The Key

103

Gabriel and Liv lay side by side on the floor of the cave, their hands entwined, their arms touching, their heads so close they could hear each other breathing. It was so profoundly dark that it was easy to imagine they were far away from everything, floating in space, disconnected. It was such a seductive thought that neither of them moved or spoke for a long time, holding on for as long as possible before the real world burst back in.

Gabriel was up and moving the moment he heard the sound.

It had come from the direction of the cave entrance. Something solid banging against the side of the car, only lightly, but hard enough that the sound had travelled into the cave. It could have been a rock falling from the roof, but Gabriel’s instinct told him otherwise. He found his discarded jacket in the darkness and pulled out the gun Washington had lent him — a Glock 9 with a seventeen-round clip. He dropped to a crouch and edged back to the entrance, gun first.

The punch caught him squarely in the stomach, so fast and hard it was as if he had been hit with a shovel. He tried to react, but his body was already caving in on itself through lack of oxygen. An elbow crashed down on his forearm, knocking the gun from his grip.

Then a lamp flickered on.

‘Hello again,’ Dick said, slipping the night-vision goggles from his head. ‘Remember me?’

Gabriel tried to move but was paralysed with pain from the brutal punch. He looked back over at Liv. Another man was standing over her, dressed in the loose desert clothes of a nomad, his sand goggles and keffiyeh covering his face and making him seem more alien than human. He had an AK-47 slung over his back and a pistol in his hand pointing directly at Liv. Gabriel held his hand out towards her but a huge foot caught him under the ribs and kicked him on to his back so he was staring up at the grinning giant, now holding the Glock that he had dropped.

‘No more escapes,’ the giant said. The gun looked vaguely ridiculous in his huge hand, like a toy. Gabriel watched the oversized thumb stroking the side of the gun and realized he was about to die.

There is no safety on a Glock — he thought, bizarrely grateful for his executioner’s mistake as it gave him a half-second more of precious life. He looked back over at Liv one last time and smiled.

Then a gunshot boomed in the confines of the cave.

Hyde heard the gunshot echoing down the channel of the dry river and away across the desert. Some of the horses nickered at the sound then fell silent. He listened for any more sounds, other gunshots that would suggest the ambush had gone wrong or was being met with armed resistance. There was nothing, just the whisper of the dying wind.

He felt slightly deflated. The single gunshot meant Gabriel Mann was dead and the girl had been captured. It was over before it had even begun. He started up his engine and eased the truck forward into the wadi, no longer worried about the possibility of an ambush. All he wanted to do now was pick up the girl and get back to the compound.