on the ground. They knew the big picture, I was sure of it; maybe the imagery I'd Mac'd down to them had confirmed their fears. Was there a connection with what she'd got up to in Syria? I didn't even bother to think that much about it. I didn't really give a fuck. Even if, say, this group was planning to hit Netanyahu, Arafat, Clinton or even the whole job lot--so what? I remembered the footage after Rabin had been assassinated, and sure, I saw his niece, or whoever it was, speaking at his funeral.

I understood that it must be sad, but I wasn't personally affected. To me, it was just one more dead person amongst the thousands on both sides in Israel who'd been bombed and shot over the years. I didn't get worked up about political murders, even when they were closer to home, which usually meant Northern Ireland. Fuck 'em, we all have to die sometime. Live by the sword, and all that. They were all as bad as each other.

For all I knew, there could be massive ramifications to whatever Sarah was involved in. This crew could be plotting the murder of thousands of people. Maybe the U.S.A."s fear of chemical or biological weapons being used in their backyard was becoming a reality here and now, in a holiday home in North Carolina. It would be quite easy to contaminate, say, the entire water supply of D.C. Even if it were partial contamination, the right sort of disease would quickly spread itself around. Making one person history can often mean saving many others; it was simplistic, but I always saw such Ts in terms of putting a round into Hitler's skull in 1939.

I knew I was trying to keep emotions out by looking at it logically.

Maybe the Americans had now been told what was going on, and would be hitting the target as soon as they got sorted? In which case, it stood to reason that Elizabeth wouldn't want Sarah to be found on target.

So extract her, drop her, make sure she's never found. Who knows?

I forced myself to cut away from conjecture; it had no bearing on the order I'd received, and I'd probably come to the wrong conclusion anyway.

Either way, I just didn't want the job.

I was watching the house through the misty rain in a sort of daydream.

I gripped myself again. Fuck it! If I carried on thinking like this, I'd end up howling at the moon and dancing around the maypole or whatever tree huggers do. Maybe I'd been reading too many books about kids and their emotions; maybe all the touchy-feely crap was getting to me. I decided to bin it; get the tree-hugging cassette out of my head and put the work one back in. Sarah might have lots of plans, but as far as I was concerned long life wasn't going to be one of them.

The rain was bucketing down. I pulled on the hood string, trying to stop the water running down my neck. I was getting very cold. I forced myself to focus on a mission analysis, and to look at the factors that could affect it; only then could I carry out the task and have a chance of getting away with it. If I wanted to kill the president of the United States, nobody could stop me, but getting away with it would be the hard bit.

The first thing I had to do was understand my mission. What was required of me? It broke down into just two parts: first, I had to get her out of the target area by 0500 hours tomorrow morning; the second part, the T104, wasn't important at the moment. Besides, I already knew how I was going to do it.

I broke down the first part of the job into five phases: one, approach the house; two, make entry; three, locate Sarah; four, lift and exfil from the house; five, exfil the area.

Next I had to look at what might stop me carrying out those five phases. The first obstacle was obviously the men with her. There were far too many of them for comfort, and for all I knew there could be even more inside who hadn't poked their heads out yet. What were their intentions?

Fuck knows. It was a safe bet, though, that they weren't there for the canoeing.

It looked as if the place was an RV point. At some stage, therefore, they were going to leave, and maybe that was the reason she had to be lifted before five o'clock in the morning, because they wouldn't all be staying together in one place for long.

The next question: What were their tactics, training, leadership and morale? I could only guess. Certainly their leadership would be good; either Sarah would be in charge herself, or if she wasn't, then whoever was would have to cut the mustard, or she wouldn't be working with them. As for their morale, that looked just fine. They seemed confident about what they were doing, whatever that was. Ninety percent of people's confidence can come from total stupidity and no understanding of what's going on, and only 10 percent because they are well trained and well prepared.

Sarah would only be in a group where confidence was backed up with ability.

What were their capabilities? And did they have weapons? I had no idea. All I knew about was Sarah as a person and an operator, so I knew that she was professional, ruthless, focused and capable of killing. If I got into the house and she saw me first, she'd kill me if she had to. She would fight rather than be taken. Strangely enough, that meant that I wasn't so worried about her, because she was quantifiable; but the other guys I didn't know if they would fight, and what with. I had to assume the worst;

it always pays to assume that the other players are better than you are, and plan accordingly.

I didn't have a lot of information to go on, but what was new about that? It wouldn't be the first time that I'd had to go into a situation blind. It just pissed me off that I'd positively ID'd her. Maybe it would have been better if I hadn't. Maybe. I found myself half hoping that everyone in the house would clear off in the next few hours. Then there would be nothing I could do but start on the trail again.

I began to run through everything I'd seen so far, trying to think of something I'd forgotten. The subconscious is wonderful, because it never forgets what it has seen or heard. Every sight, sound and fragment of perception is tucked away in there somewhere all you've got to do is drag it out. Maybe, for example, I'd seen a weapon without actually realizing it?

Nothing came to me.

Now I had to look at the ground where I was going to carry out the mission. First of all the general terrain, and that was of no concern because I was sitting on it. I could almost spit at the target; it wasn't as if I was heading into an area I'd never seen before.

The one factor that did worry me was the "vital ground," which in this case was the fifteen meters this side of the house that I reckoned to be within range of the proximity sensors and lights. How was I going to approach the target, let alone penetrate it?

I scanned all the doors and windows for any information that would help me make entry. I had seen through the binoculars that the lock on the garage side door was just an ordinary pin tumbler inside a large knob handle, much like those on motel doors very common, and not difficult to defeat. The far bigger problem would be whether I could get near the lock in the first place without the detectors going ape shit

I had a clear picture of what my mission was. I knew all that I could about the enemy at this stage, and I knew all that I could know about the target or as much as I could for the time being. Now what I needed to work out was "time and space" how much time I had to do what I had to do. As I lay looking at the target, pushing my hair from my forehead as it was starting to act as a channel for the rain, I thought about the five phases and tried to work out plans for each one.

I looked at the approach. I visualized all the different routes, as if I were sitting in comfort, looking at a monitor connected to a live-feed camera with someone who was moving along each possible approach in turn.

I next considered different ways of making entry. I visualized working on the locks, and what to do if I couldn't get in that way. Not that it would necessarily work, but at least I'd have an alternative. Deniable operations are not ascience. People might have an image gleaned from spy movies of precision and perfection, and assume it all runs like clockwork. In reality it doesn't, for the simple reason that we're all human beings, and human beings are liable to fuck up I knew I did about 40 percent of the time.

James Bond? More like James Bone. Add to that the fact that the people we are working against are also fallible, and it isn't a formula for guaranteed success. The only true measure of human intelligence is the speed and versatility with which people can adapt to new situations. Certainly once you are on the ground, you have to be as flexible as a rubber band, and what helps you be flexible is planning and preparation. With luck, when the inevitable fuckup did occur, I wouldn't be a rabbit frozen in the headlights. As Napoleon, or somebody like that, said, "If your opponent has only two possible options, you can be sure that he will take the third."

Eventually I came up with a workable plan well, I thought I had. I'd soon find out. I checked my watch just gone 5:32 p.m. That gave me just over eleven hours to get into the house and get her away. But that was merely the physical timing; the factors that mattered even more were light and dark. I couldn't move in daylight; all my movements had to be under cover of darkness.

London wanted her lifted by 5 a.m. I knew that first light was at about five thirty, but it would take a little longer to arrive in the forest. I needed to get hold of her and be away from here by 3 a.m.; that would give me about two hours of darkness to get clear of the area. Last light was at just after seven o'clock, but I wouldn't get full cover of darkness until about an hour later. On the face of it, that effectively gave me seven hours of working time. But I couldn't go in there while they were still awake, so what would I do if they were still up and about at two o'clock in the morning?

By now, I'd dehumanized the people I was up against. To me they were targets, the same as the house. From now on I wouldn't refer to them, or even think of them, as people. I couldn't, otherwise I wouldn't be able to do the job. Ironically, Sarah had once asked me about that. I told her I didn't like to analyze myself too much because I wasn't sure I'd like what I found. I knew I'd done some really terrible things, but I didn't think I was too bad a person. The question that always bugged me more was, Why was I doing this shit in the first place? My whole life had been spent sitting in wet holes. Even when I was in the Army I would ask myself the same thing: Why? I couldn't answer fully then, and I couldn't now. Queen and country? Nah. I didn't know anyone who'd even considered that.

Pride? I was proud, not necessarily of what I did, but certainly of the way I did it. Being a soldier, and later a K, was the only thing I was good at.

Even as a kid I was just odd socks and scabs; my mother was always telling me I'd never amount to anything. Maybe she was right, but I liked to think that, in my own little world, I was among the best. It made me feel good about myself, and I got paid for it. The only downside was that I'd have a little bit of explaining to do when I was standing at the Pearly Gates. But who doesn't?

The wind had died down, and the rain wasn't falling quite so hard.

Lights came on in the house, which was natural enough; it was nearly seven o'clock, it would be dark inside. The lights were showing on the first floor, the same as last night. I strained to listen, but couldn't hear anything, not even a radio or TV What I wouldn't have given to know what was going on in there. I hoped they were packing their bags and fucking off.

You can always improve on a plan, so I kept on visualizing. What if I got to the door just as they were coming out with their bags? What would I do? Where would I go? Would I just barge in there and kill her, or would I try and get her out? Amie and Bruce go in and take on a dozen bad guys at a time, but it doesn't work like that for the rest of us: against a dozen people, you die. A job like this was going to call for speed, aggression and surprise. I'd have to get in there, and get out quickly, but all with minimum risk to me. It wasn't going to be a good day out at all.

Eyes and ears glued to the house, I went through the whole lot again.

And again, wondering if there was anything I'd missed. For sure there would be, but that was what I got paid for: to improvise.

Nothing else mattered now but the task. To achieve the aim is to have a chance of staying alive. This was not the time to think about skipping through meadows or getting in touch with my feminine side. Sarah was now a target. To think any other way could put me in danger, and that wasn't the way I wanted it. Kelly and I still had a Bloody Tower to visit.

The lights on the first floor went off. It was just before eleven thirty, and another forty gallons of rain had fallen on the OP since I'd last looked at Baby-G thirty minutes before. I packed the camera.

I pushed the bung with my foot and eased myself out of the hide backward on my arms and knees, dragging the bergen and bow with me.

The rain hadn't stopped, but at least the wind that brought it had died. I stayed on my knees and retrieved the two flash cards from my jeans, and with the pliers part of my Leatherman I cracked and bent them into unusable shapes. I put them in two separate pockets of the bergen, along with the 3C.

slowly got to my feet and stretched, stiff as an old man, a wet old man at that, and then listened carefully. Nothing from the house, just the noise of the rain hitting Gore-Tex and leaf. Unfortunately, the next part of the plan entailed me taking my jacket off.

Shivering as the cold air got at my skin, I spread the jacket on the ground, then pulled off my Gore-Tex trousers and put them to one side.

Finally, everything else I was wearing came off, apart from my skivvies, and was quickly placed on top of the jacket.

There was one last thing I remembered to do before carrying on. I retrieved my shirt and, with the knife of the Leatherman, cut off both sleeves at the shoulder. I tucked them into a pocket of my jeans, then started to wrap up the bundle of clothes in the jacket, shivering big time after being cocooned in so many layers.

Next I cut four or five lengths of string and used a couple of them to secure the bottoms of the trouser legs by twisting. I shoved the jacket and

bundle of clothes down one of the trouser legs, then tied up the waist. Finally I twisted and folded over the trousers and tied the complete bundle.

Once done, it went into my bergen.

I rwasn't concerned about any of the kit that I'd left in the OP as none of it was traceable to me, apart from my plastic-wrapped shit, which I'd removed from my bergen. If the extraction of Sarah did turn into a gang fuck and the hide was discovered by the police or whoever, then by the time anyone got a DNA analysis done I should be well out of the country.

Besides, unless I got caught and the U.K. denied me, the Firm would ensure that any DNA records or follow-up became history.

My passport, phone and credit cards had been in my jacket, plastic wrapped, since the beginning. I made the decision to take them with me instead of going into the house sterile. If I got caught now, chances were I'd be dead anyway. And besides, Sarah knew who I was. It wouldn't exactly take a Mastermind contestant to work out what I was there for.

The bow was wedged into the frame of the bergen with the six arrows inserted in the quiver. I took the fifth length of string and tied one end to the bergen, attaching myself to the other by looping it around my wrist a couple of times. At the first hint of trouble, I could let go and part company with it.

Once done, I checked that the bergen straps were done up as tightly as possible, then looked at the house yet again. Still no lights.

I treplaced the bung and smoothed away any sign. Maybe archaeologists in the next millennium would unearth my little time capsule and scratch their heads at the cache of Four Seasons pizza, a gas can full of piss and a couple of handfuls of shit in plastic wrap.

I moved down to the water's edge, watched, listened, then slowly waded in. The bottom sloped gently to start with, but by the time I'd done four or five paces I was in up to my knees, and freezing. It was just a matter of fighting it and persuading myself that I'd be warm again soon.

I lowered the bergen into the water in front of me, and it floated with the bow just above the water. Even when fully laden, there's always enough air trapped in a bergen to make it buoyant. It had been years since I'd done anything like this. In the jungle, it always used to rain heavily. It would often take us an entire day to cross a main river, and the Regiment had lost more people doing this sort of thing during training than by any other drill.

I kept wading farther in, until the water came up to my waist, then my neck. The rain was jumping off the lake's surface and hitting my face; being so close, the splashes sounded louder than they really were. The shock of the cold took my breath away, but I knew I'd get used to it in a minute or two.

I took one of the mangled flash cards from a bergen pocket, dropped it in the lake and checked that it sank. Then, pushing the bergen in front of me and keeping parallel to the shore line, I walked toward the house, taking my time so I didn't create a visible bow wave or make any noise. At night, and at that distance, even if they were looking at the lake, the bergen would pass as a floating log. In any event, it was the only way I could get on target without triggering the alarms.

After a dozen or so steps I stopped, checked the house again, and dumped the remaining flash card as the rain pelted the taut nylon of the bergen.

I kept moving slowly toward the target, at the same time wanting to get there as quickly as possible. My balls were so cold I thought they might make a dash for my armpits. Underfoot it was rocky and a couple of times I hit an obstruction and got entangled in weed.

It was time to discard the 3C. I wouldn't be needing it anymore, because if everything worked to plan, the next time I contacted Elizabeth I'd be back in the U.K. and if it didn't and I was in the shit, Sarah would know how to extract information from it and the flash cards.

I got level with the house and turned to face it. The curtains were closed and there were still no lights on. Placing my wrist behind the bergen to shield it from the target, I pressed the backlit display on Baby-G. It was just after midnight. I started to shiver even more now that I'd stopped. I needed to get out of the water and back into some clothes.

I moved forward in a direct line toward the slipway, pushing the bergen in front of me. The boat was now dead ahead, and all I could see of it was the bow tilted down toward me.

I inched my way, eyes glued on the target; the only sound was the rain as it hit my bergen and the water. As I got closer and the floor started to rise, I forced my body lower by bending my knees and hunching down. A few meters from the end of the slipway I had to get right down on my stomach to keep as much of me in the water as possible to make a smaller profile. I had to use my hands and knees to work myself forward.

A meter from the edge the bergen hit bottom. I stopped, looked and listened.

The echoey sound of the rain hitting the fiberglass of the boat took over from the splash of it hitting the water.

Now came the wriggly bit. I had to cross open ground to get to the boat and shelter under the hull. Ideally I would have taken maybe as long as an hour to cover the five meters, but I didn't have that time to spare.

I unraveled the string attached to my wrist and, lifting myself up on my elbows and toes, I kitten-crawled forward, four inches at a time, trying to hold and control my breath and stop my teeth from chattering. I could feel stones and water moss pushing against my legs and stomach, moving with me as my trunk touched the bottom. The fact that it was cold no longer mattered; I knew I was doing it correctly from the pain in my elbows as they took my weight on the gravel. I was more interested in trying to make sure my trunk didn't scrape along the ground and make a noise. I was now at the slipway.

Lifting the bergen a fraction, I edged it forward another few inches, lowered it onto the concrete and eased myself up behind it. Then I stopped, listened and repeated the move. Inch by inch I neared the boat, in a direct line with the point where the tow bar touched the concrete slip.

As long as I moved slowly enough and kept flat, the motion detector shouldn't pick me up, and once I was in the lee of the boat I'd be completely safe. Fifteen minutes later, I was there, where I wanted to be, under the boat. The rain hammered the fiberglass. It was like being in a greenhouse in a thunderstorm.

The garage doors were still only semi closed I could see the back of the Explorer and the pitch-dark beyond.

I was staring into the darkness and contemplating my next move when a light came on to my right, spilling through the gap in the doors. It came from the rear of the garage. My heart skipped a beat, then started to pump at warp speed. If I'd been discovered, there wasn't much I could do.

I gripped myself: Stop, calm down, watch.

Almost immediately another light came on, this time on the other side of the garage. Through the gap, I could see what was happening. Someone had opened the lid of a chest freezer; the glow from the interior light showed the face of a man, as if he were shining a flashlight under his chin, like we used to at Halloween. I wasn't sure which of the targets it belonged to, just that it wasn't Sarah. He rooted around for a moment, then pulled out three or four small boxes of food, stood up and seemed about to close the lid again, but instead, he looked back inside and picked out some more stuff. With his arms full, he walked away. I could make out the lower part of his body; he was wearing trainers and checkered, knee-length shorts.

I tried to count how many cartons he had. There seemed to be five. Did that mean that five people were still awake and about to have a meal, or was it just a big snack for one very hungry man?

I heard a door close, and the light went out.

I waited a few minutes for everything, including me, to calm down, then crawled the length of the boat until I reached the stern. I looked up. As I'd hoped, I was well hidden from the sensor and directly under the first-floor landing. The sensor might not even be linked to an alarm, it might just have been a helpful detector to switch on lights as people neared the garage. Whatever, I was this side of it and that was what mattered.

The garage doors were less than a foot away from me. I moved to the right of them, still under the landing and out of the way of the sensor and the rain. The priority was to get some clothes on and get warm, but if you're moving, you're making noise. The more slowly and deliberately I did it, the less noise I was going to generate. At least the downpour gave me some cover.

Gently unclipping the bergen, I lifted the flap, got hold of the toggle that held the drawstrings together, pressed the button in and opened it up, all the time looking and listening, and checking to see if anything was happening in the house next door.

I lifted the Gore-Tex bundle from inside the bergen. It was soaking wet on the outside, but my knots had worked. Wet clothes would make noise and leave sign, so I took off my underpants and slowly put on my dry stuff. It had been worth getting so cold just to feel the sensation of dry socks.

I checked that the Tazer was still in the right-hand pocket of the jacket, and that everything else was where it should be. Then I dug out the gardening gloves and put them on. I might get lifted when I tried to get out of the country, and I didn't want the police to be able to make a connection with something as stupid and basic as fingerprints at a crime scene. I couldn't guard against every shred of forensic evidence, but I could do my best to minimize the damage. Last of all, I ruffled my hair with my fingers, trying to get off as much water as possible so that a stray drop didn't blur my vision at a vital moment. I was ready to go.

I picked up the bergen and weapon, and edged my way around to the doors. I had a quick look at the gap in case they'd rigged a trip.

It was totally dark inside.

The space between the rear of the Explorer and the garage door was going to be a bit of a tight squeeze. I pushed the bergen and bow through and placed them on the floor to the right, then got myself side on, breathed out and squirmed through.

he sound of the rain was immediately muffled, as if a switch had been thrown. I became aware of a different ambient noise, coming from above me. I stopped by the 4x4, opened my mouth, looked up and listened; there was a vague mumbling, which at first I took to be talking, then I heard a shout, gunfire and a burst of music. They were watching TV I stayed where I was, just past the tailgate of the Explorer, and continued to tune in. The mumbling went on, then there was a metallic rattling within the garage as the freezer motor kicked in, followed by a low buzz.

A floorboard creaked above me, over to the right. Maybe someone getting up from their chair. The noise didn't move anywhere; he must have sat down again.

Baby-G told me it was one thirty-one. This wasn't good; I had just one and a half hours left in which to do what I needed to. I got the miniMaglite out of my jacket, held it in my left hand and twisted the head to turn it on. The beam shone through my fingers. I could now see that the Explorer was the only vehicle in the garage; it was jutting out only because there wasn't enough room to drive it all the way in.

I stepped over the bergen and checked along the wagon. All its windows were closed and there wasn't a key in the ignition. I slowly tried the driver's door; it was locked. No chance of using the vehicle for a quick exit. In a drama, the boat would have to get me to my car.

As well as a washing machine and the freezer, the garage was packed with gardening tools, canoes standing on end, bikes on racks, and rusty old bits and pieces that had accumulated over the years, and it had a smell to match. At least it was dry and quite warm.

Moving farther along the side of the 4x4,1 shone the flashlight over its hood. In the far-left corner I saw the side door I'd been watching from the OP. At right angles to it was another door; the staircase behind it was boxed in, and the shape of it went up to the next floor. There were more piles of clutter underneath.

I could still hear the vague mumble of the TV above me and the creaking of floorboards as people upstairs shifted in their chairs. That was fine by me; the only thing I didn't want to hear was excited shouts or rapid movement to signal they knew I was there.

I picked up the bergen with both hands to control the noise, and with the flashlight in my mouth I made my way over to the staircase doors. The beam shone on plastic bags under the staircase containing the world's largest collection of empty Kraft ready-made dinner containers. They weren't putting the rubbish out; they were hiding it. They were taking no chances. Nor was I; I took the bow from the bergen and laid it down so that as I picked it up with my left hand the cable would be facing me, and the arrows were ready to access.

There wasn't any light shining through the gaps around the staircase door. I put my ear to the wood and listened. The voices on the TV were louder, but still indistinct. There was more shooting and police sirens, and a fairly constant murmuring, which I could distinguish from the TV;

it 1seemed as if the household was having a long night of telly, munchies and chat.

An inspection of the lock told me it was an ordinary lever type. I gently pushed on the area of the door by the lock, then pulled it forward, to see if there was any give. There was about half an inch. Then, with my hands down at the bottom of the door and still on the same side as the lock, I pushed hard and slow to see if it had been bolted. It gave way an inch, then moved back into position. I did the same to the top of the door. That also gave way, this time just over half an inch, and I gently eased it back into position. It seemed that there were no bolts on the other side, just the one lever lock to deal with.

Holding my breath, I slowly twisted the handle to check that the door was locked. You could spend hours picking the lock only to find the thing was already open; best to take your time and check the obvious. I'd always found that holding my breath gave me more control over slow movements, and it made it easier to hear if there was any reaction to what I was doing.

As I'd assumed, the door was locked.

The next move was to check all the likely places where a spare key might be hidden. Why spend time attacking a lock if a key is hidden only feet away? Some people leave theirs dangling on a string on the other side of the letterbox, or on the inside of a cat flap. Others leave it under a dustbin or just behind a little pile of rocks by the door. If a key is going to be left, it will nearly always be somewhere on the normal approach to the door. I checked the shelving above the washing machine, under the old rusting paint tins by the door, and along the top of the door frame and all the obvious places. Nothing. I would have to work on the lock.

I got down on my knees, listening all the time to the TV show, and looked through the keyhole. I could still see nothing but darkness. I shone the flashlight through and had another look. There was a glint of metal. I smiled; piece of piss. They'd left the key in the lock.

The glow from Baby-G in this darkness was outrageous, but it told me it was now nearly 2 a.m. I'd give it just another thirty minutes, and maybe by then these fuckers would be in bed. Meanwhile, if they came downstairs for more munchies, I'd need to know, so I sat on the floor with my ear to the door listening to the rain and the TV The police cars were still screaming and the shooting had become more intense. A floorboard creaked above me, then another. I looked up and followed the sound, trying to picture where he was. The movement continued across the floor to more or less directly over my head.

Picking up the bow, I turned and looked through the keyhole to see if he was going to turn the light on and come downstairs. The key obscured most of my vision, but I'd be able to see light, as the teeth were still up in the wards of the lock. There was a faint glimmer, but it was ambient light from quite a distance away, maybe way up at the top of the stairs. No one was coming down. The light disappeared. There were more creaks above me, then the muffled talking started again. The commercials must be coming on.

There was nothing to do but wait while the minutes ticked away. All I knew was that I had to get in there and do it at two thirty, no matter what.

How, I didn't know; I'd just play it by ear. I sat down again and got back to listening to the TV and the rain.

I was quite thirsty after the exertions of the night. The chest freezer started to rattle again; I tiptoed over and lifted the lid very slowly. The light came on. I had a quick look at all the goodies. There were boxes of Kraft dinners, macaroni and microwave fries. It was obvious that nobody had been giving a lot of thought to the culinary side of this trip, which I bet Sarah didn't like, and none of it was any good to me. Then I found something I could munch: a Magnum bar. I closed the freezer, took off the wrapper and put it in my pocket, sat back down by the door, put my ear against it and started eating as I joined in the film.

It was now two twenty. This was cutting it really close to the bone.

I finished the ice cream, and the stick joined the wrapper in my pocket.

I looked at my watch yet again. Two twenty-five. I couldn't afford to wait any longer.

With the Maglite in my mouth, I opened the screwdriver part of the Leatherman and worked it into the keyhole. When it had a firm purchase I started to turn the key along its natural line to unlock the door, at the same time pulling the door toward me to release the pressure on the bolt as it lay in the door frame. The key turned until it hit the lock; it would need a lot more pressure now to open it, but that would make noise. I waited. Whoever was pissing off the cops would be doing it again, really soon. Thirty seconds later, it happened: shouting, gunfire and sirens. I gave the key the final necessary twists and switched off the flashlight.

With the door ajar a couple of inches I could hear the TV much more clearly. Going by the intensity of the shooting, screaming and shouting, the whole state police force was out trying to get the bad guys.

There was no distinct light shining down from above, just a faint glow.

I picked up the bow and prepared an arrow. Keeping it in place with my left hand, I got my right hand on the door handle, ready to go. I was going to have a rolling start line: remain covert for as long as possible, and only go noisy if they did. It wasn't much of a plan, but it was enough. If you worry too much about these things, you never get down to starting the job;

just get on with it and half the battle is won. Then hope that experience, knowledge and training will get you through the rest.

I checked that nothing was about to fall out of my pockets, then gently pulled the door open toward me, ready to stop at the slightest creak, holding my breath so I could hear it happen. There wasn't a sound from the people upstairs. It must be a good show.

I was facing a flight of worn, bare wooden stairs that climbed directly to the first floor. There was a wall on either side; on the left it was the external wall of the house, and on the right it was plasterboard, which sealed the stairs from the garage, then became a bannister on the right-hand side where the first floor began. Anyone standing up there could easily look down and see me.

Beyond the top of the staircase, and facing me, was another wall, and just off to the right-hand side was a door that was closed. Apart from that, all I could see were flickering images, composed of different tones of light from the TV screen as they flashed on the wall and the closed door facing me. I was happy about that; if the TV was facing the top of the stairs, it meant that the fuckers would have their backs to me as I went up.

The smell had changed. The mustiness of the garage had given way to a more domestic odor: spray polish and cigarettes, the smell of good housekeeping, heavily overlain with nicotine. They must be having a Camel-fest up there; I'd have to be quick about this or I'd be going down with lung cancer.

Drawing the cable half back, focusing my eyes and the weapon on the top of the stairs, I placed my left foot very carefully on the bottom step, then my right. I stopped and listened.

I lifted my left foot again and put it down on the second step, easing my weight down gently, hoping there wasn't going to be a creak. I had both eyes open, cable half drawn and ready to fire. My ears had cut away from the sound of the rain; they were totally focused, on the alert for signs of movement upstairs. I pulled the bow cable back a little bit more and took another step.

I1E

The music and the police chase suddenly stopped. So did I, foot raised, bow at the ready. I must have looked like the statue of Cupid. A very macho American voice boomed out, "Back soon, with TNT's movies for guys who like guy movies." There was a long burst of machinegun fire, no doubt as bullet holes sprayed over the titles. Then it went into a commercial for a fitness plan that could change all our lives in just fourteen days.

couldn't tell how many people were in the room, but the one thing I knew for sure was that Sarah was unlikely to be one of them. She wasn't a guy who liked guy movies.

There was some mumbling coming from the room. I couldn't understand what was being said, but something was agreed on. Floorboards creaked again. I hoped he wasn't coming back down to the freezer; if he was after the last Magnum he wasn't going to be a happy teddy.

The shadow of a moving body hit the wall at the top of the stairs, blocking the dancing reflections from the TV screen. It got bigger and higher. I slowly brought the bow up the last two inches, into the aim. The cams at each end of the bow started to strain as I tensed the cable almost to full draw, stopping about three inches from my face. I wasn't too sure if I needed as much power for the arrow to do its job at this range. But fuck it, I wasn't taking any chances. I could smell the rubber gardening gloves as I waited, motionless.

The shadow became the body's back and I saw it was MIB. He now had the TV flickering on his shirt. He didn't turn and come down toward me.

Instead he went straight ahead and through the door to the right of the top

of the stairs. Fluorescent lights came on to reveal kitchen cabinets and brightly colored mugs hanging from hooks.

There was the sound of crockery and cutlery being moved about. The others were talking amongst themselves, maybe about the film, and there was a little laugh as someone made a funny. Still no sound of Sarah, though, which tended to confirm what I'd thought.

A bit more clanging came from the kitchen. I kept the bow in the full draw position. The strain on my arms was starting to take its toll; sweat was pouring down the sides of my face and I knew it wouldn't be long before it got into my eyes.

I heard thejfsshhht! of a ring-pull being opened in the TV room, then another. Maybe this meant there were three of them in all. With any luck the cans they were opening held beer: if they'd been soaking up alcohol while watching the film that should slow down their reaction times rather nicely.

Mr. Macho Voiceover was with us again: "We're back with movies for guys who like guy movies." He was greeted by ajfsshhht! from the kitchen.

MIB emerged, can in hand, muttering away. The others immediately gave him a hard time and he stepped back a few paces and switched off the light, left the door open and went back to join them.

I let the cable relax, brought my arms down and wiped away the sweat.

There was more gunfire. It sounded as if the final big shootout was under way. People were screaming at each other as only actors in cop thrillers do. I'd probably seen it, and was trying to work out what movie it was, so I could guess when the noisy bits were and when they'd finish anything to help get Sarah out of there without us all getting involved in our own "movie for guys who like guy movies." But no luck.

Someone in TV land was being really brave and shouting for covering fire as he took on the bad guys single-handed. Dickhead.

I really couldn't delay any longer. I still didn't know where Sarah was in the house, and this stairway was my only entry point. I checked that the spare arrows were still fixed in the quiver, and that everything on me was secure. I didn't want the Maglite clattering to the floor the moment I moved.

Keeping the bow in my left hand, arrow still in place, I took a deep breath and lifted my right foot. To reduce creaks, I used the very edge of the stair, then stopped to listen. The shooting had finished and there were murmurs from the audience again. I carried on.

When my eyes got level with the top stair I lay down with my head against the end of the bannister. The cloud of tobacco smoke was thick enough to make me choke. I checked the bow to make sure it was out of my way, then eased myself up on my toes and the heels of my hands, tilted forward and looked around.

I could see at once that the TV was in the far-right corner of the room, facing me. On the screen, someone was getting a doctor to patch his gunshot wound.

Three men were watching; two on a sofa with their backs to me, one of them swigging back on his can; the other guy, MIB, was in an armchair, and at an angle, so that he half faced the kitchen wall. He still had the beads in his right hand, and was feeding each one individually through his fingers as he watched. The room was like a Turkish bath, except with smoke instead of steam. There was also a strong smell of pizza and beer.

On the floor beside the sofa on the right-hand side was a twenty-four-pack of Bud, ripped open.

I checked for access to the next floor. This wasn't going to be easy: the stairs were at the far side of the room, opposite me. I'd have to cross over twenty feet of open floor space.

As I moved my head back into cover, I heard the cardboard of the twenty-four-pack being ripped farther open, then the hiss of a ring-pull.

They were going to be here a while.

Should I wait it out? No, they could be up all night. Besides, if they moved they would see me. I lay there and thought for a while, and felt the blood pumping in my neck.

If I burst into the room and tried to hold them in position, it wouldn't take them long to work out that I could maybe take on one of them, but the other two would be climbing all over me before I could reload, restring, or whatever it's called.

There was only one thing I could do, and that was to try to cross the room without being seen. If I got pinged, I'd just have to "deal with the situation as it develops on the ground"--the last thing the Firm always said when giving orders; it meant they could transfer any blame onto you if it went wrong, or take the credit for a success.

I pushed myself away from the stairs with the heel of my hand and slowly stood up. I checked the arrow position for about the hundredth time and moved onto the final step. I edged out, and was in the room.

With my back pressed against the wall, I started to move toward the next flight of stairs, moving one leg in front of the other very, very slowly, my eyes riveted on the three watching the TV, my left hand on the bow, my right on the arrow, holding the cable one quarter drawn.

I got to the kitchen door and could hear the microwave working overtime.

I moved on. They had eyes only for Robert De Niro. I silently thanked him for such a spellbinding performance.

The light of the TV was projected onto the faces watching it. MIB was totally absorbed, as were the other two on the sofa, Too Thin To Win and the younger of the two who'd arrived today. I was maybe twenty feet away from them. MIB was squinting as he inhaled on a cigarette held between the index and middle fingers of his right hand, the glow illuminating his face even more as he played with his beads in the other hand.

As he blew out the smoke, the screen went blank for a second, then a bright graphic appeared, accompanied by machine-gun fire.

"Back soon with movies for guys who .. ."

I had fucked up big time. I hadn't taken into account the commercial break. A pain hit me in the throat and shot down into the pit of my stomach.

Too Thin To Win gob bed something off to the others and moved his head a bit to the right just a bit too much.

He must have seen me, but these things take a while to sink in when you're not expecting them, and especially when you've been concentrating so intently on something else. But he had detected movement in his peripheral vision and I knew what was coming. It would take him maybe two seconds, no more, to register that something was wrong. Straightaway, the body reacts to that: fight or flight. Blood surges into your hands to fight and into your legs to flee, and you can feel it. I had just two seconds up on him. It was all going to be over soon, one way or another.

To me it was all happening in slow motion. As I brought up the bow, Too Thin To Win jerked his head farther to the right, did a double take and stared straight at me. By the time his eyes were widening with shock the bow was in the aim and at full draw.

He shouted something, but I didn't know what. Everything closes down in a situation like that. All I could hear was the voice in my own head, and as my knees started to bend automatically to make me a smaller target it was screaming, Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

Too Thin To Win became a non-target as he threw himself to the left and jumped down below the settee. It was MIB that presented himself as the nearest threat, and at the same time the easiest target. He was up on his feet and had already turned and was facing me, trying to absorb and interpret this new stream of information. I kept my eyes fixed on his and brought the bow around. As soon as I had what I hoped was the correct sight picture, I released the cable and hoped these things were as good as the salesman had said. I was aiming at the center of the body mass, the center of what I could see in front of the blinding glare of the TV screen.

He took the hit with a dull thwack and went down.

I didn't know where the arrow had got him because I was too busy loading the next one and wishing I'd practiced archery as much as I'd practiced firing pistols over the years. I stretched out my left arm and, at i the same time, pulled back the cable with my right, quickly trying to feed j the head of the arrow into place above my left hand. Then it was straight | back up into the aim, the arrow being held in position on the cable by my fingers. I still couldn't see Too Thin To Win; I was aiming at the young one, who had now decided to run around the settee and try to get to me before I could release. In fact, he was so near that I didn't so much have time to aim as just vaguely point it at him.

There was a whoosh and a twang as the cable released, then a thud as the arrow punched into him. He didn't make a sound. I didn't care whether or not he was dead; there was still one more to deal with.

As I moved toward the settee I could see that Too Thin To Win had remained on the other side of it; I didn't know what he was doing, and I didn't care. I just had to get to him. There was no time to reload. I pulled an arrow out of the quiver and launched myself at him.

He was leaning over one of the aluminium boxes I'd seen them unload from the wagon. I swapped the arrow from my left hand to right, gripping it firmly like a fighting knife, making use of that extra blood now pumping through my hands.

As I fell on top of him, my weight pushed him down onto the box. We both grunted with the impact. While trying to cover his mouth with the crook of my left arm, I jammed the arrow into his neck with my right.

Only one of these actions worked. I had managed to cover his mouth, but as I thrust with the arrow I felt it hit bone. Arrowheads are designed to zap into the target at warp speed, and I'd done no more than rip his skin. He was screaming big time beneath my arm. I increased the pressure to try and get better coverage over his mouth.

I raised the arrow in the air again and rammed it down hard. It hit against the bone again, but this time slid off and lodged deeper into his neck. I felt him stiffen, his muscle tensing up to resist the penetration. The gardening glove gave a good grip as I pushed harder, twisting the arrow shaft to maximize the damage. I was hoping to cut into his carotid artery or spinal cord, or even find a gap to penetrate his cranium, but instead I ended up severing his windpipe. Now I just had to hold him as he asphyxiated.

I put all my weight on him to press him against the edge of the box, trying to stop his body-jerking from getting out of hand and becoming noisy. Once I knew I was in control, I looked quickly around me to make sure that no one else had arrived on the scene as I waited for him to die.

Finally, he was going down. His hands started to scrabble behind him, toward my face. I bobbed and weaved to avoid them, and his movements gradually subsided to no more than a spasmodic twitching in his legs. The last reserve of strength he'd found as he saw his life slowly get darker was now exhausted. By the flicker of the TV I could see dark blood oozing out of the wound; it followed along the shaft of the arrow to my glove and dripped onto the floor. When I moved my arm away from his mouth he made no sound.

Still on top of him, I turned around, and could see that MIB had taken a poor shot but I'd been lucky: I'd been aiming at the center of body mass, but the arrow had entered his head above the left eye and there was about four inches of arrow protruding out the back. His beads lay at his feet.

I didn't have a clue about the young one. He was slumped with his chest on the floor. Blood was coming out of him from somewhere and being soaked up by the rug.

I started to shake. I'd never been so scared in my life, nor so relieved that something was over. Lesson learned: always get a pistol, whatever it takes.

Young One was still alive; blood was gurgling in his throat as he tried to breathe. I lifted myself off Too Thin To Win, guiding his body as it slumped from the box onto the floorboards. I went over to Young One and checked him. His glazed eyes turned to follow mine as I moved my body around him, feeling him for any hint of metal. He wasn't carrying. His eyes were reflecting the TV screen as they pleaded with me for help.

As I looked away, my eyes caught the aluminium box. When I saw what was inside, I felt much better about what I'd just done. Too Thin To Win must have been flapping big time trying to get to the contents; if he had managed it, I might not be here now.

The TV bad die was dying from a gunshot wound given to him by the cop. It must have been near to the end of the film. I went over to the box.

Stowed inside were three collapsible-stock Heckler & Koch 53s, virtually the same weapon as the MP5 used by the Regiment, but firing a larger 5.56mm round. With their thirty-round mags, Too Thin To Win could have taken my head off and still had change.

I picked up one of the weapons and two of the mags. I could now see that on the bottom of the box there were also three silenced pistols, again with mags.

I took one round out of the 53 mag and pushed down on the remainder to check the spring worked. Young One was still moaning as the film credits rolled. He was watching me. I thought for a while. Why take the 53? If I had to use it, I would alert the people in the house next door and maybe even the whole campsite. I picked up one of 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.