She shook her head. ‘I feel safer with you.’
‘You thought I was going to kill you ten minutes ago.’
‘Now I know you won’t. And I’d rather stick with you than be alone.’
He shrugged. ‘Suit yourself. I can’t promise you anything though. I don’t know what we’ll find.’
‘I’m not asking you to. But I want to see who put me through all this. If anyone’s there.’
‘Okay.’
He accelerated. By now he had grown accustomed to the change of surface. The sedan bounced and jolted across the gravel. This path seemed a little narrower than Kate’s street. One way. It looped and twisted through the woods, lined with dead leaves and pine needles. King kept one hand on the wheel and the other wrapped around the Beretta. Ready to react to anything unusual. Kate stayed silent, chewing a thumbnail. Her nerves were palpable.
Suddenly the tree line expanded as the trail opened out into a small clearing, its ground just as uneven. King guessed it used to be a makeshift parking lot. Now it lay completely empty. Trees boxed in three sides. The fourth was home to a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire, running the length of the clearing. He looked through its steel mesh and saw the ground drop sharply away. The forest ahead dipped into a sea of green, stretching as far as the eye could see. A swathe of landfill covered the valley floor. He saw the mountains of junk stretching across the man-made region. Entire sections of forest had been chopped down to make way for the pit. Beyond the fence, a precarious path trailed down to the valley floor, just wide enough to fit a dump truck. He guessed the fence had been built when the place shut down, to prevent vehicular access.
Whatever the case, there was no-one here to meet Kate.
King reached over and placed a hand on her shoulder. Warning her. ‘Stay here. Be ready.’
She nodded, eyes wide, gaze flicking around the empty clearing. King opened the door and got out. In the relative silence of the area, the creaking hinges sounded deafening. Like the action had drawn all the attention in the world.
A breeze blew across the valley, slotting through the fence and whispering through the clearing. King’s clothes flapped. He felt a shiver run down his spine. It was too quiet. There would be no meeting here. That much he was sure of.
He turned his attention to the valley. After a lifetime of training to seek out threats, he’d become quite adept at it. There was little to see. Nothing but forest, and the sun steadily declining toward the opposite horizon. It sat behind a cluster of clouds, eliminating the glare.
That was what saved his life.
If King had been squinting, he wouldn’t have seen what he saw. On the far side of the valley. Amidst the trees.
The unmistakeable sight of a muzzle flash.
It sent him back to a different time, when his whole existence had revolved around nothing but conflict. That period of his life had hammered such a sight into his subconscious. He found himself acting out of instinct. In the same moment that he saw the small burst of light he felt his legs give out, darting away from their purchase on the gravel automatically. He didn’t even think about the action.
He just dropped.
Without a moment to spare.
The bullet passed a couple of inches over his hair. An impressively accurate shot, especially from that distance. If he’d kept his head in the same position for a millisecond longer the round would have taken the top half of his head off. He’d seen it done before. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Then Kate would have frozen up, shellshocked from seeing King die in an explosion of brain matter. She’d be a sitting duck inside the sedan.
But that didn’t happen, because King was faster than any man his enemies had seen before.
The noise of the rapport had yet to reach the clearing by the time he had scrambled to his feet. Judging his distance from the marksman, he guessed it would take close to two seconds for the sound to reach his eardrums. Right now it would be echoing across the valley. And whoever was behind the gun would be adjusting their aim.
‘Kate, down!’ King roared.
She still hadn’t realised what had just happened. Then the crack of the discharge hit them, and she flinched involuntarily. She saw King running for the car, and she heard the sound, and she put two and two together. She ducked into the footwell.
Another round destroyed the windscreen of the sedan, punching a hole through the thick glass. The entire pane shattered. A cacophony of noise hit King at once. The breaking of glass, the almighty racket of the sniper rounds, Kate’s panicked screaming.
He wrenched the door open, fearing the worst. She cowered in the footwell, visibly shaken but unhurt. He saw the passenger seat’s headrest torn to shreds. The second bullet had smashed through the windscreen and buried itself inside the polyester. She’d avoided death by a hair.
King ducked into the driver’s seat and dove out of the line of sight. The portion of seat above him rattled suddenly, accompanied by the sound of tearing cloth. He swore. The sniper had his aim locked on. He was hitting each target with remarkable precision. As King hesitated, a fourth shot struck the front of the sedan.
Once again, he shook his head in surprise. Now that the marksman knew both targets were out of sight, their aim had switched to the engine. They were improvising as the altercation unfolded. It would only take one well-placed shot to immobilise the vehicle.
And then they were stranded.
King clicked the safety off the Beretta and fired three times out the open windscreen, keeping his head well below the dashboard. The shots were blind, but hopefully they would achieve their intended effect. He had no time to deduce whether they had paid off or not. He simply had to act, and hope the sniper had been rattled by the returning gunfire.
He had to hope he didn’t catch a bullet in the brain.
He’d left the car running, so all it took to get moving was a quick change of gear and a vicious stamp on the accelerator. He felt the tyres spin. It took a second or two for them to find purchase. Then the sedan shot off the mark.
King kept his head low, turning the wheel in a sharp arc, aiming for the path they’d come through by memory alone. He felt the pressure in his stomach as they rocketed toward the other end of the clearing.
Convinced the sniper would have difficulty hitting a moving target with precision, he sat up and got his bearings.
Lucky he did.
They had drifted off-target. Their sedan wasn’t on track to enter the path anymore. He panicked as he saw the bonnet rushing straight for one of the pine trees. Neither he or Kate were wearing seatbelts. The collision would throw them through the open windscreen, almost definitely killing them given the speed they had picked up. He swerved hard, throwing Kate against the passenger door. He heard the metal groan, but the door held. The sedan lost traction on the gravel and skidded. He held firm on the wheel, battling for control. In the middle of the manoeuvre, a fifth bullet shattered the rear window and sunk into the dashboard, sending a cloud of sparks flying.
Kate screamed.
Finally the wheels regained control and King gunned the car back up the path. The forest enveloped them once more. Now they would be harder to hit, but the first stretch of the trail was dead straight. Perhaps two hundred feet in length. There was still an opening for the enemy sniper. He waved at Kate to stay in the footwell and ducked again.
Twin jolts shook the chassis as another pair of bullets sunk into the sedan’s rear, threatening to find their mark in one of the tyres at any time. If one of them burst, King knew they would be incapacitated. It would take little effort to ambush them at the top of the path.
He left it until he felt they would hit the trees on the far side of the bend at any moment. Then he gave the steering wheel a quick pump in either direction, swerving the car from left to right. Any aim the sniper had settled on would be rendered useless. Following the move, King righted himself in the driver’s seat.