Day of the Predator - Alex Scarrow [86]
Whitmore rubbed his beard and stared down at the fringe of jungle. ‘Well, then, that’s one huge goddamn gap out there, isn’t it?’
They were quiet for a while, all staring at the nearby canopy trees, and the dark forbidding undergrowth beneath, imagining eyes staring out from the gloom back at them.
‘What do we do now, Liam?’ asked Laura.
He pulled on his bottom lip in thought. ‘We carry on with the plan.’ He turned away from the jungle he’d emerged from minutes ago and looked down the slope on the other side of the peak. Below he could see the pale apron of a small sheltered sandy cove nestling at the bottom of the ridge and another equally high ridge on the far side, like the protective embracing arms of a rocky giant. He could see the twinkle of a small stream meandering down through thickets of bamboo and reeds and spilling out on to the cove. It was an inviting, secret bay of turquoise-green water that lapped along the crescent of a pale cream-coloured beach. In another time, another place … a secluded tropical paradise. A picture-book pirates’ cove.
‘Is it down there?’ he asked Becks. ‘The place we need to be?’
‘Affirmative. That is it.’
‘Yes,’ he said, nodding his head firmly, hoping he looked every bit the decisive leader. ‘We can be down there in less than half an hour. We’ll make a camp on the beach and be sure to have a huge fire going. Hopefully that’ll keep those things at bay. And we’ll have half of us sleeping, and half watching, and we’ll do that in shifts.’ He looked at Becks again. ‘We’ll make this message, so we will, and tomorrow we’ll plant it.’
‘How are we going to do that?’ asked Kelly.
Liam was about to answer that he wasn’t sure yet, when Jasmine replied. ‘Clay.’
The others looked at her.
‘Clay,’ she said again. ‘If we could find some we can make a tablet. You can write your message on it then we can bake it hard in the fire.’
Liam stroked his cheek thoughtfully. ‘Right, yes … good idea. That’s what we’ll do. So? Any questions before we get moving?’
‘What about them things back down there?’ asked Juan with another pointed glance towards the jungle.
‘Well, I suppose they’ve learned something about us, right?’
The others looked at each other, not quite sure what Liam meant by that.
‘They’ve learned we can kill them.’ He gestured at Becks. ‘And they’ve learned our robo-girl is not to be messed around with, so they have.’
Becks frowned indignantly at that. ‘My ident. is Becks.’
He shrugged. Too tired and winded to apologize. ‘Right, then … I suggest we get going.’
CHAPTER 46
2001, New York
The alarm clock on the table between them was showing 11.45 p.m. Maddy noticed Sal’s eyes nervously glancing at it. ‘Fifteen minutes to go.’
‘I’m a bit scared,’ whispered Sal.
If Maddy was being honest, she would have admitted she was a little jittery too. Instead she smiled, reached across the table and grasped Sal’s arm. ‘It’s going to be fine, Sal. I promise.’
‘Maybe I should go get Foster’s gun from the back? You know? Just in case somebody unfriendly turns up.’
‘Really?’ Maddy cocked an eyebrow. ‘Do you think that’s going to be sensible? We might be answering the door to a backstreet full of very excitable armed men in suits and dark glasses.’
‘You think it’ll be like that?’
Maddy shrugged. ‘I really don’t know what’s going to happen, Sal …’
If anything at all …
‘But,’ she continued, ‘if a whole bunch of secret service types turn up, we’re not going to achieve much standing there with one gun between us, are we? I’m sure they’ll come prepared, if you know what I mean?’
‘I guess so,’ muttered Sal, her head drooping down to the table, a fold of her dark hair flopping over darker eyes. ‘How come you’re so calm about this?’
Calm, am I? But then she realized she actually did feel calm … No, not calm … resigned … resigned to whatever history was rolling up through the aeons to meet them in a few minutes when the archway’s bubble reset. She’d figured this out yesterday while she was out there anxiously looking for Foster; there really was