CHAPTER 105

It had been only a warning shot, and Parks’s fall had been a gesture of submission, but the shock of the gunfire set Thomas’s nerves ringing. He dropped into a crouch as another man emerged from the helicopter, and another came from a farther dark shape twenty yards down the beach that might have been a hut. Slowly Thomas withdrew, easing backward and crawling into the underbrush as the sound of raised voices drifted through the night: Parks sputtering surrender and at least two other men, their voices too low to be audible.

The woods had come to life again at the sound of the gunfire, monkeys and night birds screeching and cawing their outrage, so Thomas’s plunge back into the trees excited no further calls of protest from above. He moved quickly, running down to where he had glimpsed the ruined hut: the perfect location for Kumi and Jim if they had been brought ashore. Parks’s imbecilic business with the flashlight might be just the diversion he needed.

He ran flat out, then cut right, barely pausing to survey the situation, before sprinting out onto the sand, making directly for the thatched wooden shell that loomed before him. He reached it, panting. The door was bolted on the outside but there was no padlock. He flung it aside and kicked the door in.

Kumi and Jim looked up at him, both startled out of their sleep.

“Let’s go,” he said.

They scrambled to their feet.

“Where to?” said Kumi, as Thomas brought the knife across the plastic ties around her wrists.

“Just follow me,” he said, and ran, back out across the beach and into the trees.

They had just made it, nestling briefly by a palm that bent almost to the ground, when a cry went up. The hunt had begun.