Page 332 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

The man goes down screaming. Lachlan reaches him before he can turn, kicks the rifle away and drags him into the nearest recess.

‘Where are the children?’

The man says nothing.

He repeats it in Russian.

Nothing.

Lachlan stamps down on the wounded leg.

Bone shifts beneath his boot.

The man swallows his own scream.

‘WHERE?’

Silence.

He tears away the mask.

Young. Male. Blood on his teeth.

Eyes wide but disciplined.

‘Where did you take them?’

The man stares back.

Lachlan drives the knife through his hand and pins it to the floor.

He earns a scream that time.

‘Last chance.’

Still nothing, but the man’s eyes move past him.

Footsteps close from both ends of the corridor.

Two more.

Lachlan rips the knife free, puts a round through the prisoner’s head and shoots the other two. The third man is still falling when Lachlan hears it.

A low, violent rhythm building overhead.

Rotor blades.

No.

No, no, no, no, no.

He runs.

That section of flat roof is one floor above him, reached through the North Wing stairwell. Lachlan cuts across the gallery at full speed, boots slipping once before he catches the wall and drives onwards.

A man steps into the stairwell and Lachlan shoots him twice through the chest without slowing, hurls him aside and keeps climbing.

The rotors are louder now.