Hi! Action!! YAY!! Anyway, sorry about that, I have an unexpected free period, so I'm pretty happy!! Anyway (again), hope you enjoy this chapter, i had great fun writing it!! ok, am officially feeling stupid now! I wrote the first bit on Monday, and then forgot to put it up! SORRY!!!
Alex was smiling smugly as he fell into step behind Wolf and Yassen. His heart hammered in his chest and his breath came in quick, excited bursts.
"Shhh, be quiet." Yassen hissed from the front, he drew his gun at the same time and Alex clamped his mouth shut, breathing almost silently through his nose. Wolf also produced a gun and they split up, Yassen went right and Alex followed Wolf left. Between them, they had both ends covered.
They were still a few caravans away from sixty seven, and for a second it was out of sight as Yassen dropped behind another one to avoid being run over by a car. When he next looked, a blonde haired figure was sprinting across the open area between the caravan and the cliff edge. Yassen swore loudly in Russian, alerting the others, and set out in pursuit.
He loosed two shots after Skinner, but neither of them connected. Wolf was right behind him, while Alex was racing along almost ten metres behind him. Skinner vaulted the fence and Yassen took advantage of his brief pause to fire another shot. This one connected, but only just, clipping the back of his shoulder. Skinner cried out in pain but continued running.
By the time Yassen reached the fence, he had disappeared behind a rise in the sand dunes. He vaulted the fence and sprinted after him.
"Yassen, he's there!" Wolf called from behind him. Yassen stopped, sending up a spray of sand, and looked back. Wolf was pointing to a place off to his right. He skidded to a stop beside Yassen, closely followed by Alex. The boy was panting heavily, but his eyes burned with excitement. Yassen raised an eyebrow; he hadn't expected the boy to keep up.
"Wolf, go right, we should be able to surround him. Alex, stay here,"
"No, I'm going with Wolf," Alex said instantly.
"We don't have time for this! Stay here. Skinner wouldn't think twice about shooting any of us, including you." Alex shrugged.
"I've been in danger before," he muttered.
"I'll keep an eye on him, we need to go. Now," Wolf cut in, stepping between the two of them.
"Fine," Yassen said after a short pause. He turned and raced off without another word. Wolf sighed and did the same, running towards the place where he had last seen Skinner. Alex followed him automatically.
"Thanks for that," he panted.
"You owe me," Wolf replied, his breathing was steady and even.
Alex didn't reply, but focused on keeping up with Wolf. It was much harder running here than it was on the track at Brookland. The dunes felt like mountains, some of the slopes they scrambled up were over ten metres high, and composed entirely of loose sand that dragged at their feet. Even Wolf was showing signs of strain by the time they reached the top of the third one.
But then Skinner was in front of them, a couple of dunes away. A large red stain had spread through his shirt, making him basically a moving target. Wolf didn't stop, but fired a shot at Skinner as they drew level. It missed, thudding into the sand inches from his chest. He flung himself sideways and scrambled up the rest of the bank and out of sight.
Yassen heard the gunshot, but didn't stop; he wasn't doing to suppose that Skinner was dead until he'd seen the body, and preferably pulled the trigger. He angled inland slightly, clambered up a steep sand dune and stopped at the top. There were fresh footprints in the sand, sprinkled with blood. Yassen bent down and dipped his finger into a small pool congealing in one of the footprints. It was still hot. Skinner must have passed here only minutes before.
A flicker of movement caught his eye and he looked up to see Wolf and Alex reach the top of a dune a few hundred yards away. They didn't see him and continued down the other side and out of sight. He straightened up, wiped his finger on his jeans, and then sprinted down the side of the dune he was on, following the deep footprints. He leapt across the bottom and scaled the other side in three quick bounds.
There! A quick flash of blonde hair. Legs burning, Yassen raced after Skinner as he vanished again.
Minutes later, Alex and Wolf stopped for a few moments. Alex was bent double, gasping for breath, while Wolf scanned the dunes with a pair of binoculars.
"Why are you here?" Wolf asked, focusing the binoculars a bit closer.
"Holiday," Alex wheezed. "I'm here with Jack; she's visiting a friend of hers."
"No, I meant why are you here? Why are you so keen on following me?" Wolf corrected, glancing sideways at the boy.
Alex shrugged.
"It's a bit boring acting normal. I can't just go back to being an ordinary schoolboy after that stuff at Point Blanc. You know they blew up my school?"
"Yes, but I can't imagine you being too upset about that," Wolf said, smiling despite himself.
"I wasn't really. But it's just really hard to go back to being normal."
"I guess it would be… look, there he is." Wolf cried suddenly, cutting across Alex. He ran down the bank, leapt across the bottom and vanished over the top. Alex followed as fast as he could, but by the time he reached the top of the dune, Wolf was nowhere to be seen. His footprints were clear for a few yards, but then led into a bed of the spiky grass that covered the dunes and faded from sight.
Swearing, Alex ran in the direction he thought Wolf would have gone. He wanted to call out, but Yassen's warning about Skinner was too fresh in his mind. It was best to avoid danger if at all possible. But after another five minutes of frantic, fruitless searching, Alex risked a shout. One yell that echoed over the dunes.
Yassen heard it, turned towards the sound and saw Wolf a few yards away. He was in the process of lowering his gun.
"Where's Alex?" Yassen asked, deciding to ignore the fact that his partner had been on the verge of shooting him, for now at least.
"I don't know. He was right behind me a few moments ago." Wolf said defensively. But now he thought back, he hadn't seen Alex for a while.
Yassen swore harshly in Russian. It surprised Wolf; Yassen had never shown any real emotion before, and while Wolf didn't understand the words, he recognised the tone.
"Let's go, we have to find him."
"What about Skinner?" Wolf asked. Yassen hesitated, not wanting to voice his hunch that finding Alex would mean finding Skinner.
"We've found him twice, we could do it again," he reasoned. Wolf paused and then nodded.
"Let's go find Alex," he said. Yassen smiled tightly and led the way as they followed Wolf's footprints through the dry sand. Both men were better at tracking than Alex was and had no problems following Wolf's trail.
"Look here," Wolf said suddenly, pointing. "These aren't your footprints, but they're fresh and too big to be Alex's."
"Skinner's."
"They probably are his, but why would he be heading inland?"
Yassen looked at him across the prints, waiting for the penny to drop. When it did, Wolf's face drained of colour.
"We have to find him," he croaked, turning and following the new trail of prints.
"Let me save you the trouble." Yassen and Wolf twisted around and looked up, searching for the speaker.
Daniel Skinner was outlined against the grey sky. So was the gun he was holding to Alex's head.