Free Sharp Shot by Jack Higgins Page A

hesitated, expecting the woman to stagger and clutch
at the handrail, and look as daft anddisorientated as she must have done.
    But she just kept running, like there was no problem. Like she’d been
trained for this sort of thing. Jade didn’t hesitate any longer.
    The corridor opened out into a platform area, with metal barriers to
guide the people into queues beside a set of rails in the floor. The rails
arrived from and disappeared into a low tunnel that looked like it was
hewn from solid rock. As Jade was debating which way to go down the
tunnel, there was a rumble of sound and a small carriage arrived.
    It was like a miniature horse-drawn open-topped carriage, only with
no horse. A swirl of mist puffed out from under its wheels so that it
seemed almost to float along its track. The sides were daubed with swirls
of luminous paint. When the carriage stopped beside the platform, Jade
climbed in without a second thought.
    The carriage didn’t move. The sound of the woman’s footsteps echoed
down the corridor. Her shadow fell distorted across the platform where
Jade had been standing. Jade was trapped.
    Then the carriage gave an unsteady lurch and started to move off. The
woman skidded to a halt on the platform area, and Jade ducked down, but
behindher, she could hear the faint rumble of another carriage arriving.
    Jade wasn’t sure if the woman had seen her, but she had to assume so.
There wasn’t really anywhere else she could have gone. The carriage was
moving steadily, and a locking bar had come down over her legs so it would
be hard to get out. Not that there was anywhere to go, as the carriage was
running through the rocky tunnel. Jade’s best hope was to get to the other
end of this ride, then make a run for it before the woman could get out of
her own carriage.
    She could see the tunnel ending up ahead. A spray of mist drifted
down from the roof forming a curtain. It was cold and clammy against
Jade’s face and she blinked it away.
    When she opened her eyes again, she almost screamed. A pirate was
coming at her. A black patch covered one of the pirate’s eyes, while the
other was an empty socket. His clothes were ragged and torn, his bony
hands clutching a rusty cutlass that curved through the air towards Jade.
    At the last moment it stopped. The pirate figure swayed at the end of
its mechanism before being hauled back to lunge again at the next
carriage.
    â€œThere’s a seriously sick mind behind this ride,” Jade
muttered. Rich would love it, she thought. But it wasn’t her sort of thing
at all. Past the zombie pirate, Jade could see she was now travelling
through a foggy graveyard. Tombstones leaned at drunken angles, chipped
and cracked. Two spades were stuck in a mound of earth by a freshly dug
grave.
    With the fog swirling round the fake grass and polystyrene monuments,
this might be her best chance of escape. Jade hauled herself out from
under the locking bar, scraping her knees painfully. She glanced back,
waiting until the fog seemed even deeper, then jumped from the small
carriage.
    The ground was hard—wooden. Jade stifled a cry of pain, and kept
low so she was wreathed by the smoky mist. She crawled quickly away into
the cemetery, and slumped behind the largest tombstone she could find.
    The rails curved round, snaking through the graveyard area to get
maximum use from it. Jade’s empty carriage was soon passing close by, and
she realised there wouldn’t be much cover when the next carriage passed—
the woman would have a clear view of Jade crouching behind the grave
stone.
    Except that when the carriage did go past a few moments later, it was
also empty. The woman had gone.
    Jade almost stood up in surprise, but immediately realised that
wouldn’t be a good idea, and instead pressed herself low to the damp,
misty ground. The woman must be out in the graveyard too—looking for
Jade. She crawled after the carriages, keeping as low to