Ken Follett: Lie down with lions

"Well done," Ellis said to Jane. "He might have ruined everything. Now make them all lie down."

A minute later they were all lying face down on the ground.

"You have to shoot off my handcuffs," he said to Jane.

He put down his rifle and stood with his arms outstretched toward the doorway. Jane pulled back the slide of the pistol, then placed its muzzle against the chain. They positioned themselves so that the spent bullet would go through the doorway.

"I hope this doesn't break my fucking wrist," said Ellis.

Jane closed her eyes and pulled the trigger.

Ellis roared: "Ow, fuck!" At first his wrists hurt like hell. Then, after a moment, he realized they were not broken—the chain was.

He picked up his rifle. "Now I want their radio," he said.

On Anatoly's order, the captain began to unstrap a large box from the horse's back.

Ellis wondered whether the helicopter would fly again. Its undercarriage would be destroyed, of course, and there might be all sorts of other damage underneath; but the engine and the main control lines were on top. He recalled how, during the battle of Darg, he had seen a Hind just like this one crash twenty or thirty feet, then lift off again. This bastard ought to fly if that one did, he thought. If not ...

He did not know what he would do otherwise.

The captain brought the radio and put it into the helicopter, then walked away again.

Ellis allowed himself a moment of relief. As long as he had the radio, the Russians could not contact their base. That meant they could not get reinforcements, nor could they alert anybody to what had happened. If Ellis could get the helicopter into the air, he would be safe from pursuit.

"Keep your gun aimed at Anatoly," he said to Jane. "I'm going to see whether this thing will fly."

Jane found the gun surprisingly heavy. Aiming at Anatoly, she kept her arm outstretched, for a while, but soon had to lower her arm to rest it. With her left hand she patted Chantal's back. Chantal had cried, off and on, during the last few minutes, but now she had stopped.

The helicopter's engine turned over, kicked and hesitated. Oh, please start, she prayed; please go.

The engine roared into life, and she saw the blades turn.

Jean-Pierre looked up.

Don't you dare, she thought. Don't move!

Jean-Pierre sat upright, looked at her, then got painfully to his feet.

Jane pointed the pistol at him.

He started to walk toward the helicopter.

"Don't make me shoot you!" she screamed, but her voice was drowned by the increasing roar of the engines.

Anatoly must have seen Jean-Pierre, for he rolled over and sat up. Jane pointed the gun at him. He lifted his

hands in a gesture of surrender. Jane swung the gun back toward Jean-Pierre. Jean-Pierre kept coming.

Jane felt the helicopter shudder and try to lift.

Jean-Pierre was close now. She could see his face clearly. His hands were spread wide in a gesture of appeal, but there was a mad light in his eyes. He's lost his mind, she thought; but perhaps that happened a long time ago.

"I will do it!" she yelled, although she knew he could not hear. "I will shoot you!"

The helicopter lifted off the ground.

Jean-Pierre broke into a run.

As the aircraft went up he jumped and landed on the deck. Jane hoped he would fall out again, but he steadied himself. He looked at her with hate in his eyes, and gathered himself to spring.

She closed her eyes and pulled the trigger.

The gun crashed and bucked in her hand.

She opened her eyes again. Jean-Pierre was still standing upright, with an expression of astonishment on his face. There was a spreading dark stain on the breast of his coat. Panicking, Jane pulled the trigger again, and again, and a third time. She missed with the first two, but the third seemed to hit his shoulder. He spun around, facing out, and fell forward through the doorway.

Then he was gone.

I killed him, she thought.

At first she felt a kind of wild elation. He had tried to capture her and imprison her and make her a slave. He had hunted her like an animal. He had betrayed her and beaten her. Now she had killed him.

Then she was overcome by grief. She sat on the deck and sobbed. Chantal began to cry too, and Jane rocked her baby as they wept together.

She did not know how long she stayed there. Eventually she got to her feet and went forward to stand beside the pilot's seat.

"Are you all right?" Ellis shouted.

She nodded and tried a weak smile.

Ellis smiled back, pointed to a gauge and yelled: "Look— full tanks!"

She kissed his cheek. One day she would tell him she had shot Jean-Pierre; but not now. "How far to the border?" she asked.

"Less than an hour. And they can't send anybody after us because we have their radio."

Jane looked through the windscreen. Directly ahead, she could see the white-peaked mountains she would have had to climb. I don't think I could have done it, she said to herself. I think I would have lain down in the snow and died.

Ellis had a wistful expression on his face.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked.

"I was thinking how much I'd like a roast beef sandwich with lettuce and tomato and mayonnaise on wholewheat bread," he said, and Jane smiled.

Chantal stirred and cried. Ellis took a hand off the controls and touched her pink cheek. "She's hungry," he said.

"I'll go back and take care of her," said Jane. She returned to the passenger cabin and sat on the bench. She unbuttoned her coat and her shirt, and fed her baby as the helicopter flew on into the rising sun.

JANE FELT PLEASED as she walked down the suburban driveway and climbed into the passenger seat of Ellis's car. It had been a successful afternoon. The pizzas had been good, and Petal had loved Flashdance. Ellis had been very tense about introducing his daughter to his girlfriend, but Petal had been thrilled by the eight-month-old Chantal, and everything had been easy. Ellis had felt so good about it that he had suggested, when they dropped Petal off, that Jane walk up the drive with him and say hello to Gill. Gill had invited them in, and had cooed over Chantal, so Jane had got to know his ex-wife as well as his daughter, and all in one afternoon.

Ellis—Jane could not get used to the fact that his name was John, and she had decided always to call him Ellis— put Chantal on the back seat and got into the car beside Jane. "Well, what do you think?" he asked as they pulled away.

"You didn't tell me she was pretty," Jane said.

"Petal is pretty?"

"I meant Gill," said Jane with a laugh.

"Yes, she's pretty."

"They're fine people and they don't deserve to be mixed up with someone like you."

She was joking, but Ellis nodded somberly.

Jane leaned over and touched his thigh. "I didn't mean it," she said.

"It's true, though."

They drove on in silence for a while. It was six months to the day since they had escaped from Afghanistan. Now and again Jane would burst into tears for no apparent reason, but she no longer had nightmares in which she shot Jean-Pierre again and again. Nobody but she and Ellis knew what had happened—Ellis had even lied to his superiors about how Jean-Pierre died—and Jane had decided she would tell Chantal that her Daddy died in Afghanistan in the war: no more than that.

Instead of heading back to the city, Ellis took a series of back streets and eventually parked next to a vacant lot overlooking the water.

"What are we going to do here?" said Jane. "Neck?"

"If you like. But I want to talk."

"Okay."

"It was a good day."

"Yes."

"Petal was more relaxed with me today than she has ever been."