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.
Chapter 17
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.
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br /> “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.”
He found some worms but they kept falling off the hook. It had taken us at least an hour to find enough even to think about fishing, and to force our way through the undergrowth to a place where we could drop the weighted line in to a sufficient depth of water. This proved to be the trunk of a fallen tree, precarious and slippery, our combined weight causing it to dip below the surface.
I went digging for more efficient bait and found a disgusting maggot and several more robust-looking worms. Patrick fell upon the maggot with cries of glee and I averted my gaze when he popped the hook through the skin into its fatness. The fish that sacrificed its life to this creature was, if anything, even more revolting in appearance.
&nbs
p; “A suicide fish,” said the fisherman, taking it off the hook.
I went for a little walk while he took it by the tail, bashed its head on a rock and got busy with the knife. There was no doubt in my mind that we would be eating it raw. Fires draw attention.
“No, thank you,” I said after he had called my name. A practically transparent sliver of flesh dangled from a fish guts smeared hand.
The hand wriggled imperatively, as though ringing a tiny bell. “Then said he to Laughing Water, take this cat fish for your supper. Eat up quick with salt and pepper, makem papoose grow up quicker.”
“It’s breakfast, Hiawatha, or hadn’t you noticed?” I went up and took the fish from him. Swallowed like an oyster it didn’t taste too bad.
“Breakfast didn’t rhyme,” he said absently through a mouthful.
We fished for most of the morning, catching two more fish which we ate with some watercress I found growing in the stream. The hot peppery flavour helped it down.
There was an understanding that we wouldn’t discuss our prospects or whether we were doing the right thing. Neither would I ask him if his chest hurt nor tell him not to clown around. It was his way of fighting the pain. When he became very quiet I would know he was losing that battle. No, for the moment we would live from one minute to the next. Serious matters could be discussed during the long hours of the night.
The day remained fine, hot in the sun, cool in the shade. We achieved a wash of sorts in the pool and then walked in a northerly direction to test Patrick’s theory as to the nearness of the road. We found it, hearing traffic after about twenty minutes.
We crossed a road, taking a game trail that led down very slowly to a waterway which we fervently hoped was the Forty-five river. This and Broad River both joined the Upper Salmon River which eventually flowed into the sea at Alma. Both the river and the road marked the boundary of the park.
It was very difficult walking. Even though we tried to keep to the trail, the animals which had made it, probably deer, were far smaller than we were and thought nothing of jumping across the many small streams. Thus we continually had to duck beneath low branches or slide down into ditches, cross the water at the bottom and then climb up the other side again. After a while we reached a clearing where Patrick decided to camp.
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