Giant Killer. John McNally

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      FEBRUARY 19 17:48 (GMT+3). Carpathian Mountains, Romania-Ukraine border

      As she crested the Kalamatov Ridge, Carla fell to her knees. Just like Baptiste had done, just like many a pilgrim in times past, at first sight of the Monastery of Mount St Demetrius of Thessaloniki.

      Against the brilliant orange of the setting sun, perched on top of a thousand feet of sheer white cliff, was a ruined cluster of ancient buildings, a nest of towers and tiles and a once-golden dome, tipped with the Orthodox cross. It was, in its way, magnificent, a crown of thorns on a snaggletooth of limestone, and only madmen could have built such a place.

      “What is that?” asked Finn from the crow’s nest of Carla’s hair. There was not a whiff of smoke or any other sign of life.

      “A Holiday Inn?” breathed Carla. “I don’t know, but if we want to get through the night alive, we better check in …”

      “You’re not serious! How would you even get up there?” asked Finn.

      “We’ve got to get out of this wind. Baptiste may have been a psychopath, but he was heat, body heat, and when we crawled into a snow hole, that’s what kept us alive.”

       Yap! Yap!

      “What was that?” Finn said, and held his breath to better listen through the wind.

       Yap!

      Carla looked back to the ridge.

      “I knew he’d make it!” said Finn.

      “YO-YO! HERE! HERE, BOY!” cried Carla.

       Yap!

      Over the ridge shot a spray of finest pink-sunset snow, a skittering cloud – and at its centre, an effervescent black scribble: a bounding, dishevelled, filthy, injured, exhausted, idiot of a dog.

      “YO-YO!” cried Carla.

      “YOYOYOYOYO!” yodelled Finn.

      Yo-yo danced and circled, fearful of any trace of Baptiste, but Carla laughed and called his name and finally he came to her, yapping and wagging and loving the Finn-ness of her. Where his master had disappeared to nearly a year before was a mystery beyond Yo-yo’s tiny brain, but not beyond his quite brilliant sense of smell.

      Carla collapsed in the snow and submitted herself to an assault of licks and kisses. “Good dog. Smelly dog.”

      “Warm dog,” Finn said. “You can snuggle up in a snow hole with him. We can make it down the valley in the morning. There must be some kind of settlement serving that place. We’re almost ho—”

      He bit back the word “home”. It was too much. The thought of speaking, actually saying something, to Al and Grandma … There was an emotional avalanche banked tight in his chest and this was no time to let it sweep him away.

      “…Almost there,” was all he could manage.

      But Carla wasn’t listening to Finn. She had noticed something on Yo-yo’s collar.

      “Wait a minute – there’s something here.”

      Yo-yo’s collar was as filthy as the rest of him, but on one side of it was a lump.

      “What is that?” said Finn. He crawled out of the thick of her hair to dangle from the curl at her forehead again as she rubbed away some of the muck. It was some kind of plastic cylinder attached to the collar, the size of a large battery.

      “They sent him into the Forbidden City to try and find us! It’s a tracker! It must be!” said Finn.

      “Why haven’t they been tracking us then?” said Carla.

      She found the catch and took the whole collar off. “Maybe it ran out of power?” she said, examining it more carefully. “Or maybe it’s not a tracker. Maybe it’s some kind of comms device, or—”

      But before she got any further …

       YAP!

      Yo-yo was off his haunches, nose high in the frozen air, stump of a tail curled like a tongue in concentration.

      “Bear …?” asked Carla, fear returning.

      “No,” said Finn, hearing a distant buzz. “Machines …? PEOPLE!”

      Carla shoved the dog collar into her top and scrambled down the steep snowfield, Yo-yo bounding ahead of her, crossing the tree line and disappearing into the forest.

      “BE CAREFUL!” yelled Finn.

      “Yo-yo, come back here!” ordered Carla and the dog yapped back, already lost.

      She ran into the forest after him, the last rays of the setting sun needling through the pines to light the dog’s progress through the snow. The further Carla ran, the darker it got, but the more they could hear the noise – engines, definitely the sound of engines, somewhere ahead.

       Yap!

      “Yo-yo!” said Carla, changing direction, heading for the bark, till …

      “ARRRGGHHHH!” – the ground fell away. Nothingness. She shot out a hand and grabbed a sapling, then clung on hard and closed her eyes and felt the tiny tree take her weight, its roots clinging to the earth.

      She gasped. Her eyes adjusted and she saw she’d just saved herself from running straight off a steep drop.

      Yo-yo appeared and yapped at her, as if she was an idiot.

      “No more short cuts,” said Finn at her ear, then before she’d had time СКАЧАТЬ