The Noble Path: A relentless standalone thriller from the #1 bestseller by Peter May (electronic book reader .TXT) 📗

Always those damned flies, crawling into every gaping wound, getting in your mouth, your eyes. He breathed deeply, drawing the chill clean English air into his lungs. ‘Whatever it was, it wasn’t in cold blood,’ he said. ‘We were all of us tired and scared. We’d been drawn into an ambush at a town on the edge of the southern desert. False information. They’d sucked us in and were cutting us to pieces. We all thought we were going to die.

‘We’d been coming under heavy fire from a large building in the middle of town. Jack reckoned if we could take and hold that building we could secure our position, at least for a while. We lobbed a couple of grenades through the ground-floor windows and moved in under covering fire. That’s when the white flag appeared. Not a flag, really. A piece of dirty white cloth in one of the windows. But, Jesus, if we’d stopped then we’d have been sitting ducks. How were we to know that they’d already withdrawn, that all that was left was a bunch of women and children?

‘Jack ordered us to keep going, ignore the flag, and he was right. I’d have done the same. We all would. But he was the officer, he gave the order, he took the fall.’ He paused, fists clenched in his pockets, eyes tight shut trying to black out the horror of it. Then he opened them wide and saw it as clearly as he had every night in the dreams that had haunted him all the years since.

‘We went in, guns blazing, just like in the movies. Only when the dust and the smoke cleared we were looking at the bodies of women and kids, dead, dying, bleeding.’ He turned to face her, but found that he couldn’t meet her gaze and his eyes flickered away.

‘It didn’t read like that in the newspaper reports of the court martial,’ she said.

‘No – but, then, courts only deal with facts. The truth – well, the truth is something else.’

‘Truth is subjective.’

He looked at her, surprised by the insight in one so young. But her eyes carried no condemnation, only pity. And, perhaps, he thought, that was worse. ‘It was all a long time ago,’ he said. ‘I suppose I really don’t know what the truth is any more. All I know is the truth I can live with. And, God knows, that’s hard enough, lass.’

They walked back to the house in silence. ‘Would you like to stay for tea?’ he asked when they got in.

‘No, I must go.’ She turned at the door. ‘Where is he, Mr Blair?’

Blair hesitated. There was a good chance Elliot would never come out of Cambodia alive. Then, ‘Thailand,’ he said.

*

He sat for a long time in the dying day after she’d gone, full of doubts. The room was sunk in a deep gloom when he finally reached for the phone. He listened to Elliot’s voice on the other end, thin and unreal on the tape of his answering machine. After the tone Blair said, ‘If she hasn’t found you before you get this message, Jack, your daughter knows you’re alive and she’s looking for you.’

And the machine was primed.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Tuk Than had a villa on Sukhumvit Road. It was an impressive house built in the French colonial style, anonymous and cool behind shuttered windows. The brief chill of early morning had given way to the fierce south-east Asian sun which was rising high now above the Bangkok skyline, smeared by a haze of heat and humidity. Slattery’s face was red and beaded with sweat. He tugged uncomfortably at his collar and loosened his tie. ‘Jeez, chief, did we have to get all togged up for this?’

‘It’s expected,’ was all Elliot said, and Slattery wondered how he managed to look so cool in his dark suit.

A demure young Thai girl in yellow tunic and long silk skirt bowed and led them through the delicious cool of the house, where ceiling fans turned lazily in darkened rooms. Out through French windows into the heat once more. Elliot and Slattery screwed their eyes against the glare. The large walled garden was lush and green, still dripping after its early morning sprinkling. A white table and four chairs were set in the shade of a tall, broad-leafed tree at one end of a lawn like billiard baize. Tuk was taking breakfast at the table, short black hair brushed stiffly back from his brown face. He wore an immaculately pressed white shirt and pale slacks. Everything about him – hair, hands, clothes, his smile and his English – was as neatly manicured as his lawn.

‘Good morning, gentlemen.’ He made no attempt to rise, but waved expansively towards the empty chairs. ‘Won’t you join me? I’m having a little late breakfast.’

‘Thank you, we’ve already eaten,’ Elliot said. He and Slattery sat down.

‘Mr Elliot, I take it,’ Tuk said.

‘That’s right.’

‘And . . .’ Tuk’s eyes flickered towards the sweating Slattery.

‘Slattery,’ Elliot said. Slattery nodded, uncomfortable and untidy in his crumpled, ill-fitting white suit.

‘So . . .’ Tuk clasped his hands and beamed at them. ‘Our friend in London has told me of your requirements, and of course I can supply – at a price.’

‘Naturally.’ Elliot was already wary of him. He was too squeaky clean, too ostentatiously wealthy – calculating and obsequious. His aftershave, liberally applied to his freshly shaved cheeks, was too expensive and carried the reek of corruption. His hands, Elliot noticed, were like a woman’s. He was small and slim, possibly in his early forties. Wariness was turning to distrust.

‘I have arranged passes allowing you access to the Mak Moun refugee camp north of Aranyaprathet on the Cambodian border. I can take you down tomorrow. There I can also put you in touch with a man who will take you safely across the border.’ He smiled. ‘We can discuss terms later, but first . . .’ He raised an arm and snapped his fingers. The girl who had brought