Blood Sun Read Free

crawled under, reached in and dropped his beta light. Its dull glow barely registered, but it would draw the soldiers like moths to a flame.
    He could already hear their labored breathing.
    Max left his kit and leopard-crawled down a sluice. It was an animal track barely as wide as his body, probably a badger or a fox run, and the ferns and gorse offered a low canopy of concealment—provided he stayed down. As he dug knees and elbows into the ground, fear gushed through him. In those few moments, he felt a huge sympathy for animals pursued to their deaths by huntsmen.
    “There he is!” a voice cried.
    Max stopped, holding his breath. Boots crushed the ground to the left, less than a meter from his face, and then to the right. He wriggled forward, almost between the two men, who saw nothing because they were focused on the dull glow up ahead. The wind shook fern and gorse, and another squall whipped rain across their vision.
    “Come on out, boy! It’s over!”
    The voices were behind him now, and the torchlightscanned the area he had drawn them to. Like slimy sewage, animal droppings and fouled water slithered under his clothes; his shins scraped rock, and his arms caught sharp-edged gorse sticks—he ignored it. Time to break cover.
    Shadows loomed.
    They had trapped him!
    The men with the torches were the distraction; like any good hunter group, they had a second ring of men behind the first. They were the outer defense—and they didn’t use torches.
    Max barreled into the dark bulk of one of them. The man cried out, swore, kicked and squirmed and grabbed Max’s ankle. Max couldn’t recover; someone else pinioned him, and his breath got knocked out of him. Something deep inside him exploded, a surge of power; an animal cry echoed through his mind as he gulped air and twisted free, slamming a third man in the chest as he leapt like a wolf.
    Then he was gone into the storm with long, open strides, feet barely touching the ground, carrying him into the darkness.

“We seem to be out of chocolate biscuits,” Mr. Jackson apologized as he poured hot water into cups. “And it’s only instant, I’m afraid,” he said, handing the scalding mugs of coffee to the two men. He wanted them out of his school as soon as possible and had no intention of making them comfortable. “Now, where’s the sugar? I’m sure these boys sneak in here and help themselves.”
    The two MI5 officers were in no mood for hospitality either. Stanton cursed under his breath as the hot liquid spilled. “We’re hoping Max Gordon can help us with information,” he said testily.
    “I have to say,” Mr. Jackson said quietly, “that I don’t quite understand how the suicide of a former pupil on the London Underground can involve either this country’s Security Service or Max Gordon. Danny Maguire left here when he was eighteen, and that was well over a year ago, closer totwo, in fact. He certainly hasn’t been in contact with anyone here, as far as I know.”
    Drew quietly inhaled to ease his impatience. This was supposed to be a straightforward “get in, check the kid and get out” inquiry. And here they were, sitting in overstuffed chairs in front of a blazing log fire in a room crammed with so many books it looked like a country-house library. Fergus Jackson seemed to have a cozy number here, probably whiling away his days until retirement. Soft, cosseted academics. What did they know about the real world?
    “Police agencies in South America picked up a flagged word a few months ago during a regular intel sweep of Internet traffic,” he said.
    “Intel?” Mr. Jackson asked, looking perplexed, knowing full well what the word meant.
    “Intelligence,” Stanton replied. “Look, Mr. Jackson. This is just a routine inquiry. If we could just speak to Max Gordon …”
    “I wish I could help, I really do, but he’s on holiday. Half-term. He’s not here. He went to Italy with a friend and his parents,” Mr. Jackson lied. “But what