“Or just open fire and bring it down on our heads.”
“Well, aye, but let’s be optimistic.”
They were properly climbing now. They passed a square of foundation stones for a long-extinct outbuilding and clambered over a stone wall. The chopper would be on them in minutes.
He ushered her inside the keep, watching out the archway as the chopper neared. He’d once snogged a girl in here, an English bridesmaid he’d enticed away from a wedding at the country house on the promise of showing her the castle. A different life.
“Is this the keep?”
“Aye,” he said, his gaze on the chopper. No searchlight.
“There’s no roof.”
“What?”
She was right. The damn roof had caved. Not a stone of cover left.
“We could duck down in the corner,” she said. “There’s a lot of rubble. If we stay still they might not see us.”
“They’ve got thermal.”
“Thermal imaging?”
“Without cover, we’re pretty much glow-in-the-dark.”
“Could we hide under something? Our coats?”
“Fabric will warm up with our body heat.” He spun the rucksack off and pulled out the dinghy’s emergency kit. Two survival blankets.
“Please tell me they’re magic carpets.”
He dumped the rucksack in a corner and covered it with flagstones. “Next best thing.”
“Invisibility cloaks?”
“Pretty much just two big sheets of tinfoil. But I’ve heard that these things can hide a heat signature—as long as our bodies aren’t warming them up.”
“I don’t think I have much of a heat signature right now.”
“Help me stack these fallen stones. Make a ranger grave. We’ll cover it with the blankets. As long as they’re not touching us we might be okay.”
The chopper’s blades thudded, its engine straining. They piled rocks into two parallel rows, leaving a trench just wide enough for two people, just high enough to leave a decent gap between them and the blankets.
“Get in,” he shouted over the roaring chopper.
She lay down and he made a roof with the blankets, weighing them with rocks on either side. He slid in next to her, on his side. His shoulder screamed. He was leaning on it but was wedged too tightly to move. He shifted closer to her—if that were possible—but it didn’t help. She was also on her side, not a millimeter between them from top to toe. It was smaller than he’d thought. The stone against his back and side was so cold it felt wet, but her warm breath teased his neck. If this was his last moment, he should be kissing her, at the very least. The air shook with the disturbance from the machine. Its thud turned to a whine as it swept overhead. The downdraft lifted a corner of the blanket. Jamie grabbed it. A risk, but better that than the whole thing flying off. His hand was so cold he could hardly feel it.
And he’d thought it risky to lure a bridesmaid from a wedding before the toasts.
The chopper swept away, then back, and hovered right above, pinging pebbles against the walls. Jamie closed his eyes and hoped. Samira’s hand rested on his hip. It felt like forgiveness. Or absolution before death.
Would the crew bother identifying their target before they opened fire? What kind of hikers would spend a night up here this time of year, when they could be at the pub at the next loch?
The chopper moved off, its thuds bouncing off the ancient stone walls.
“Do you think it worked?” she whispered, as the sound receded.
“Are you still alive?”
