Hunt at World's End by Gabriel Hunt Page B

“We have to get out of here.”
    Noboru pulled hard against the ropes tying him to his chair, to no avail. “Any suggestions?”
    Gabriel eyed the table with the box on it. “One. But it depends on my getting over there.” He began rocking back and forth in his chair, tipping it farther and farther until it finally fell forward. He shifted as he fell so that he landed on his side. The jolt of the impact made the fresh cuts on his torso flare with pain again.
    He wriggled on the ground, making slow progress toward the table, dragging the chair with him. The strain it put on his shoulders made it feel like they would snap out of their sockets at any moment. He backed up against the table and knocked the chair into it as hard as he could. The wooden box on top shifted but didn’t fall. He hit the table again, gritting his teeth against the pain. The box jolted, crept closer to the edge. Looking up, he saw that it was within centimeters. He struck the table one more time. The box jumped, teetered on the edge. Come on, damn it …Itteetered on the table’s edge, then fell. He swung his head to the side and it smashed beside him, kicking off splinters. One nicked his ear as it shot past. Grissom’s ivory-handled dagger spilled out on the floor and rolled a yard or so. He rotated till it was in reach of one of his feet, then kicked it toward Noboru. The other man caught it between his boots.
    More shouting came from outside the tent. Gabriel could hear people running past, the crack of gunfire and the shuk of arrows landing in the mud. They had to hurry. All it would take was one cult member to stumble upon them, or one of Grissom’s men to catch them in the middle of an escape attempt, and they might as well have spent the time digging their own graves.
    “Turn it around,” he told Noboru. “The other way. Upright.” With the sides of his boot soles, Noboru turned the knife till it was pointing straight up. He steadied the pommel against the ground. Gabriel squirmed painfully back to him, angling himself so his back was to the blade. “Just hold it steady,” he said. “Despite the position we find ourselves in, I don’t really want to slit my wrists.” He started working the rope holding his arms together against the blade. The angle was difficult, and it hurt like hell to raise and lower his arms, but after half a minute he could feel the tension in the rope weakening.
    “Go faster,” Joyce called. “You’ve got to go faster.”
    Gabriel grimaced. It felt like his arms were about to break. He thrust the ropes against the blade savagely—again—once more—and suddenly his hands were free. He threw the rope off to either side and scrambled to his feet. He grabbed the knife and pressed the hidden button. The extra blades snapped into view. He used their razor edges to make short work of the ropes holding Noboru and Joyce to their chairs.
    “We’ve got to get the Star back,” she said, rubbing circulation back into her wrists.
    “The only problem,” Gabriel said, “is that there’s a battlefield between us and wherever Grissom’s got it. Assuming he’s not lying facedown in the mud.” We should be so lucky. Gabriel crossed to the tent flap, stepping over the dead guard, and pulled it back an inch to peer out. It was chaos outside, with Grissom’s men running back and forth, shouting and firing their weapons. Everywhere, the feathered ends of arrows stuck up out of the ground like tire spikes. One of Grissom’s men ran past, pistol in hand, shooting at a target Gabriel couldn’t see, and then an arrow hit him in the back. The man fell forward, his body skidding to a halt in the mud. The arrow had come from the direction of the jungle. Aside from the one cult member he’d seen running past the tent, it looked like the others were hanging back and trying to pick off Grissom’s men from the trees. There was no sign of Grissom himself, or of Julian.
    “I can’t see much from here,” he said. “We