Stay Alive

by Simon Kernick

  Jess’s face dipped underwater as she tried to swim towards the woman, and she took in an involuntary gulp of cold river water, making her choke. Holding onto Casey was making progress worryingly slow. Casey was trying to help by swimming, but all she was doing was making it harder for them both.

  ‘Don’t move, Case, I’ve got you,’ sputtered Jess. ‘Just stay still.’

  ‘Here, grab my hand,’ called the mystery woman, reaching out towards them.

  Taking a deep breath, Jess kicked with her legs with everything she had, grabbing the woman’s hand and hauling Casey over to the canoe. ‘Take hold of the boat, babe,’ she gasped at her sister, but when Casey tried to get a grip on the top of it, she couldn’t reach and slipped back into the water, bobbing upright thanks to the flotation device she was wearing. ‘Just hang onto me,’ Jess told her, her voice an exhausted gasp. She wasn’t as fit as she should be, and she could feel her energy levels sapping fast.

  ‘I can hold her,’ said the woman. ‘Give her to me.’

  Jess turned round and looked at the woman who, though clearly tired, appeared in far better shape. She was tempted to do it too, she was that tired, but in the end, she couldn’t risk it. This woman had brought all this down on them out of nowhere, and she wasn’t going to entrust her with the care of the one person in the world she truly loved. She gave Casey a reassuring smile. ‘I’m going to let you float for a bit, okay, Case? But I won’t let go of you, I promise.’

  Casey nodded but, as Jess untangled her from the crook of her arm, a shot exploded out of nowhere, blowing a hole in the canoe up near the front where Uncle Tim was clinging on. A split second later, he cried out in pain and clutched at the side of his face. Blood poured through his fingers, and Casey screamed, forcing her way back into Jess’s grip.

  ‘It’s okay!’ shouted Tim, looking at the hand. His cheek was bleeding quite heavily but – unlike Jean had been – he didn’t look seriously hurt, and there was actually an expression of relief on his face. ‘I think it only grazed me.’

  A second bullet exploded out of the boat only a foot in front of Casey, leaving a golf-ball-sized hole in its wake.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ yelled Jess. ‘We can’t stay here. It’s a death trap.’

  ‘We need to pull the boat towards the shore!’ shouted the woman, a calm authority in her voice that made Jess listen. ‘It’s giving us better cover than swimming for it. Everyone keep as low as you can in the water and kick as hard as you can.’

  ‘I can’t hold you much longer, babe,’ hissed Jess through gritted teeth, feeling Casey getting ever heavier in her free arm.

  Up ahead the river eddied and rippled, its noise growing louder, as the canoes approached the next set of rapids. Jess could see an exposed rock sticking up ahead of them and she knew that the moment it got shallower they’d be easy targets again.

  Another shot ricocheted off the top of the canoe and Jess felt the vibrations in the wood close to her hand. Suddenly she could feel the bottom of the river beneath her feet as they sank into silt. They were only about five yards away from shore now and it was getting shallower all the time. The water ran up to a small muddy spit backing onto woodland. There’d be no scrambling up a bank. It was a straight run, tantalizingly close now, and already Jess was having to crouch down as she waded through the mud. The water went down to barely three feet deep. Any second now they would no longer be able to conceal themselves behind the canoe, and already Uncle Tim’s head was poking over.

  The next shot was way above their heads. They were finally putting some distance between themselves and their attackers.

  ‘All right,’ shouted the woman, ‘this is our best chance. On the count of three, run for the bank. And don’t stop for anything. One, two—’

  ‘They’ll kill us!’ screamed Tim.

  ‘Three.’

  The woman let go of the canoe and dashed through the water, and Jess immediately gave Casey a shove. ‘Go baby, go. I’m right behind you. Run!’

  But it was still waist-deep for Casey and she could only wade, so, with a last burst of strength, Jess picked her up under the arms and staggered through the water with her, thinking that any second now her life could be ended by a single bullet.

  More shots rang out. One after the other, but Jess kept going as if in a daze, the shore seeming to take forever before it was beneath her feet.

  And then Tim was by her side, helping to lift up Casey, and together the three of them ran out of the water and into the undergrowth after the woman, out of sight of the men who wished to kill them.

  Twelve

  KEOGH STOOD AT the lookout point watching the river curve away beneath him into the distance through the binoculars, the .303 rifle he’d been using propped up against a litter bin. The two canoes, each marked with the name of the canoe hire company, had come to a rest in the shallows two hundred metres away, their progress impeded by a sand spit sticking out from the trees on the other side. The woman’s body lay sprawled out in the nearest canoe for the whole world to see.

  He swung the binoculars to his left, looking upriver, just in case another boat was coming down it. But, thankfully, there was nothing. At this time of the year, already deep into autumn, there would be few people using the river, and Keogh was surprised that the canoe hire company was still even renting out boats. He lowered the binoculars and sighed loudly. ‘Jesus, what a disaster! Why didn’t you take her out earlier?’

  He was addressing the man standing next to him. The Algerian, Mehdi. The one who’d shot the local policeman a few minutes earlier and who, in Keogh’s opinion, should have managed to intercept Amanda Rowan, before she ran into whoever these day-trippers were and messed up everything. Keogh had worked with Mehdi on and off for several years. An ex-military policeman in the Algerian army, he’d always been as reliable as he was ruthless. Unfortunately, he’d picked a very bad time to make a mistake, and now they had the kind of damage limitation exercise on their hands that was going to be fraught with risks and complications. Not to mention a dead police officer.

  Mehdi stared at him, his dark, heavily lined features twisted into a defiant frown. ‘You said the orders were to take her alive. I didn’t have a choice.’

  ‘You could have shot her in the leg. We need her alive, but she doesn’t have to be walking.’

  ‘I tried, but it’s hard getting a good shot in when you’re running down a hill in the middle of the woods.’

  Which Keogh had to admit was true. Ultimately, as leader of the operation to capture Amanda Rowan, the failure was his responsibility. The question was: what did he do about it?

  He turned to the man on the other side of him: the big cop, MacLean. MacLean was their local contact, although he was based over forty miles away which, to Keogh’s mind, meant he wasn’t local at all, and therefore of little use to him. But Keogh’s employer had insisted he come along, so Keogh had had no choice but to use him. ‘We need to secure those canoes and get them out of sight,’ he told MacLean. ‘Where’s the nearest river crossing?’

  MacLean fixed him with a bovine stare. He had a very round, slightly pudgy baby face, and thin sullen eyes that made him look untrustworthy. God alone knew how he passed his police entrance exams, thought Keogh. They must be pretty desperate for recruits up here.

  ‘Tayleigh,’ he said. ‘It’s the first town, about five miles down the road from here.’

  ‘Is the road good?’

  ‘Good enough. It won’t take that long to get back to the canoes if we drive fast.’

  ‘How well do you know the area?’

  ‘Well enough. I used to have a girl out this way a few years back.’

  A short-sighted one, thought Keogh, but he was secretly pleased. It seemed MacLean might be some help after all. ‘So, we should assume the target knows the area a bit too. She’s been up here a few weeks now. Where will she be heading?’

  ‘Tayleigh as well. There’s nowhere else round here really.’

  Keogh looked down t
owards the trees where Amanda Rowan and the people she was now with were hidden.

  ‘Which way will they go?’

  ‘There’s a footpath that mainly follows the river all the way into the town. If they start walking now and go fast, I reckon it’ll take them two hours. We could easily cut them off. The path’s not well used.’

  Keogh nodded, thinking about his resources. He had MacLean and Mehdi with him now, and Sayenko, the cadaverous, chain-smoking Ukrainian, who’d been keeping watch on the other side of the village, and was now en route back to them. That was four in total. It should have been a perfect number to snatch an unarmed woman, but it wasn’t many for a full-scale manhunt. ‘I think they’ll suspect we’ll try and cut them off on the path. Amanda Rowan’s no fool. She’s done pretty well so far. But we’ll send someone down there, just in case. What other routes could they take?’

  MacLean squinted in the afternoon sunlight, the movement making his face look even chubbier. ‘The only other way would be across country. Once you get through those woods, you head over those hills over there, into the valley, take a right, and keep going.’

  Keogh looked to where MacLean was pointing. The line of hills in the distance were bare and rolling, but not particularly high, and looked as though they’d be easily climbable, even for kids. ‘Is there plenty of cover?’ he asked.

  MacLean shook his head. ‘Not really.’

  ‘And what about houses? Could they get to a house?’

  ‘There’s one or two up there, but not many.’

  Keogh grunted. ‘They don’t need many. They just need one with a phone, and then the whole op’s compromised.’ He walked over to the four-by-four and pulled a local Ordnance Survey map from the glove compartment, opening it up on the bonnet. MacLean and Mehdi joined him, and MacLean pointed a meaty finger down at a spot on the map where the river curved through thick woodland on its winding route into Tayleigh.

  ‘The canoes are here,’ he said. ‘Like I said, they could either follow the path along the river or, if not, they’d probably go this way.’ He ran his finger up through the thick sweep of green on the map that represented forest, then swung it right through a mixture of woodland and exposed hills until he was at the small town of Tayleigh, which straddled the river. From its scale on the map, it looked pretty small – a couple of thousand people at most, thought Keogh – but the point was, if their target got there, the op was over and Keogh would be out of a job. Or worse.

  ‘How long do you reckon it’ll take them to go that way?’ he asked MacLean.

  ‘A lot longer. There’s a lot of climbing involved. It depends if she travels with those canoeists or not. There were a couple of kids there, weren’t there? They’d slow her down a fair bit. But I still reckon they’re more likely to go that way.’

  Keogh thought about that. He suspected Amanda Rowan would leave the canoeists behind, and make her own way back. If she did that, though, she’d be far harder to track. It might make the whole thing messier if she stayed with the rest, but probably easier for them to deal with. He scanned the route MacLean had suggested they’d take: up through the forest then over the hill and across the valley. It made sense for them to go that way, but, worryingly, there were at least three houses that he could see dotted randomly along the way. Thankfully, the first of them was several miles at least from where they’d abandoned the canoes.

  ‘I’ve got a couple of hunting dogs back at my place,’ said MacLean suddenly. ‘They can track anyone.’

  Keogh smiled. This made things a lot easier. ‘How long will it take to get back here with them?’

  ‘If I go fast, an hour.’

  ‘Do it. As soon as you’re fifteen minutes away, call me.’

  MacLean nodded and turned away, while Keogh folded up the map, not looking forward to the inevitable conversation he was going to have to have with his boss about the way things were going, but knowing too that he couldn’t put it off. As he was walking back to the driver’s seat, Mehdi, who was back at the lookout point, called out.

  ‘Hey, look at this. I think we might be getting lucky here.’

  Thirteen

  ‘ARE YOU OKAY, Case?’ Jess asked. She was kneeling down, holding her sister in her arms, while trying to stop her own shivering. Never had Jesse felt so protective of her as she did now.

  ‘I’m scared,’ said Casey, looking up at her with big frightened eyes. ‘What’s going on?’

  It was a hard question to answer, but Jess tried. ‘Some bad men want to hurt us.’

  ‘Is Auntie Jean okay?’ The hesitation in Casey’s voice suggested she already knew the answer, but desperately wanted to be told she was wrong.

  Jess swallowed. ‘No. I don’t think she is.’

  ‘We don’t know that,’ snapped Tim, his voice a potent combination of anger and despair. He was standing a few feet away, soaked to the core like the rest of them as he looked out through the undergrowth to where the two canoes had come to rest on the sand spit sticking out into the river, barely ten yards away. The top half of Auntie Jean was just about visible slumped over one of the canoe’s sides. She wasn’t moving. ‘I’m going to go and bring her in here,’ he continued. ‘If she’s hurt, she needs help.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, don’t go near her!’ It was the mystery woman speaking. She was standing a few yards away, hands on thighs, slowly getting her breath back. ‘You’ll be shot.’

  Tim turned and glared at her. ‘What’s it got to do with you, eh?’

  ‘I’m just trying to help you.’

  ‘No you’re not. You’re not helping at all. All you’ve done is bring trouble down on us. If it hadn’t been for ye, none of this would have happened, so keep out of it, okay?’ His voice was harsh and loud, and cut through the quiet of the woods like a blunt hatchet. He was clenching and unclenching his fists as he spat out his words.

  ‘Look,’ said Jess, trying to defuse the situation, ‘they could still be out there. You don’t want to get killed too.’

  The moment the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. She was certain Jean was dead – she’d seen the way she’d toppled over in the canoe as the bullet had hit her – but, even so, she shouldn’t have said it.

  ‘And ye can shut up too!’ he yelled. ‘It’s nothing to do with ye either. She’s my wife. My wife!’ His voice contorted with pain as he tried to bring himself under control.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said the mystery woman, undeterred. ‘God, I am, but don’t go out there. If your wife’s hurt, we can get her help some other way.’

  ‘How? The phones are ruined now.’ He pulled out his mobile, pressed a few buttons, then flung it on the ground disgustedly. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go and see how my wife is. I’m sorry ye had to hear that, wee lass,’ he said to Casey, who was staring at him wide-eyed. ‘This is . . .’ He stopped, as if he no longer knew what else to say, then turned and walked purposefully towards the break in the trees that led out onto the sand spit.

  None of the rest of them said anything. Jess thought about calling out but concluded there’d be no point. Tim had made up his mind to go to his wife, and who could blame him? They’d been together for years and years, and though Jess herself wouldn’t say she got on particularly well with either of them, she could tell they loved each other very much, and there weren’t many people you could say that about.

  No shot rang out as Tim strode out onto the spit and leaned over the body of his wife. He was in that position for a good few seconds, and Jess stared at him intently, wondering what he thought he was doing. But then she saw his shoulders heaving silently and knew, with a final certainty, that Jean was dead. Tim lifted his wife out of the boat and turned back towards them, holding her in his bloodstained arms, tears streaming down his face.

  Jess held Casey close to her, and looked over to the mystery woman, catching her eye. Even soaking wet, she still had poise, and Jess was suddenly furious at her, not for putting Jess herself in danger, but for destroying
poor Casey’s life all over again. She’d lost her mother, her father, and now her aunt. Who was going to have her now?

  There was only one chink of hope in all this. And that was if the men were gone, they could get back in the canoes, and maybe try to float downriver to the town where they were meant to be meeting the guy from the canoe place.

  It was all she could think of as Tim walked towards them.

  Far above them on the other side of the river, Keogh rested his rifle on the stone wall bordering the lookout point and took aim at the figure walking along the sand spit with the dead woman in his arms, following his movement through the sights, thinking that finally something was going right for them. Now that the woman was no longer on display for any passer-by to see, it made their task just that little bit less urgent. Keogh had a simple choice. Did he let the man live, or did he take him out as well? If he let him live, the man would report everything, which could lead the police straight back to Keogh and his boss. All the canoeists had seen Mehdi and MacLean’s faces. Mehdi had a record. MacLean was a cop. It was too much of a risk.

  Keogh hesitated. It might be better to wait a few seconds. If Amanda and the canoeists thought they’d gone, they might come back out to the canoes, and he could put a bullet in her leg. He didn’t want to have to kill the kids. He was pretty certain he could have taken at least one of them out earlier, but he’d deliberately avoided them. After all, he wasn’t an animal, although he was pretty sure Mehdi, and probably even MacLean, wouldn’t hesitate to do them. But they were less important targets than the adults, because they were always going to be less reliable witnesses.

  Squinting down the sights, taking his time now that his target was moving nice and slowly, Keogh made his decision. Business was business.

  He lowered the rifle ever so slightly as the man reached the trees, his dead wife in his arms, then pulled the trigger and watched him fall.