by Jay Aspen
‘I hadn’t realized you were all quite that close.’
‘Sorry.’ She backed away a few steps. ‘You were a bit too convincing with the plausible deniability thing.’
Kit was staring at them, his face still reflecting total surprise while coping with the pain of his damaged ribs from the sudden moves. Parry unlocked Bel’s handcuffs, speaking rapidly, keeping his voice low.
‘We don’t have much time. The jeep’s out the back with the key in. There will only be one guard on this door when I leave and you are not to kill him on your way out.’ He gave the key to Kit, signalling him to free Jac and Fin, then feign unconsciousness again. Kit obeyed mechanically, evidently still trying to work out what the hell was happening.
Parry turned his attention back to Bel. ‘Now, lie on the floor and start screaming.’ He pushed her hard across the room and she obeyed, screaming as if in agony. He grabbed Jac’s arm, pushed the cuffs into place to look as if they were still locked, and dragged her towards Bel.
She felt a stab of pain at her wrist as he used the knife to make a small but deep cut. He forced her roughly to her knees, holding her arm over Bel’s face. Jac reacted instinctively to the shock, trying to pull her hand away.
Parry tightened his grip and twisted her arm back into position. ‘Don’t make this take any longer than it has to.’
This time she complied, terrified by the iron strength in his hands and the ruthless, clinical efficiency with which he held her down. It felt harsh and calculating, yet she sensed it overlaid something else, something he was determined to keep hidden. He forced her to stay there until Bel’s eye and one side of her face were covered in blood.
‘That should do it.’ He pushed Jac’s thumb over the cut, went to the door and opened it. ‘Smith! I’m done here. We move now.’
Smith arrived from the next room and stared, his face giving little away.
Bel was lying on the floor, still screaming hysterically, her left eye socket brimming with blood that spilled over half her face. Jac was on her knees beside her, wrist pressed against her body, staring at Parry with a look of terror that was not entirely artificial. Parry stopped in the doorway and turned to her, his voice harsh.
‘That information had better be right, or I get back, she loses the other eye as well and you lose both of yours.’
Jac looked up at him and nodded mutely. Parry grabbed Smith’s arm. ‘I need every enforcer we have on the search team. We move on this information now. And I want you here, checking that every inch of the perimeter fence is fully sealed within the next half-hour.’ He steered Smith out into the passage.
In spite of his approval for drastic measures, Smith made no objections to leaving the room. The guard Parry was ordering to remain inside looked less than enthusiastic to be staying.
Bel muted her sobbing a little so they could hear the planes and transporters moving out. As soon as it went quiet again she launched back into the hysteria, crawling blindly towards the closed door and the bulky enforcer guarding it. He looked awkward, unsure how to respond.
‘Stop.’
‘She can’t help it. She can’t see anything.’ Fin edged towards Bel. ‘Do you want me to sort her out?
‘Get her back by the wall.’ He gestured with his automatic. I don’t want her face over here, bleeding on my boots.’
Bel was almost on him now, with Fin approaching cautiously from the side, limping with suddenly-acquired stiff arthritic joints.
‘I’ll get her, but I don’t like you pointing that thing at me.’
He lowered the weapon, self-conscious of his fear of an infirm old woman and a mutilated girl on her hands and knees. Then they were both on him like panthers, grabbing the gun, pulling him onto the floor. Seconds later he was flat on his face, wrists tied behind with a scrap of cable left behind by the engineer and his own sock stuffed in his mouth.
Fin opened the door and checked the passageway. ‘All clear, but there’s bound to be someone outside.’
They reached the jeep. Bel habitually went for the driver’s seat with Jac in the front and Fin and Kit in the back. A few shots followed them out of the half-completed compound but the place was almost deserted. Parry had efficiently coerced maximum numbers into searching the marshes. Jac draped her arm over the back of her seat for Fin to stick tape on the cut.
Kit was still trying to make sense of what happened.
‘Who was that?’
‘New head of security.’ Bel was weaving round potholes with less than her usual driving skill. ‘Can someone take over? I really can’t see properly, my eyelids are stuck together.’ She lurched to a stop and swapped places with Jac.
Fin passed over her water bottle together with a piece of rag she’d found on the back seat. ‘Bel, use this.’
‘Thanks.’ Bel worked at un-sticking her eyes while explaining to Kit. ‘I grabbed Parry during the raid on the Warren so Raine could ask him to be a point of contact. I didn’t hear any more because I came down with Fin to help at the clinics. When I heard he’d been made head of security I thought he must have rejected Raine’s offer and ordered our arrest.’ She handed the empty bottle back to Fin.
‘First stream, we fill up again.’ Fin gave her Kit’s bottle to finish the job.
Jac tried to think it through without losing concentration on the crumbling road surface. ‘I sensed a lot of conflict in him as well as a kind of ruthless discipline. But do you think it means we can work together with security forces now? Seems too good to be true.’
‘In which case, it probably is.’ Fin leaned forward. ‘Pass me the neuropulse. I need to clear the healing block in Kit’s broken ribs.’ She took the device from Bel and moved back by Kit’s side. ‘The military’s remit is to hunt down everyone in the Resistance. Unless the focus switches to F2 or another group, Parry has to go after us or lose his job. Or worse. We need to be careful. Till we’re sure.’
Jac was still trying to catch up with the new information. ‘So why did he help us?’
Bel said, ‘It’s starting to make sense to me. The contradictions I saw in him, that awful night on the mountain... I’m guessing he has been in contact with Raine. It must be how Raine knew about the bomb and the exact time it was set to go off. Parry’s priority is doing his job as well as he can, keeping the country safe. Maybe contacting Raine was his only hope of saving all those trapped people.’
‘You mean he’ll only work with us when it fits his own agenda?’
‘Yes. But he has... integrity. I think that’s why he let us go. Because he’d used us. But you’re right Fin. It may not mean he’s totally on our side.’
‘Stop. Fresh water.’ Fin pointed to a stream flowing into the marsh. Jac pulled over and ran to the stream with Bel. They had only got the bottles half full when Fin yelled from the jeep.
‘Bel! They’re here.’
Jac looked up as a lone transporter screamed round the last corner on smoking tyres. She grabbed the bottles and ran back to the jeep, swinging it back onto the road as Bel scrambled in the other side. The jeep was just able to maintain the same distance from the pursuit but with the heavily-repaired vehicle going flat out, they weren’t pulling ahead.
Jac glanced over her shoulder. ‘This is as fast as it goes, everyone. Think of something before they start shooting––’
A bullet smashed the wing mirror on Bel’s side. She grabbed the automatic she’d taken from the guard but the rough driving left her using up what little ammunition it had without stopping the pursuit.
Jac could hear Fin rummaging in the back as she searched through the oddments of military equipment that had been left there. The elderly medic sounded more exasperated than usual. ‘There has to be something useful in here somewhere! Ouch. Oh, good.’
‘What?’
‘Box of steel caltrops. Might work.’ There was a clink as she passed some to Kit. ‘Careful, they’re razor sharp. Wait, they need to go all together... Now.’
Jac watched in the surviving mi
rror as Fin and Kit dropped them out of each rear window. The transporter hit them and two tyres burst. It swerved with a screech and lurched into the marsh where it landed, stuck, nose down. The occupants scrambled awkwardly out into the mud, hampered by their heavy body armour.
Fin relaxed, holding her bloody fingers over Bel’s shoulder. ‘Bel, your turn for some patching up.’
Bel took out the tape and started work. Jac noticed they were passing several road junctions.
‘By the way people, where are we going? Apart from away from that base.’ She passed Fin the map tablet.
Fin grabbed it in her good hand and gave the pages a quick scan. ‘I don’t think we can head directly west back to the Tarn. We’d cross the intensive food production in the central zone where we’d be visible from the air. No tree cover.’
Jac couldn’t help glancing up at the sky. ‘I only heard three small planes.’
‘Not military planes. The crop-patrol drones would spot us. The cameras aren’t just for monitoring the watering and pesticide-spraying. They also track food thieves and the debt-slaves trying to escape from the insolvency hostels. Or we might run into hostel guards.’
‘So we head north?’
‘At least for now. There’s good tree cover on the line of hills running north up the middle of the country. It’s as big as the western forest.’
Jac took the tablet back and glanced at it between pothole-dodging. ‘And then?’
‘Wait till the hunt gives up on us, then try to double back and get home. Or keep heading north.’
‘To the Ice Islands?’ To Jac it was just a name, an unknown place in the north.
‘Maybe.’
‘I don’t know anything about the Ice Islands. I always thought they were frozen and mostly uninhabited. Have you been there Fin?’
‘A few times, with groups of refugees escaping from the city. It’s the safest place for families with children because the roads are too frost damaged to get military vehicles across. For now, focus on the idea of using the forest as cover then doubling back home when things go quiet. At least the first part is the same.’
Jac gave one last glance at the map and headed for the nearest main road.
‘North it is then.’
19
Parry walked slowly round the cluster of long-abandoned grain storage sheds. Beyond, the creeks and reeds of the salt marsh stretched away to the horizon in shades of dun and muddy-green, home only to great flocks of migrating birds wheeling overhead, dark against a grey sky.
Only the largest shed showed signs of use––and of being evacuated in a hurry. The location was well chosen; a low-lying ridge of firm ground reaching into the marshes from the end of the pitted tarmac road. It had given easy access for his crew. And presumably to the people who laid the trail for them.
Clever. Very clever. Derelict sheds like these would function for occasional use but couldn’t support permanent habitation like the Warren. Artificially creating the kind of wear you’d expect from a large number of people living here––that would be too difficult. But a temporary base, only used when the occasion demands, that could be done well.
And it had been well done. He watched the forensics carefully sifting through the junk left on the floor, wondering what they’d find and where Raine’s team had decided to send them next.
One of the forensics approached him, a damaged tablet in her hand. ‘Sir, I think this could still have useful information. Permission to use the decoding gear in your transporter?’
‘Go ahead. Let me know where it leads us next.’
The earnest forensic headed for the vehicle, oblivious to the irony in Parry’s voice. He followed her outside, a faint smile playing on his lean features.
How long will we keep up this charade? And ultimately, who is playing whom?
His handset buzzed. ‘Parry here. What do you mean escaped? Can’t you people manage anything the minute my back’s turned? I’ll be there in five.’
Waited half an hour before telling me. Arranging some kind of cover-up.
He went back to the forensics still crawling round the floor of the grain shed.
‘Finish off here. Something I have to deal with back at base.’ He keyed his handset. ‘Air patrol? Nothing? Then I think that confirms air cover’s not the way to find them in these wetlands. They just hide in the reeds. Head back to base and pick me up at the grain store on the way.’
With luck they’ve been searching long enough now to see the sense in standing down before we waste any more expensive fuel...
Ten minutes later he confronted Smith and the skeleton crew left at the base. They were standing awkwardly outside the building where their prisoners had been detained.
‘So you’re trying to tell me you were unable to contain four people who were picked up in a temporary clinic? A boy with broken ribs, an old woman, and a girl with facial injuries. So perhaps the problem came from the only one fit to stand up? The little thin one who––’ he consulted the notes on his tablet–– ‘who describes herself as a first-aid nurse?’
Smith looked uncomfortable, making Parry wonder if he was about to mention that it wasn’t him who had left the jeep outside with the key in. He let out a breath of relief when his second in command decided to say nothing.
Parry snapped the tablet shut. ‘Well, good news is I got all the information out of them that we need. We already found their base, abandoned in a hurry. Forensics are going through it now. So they’re of no further use.’
‘But we are going after them?’ Smith seemed anxious to remove any stain on his time in charge.
‘I thought you already went after them and lost them?
‘Only because they found a box of our starthistles! Our transporter didn’t have reinforced tyres. Can we have air cover?’
Parry shook his head. ‘If they’re heading north as you say, they’ll be under the trees by now. I’m not wasting expensive aviation fuel if it’s the wrong thing for the task.’
‘Another jeep? Transporter? Grenades?’
‘Of course. I’ll recall them now. While you’re waiting you can write your report on the escape. No need to blame yourself. Show me the draft first.’
Smith hesitated. Finally the decision to play safe revealed itself in the resignation on his face. ‘Thanks. I’ll get on it.’
Parry watched him walk back into the dilapidated house.
Perhaps Raine’s right. I am getting more like Burton.
*
Raine looked down on the rambling farm buildings of the Warren. In the gathering dusk he and the black gelding were almost invisible in the forest shadows. As he descended he could see even in the half-light the crushed flowers and scarred trees outside.
The scouting party had warned him about the smashed furniture and general damage and disruption within. It could be fixed, it would heal, but he would never understand why some people took delight in destroying things and making them ugly and useless.
He dismounted and led the horse across to the barn.
It’s good to be back, even with what’s happening.
20
Evening was fading to night when Jac gave up trying to see potholes in the dark and parked the jeep out of sight on a rough logging road. Bel stayed in the clearing, trying to get Kit comfortable enough to sleep. Jac was about to help when she saw Fin heading into the forest and signalling her to follow.
Reluctantly, she obeyed. ‘Fin? Where are we going?’
Fin didn’t slow her pace. ‘I think we’re ahead of the hunt until tomorrow, so this is the last chance for you to learn a few things that may help keep us all alive.’ She noticed Jac’s look of alarm. ‘Don’t panic! It’s not combat training. I suspect results in that direction would be insignificant. Relative to time invested, anyhow. Kit gave me more details on the truthseer abilities you demonstrated while you were with him.’
Jac followed her into the shadowy trees in silence. There was no point asking any of the dozen questions crowd
ing for attention until she knew where Fin would start. One question had already been answered. The subject of the whispered conversation in Illyrian between Fin and Kit in the back of the jeep taking them to the marshes.
Jac hadn’t yet had time to learn the reconstructed language the rangers used for covert communication and she’d assumed Fin had been asking Kit about his injuries. As usual, he’d given priority to the needs of others. She hoped he wouldn’t pay too heavy a price with his own slow recovery.
At last Fin halted in a stand of ash intruding into the evergreens on the slope of a low hill. She motioned Jac to sit on a fallen tree and stood beside her, speaking quietly but with her usual assertiveness.
‘I can’t say exactly how your gift will develop. Everyone’s different. If we aim for a fixed outcome it could limit your potential. So we both need to be open to what happens and be prepared to explore. First, focus on the forest. When you pick up on what I’m doing, go along with it.’
After so long in constant danger, the familiar focus on the forest’s life-force brought waves of relief washing through Jac’s body. After a few moments Fin’s lieth presence emerged into her mind-space, more demanding and powerful than her grandfather had ever been even in his more autocratic moods. Jac overcame the shock and let Fin’s direction take her, cautiously aligning her own concentration, aware that Fin was calling... something.
Slowly, the snake emerged into her consciousness until she could no longer tell whether she read the forest with the mind of human or serpent. She resisted the urge to break focus and hide from the unfamiliar intrusion, telling herself to trust her mentor’s expertise. Fin would bring her back again, when... what? Jac had no idea where this was going.
Even in the half-light she could see the dark zigzag markings running from head to tail as the adder slithered through the grass at her feet.
Fin stooped and picked it up. ‘Hold out your hand.’
Jac obeyed, steeling herself for the burn the split second before sharp fangs sank into the soft flesh at the side of her palm, a small voice at the back of her mind asking if maybe this was taking trust just a bit too far.