by Andy Lucas
The sum mentioned, all payable in advance upon receipt of his signature, was exactly five hundred thousand pounds sterling. The only punitive clause was that, once signed and agreed, if he pulled out for any reason other than at the direction of a doctor, he’d keep the fee paid to him but would become personally liable for any lost investment his withdrawal brought.
Pace swallowed hard. That meant being half a million up one moment, five and a half million down the next. It was a very stiff penalty should he suddenly get cold feet. He knew his decision had to be irreversible before he put ink to paper. One slight disappointment was being robbed of the chance to see a real, tangible cheque with his name on it. Payment would be made directly into his bank account via computer transfer as soon as he signed. In short, sign the contract and kiss goodbye to financial worries forever a few minutes later.
‘The get-out clause seems a little harsh, if you don’t mind me saying. Any reason in particular for it being like that?’ He paused for effect before continuing slowly. ‘There wouldn’t happen to be something you’re not telling me about? Perhaps something I get to discover only after I’ve signed up but by then it’s too late unless I want to owe you millions?’
Hammond took the insinuation of trickery with good grace, not batting an eyelid at the implications. He knew the offer was genuine although certain worrying political facts had been omitted at McEntire’s request, not to mention some key truths. Hammond kept his expression fixed and thanked his lucky stars the man in front of him didn’t know all the things the McEntire Corporation did to earn its billion-pound annual turnover.
‘Suspicion can be a good thing,’ he told Pace, ‘but honestly, no. You just take a moment to look at the deal from our side of the fence. We need to be sure that once you sign, you’re in. An awful lot of publicity will hinge on your signature. If we go ahead and alert the world’s media to your participation and then you quit we’ll all look like fools and lose a fortune in sponsorship.’
Put that way it sounded obvious. Pace laid the folder back down on the desk and changed the subject.
‘Okay. So I know when. I really need to hear more about what, who and how.’
Hammond and Pace spent the next thirty minutes or so discussing the general plans for each of the race stages. Pace gave him a short list of the technical equipment he needed. There had to be at least two cameras; one broadcast quality and one hand-held digital, a number of batteries, tapes and memory chips. Everything had to be battery powered because this wasn’t an expedition, it was a race, and they couldn’t afford to lug even the tiniest generator along. Pace’s biggest worry would be conserving battery power to get enough quality footage when he needed it.
He made up his mind, for the second time, to sign the contract and they got that little formality out of the way quickly. As he poured them both a fresh cup of coffee, Hammond rang McEntire’s private office. He wasn’t there but his secretary had been primed and agreed to pass the money transfer authority straight away. Halfway through their coffee the telephone rang and Hammond answered, killing the call within ten seconds and giving Pace the good news. The money was safely in his account and ready to spend.
He left almost immediately afterwards, with Hammond having to arrange the necessary press releases regarding his involvement with the project. They agreed to meet up for a drink at Heathrow before their flight out. He also left with single-sheet dossiers on his prospective companions. Although he didn’t realise it until he looked through the papers later that evening, Hammond had omitted to give him one on himself.
The train journey home was as uneventful as before. As the taxi turned the corner into his car park, Pace was rewarded with the sight of his own car, sitting snugly within its two little white lines, cleaned and polished. Up in his flat, the police officer who’d finally decided to return it had posted the keys through his letterbox.
There were now less than four weeks to put his affairs in order so the next morning he resolved to get things started. He trusted Hammond had been correct in saying there would be no strings attached to the money but there was no harm in taking a few simple precautions.
For safety’s sake he decided to move it, with the added bonus that it would infuriate his inflexible bank manager no end.
It was petty, but Pace knew he’d have to see her personally to withdraw that kind of money. He drove into town, parked up and found that she would be delighted to squeeze him in. No appointment, no problem – now there was a first.
She expected to welcome a suddenly valuable customer and beamed with friendly smiles as he went into her office. Twenty minutes later he left the bank with its manager feeling more than a little deflated.
He left a token five thousand in the account and directed another ninety thousand into clearing his mortgage. He would return the next morning at ten to collect two bank cheques, each for the sum of two hundred thousand pounds. The five thousand pound difference was slipped into his jacket pocket in the form of a fat wad of fifties.
Two separate deposit accounts, in two separate banks, were opened with the cheques and he could finally relax. The money was now untouchable by anybody but him.
The remainder of the afternoon passed in blissful stress relief. The money he’d left in his current account already more than covered any debt he owed the bank and it just left him to visit a couple of high street stores to settle outstanding credit debts on furniture and his television set.
One final call to the local garage to settle the remaining debt owed on his car and he was finally clear, free forever more from the fear of receiving demanding letters and having to struggle hard to pay them.
The feeling of relaxation didn’t last long because the race preparations soon began in earnest. Early the following morning, which dawned warm and bright, he was being poked, prodded and generally pulled about by a very eminent Harley Street doctor. There weren’t any further X-rays needed but the twenty or so he’d already suffered were examined thoroughly once again.
He spent several hours daily, that first week, with the same doctor. Not only were there constant tests; blood, urine and saliva, but also exercise regimes conducted on a range of machinery, slowly designed to grow more demanding. He was pushed harder every day and would probably have felt better by the end of the week if he hadn’t been subjected to a series of tropical inoculations as well.
Apart from deadly wildlife, the Amazon basin apparently had more than its fair share of dangerous diseases though Pace knew from his background reading that the diseases the invading Europeans took into the jungle with them had been immeasurably more devastating on the indigenous Indian population than anything they’d contracted themselves from the jungle. An estimated population of nine million was reduced to a little over two hundred thousand in barely one near-apocalyptic century.
So, just in case the environment sought vengeance, he was jabbed. He worked so hard to get fit that the weeks literally flew away from him. As his strength grew, so did his confidence.
The final five days before Pace was due to take the flight with Hammond were largely logistical in nature. The press reports on his involvement spread like wildfire. It had been almost embarrassing to watch the evening news and to see his face splashed across the screen in time to praising words from the newscasters, over and over.
He managed to give nineteen interviews during those initial weeks; eight for live television, the rest for the tabloids. The media, to his surprise, didn’t find a cruel word to say about him and the publicity boom McEntire predicted fell neatly into place.
Of the McEntire clan he saw nothing until the night before he was due to leave. He learned from Hammond that Doyle McEntire was in Australia, brokering some deal or other but he’d not heard a word from Sarah either.
She just turned up at his flat, in a re-run of their first meeting, at a shade after eight o’clock. Pace was half expecting someone from the firm to contact him and was delighted to hear her familiar tones crackle over his intercom
. His packing (new clothes all, and most still in their plastic jackets) was done and dusted and two expensive new suitcases sat by the front door. There was nothing left for him to do so a visit from anybody was a nice distraction.
Sarah looked even more beautiful than he remembered. She was wearing a pair of black jeans with a sleeveless, lacy white top. Her hair was worn down this time and was longer than he’d imagined; falling thickly several inches past her shoulders. Her appearance was simple, sexy and unfairly gorgeous. She was not blind to his reaction and the knowing smile playing at the corners of her mouth as he invited her in made him feel a little foolish.
From the moment she sat down the atmosphere was completely different from before. She carried no briefcase and immediately wore a relaxed smile. Pace was happy to agree to her suggestion that they go out for a drink to celebrate his last night in England, although his own jeans and sweatshirt precluded visiting anywhere sophisticated, not that there were many places in his local area that rose to such standards.
It also meant he could keep his new walking boots on, which had been stuck to his feet for days in an effort to break them in. So far he’d only suffered one blister.
The local pub seemed the obvious choice and it was packed with people. The first thing to strike him may have been the crowd but the second was more off-putting; an atmosphere choked with a stifling heat. A quick glance at Sarah told him she found it as hot as he did so they opted to take their drinks out into the empty beer garden. Some of the wooden tables still had brightly-striped umbrellas propped through holes in their centre.
They sat down at one, the red and white material musty but lending them a sense of privacy as well as warding off the very light rain that had began to fall.
‘The publicity worked better than expected,’ she began, sipping her glass of sweet cider. Pace hadn’t worked out what to say by then and gratefully seized upon her opening.
‘I’m glad,’ he said. ‘I hope it covers what your father paid me.’
‘Don’t worry, nobody’s going to want any of your money back,’ Sarah smiled and sipped at her drink again.
‘Good job, I’ve got plans for every penny.’
‘We’ve managed to get a couple of multinationals interested that weren’t even on the list to start with. Your interviews have been well received and the whole thing is being promoted strongly. They’ve been queuing up to have their company logos on the promotional material.’ Her face was alight with enthusiasm.
‘More pledged money?’ asked Pace.
‘The project is almost three million pounds up on our highest expectations already. Most of that money has come in because of your involvement. You must be a celebrity of some kind,’ she laughed.
‘Getting yourself shot does have some advantages.’
‘It would seem so in your case.’
‘I’m glad something good is going to come out of all this. I’m the first to admit I’ve drifted since leaving the air force. I was beginning to wonder where, if anywhere, I was going. I’m not getting any younger sadly.’
Pace didn’t really know the woman but he felt completely comfortable with her. Momentarily at a loss for the next sentence he took refuge in a few swallows of his beer. The icy liquid chilled its way down to his stomach.
‘Are you worried? About the race?’ Her question took him by surprise. ‘It isn’t going to be easy, even for the experienced team members. How are your nerves holding up?’
‘Okay,’ he replied. This late in the day, with an outbound flight to South America waiting for him the next morning, being worried didn’t feature. His only feeling was a bloody-minded determination to succeed.
‘That’s good.’ Sarah said softly.
‘I’ve been given a second chance. Your father has given me the opportunity to do something really useful again with my life and I’m going to do it. It doesn’t matter what his reasons are.’
Sarah leaned across the table and pulled his hands into her own, her touch gentle on his skin. The sudden intimacy surprised him, as did the look in her eyes of honest admiration.
He had no idea she’d spent the previous evening reading through his personal file, including several sheets of family background and subtle psychological observations undertaken by the Harley Street doctor; none of which Pace would ever see.
His was the story of a man who’d thrown away a promising career with the Royal Air Force and walked away after nearly a decade of service.
His military records had been included in the secret dossier and indicated a hugely talented pilot with a disciplinary record that left a lot to be desired. Pace had walked a fine line with the chain of command and seemed to have had little respect for it. Overlooked for promotion several times because he had a habit of speaking his mind, regardless of who was listening, he’d finally called it a day. Civilian life had been one long amble to nowhere ever since.
‘You know what I think?’
‘I don’t have a clue.’
‘I think you’ve got guts. You know this is going to be a struggle but you’re going anyway.’ She kept a loose hold on his hands and Pace made no move to pull away.
‘I don’t know about that,’ he smiled, a little embarrassed. ‘Between you and me I think I’ve probably just lost my mind.’
‘Sometimes you need to feel like that to make a change. A bit of madness does the world good.’
‘And I won’t be alone out there either. If the team’s half as good as it looks there should be some great memories made.’
‘Have you ever been to Brazil?’ As a member of the McEntire camp Pace was pretty sure she already knew the answer to that, which she did. Maybe she was just looking for ways to build up the conversation.
‘I saw a lot of the world when I was flying for Her Majesty’s Government. The Middle East, Far East, Europe, Falklands, but I never got to Brazil. Interesting times back then.’
‘I’ll bet.’
‘I even did a three-month stint on loan to the Navy, working off carriers in the Med. As for actually going to places for fun, that’s a different story. I’ve been to Spain, Italy and Dublin. Oh,’ Pace added, ‘and I’ve done a couple of day trips across the Channel. In fact I haven’t left these shores for the last four years.’
‘That doesn’t matter,’ said Sarah.
‘It’s hardly the track record of a respectable adventurer.’
‘You’ll do fine,’ she said with conviction, then proceeded to give his hands a squeeze. A wave of real heat flooded his body.
A distant roll of thunder interrupted them, almost immediately accompanied by the beginnings of some heavier rain. Darkness thickened and the pub’s floodlights snapped on, sprinkling the garden with a host of intermittent shadows.
The rain and thunder grew heavier as they watched but they stayed dry beneath the canopy. The breeze remained light and had no affect on the larger raindrops; they continued to fall straight down. Not surprisingly they remained the only people outside.
Lightning forked into the ground a few miles away, followed quickly by a succession of explosive crashes as the electricity discharged angrily into the earth. Thankfully the umbrella stayed up. It was so sodden that excess water simply ran down to the edge of the material and dripped off the multitude of fraying tassels that trimmed its lip.
Sarah and Pace sat in their own little world, seemingly cut off from reality. They stared from each other, out into the dark night, and back again. The conversation switched easily from subject to subject as both grew more relaxed.
Slowly the storm abated but the rain continued to fall. After another hour under the umbrella, they headed back to the car for the short drive back to his little flat.
The sight that greeted them on arrival quickly darkened the mood.
5
Turning into the little car park, Pace found little room to manoeuvre given the presence of two fire engines, three ambulances and several police cars. A dozen or more blue lights flashed their defiance, both at t
he falling rain and the chaotic scene all around. Pace’s jaw dropped in stunned disbelief. Although he didn’t notice, Sarah’s hand flew to her mouth in horror; his block of flats was nicely ablaze.
A ferocious fire raged, sending flames roaring high into the night sky, spitting yellow and orange against the blackness. Smoke was poorly obscured by the worsening rain and it billowed skyward in a thick column, intermittently highlighted by lightning that cracked across the darkness behind it.
There was enough breeze to force some of the acrid fumes back down towards the ground and poisoned air stung the eyes and throats of several drenched onlookers before police officers hastily moved them back another twenty feet or so.
Pace didn't remember getting out of his car but suddenly he was standing next to a police car. The blue light flashed annoyingly into the corner of his right eye but he ignored it. Instead he stared up at the source of the fire.
He felt Sarah next to him. She slipped her arm around his waist and they watched his home burn together. Fire danced inside his front room and licked hungrily around the front window frame. The glass had already blown out and what remained of his curtains were just burning threads of cloth, taunting him as they were toyed with by the wind.
By eleven o’clock the fire was out and investigators started to sift through the ruins, looking for clues. They would be at it all night one of the police officers reliably informed him, after taking down his details and a brief statement of his whereabouts that night.
The rain eventually eased before stopping altogether. Spectators drifted back to their homes after official assurances that all was well. Luckily, there had been no one in any of the affected properties. Three homes were totally destroyed and three others had been badly damaged.
‘I should try to get into a hotel for tonight, I suppose,’ Pace decided.
Drawn and pale, hair plastered damply to her soaked and now vaguely see-through top, Sarah frowned. ‘You can’t stay at a hotel. There’s going to be a hell of a lot to do in the morning if we’re to get you on that plane. You’ll need a new passport and a duplicate visa, some clothes and new luggage.’ She shot him an encouraging, bolstering look.