The Noble Path: A relentless standalone thriller from the #1 bestseller by Peter May (learn to read books .TXT) 📕

fish and diesel and seaweed rose up from the water. McCue supported Elliot with difficulty, and quickly lagged behind as the ragged group, clutching bags and suitcases crammed with precious belongings, hurried after the old Chinaman. A figure detached itself from the rest and waited until they caught up. It was Ny, her face serious and concerned. She tugged at McCue’s pack.

‘I take.’

McCue hesitated for only a moment, before swinging the pack from his shoulder and passing it to her. Elliot reached out a hand and caught her arm. He gave it a tiny squeeze and their eyes met for a moment, but he could find no words.

Two hundred metres on, the group had stopped at the top of a flight of narrow stone steps leading down to a small open boat that rose and fell on the gentle harbour swell. As Elliot and McCue and Ny rejoined them, Heng was engaged in a furiously whispered argument with a young man in the boat. McCue climbed down the steps. ‘Jesus Christ, Heng! We’re gonna try and cross the Gulf in this?’

‘No, no. Boat only take us to trawler. It anchored in bay.’

‘So what’s the hold-up?’

‘’Nother truck. It late. Should be here since an hour. Lien, he say we got to wait. Trawler captain, his family on truck. He not sail without.’

‘How many people on the truck?’

‘’Bout fifty.’

McCue looked at the boat. ‘We’ll never get that many people in. Tell him he can come back.’

‘No, Billee, he say it too dangerous come back. It be light soon.’

McCue drew his pistol from its holster and pointed it at the young man’s head. ‘Then tell him I’ll blow his fucking head off if he doesn’t go now.’

Heng shook his head and gently pulled McCue’s arm down. ‘No, Billee, you no blow head off. Lien, he my son.’

McCue closed his eyes in despair, then reholstered the pistol. ‘So what do you suggest? We hang about here till the cops decide to pick us up?’

Heng turned back to his son and there was further argument before, finally, the young man threw his arms in the air and clattered away to the back of the boat to start the outboard. ‘We go now,’ Heng said. He waved to the group waiting above.

‘What did you say to him?’

‘I tell him we go. Chinese son always obey father.’

Sitting perilously low in the water, the little boat ploughed its ponderous way across the bay, straining against the heavier swell. Its wake glowed in the dark. There was an uncanny quiet among its human cargo, no longer afraid, but brooding silently on the lives they were leaving behind, the homes they had known all their lives. They had given up everything – property, possessions, friends – in exchange for danger and uncertainty. It was the price they were prepared to pay for freedom, or at least the chance of it. Had they, perhaps, known the fate of their predecessors on this journey into the unknown, they might not have thought it worth the risk.

The hull of a thirty-metre trawler rose above them out of the swell, and as they drew alongside a rope ladder tumbled down, unseen voices whispering urgently in the dark. One by one the refugees clambered up into the night, silhouettes against the starlit sky, laden with bags and suitcases, until only McCue, Elliot and Lien remained. McCue grunted as he took Elliot’s weight over his shoulder and prayed that the rope would hold. The muscles in his arms and legs strained and burned, as he pulled them both slowly up, rung by rung, until helping hands reached over the top rail to relieve him of the weight. The veins on his face stood out, along with the sweat, as he climbed over the rail and crouched there gasping for breath. He glanced around and saw that there were, perhaps, another thirty or forty already on board, eyes shining with bright astonishment at the unexpected appearance of two white faces among them. Ny squatted on the deck cradling Elliot’s head in her lap, tipping it forward to receive water from a flask. Then she held it out for McCue, who took a long, grateful draught.

As he drew the back of his hand across his mouth, he saw a small, wiry figure in black pyjamas striding angrily towards them from the wheelhouse. The man was middle-aged and balding, cheeks clapped in below prominent cheekbones. A wispy black moustache grew down from the corners of his mouth, endowing him with a permanent expression of sadness. He grasped Lien’s arm, as the young Chinese climbed over the rail, and shouted in his face, spittle gathering on his lips. He waved his hand urgently in the direction of the harbour. Lien seemed unable to respond, glancing helplessly towards his father. Heng stepped in, placed a gentle hand on the man’s shoulder and spoke in soft rapid tones. McCue glanced at Serey. ‘What’s going on?’

Serey shrugged. ‘This man is the captain. He think we should have waited for other truck.’

Somebody shouted. Fingers pointed shoreward. Everyone flocked to the rail to see the lights of a truck sweep across the bay. It jerked to a halt on the quayside and its lights went out. Almost at once, headlights sprang up in several sidestreets, engines coughed in the night, and five jeeps roared over the cobbles to surround the truck. Soldiers spilled across the quay to force its occupants down at gunpoint. The wretched figures huddled together in fear and failure.

Aboard the trawler, frightened eyes glanced anxiously at the captain. He stood wild-eyed and helpless, staring out across the water. McCue grabbed Heng and hissed, ‘I thought these guys had been paid!’

Heng shrugged, but McCue could see he was scared too. ‘Maybe not enough. Maybe they decide, so many, no more.’

McCue looked back towards the harbour. ‘If they had been on time, that would have been us.’

Heng nodded. ‘We lucky, Billee.’

McCue flicked his head towards the captain. ‘What about him?’

‘He lose family. Even if