Hunted by James Patterson Page A

listened.
    ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Use a silencer.’

PART THREE

CHAPTER 23
    ‘YOU’LL NEED TO sleep in your overalls tonight,’ Claire had told him.
    He’d looked sharply at her. ‘It’s happening tomorrow, then? Saturday?’
    ‘Your weekend starts here,’ she’d said brightly.
    Sure enough, Shelley awoke with a knee in his chest and arms pinning his legs. Before he could move, his wrists were cuffed with a strange-looking pair of handcuffs.
    He stood and Claire led him out of the bedroom and into the living area. Two of the security men busied themselves putting on his boots.
    ‘What are these?’ he asked Claire, raising his hands.
    ‘Cool, aren’t they? Electronic handcuffs. You might say they have an interesting unlocking mechanism.’
    Surreptitiously he moved his hands inside the bracelets. Thank God they weren’t done up too tight. These he could negotiate.
    ‘Why do you need them?’
    ‘I’m sorry,’ she said cheerfully, ‘it’s just procedure – nothing personal. You’ll be handcuffed until the hunt begins.’
    ‘Are you going to be the one doing the un-handcuffing?’
    ‘’Fraid not. You’ll be on your own in the woods by then. The handcuffs will be detonated. That’s the interesting unlocking mechanism I was talking about. Kerboom! When it happens, try to keep your hands as far from the centre of the cuffs as possible.’
    ‘Will it hurt?’
    She pulled a face. ‘The explosion is mostly internal, but yes, it will hurt a little.’
    They formed a procession to a waiting people carrier with blacked-out windows. Handcuffs, but no blindfold , thought Shelley as he settled in with Claire beside him, security men taking the other seats.
    ‘So what happens now?’ he asked.
    ‘You sit back and enjoy the ride.’ She looked at her watch. ‘We’ll be there in approximately two hours.’
    ‘And where’s there ?’
    ‘Questions, questions. A country estate hired by The Quarry Company is the answer, home for the weekend. Things will be getting a little wild.’
    ‘And I’m the main attraction?’
    She arched an eyebrow. ‘Don’t get ideas above your station. You’re one of the attractions. But there can be no hunt celebrations without a hunt to celebrate. So you are indeed crucial to the weekend’s entertainment.’
    ‘Sounds interesting.’
    ‘Oh, things are about to get very interesting.’
    Two hours later they came to a set of ornate gates guarded by two men in black combat trousers and bomber jackets. The sentriescarried MP5 assault rifles and wore comms devices at their throats, though one of them relayed the arrival of the people carrier using a walkie-talkie, while the other one conducted a TSCM bug-sweep of the vehicle, greeting Claire by name.
    Then they were allowed through, taking a long approach road up an incline to the grounds, where beautifully manicured lawns swept down to a treeline. As they climbed, Shelley’s gaze went to what looked like miles and miles of woodland.
    The kill zone.
    On the front lawn of the stately home was the whole circus. A Hughes 500 personnel helicopter sat on the grass with its rotors drooping. Not far away stood a huge operations van, staffed by techs wearing headphones.
    Meanwhile, the players stood in groups, attended to by butlers in black suits offering sherry, champagne and nibbles. Some were dressed in traditional country tweed, the Savile Row country-gent look, and others in ostentatious combat garb, as though attending a military fancy-dress party. Shelley even saw one man smearing camouflage stick on his face.
    All for little old me , he thought, and did a headcount. Twenty-five. They would have to be divided into squads, deployed in some kind of grid formation to minimise the risk of shooting each other.
    Also there were clusters of security men, like the ones at the gate. Christ! He counted thirty. He hadn’t expected that, but it made sense. Each player would have his own personal bodyguard. After all, The Quarry Company