Tunnel Rats by Stephen Leather

Author:Stephen Leather [Leather, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780340689547
Publisher: New English Library
Published: 2010-03-25T00:00:00+00:00

'It'll all be over in a few hours,' said Bamber, patting him on the back and guiding him towards the taxi where Chinh was gunning the engine impatiently.

THE TUNNEL RATS 289

May Eckhardt climbed out of the Isuzu and stretched lazily. The heat of the afternoon sun had been almost unbearable, even with the pick-up's airconditioning full on, but now it was early evening and there was a soft breeze from the north. She was wearing a faded sweatshirt and blue jeans, which she stripped off and tossed into the back of the pick-up truck. She kicked off her sandals and took off her bra and pants and stood naked, enjoying the feel of warm wind on her skin. She had a sudden urge to run across the sand, to go jumping over the rocks and skipping around the trees as she had done as a child. She smiled to herself. She wasn't a child any more and she had an adult's work to do.

She took the blue and green holdall off the passenger seat and took out a pair of black pyjamas, the sort that peasants still wore when they were tending their fields. She shrugged them on, then tied a black and white checked scarf around her neck. The sandals she put on were old and worn, but comfortable, the soles cut from truck tyres, the strip that ran between her toes made from an old inner tube. She took a leather belt and fastened it around her waist, then attached two metal water canteens, one either side. Also in the bag was a long hunting knife in an oiled leather scabbard, and she clipped that to the back of the belt. Everything else she needed was down in the tunnels already. The only food she was taking was a ball of rice wrapped in a silk handkerchief and placed in a small cloth bag that she tied to the front of the belt. She didn't need food to sustain her. Hate would be more than enough.

May used a rubber band to tie back her hair in a ponytail, locked the doors of the Isuzu and slid the key into the exhaust pipe. From the back of the pick-up she took a long flashlight. She walked confidently through the undergrowth, skirting a bomb crater half filled with green stagnant water.

The three motorbikes were in the shade of the jagged rock. One by one she pushed them to the water-filled crater and rolled them in. When she'd finished she stood at the edge watching the oily bubbles gradually subside until the surface was still once

290 STEPHEN LEATHER

more. She wiped her hands on her trousers and walked over to the anvil-shaped rock.

The hatch covering the tunnel entrance had been pulled back into place but there had been no one to replace its covering of dirt. She pulled it open, and put her head to the opening, listening. There was only silence. She dropped down into the tunnel. Three kitbags lay to one side.

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