Dick Francis - Crossfire

He hadn't been very keen on the plan, and that was putting it mildly, but I'd promised him that he was in no danger, provided he kept the car doors locked. It was yet another one of those dodgy promises of mine. But I didn't actually believe that Jackson Warren and Peter Garraway would kill me there and then. Not before I'd returned the million dollars.

"Warfare is based on deception… When we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away." When I was in the stable yard searching for my mother, I'd make Warren and Garraway believe I was down near the gates.

"Hold out baits to entice the enemy." Make the car wait with its lights on to draw them down the hill away from the stables, and away from me.

"Feign disorder, and crush him." Only time would tell on that one.

I moved slowly and silently to my right, around the closed end of the quadrangle of stables, keeping in the darkest corners under the overhanging roof. Where would my mother be? I felt for all the bolts on the stable doors. They were all firmly closed. I decided, at this stage, not to try to open any, as it would surely make some noise.

Unsurprisingly, no one had mended the pane of glass in the tack-room window that I'd broken to get out. I leaned right in through the opening, closed my eyes tight and listened.

I could hear someone whimpering. My mother was indeed here. The sound was slight but unmistakable, and it came from my left. She was in one of the stalls on the same side of the stables as I had been.

I listened some more. Once or twice I heard her move, but the sound was not close, and other than an occasional muffled cry, I could not hear her breathing. There were ten stalls down each of the long sides of the quadrangle, and I reckoned she must be at least three away from the tack room, probably more. Maybe she was in the same stall in which I had been imprisoned.

I looked again at my watch. Four fifty-nine.

Six minutes until the car arrived-I hoped.

I withdrew my head and shoulders from through the broken window and moved very slowly along the line of stables, counting the doors. I could remember clearly having to climb over five dividing walls to get to the tack room. I counted four stable doors, then I stopped. The stall I had been in was the next one along.

Would there be a sentry? Would anyone be on guard?

I stood very still and made my breathing as silent as I could. I dared not look again at my watch in case the luminosity of the face gave me away.

I waited in the dark, listening and counting the seconds-Mississippi one, Mississippi two, Mississippi three and so on. Just as I had done here before.

I waited and waited, and I began to doubt that Ian was coming. I was well past Mississippi twenty in the third minute when I heard the car horn, a long two-second blast. Good boy.

There was immediate movement from the end of the row of stables not twenty yards from where I was standing. Someone had been sitting there in silence, but now I clearly heard the person walk away, back towards the house, crunching across the gravel turning area. I heard him call out to someone else, asking what the noise was, and there was a murmured reply from farther away that I couldn't catch.

I went swiftly to the door of the stall and eased back the bolts. They made a slight scrape but nothing that would be heard from around near the house. The door swung open outwards.

"Mum," I whispered into the darkness.

There was no reply.

I stood and listened, trying hard to control the thump-thump of the heart in my chest.

I heard her whimper again, but it still came from some way to my left. She wasn't in this stall but in one a bit farther along.

I recognized the need to be as fast as possible, but equally, I had to make my search undetected. I moved as quickly as I dared along the row of stables, carefully sliding back the bolt on the upper half of each door and calling into the space with a whisper.

She was in the second stall from the end, close to where the man had been sitting on guard, and by the time I found her, I was becoming desperate about the time it was taking.

I thought that Ian must surely be about to reverse the car to the road and depart. Five minutes would seem a very long time to someone simply sitting there afraid that something would happen, and hoping that it wouldn't. Ian must have been so nervous in the car, willing the hands of his watch to move around faster. I wouldn't have blamed him if he'd decided to leave early.

When I'd opened the stable door and whispered, my mother had been unable to answer me properly, but she had managed to murmur loudly.

"Shhh," I said, going towards the sound and down onto my left knee. It was absolutely pitch-black in the stable. I removed one of my black woolen gloves and "saw" by feel, moving my left hand around until I found her.

She had tape stuck over her mouth and had been bound hand and foot with the same plastic garden ties as had been used to secure me. Thankfully, she hadn't been left hanging from a ring in the wall but was sitting on the hard floor close to the door with her back up against the wooden paneling.

I laid my sword down carefully so it didn't clatter on the concrete, then I swung the rucksack off my back and opened the flap. Ian's carving knife sliced easily through the plastic ties holding my mother's ankles and wrists together.

"Be very, very quiet," I whispered in her ear, leaning down."Leave the tape on your mouth. Come on, let's go."

I helped her up to her feet and was about to bend down for the rucksack and the sword when she turned and hugged me. She held me so tightly that I could hardly breathe. And she was crying. I couldn't tell if it was from pain, from fear or in joy, but I could feel her tears on my face.

"Mum, let me go," I managed to whisper in her ear. "We have to get out of here."

She eased the pressure but didn't let go completely, hanging on to my left arm. I prized her away from me and swung the rucksack over my right shoulder. As I reached down again for my sword, she leaned heavily against me and I stumbled slightly, kicking the sword with my unfeeling right foot. It scraped across the floor with a metallic rattle that sounded dreadfully loud in the confines of the stall but probably wouldn't have been audible at more than ten paces outside.

But had there been anyone outside within ten paces to hear it?

I reached down, grabbed the sword and led my mother to the door.

Ian must have completed his five-minute linger by now, and I hoped he had safely departed back to his flat to sit by the telephone, waiting for my call and ready to summon the cavalry if things went wrong. But where, I wondered, were my enemies? Were they still around at the driveway? Or had they come back?

My mother and I stepped through the stable door and out into the yard, with her hanging on to my left arm as though she would never let it go again.

There were no shouts of discovery, no running feet, just the darkness and the stillness of the night. But my enemies were out there somewhere, watching and waiting, and they outnumbered me. It was time to leave.

"He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day."

But I never did get to run away.

My mother and I were halfway across the stable yard, taking the shortest route to the muck-heap passageway, when the headlights of a car parked close to the house suddenly came on, catching us full in their beams.

Whoever was in the car couldn't help but see us.

"Run," I shouted in my mother's ear, but running wasn't really in her exercise repertoire, even when in mortal danger. It was only ten yards or so to the passageway door, but I wasn't at all sure we would make it. I dragged her along as all hell broke loose behind me.

There were shouts and running footsteps on the gravel near the house.