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

months before and the ice had been covered in snow, only ridges on both sides where the snow had built up on the banks distinguished it as such.

“What’s wrong?” Caroline asked. She released her grip on his waist and stepped off the machine. “What have you seen?”

King couldn’t put his finger on it, but he had the same feeling he had earlier with the woman who had been impersonating Senior Constable Lena Mäkinen. And again, with Stewart in the car on the way up to The Eagle’s Nest Hotel. It was the way the sky looked mottled, like a mackerel. As he watched, the clouds parted, and he was sure they started to turn counter clockwise. Slowly at first, then gaining in momentum.

A biblical sky.

King swung off the saddle, his ribs catching him and making him wince. “Follow me!” he barked. He swung the rifle off his shoulder and trudged up the slope towards the trees. He found what he wanted. A fallen tree, with a build-up of snow caused by a prevailing wind. The other side of the trunk rested on the slope with a drop of a few feet before the ground levelled out towards the riverbank.

“What is it?” she asked again, but she knew better to stop and protest. King’s instincts were to be trusted.

“The storm!” he shouted as he drove the buttstock of the rifle into the ice crust. “Scrape the ice and snow that I break up into a mound, either side of the hole I make.”

Caroline dropped onto her knees and did as he asked. He punished the rifle, its ability to function would be over after this. The dented receiver had made the action difficult for the gunman to use, but its accuracy would now be ruined beyond repair. King upended the weapon and used the muzzle to loosen the ice, then turned it around and used the butt to dig and scrape. Caroline had banked up the loose snow and pressed it down with all her weight. She could see what King was trying to achieve and simply worked with him. They saved their breath, the exertion made it dangerous for them to breathe through their mouths. Just breathing through their noses warmed the air enough to save their throats, and in turn their lungs. They were perspiring, which presented more problems. Freezing sweat would cool them down too quickly. But one problem at a time, was all they could worry about for now.

“That’s big enough,” said Caroline.

King nodded. “Get in,” he said. “Head first.”

She did as he said, bent down and crawled inside. She turned onto her side, pushed herself against the ice wall to give him some room. King bent down and stripped the rifle. He pocketed the magazine and the chambered round, tossed the bolt aside and slipped the barrel out of the fore-stock. He jabbed the barrel into the roof of the cave and worked it until it pushed right through. He pushed the barrel until it was approximately halfway, then contorted himself around it and crawled in next to Caroline.

“What the hell?” she asked, looking at the barrel of the ruined weapon.

“If we get snowed in, or the cave collapses, then we have an air hole. Enough to keep us alive,” he said. “We wouldn’t know the air was being used up, because we’d just fall asleep with the lack of oxygen and then die.”

“Is there no end to your general knowledge?” she asked light-heartedly.

“Just survival,” he replied.

They were braced for the storm, but the lack of drama seemed an anti-climax after all the effort they had put into their shelter. They looked at each other, the whites of their eyes visible in the darkness, and not much else. They were so close, their faces almost touched. King leaned in and kissed her softly on the lips. She responded, her lips warm, her mouth soft and moist. They had spent so much time apart that the act seemed different, yet familiar. A strange mixture of emotions, that needed rekindling. The constant familiarity had gone. It was like starting a new relationship, but with a close friend.

Caroline pulled away and smiled. “I’ve missed you so much…”

She couldn’t finish her sentence, because the world seemed to end outside. The howling of the wind was like a locomotive passing through a tunnel at full speed. The air seemed to disrupt, sucked out by the vortex, then swept back to their grateful lungs as the pressure equalised.

King hugged her tightly and she slipped her arms around him and nuzzled her head into his neck. He risked a glance at the entrance to the tiny cave and saw the blizzard of ice and snow and debris of pine needles, pine cones and branches. Throughout the storm, they heard great crashes that could only have been falling trees dropping around them. They just hoped that one did not come crashing through the roof. But neither said a word, merely hugged one another to keep warm and took solace that they were together.

56

 

Ramsay knocked on the door and waited. He wasn’t a patient man at the best of times, so in the brief time it took for the door to be answered he had already started to pace around in a circle. The door unlocked, and Marnie peered through the crack, the security chain pulled taut and a curious expression upon her face.

“Progress?”

Marnie closed the door, unlocked the chain and pulled the door wide open. “Yes,” she said. “And no.”

Ramsay tutted as he stepped over the threshold. “Meaning?”

Marnie led the way over to her laptop. “It was difficult to get in, but I bounced it to GCHQ and one of the techies got through the data encryption. GCHQ bounced it back. It is clearly scientific, and I’m guessing biological and chemical, so I sent the