Free Hunted by Emlyn Rees

pure. His touch made her feel elevated, like she was no longer human at all, but something much better instead.
    As he kicked off his white Nike trainers and stripped off his tracksuit, she felt herself becoming so aroused that it was all she could do not to moan. He’d cut her off without regret, she knew, if it suited him. But surely the fact that he still tolerated her presence meant that he must still love her too? Oh yes, she’d do anything for this beautiful man. Anything to keep him hers.
    Beneath his discarded clothes, he was wearing a well-tailored dark suit and white T-shirt. No logo. He accepted the polished English black brogues she gave him. Taking off his shades and balaclava, he stuffed them along with his tracksuit and trainers into her bag.
    Only then did the hawk-faced man smile. She felt her heart swell with pride. So he’d done it. The shooting had been a success. She kissed him hard on the lips.
    ‘Now move,’ he said.
    The balcony curtains had already been pulled shut. The torturer had Danny Shanklin’s body prepared. Positioned on a chair facing the balcony. Slumped rather than seated. A black balaclava and shades covered the American’s face. He’d been dressed in a red and white-striped tracksuit and bright white Nikes.
    Shanklin’s own clothes were in a pile on the floor. The blonde woman scooped them into her holdall. The giant skinhead tossed her his trainers, tracksuit and balaclava. He too had been wearing a dark business suit beneath.
    He rubbed his gloved hands all over Danny Shanklin’s, then carefully fitted his rifle into Shanklin’s arms, propping the weapon’s barrel up on the back of a chair that had been positioned in front of the American, so that he now appeared to be aiming its sight out through the window.
    The skinhead joined the hawk-faced man and the bearded thief in the short corridor leading out of the suite. Only the blonde woman and the torturer now remained in the sitting room.
    She stood to one side of the French windows before pulling their curtains open. A smell of burning drifted up from below. She wanted to look out and see for herself, but she resisted the temptation. She listened to the screaming instead. God, she felt so wet .
    Crawling back across the room, so she couldn’t be seen from the street, she joined the three suited men in the hotel suite’s entrance corridor. They were now all wearing baseball caps and shades. The hawk-faced man led them out of the suite.
    The blonde woman stayed. She took the Faraday case from the wardrobe.
    ‘Now,’ she told the torturer, who was crouched behind Shanklin.
    The torturer sucked his lower lip in concentration. He shivered with pleasure, as he smoothly slid the needle of the syringe into Danny Shanklin’s carotid artery.
    The torturer had killed several Americans before. Most times for money. Twice purely for pleasure whilst on holiday in the Florida Keys.
    It would be interesting to see how this one would die. Would he put up a fight? Would he scream? Would he beg? The torturerwished he could witness that now, and felt a temporarily crippling twinge of regret that he could not.
    Then he pulled himself together, and pressed the syringe’s plunger down hard.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
11.47, GREEN PARK, LONDON W1
    Awake.
    Danny Shanklin woke hyperventilating, his heart trying to punch through his ribs. Opening his eyes, he recoiled. Bright light. Burning red. He twisted.
    Got to get away.
    Pain.
    His right forefinger. It was caught in something. Left hand too. He tried to see what. Saw more burning red. Forced himself to keep looking. The red fractured into a blizzard of pink dots. The pink dots faded into blue.
    A rectangle of blue. Right there. Dead ahead.
    ‘What the …?’ Danny’s mouth was dry as ash.
    He felt something solid behind his back. A chair? Was he sitting? His neck throbbed like he’d been stung. He couldn’t slow his breathing. His heart kept hammering.
    Where am I? What’s going on?
    A scream