Slowly, Josh tried to open his eyes. But the skin on his lids felt heavy and unyielding. He was starting to become aware of a pain, throbbing slowly yet still intense, starting at the side of his neck and running down deep into his spine. Another pain was rippling up from his calf. Then his left eye sprang open first, a flash of light flooding his senses as a fierce sun shone into his face. He closed the eye quickly, succumbed to another wave of gain, then opened it again.
A woman. A bright lock of red hair.
Josh closed the eye.
Where the hell am I? What the fuck has happened to me?
He tried the right eye this time. The same heavy sensation as the lids were reluctantly prised open, and the same blinding effect as sunlight overwhelmed the retina. He shut
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it hard, let a fresh wave of pain roll down from his neck into his back, then opened both eyes.
The woman was leaning over him.
She was in her late twenties, maybe just thirty, but no older. Her skin was tanned and freckly, and still moist and clear. Her eyes were bright blue, shaped like almonds, set above her nose and full red lips. But it was the hair that held Josh's attention. A thick red wave of curls, it tumbled playfully across him, growing away from the woman's face like a lion's mane.
He started to speak. The words started somewhere in his brain, then travelled down towards his throat. 'I . . . I . . .' he started.
Suddenly Josh was aware of another terrible pain shooting through his neck. He stopped, choking on the rest of the sentence, unable to deliver it.
A finger came to rest on his lips, thin and elegant, and without any ring on it. 'Don't speak,' she said. 'You're hurt.'
'I . . . I . . .'Josh started again.
'You're hurt,' she repeated, her tone firmer this time. 'I'll put you in the truck.'
It was too painful for Josh to speak. The jabbing in his neck was growing worse, and his leg was feeling numb: it was a pain that he knew he had felt before, although he couldn't now remember where. He started to turn on his shoulders. He was lying in a ditch of baked, cracked earth. Ahead of him he could see a thin strip of tarmac: a one lane road, nothing more. Behind it, a giant rock loomed, its pitted surface made of red and yellow stone, and beneath the rock flaked and chipped slices of the mountain lay in a jumbled heap. The air was dry and dusty, without even the murmur of a breeze to soften the fierce heat of the sun beating down on them.
Josh looked out across the bleak landscape. Somewhere in the distance, he could see some dust rising up from a ridge. The place was completely empty.
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Where am I? he wondered. He swivelled quickly, staring at the ditch into which he had fallen. A crimson stain had spread out into the sand. Blood. My blood, Josh thought. He started to run a hand across his body, making a rough reckoning of the extent of his wounds. He had been shot in the neck, he guessed: there was a gaping flesh wound, and the bullet must have missed his windpipe only narrowly. He was lucky to be alive. The calf of his left leg had taken a hit as well. A chuck of flesh the size of his index finger had been blown away: he could still see pulpy, messy fragments of the torn tissue lying in the dirt. At least a pint of blood, maybe two, had been spilled already. What in the name of Christ happened to me here? 'Quick,' said the woman. 'You need treatment.' Her hand was wrapping itself around Josh's wrist,- taking his pulse. He could just see her lips moving as she silently counted out the beating of his heart. 'We need to get some drugs into you,' she said. 'Right away' Josh let her arms slip around his waist. She didn't have the strength to lift a man of his size but she could help him balance himself as he used the strength left in his legs to push himself upwards. He felt dizzy, and his vision was clouding up as he started to move his feet. The left leg, where the bullet had struck, was screaming with pain: every nerve seemed to have been set on fire, sending burning jabs of pain up through his body. His breathing was ragged and the loss of blood had sapped his energy, making it hard for him to hold onto consciousness for more than a few minutes straight. He was already suffering from palpitations and his lips were sweaty, enough to suggest that he'd maybe lost more than a couple of pints. 'Hold me,' he muttered, some blood spitting from his mouth as he pronounced the words. The woman was strong, he could tell that. She was five
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nine, maybe five-ten. She couldn't have weighed more than a hundred and ten pounds: she was thin, not in an anorexic fashion-model way, but thin as in wiry, muscly, and tough. She was dressed in blue denim shorts, with a pale pink T-shirt: a deeper pink heart was stencilled on the cotton, just below the delicate curve of her small breasts. A country girl, thought Josh suddenly. Good with horses and dogs, and she probably knows how to handle herself in a fight pretty well.
That perfume, thought Josh, as he leaned into her, using the strength of her shoulders to help keep his balance. What's its name again? I just can't remember.
He stepped forward. His left leg was in the worst pain, so he was using his right one to carry his weight. About ten yards ahead of him he could see the pick-up truck: a black Ford Ranger, at least five years old, with a thick layer of mud and dust coating its wheels and some thick scratches to its bodywork. Not far to walk, he told himself. Even on a shot-up leg, I should be able to manage ten yards.
'Careful,' said the woman, steering him to the left.
Josh looked down. He was fighting to straighten out his vision, taking deep gulps of air to try to calm the spinning in his head that was clouding up his eyes. Suddenly he was able to focus. At his feet there lay a body.
A corpse.
Josh stopped. He had moved sideways to avoid stepping on it. It was a boy, no more than fifteen. He had thick black hair, down to the back of his neck, and he was wearing black jeans and a huge pair of Nike trainers. Josh couldn't see his face: he was lying face down in the dirt. But he could see the wounds. One bullet had torn into the centre of his neck, taking out his throat. Another had ripped into the centre of his skull, entering from the back and blowing his brains out through his forehead. A pool of blood was still seeping from both the wounds.
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'Wh--'Josh started to say.
'No, quiet,' hissed the woman, her tone turning sterner now. 'You want to end up like him?'
Josh hobbled forwards. No time to think, he told himself. Don't worry now about who you are, what you are doing here, or why there is a corpse lying in front of you. In a fight you don't look for explanations.You just try to survive.
Another three yards. The pain in his left leg was terrible, and he could feel the pressure of hobbling forward crunching the nerve endings, the tendons and the muscles. Every step, he knew, was only making the injury worse. He had to find somewhere where he could lie up for a few days, assess the extent of his injuries, and start to recover his strength.
Not here. Not surrounded by corpses.
The door of the pick-up was open. Josh threw himself inside, using his forearms to lever himself up onto the battered cloth seats.There the glass had magnified the fierce sunlight, and if it was thirty degrees outside, here in the scrublands, it must have been closer to forty inside the truck. Sweat started to pour from Josh's skin, mixing with the blood already caked to the surface of his body. His breath stabbed against his chest as the hot, humid air filled his lungs.
The woman handed him a bottle of water. 'Try to drink something.'
Josh took the plastic container in his hand. It could have been thirty degrees as well. I could use it to brew up a nice cup of tea, he reflected sourly. Wrenching the top free with his teeth, he slung the neck of the bottle into his mouth, pouring the water down his throat, then letting it splash across his face. One tooth was missing, he figured: maybe he'd lost it when the bullets had slammed him onto the ground. There was a dull throbbing pain at the base of his jaw, spreading out from the gums, and the water was making
20
it worse, a sure sign of a broken tooth. Sod it, he told himself. I have to drink. And right now a trip to the dentist is the least of my worries. The Ranger roared into life as the woman slotted the key into its ignition. The Ford had a big, powerful engine, and even though it had overheated in the midday sun it still kicked to life with a snarl. The smell of petrol started to flood through the air, making Josh's stomach churn. He lifted his foot into position, relieved to finally be taking the pressure off it, and looked closely at the woman as she gripped the steering wheel and turned the truck onto the road. She's afraid, he noted. A trickle of sweat was running down her back, staining the fabric of her Tshirt. Josh closed his eyes. His brain was still fuzzy, and the blurring in front of his eyes was still severe. Unconsciousness, he knew, was just a breath away. He could feel the truck vibrating as it kicked past the stones on the single-track road and started to pick up speed. Just try and stay alive until you get there, he told himself. Wherever 'there' might be. Then there was a new sound. It was vicious and sharp, the noise of metal digging into metal. Josh opened his eyes with a start, instantly recognising what he had just heard. A bullet. The truck had been hit by a bullet. He looked across at the woman. She was gripping the wheel, swerving the truck as the shot winged its side. Her grip was tight and her^ expression grim. The truck was swaying violently. Another bullet. Amid the deafening noise Josh couldn't be certain where it had come from. Maybe one of the high rocks? A sniper. Maybe another vehicle, already in hot pursuit. He looked across at the woman. 'Evade,' he snapped. 'You have to evade.' His throat had strained to produce the words, the muscles in his neck screaming with pain as he flexed them.
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'Keep still,' she screamed. 'Otherwise you'll die.'
Sod it, thought Josh. I'll die anyway, the way you're driving.
He turned round. He could feel some blood starting to seep down his neck as the scab that had formed across the open wound cracked. A bike was on their trail. A Honda, he judged. Big and powerful, with chrome handlebars that glistened in the sun. He could see nothing of its rider. The man was wrapped in black leather, with shades pulled down over his eyes and a helmet covering the top half of his face. His left hand was gripping the handlebars, and in his right there was a pistol. Josh couldn't tell the make from where he sprawled in the truck. But it was a heavy piece of kit, he could tell that much. The biker was straining to hold the gun steady.
Josh looked straight back. For a moment, he had the sensation that he was looking straight down the barrel of the gun.
Another shot. The biker jerked back slightly as the recoil from the pistol forced him to lose his balance. The bullet winged the side of the truck, opening up a gash in the metal along the driver's side. The vehicle swayed again under the impact, then gripped the road once more.
'You got a gun?' hissed Josh.
The woman shook her head.
'Then I'm driving,' snapped Josh.
She shook her head again, more fiercely this time.
'I said I'm driving.'
The woman turned to face hjm, her eyes bright with anger. 'No,' she said, her tone harsh. A bead of sweat was rolling down from her forehead onto her face. 'You don't even have the strength to stand up. Don't even think about driving.'
'When I need the strength, I'll find it,' answered Josh.
The truck swerved. Another bullet had hit it, this time smashing into its back. Its frame vibrated under the force
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of the impact. Josh moved swiftly across the front seat, pushing the woman with his open palm and taking hold of the wheel. He left some traces of blood smeared across the front of her Tshirt.
'Okay,' she said angrily. 'You drive if you have to.'
They'd have to switch places while they were driving: a tricky move at the best of times, but even harder when you were under fire. 'Just take your foot off the accelerator,' said Josh.
The woman shifted sideways, her foot easing off the pedal. She kept one hand on the wheel. Josh now grabbed it with his left hand. The truck was starting to wobble and swerve. He pushed himself up and over the woman's lap, blood dripping down onto her jeans. The truck started to drift seriously off to the left. Josh gripped the wheel harder as he slipped into the driver's seat. His foot jammed down onto the accelerator, taking the speed back up again.
'I need your help,' he muttered.
She looked across at him.
'I'm losing too. much damned blood,' he snapped. 'I have to stop it.'
With his left hand still on the wheel, Josh ripped a strip of cloth from his shirt, handing it across to the woman Leaning down, she gripped it between her hands. Her fingers dug into Josh's thigh. She was searching for the femoral artery he knew. Dig into that hard enough, and it would staunch the bleeding. Next, she took the cloth, and wrapped it tight around his thigh. Josh could feel the bleeding starting to slow immediately. But the amount of blood loss was still worrying him. More than four pints and he'd pass out.
The truck swerved violently as Josh struggled to keep control of the wheel as another bullet flew past them. Get a grip, man, Josh told himself. Or else we'll both be dead in the next few minutes.
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The road stretched out in front of him. Dazzling sunlight was searing through the high windscreen of the Ranger. Josh flipped the sunshield down, protecting his eyes. He was struggling to focus. From a glance in the mirror, he could see the bike tracking him ten yards to his rear, the rider steadying himself on the machine again, his hand raised high in the air as he tried to line up the next shot.
One of those is going to hit its target, Josh realised. That's just the law of averages.
He started to swing the truck from side to side, jerking the wheel to produce an unpredictable, irregular motion. That was the first rule of any kind of evasive action: make yourself a hard target.
/ might be a hard target, but I'm still a big one. This truck weighs a ton and half. Hard to miss.