Hostage

by Chris Ryan

Daniel Usher got up, walked away from the table and picked up a fur-trimmed parka. As his back was turned, Amber stretched out her arm and grasped the pouch. There was a knock on the outer door and Daniel Usher went to open it. Amber pulled the pouch towards her and grasped the zip tab. Her fingers felt huge and boneless, but on the third try she managed to pull the zip open.

  She stared stupidly at the things inside the pouch for a few seconds, then reached in and grabbed hold of the insulin pen with her balloon fingers. The pouch dropped to the floor, but that didn't matter. She had her insulin pen and she wasn't going to die after all. She pulled the white dinner dress up and positioned the pen on the fleshy part of her thigh.

  'Good try, Amber,' said Daniel Usher, grasping her hand and pulling the pen from her fingers. Amber watched helplessly as he snapped the insulin pen in half, dropped it into the pouch and handed it to the guard who had come into the room after him. 'Dispose of this when you leave, will you, Harris?'

  'Yes, sir. And when the other four turn up?'

  'Dispose of them too.'

  'And this one?'

  'She's disposing of herself, aren't you, Amber? When she's dead, leave all the bodies together, somewhere well away from the mine. Somewhere where they won't be found until the spring thaw. Tragic accident and all that.'

  'Yes, sir. The 'copter's ready, sir.'

  'Thank you, Harris. There'll be an extremely big bonus in this for you. For all of you.'

  'Do you want a guard put on the door here, sir?' asked Harris as the two men walked away from Amber.

  'Not necessary. She's not going anywhere. It's twenty-five below out there and she's dressed in silk.'

  The guard left, carrying Amber's insulin pouch. Usher leaned down to look into Amber's dazed eyes. 'Goodbye, Amber. It is a shame it had to come to this. Despite what you might think, I like you. I liked your parents too. But business is business.'

  Amber lifted her head and tried to spit in his face, but there was no moisture left in her mouth and only a puff of air came out. Daniel Usher sniffed.

  'I smell fruit drops. Acetone on your breath. That means you have high acetone levels in your blood. Your body is starting to shut down, Amber. It won't be long now.'

  He smiled again, then strode from the room, slamming the outer door behind him. Amber heard a helicopter taking off outside. She wanted to lay her head down on the table again, but she forced herself to stand up. Her only chance was to go after the guard and retrieve her insulin pouch, but first she had to find something warmer than this dress.

  She walked around the dining room twice, looking for some curtains to wrap herself in, before she remembered that the building had no windows. For some reason, she found that funny. She began to snort with laughter, but somewhere along the line the laughter turned into a dry sobbing. Amber sank to the floor, ready to give up.

  An explosion from the quarry outside brought her back to her senses. As the building rumbled and shook, Amber dragged herself up, using the dining table for support. She stumbled from the dining room and through the next door along the passageway. She walked into a luxuriously decorated living room. There were rich, red, hand-embroidered blankets thrown across the backs of the white sofas. Amber grabbed two of them and wrapped them around her shoulders, one on top of the other. Next, she looked around for something to wrap her feet in. The cushions had tasselled velvet covers. She ripped two of the covers off, wrapped one around each foot and tied the tassels tightly around her insteps and ankles.

  She could feel the fog creeping into her head again. Desperately, she headed for the outer door and swung it open. The cold hit her and she stood gasping in the doorway for a few seconds, trying to adjust to the difference in temperature. As she stumbled down the outer steps, all the floodlights in the complex suddenly went out and she could hear men's voices shouting all around her. Too far gone to worry about this turn of events, Amber kept on going. She fell into the snow, got herself up and disappeared around the back of the windowless building.

  It was very dark. The cold was making it hard for her to breathe and all her muscles were shuddering in long, painful spasms, but at least the sharp air had cleared her head enough for her to figure out what to do next. She should head for the guardhouse next to the main gate. That was where Harris would have taken her insulin pouch. What she was going to do when she got there, she had no idea. One step at a time was her philosophy right now.

  She kept on walking and came up against the mesh of the perimeter fence. That was good, she thought. If she kept following the fence, it would lead her to the guardhouse. Wrapping her hand in her embroidered blankets, she staggered on through the darkness, trailing her fist along the fence as a guide.

  Suddenly the fence ran out. Amber staggered over to the left and fell down into the snow. It was tempting just to lie there, but she picked herself up and pushed on, hands outstretched in front of her, looking for the fence. She did not realize it, but she had just stumbled out through the open main gate of the mine complex.

  Head down, she walked a short distance along the rutted snow of the track leading from the mine. Then she fell down, and when she picked herself up again, she was pointing away from the track. Amber stumbled on, trailing her embroidered blankets, and disappeared into the trees to the side of the track.

  She kept going for a surprisingly long time, tramping deeper and deeper into the forest as the cold numbed her hands and feet and her body heat dwindled away. Some deep survival instinct was at work and her legs kept moving even though the breath rattled in her lungs and her brain had given up thinking about anything at all.

  It was the long, trembling howl of a wolf that penetrated the fog in her head. Amber stopped dead. The howl had been very loud and very close. It had come from the trees directly behind her. She broke into a shambling trot but very quickly ran out of energy and stumbled to a halt again. It was dark in the wood and her sight was beginning to fail, but Amber thought she saw a pale grey shape flickering through the trees like smoke. She turned her head as another shape curved around a spruce trunk and disappeared. Then another, over to her left.

  They were all around her.

  Amber stood, panting and trembling with exhaustion. She was frightened, but the fear was dull and distant. She was on the edge of consciousness now. Soon, without insulin, she would slip into a coma. Her vision was very blurred, but she thought she could see a lighter patch between the trees. There was a large clearing up ahead. Amber's remaining consciousness became focused on that clearing. She wanted to get out of the wolf-filled darkness beneath the trees. She wanted to see the stars again.

  She dragged herself onward, out of the cover of the trees and into the deeper snow of the clearing. There, Amber fell down and found that she could not get to her feet again. She crawled instead, leaving one of her blankets behind at the edge of the clearing. The breath whistled in her throat and the blood roared in her head. When she reached the middle of the clearing, Amber finally gave up. Suddenly, the snow seemed as warm and welcoming as a feather bed. She lay down on the beautifully embroidered red blanket in her white silk dress and closed her tired eyes.

  In the shadow of the trees on the edge of the clearing, the wolf pack gathered, padding uncertainly back and forth. There were twelve of them, five males and seven females. They had been tracking a herd of caribou for days and had singled out a pregnant female with an infected hoof. She had been limping along at the back of the herd and falling further and further behind. However, when the pack had finally gone in for the attack, she had found a spurt of energy from somewhere. They had flanked her, nipping at her heels, but she had kept running until she was safely back in the heart of the herd.

  The hunt had failed and now the pack was hungry. Very hungry. They had never attacked a human before, but this one was on its own and it was near to death. They paced back and forth on their long legs, whining softly and looking to the alpha male for guidance. He stood on the edge of the clearing, lifting his muzzle to sniff the
air. He was a huge wolf. His thick fur was such a pale, silvery grey, it was almost white. His golden eyes stared a challenge at the other males until they stopped their impatient pacing and lowered their heads in submission.

  The alpha female, a smaller wolf with darker fur, came to stand alongside him and he nuzzled her affectionately before turning back to survey the clearing. The human was lying motionless in the middle of the clearing but the wolf had lived for a long time and he knew that humans sometimes carried sticks that could hurt from a great distance away. This human would die soon enough. He could smell it. He was prepared to wait a little longer.

  TWENTY-ONE

  In the windowless living room Alex gazed around him in disbelief as their rescue plan crumbled around them. They had torn through the whole building a second time. Amber was not there.

  'We must leave now,' prompted Paulo, listening to the shouts of the guards outside. 'Before they put the floodlights back on.'

  Alex groaned. 'Right. We head straight out of the main gate and regroup.'

  'Look at this,' said Hex thoughtfully. He pointed to the two cushions that had been dumped on the carpet. 'They're missing their covers. And look. Two of the sofa blankets have been taken. But the rest of the place is immaculate.'

  'Hex!' snapped Li. 'This is not the time for a room make-over.'

  'Amber took them,' said Hex, thinking hard. 'Why?' His head snapped up and he stared at the others. 'She's already escaped! She's out there somewhere, in sub-zero temperatures, with only a couple of blankets for protection.'

  'And no insulin,' said Alex, pulling the pouch with the broken insulin pens from his jacket.

  They looked at one another and the dread was clear on their faces.

  'Come on,' said Li, running for the door. 'We have to find her.'

  They turned out the lights in the passageway and waited for what seemed like an age until their eyes had adjusted to the dark. Then Hex eased open the door and they stepped outside.

  'I'll check around the back,' whispered Li, and she disappeared round the corner of the building behind them. Alex, Paulo and Hex moved to the front of the building to check out the positions and numbers of guards by counting torch beams. Alex felt his heart sink as he saw what was happening. What had been a disorganized rabble of men was now an organized force. There was a group clustered around the floodlight generator, another group over at the main gate and, most worrying of all, a whole line of guards was moving slowly across the complex from the far perimeter fence. Their torches wavered back and forth as they carried out a methodical search.

  'Right,' whispered Alex. 'We head for the main gate ahead of the search line, looking for Amber as we go. Keep ahead of the torch beams, whatever you do.'

  Paulo and Hex nodded and they headed off along the side of the building, hurrying to meet Li at the other end. A second later, they froze as the floodlight generator stuttered into life. The guards had managed to fix the fuel line. With a blinding flash, all the floodlights came on and Paulo, Hex and Alex were caught out in the open with guards all around them.

  'There they are!' yelled a guard from the group beside the generator. 'Close in! Close in!'

  'Head for the gate!' yelled Alex, as running guards converged on them from all sides.

  'Too late,' said Hex. 'They've already closed it.'

  Within seconds guards surrounded them and sixteen pistols were levelled at their heads. Alex, Hex and Paulo drew close together, back to back.

  'Where's the other one?' asked a stout, older man, stepping forward and throwing back his hood.

  'There are no others, Harris,' said Paulo, reading the badge on the man's jacket.

  Harris cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted. 'I know you're there somewhere! Come out now, or I shoot one of your friends in the kneecap.'

  There was no reply.

  Harris drew his pistol and pointed it at Paulo's kneecap.

  In her hiding place under the floor of the windowless building, Li watched Paulo turn pale and close his eyes.

  'I'm waiting!' called Harris. 'I warn you, I'm not a patient man!'

  Li looked desperately from side to side, but she could see no way out of this. Reluctantly, she started to commando-crawl towards the front of the building. Something dug painfully into her hip and her eyes widened as she remembered the pistol she had picked up after her fight with the guard. She reached down and eased it from the pocket of her jacket. Pulling off her outer mitten, she grasped the weapon and released the safety catch. But what to do with it? There were sixteen armed guards out there. She couldn't shoot them all.

  'On the count of five!' yelled Harris.

  Li began crawling again, heading towards the front of the building. As she did so, the generator that controlled the floodlights came into view.

  'One, two . . .' called Harris.

  Li frowned at the generator, then her eyes widened as an idea came to her. There was a chance of getting out of this. It was only a chance, but it was better than nothing. Stretching her arms out in front of her and digging her elbows into the ground to steady the pistol, she aimed at the concrete platform under the generator. Closing one eye, she sighted along the barrel of the pistol and began to squeeze the trigger.

  'Three, four . . .'

  Li pulled the trigger. The bullet smacked into the concrete platform, ricocheted off and hit the metal casing of the generator. The rough concrete and the metal casing acted like flints, sending sparks flying where the bullet hit. The sparks ignited the fuel that had drained from the pipe while it had been disconnected. An instant later, the fuel tank went up with a roar, sending a ball of flame into the sky.

  Guards flinched and dropped to the ground as burning fuel and shards of metal flew through the air. One ran off screaming, with the back of his jacket in flames and others hurried to drag him down and roll him in the snow. Li dropped the pistol and crawled out from under the building as, once again, the floodlights went out. Paulo and Hex reached down and grabbed her, lifting her to her feet. They began to run, but already the guards were picking themselves up from the ground.

  'Where to now?' screamed Li, her ears still ringing from the report of the pistol.

  'Back through the quarry,' shouted Alex, but his heart sank as he saw the distance they had to cover. The floodlights were out but the whole scene was lit up in the flickering red flames of the burning generator.

  'No!' shouted Paulo. 'Head for the helicopter!'

  They swerved and ran for the helicopter pad. Before the guards had a chance to react to the sudden change of direction, Paulo had yanked open the door and climbed into the pilot's seat. As the others flung themselves in, he was already flicking switches on the control panel. The helicopter lights came on and the rotors began to turn, quickly increasing in speed until they were a whirring blur. The guards stumbled back, moving away from the deadly rotor blades.

  'I didn't know you could fly a helicopter,' shouted Li from the seat beside him.

  Paulo hesitated for an instant, wondering how much to say. 'I have taken lessons,' he told her and gave a confident smile.

  The truth was, he had completed the first two lessons of a course. He understood the theory of how to fly a helicopter, but all he had actually done was to make the machine rise straight up into the air before setting it down on the ground again.

  Paulo placed his feet on the two pedals in the well of the cockpit. They controlled the tail rotor. Next, he grasped a control lever in each hand. He knew that one was called the cyclic and this moved the helicopter forwards, backwards and from side to side. The second lever was called the collective and that controlled the up and down motion as well as the engine speed. So far, so good, thought Paulo. The difficult bit was getting the balance right so that the helicopter flew on an even keel.

  'We have to move, Paulo,' said Hex, watching the ground below. Harris was pointing towards them and shouting at two guards. As Hex watched, they stooped and began to run towards the helicopter. Another few seconds an
d the guards would simply open the door and drag them out. 'Now, Paulo!'

  'Dios,' muttered Paulo. He moved the collective and the helicopter rose up into the air, leaving the two guards standing on the pad below. Encouraged, Paulo moved the collective the other way and the helicopter fell towards the ground.

  'Going down, Paulo!' yelled Hex as the two guards below them dived off the helipad. Hastily, Paulo compensated and they rose again, higher than before. The engine speed increased and the helicopter hovered in place.

  'What is this?' demanded Hex. 'A helicopter or an elevator?'

  Paulo gingerly pressed down on one of the foot pedals that controlled the tail rotor. Obediently, the helicopter swung round to the left on its axis. Paulo grinned. This was easy! Now all he had to do was make it go forward. He moved the cyclic control and the helicopter nose dived. Guards leaped out of the way as Paulo frantically pulled back on the cyclic. The helicopter straightened up and skimmed along two metres above the ground.

  'We need height, Paulo,' said Hex, watching the perimeter fence rush towards them. 'Any time now, Paulo. Paulo!'

  At the last second, Paulo swerved the cyclic over to the right and the helicopter banked at such a steep angle, the tips of its rotor blades were centimetres above the ground. Paulo cursed as the helicopter swooped and jerked its way across the complex, sending guards diving for cover.

  'Again, the fence, Paulo. The fence!' yelled Hex as the helicopter rushed towards the far fence and the ridge beyond. Paulo cursed again and this time moved both the cyclic and the collective at the same time. The helicopter banked and rose higher in one smooth motion. It skimmed the top of the fence, then turned and headed back over the complex. Paulo adjusted the balance of the controls and the helicopter came to a stop, hovering in mid-air.

  'OK, I have it now,' he shouted. 'It is all in the balance.' He eased the cyclic forward and the helicopter began to skim over the complex towards the main gates. They were beginning to hope that they might make it when they saw Harris. He was standing on the helicopter pad with his legs spread and his arms outstretched, aiming his pistol straight at the cockpit of the helicopter.