by David Laws
Despite the complexity of piloting around controlled areas in one of the busiest pieces of airspace in the country, Harry’s mind was not completely focused on the task. He couldn’t get over the colossal scale of Erika’s duplicity, her massive betrayal. He felt deeply wounded. Did their relationship mean nothing to her? Was it all a pretence? That he had been so blind to his friends’ warnings about Erika’s odd behaviour… He shook his head. And so foolish to be taken in so completely!
His sense of hurt was overlaid with fear of what she might be intending when she arrived at Chequers. She had damned the Kameraden and was frightened of Brexit. How did that fit together? Or had she been conning him over this too? Her warnings about the Kameraden’s ruthlessness suddenly made grim sense. She was putting him off – because she was one of them! Was she capable of using her gun on someone? And whom? That he had unwittingly been incubating such a cuckoo made him feel sick to the point that he hardly knew what he was doing.
He forced himself to keep a lookout as he tried to confront the practical. Where was he going to land? First thought was the nearest landing strip, but then he’d be stranded miles from anywhere without transport, stricken by a possibly fatal delay.
He peered down again, thankful at least that the day afforded him such good visuals. All he had with him was the chart, from which he could count off the main roads and railways as he flew across them, and the GPS on his iPhone. He considered the possibility that he would encounter a no-fly zone around Chequers – highly likely, given the way the Cabinet had fled Downing Street.
His mind returned again to Erika and what she had called the fun run around the perimeter border of Chequers. What had she been doing? Casing out the land? Then he remembered the curtain of forest around the place. Inside this was a wide-open greensward surrounding the house.
The idea came to him gradually: land the plane right next to the house. Was he good enough to put the Moth down in that confined space? He knew he wasn’t the best pilot in the world, had no interest in attempting aerobatics, but this was an emergency. He thought again about the nature of risk. If ever there was a time to prove his courage, it was now.
As he came closer he recognised the shape of Wendover far below. At the same time he became aware of a helicopter close by. Probably the police trying to warn him off. He ignored it and concentrated on locating the big house. A metallic crackle came to him then, and he looked up in surprise. The helicopter was close up, almost alongside him, and they were using a loudhailer and a flashing red light. He couldn’t hear the words over the noise of the Gipsy and took no notice. What were they going to do? Shoot him down? Instead, he veered toward them, forcing them to move astern, then peered back down in search of his target. And there it was: the house ringed by trees, plenty of grass but a sloping landscape that rose and dipped at strange angles. It wasn’t the nice flat strip he was used to, or had imagined.
He looked at the fuel gauge, still locked on zero, and knew he had no other choice: land now or fall out of the sky. Holding apprehension in check, he allowed himself just one circuit to gauge wind direction and could see people running out of the house, looking up and pointing. He was causing consternation on the ground as well as in the air. He peered over the side, fearful of so many trees, dips and ridges, knowing the next few moments would decide his fate.
He dipped low, gasping in horror at the restricted space below, fearing he would run straight into the brick wall of the mansion. He could imagine the shattering impact, the prop slicing the fuselage and himself to pulp. Get her down as soon as the grass shows up, he told himself, and that made him angle her down even more steeply, nearer and nearer the treeline, reducing speed to fifty-five, pitching the nose up slightly and putting on power to overcome drag. There was a momentary worry about his sink rate. Too great? More power?
And those were the last coherent thoughts he had.
Chapter 49
17 hours to go
Ursula Otterburn was used to early starts. It was light but still gloomy, a late-breaking day, when she stepped out from her tiny cottage in Ellesborough and turned down the path by the church. She was careful. It was steep and had frozen in the night. She wore a black headscarf and a warm coat over her bright-blue smock. She was rather proud of her uniform with the company logo over the left breast. It gave her a feeling of security and permanence. She’d been cleaning at Chequers for the Chiltern Experience for two years now – much better, she thought, than simply putting herself about for odd jobs in the village.
The path emerged from the churchyard, levelled out and ran next to the roadway. She thought she heard a car behind her, travelling very slowly, which was unusual since most motorists couldn’t wait to round the bend and put their foot down. There had been village protests about it.
She glanced over her shoulder and saw two parking lights, then looked ahead, careful to keep clear of any ice on the path. She passed some of the big houses opposite the open field – mock Tudors with tall hedges and vast fences – and wondered if they’d pay more than the £7 an hour she was earning presently.
The car continued to purr slowly behind her, and she began to worry. This was the second time she had noticed it. The morning before it had seemed to trail her from the house, and under a street light she had caught a glimpse of a huge man at the wheel and possibly a woman in the passenger seat. She had mentioned it to the cleaning foreman when she made the pickup point half a mile hence at Butler’s Cross, but he had made a joke of it.
“Somebody fancies you, Ursula.”
She’d snorted. “At my age? Don’t be ridiculous.”
That was the trouble with old Mr Islay. He was supposed to take the security of his staff seriously, but he’d become lazy and sloppy. After all, they did work at the Prime Minister’s country home. It was a sensitive place. So instead she told her husband when she got home – but he hardly looked up from his paper.
Now she was becoming even more nervous. She would definitely make a serious complaint when the Chiltern staff minibus from Aylesbury stopped at the Russell Arms to collect her for the long drive down to Chequers.
But then something unexpected happened. The car pulled ahead of her and stopped. The big man she had seen the morning before got out and walked back toward her.
Ursula hesitated. He must have been at least six foot and had on a heavy black jumper and a blue bobble hat. Should she turn and run? He grinned at her, and she noticed the gap in his bottom teeth.
Then they were face-to-face.
“Good morning, madam.”
He had a strange accent, and Ursula found herself mumbling something inaudible in reply.
“I’ve been observing you from the road – the way you walk, the way you hold yourself.”
“Why, what for?”
“You see, I work for a modelling agency and we’re always on the lookout for the right sort of people. People with photogenic qualities—”
Ursula spluttered. She wasn’t falling for that one. Did he think she was a fool? “No thank you,” she said, preparatory to turning away. Perhaps she could run into a neighbour’s garden and bang on a door.
She was conscious of a movement behind her, but she dared not glance back in case this man advanced any closer. That’s when she felt a touch on her shoulder.
Immediately something all-enveloping covered her face and head. She couldn’t see. Everything was black. Very black. And she was drifting… and then she couldn’t remember any more.
Chapter 50
16 hours, 45 minutes to go
His forehead throbbed and his neck hurt. His eyes felt heavy. They were closed, but gradually Harry became aware of a strange sensation, of hanging and swaying. The crackle of breaking and splintering wood, followed by a frightening lurch, jerked him to full consciousness and he suddenly realised, with a great dart of fear, that the world had turned upside down. The seat straps were bit
ing into his shoulders – not keeping him from veering forward, as he had expected, but preventing him from dropping. He peered gingerly over a shoulder and was shocked to see the ground where the sky should be.
He remained bewildered for a few more seconds before realising the plane must have clipped the trees, turned turtle and smashed into the massive crown of a line of sessile oaks that bordered the big house. And even now the branches were cracking and splintering and threatening to send both him and the stricken aircraft plummeting to the ground.
A broken neck, crushed vertebrae, a smashed body beckoned in the next few seconds, but instead of dread there was frustration. Damn! He’d come so far to fail at the final hurdle.
His hand moved to the buckle that would release him – then stopped. If he dropped out of the open cockpit he’d crash to the ground head first. He looked again. Dangerously far.
The machine was rocking and swaying. Foliage was snapping. Still stunned and disoriented, he vaguely recalled some training session he’d attended in the past: in such a situation, a voice he remembered telling him, the thing to do was stay calm and wait for a farmer with a ladder.
He began to assess the damage. To himself. He was sure he must be injured. He felt all around his arms, legs, knees and trunk. No blood, no obvious breaks. Amazingly intact. Doubtless there would be bruises, and probably breaks he didn’t know about. Still his head hurt. He must have banged it on the padded cockpit headboard. How often he had cursed it for blocking his forward view, but now he knew he should be grateful. That’s what it was there for. The Moth was a trainer aircraft, after all, and the designers had anticipated accidents.
By now he was becoming resigned to the cracking and snapping and lurching going on around him. Instead, he worried about damage to the plane, in which he had a mere tenth share. What were the other nine owners going to say? And would the insurance cover it – or had he broken some rule which made the cover invalid?
That’s when he almost erupted in fury at himself. He’d made an awful hash-up of the landing, coming in too low over the trees. What a disgrace!
Another fear: the smell of leaking fuel. He could hear the drip-drip of the aviation mix somewhere close by. The theory was that the Moth’s gravity fuel feed made turning turtle quite safe, cutting off the supply. But what if it leaked or ran along a spar and touched the hot engine? The dreadful spectre of fire! With trees all around, he’d be roasted pork in no time. And hanging upside down for any length of time was proving to be a very unpleasant sensation.
Finally he heard the welcome sound of voices and shouts in the distance, the barking of dogs and the pounding approach of many feet.
By now Harry was wide awake to the hubbub of voices chattering and arguing on the ground below. There must have been quite a crowd, though he was loath to look over the side of the cockpit for fear he might cause the machine to dislodge itself from the trees. Amid all the noise a loud baritone called up to him.
“Hello! Are you conscious up there?”
At last, some attention! “Yes.” It was a croak, a strangulated response, and Harry had to swallow and try again. “Yes, just bruised, I think. Hope. Can you get me down? You’ll need a ladder.”
There was a short pause and Harry risked a quick look over the side to see a dozen upturned faces.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the deep voice demanded. “We saw you, watched you. You were trying to land. Don’t you know this is a forbidden zone?”
The expected inquisition. Couldn’t they wait until he was on the ground? “Never mind that, just get me down!” Harry’s sharp response. “I’ve got an important message. An urgent warning.”
He was no fool. For all this strident urgency, he knew he’d be up against it once on the ground. He could anticipate the reactions: shrugged shoulders, knowing looks, sceptical responses.
“Hang on, take us a little while.”
“This thing could drop at any moment.”
More muttering, running feet, shouts in the distance, the sound of a motor and tyres on grass. All taking far too long. Harry held his breath, trying not to panic amongst all the cracking, yawing and groaning of the trees.
At last he could hear the metallic scrape of a telescopic ladder, the shouts and the heaving, and finally the clang as the top rung came into view. It was going to be a fraught manoeuvre getting sufficient purchase before freeing himself from the straps. He grasped the ladder, squirmed into a new position and hung on with one hand, ready to release his straps with the other.
At the point of release he paused, panting, almost in a panic, reluctant to fight gravity.
“Are you going to take all day?” Baritone once again.
Harry released the last strap and swung out and across, then got both hands on his aluminium saviour.
The thing swayed crazily and yawed like a drunken sailor, but stayed upright. He closed his eyes and eased out a massive sigh, motionless in relief at beating the fall.
“One at a time,” the voice commanded.
What did the man think? That he might try sliding fireman-style? Each tortuous step down was an agony far worse than any dip or scrape he’d experienced in the cockpit. And when he made it to the last rung and felt the beauty of a firm, flat surface below his shoe, he was staring into the baleful gaze of a craggy six-footer with wavy, waxed hair.
“I’m Lucas, security. Welcome to Mother Earth.”
Harry looked about him. Men in tweeds, some in blue uniform, others in waxed jackets, some adopting a louche stance with hands on hips. Guns, he suspected. Guns tucked in waistbands or holsters. And a Land Rover, engine running, ready and waiting.
“So,” demanded Lucas, “what were you doing trying to put down here?”
Harry rubbed at a painful leg, winced, drew himself up and launched into his spiel. “I’ve come to warn you. You’re in dead trouble. You’ve got a cuckoo in the nest. You must warn the authorities here right away.”
“A cuckoo?”
“An assassin. A woman with a gun.”
Lucas didn’t look alarmed. He didn’t look in the least likely to react with urgency. “There is such a thing as the telephone. You could have called us, sent us an email, or merely walked into the nearest police station—”
“No time! She’s already here. You have to stop her.”
Lucas sighed and made a signal. Firm hands grasped Harry by the collar and within seconds he was sitting in the back of the Land Rover, a sentinel on each side, the engine revving, the wheels turning, the distant shape of the big house getting nearer and nearer.
When Harry had repeated himself three times, enumerating the trail of urgent clues left by Erika which had led him to take to the air, he felt exhausted, exasperated and frustrated. No one was taking him seriously. He, Lucas and another hatchet-face by the name of Erskine were seated on plastic chairs in a tiny room, door shut, a sentinel on guard on the other side. A small window seeped a poor light on to a wooden table. Contrary to what Harry had expected, there was an ashtray filled with grimy stubs next to several brown rings left by coffee mugs. Clearly, this was the hovel allocated the security detachment, and who was going to argue with security over a little tobacco fug indoors? He’d tried instilling in them some sense of urgency: Erika could be in the house already, he told them. She could have her gun hidden. She could be biding her time, operating under some disguise. She might even be planning some dreadful action at the signing ceremony.
“You must think we’re stupid to swallow a story like that,” Lucas said.
“Another bloody fantasist,” contributed Erskine.
Lucas waved a dismissive hand. “You admit yourself you don’t know if this person is here, or how she can get in past security, or what she’s wearing, or who she is supposed to be a danger to, or what she actually wants.”
Harry slumped. “Look, I don’t have all the ans
wers, true. Just enough facts to make me worried sick she’s about to try something dangerous. Perhaps fatal to someone here.”
“Like who?”
“I suspect—”
Lucas snorted. “You suspect!”
“I suspect some high-up political figure. A minister, a civil servant, perhaps even the Prime Minister.”
“Believe me, she’d never get near.”
“Bloody fantasist!” It was Erskine’s one line.
“And why would she?” Lucas demanded.
“She’s been programmed,” Harry said. Should he tell them about the Kameraden, about Bruno and the men stalking Erika? Even he began to doubt his own recollection at this point. Had Bruno been stalking her – or had it all been a pretence, a fraud to fool him?
“A terrorist, then?” said Lucas.
“In a manner of speaking.” Harry’s answer didn’t sound convincing, even to himself. He sighed. What could he do to spark these men into action? “Wouldn’t it at least be prudent to look for her? Institute a search? Find out if she’s here? Put a stop to it before any danger arises?”
“You expect me to start poking around in every corner of this rambling great house looking for some mythical female assassin?”
Harry ignored the sarcasm. “Yes, I do.”
“No way, sunshine, you’re headed for the cooler. The constabulary have been informed. They’re on their way.”
The situation had become hopeless. If he was escorted off the premises he could do nothing to avert the danger. He swallowed and clenched his teeth. There was one remaining option, the one he’d promised Patronella he would never use. “Look, perhaps this will convince you – I have connections with the Security Service.”
Lucas laughed. “That’s what they all say… ‘I have friends in high places.’” A loud cackle. “Oldest gag in the book.”