Old Enemies Read Online Free PDF Page A

he’s not in a hurry. I’m standing in a line for Passport Control at Heathrow. Could take days.’
    ‘Perhaps we could send a car.’
    ‘No, not necessary, Mary. Just my little joke. When does he have in mind?’ Harry asked, mentally flipping through his diary for the next couple of weeks.
    ‘In precisely an hour.’ No upward inflexion this time. She was delivering an instruction, no trace of question about it.

    Ruari shivered. It was now bitterly cold inside the passenger compartment of the helicopter. They’d been in the air for almost an hour. They had kept to the mountains and were flying to the north of the Matterhorn, roughly following the route of the Rhone. Soon they had crossed into Italy, but no one out there knew. Air traffic control in Milan had no brief to follow a small helicopter that was no more than a fly against the massive Alpine sky, and as it was hugging the valleys at under four hundred feet they wouldn’t have been able to track it even if they’d tried. As for the inhabitants of the scattered communities it disturbed along its route, it was of no more interest than the flapping crows. They were getting on with their day, embracing the brilliant winter sun, unaware that inside the helicopter growling in the distance, a young man was sitting staring at the barrel of a pistol.
    ‘What do you want with me?’ he asked, shouting across the compartment.
    ‘We take you on a little trip,’ the gunman replied. His accent was fractured, his English poor, his face utterly without expression.
    Ruari struggled to gather his thoughts. The noise of the helicopter kept battering at his senses, the cold was growing acute, and he was terrified. The only thing he was certain about, which he focused on, grasped with all his strength, was that they hadn’t killed him. Casey, Mattias, both gone, the pilot, too, but he remained alive. There had to be some purpose to it, although he couldn’t guess what, and in that purpose lay hope. They wanted him alive.
    In the lee of a nearby mountain, the helicopter flew into turbulence. It kicked as the autopilot corrected the course and Ruari was shaken back to life. His gloves were still around his neck, not on his hands, his fingers had grown to sticks of ice, so he buried them deep within the pockets of his ski suit, and that was when his hand settled around his phone. He, too, was armed. Slowly, his fingers stiff with cold and fear, he began to make out its shape, to follow the familiar contours of its buttons, and an idea began to form. The phone was switched off but if he could switch it back on, if he could identify the right buttons, and if there was a signal up here – if, if, if , too many of the wretched things! – then perhaps he could call home, let someone know what was happening. Even to try would have its risks, what with that unshaven shit-for-brains sitting directly opposite him only an arm’s length away, but anything was better than staring numbly at the stupid gun. His mind was made up. He twisted in his harness and stared sharply out of the open hatch, as though something had caught his eye, trying to drag the gunman’s attentions that way while he fumbled within the pocket of his ski suit, trying to remember which button activated the speed dial, and which one was programmed for home. But his fingers were like lead, his actions too clumsy.
    ‘What you do? What you do, you little bastard?’ the gunman demanded, suddenly suspicious.
    The pistol waved menacingly and the boy hesitated. The gunman screamed again, sending flecks of spittle flying across the compartment, hitting Ruari in the face. There seemed little point in pretence. Slowly, Ruari’s hand emerged from his pocket, clutching the phone.
    When he saw it, the gunman nodded. ‘Good, very good,’ he muttered. ‘That will be useful.’ He held out his hand.
    Ruari felt sick. Of course the bloody thing would be useful. His entire life was on this phone, names, numbers, class times,