Free Hunted by Emlyn Rees Page A

in the distance. Muffled shouts.
    The blue was the sky, Danny realized. The rectangle was a set of open French doors leading out on to a balcony. The buildings across the street lurched into view. Rows of windows glinted in the sunlight. A hot breeze blew in his face.
    Danny tried to stand. Faltered. Whatever his hands were caught up in slid sideways with a thud. He felt cold metal in his right hand. His left was entwined in what felt like a strap.
    Even before he looked down and the object swung fully into focus, he’d already guessed what it was.
    A rifle. Its barrel was now aimed down at the floor beside him. His right forefinger was wedged through the weapon’s trigger guard. His left hand was bound up in its shoulder strap.
    A Heckler & Koch G36 assault rifle.
    But why am I holding it?
    Heartbeat still racing. Muscles flexing. Buzzing now. Feeling crazed. Like he’d just been in a fight.
    A voice inside him yelled, Move .
    Tightening his grip on the rifle, Danny rose and spun. The short corridor behind him was empty. The door at the end was closed.
    He kicked away the chair he’d been sitting on, then dropped to one knee and scanned the room. A glass table. A sofa. Expensive furniture all around. An open door led into what looked like a bedroom. No one in sight.
    He glimpsed a flash of white on the ground. His own feet. He was wearing a pristine pair of Nikes he’d never seen before.
    He couldn’t remember anything. Was he hallucinating? Was that what this was? Some kind of a crazy dream?
    The sounds of shouts and car horns drifted in on the breeze. A siren wailed. Another scream.
    Danny’s eyes locked on the sofa. Someone had been sitting there. He half glimpsed a memory. A mocking smile on a thickset, hook-nosed blond man’s face.
    Splinters of information pierced Danny’s mind. This was the Ritz Hotel, he remembered. Room 112. Third floor.
    But what am I doing here?
    More screaming.
    Outside.
    Danny turned to face the balcony. He took a step forward. Another. Then froze.
    A pair of white trainers was sticking out from behind a lowwooden table. Worn by a dead man, Danny saw, as he slowly circled round. The man’s face had been slashed to shreds, his fingers cut off.
    He was wearing a red and white-striped tracksuit. White Nikes. The same as Danny.
    Another burst of memory. Of the blond man who’d been on the sofa. The one with killer eyes … Hadn’t he been dressed the same too?
    More shouts through the window. More screams. The siren was getting louder now.
    A second rifle. Identical to the one Danny was holding. It lay there on the floor, just beyond the dead man’s reach. Alongside it was a pair of black Ray-Ban Aviator shades.
    Danny crouched down and checked the man’s pulse. Nothing. The man’s skin was warm. Not long dead.
    Another scream.
    Danny looked to the balcony. He didn’t want to go out there. Didn’t want to find out who it was who kept screaming. But he knew he had no choice. Out there was where the answers lay.
    Keeping low, he edged through the open French windows and peered over the waist-high stone balustrade.
    People were running wherever he looked. Away from the hotel. Into the street. Running awkwardly. As if they’d never done it before. Stumbling and tripping. In ones and twos. Hands above their heads. The further away they got from the hotel, the faster they ran. For cover. They were running for their lives.
    Bodies were scattered across the tarmac. Broken and twisted. Twenty, Danny counted, at least. A scene from a war zone. Only these corpses were dressed in bright civilian clothes. And this was the centre of London. In the middle of a hot summer day.
    Danny looked east and west along Piccadilly. The road was clear of vehicles for thirty metres either way. But then there was chaos.
    Cars stood abandoned at crazy angles. Reversed and crashed. A red double-decker bus had slewed into a lamppost. A mangled motorcycle was half buried in a news stand that had mushroomed into