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

Now, just having told him felt good. Someone else to share the weight of it all. She felt his lips on her neck, gently brushing her skin. His breath sent a shiver down her back. He bit her softly and she felt the first stirrings of arousal. She turned her head towards him and his lips found hers, barely touching. He kissed her – a light, loving kiss. Then again. This time more fiercely. She felt herself responding, felt his hand slip under her top and push up her bra, felt it warm on her breast. A thrill ran through her, leaving her weak. She pushed herself against him and they slipped over gently on to the floor, the softness of the rug beneath them, the warmth of the fire on their skin. His mouth was everywhere. Her lips, her neck. Her bra had come away, her top pushed up. She heard herself moan, a distant voice that belonged to someone else. She felt him hard against her leg. She opened her eyes and saw him looking down at her, the strangest look on his face, eyes burning with a passion so violent that suddenly it frightened her. She went cold.

‘No,’ she said. It wasn’t right. He didn’t own her, she didn’t love him. ‘No,’ she said again. ‘No, David.’ And she tried to push him away. He resisted, pressing down on her hard.

‘It’s alright, Lisa. It’ll be alright.’

But she knew it wouldn’t. ‘No!’ And with a great effort she pulled herself away from under him, sitting up fastening her bra and pulling down her top. He looked at her, mouth tight, eyes filled with anger.

‘What the fuck’s wrong with you!’ he shouted.

‘There’s nothing wrong with me,’ she said, with all the control she could muster. But her voice was trembling. ‘I think you’d better go.’

‘I think I had.’ He got to his feet and looked at her with patent hostility, running his hands back through his hair as if trying to smooth his ruffled pride. ‘Don’t expect me to call.’

‘I won’t,’ she said to his back as he turned towards the door. ‘And even if you did I wouldn’t be here.’

He stopped, frowning. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ve already applied for my passport,’ she said. ‘I’m leaving early next week.’

‘For where?’ He glared at her in consternation.

‘Bangkok,’ she said. ‘To find my father.’

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The long dusty drive south-west to Aranyaprathet was tedious. The unbroken flatness of the paddy fields stretching away on either side of a long straight road that sat up on an embankment rising a metre above the surrounding countryside. The air conditioning in Tuk’s car made it difficult to believe it was hot out there – crucifyingly hot under the December sun.

‘In the rainy season,’ Tuk said brightly, ‘this road is impassable, under almost a metre of water.’

Elliot, Slattery and McCue sat in the back, silenced by the monotony of the drive, while Tuk sat in the front beside his driver, chatting animatedly.

Mak Moun camp, he told them, was effectively controlled by a man called Van Saren, a captain in the army of Lon Nol before the Khmer Rouge victory. Tuk turned in his seat and smiled. ‘Well, so he says. He might have been a lieutenant, but even that’s doubtful. He calls himself Marshal and claims to be the most honourable of the Khmer Serei. It is he who will arrange your border crossing.’ He laughed. ‘Actually, he smuggles teak and artefacts out of Cambodia for me. He’s a nice man. You’ll like him.’ He laughed again, and Elliot felt there was something unpleasant in the laugh.

The previous night Tuk had taken the three of them to Bangkok’s dockland, to a lock-up among a jumble of deserted warehouses. There, under the watchful eyes of armed guards, they had selected weapons and equipment from what was virtually an arsenal. The Colt Commando variation of the M16 automatic rifle, M26 anti-personnel hand grenades, Colt .45 automatic pistols. McCue had picked out a long, lethal hunting knife that hung from a belted sheath that strapped high up round the shoulder. He handled it with a kind of reverence and had to be persuaded to take an automatic rifle. ‘Never carried one in the tunnels,’ he said. ‘Too goddam clumsy!’

They were to travel light, but Elliot insisted that Slattery pack a shortwave radio-receiver. Tuk had promised to have everything delivered to a pick-up point near the border once it had been decided exactly where they were to make their crossing. And now that he had been paid, he was full of false bonhomie. Not one of the men in the back of the car trusted him.

Aranyaprathet had been transformed from a sleepy, forgotten little border town into a thriving and expanding mini-metropolis by the influx of refugees, and by the medical and relief agencies that had moved in to meet their needs. The town was thick with foreigners and commerce and traffic of all kinds. Bars and shops and clubs had sprung up everywhere, as they had in the North American goldrush boom towns. Only here the gold was flesh, and the currency human misery. There was a large Thai army presence and a growing administration complex, the fruits of a burgeoning bureaucracy, to control the comings and goings of all manner of people – refugees, journalists, troops, traders, prostitutes, and large numbers of workers from the international relief agencies. Trucks lumbered in from Bangkok throughout the day, bringing the decadent goods of an alien Western culture to feed the black-market economy.

‘The trucks only travel by day,’ Tuk said. ‘The road is controlled by bandits after dusk. Cars and trucks are attacked and robbed, and the drivers often killed. The army surrenders control after the sun goes down.’

They spent a hot sticky hour below a broken ceiling fan in a room filled with the human flotsam of war, while Tuk spoke long and heatedly with recalcitrant Thai officials. Finally Tuk and the officials disappeared into another room. When they