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

once been men and women stepped forward to spit on the body of the cadre until it ran with saliva that glowed almost luminescent in the moonlight, like the ghost of all their suffering. Elliot picked up his knife, cleaned and sheathed it. He had seen many men die, but rarely had he felt such a sense of shock. Not for the man who had died, but for this young girl, still little more than a child, whose hatred had robbed her of her innocence, corrupting her in a single act of cold-blooded killing. He thought, she could have been my daughter.

‘Elliot.’ He turned. McCue’s face was very pale. ‘We’re running out of time.’

Elliot nodded. ‘Look after the old woman. I’ll take the girl. Slattery, get us out of here.’

Serey glanced back over her shoulder as McCue led her away across the compound after Slattery. How many times she had dreamed of freedom, of escape. But now, with the eyes upon her of all those who had shared her misery and pain, she felt empty and sad, cheated of her moment. She wondered if any of them could ever escape from the memory. She saw the man called Elliot take Ny by the arm and lead her after them. And she turned away quickly. She had done everything she could to protect her, but it had never been enough, and now she was lost.

‘Stick close to me at all times,’ Elliot whispered to Ny. ‘Do everything I tell you, without question.’ If Ny heard, she gave no sign of it. He felt her trembling still, but she offered no resistance.

As they reached the trees, Elliot became aware of a shuffling sound that whispered in the darkness and seemed to fill the air. He turned. A hundred pairs of leathery feet padding in the dust. The whole commune was following behind. As Elliot stopped, they stopped too, their eyes upon him. He felt uncomfortable under their gaze, and a sense of shame made him angry. ‘For God’s sake!’ he shouted. ‘Don’t you people understand? We can’t take you with us!’ They stared back in silence. Slattery, McCue and Serey stopped at the sound of his voice. Elliot turned to Serey. ‘You tell them,’ he said. ‘Together we are dead. If each goes his own way then at least some of us will survive.’

‘Why should I tell them what they already know?’ she replied simply. ‘You gave them their freedom, so they will follow you.’

Elliot’s eyes went cold. There was no time for this. Already there would be soldiers on their way to investigate the gunfire. He drew his pistol and levelled it at the crowd. ‘Then tell them that I will shoot anyone who follows us.’ And he raised his pistol a little and fired a single shot over their heads. There was an involuntary ducking, a shuffling of feet.

‘Hey, steady on, chief.’

Elliot ignored Slattery. ‘Tell them,’ he said again to Serey, single-minded, insistent.

She looked at him with contempt, then turned to the waiting eyes and spoke a few short sentences in a high, clear voice. And she, in turn, felt their contempt for her. She had betrayed them as surely as the Khmer Rouge had. She turned back to Elliot and spat in his face. ‘The Khmer Rouge shamed my daughter. Now you have shamed me.’

Elliot wiped the spittle from his face with his sleeve and glanced at Slattery and McCue. There was no sympathy in their eyes. ‘Fucking move!’ he barked. McCue took Serey gently by the arm and led her away at a trot after Slattery. Elliot holstered his pistol and found Ny staring at him. He hesitated a moment under her gaze then, ‘You, too,’ he growled, and pushed her ahead of him to hurry after the others. As he glanced back through the trees, he saw the dozens of dark figures still standing on the edge of the compound, and knew he had just sentenced them to an almost certain death.

They made slow progress through the forest. Serey and Ny were both weak, and the old woman had to stop and rest frequently, pale and breathless, a dry cough rattling in her throat. McCue gave them both water and a little food. He knew they would not be able to eat much. Stomachs shrunken by the paltry Khmer Rouge rations, conditioned to a daily intake of a few grains of rice, unable to cope with anything richer. It would be some time before they could eat a sustaining meal.

They had stopped to rest for five minutes, squatting in the cover of a dry river bed. Slattery had gone ahead to scout out the lie of the land. Serey looked at Elliot. ‘Why?’ she said. He frowned, not understanding. ‘Why would you risk your lives to save us?’

‘Your husband is paying us well.’

Her laugh was without humour, full of bitterness. ‘Does he think he can buy us, too?’ She looked at Ny. ‘Does he think he can buy back his daughter’s innocence?’ Ny lowered her head, unable to meet her mother’s eye. ‘What value does he put on our lives?’

‘He told me, everything he has,’ Elliot said.

She snorted her disgust. ‘Except his life and his freedom.’ She shook her head. ‘Time will mend a broken heart, but does he really believe he can pay for his soul?’

‘Frankly, Mrs Ang, I don’t know, and I really don’t care,’ Elliot said. ‘He’s paying me to do a job and I’m doing it.’

‘I have already told you,’ she said, ‘that I will not leave without my son.’

‘If he is in Phnom Penh then he is lost.’

‘No. He will wait for us there.’

Elliot sighed. ‘So you are going to go to Phnom Penh – on your own?’

‘If I have to.’

‘And how far do you think you would get?’

Her smile was serene with a fatalism that a Westerner would find hard to fathom. ‘Not far, perhaps, but I will die rather than leave him.’ She paused. ‘But you must take Ny with