‘Why the hell are Americans shooting at us?’
‘I don’t know and stop talking, they can hear us!’
Ethan heard the crashing of the waterfall as they approached it, a useful feature that would help disguise the sound of their movement. He quickly began considering his options, wondering whether it might be better to hunker down in the jungle and hope the American soldiers would pass them by rather than continuing their headlong flight down the hillside. The solution came as another shot cracked out and narrowly passed between Lucy and Ethan in the darkness. Two highly accurate shots in otherwise pitch black forest could mean only one thing: the platoon sharpshooter was using night-vision to pick them out as they ran.
Ethan began dodging left and right on the path in an attempt to spoil the sharpshooter’s aim, but two more shots cracked out and hit the path almost at his feet. He heard Lucy cry out as though she had been hit as she stumbled, but she picked herself up and kept moving.
A voice bellowed out from the jungle behind them.
‘Another step and we’ll shoot to kill!’
‘Keep moving!’ Ethan growled ahead to Lucy, knowing that the soldiers were intent on killing them anyway.
The path plunged away down the hillside a short distance ahead and circled the elephant pool, the water just visible now plunging into its limpid depths. Lucy ran down to the edge of the pool and circled it with Ethan close behind. They were almost at the edge of the tree line when a fresh shot cracked out and hit the path directly in front of them. Lucy skittered to a halt and Ethan almost collided with her as he turned and saw the shape of the sharpshooter silhouetted against the dimly illuminated sky at the top of the falls, his weapon aimed down at them.
Ethan spotted a bright red light appear on his chest, quivering slightly with the sharpshooter’s heartbeat as he kept the weapon aimed directly at Ethan’s body.
‘That’s as far as you go!’ the sharpshooter called over the crashing sound of the waterfall.
Ethan desperately tried to think of a way out of the situation, but he knew that if he so much as flinched the soldier would shoot him dead. He could just about hear the sounds of the rest of the American platoon advancing behind the sharpshooter, and he realized that there was nowhere to go.
The remaining soldiers broke from the tree line and appeared alongside the sharpshooter above them. They had been reduced from eight men to six, evidently some of the villager’s bullets having found their mark, but that now meant that the soldier’s blood would be up and there would be no quarter given to either Ethan or Lucy. In the middle of dense jungle and at night, there would be no witnesses to whatever was about to happen.
The leader of the American platoon directed a mock salute at Ethan as he nodded to the sharpshooter.
‘Take them down.’
Ethan prepare to leap to one side in a desperate attempt to protect his own life when suddenly the sniper cried out and his weapon snapped up in the air and fired high as Ethan saw his face illuminated in a bright green light, a narrow beam streaking from the nearby forest to hit the soldier’s face and blind him through his night vision goggles.
Ethan turned and without hesitation grabbed Lucy and sprinted for the tree line behind them. A crescendo of shots hammered the elephant pool as the remainder of the soldiers attempted to hit them without the benefit of night-vision. The bullets smacked into the path behind them and Ethan heard ricochets hit the trees nearby but with a gasp of relief they plunged into the tree line and the dense cover of the undergrowth.
‘Keep moving,’ Ethan whispered harshly. ‘We’ve got to make it to the motorcycles.’
To his right Ethan heard another figure crashing through the undergrowth, and they burst out onto the path directly behind him.
‘You’re welcome,’ Lopez whispered as she ran behind him.
‘Who the hell are they?’ Ethan demanded as they ran.
‘No idea. They must’ve followed you here.’
‘Nobody knew we were coming,’ Lucy snapped back from somewhere ahead. ‘They just s likely followed you!’
‘We’ll deal with it later,’ Ethan cut them both off. ‘Nice work with the laser pen,’ he added as they descended towards the main access road to the mountain.
Lucy reached the road first, Ethan behind as he spotted the motorcycles they had abandoned. He rushed over to them as Lopez broke from the tree line behind and hurried across.
‘They haven’t been tampered with,’ Ethan said as he examined the engines.
‘There would have been a lot of motorcycles here when they arrived during daylight,’ Lopez guessed.
Lucy clambered onto a motorbike and made to use the kick start. Ethan grabbed her ankle to prevent her from starting the engine.
‘No, push off and use the motorcycle as a pushbike. We need to get away as quietly as possible or they’ll be onto us. They must have their own transport to have reached us so fast.’
Lucy nodded and pushed away toward the path that descended down the hillside, the moped accelerating slowly away. Ethan climbed aboard his own and then looked at Lopez.
‘Get on.’
Lopez didn’t hesitate to jump on the pillion seat and Ethan pushed away as hard as he could with his legs. The scooter reluctantly began to move even as he heard voices shouting from behind them amid the jungle as the troops closed in on their position. The scooter gradually gathered speed and began to roll of its own free will down the hillside, only the faint crunch of the tires on gravel giving their position away.
‘Well, I didn’t see us doing this so soon,’ Lopez said to Ethan in a soft whisper.
‘Don’t get overexcited,’ Ethan replied. ‘If you hadn’t pulled that stunt with the laser pen I would have left you on this mountain.’
Ethan could sense the smile on Lopez’s face in her tone as she replied.
‘You and I both know you would never have done that.’
Ethan did not reply as he followed Lucy’s moped down the hillside. They were gathering speed and the breeze was a welcome relief from the overwhelming humidity and heat. Through gaps in the forest below them he could see the flickering lights of Siem Reap in the distance, close enough that they would be able to hide among the crowds if they could get off the hillside unobserved.
Then, above the crunching of their tires on the dusty road, Ethan heard a new sound growing in intensity. He turned his head as he tried to make out what it was, and quickly he was able to distinguish the rhythmic thump-thump-thump of rotor blades beating the air.
‘Helicopter!’ he yelled ahead to Lucy. ‘They’re sending one in! Use your engine now!’
Ethan clicked the moped into second gear with the clutch held closed, reached down to turn the ignition key on, and then dumped the clutch. The little motorbike growled into life as the back tire briefly locked up on the dusty path and then bit once more. Ahead, he heard a cough and a splutter from Lucy’s machine and then it whined into life, a cloud of blue smoke billowing from its exhaust.
Ethan twisted the throttle wide open and the little motorbike surged away. Flocks of birds vaulted in panic from the trees in thick clouds of wings that streaked across the dark sky above, and Ethan saw Lucy’s bike quiver as its engine caught and she accelerated away.
‘Watch out for the trees!’
Lucy swerved her motorbike further out toward the edge of the track, the plunging hillside vanishing to their right into a dense canopy of trees.