This drug really did give a horrible sensation. He couldn't move, but he knew what was going on. He would be aware of every moment before he died.

Then his super-sensitive hearing picked up another sound. The men were coming back.

31.

THE C CAVE.

The breeze brought a scent of salt. They must be very near the coast. Amber saw the lighted area of ground in front of her dip away. She weighed it up. The surface was rocky, but the quad's tyres could cope. She threw it down the slope and leaned back.

Alex lay back too. He bounced in the seat, his knuckles smashing against the metal housing underneath it.

At last they levelled out. Amber braked and cut the engine. Far off they heard the beat of a helicopter.

Alex shone his torch on the ground. He was hoping to see tyre tracks, but the beach was pebbly. He checked the palmtop. They had come out almost to where the Kyle met the sea. He looked up and, in the distance, back towards the land, the bridge crossing the Kyle showed up like a dark bar against the moonlit clouds.

Alex's torch picked out a shape. He grabbed Amber's arm. 'They're still here.'

As Amber's eyes adjusted she recognized it. The Range Rover.

They hopped off the quad and hunkered down in the shadows. It wasn't much cover but it was better than nothing. Alex dialled the police, mentally thanking Hex for setting it up as a satellite phone.

The palmtop gave two bleeps and the screen light went out. Amber swore. 'It's out of batteries.'

'That's all we need,' sighed Alex. 'Of course, it would have been too convenient to be able to whistle up a heli.'

A sound made them catch their breath. Alex slipped the palmtop into his pocket and they listened, ready to flee.

But the noise wasn't someone approaching. It was blows.

Amber looked around wildly. 'Where's it coming from?'

'I don't know.' Alex's mind worked rapidly, trying to work out what it was. A brutal sound, again and again. It made him think of wood being chopped; films he'd seen of seals being bludgeoned. But where was it coming from?

Amber looked right and left and ran to the Range Rover. She crouched in its shadow and flashed her torch around. But the only thing she saw was the sea and the dark rock wall.

Alex ran over to join her. Still the sound continued dull thud after dull thud coming out of the darkness like a sinister machine. But where was it?

Then they saw a flash of light on the sh.o.r.e, a little way away from the vehicle. It flickered and then disappeared.

'They're in a cave,' said Amber.

The sickening noise came again. What were they doing to Hex?

Alex felt fury rise in his throat like bile. 'Right, we do the car,' he said. 'They can't get away if it doesn't have tyres.' He went to the front wheel.

Amber grabbed him. 'Then that leaves them stranded here with us.'

Alex pulled away from her and squatted down.

Amber went round in front of him and took him by the shoulders. 'Listen. I've seen those men, they've got guns, they're vicious. If we let them get away we can help Hex if we're not too late... If they're stuck here they'll turn on us. Our only hope of helping Hex is if we stay alive.'

The sound stopped and a torch flashed around the beach.

Amber and Alex shrank back into the shadows. The men were coming back to the Range Rover. The noise of the helicopter circled close and then moved away.

'We'll go without lights,' said one of the men. 'That way they won't find us.'

They climbed in and started the engine. The tyres spun on the pebbles, then found a grip. The four-wheel drive roared, then took them up onto the moor and away.

Alex and Amber wasted no time. Keeping low, they ran from their hiding place to the area where they had seen the men. Yes, it was a cave.

Amber flashed her torch in. 'Hex?' she called. 'Hex! Tiff!'

The sound echoed back at her.

'Hex!' called Alex.

Trembling, Amber stepped into the cave. There were rocks scattered all over the floor. 'Hex! Tiff!'

The only answer was dripping water. Were they too late? Would they find Hex and Tiff beaten to death?

Amber walked towards the back of the cave. The floor became sandy, swallowing her boots. She went slowly, shining her torch in front of her feet. Then she found the shaft.

She shone her torch in. It glanced off something blue. A jumble of blue drums. 'Alex!' she called.

Alex picked his way over to her. The shaft was filled with chemical drums. A pair of eyes looked up from them, the nose barely above the water line.

'Tiff!' exclaimed Alex.

Tiff stared at him blankly. Was she alive?

Alex put his torch down on the edge of the shaft and reached for her. Tiff remained where she was, staring, silent, her expression unchanging.

'Amber, I think they're drugged. They can't move.'

Alex slipped into the water. It was full of drums. His feet touched them and they turned round like slippery b.a.l.l.s. He tried to push the surface ones aside but they hardly moved. They must have been weighed down with stones to stop them floating out if the shaft flooded to the top.

At least that explained what the noise was. It was the men throwing them in. They must have drugged Hex and Tiff, then dumped these barrels on top of them so that they would drown.

He reached Tiff and tilted her head back. She was breathing very shallowly. Right. Now he just had to get her out.

'Hex!' called Amber. She was searching every shadow between the drums, going over and over them, she still hadn't found him. Finally she spotted a pale patch.

Like Tiff, only his eyes and nose were poking out. He was nearly under the water.

Amber left her torch on the edge and slipped in.

'Watch these drums,' called Alex. With one arm he held Tiff under her shoulders. With the other he tried to push drums out of the way. His feet slipped and he thudded down on the drums.

Amber half walked, half waded through them. Her feet slipped from under her and she carried on on all fours. Hex looked at her. His eyes were open, but nothing moved. A barrel rolled under her shoulder and she crashed into the water on her side. It tasted sharp, tainted with the chemicals that had washed out of the barrels. She emerged, spitting. The cave resonated with hollow booms as Alex tried to fight his way out with Tiff.

Amber went the rest of the way sliding on her belly. She reached Hex. His dark eyes seemed alert but expressionless. She tilted his head back so that the mouth was uncovered but he didn't move. He was helpless. 'OK,' she muttered to herself. 'How are we going to get you out?'

She slipped down in the water and tried to pull at his shoulders. His short dark hair against her face smelled pungently chemical. She pulled again and he came up a little, but this wasn't going to be easy. He was strong and fit, and all that muscle made for a lot of weight.

Alex reached the edge of the shaft and pulled Tiff out. Her face looked up, lifeless. He put his ear down to her nose and mouth. She wasn't breathing any more.

Alex opened her mouth and checked. Her airway was clear. He took a deep breath, pinched her nose and tilted her head back for the kiss of life.

Amber pulled on Hex's shoulders again, but still he wouldn't move. She braced her feet on a drum and gave a good yank, but he was stuck. The drums rolled under her feet and she went crashing under him.

Amber kicked out to push herself up. The drum she had her feet on revolved and she slipped further down. That seemed to free Hex. He rolled, his broad back solid on top of her. She pushed up but there was nothing to spring off, just those rotating barrels. She flailed with her hands but the body was still on top of her. She opened her eyes she could see nothing and they stung with the tainted water. Her lungs were bursting. Her clawing hands met only Hex's unresponsive skin and more of those barrels.

Hex thought he had entered h.e.l.l. He knew Amber was stuck underneath him but he couldn't move to free her. If he hadn't been drugged, he could have rolled or got out of the way. He could have called to Alex, who was kneeling over Tiff, concentrating on getting her to breathe.

Hex couldn't feel Amber, but he could hear her. He could hear the m.u.f.fled sounds of her fists and legs pummelling on the barrels, as they uselessly rotated like ball bearings. She was slipping further in like a stick into quicksand.

The drumming was getting fainter. How long had she been under? If only he could move.

His confused brain gave him a reboot. Remember when you saw Alex on the drug. This might be another hallucination. His logical brain was trying to defend him, trying to keep him sane. He couldn't really be about to kill Amber. It must be something from his worst claustrophobic nightmare. She wasn't really going to die here, in this cave, trapped by his useless body.

Another voice sounded in his ear. 'Come on, you useless lump.'

Alex. He heaved at Hex's arm. Hex b.u.mped over the barrels like rollers on a conveyor belt. Beyond him he heard Amber explode to the surface.

Alex looked up into the sky. The helicopter beat through the air, circling. He tucked the waterproof matches back into his survival tin and put it in his pocket. A branch stood upright in the pebble beach, the top a plume of flame. With petrol from the quad bike and a T-shirt, Alex had made a distress signal.

Amber was paddling in the sea, washing the chemical tainted water off her skin. Tiff and Hex were lying on the pebbles, breathing in the cool night air.

The smoke caught Hex's throat and he coughed.

Amber looked at him crossly. 'Don't think you'll get the sympathy vote.'

Alex looked at the two prostrate figures. In the firelight they looked peaceful. 'At least whatever they've been given has kept them quiet.'

Hex couldn't have spoken even if he hadn't been drugged. He needed to think. He'd nearly killed Amber. Maybe he wasn't cut out for this game any more.

32.

AFTERMATH.

Hex sat on a bench in the police station, waiting to give his statement. In front of him, the doors to the four interrogation rooms were closed, red lights indicating that interviews were in progress. The top officers of the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency had been drafted in, and Amber, Alex, Paulo and Li were giving detailed statements.

The SDEA had been monitoring the situation ever since a routine check had picked up Paulo and Li's initial report to the local police about the gamekeepers with the pills on the moor. Now Alpha Force were giving them virtually a complete picture of the operation how the raw materials were stored in the lodge, transported to the factory on the moors inside deer carca.s.ses; how the finished pills were transported to the bothy for packaging when there was an order; and how orders were shipped out from a lonely part of the coast by boat. The SDEA estimated the factory must be turning out several thousand pills a week, each batch with a street value of thousands of pounds.

Every spare policeman in the area was working on the case. They were removing evidence from the factory. They were going through the storeroom at the lodge. They had already dredged the cave, excavating tonnes of stone-filled barrels. Plus something else. They had found a decomposing body, shot in the throat at point-blank range.

Hex heard a creak as the swing door opened. A WPC showed out a man with a silvered beard. He was walking very slowly, as if he had had shocking news.

'How long do you need to keep him for?' he was asking the WPC.

'No more than a few days. We're trying to get the coroner now. Once we've done the post-mortem and forensic examination we can release the body to you. You can start making funeral arrangements.'

The man nodded.

The WPC smiled sympathetically. 'It's not been a good holiday for you, has it, Mr Fletcher? The arson attack and now this.' She opened a door to show him through to reception.

Mr Fletcher. Martin Fletcher. Hex never forgot a name. Martin Fletcher was the hiker who had been trapped in the burning bothy with Alex and Paulo.

The two figures pushed out through the door into reception, leaving Hex alone with his thoughts again.

The light on one of the interrogation rooms went off and Alex came out. A plainclothes officer followed him with a clipboard. 'We'll be ready for you in five minutes,' he said to Hex.

Alex sat down beside Hex.

'You look pleased,' said Hex.

Alex was smiling. 'There's loads of evidence on the gamekeepers. The police think they were responsible for a factory in Glasgow a couple of years ago, but they shut up shop and scarpered. That Ivanovich guy is a real coup. He's Russian Mafia and he's been wanted for ages. And then there's the body in the cave.'

'Who was he?' Hex grimaced. 'I'd like to know who I was sharing my bath with.'

'His name's James Fletcher. He's a professor of astronomy. He was staying at a bed and breakfast in March and he disappeared. They never found his body. Until now. They think he stumbled on something and was executed.'

'James Fletcher... Martin Fletcher... they must be brothers.' Hex saw Alex's bemused expression and explained. 'Martin Fletcher's the guy you were trapped in the bothy with, right? I just saw him here now. He was identifying someone.'

It made sense. 'Oh yes. He mentioned he had a brother who used to come here. Poor guy.' Alex shuddered. They had all nearly joined him.

Hex's mind was on the same thing. 'I suppose the two thugs who tried to kill me and Tiff have gone free, though.'

A smile of triumph played over Alex's lips. 'No they haven't. Remember Paulo spent all that time tinkering with the Range Rover? The tracker had been disconnected. He got it working again. The police picked them up about an hour down the road.'

Hex laughed quietly to himself. 'That is stylish,' he said. 'Very stylish.' He'd enjoy giving the evidence that ensured they stayed behind bars.

'When you were in the lodge,' said Alex, 'did you get any evidence on the laird?'

Hex thought. 'We overheard one conversation with the gamekeepers and the two heavies.'