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“Why?”

“Because there is always the risk that we lead these people to them. They may follow us.”

“What do you mean ‘follow us’? We are following them!”

“Right now we are, but as soon as we go off in a different direction we open up the possibility of being spotted and tracked.”

“Then we just make sure we aren’t spotted,” Steph shrugged.

Davey looked at Kelvin who chewed the skin on his knuckle as he pondered.

“I think Davey is right. It might not be such a good idea.”

“We need to findthemfirst,” Davey said.

“Why?”

“Because we don’t know who we’re dealing with,” Davey replied. “We don’t know who these people are, only that they’re dangerous. We don’t know whether they know what they aredoing in terms of the animals or whether they have been hired for… other reasons.”

“Either way,” Kelvin added, “if they were to kill us all, take the animals or whatever, they would get away. That we can be sure of. They’ll be backed by money and will have their escape route all ready to execute at the drop of a hat.”

“So we need to find these guys,” Davey said. “Then once we know what we’re dealing with, we might be able to go and warn the others.”

Steph could see the logic in it all. Or at least she thought she could. It sounded convincing enough in the moment and she supposed that was enough.

“Right then,” Steph said. “I suppose we had best get going.”

She pulled back on the accelerator of the quad bike.

THIRTY-NINE

Tracking the truck was easy enough. Despite the clear day, the ground was still drenched from the night before, so the tyres left long imprints in the mud. They finally found the truck at the foot of the small ben. Davey insisted they get off the quad bikes and leave them deeper in the clump of trees from which they were emerging. They were some distance off, but Davey made sure they remained hidden. From what Steph could see, this was a sensible decision.

Although she didn’t have her binoculars – they were lying on a table in her room in the house – she could see that the men had rifles suited to hitting targets over long distances. They may have been a couple of hundred metres away, but it was not so much that a good shot could not have taken a target. Steph doubted that the tranquillizer rifles would be able to offer the same back. Nor would Davey’s revolver from that far away.

The truck they had been driving lay some twenty paces behind them. What was instantly noticeable about this truck was that it was clearly no run-of-the-mill transport vehicle – this was a bespoke piece of machinery. It looked more like an oversized pickup truck with the back covered over. Its paintwork was black and shiny and spattered with mud up the sides. Its windows were blacked out. Its tyres were designed for rough terrain.

“Someone has money to burn,” Kelvin whispered.

Steph stifled her response about irony and continued watching the men. What were they doing? Had they spotted the cave bear?

One man had a rifle held loosely in his hand. The other had his with the butt against his shoulder, holding it lazily with one arm. Then, all of a sudden, his other arm came up and he gripped the gun far more seriously. He trained an eye down its length. Stephturned her head slightly to try and work out what exactly he had seen.

Out of the bushes trundled a bear. It wasn’t the cave bear, but it was still a sizable creature. It came out slowly at first, a deep guttural growl carried on the breeze to Steph’s ears. When the two men didn’t back away, it went onto its hind legs. Then the shallow valley filled with a single reverberating crack, and the bear was no more. For a moment, both men stood holding their pose. Then they simply turned and got back in the vehicle, not even bothering to look back at the bear lying dead on the ground, blood dribbling from its muzzle.

“Bastards,” Davey spat.

“It tells us a few things though,” Steph said. “They don’t know where the cave bear is, and they don’t give a damn about life… as long as it doesn’t belong to them.”

“Also, there are only two of them,” Kelvin said. Steph turned her head. “One is obviously more competent with a rifle – the heavier, chubbier of the two – and the other seems to be more wary as he kept nervously jerking his head. Their vehicle is custom-made for this job, so they are being bankrolled by someone who knew what I was doing here – I assume Michael must have been in contact for a while. Most important for us is that they can be distracted. They are not the professionals that their employer thought they had hired, which is why they took some time out for what I am sure they considered ‘big game hunting’. It seems they are willing to drive around until they find what they want, but that limits their ability to actually achieve their goal. The question is: how do we use all this?”

Kelvin began to bite his lower lip in concentration, a slight snarl etching his face. Steph just blinked and looked in the direction of where the truck had gone. She was surprised that Kelvin had taken so much in. She’d not noticed the glances of the other man. Nor had she considered the callous act of killingone of the animals unnecessarily a distraction. She supposed there was a reason that Kelvin had become successful. It made her wonder why he had made such a mess of his current project. Perhaps he had simply overreached and been blinded by his own ambition. Whatever the case, she was curious to hear his plan now.

FORTY

Steph was relieved to find the first part of the new plan involved going to the cabin where Roger and the others were. There was a part of her that wondered whether it was sensible to use up the battery on two of their few resources, but that was outweighed by checking on the safety of the others.

“Well, why are we staying here if two gun-wielding maniacs are running around?” Calum snapped from the sofa.