Jani and the Greater Game (The Multiplicity Series Book 1) by Eric Brown Read Free Book Online Page A

chatting casually among themselves, and Jani would have loved to know what they were talking about. Were they homesick for a bleak Moscow, or missing their sweethearts, or crowing at the British deaths their actions had brought about?
    The footsteps came closer. She held her breath, drawing in her stomach and hoping the thickness of her dress might conceal any inadvertent movement. She thought then that an eagle-eyed soldier might notice the ticking pulse at her throat – but there was little she could do about that now.
    She only hoped that Lady Eddington would play her part and keep still.
    The Russians’ conversation seemed only yards away. She could smell the reek of cheap cigarettes, and then a waft of body odour. A Russian soldier laughed and the sunlight – showing venous red through her closed eye-lids – was blotted out as he stepped between her and the midday sun.
    The shadow remained, and Jani wondered if the Russian was looking down on her, examining her wound, wondering why it appeared not quite right ... Or was he standing with his back to her, examining the ‘corpse’ of the dowager?
    She longed to open her eyes, quell her curiosity, but knew that to do so might spell her death.
    She heard another round of gunshots, a long way off, and it was all she could do to prevent herself from giving an involuntary start.
    At long last the shadow moved away from her, and the red light resumed.
    She heard the scraping of metal and wondered what the soldiers were doing now. She heard the sound of conversation, not far off. The odour of tobacco wafted her way again. Unable to stop herself, she fluttered open her right eye minimally.
    The soldiers were ten yards away; they had righted a chaise longue and an armchair and were sitting down to finish their cigarettes.
    She could not help herself; unbidden, a tear escaped her right eye and slid down her cheek.
    Whether it was the tear that betrayed her, or Lady Eddington’s sudden, small indrawn breath, she would never know.
    She heard a Russian exclamation, and hurried footsteps, and then someone kicked her in the ribs and she cried out in pain and opened her eyes. Lady Eddington screamed as another soldier assaulted her; a third, she saw, was kicking at the corpse of Mr Gollalli in an attempt to discern if the dead film-maker were part of the duplicity.
    Terrified, Jani scrambled over to the old lady and they held each other as the Russian soldiers bent down, picked something from the ground, and passed it around with quizzical comments: one of Mr Gollalli’s fake wounds.
    Then the trio faced Jani and the dowager, and their grins were almost identical: venal and libidinous, and accompanied by a look in their eyes that Jani would never forget.
    They whispered to each other, staring at her exposed chest, and Jani was too petrified to move a hand and cover herself.
    “Be brave, child,” Lady Eddington murmured, then cleared her throat and addressed the soldiers.
    “I doubt whether you speak English, so I am reduced to employing your mother tongue. H’hem...” She stared at the soldiers and spoke a short sentence in Russian.
    In an aside to Jani, she said, “I’ve asked to speak to their commanding officer.”
    The tallest of the soldiers grinned, then laughed uproariously and said something to his comrades. The trio laughed with him.
    He knelt so that he was level with Lady Eddington and said deliberately, “I speak a little English. Our orders, to kill all who survive the crash. But my commanding officer... he say nothing about... how you say... having a little fun?” He turned to his comrades and smiled. “But first of all,” said the soldier, “we kill the old lady.”
    He stood, drew a revolver – prolonging the torture by checking that the chamber was fully loaded – then stood back and raised the weapon.
    Jani wept, too frightened to move a muscle.
    Lady Eddington, fixing the soldier with her steely gaze, recited, “The Lord is my shepherd...”
    Jani