He didn’t shoot back, because he didn’t want to slow down or let his muzzle blast give away his position to the hidden rifleman. He sprinted full-pelt through the trees, leaping over exposed roots and fallen trunks, thick brush and brambles ripping at his legs. At any moment he expected the flash of white light and the tumbling sensation as the shooter’s third bullet turned out to be the lucky one that cut him down in his tracks.

After thirty sustained seconds of hard running Ben glanced back and saw nothing but darkness behind him, and realised that he’d managed to put enough distance between himself and his pursuers to lose them. The only sounds were the crunch of his footsteps, the rasp of his breath and the patter of frozen rain that had started falling over the forest. He slowed his pace a little, so that he could continue more silently and with less risk of slamming face-first into a tree.

Ben took more than an hour to make his way back to where he’d hidden the car, stopping every few yards to make sure he wasn’t being tracked. As he got close to the car he approached very slowly and with extreme caution. Nothing could spook even the most capable soldier more deeply than the blood-chilling knowledge that a sniper might be calmly watching from a concealed position, eye to his scope, finger on trigger, just waiting for you to walk right into the kill zone. Ben wasn’t easily rattled, but the last steps to the car were the most painfully drawn-out and tensest few minutes he’d experienced in a very long time.

But he made it to the car without any silent kill shots finding him from the darkness. He blipped the locks and jumped inside and fired up the engine and headlamps, hating the sudden noise and light that were a beacon for his position and wanting to get away as fast as possible. He tore away over the bumpy terrain, reached the road and put his foot down hard. The icy rain was falling harder and making the road slippery. He was glad of the SUV’s fancy traction control as he carved through the treacherous bends at high speed. There were no lights in his rear-view mirror. Nobody was following.

Halfway back to Kinlochardaich, Ben pulled off the single-track road into a passing place, stopped the car and leaned back in his seat to light a Gauloise. He murmured, ‘Shit.’

It was only then, trying to steady the trembling flame against the tip of the cigarette, that he realised that his hands were shaking.

Chapter 22

It took two cigarettes to settle him down. As he sat and smoked quietly in the darkness of the car, watching the frozen rain slither down his windscreen, he was trying to understand what the hell had just happened back there.