The Alex King Series by A BATEMAN (free ebook reader for ipad TXT) 📕

“Bollocks to you,” Stewart said sharply. “I can out-run…”

“Well, let’s see if you can add that one to your exclusively biased list, shall we?”

“What’s your plan?”

King pointed across the gulley, out towards a thicket of trees a mile away. “We’re travelling a long way just to come back on ourselves via a man-made track to The Eagle’s Nest. I estimate we’re ten-miles maximum if we cut across the top of the lake. The weather has cleared, the surface ice crust will have been blown away by that storm, and the lake will be entirely flat terrain.”

“Bollocks to that!” Stewart exclaimed. “We should abort the operation and head back to town. Or at least push forwards on the road. We could happen upon another vehicle. Or if we get down to the car, we can scavenge and utilise what we have in there.”

King checked his watch again. He looked back at the man who was his mentor, his father-figure. His one-time friend. “We haven’t seen a car for the entire journey. If we stick to the road, we have at least thirty-miles to travel. We’ll never make it. Not before nightfall. The temperature will drop dramatically and the light fades around three o’clock. If another squall comes in, we’ll have no protection, and no kit to dig a snow hole or get a fire going. If the storm they keep talking about, that everybody is worried about hits, we won’t stand a chance.”

“There’s always a chance…”

King turned and started walking to the side of the road, parallel to the precipice. He looked over his shoulder as he walked. “Are you coming?”

Stewart hesitated a moment then begrudgingly followed.

The gradient was gradual and when the road branched off to the left and the barrier ended, King led the way down the slope to the edge of the basin. The ice was surprisingly grippy. A dry layer which stuck to the bottom of their boots. King tapped each boot on the side of the other, and perfect casts of his treads fell onto the ground.

“Have you ever seen stuff like this?” he asked Stewart, more to break the tension.

The Scotsman shrugged. “No. Only here.”

A status quo had been broken. The two men had known each other for almost twenty-years, and in all that time, Peter Stewart had been the boss. King had operated alone over most of his time with MI6, but he was always sent out on his missions by the man, always debriefed upon his return. Stewart had often been the cavalry, the man at the end of the radio or phone, who could arrange the airstrike, the helicopter extraction or the boys in blue to make an arrest. He often reminded King that he wouldn’t still be here had he not been in the loop. King had learned to rely on him. That said a lot, when he had never relied upon a single human being since he had his last nappy changed. And that was the way Stewart had worked him, played him. He had become the only person King felt he needed. Which was why the man’s betrayal had been the most bitter pill of all. And even then, even after he had removed everybody in the chain who had wanted him dead, he still couldn’t pull the trigger. The sight of his mentor trembling, his bladder and nerve gone on that canal bank, had made him realise that revenge did nothing. That was when he had left his old life behind, and with it, any reliance upon the man begrudgingly following him in the snow. King led, Stewart followed. The young lion had established itself and the old lion knew its place. Both men knew it too.

At the bottom of the basin King looked back towards the base of the cliff. He veered right and trudged over uneven mounds of frozen snow, which looked like a mogul ski run. As he reached the end of the series of snow drifts he stopped and looked at the wreckage.

“Glad we got out of that,” he said.

“Going to scavenge the car now?”

King shrugged. “I didn’t realise we could traverse across. Makes sense to get out bags, at least.”

The vehicle was upside down and the windows were out. King reached inside for his bag. He grabbed Stewart’s too and handed it to him. The Scotsman ignored it and got on his hands and knees. He reached in and got the glovebox open, pocketed his pistol and stood up.

“Want anything else?”

King shook his head. “Not unless you’ve got some skis in the boot…”

“Shit out of luck.”

“Let’s get out of here, then.”

They crossed the basin and reached the belt of trees. King checked his vintage Rolex again. The sun and the minute hand gave him the direction of north and he physically used his outstretched arm to establish northeast. He used a distant peak and a strange wooded mound as a marker and led the way down towards the perfectly flat ground ahead of them.

The crust of ice crystals, like a sheen of fine hail, on the surface ice of the lake had been blown away to reveal a bluish white layer of ice which reminded King of a glacier. It was also the colour of King’s eyes, hard, cold and unyielding. He studied the surface and stepped out onto it. He could see the water underneath. He estimated a metre of ice, perhaps more. Enough to drive a bus over. He took a few steps, started to slide and looked back at Stewart.

“We’ll cut some poles to keep our balance,” King said decisively. “A few hours and we’ll be in the bar with a stiff drink and a log fire.”

Stewart lifted the tail of his jacket and retrieved a knife. It had a stubby six-inch blade and