She stopped dead as Gibbs and Dawson almost walked into her.
‘I don’t have time for a pep talk, and I don’t have time to make anyone’s decisions for them. Stacey is here somewhere, now please yourselves.’
She wouldn’t think anything less of anyone who turned back to the perimeter. Probably.
She turned and carried on moving forward.
‘I meant all four of us moving together,’ Bryant said. ‘We need to split up.’
‘Gibbs?’ she said, calling on his knowledge.
‘There’s a collection of small structures to the west, the field site is to the east and the main building is about a quarter mile straight ahead.’
‘Okay, Dawson and Gibbs head west. We’ll go east and hopefully we’ll meet at the main building.’
The shot had come from the east.
‘Try and keep off the road but watch out for those bloody animal traps,’ she said. She’d seen first-hand the damage they could cause. Although the street lights would help their direction, they would also increase the chance of being seen.
‘And if you get close…’ she said, catching Dawson’s eye.
He held her gaze for just a second before he nodded his understanding.
In this kind of situation, the risk assessment was ongoing, and changed minute by minute.
She knew what she was willing to give up for Stacey. She had no right to expect that from anyone else.
‘Shit, watch out,’ Kim said, pushing Bryant to the right.
She had stepped on to a metal grid covering a shaft that disappeared into the depths of the ground.
‘Blast hole,’ Bryant said, as they walked around it.
‘You know, guv,’ he whispered, as they moved east in the semi-darkness. ‘If anything’s happened to Stacey—’
‘Shut up,’ she snapped.
She wouldn’t think about that. She couldn’t think about it.
‘Get down,’ she said, grabbing his arm.
In the distance, she could see three figures walking towards them. Two had dogs straining at the leash and panting.
She pulled him behind a bunker that rose from the ground like a hobbit house from Middle Earth.
Torchlight beamed to the right of them.
‘It went down here somewhere,’ said a low voice.
‘Did you get it?’ another voice asked.
‘My first shot went wide but I think my second hit.’
Kim felt the bile rise in her throat. She ached to jump up and grab these bastards by the throat. But that wouldn’t help her find Stacey, and if she was injured she could bleed to death while she was diverted.
The torchlight continued to sweep and finally rested an inch from Bryant’s foot.
‘Listen, Floda said not to come this close to the road,’ said a third voice.
‘Yeah, but it’d be good to just finish the job,’ said the first.
Kim could feel her own breath bursting to be exhaled from her body, but she dared not move a muscle.
For a few seconds, silence rested in the distance that separated her from the men.
Suddenly a siren sounded in three short bursts.
‘Aah, never mind. Looks like we’re ready for the main event.’
They began to move away, and Kim finally breathed.
‘Did you hear that?’ she whispered to Bryant.
‘About the main event?’
She shook her head. ‘About something or someone being shot here?’
She looked along the row of bunkers raised up from the ground like sand dunes.
It was the logical place for someone to try to hide.
‘Bryant, you go left and I’ll go right.’
He nodded.
She peered around the grassy mound. The males were a good forty feet away. She stayed low and crawled across the distance between the two bunkers.
She shone her mobile phone down at the immediate area. Nothing.
She crawled along to the next and shone again.
Nothing.
She lowered her hand to the grass to crawl again and felt a small pool of liquid around her little finger.
She shone the phone onto her hand and then onto the ground.
The sticky redness glistened right back at her.
For a second, her heart seemed to stop.
She pointed the phone down and spotted the trail. It lessened as it travelled. The person must have rested here for just a minute or two.
Kim swallowed deeply as she moved. Was she following a trail of Stacey’s blood?
The trail deviated away from the row of bunkers and then back again.
Kim was reminded of a wounded animal trying to find somewhere to die.
She stopped crawling and paused to listen. Where was the moaning and groaning? Someone was suffering but making no sound.
Kim would not allow her mind to think the unthinkable as she resumed her search.
Halfway past the next bunker she looked forward and saw a shape in the distance.
One long continuous drone sounded from the building.
She waited for it to end before rushing across the final gap.
Her breathing was laboured as the light of her phone rested on a shoe, then a thigh, then a breast and finally a mouth.
She gasped as she looked into the face of Fiona Cowley.
She hadn’t noticed Bryant crawl up behind her.
‘Nothing down— Jesus, who?…’ His words trailed away as he realised. ‘The Cowley daughter?’
Kim nodded as she placed her fingers on Fiona’s neck.
‘There’s a pulse,’ she said. ‘Faint, but it’s there.’
‘Fiona, Fiona,’ she said in an urgent whisper. ‘Wake up, come on,’ she said.
‘What the fuck?…’ Bryant said in a hushed tone.
Kim followed his gaze to the foot her phone hadn’t illuminated. The horror on her face matched Bryant’s. The unforgiving teeth of an animal trap were clamped around Fiona’s ankle.
Blood seeped from beneath the denim of her jeans over her bare foot. Kim didn’t even want to imagine the torn flesh underneath.
From what she could see, Kim was guessing Fiona had not been shot. The blood loss was from the chewed limb.
‘Fiona,’ Bryant said, shaking her again.
Kim stopped him. ‘Don’t. The pain has sent her unconscious. Best she stays out of it. If she wakes, she’ll likely be screaming her head off.’
Kim realised how petite and slight the woman was in reality. Her ferocious manner had made her appear somehow bigger.
She looked around. They were about two hundred metres from the perimeter fence.
‘When the armed team arrives, they’ll do a perimeter check. You need to get their attention and get her safe.’
‘Guv, Forget it. I’m not staying…’
‘You have to, Bryant. You have to keep her alive.’
‘Guv, I’m not…’
His words trailed away as they both heard the sound of excited chatter in the distance again.
Kim looked at him imploringly.
He nodded. He understood.
He had to listen to her.
She had to go.
The hunt was on.
ONE HUNDRED ONE
Stacey stumbled over the door frame, into pure terror.
The hand that had steered her forward, clamped to the back of her neck, suddenly disappeared as the cold November night bit at the bare skin of her face.
Her wrists were secured together behind her.