Private Monaco

Chapter 28

Justine’s feet were filthy and bleeding. She was exhausted and breathing heavily as her aching legs carried her across the dusty earth between the trees in the ancient woodland. She headed down the mountain as fast as she could, bounding over rutted, uneven ground, ignoring the tilt and roll of her ankles, praying they wouldn’t sprain or snap. Even beneath the shade of the trees, the air was hot and close, but Justine didn’t care, she was simply glad of the cover they provided, which had kept her safe so far. She had decided to head downhill because there was guaranteed to be a road further down the valley, the one she’d felt the van climb when she was trapped in the tiny compartment. She thought it was her best chance of getting help.

She moved toward a break in the treeline some 600 feet directly beneath her. She had no real idea what lay ahead, but it had to be better than remaining a prisoner of the gang. She couldn’t see them, but she could hear the cries and shouts of the men trying to find her. They were speaking in French, German, Spanish and Italian, but the commands were issued in English, which was probably their common language. They had been ordered to spread out and search the woodland methodically, checking every hiding place. This would force them to move more slowly than her, which made speed her only advantage. She intended to make the most of it and sprinted on.

Her heart skipped at the sound of an explosion, and for a moment she thought someone might have fired a sniper rifle at her. But there was a second explosion and a third, and as their echoes died away, Justine heard shouts of panic coming from further up the mountain.

She ran to the edge of the forest and broke cover to see as much of her surroundings as she could. There was a newly ploughed field directly ahead of her, and further up the slope the farm she’d escaped. The main house was on fire and there were men in the yard, guns raised, shooting into the air.

Justine’s eyes were drawn to the target, a tiny drone, which dropped from the sky and exploded when it hit the farmhouse roof. The blast was disproportionately large compared to the size of the craft, and Justine guessed it had been rigged with explosives. Not something cops would do, which meant...

She cast her eyes over the mountainside, searching for Jack, and knew the moment she saw the flash of a reflection that the attack had been part distraction, part alert to get her to look uphill. Someone was using a mirror to communicate with her, and whoever was sending the signal was about three-quarters of a kilometer uphill, near the summit. She thought about heading back toward the signal but Jack had taught her Morse code one rare, rainy California afternoon. She recalled enough to know the repeated message said, “Go to eagle.”

It didn’t make sense, at least not to Justine, and for a moment she wondered whether she’d read the message wrong. And then she saw it: a rock formation to the east. Emerging from the bare rockface beneath the trees about half a kilometer away was an outcrop that looked like a giant bird. She calculated it would take her four to five minutes to traverse the rough terrain.

Justine heard gunfire and saw her pursuers further up the slope. They’d spotted the mirror signal and were targeting it. The reflected glare disappeared, and Justine prayed whoever had been sending her the message had managed to get away safely, because some of her captors were closing in fast on the position.

She took advantage of the distraction to break cover and cross the open ground before jumping into the cover of a ravine that led to the rock formation where she hoped to find help.