Wanted Read Online Free Page A

something. A tightness at his wrists. In his knees and ankles too.
    Not paralysed, then . . . I’ve been
tied.
My
wrists
have been bound to my ankles behind my back.
But how? By whom?And why?
    A blur of memories hurtled through his confused mind, like a section of film flicked to fast forward: icicles glinting in the branches of a tree; a snowbound village in a valley at night; and danger – yes, the sense of danger – was everywhere, all around.
    He became aware of another sensation cutting through the numbness: a throbbing in his neck, as steady as a pulse, yet painful and localized and
wrong.
Heat was radiating outwards in waves from that point, as if he’d suffered a terrible burn. Or had been shot.
    His whole body jolted. His stomach lurched. At first he thought someone had hit him, but then he realized he’d been shaken from below. Gravity, he felt that now too. He was curled up like a foetus on his side.
    Another jolt. And that hissing sound he’d heard before, along with those vibrations – weren’t they coming from beneath him as well?
    A memory from fifty years ago solidified in the confused mists of his mind. He was racing on his bicycle down a steep road in the small town in which he’d been born. He was trying to catch up with his big brother, Yan, when his front wheel had hit a rut. And suddenly there he was: airborne, exhilarated, whooping with delight . . .
    A rut, a rut in the road – was that what had jolted him just now? Yes, I’m in some kind of a vehicle, he thought. I’m in some kind of . . .
    Truck.
    The word hit him like a brick to the back of his head. He remembered everything then, as if he’d just turned on a burning white light in a previously pitch-black room. The journey from Moscow. The helicopter dusting down in the forest. Lyonya and Gregori. The pharmacy door. The spreading pool of blood. That red dot of a laser sight creeping up his chest.
    That’s it, Valentin thought – too late. That was what it was about the view of the village that had felt so terribly wrong.
    After he’d switched his binoculars from night-vision to infrared, a heat signature had shown on the milk truck’s tank as well as its cab. It had been warm when it should have been cold. Because – yes, he understood everything now – refrigerated milk wasn’t being pumped into it: people had been concealed inside. Whoever it was who’d tied him up. That was how they’d got into the village without being observed by the satellite. And that was how they were fleeing it as well.
    This miserable realization was followed by an even darker one. Valentin’s old friend Nikolai Zykov had not managed to keep his secret. These people had found the vial.
    A clanking of boots on metal. A shadow stretched out, enveloping him. Then pain. Ripping through his kidneys. Someone had kicked him and now they stamped hard on his back.
    A roar exploded inside him. But only a guttural growl emerged. He felt himself choking. He tried to open his mouth. No good. He prised his front teeth apart with his tongue and probed between his lips. Stickiness. His mouth had been taped shut. He sucked sour air in through his nose. He felt his chest shudder and heave.
    Again he heard the woman’s voice, but it was closer now, right beside him: ‘It looks as though Granddad’s awake . . .’
    Granddad?
She meant him.
    He fought to suck oxygen into his lungs. He waited for the next bolt of pain. Instead came more clanking. More echoes. A torch beam flickered. He braced himself as her shadow fell across him again.
    Instead a rush of ice-cold water smashed into his face. A boot pressed down hard on the side of his head. A terrible pressure that did not let up. Surely his cheekbone would crack.
    The torch beam was thrust down towards him. He blinked too late. His vision blistered red. A man barked a single syllable. Someone – two people? – seized Valentin and jerked him upright. Silhouettes shifted left and right as the torch beam