I'm standing at the head of the beach, just staring. Caught unawares by the smell of the sea, by the cold, wet hardness of the air. For the tiniest, most insignificant moment it drives the terror from my head. Exhausted and hurting and scared as I am, all I'm thinking is this: if I have to die, let it be here. Let it be now. Let this be the last thing I see.
But the moment doesn't last.
The chucking noise of the helicopter seems to press down on me like a physical weight, and it's there again, rounding over the tree line like a malignant insect. The spotlight lances down onto the beach, sweeping unstoppably towards me. I don't even have time to move before I'm skewered. Blinded and deafened in one hectic moment. I raise my hands, still bound, to shield myself from the glare. And in that fragment of an instant I have a clear view of the helicopter. A clear view of the man who sits in the gunner's seat.
My breath catches in my throat. I want to scream. To cry. To run far away and hide like a frightened animal. There's no mistaking that man, even at this distance, helmeted and armoured. I've seen him staring down at me too many times before, that careful little smile hovering on his lips. Watching as they tortured me with the casual air of a man just out for dinner.
It's Ingleman. He's smiling. He's raising a gun, and shouting to the pilot to get lower, lower.
Without even thinking, I take off down the beach, running crazily, the sand jumping in plumes behind me. I slip and slide in the sand, fall and roll over and get up. I plunge bodily into the foam. The cold punches me in the stomach and I pull myself through the surf with my manacled arms, kicking like a beached fish until there's nothing below my feet but water. Water sloshing over my head, filling my mouth with salt. I strike out and I don't stop, kicking and digging at the water as much to stay afloat as to get away. And then at last the tide takes me, and I can let myself float. Float until the beach is no longer visible in the dark and the helicopter and Ingleman are nothing more than a pin-bright dot in the sky, and all around me is water and cold and black.
