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

shooting stopped, as suddenly as it had begun, the chatter of guns replaced by a chatter of frightened, excited voices, before silence returned. The only sound was the erratic splutter of an idling engine.

Hau felt his heart beating in his throat, heard the roar of blood in his ears. His knuckles burned white as he clutched his Kalashnikov in fear. He took a deep breath and ran silently along the length of the wall, bent double, stopping just short of a breach in the brickwork. His breath came in short trembling bursts, and for a moment he could not move. He relaxed his grip on the AK-47 and realized that he was still clutching the St Christopher, its fine silver chain dangling from between his fingers. Carefully he laid his weapon on the ground and slipped the chain around his neck. The bowed figure seemed to burn against his chest. Creeping forward, then, on his knees, he peered cautiously through the shattered brickwork.

The road lay bathed in the sulphurous light of a jeep’s headlamps. Beyond their haloes of brightness, dark figures moved stealthily among the shadows of the darker buildings rising behind. Far away, to his right, Hau saw another figure crouched behind the skeleton of a rusted saloon car that lay at an odd angle, half on the road, half on the pavement, caught in the full glare of the headlamps. The figure was tense and motionless, and Hau realized that the other figures moving beyond the lights were slowly but surely encircling it.

Closer, sprawled awkwardly across the camber of the road, a man lay face-down in the gutter, a pool of blood spreading through the dusty, broken surface. His automatic rifle lay near the faded centre line, casting a long shadow across the ground, reaching out towards his lifeless hand.

With a shock like a fist in the gut, Hau recognized the Englishman. His hand rose instinctively to the medallion that hung around his neck, and he was overwhelmed by guilt. But it was anger that fuelled his sudden, foolish bravery as he snatched the Kalashnikov, stepping out from the cover of the wall and swinging it wildly in the direction of the jeep across the street. Bullets spat from its muzzle in quick succession, hot metal burning his hands, smoke and the acrid stink of cordite flashing up into his face. The front grille of the jeep seemed to dissolve under the sustained burst of fire, bullets ploughing through glass and engine cowling and rubber. Shattered headlamps extinguished the glare, and dark fell across the street like blindness.

Hau was only vaguely aware of the chatter of McCue’s M16, away to his right, and the startled shouts of the Vietnamese. He stumbled through the dark, almost tripping over the prostrate figure of Elliot. Don’t be dead, he whispered to himself again and again. But Elliot’s body seemed lifeless and leaden as he tried to turn it over. Don’t be dead, don’t be dead, don’t be dead! A hand pulled him roughly aside and, briefly, he felt McCue’s sour, rasping breath on his face. Automatic fire seemed to rattle all around them, punctuated by shrill Vietnamese voices and the sound of running feet. A radio crackled somewhere nearby. But in the darkness there was confusion, and in confusion, safety.

McCue grunted as he strained to lift the dead weight of Elliot on to his shoulder. Hau saw the faintest grim outline of his face, and as the American made for the hole in the wall, Hau scampered across the road to retrieve Elliot’s M16. A burst of fire whispered past his face, bullets splintering the brick behind him. Something sharp caught his forehead, just above the right brow, slicing like a razor across the bone. He hardly felt it, but was blinded almost immediately by the blood that ran into his eye. He slung the Kalashnikov across his shoulder and raised the M16, emptying its magazine in wide sweeping arcs of fire across the street. He heard a man scream above the roar of the weapon, before the mechanism jammed on an empty chamber, and he turned and sprinted for the wall, throwing himself through the gap after McCue. Behind him, AK-47s chattered in the dark, but carried no threat now as he ran breathless down the narrow canyons, between towering derelict buildings.

Beyond the far wall that marked the boundary of the former factory, a tiny street led steeply down between old apartment blocks, opening up at the foot into what had once been a small park, now overgrown and threatening to swallow up the streets around it. He stopped to listen. There were no sounds of pursuit. The air was filled with the sweet scent of jasmine blossom, and somewhere far away he heard the distant roar of an engine. A break in the thick cloud overhead opened up on an unexpected glimpse of the moon, and a ghostly light washed the park. McCue was kneeling by a tree, head bowed, gasping for breath that caught in his throat. It was a dry, hacking sound. With a brief backward glance, Hau ran across to join him.

Elliot lay on his back, his chest and arm soaked darkly in blood. His face was chalk pale in the moonlight, and Hau thought he recognized death in its waxen pallor. He placed the tips of his fingers on the Englishman’s neck, just below the line of the jaw, and felt the faintest pulse. McCue turned, his face a mask of blood, and for a horrified second Hau wasn’t sure whether it was his or Elliot’s. Perhaps McCue saw the horror in the young eyes, for he ran the back of his hand across his face to smear the blood away. He looked at it for a moment, then back at the boy, and was surprised to see his face wet with silent tears.

*

The two women sat huddled in the dark, embracing their unspoken fear. Time was marked only by the sporadic appearances of the