Page 248 of The Black Trilogy

“Sorry.”

I got back to thinking about the situation we were stuck in. There had to be at least two hundred soldiers out there by that point, so unless they helped us out by lining up four deep, we didn’t have enough bullets to go around.

Jed was injured, and despite his sense of humour being intact, his body wasn’t. The sharp angles of his jaw hadn’t escaped me, nor had his hipbone digging into my side. He’d been starved. How much use would he be when the Syrians started shooting? He’d fight all right, to the death, but death might come sooner rather than later if I didn’t come up with a decent plan.

Our only advantage was that they didn’t know who they were up against. The troops were currently being cautious, waiting for us to make the first move. Their patience wouldn’t last, though. We didn’t have long.

I looked to the heavens for inspiration, and amazingly, it came. In the bank above my head, a black opening yawned from the gloom. Some sort of pipe? I plastered myself against the dirt and stood on tiptoe. The mouth gaped at me. Maybe it was part of an old drainage system? I hadn’t seen it on any of the maps I’d studied, and where it went, I had no idea. But I was about to find out. I whispered my plan to Jed and Logan.

“You’re crazy, but what’s new?” Jed said.

Logan just rolled his eyes, the whites glinting in the moonlight, but they both knew we didn’t have any other options. Either I could try to find a miracle, or we’d die together.

“Help me up?”

Jed leaned over and kissed me roughly, desperation in his lips. Was that a final goodbye? Please say it wasn’t. I could still taste him as Logan squeezed my hand in a silent show of support then gave me a boost into the pipe.

Welcome to a new nightmare…

CHAPTER 36

A FEW FEET in, the pipe curved to the right and my world turned pitch black. Something skittered over my leg, and I resisted the urge to swipe at it, not that I had the room to sit up even if I wanted to. As I got deeper, the muffled gunfire outside faded. Would this be my tomb? I carried on crawling through pools of fetid water, pulling myself forward on my elbows, deeper into the unknown. How far did this duct go, and more to the point, what would I find at the other end? Was it leading me away from the nightmare or closer to the inferno?

While I inched along, I had plenty of time to contemplate what on earth I was doing there. Why, when my bank accounts ended in more zeros than those of some countries, was I slithering through rat pee when I could be having a pool party or shopping in Harrods? Why was I dodging bullets when I could be eating lunch at a country club or trying to stay awake at the opera?

Then it hit me. Because it made me feel alive. I may have been in some dismal sandpit with half an army trying to kill me, but adrenaline ran through me in a way it hadn’t since Black died. Danger called to me like a siren, and I couldn’t resist her lure.

A dim glow broke the gloom ahead as I reached the end of the pipe. So much for this being the easy option. A metal grille blocked the exit, and moonlight taunted me from the other side. Once upon a time, I might have felt claustrophobic, but Black had foreseen that and wedged me in enough small spaces over the years to tamp down the sense of panic that threatened to take hold.

I took a closer look at my nemesis. The thing went from one side of the pipe to the other with barely an inch around the edge. I grabbed it and gave it a shake. It rattled, and the coating of rust scraped at my fingers. The grille had been there for a while.

I wriggled around so I was pointing feet first and slammed both boots into it once, twice, three times. The sound of Syrian guns covered up the noise I made, but I feared for Jed and Logan. Then the grille started to give. I kicked it again and again, the impact jarring up my spine, and finally—finally—it plopped onto the ground. I breathed a sigh of relief and clambered out, dropping down ten feet or so onto sand.

I’d emerged into a deserted compound. Three hundred yards away, fires still burned where the hostiles focused on the excitement I’d left behind. A jeep sped past on a rutted road just ahead of me, and I ducked back into the shadows. Judging by the soldiers’ excited shouts, Jed and Logan didn’t have long left. I needed to cause a distraction.

Something big.

Weapons became a priority. I couldn’t do much with the handful of rounds and the single knife I had on me. A row of abandoned trucks rusted into the sand on my left, and twenty feet to my right sat a low building, beige paint peeling from its walls. I jogged over to it. The padlocked door and lack of windows indicated some sort of storage unit. More interesting was the plastic lawn chair abandoned outside the door, fresh cigarette butts scattered around its legs. I’d bet my Aston Martin there would usually be a guard sitting in it. He’d gone to watch the Jed and Logan show, no doubt.

Good news for me. If the building contained something worth guarding, it was something worth having. I just hoped that whatever it was would prove useful in my current situation.

I made short work of the padlock with the set of picks I kept on my belt, silently thanking the locksmith Black had hired to refine my skills as a teenager. The building was as dark as the pipe, and I risked flicking on a flashlight once the door closed behind me.

Well, hello Christmas.

My grin grew so wide my jaw cracked. Guns lay everywhere. Big guns, little guns, fat guns, thin guns. It would have given any good redneck a hard-on. I pried open some of the crates stacked at the side then hit the jackpot. A Stinger. A freaking Stinger missile. I was pretty sure they weren’t supposed to have that, but it didn’t matter. They wouldn’t have it for much longer.

I picked a couple of guns from the selection—a Heckler and Koch assault rifle and a Glock Model 17—plus the ammo to go with them, and put them quietly by the front door. Then I went back for the Stinger, snapping a quick picture of the serial number before I picked it up.

Now, I’d never fired one of these before, but I knew the theory, thanks to Carmen, who was somewhat of an expert on anything that went bang. Time to test it out.

I hauled the Stinger to the exit and inserted the coolant unit into the handguard, praying the batteries still worked. They were notorious for failing. The display lit up, indicating it was good to go. So far, my luck had held. I peeked around the door, noting the guard was still AWOL, then hefted the missile onto my shoulder. A once in a lifetime opportunity. If I did the Facebook thing, that would have made a great profile picture.

Hmmm, where to aim? Decisions, decisions. I picked a building behind the circling guards, to the far side of the spot where Jed and Logan were hunkered down. If I hit that, I’d have a clear run to get back for them.

I took out my phone, still miraculously intact at that point, and dialled Logan. On this operation, we didn’t bring proper comms gear because if we’d been caught with it, it would have been a little hard to explain. We’d decided the cons of having it outweighed the pros, although now, as I juggled the handset and the missile, I was beginning to rethink that.

Logan picked up immediately. “Tell me you have a plan.”

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