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

saw the captain lying dazed and frightened on the cabin floor, where he had fallen from his bunk. The rattle of automatic fire came from the deck, several short bursts. A cacophony of human panic carried on the stiff sea breeze.

A shadow appeared in the doorway. Elliot looked up to see a squat, ugly face contorted by fear and rage. The man was small, thickset. His brown shirt was torn and stained black with blood. A dirty white rag tied around his forehead was speckled with red above murderous eyes. In his hand he carried a long-bladed knife. As he came at Elliot, his voice rose in a blood-curdling howl, the blade flashing over his head. Elliot fell back, fumbling desperately for the pistol in his holster. It snagged on his belt as he tried to draw it out. The shadow of death loomed over him. He could smell the man’s sweat. A gun roared in the confined space, blotting out all other sound, and the dead weight of his attacker fell forward, pinning Elliot to the floor.

Elliot was again crippled by pain, unable to move. A hand tugged at the shoulder of his dead assailant and pulled the body aside, and Elliot saw the captain crouching over him, a revolver in his hand. He helped the Englishman to sit up, and Elliot finally freed his pistol.

From the deck, another burst of automatic fire raised further screams. The captain scampered across to the cabin door and peered cautiously out. He ducked back in at once, his face pale with fear. He shook his head. Elliot pulled himself up on the wheel and snatched a quick look from the window. In the grey light of the dawn he saw another, smaller, fishing boat pulled up alongside. A boarding party of more than a dozen men fanned out across the deck, wielding daggers, marlinspikes, cudgels and hammers. Several bodies lay, prostrate, near the awning over the forward hold. The shadowy figures of rudely awakened refugees ran forward and aft, trying to escape the ferocity of their attackers. Blades rose and fell, glinting in the growing light. From the cover of the awning came another burst of fire. Two men crashed through the forward hold and down into the belly of the boat.

Elliot ducked down and glanced quickly round the cabin, eyes darting into every dark corner, before he spotted his pack, and his M16, stowed beneath his bunk. He slithered across the floor and grabbed the rifle. The captain still crouched by the door, afraid to move.

‘Lights!’ Elliot hissed. ‘How do you switch the fucking lights on?’

The captain looked back at him blankly. Elliot pointed at the ceiling lamp in the cabin. The Chinaman looked at the lamp, brow furrowed in consternation, before it came to him what Elliot wanted. He darted across to the control panel at the wheel, waited for Elliot’s nod and flicked a switch.

Lamps on the wheelhouse roof flooded the decks with light, creating an immediate sense of unreality, mock carnage played out on a pantomime stage. Elliot sidestepped from the door, like a player from the wings, and saw startled faces, caught in the unexpected glare, turn towards the wheelhouse. He released half a dozen short bursts of fire, picking his targets. Six men fell. Another burst came from the awning and two more men hit the deck. Of the remaining boarders, one leapt overboard and three vaulted the rail in a desperate attempt to get back to their boat. But the other vessel had already drifted clear, engines gunning, propellers churning, attempting to get away. All three landed in the water, splashing frantically, knowing that death was only seconds away. Elliot picked them off with single rounds.

A strange silence followed, broken only by the wailing of a child. A pulley hanging from the end of a rope swung back and forth against the swell. Elliot scanned the deck for McCue. He shouted, ‘Billy!’ No response. A movement caught his eye as a crouching figure emerged from the shadow of the awning. It was Hau, wild-eyed and trembling, clutching his Kalashnikov. One by one anxious faces emerged from the darkness behind him.

A hand touched Elliot’s shoulder. He turned to find the captain nodding towards the port side of the boat. He followed the Chinaman’s eye line, and saw the arm of a torn khaki tunic draped over the winch cable, a bloody hand dangling from its sleeve. He jumped down from the wheelhouse and hobbled across the forward deck, stepping over bodies. As he drew nearer, he saw McCue lying on the far side of the winch wheel, and he broke into a run. A marlinspike stuck out from the American’s chest. There were several gaping knife wounds in his neck. Blood had spread into a large thick pool on the scrubbed wooden deck. His eyes were open, staring blindly, the face reflecting, in its moment of dying, a look of surprise. Perhaps he really had believed in his own immortality. He seemed smaller in death than in life.

Elliot stooped to pick up McCue’s discarded M16 where it had fallen. The feeder mechanism was jammed. He turned, in a moment of sudden fury, and hurled the useless rifle out over the rail, through the salt spray, a yell of sheer frustration ripping from his throat; a gesture of futile defiance – as if it were possible, somehow, to take revenge on death. He turned back to face the small group of refugees who had gathered round, and saw Ny and Serey and Hau among them. ‘We were so nearly there,’ he said. But their faces were blurred and he couldn’t see that they were weeping for him, too.

*

The wind and spray whipped their faces as the trawler ploughed bravely on through rising seas. The forward awning flapped and strained at the ropes which held it. The sky was thick and dark with cloud so low you felt you might touch it. They stood in silence as, one