The Lost Labyrinth

TWENTY-NINE
I

Alexei Nergadze dropped his cup as he saw the armoured personnel carriers charge out of the forest fringes down the hillside towards the castle. He saw them but he couldn't take them in. It wasn't possible. Not here. No way could they have driven those vehicles up here without being spotted and reported by lookouts in the villages. Not unless they'd bypassed the villages with transport helicopters.

But that would mean…

He heard the chunter of distant rotor blades, turned to see a pair of white swans taking off from the lake, leaving their reflections on its rippled surface, and a moment later a formation of helicopters appeared over the woods on the far bank and sped low across the water, fanning out and weaving as they grew close. This couldn't be happening. It couldn't be. But it was. Their shitbag president had decided to pre-empt the elections. And he, Alexei, had just given them their excuse. He looked with utter hatred down at the antiquities policeman lying at his feet. 'You're dead,' he told him. He pressed the stock of the shotgun into his shoulder and aimed down at the man's face. 'You're fucking dead.'

He didn't hear the sniper's bullet that killed him, supersonic as it was. His shotgun clattered to the ground. A moment later, he'd joined it.