looked along it. The next junction was about eighty feet away; he could catch up with her there—
‘Here! Over here!’
The yell was from behind him, one of the airmen at the start of the aisle.
Bringing up his rifle—
Eddie flattened himself against the end of the towering stack as bullets seared past. Even as the echoes of the gunshots faded he ran again, cutting across the endless rows of shelves. He had to draw the troops away from Nina, then find a way to double back past them.
Ranks of stacks flashed past. He kept his pace and footfalls as precise as those of a hurdler – if he tripped on the tracks, he would be an easy target.
Another aisle ahead – and a shuttle bearing several boxes rolled into view. If it turned towards him, he would be trapped—
It carried on past the intersection, heading for the cabins. Eddie swung round the corner and into the new aisle, running away from the retreating machine. It would give him temporary cover from the pursuing airmen, maybe even cause them to lose track of him.
More shouting, this time over a loudspeaker. ‘Don’t shoot, don’t shoot!’ Ogleby’s amplified voice boomed. ‘You’ll hit the files! Catch them and take them outside – and then shoot them!’
That restriction would help – if the guards took orders from a civilian. Not willing to gamble his life on that, Eddie kept running. If Nina had taken the route he’d suggested, she would be eight or nine aisles back to his right. But now that shots had been fired, she might have followed a different path.
He reached the next junction and ducked into the cover of the cross-aisle, stopping to look across the cavernous hall. No sign of Nina. Damn! Had she carried straight on, or gone into another aisle?
He glanced back round the corner. The shuttle had switched tracks to deliver its cargo to a collection point, leaving the way free for some of the airmen to run towards him. The others would be charging up the neighbouring aisles to cut off their prey. Eddie took a deep breath and ran again, heading – he hoped – back towards Nina. He glimpsed two men as he crossed an aisle and a single shot cracked past behind him, plunking into one of the metal storage boxes, but he was already clear.
‘I said don’t shoot!’ screeched Ogleby over the PA system. ‘Do! Not! Shoot! How hard is that for you to understand?’
The next aisle had nobody in it, nor the one beyond that. Eddie turned up it and raced deeper into the hangar. If he could reach the next intersection before any of his pursuers saw him . . .
Sparks lit the aisle as another shuttle rounded the corner ahead, coming in his direction – then stopped, its lifting arm rising up to pluck a large box from a shelf. He cursed. Squeezing past the machine would slow him down, but he was too far down the aisle to turn back and find an alternative route.
Not that he could anyway. ‘Stop or I fire!’ a man bellowed.
The guards had found him.
Eddie was over ten feet from the stationary shuttle as it lowered its cargo. He would be shot before he could get past the machine. He stopped, and turned. Two airmen had him in their sights. He held up his hands. ‘Nina!’ he called out. ‘They’ve got me. Get out of here, don’t let them catch you!’
‘Shut up!’ one airman shouted as he and his partner advanced. Another two men reached the junction behind them and followed. ‘Drop the gun!’
Eddie obeyed, then glanced back at the shuttle. If it set off again, he might be able to dive behind it as it passed. But it was still lowering the box.
He would have to risk it. It was clear that Dalton’s plan was for them to simply ‘disappear’. Better to try to run than meekly accept his fate.
The guards approached. The leading man took one hand off his rifle to take a set of flex-cuffs from his belt. The M4’s muzzle swayed away from Eddie.
This was his chance.
He tensed, about to rush for the shuttle—
Metal crashed above. The startled airmen looked up – and were knocked to the floor by a cascade of storage boxes falling from a high shelf.
Nina popped her head through the gap where the containers had been. ‘Eddie, run!’
‘I told you to run!’ he complained. But he was relieved beyond belief to see her. She ducked back