The Lethal Target(44)

They climbed higher, on open ground now, and as they rose above the trees they saw that Robbie was right, they could see right across the water to the island of Mull, and the shore they’d left from under cover of darkness. There was action going on at that same spot, people milling around, and what looked like a red boat.

‘What’s happening?’ asked Lauren.

‘It’s a RIB,’ said Robbie. ‘Rigid inflatable. The coastguard use them.’

‘So the search has started already!’ said Jake brightly. ‘Excellent!’

‘No,’ Robbie corrected him. ‘Those are the Russians. It means they’ve worked out where we went. They’re on their way here.’

‘How did they work that out?’ asked Lauren.

‘They must have found the marks our boat made when we pushed it to the sea, and realised that this is the only place we could have made it to.’

‘What are we going to do?’ asked Lauren, her voice showing her alarm. ‘Get back to our boat?’

‘Waste of time,’ said Robbie, shaking his head. ‘They’ll overtake us easily, and out on the water in that boat we’d be sitting ducks.’

‘And there’s no sign of the search parties!’ said Lauren desperately.

‘I’ve got an idea,’ said Jake. ‘I hang my jacket somewhere up here, so they can see it fluttering through the trees. That’ll bring them up here. Meanwhile, we get back down near the shore and hide there. When they come up here, we grab their boat.’

‘That’s crazy!’ protested Lauren. ‘They’re bound to leave someone guarding the boat, and they’ll be armed!’

‘You got a better idea?’ asked Jake.

They looked towards the far shore. People were getting into the inflatable. Even from this distance, they could make out the tall figure of Professor Lemski and the short squatness of Dmitri. Dmitri was getting into the boat with three other people. They all looked as if they were carrying rifles.

‘OK,’ said Jake. ‘Here they come. Time to get down to the shore and find a place to hide.’

He slipped off his jacket and draped it from the branch of a tree at the edge of the clearing. Then he, Lauren and Robbie hurried back the way they had come, downhill towards the wooded shore.





Chapter 24



Jake, Lauren and Robbie crouched down behind the cover of the trees and bushes, their eyes on the approaching boat. Jake could see the stocky figure of Dmitri standing up, binoculars to his eyes, scanning the island. Then Jake saw him raise his arm and point and give a shout to the three other men in the boat.

‘He’s seen my coat,’ whispered Jake.

They crouched down even lower, hardly daring to breathe, as the boat came in to land, crashing into the shingle of the beach. The four men leapt out, all of them armed with automatic rifles. Dmitri shouted orders in Russian, and then he and two of the others began to head up towards the top of the island.

‘Looks like they’ve fallen for it,’ whispered Jake.

‘But how do we deal with him?’ asked Lauren anxiously.

Jake looked at the man left to guard the boat. Jake saw what Lauren meant. He was tall, powerful-looking, and he seemed very comfortable in the way he held his automatic rifle. He was also very alert, his head moving this way and that as he scanned the shore and the foliage for any sign of movement.

‘It’s about thirty metres to the boat,’ groaned Jake. ‘Too far away for us to take a run at him. He’ll shoot us down before we reach him.’

‘It’s either that, or wait for Dmitri and his pals to come back down and find us,’ said Lauren sombrely.

‘There may be another way,’ said Robbie. He bent down and picked up a stone. ‘When we were kids, me and Rona used to play targets. We’d throw stones at things and see who could hit the most.’

‘Who won?’ asked Jake.

‘Usually Rona,’ admitted Robbie ruefully. ‘She’d hit the targets nine times out of ten. But I was pretty good too. I’d hit them six times out of ten.’

‘Six?’ said Jake, worried. ‘That’s not very good odds.’

‘As Rona’s not here, those are the only odds we’ve got,’ said Robbie. He weighed the stone in his hand, testing it. ‘And his head’s bigger than most of the things we threw stones at.’

‘Yes, but your targets didn’t keep moving the way he is,’ pointed out Jake, as the man began to prowl on the shore in front of the boat. ‘And I bet you didn’t have to throw them while in hiding.’

‘Stop being so negative, Jake!’ hissed Lauren. ‘Like Robbie says, it’s our only chance.’