Authors: Margaret Duffy
We traversed the picnic site and set off along a so-called wilderness trail signposted “To Bear Mountain.” Now I simply dare not allow the vehicle in front to appear within my sight. The trees thinned to a few scraggy spruce and fir and then as we climbed higher came to an end. I soon realised that this had nothing to do with altitude when I noticed a few blackened and rotting stumps here and then. The trees of the upland had been destroyed by fire.
I braked to a standstill and slowly counted up to fifty before I set off again. There seemed nothing to worry about. The bleeper was still loud and clear. I crept at stalling speed over a rise and surveyed a landscape devoid of life, the trail winding gently down to a valley floor, once again thickly wooded. In between the trees I could see the glint of water, almost certainly the Upper Salmon River.
A covered bridge spanned it. Just like a barn and constructed of hefty timbers it set up alarming booming echoes as the pick-up rumbled over the slatted floor. I passed a camp site with a couple of parked trailers and a tent though not a person in sight, and then the trail entered a gully, its steep sides host to magnificent spruce of such evenness of size that they looked like a green army petrified in mid-stride.
The gully opened out into a natural amphitheatre some two hundred yards across. At least it struck me at first that the phenomenon was natural but when I looked around more carefully it occurred to me that it was an old mine, the heaps of spoil, now overgrown, forming the sides. The Buick was stationary over on the far side, with no sign of Patrick and Fraser. I reverse into a glade and parked on the far side of a thicket.
I sat at the base of a tree overlooking the open space and for ten minutes it seemed that not even an insect moved. Then, somewhere behind me, a blue jay uttered its harsh whistling alarm call. I kept quite still, recalling what I had read about the birds in a book at Ravenscliff. Blue jays are afraid of very little, the shrill intensity of their calls tending to drive away small predators and even man.
Small predators wouldn’t be snapping twigs the way this intruder was.
Keeping to the cover of the scrub covering the spoil heaps, I moved off, going as quickly as possible without making much noise. But the ground was dry and covered with fir cones and twigs that crunched and crackled as I trod on them. So I headed right to the top of one of the mounds of spoil, more intent now on warning Patrick of possible danger than anything else.
Once at the top I threw aside all caution and ran down the other side. A gentle wooded slope lay in front of me, the trees more mature, a path of sorts, more like a game trail, winding through them. But almost blocking my way was a gigantic rock. I had noticed several similar and from the way they were rounded and smooth knew them to be glacial debris. This one uncannily resembled an enormous doughnut. There were even flecks of marble on the surface that looked like sugar.
I carefully picked my way over the spiny plants that were growing around the stone and once on the other side, at the point where the path began, paused. There was no point in blundering around wildly and I had no means of knowing if Patrick and Fraser had come this way. Not for the first time in several weeks I found myself unsure of what was going on in Patrick’s mind. Why had he come here? Was he waiting for something to happen? Or the someone I had heard in the trees?
I don’t like playing cat and mouse especially when I’m not sure who is in which role. Just then, and with a suddenness that made my skin crawl, Leander Hurley stepped from out of the trees right in front of me and on to the trail.
“One sound,” he said to me, “and I promise I’ll shoot.” He walked towards me slowly, not lowering the rifle by so much as an inch.
“I’m not armed,” I told him, but nevertheless he turned me round to face the rock, made me put my arms over my head and searched me diligently for weapons. Finally I was allowed to face him again.
“Congratulations on being so quiet,” I said.
“It helps to know the terrain,” he answered. “Where are they?”
“You mean you didn’t overtake me?”
“No, I came up from the other side,” he replied irritably.
“Answer the question.”
“Someone was right behind me just now.”
“If you —”
“Violence doesn’t work with me,” I broke in. “I go all weepy and bloody stubborn if people get rough.”
No, he had never met a woman like me before.
I continued, “I’ve no idea where they are or what’s going on. I wish I did, and also that you’d point that rifle somewhere else. We are on the same side, after all.”
“Then what is Gillard doing out here with Fraser?” he ground out.
I stared him down and after a few moments the rifle jerked away from me.
“Talking to him,” I said. “Patrick’s sure that someone has a hold over Fraser. Threatening his family-something like that.”
“Something like that,” Hurley repeated with a grim smile. “Oh, brother.”
“Are you allowed to drink on duty?” I asked, keeping my tone light.
The look he gave me was one of pure hatred. “I am not on duty.”
“Tell me one thing,” I said. “Are you alone? I wasn’t imagining things when I heard someone following me.”
“Well now,” he drawled, “I’m really glad Fraser phoned and let me in on this. It did seem a little unfair — him, a middle aged company director, against that husband of yours. Damned unfair, if you ask me. Almost vicious. I’m beginning to see a little light in this murky business. I reckon this whole damn mess has been cooked up by your government. Did Fraser’s company bid for the contract against orders? I should imagine that working for Canada takes quite a bit of time away from the Trident stuff. DARE are already involved with design work for Type 23 frigates for the Royal Navy and platforms for North Sea oil. But then again — I wasn’t supposed to know things like that.” Hurley simpered, an extraordinarily fatuous expression in a man of his appearance. “No comment for once?” he chided.
It was then that a movement caught my eye and I glanced quickly at Hurley. But he had seen the two men already. They were in a clearing in the trees above where we were standing.
“Down!” he said.
I got down but even from a crouching position could see Patrick and Fraser. They were standing still facing one another, perhaps conversing, perhaps not.
I said, “I suggest you get right out of sight. You stand out a mile in that bluejacket, and although he’s only armed with a pistol he’s quite capable of killing you from there if he thinks you’re holding a gun on me.”
For answer Hurley gripped his rifle and checked that it was loaded. One drink or many, alcohol seemed to have blown his brains.
And then Fraser ran for it. I heard Patrick shout his name just before both of them disappeared from sight.
“Are you alone?” I asked Hurley, only aware that I had shouted when he started violently.
“Yes,” he answered, amazingly meekly.
“You must help us!” I yelled, trying to penetrate his fuddled wits. “Patrick won’t hurt him but others might — people who don’t care about your navy or anything else Canadian. Find that person I heard — make sure he isn’t armed and out to kill Fraser. Please!”
Fraser was coming straight down the hill towards us. I knew because I could hear him crunching dry spruce needles underfoot. Then he burst into view and what we were looking at was not a middle-aged company director but a fit part-time soldier. He saw Hurley and then me and slid to a stop. He had a hand gun which he aimed at us and opened fire.
He got Hurley at the second shot, before the Canadian had time to move. He fell back into the undergrowth, and when I crawled up to him looked at me, sober and terror-stricken. The bullet had taken him in the right shoulder.
“He didn’t phone you, you bloody idiot,” I found myself shouting at him. “Someone else did. Fraser didn’t expect you to be here.”
But Hurley had fainted.
I grabbed the rifle with no clear idea of what I was going to do with it and turned just in time to see Fraser framed against the skyline as he ran towards the car. I tore after him.
From the top of one of the mounds I had a perfect view, the Buick a close target. Trying to remember what I had been told, holding my breath and trying not to shake, I took aim at the front tyre closest to me and squeezed the trigger. The recoil nearly broke my shoulder but from that range even I couldn’t miss. The Buick sagged over on one side.
Fraser, strangely, had been standing motionless by the car, not attempting to drive away. He swung round yelling something I couldn’t hear and took a shot at me. It went wide but I had already flung myself down. I could still see him though. He seemed to go crazy. He started in my direction, stopped, hurled down the gun, took something from his pocket and lobbed it beneath the car. Instinctively I put my hands over my ears. Seconds later came an explosion and a battering wave of hot air.
Before I knew what was happening Fraser was running towards me through the thick black smoke. He was waving the gun, looking desperate, mad, terrified.
“Throw that down or I’ll kill him,” he yelled.
I twisted round and there was Patrick not ten yards behind me. He didn’t seem to be armed. I laid the rifle down on the grass and stood up. As soon as I had done so Fraser shot him.
I must have turned my back on Fraser because I was running to where Patrick lay on the ground. But all I could see was the events of those past few seconds playing over and over again in my head. One moment Patrick had been standing there, his arms relaxed at his sides; the next flung backwards into the pine needles like a rag doll.
No amount of training could have prepared me for what happened next. I supposed I stopped running as I approached Patrick, fearful of what I might see. Yes, I
had
stopped when something hit me sickeningly on the head from behind. Everything became as in a dream, larger than life and preposterous. I fell and there was soil and dead leaves in my mouth but I still saw Fraser walk up to Patrick and shoot him again from point blank range.
“Have fun, soldier,” said Fraser, and then smoke or darkness swallowed him up.
The dream continued. We were in Hell and burning, I could smell my own hair singeing and was a prisoner in my own immobilised, cramped body, staring stupidly at Patrick’s right shoe smouldering gently. Anger, the only emotion I could feel now, goaded me to my feet and I staggered over to where he lay and looked down upon him. His eyes were closed which was not right at all.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I said. Or at least thought I did, my voice sounded far away and slurred. Around me flames crackled, creeping forward.
I felt a lot happier when his eyes opened although I knew this to be very selfish. We were still together. But conscience nagged. “You shouldn’t be here,” I repeated.
“Sorry I passed out,” he mumbled. “Is there any blood?”
“God knows with that red jacket on,” I replied, suddenly feeling very light-headed and flippant.
He noticed the fire and struggled to sit up, caught his breath and then floundered, writhing, in a private agony that was horrible to watch. It brought me partly to my senses. People like Patrick who wear a cross and chain, I reasoned sluggishly, aren’t allowed into Hell.
By the time I had reasoned myself back to reality I was crying and beating out the flames which were by now busily devouring the sock covering his artificial right foot. It was odd how I hadn’t noticed before that I was coughing on the smoke and could hardly see for eyes full of smuts.
In the end I simply got him in a fireman’s lift and took him away from the flames. How this was achieved, where the strength came from or even how far I carried him, I don’t know.
There were animals all around us, like something from a Walt Disney film. I can remember a deer with her fawn, and the way she looked at me, unafraid, as if we shared a common bond. There were herons picking off small rodents and insects as they fled the flames, and who also ate those who twisted in the blackened grass when the fire had passed. I saw all this but was not aware of carrying a twelve stone man. After a while I must have collapsed for the next thing I became aware of was both of us lying in a heap. Patrick attempting to extricate himself, swearing helplessly.
A headache was making me see double but I succeeded in removing the belt from around my waist, unfolding it along its length and assembling the small components it contained. This was the first time I had given anyone an injection of real and not pretend morphine. During training we used vitamins. Uttering nonsensical soothing noises I removed the red check lumberman’s coat. Then, dragging my gaze from the flak jacket beneath and thanking heaven for Patrick’s prominent veins, I gave him the smallest practical dose. He didn’t even notice. I breathed out.
At point blank range a flak jacket, even the latest lightweight one, isn’t good enough. I pulled it off over his head and grimly regarded a ruined tee shirt. By now he was on a kind of cloud eight and a half but nevertheless flinched as I rolled the garment up to his armpits and explored for damage.
“Two broken or badly cracked ribs,” I announced. “Contusions, and a sinister-looking impacted wound that’s probably bleeding inside as well. Bugger Fraser and your stupid theories!”
Eyes closed against the brilliant sunset, and unashamedly relishing not only a respite from pain but other drug-induced sensations, Patrick shook his head. Infuriatingly smugly.
I said, “Say something for God’s sake!” my head banging to each and every sibilant.
His eyes snapped open. “A baptism of blood and fire,” he whispered. “No — yours, not mine. I had mine years ago when the grenade exploded. This is what you’ve always wanted, remember? To be treated as part of the team. To be in a man’s world. Fraser could have pushed you into a clump of poison ivy back there but instead you got a nicely judged tap on the head with his rifle stock.”
He was right but it only made me more angry. I grabbed him by both ears. “What have you done? Did you plan the whole thing between you?”
But, just then, he responded to my anger not to what I was asking.
“It’s not easy for me either,” he said, moving his head slightly so that I released it. “I too have to forget that we’re married and that you’re expecting our child. We’re just two operatives in a team of three and we depend on each other for our lives sometimes. I had no idea how Fraser would react to my persuading him to tell the truth, but when he had, and when we were discussing how to pull off a plan that would satisfy the people who are leaning on him, the real problem was you. I had to give him the best advice I could on how to incapacitate you without danger. We couldn’t shout at you not to shoot him because others were almost certainly watching. What happened is what working for D12 really entails.”
I glanced up to where thick smoke billowed in the distance, needing time to think. We were quite safe unless the wind changed.
“I’m not lecturing am I?” Patrick said quietly.
“No,” I told him. “You’re not lecturing. Please tell me what pressure is being put on Fraser so all this seems worthwhile.”
“Rachel.”
“His wife?”
“I’ve no idea. He wouldn’t say. He cracked a bit when he started to talk and just kept saying Rachel. I should imagine it’s a child rather than a wife or sister. Rachel will be killed unless he co-operates. These people aren’t particularly interested in Canadian frigates, just on smashing DARE and its work with Trident, which is a lot more hush-hush and important than I’d realized. Then they dreamed up the last thing he had to do — kill me. Killing two birds with one stone, really. They’d get rid of a troublesome D12 operative, and Fraser would be out of the way on a murder charge. Without him DARE doesn’t function. They reckoned if he wasn’t arrested here he soon would be at home thus bringing DARE to a standstill once and for all. True, it’s naïve and hamfisted — the KGB at their most naïve and hamfisted. Thank God I was able to convince Fraser that if we worked together we could confound them.”
I helped him pull down the tee shirt and put on his jacket for he was shivering. “But can they be trusted not to harm Rachel?”
“No, of course not. But knowing their thinking they’ll dither, and while they’re dithering she’s reasonably safe. But it’s important that for a while I remain dead.”
While he had been speaking my brain had been busy. Patrick saw that I had noticed the gun sticking out of his pocket.
“I aimed for Hurley’s shoulder,” he said, not particularly contrite. “Did he live?”
“If the fire didn’t get him. I suppose it was you who tipped him off, too, so he could be there as official witness.”
“Fraser wouldn’t risk it,” Patrick said in that man’s soft Devon accent. “He said he wasn’t that good a shot himself. Not in the heat of the moment. That’s why he had to get me from really close up or he might have missed the jacket and hit me where it mattered.”
“But when did you plan all this?” I burst out.
“Last night. I crept out of bed while you were asleep and surprised Fraser in the same state. I won’t tell you what he said when he discovered that I was in his room.”
“You’re going to come down a hell of a bump when that stuff wears off,” I informed him but the patient wasn’t listening.
“The element of surprise,” Patrick mused. “And you can’t yell blue murder in a houseful of friends when another guy’s practically in bed with you.”
“Have fun soldier,” I said, suddenly remembering what Fraser had said. “You’ll be seriously ill with an infection in no time at all.”
“You should have some antibiotics with you.”
I didn’t answer even though I had.
“I reckon he’ll make it back to UK,” Patrick continued, beginning to get sleepy as the drug got into his system. “There’ll be a bloody great hoo-ha — extradition proceedings — headlines in
The
Times
— and meanwhile DARE’ll carry on doing what they were sent out here for. They don’t actually need Fraser now Paul has recovered.” His eyes were closed again and he was smiling.
“But what about Rachel?” I knew that he wasn’t responsible for the euphoria but that didn’t prevent me feeling helpless and very angry at seeing the fatuous smile on his face.
“I told you … she’ll be OK while it looks as though Fraser’s done as he’s told. We’ll sneak back home somehow and find out where she’s being held. Must live rough for a few days first … disappear.”
Patrick only slept for half an hour and when he awoke I removed his jacket and tee shirt again. With a small sharp knife in the survival kit I cut the latter into one long continuous strip, round and round, and bandaged up his chest with it as tightly as I could, using my cotton bra with the straps removed as a pad for the wound. When I had finished and given him a shot of antibiotic it was almost dark.
“You could have let me in on the plan,” I said, trying hard not to sound resentful.
“We didn’t work it all out until we were driving over.” There seemed no point in pursuing it.
“Give up, eh?” Patrick murmured into the darkness some time later. We were just sitting there, not attempting to go to sleep.
“Afterwards you mean?”
“Afterwards.”
“So you can go to theological college?”
I had managed to surprise him at last, he swore softly.
“The truth drug,” I said. “Your talking about one day following your father’s profession. It was one of the reasons for Le Blek breaking us out of Hurley’s Kremlin.”
There was an endless silence.
“They wouldn’t have me.”
“The Archbishop of Canterbury fought in the War.”
“Did he?”
“Money wouldn’t be a problem,” I went on. “We can easily live on my earnings. If it’s what you want to do, I think —”
“Why are you talking about this now,” he enquired, irritated.
“Because you’re now a family man.” The pure logic of the answer came right out of the blue.
“You’d hate it.”
“Why?”
“Me in a dog collar, for a start.”
“They don’t all wear one these days.”
“Mother’s Union. Rower rotas. Bring and buy stalls. Ingrid, you’re not even a church person.”
What he meant was that I’m not a God person.
“If it’s what you want to do,” I said again rather lamely.
Some time later I said, “Someone followed me from the pick-up and Hurley swore he’d come on his own. D’you think whoever it is will check up on us?”
Patrick moved, trying to get comfortable, and caught his breath. “The watcher. If he finds us we’ll have to kill him.”
“But if he disappears …?” I left the rest unsaid.
“They’ll assume he took the money and ran when the balloon went up. Shed no tears — it’s almost certainly the guy who killed Lanny.”
The fire seemed to have died down on its own, probably because the wind had changed and blown the flames towards the flat stony ground. I thought about Leander Hurley and how he had looked at me like a hurt, frightened child.
“If he didn’t bring a radio with him he deserves to snuff it,” Patrick said savagely when I mentioned what was on my mind.
We kept watches through the darkness, Patrick taking the first while I tried to sleep. The night was fairly warm but I was already regretting leaving my anorak in the pick-up. We sat huddled together with the big jacket around both of our shoulders. tomorrow, Patrick promised, we would get organised.
Sunrise illuminated our misery. We were soaked in dew, all exposed areas of skin lumpy and mosquito bites, Patrick so cramped and stiff that it wasted precious energy just to get him to his feet. Frankly, we had both been in better shape after a week in the Cairngorms.
“We’re going to give this a try,” Patrick said in response to a meaningful look from me. “If I start to go downhill, or more importantly, if you do, we’ll make for the nearest road and hitch a lift back to town. No doubt Fraser took the pickup to get him to the airport. We have a compass and even if we move around a bit I reckon — with what I can remember of the map — we can keep the Forty-five Road to Alma within about half an hour’s walk.”
“Would it be such a risk to contact Terry?”
“The risk would start the moment he left Ravenscliff if he came out here. I don’t know, and nor did Fraser, how many watchers there are.”
“If we’re pronounced dead in the papers at home …” There was no need for me to say more. My mother has always prophesied that I will come to a sticky end, but his parents … I made myself stop thinking about it.
“Missing should be the worst fear for the present,” Patrick murmured, experimenting with walking about. “The papers aren’t quite so hysterical in UK. We’ll have surfaced before anyone really gets worried.”
I looked at our pathetic items of survival gear; compass, fish hooks and line, the knife, two snares and enough morphine to give Patrick very small doses for four days.
“We’ll be OK,” he said and took the knife, examining its sharpness. Why did any knife, however ordinary, even a blunt table knife, look so deadly in those long sensitive fingers?
“Bodies,” I said after a sudden thought. “There won’t be any. They’ll know we’re not dead.”
“Fraser’s going to say he dragged us off into the forest. Hurley won’t know — he won’t have been able to see from where he was lying.” He cut and sharpened a stick and began to dig with it in the ground. “Worms for bait,” he said in answer to my query. “There’s a small pool over there where beavers have dammed a stream. I’m only going to use the gun in matters of life and death.”