The Three Most Wanted Read online

  “Let them out.” Bane’s voice thrummed with menace. “I’m warning you.”

  “Look, you filthy jackal pup,” said the German soldier. “We may not be able to catch you—though by all means stick around until someone does it for us—but we’re certainly not letting these two out. You can’t make us, out there with that pitiful little knife. End of story.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t planning to use the knife,” said Bane softly. “Margo and Jon have a friend in a very high place and He’s provided a much, much more impressive weapon, which I may just borrow. So let them out.”

  “Perhaps we’ll put a bullet in each of their legs,” said the French soldier. “Think that’ll shut you up?”

  Bane’s face went very bleak indeed. “You don’t want to leave me with only the one option, trust me. Just. Let. Them. Out.”

  “No,” said the soldiers, in unison.

  “Fine.” Bane’s face was as grim as I’d ever seen it. “If you’re going to change your minds, you’d better do it awfully quickly.” His eyes shifted to mine, softened. He mouthed, “I love you.”

  I mouthed it back to him. Slowly, deliberately, he put on the seatbelt. What was he going to…?

  He slammed the van back into gear, slipped off the handbrake and put his foot on the floor. We accelerated rapidly, tearing headlong towards the unfenced drop on the corner a half kilometer away… oh. Of course.

  My heart sort of went thunk up into my throat and I clutched Jon, despite my brain’s instant comparison of dismantling and precipices coming out highly in favor of the latter.

  “What’s happening?” Jon sensed my body’s alarm. Internally I was rather calm. Compared to what’d awaited me… this was like getting an unexpected treat. Except for the horrible fact that Bane and Jon were in the vehicle too…

  We sped on. The point of no return was coming up awfully soon—Jon still waiting for me to respond…

  I managed: “Act of perfect contrition, if needed, now.”

  Translation: we are about to die. His grip on me tightened, and I heard him praying. I couldn’t take my eyes off the approaching drop, watching it racing towards us with fascination as my body tried to panic and my mind floated on a cloud of relief. I’m spared. Thank you, Lord. I’m sorry it’s been so long since I got to Confession or… or anything. You know Bane means well; I hope you’ll take us all just as we are…

  As the cliff edge got closer, it occurred to the soldiers Bane wasn’t bluffing. They wasted another second looking at me and Jon—our expressions must’ve provided the final confirmation.

  They lunged for the microphone.

  “Stop!”

  “Stop-we’ll-let-them-out!”

  Bane’s foot slammed down on the brake.

  Smack.

  The four of us hit the window twice as hard, and watched, faces pressed to the glass, as the edge approached. Rapidly. Too late. We’ve had it…

  We’d slowed to a crawl… The edge of the precipice disappeared under the hood of the van. Uh-oh… And… wait for it…

  …Stopped?

  The front wheels must be touching the edge. No one moved. The soldiers panted, shallow breaths, not daring to twitch.

  I tightened my grip on Jon. “Hold still,” I breathed.

  “Oh.”

  He didn’t understand but I didn’t explain, too busy watching Bane. Bane was also doing the not-daring-to-breathe thing, but now he reached out, slowly, carefully, and put the van into reverse. From the gentle, gentle vibrations of the engine, he was pressing the accelerator as though it were a butterfly’s wing about to crumble to dust.

  The van eased backwards several inches and stopped again. Bane didn’t take it out of gear or put the hand brake back on, nor did he turn to speak to us again. He looked in the rear view mirror instead. His first words explained why.

  “First of all, the accelerator is flat on the floor. So is the clutch. If you give me the slightest reason to suspect you’re not following my instructions to the letter, I’ll simply lift the clutch. So unless you actually think you can jump clear in time, you’d better do as I say, understood?”

  Sweat trickling down their faces, the soldiers nodded.

  “Okay. Listen carefully. One of you is going to swap with Jon so you’re both pressed against this window. If I see any part of your side leave the window after that, I will raise the clutch. Then you’re going to pass your rifles to Margo and tell her the door code. They’re going to get out and close the doors again. Providing you behave, we’ll leave you here safe and sound. Though, if I were you, I wouldn’t get out in a rush once we’re gone, because I won’t be putting the emergency brake on. Understood?”

  They nodded again. Quick, let’s get this done before they recovered. Not much they could do, when any attempt to recapture us would make Bane drive off the cliff… still, better not let them think too hard about how angry their superiors were going to be.

  Seating reorganized, I accepted each rifle, checking the safety catch and making sure there wasn’t a round in the chamber, then passed them to Jon to hang onto. Who knew my years of tolerance for Bane’s passion with weaponry were going to prove this useful?

  “Code?” I asked.

  The French soldier licked his lips and glanced at his companion. Fear of the EuroGov beginning to kick in? “We don’t know the code. Only the Captain knew it.”

  Ninety-nine percent sure it was a clever lie, or what would’ve been a clever lie in different circumstances…

  A worm of ice twisted in my stomach nonetheless. “Inconvenient,” I said.

  “Very,” said Bane over the intercom. “Too bad, I did warn you about leaving me with only one choice…”

  He raised the clutch… slowly.

  Biting point… the van quivered…

  “Five six four nine,” said the German quickly.

  The Frenchman spoiled the glare he gave his companion by simultaneously sagging in relief.

  I typed quickly.

  5 6 4 9…

  Click.

  Deo gratias!

  I scrambled out, turning to take the rifles from Jon and help him quickly down.

  “Not one twitch…” Bane was threatening.

  I slammed the doors shut. How to stop them getting out? The lock! No way was it as bulletproof as the rest of the van.

  “Just... stand here for a moment…” I moved Jon around the side of the van for safety, and cocked one of the heavy guns. “Oh, I’m about to shoot the lock. Don’t be alarmed. You might want to cover your ears.”

  Taking careful aim at the keypad—there’d be ricochets if I missed—I glanced in the wing mirror. Bane gave me a thumbs up—he’d got his foot on the brake.

  CRACK CRACK CRACK

  Ears ringing, but keypad trashed, I made the rifle safe again and hurried to the driver’s side. Bane was just closing the door gently, white-faced. We each grabbed one of Jon’s arms, and we bolted.

  We’d made it about a hundred yards up the road, looking all the time for a way up the mountainside, when Bane seemed to notice my appearance. He jerked me to a stop, his eyes travelling from my swollen, bloody face to my gaping blouse. His face darkened. “WHAT DID THEY DO?”

  “It’s okay.” I flung myself into his arms. Pressed my face into his shoulder, inhaling. Dirt, sap, sweat, Bane. I held him like he was the most precious thing on earth.

  “It’s okay,” I told him again, as his arms closed around me. “The Captain was rough with me, but he didn’t do anything.” But my stomach fluttered at the thought of the Captain.

  Jon’s hand came to rest on my shoulder and very comforting it was too. It’d been a rough half hour. “He did do something,” he panted, “just not that.”

  “I should’ve run the bastard over!” snarled Bane.

  “It’s... okay.” My conviction rather lacking. A few more words spilled out, “I just... just...” I trailed off with a gulp.

  Bane hugged me so protectively he seemed to be trying to merge us into one and
Jon went on rubbing my shoulder until Bane released me—in a surprisingly short time.

  “Look, sorry, we have to move.” He shrugged off the loose shirt he wore over the borrowed t-shirt. “Here, put this on. Seeing you like that makes me want to kill some… thing.” His eyes strayed back to the van. Probably better not mention that one of those soldiers had been holding me down on the sofa. Did Jon know? I’d learnt not to underestimate what Jon picked up on. If so, he kept quiet.

  “Did you really leave the emergency brake off?” I eyed the precipice uneasily as I slipped into the shirt and buttoned it up. Much less draughty.

  “Yeah. But I slipped it back into reverse while they were staring like they’d never seen a girl with a gun before. Doubt they’ll be able to tell from in the back. Now let’s move before I go back there, take it out of gear, and give it a good shove.”

  He was joking. Just. Sort of.

  “Oh, first things first…” He grabbed the rifle from me, examined it, swore in a rather unsurprised sort of way—then chucked it over the side of the cliff!

  “What did you do that for?” I demanded.

  “What?” asked Jon.

  Bane reached for the other rifle, but I grabbed it from Jon and held it tight. “Have you gone mad, Bane? We’ve got the SpecialCorps coming after us—to say nothing of all the starving, the wolves, the bears!—and when we finally get a rifle you throw it off a cliff?”

  “Margo,” he said calmly, still holding out his hand for the gun. “These are EB-14 rifles. Complete with embedded trackers. They were developed specifically to reduce theft by the Resistance. If we keep them, the EuroGov will know exactly where we are. And disabling the trackers will take hours. We haven’t time.”

  “….Oh.” I let him take the rifle from my unresisting hand and hurl it into space.

  Then we ran. We found a way up the slope, but it was rough going. Even after our thirty-six hours of sleep and meals, we were still gaunt and low on energy. But stumbling and tripping, we ran, each of us holding Jon by one hand. Once out of sight of the van, we ran west.

  “They’ll expect us to go southeast,” panted Bane, as we went. “Or possibly south or east if we’re trying to confuse them. But they’ll assume we won’t entirely stop heading for the Alps. I hope. So we’ll go west until we lose them, and only then cut down for the Alps again… By the way… François turned us in, right, the jerk?”

  “Yes. But Bane… he tried to swap us for his boys,” I puffed.

  “Huh?” Bane’s head swiveled to look at me and he stumbled over a fallen branch.

  “They weren’t dismantled yet, he was trying to save them.”

  “Tried to swap us? Looked like he succeeded!”

  “You do have a high opinion of the EuroGov. They killed his boys and brought him their brains’ ashes. Evil bastards. Then shot him, left Hugo in the cottage, and burnt it down.”

  Bane was silent for several paces. “Oh. Okay, it was stupid, and he shouldn’t have done it, but… well, I’ll take the jerk back, at least.”

  The afternoon wore on. We gasped for breath, our run turning to a stumble. All these mountains and hills to slog up… we just couldn’t run up them and it took so long… We hadn’t gone very far, not as the crow flies. Our ears strained endlessly for the sound of rotor blades. A helicopter would be the end…

  Perhaps the helicopters were searching to the southeast, as Bane predicted? On we went. We didn’t talk much. We’d no breath to spare, and anyway, we all knew how grave our situation was. No venison, no thermals, no sleeping bags, no stove, no waterproofs, no water bottles.

  We’d just the clothes we’d put on for a day relaxing in a warm cottage, and the contents of our trouser pockets: Bane’s omniphone and knife, the penknives we’d been using to mark trees whenever we left our camp, two flashlights, and one remaining lighter. And we’d thought ourselves underequipped before.

  From the patch of open ground we were crossing, the view was breathtaking in the twilight—a freestanding peak towering inside the horseshoe ridge on which we walked. Occasional lights down in the curving valley showed a main road, a rare—and unwelcome—glimpse of civilization.

  We’d dropped down from the ridge line when the trees thinned, to avoid being silhouetted, and now hurried over the rocky ground as fast as we could. The forest picked up again only meters ahead; even the reForestation machines had been unable to tackle this rocky stretch trailing down the mountainside...

  A strange smack...

  ...a gasp from Jon.

  I looked round just in time to see him fall, clutching his thigh, crimson blood gleaming wetly around his hand in the twilight…

  ***+***

  17

  HIGH VOLTAGE

  “Jon…”

  Bane practically picked me up and hurled me forwards into the shelter of the forest—I managed to roll as I hit the ground and sat up unharmed. Bane was already pulling Jon’s arm over his shoulder. I lurched forward—froze… Run out there and Bane would probably stop to shove me back… “Bane!”

  What’d happened? Had Jon been shot? There probably were other explanations, but I couldn’t think of any right now…

  Crack, shriiing...

  Okay, someone was shooting at us. Bane went into overdrive and drag-carried Jon into the trees in a frantic burst of energy.

  “Where the hell are they?” I asked.

  Bane glanced out through the trees and pointed at the big mountain. “There. They’ve got a bloody sniper stuck up there with a high-powered rifle—good position, must be able to cover an enormous amount of ground. We’re lucky it’s so dark.”

  Crouching beside Jon, he didn’t elaborate further. Didn’t need to, I could figure it out. Must’ve taken the sniper most of the time we were in the open to identify us and by then it’d been too dark for good shooting. Or knowing the EuroGov, perhaps he’d deliberately shot to wound.

  I crouched on Jon’s other side, taking his hand as Bane cut a square from his bloody trousers to get a look at the wound.

  “S’okay, Jon.” I stroked his hair back from his face—it was growing out again. “S’okay, Bane’s going to fix up your leg.” He was cold and clammy and shaking—going into medical shock. Needed warmth and a hot sugary drink. Damnit! We had nothing.

  Bane stripped off his t-shirt in one quick movement, rolled it into a strip and bound it tightly around Jon’s leg. “I think it’s a flesh wound. Think the bullet’s still in there. But I’m not a doctor and we have to go, now.”

  Troop trucks would be racing up the valley road, stopping to disgorge their loads onto the mountainside… Damn, damn, damn. What’s that saying about it can always get worse? Admittedly we were still better off than when we’d been trapped in a secure transport van on our way to a Facility... but not much better…

  “What?” mumbled Jon, as though only just realizing Bane had spoken.

  “I said it’s not serious,” lied Bane, “and we’ve got to move.”

  “Move?”

  If only we had a blanket to ward off shock… I unbuttoned the shirt Bane had given me and slipped it off; Bane helped me sit Jon up and ease him into it. Buttoned up, it was better than nothing. It was absolutely all we could do for him, anyway. Night was only just falling and I could feel the chill. The blouse I still wore had been thick enough for daytime, but now… Bane was worse off, though: there were goose-pimples on his bony chest—the t-shirt bandage was already red with blood.

  “Come on,” said Bane ruthlessly, but he waited until I’d got Jon’s arm over my shoulder before beginning to lift him to his feet.

  Jon moaned and went so white it looked like he’d pass out. “Wait...” He stood for a moment, head down, swallowing hard. “Okay...”

  We started forward into the darkening forest, no doubt leaving a trail of blood a man could follow, let alone a dog. But any watercourse would be in the bottom of the valley; no question of going down there.

  No running, now. Jon’s emaciated condition was no be
nefit; we were almost as weak as he was. I was actually glad we didn’t have the packs to worry about any more. Jon was more important than sleeping bags and a stove.

  Slowly, painfully slowly, we reached the end of the horseshoe ridge and descended. A pitch black night, no moon, clouded sky—a cracking summer storm gathering above us? Good. Rain would wash away our scent, it couldn’t come too soon.

  Bane led us slightly north; towards an area of wilderness where troop trucks couldn’t follow and safe streams might be found. All was silent; no sound of pursuit reached our straining ears. How long would it take them to bring dogs?

  The lights of the distant road receded and were gone. Finally the curve of a stream crossed our path. We splashed down the bank into it as though to follow the left hand curve, then turned immediately and headed right instead. Northwest. All this effort to get further from our goal. It all seemed to be becoming more and more pointless. Angel Margaret, stick close, we’re in a fix…

  We stayed in the stream for less than a kilometer before climbing out again. The cold water was doing nothing to help Jon’s condition. Oven-ready chickens had warmer skin. Blundering into tree after tree, scratched and poked by every branch in the forest, we soon fell into another stream. Followed that for a kilometer and left it, and so it went on.

  My legs were like lead. Jon could no longer put any weight on his bad leg. He hopped lurchingly along, bad leg dragging—he wouldn’t keep that up for long. I didn’t feel hungry, the only silver lining of extreme exhaustion, apparently. ‘Cause there wasn’t going to be anything to eat any time soon. Even if we found nettles, they had to be carefully folded to be eaten raw. No time for that.

  Jon’s good leg buckled, throwing all his weight on us, and off balance, the three of us crashed to the ground. A long, pained gasp from Jon...

  “Sorry,” panted Bane—landed on Jon’s bad leg? “Jon?”

  No reply. He’d passed out.

  “Oh, damn.”

  I just sat there, literally shaking with exhaustion.

  At last I said, “Perhaps we should stop for a bit.”