Empire of Gold

and claw the fingers of his right hand into the grated floor.

The catwalk was tilted at a seventy-degree angle. Eddie pulled himself higher, shrugging his left arm out of his ruined jacket and finding a secure hold with that hand before tugging the other sleeve inside out to free himself. Something dropped from one of the pockets.

His father’s business card, still in its evidence bag. It landed in the fire and was instantly incinerated.

He would go the same way if he didn’t move fast. The grillwork cutting into his fingers, he hauled himself up until he could stand on the support, and looked round. An intact section of the walkway was six feet away in one direction; in the other . . .

Kit hung from the catwalk’s edge, his feet closer to the flame jet than Eddie’s had been. He struggled to climb, but couldn’t get a firm enough grip.

His panicked eyes met Eddie’s.

The Englishman hesitated, looking across to the nearby catwalk, and safety . . . then he stepped across to the next stanchion to reach Kit.

Ears ringing, Nina sat up to see a spear of fire at least a hundred feet high roaring into the dark sky. Smaller blazes were already spreading across the pumping station as debris fell all around like burning hailstones.

She heard a shriek, and whipped round to find Macy clutching her thigh where she had been struck by a piece of smouldering shrapnel. ‘Macy, get out of here!’ Nina shouted, waving towards the gate – where she saw the taxi rapidly making a skidding turn as the driver fled.

‘What about Eddie? And Kit?’

‘Just go!’ She stood, flinching as another chunk of pipe smacked down nearby, then started back towards the ladder.

To her horror, she saw that a section of catwalk had partially collapsed – and someone was hanging from it over a searing fire. Kit. A moment of sickening fear – where was Eddie ? – then she made out her husband through the broken walkway’s gridwork floor.

He was moving towards Kit. Was he going to rescue him, or. . .

She scurried up the ladder, recoiling from the heat at the top. A security camera watched her. The pipeline’s operators had to know by now that something was badly wrong, and be trying to stop the flow of gas.

Unless they couldn’t.

The fires were spreading, getting closer to the gas tanks. If one exploded, it would take the others with it, obliterating the entire area.

‘Eddie!’ she cried. But he didn’t hear. ‘Eddie!’

Kit finally got a firm hold on the grating. He dragged himself up, looking for anything that would assist his climb.

A small pipe to one side, connecting two larger conduits running from the pump. He shifted his weight towards it, finding a foothold – and something else.

Stikes’s gun was wedged between the two main pipes, just within reach.

Despite the danger, he was thinking one step beyond immediate self-preservation. He still had to protect his cover. Which meant he still had to deal with Eddie—

A foot on the stanchion. Eddie loomed over him.

Kit made his decision – and grabbed the gun.

Nina hurried along the catwalk, holding up her arms to shield her face from the almost unbearable heat. Her eyes stung - she rubbed them and blinked, seeing Eddie standing over Kit—

Eddie was about to reach down to Kit when he realised the Indian’s hand was already moving. Not towards him, but to something under the catwalk, nickel glinting on the steel pipes . . .

Stikes’s Jericho, now in Kit’s hand.

The Indian twisted his wrist, aiming the pistol upwards—

Eddie’s foot snapped out, catching Kit hard in the face. Blood sprayed from the Indian’s nose, shock causing him to lose his grip. He fell.

Into the fire.

For a fraction of a second, Eddie saw his expression in the inferno’s light, a mixture of pain and anger and terror – then he was gone, vaporised by the fury of the escaping flame. The Jericho dropped with him, vanishing into the fire.

He turned, starting back towards the intact section of catwalk - and saw Nina standing there, staring at him in utter disbelief.

Even in the searing heat, Nina somehow felt cold, as if her blood had been replaced by icy water. Her mind refused to accept what her eyes had just witnessed. It couldn’t have happened. It couldn’t!

But it had. Eddie had just climbed over to the helpless, flailing Kit . . . and kicked him to his death.

He came closer, the stanchions shuddering under his weight. ‘Give me a hand!’ he called as he reached the end of the broken section and tried to clamber up. She didn’t move. ‘Nina!’

She broke out of her freeze and pulled him up. ‘Oh God, what did you do? What did you do? ’