No Going Back (32 page)

The sound of the helicopter had faded a little, lost among the hills and valleys of the moor, but suddenly it burst through, louder than before.

Even though he couldn't see the machine, Daniel seized the moment.

‘There they are!' he cried and waved his arms.

Falling for his bluff, Macek cast an involuntary glance upwards, the point of the blade shifting an inch or two away from Molly's throat as he did so. The movement was so slight as to be almost imperceptible, but it offered just the glimmer of a chance and Daniel took it.

Taking two quick steps, he launched himself at the Romanian, both his hands fastening on Macek's knife hand and bearing it downwards. Caught off-balance, Macek staggered backwards, the girl sliding from his grasp as his free arm windmilled wildly.

Slipping in the snow, the two men went down heavily with Daniel on top, still gripping the Romanian's right wrist, one forearm landing across Macek's neck. With satisfaction, he saw the Romanian's eyes bulge and face redden as his air supply was cut off, and leaned harder.

Macek wasn't about to surrender. Using his free hand, he began to pummel Daniel's ribs and kidneys, trying to force him to move his arm to protect himself.

Grimacing, Daniel kept up the pressure, tensing the muscles of his torso in an attempt to limit the damage. He was vaguely aware of the dog circling, panting and whining in excitement, occasionally darting in to nip at Macek, but Daniel was blocking his access.

After what seemed an age, the battering began to lose some of its power, slowed and stopped. Daring to hope that the Romanian was finally weakening, Daniel risked shifting his weight slightly in order to exert even more force, and heard a coughing gurgle from Macek's open mouth. His olive skin had progressed through crimson to puce, and as Daniel watched, his eyes turned up and his knife hand went limp, the blade dropping from nerveless fingers to land point first in the dirty snow.

Whatever his feelings for the man, it was no part of his plan to actually kill the Romanian, so Daniel eased the pressure on Macek's throat just a fraction, his mind racing to think of some way of tying him up before he regained consciousness.

In the next instant, something hit him a crunching blow on the right side of his head and he pitched sideways into the snow without a sound.

FIFTEEN

D
aniel was cold, a bone-deep, marrow-freezing chill that negated all other sensation.

Time passed. How much time, he could not have said. It wasn't important. He didn't want to think. All he wanted was to sink back through the icy numbness into the enveloping darkness from which he'd come.

It wasn't to be. All too soon, another sensation forced its way into his consciousness.

Pain.

Intense, throbbing, grinding pain that left no room for conscious thought and rendered the mere cold something to be welcomed.

Someone was standing on Daniel's head wearing running spikes and bouncing up and down.

It had to stop.

The decision wasn't the product of thought, just pure instinct. It
couldn't
go on. It wasn't sustainable.

Daniel tried to lift his hand to the source of the agony, but his arm was just too heavy. For a while he accepted the fact without question – almost with relief – but as the seconds ticked by and awareness refused to leave him, some lingering vestige of self-preservation crept in, telling him that he had to take back responsibility.

He could feel that he was lying on his back with his head turned to one side, but his whole body felt leaden and strangely detached from the hazy, swimming confusion of his mind. He knew he should open his eyes, but was in no hurry to take that step, knowing that more demands on his willpower would inevitably follow.

Sound began to filter through. First, and closest, a repetitive, harsh rasping interspersed with short bursts of a high-pitched whistle. The noise hurt, and almost before his dysfunctional brain had positively identified it, he heard himself say in a croaking whisper, ‘Shut up, Taz!'

Instantly, the panting stopped, the weight lifted from his arm and a warm tongue began to wash his face with ecstatic fervour. Daniel grimaced and immediately wished he hadn't, as the right side of his face felt stiff and painful.

After the dog's well-meant attentions, all possibility of postponing the inevitable was effectively banished and he forced his eyes open. In the event, vision was an anticlimax. Through slitted eyes he could see only a nonsensical haze of white streaked with black.

Blinking, he tried again and pulled into focus a near landscape of snow crystals crisscrossed with stems of reedy grass.

For a moment, he couldn't think why he should be lying in the snow, but another sound prompted recall, at first fragmented and confused, and then in all its unwelcome detail.

Somewhere a child was crying.

Daniel pushed himself dizzily to one elbow, but aside from Drummer and Taz, he appeared to be alone in the valley. Even the pony had lost interest and wandered off to forage, pawing through the snow to the rough grazing underneath.

How long had he been unconscious? There was no way of knowing, and while the absence of Macek was definitely a plus, the realization that he had taken Molly with him was a crushing blow. Once again, it seemed to Daniel, he had failed.

‘Where are they, Taz?' he said aloud. ‘Which way did they go?'

The German shepherd looked at him, head tilted intelligently, and then started to cast around, head down and tail waving, apparently intent on picking up the Romanian's scent.

A renewed bout of sobbing claimed Daniel's attention and he struggled into a sitting position. Over the snow-topped grassy tussocks he could see the forbidding expanse of the bog, where, looking strangely alien, the sloping black roof of the Nissan was all that was left above the surface. There too, clinging to the roof rack with heaven knew what reserves of strength, was the forlorn figure of Elena, and even at that distance Daniel could see the desperation on her white face.

Something plainly had to be done. In his current state, Daniel wasn't capable of much forward-planning, but nothing at all could be accomplished from where he was, so he turned on to his hands and knees and prepared for the push to his feet. The movement caused his vision to blur, and as it cleared, he could see, pressed into the snow he'd been lying on, the black handle and wicked blade of Macek's knife. He decided he must have fallen on it, and that fact had most probably preserved his life, for he felt sure that if the Romanian had had the weapon to hand, the urge to finish Daniel off would have almost certainly proven too great.

As Daniel stared down at the blade, a small dark hole appeared in the snow beside it, to be rapidly joined by another and then a third. It was a moment or two before Daniel recognized them for what they were. Blood spots.

Sitting back on his heels, he put an exploratory hand to the right side of his face and then sat staring stupidly at fingers slippery with blood. A few feet away in the snow lay a rough lump of stone about the size of a grapefruit. No wonder his head was pounding.

Wincing, Daniel held a handful of snow to his face for a moment, hoping the cold would stem the bleeding. Then, tossing away the resulting scarlet slush, he climbed slowly to his feet, where he stood swaying slightly as the ground rolled unpleasantly under his feet.

‘Help me!' Elena had caught sight of him and her voice was shrill with panic. ‘Help! Please!'

‘It's OK. I'm coming, hang on,' he called back, his voice an unreassuring croak. Just how he was going to help her, he had no idea, but she didn't need to know that. A wave of nausea hit him and he doubled over, his body alternating between waves of fiery heat and icy cold. Black blotches formed in front of his eyes, threatening to join up and overwhelm him. He screwed them shut and concentrated on breathing deeply, desperately clinging to consciousness. He couldn't, he mustn't give in now: Elena was depending on him.

Slowly Daniel lifted his head. The landscape swam and then settled to its rightful place. That, at least, was encouraging.

He looked across at the girl. The Nissan had tipped still further and black peaty water now covered the lower corner of the black roof. Elena had drawn her knees up, trying to keep her once-pink trainers clear of it. She was looking over her shoulder at Daniel, eyes huge in her white face.

‘Help me!' she sobbed piteously. ‘Please!'

‘It'll be all right. Try to stay calm,' he told her automatically, hearing his voice as if from afar. It was a good job she was too far away to see what a pathetic figure he cut as her would-be rescuer.

Manually engaging his powers of coordination, Daniel made his way with weaving steps to the edge of the bog, where he clung to the familiar bent hawthorn tree like a drunk to a lamp-post.

Under his right hand he could feel the smooth leather of his makeshift line, still knotted round the trunk of the tree, but it took a moment or two for him to recognize it for what it was. He stared at it, his mind working sluggishly. If he could throw one end out to the child, would she have the courage to let go of her only security and catch it? he wondered. And would she, for that matter, have the strength to hold it, cold and exhausted as she must be? It was a lot to ask of anyone, let alone a young girl, but he didn't have a better idea.

‘Elena!' he called, looking across at her. ‘I'm going to throw you a rope.'

‘Please, you must hurry.' The black tide had reached her knees.

‘I will. I will . . .' Daniel promised.

Leaning on the gnarled trunk of the hawthorn for support, Daniel went to work on the knot, glad that his recent time around stables had led to him automatically using a quick-release knot such as is commonly used to tie up horses and haynets. Even so, Macek's weight as he'd hauled himself out had pulled the leather strap incredibly tight, and with fingers weak and stupid with cold, it wasn't going to be easy to pull it undone.

In the centre of the bog, next to the Nissan, a huge bubble welled up and burst with a spray of dirty water as the black roof tilted a little more and Elena screamed in terror.

‘Hold on!' Daniel called urgently, tugging at the release strap with as much strength as he could muster. The knot was so tight it was as though the leather had fused together and his hands slipped on its smooth surface. Fleetingly, he thought of the Romanian's knife, lying in the snow, but cutting and rejoining the line would lose inches that he could ill afford to sacrifice, so – wrapping it round his right hand and taking a double grip – Daniel threw his weight backwards, hoping to jerk it free.

The tree shuddered and Daniel's shoulders almost popped from their sockets, but it worked – the knot slipped undone and the next moment he was sitting in the wet snow on the very edge of the bog.

Once more his head swam as nausea rose and he turned to retch violently into the snow. The action left him feeling still more feeble and his teeth were chattering as the wind whistled through his shirt.

‘Hang on, Elena,' he called as he climbed to his feet and began to coil the leather, ready to throw it.

His aim didn't let him down, even if the effort involved in hurling the line made him overbalance and go down on one knee, but his relief was short-lived. Unfortunately, although the line lay on the surface of the blanket of matted vegetation for the majority of its length, the end dipped into the water what looked like a good 2 feet short of the sloping black roof to which Elena clung, and no matter how he encouraged her, she was just too terrified to take even one hand away from her precarious haven to reach for it.

An odd assortment of mismatched bits of leather, the line itself was hardly something to inspire confidence, but even so, Daniel struggled to keep the frustration from his voice as he urged Elena to be a brave girl and try.

After a minute or two, Daniel was forced to admit that his plan wasn't going to work. It was just possible that when the Nissan finally slid under the murky waters of the bog, the girl would see that the makeshift rope was her only chance, but it was equally possible that she might panic and ignore it, or even be sucked under as the vehicle went down.

If he could find a way to get out to the Nissan, would he be able to pull himself and Elena hand over hand back to the tree? It seemed he was destined to find out, for he couldn't think of any other solution.

Another upsurge of bubbles from the sinking 4x4 decided him. Elena was waist-deep in the thick peaty water now, and crying uncontrollably. It was impossible to say whether she had minutes left or only seconds. Calling words of reassurance, Daniel hurried back to where the loose end of the line lay and knotted it back on to the hawthorn as quickly as his numb fingers would allow.

With one hand on the safety line, Daniel moved a few feet to the side of the trail left by Macek, before dropping to all fours and venturing cautiously forward.

Here at the perimeter of the bog, the days and nights of hard frosts had crystallized the topmost layer, stiffening the floating mat of roots and vegetation so that it supported Daniel's weight, only creaking a little as he moved tentatively across it. This, then, was how the Nissan had travelled so far into the bog before starting to sink.

Further out, as he left the psychological comfort of the tussocks behind him and the mire became deeper, it also became increasingly unstable. The surface dipped and rippled outwards under the pressure of his splayed hands like some giant snow-covered waterbed. Here and there a little stinking brown water had started to ooze through and Daniel was forced to lower himself to his belly in order to spread his weight as thinly as he could.

He'd not thought he could get any colder than he already was, but as the slushy snow and dirty water soaked through his shirt and T-shirt, he was proven wrong. The icy touch of the mire almost took his breath away and he had to clench his jaw to stop the increasingly violent chattering of his teeth.