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

that gripped him, and he turned away to look out the back of the truck where a canvas flap was whipping in the slipstream.

Not a light shone anywhere as they rumbled through the deserted, broken-down suburbs in the ghostly moonlight. Past the wrecks of armoured vehicles, a legacy of Lon Nol’s defeated army, rusting cars lying abandoned at the roadside, refuse tumbling across the road in their wake. Not a sign of anything living, of any human existence, just the wreckage of another life, another time.

None of the boys possessed guns, except for Yos, who rested his AK-47 across his knees, a symbol of his privilege, carried with a careless arrogance. Ksor’s automatic was slung over his shoulder, a pistol holstered on his belt. He sat with his eyes closed, swaying with the motion of the truck. Hau knew he would have to get the rifle from Yos, that he would probably have to kill to be free. But they had made him kill before. He owed them nothing but death. And yet he was still only a child, twelve years old. Old enough to take life, but not old enough to live with it. The nightmares were almost unbearable. He thought of his sister and his mother, the years of separation, the nights of secret, silent tears, the longing for the warmth of his mother’s breast, his sister’s lips, the fear of sleep.

He shook himself free of such thoughts. They would only make him weak, and he had to be strong.

The city centre, too, was deserted, apart from the occasional army truck or jeep that would rattle past. There was an eerie, haunted quality about the empty streets, the years of neglect, the absence of people or life where once they had thrived. Hau’s fear was beginning to yield to despair. He knew that once aboard the truck south his chances of escape would rapidly diminish. And where would he go? He was not equipped to survive on his own in the jungle. The city was his natural habitat. It had to be here. Panic was planting irrational thoughts in his head. Of snatching the weapon from Yos and leaping out the back. But the road ran fast beneath them. He would surely be killed or badly hurt. He glanced desperately around the other faces. They were without expression, each boy silent, guarding his own thoughts. How many of them could he trust? Trust! It was a word he barely remembered – an act of free will that was little more than a distant memory.

Suddenly the truck lurched violently to one side, tyres screeching, a smell of burning rubber as it mounted the pavement and smashed into a derelict shop front. The shock flung them all from their seats, and in the confusion Hau heard Ksor shouting, demanding to know what had happened. He caught a glimpse in the moonlight of the driver’s face as he turned, blood streaming from a gash in his forehead.

‘A puncture!’

Ksor cursed and kicked his way through the confusion of bodies to the back of the truck and jumped down into the road. Hau saw Yos’s AK-47 on the floor where it had fallen. He looked up and Yos’s black eyes met his. Yos was on his knees, clutching his arm where he had hurt it in the fall. From the pain he knew it was broken. The two boys grabbed together for the gun, but Hau was faster. He swung it up and pushed the barrel into Yos’s chest. Yos went rigid, his face taut.

‘You wouldn’t dare!’ he hissed.

The other boys, too, had frozen, chilled to the bone by the drama unfolding in front of them. Outside they heard the voices of Ksor and the driver. Yos relaxed with Hau’s hesitation, knowing that he would not dare. A slow smile spread across his face as Hau squeezed the trigger and a burst of fire flashed in the dark, sending the older boy thudding backwards, his smile replaced for an instant by disbelief, and then, for eternity, by death. Hau was wet, and wondered for a crazy moment if it was raining. Then he realized it was blood. Yos’s blood. It was everywhere. Spattered across the clothes and faces of all the boys.

A shout, and feet running on the pavement, pulled him back from the horror, and he spun round to see Ksor’s dark outline rising up at the back of the truck. He fired again and Ksor fell backwards without a sound. The bloodied face of the driver appeared briefly at the opening before he turned and sprinted away into the darkness.

The silence that followed was deafening. Small boys all with their eyes on Hau. He looked round the frightened faces.

‘I’m not going to fight the Vietnamese,’ he said. But no one spoke. He pushed through to the back of the truck and jumped down on to the road. Ksor lay on his back, eyes staring, dark blood pooling on the tarmac. Hau scanned the street. There was not a sound to be heard or a light to be seen. He knelt down and gingerly removed Ksor’s pistol and picked up his automatic. He tucked the pistol in his belt, slung a rifle over each shoulder and started running, back they way they had come, long loping strides. When he reached the end of the street, he looked back and saw the dark shapes of small boys spilling out from the back of the truck and running off into the night.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Lisa was not prepared for the sticky heat of the Bangkok night, with its noise and babble of Thai voices and lazily swinging ceiling fans. She was still dressed for the English winter she had left behind. Jeans and boots, a cotton blouse under a thick woollen jumper and quilted anorak. She had known it would be hot during the day, but thought the nights might be cool.

She queued uncomfortably, anorak over her arm, at immigration, and was disconcerted by the