Free Ice Claw by David Gilman Page A

force he found better-paid work that utilized his specialist skills.
    The Legion had given him the name Corentin, a Celtic Breton name meaning “hurricane,” and he had the strength and energy of a storm. But he had stealth as well as power, and now he moved lightly along the half-lit corridors. Despite there being no obvious signs of either boy, Corentin’s instincts told him someone had been behind those swing doors.Having easily convinced the nurse he’d left the building, he had worked his way methodically downwards. Now he’d heard something move. He carried a concealed 9-mm semiautomatic pistol—a Glock 18—and a short-bladed fighting knife. Close-quarters unarmed combat was part of his armory, but he wouldn’t need any of these weapons or skills. He was hunting kids, not killers.
    Sayid smothered his face into the bundle on his chest, desperately hoping that his shallow breathing would not be heard. Under the edge of the sheet he could see soft-soled black boots. Whether it was the stress and fear of the situation or still the effects of the drugs, Sayid began to feel faint.
    Corentin walked past the hospital trolley for another ten paces until he reached the end of the corridor. Turning back, he hesitated at the mortuary door. He was a man who had seen a lot of violent death, and been responsible for some of it, something which demanded energy and aggression, but a mortuary was a silent place where the spirits of the dead lingered. Old superstitions. Perhaps an unconscious fear of knowing that one day he would lie on a cold slab while a pathologist began the ritual cutting to determine how he had died. Knife, gun, explosion. What would it be? He didn’t think about it. It didn’t matter. But a mortuary …
    Corentin eased open the door and smelled the sickly sweet aroma of embalming fluid and whatever else these doctors of death used. He looked quickly. Stainless-steel cabinets, a trolley and a body.
    OK. Clear. He backed out. His instincts screamed a warning. He’d let a stupid childish fear absorb his concentrationand now someone was behind him. He whirled around, the automatic in his hand even before he’d completed his turn, already leveled to shoot the silent intruder.
    “It’s me!” his partner hissed, arms half raised.
    Corentin dropped his aim. “Thierry. For God’s sake!”
    The two men had worked together for a dozen years, each as well trained as the other. “You’re getting twitchy in your old age,” his friend said. “Anything?”
    “No. You?”
    “There’s underground parking back there. This place has lousy security. You’d think in this day and age—”
    Corentin interrupted him. “Did you see either of those kids?”
    “Not a sign. It’s a fool’s errand. What could they know?”
    “Enough to give us what we want. Let’s get out of here. We’ll call it in. The trail’s gone cold.”
    Corentin followed his partner through the swing doors, but not before sliding the bolt home on the mortuary door.
    Let the spirits of the dead stay where they belong, he thought.
    Max waited. The low, muted voices he had heard speaking in French were indistinct. He heard the bolt slam home, then the swing doors swish open and closed. He lay still for another couple of minutes, just in case it was a clever trap to lure them out, before tossing the sheet aside.
    His heart had thudded as solidly as the bolt when Corentin had rammed it across the door, but he still tugged at the handle in hope. It didn’t move.
    Max tapped, still wary of being heard. “Sayid. I’m locked in. Sayid?” he called softly. He listened. Nothing. Theycouldn’t have snaffled Sayid, could they? Suddenly gagged him and bundled him out?
    Max pulled the trolley to the door, toed down the wheel locks and clambered on top. He could see the other trolley through the half-open fanlight. There was no sign of the two men. “Sayid!” he hissed, louder this time. Once again he listened and, frightening as the man pursuing