'Which areas do you want me to cover?'
'London first, then spiralling radially outwards if there's nothing there.'
He pursed his lips. 'OK, but it'll take a bit of arranging. We've the flightpaths for Heathrow and City airports to consider, and if we go further out we'll run into Gatwick and Stanstead traffic as well. Fortunately, it won't be so bad at this time of night. I'll get in touch with Air Traffic Control.'
He left me and entered the cockpit. There was ample space in the seven-seat interior and there was nothing else I could do, so I made myself comfortable and waited.
Ten minutes later he returned briskly. 'Right, we're on our way. We'll be taking off in a couple of minutes.'
The little passenger jet banked steeply after taking off and headed back into London. I shut down my five normal senses as much as possible, then opened my other sense to the full.
The steady mental roar of London's millions was indescribable. Imagine the noise from a thousand heavily-trafficked motorways side by side and you might begin to grasp the scale. I was instantly afraid – picking one mind out of that seemed impossible.
Then I forced myself to calm and thought of Sophie. I thought of her sharp wit, her laughter, her saucy grin. I thought of the taste of her mind, the warmth and ironic humour, the keenness and intelligence. And how she responded to me. Then I held that pattern and scanned for my life, and hers.
The minutes ticked by, stretched into an hour. We had been following an irregular path around London, repeatedly changing altitude and direction to avoid the airliners lumbering like giant geese in to land, or clambering up into the sky. The roar in my head had retreated into a bland white noise, hissing against my mind. All of it unfamiliar. She was not in London.
I felt the plane turn again as the pilot began the outward spiral. One hour turned into two, then three. I became numb with despair, desperately trying to suppress the fears howling into the dark, to concentrate on the scan. The constant effort took its toll and I fell into a semi-conscious state, a corner of my mind still filtering, assessing.
When contact came, it was so faint that it scarcely registered. Then I was out of my chair and into the cockpit before I was fully awake. 'Turn the plane – to the right!'
The pilot complied, and the signal strengthened.
'Where are we?'
He checked the map display. 'Approaching Leicester.'
I waited tensely, making a minor correction to our course, then we were directly overhead. 'Mark this point on GPS!'
'Got it.'
'I need to land as close as possible, and to have a car waiting for me.'
'The closest is a commercial airport, Nottingham East Midlands. I'll get onto it.'
The next half hour was a torture of waiting. I held the thread linking me to Sophie for as long as I could, until it became so thin I wasn't sure if it was still there, or was just a wish, a memory.
At the airport an unmarked car was waiting, driven by a rather grumpy Special Branch officer whom I assumed had abruptly been wakened from a sound sleep. We sped down the M1 towards Leicester as the sky lightened with dawn. I had sensed that she was being held in the northern part of the city, so we turned off at Junction 22 to take the long, dual-carriageway A50 through Groby. As we entered Leicester I felt the thread strengthening, firming up. I had her now!
A few more turnings and we were getting very close. As we entered the street I felt the tension and excitement rising and forced myself to be calm. I said nothing to the driver as we went past the house, but noted the number. I asked him to turn off at the next junction and stop.
'They're in house number twenty-seven. All four of the terrorists are together, asleep, in two rooms upstairs. The hostage is in a third room, also upstairs. I'm going in now. Call reinforcements, but they are to arrive silently and stay out of sight until needed. Keep away from the house yourself – if any of them wakes and looks out of a window, I don't want him to see anything that wasn't there before.' The driver acknowledged and I left the car.
The street was probably interwar, the small rear gardens of the old red-brick town houses backing onto a traditional alleyway. I sprinted silently along this until I was behind number 27. It was surrounded by a high wall, and the gate to the garden was locked.
Apart from swimming, I had never given much thought to the dramatic improvements in my strength and fitness since the accident, but I was grateful for them now. I flowed over a wall which would have completely defeated me a year ago, and glided silently up the back of the house. Windows of two of the bedrooms were visible. I could sense that Sophie was in the right hand one, but the window was closed. Two of the terrorists were in the left hand room, and its window was slightly open.
The high wall extended from the back of the rear garden up to join the left side of the house. I climbed on top of the wall and stood at the same level as the window, a few feet to one side. I took a deep breath, and launched myself across the gap. I caught the sill, and hung there for a moment, then raised myself up and checked the window latch. It was a side-hinged, outwards-opening, steel-framed window, on a simple latch which I could easily reach. I couldn't see into the room – the curtains were drawn.
Hanging on with one hand, I slowly raised the latch arm from the frame, pulled it towards me, and left it dangling outside the room. Then I took another breath and pulled the window wide open. The hinges screeched loudly.
A drowsy voice spoke as I threw myself through the window, bursting through the curtains into the room. Two single beds were side by side, across my path. The first man never woke as I touched him in mid-air, but the wakener got out a strangled shout before my hurtling body reached him.
I threw myself off him and wrenched the door open, dashing into the hallway as the door to a front bedroom was opening. I flung myself at that, dropping the man as he emerged, but his partner was out of bed and the ugly snout of a sub-machine was swinging towards me. One last leap as the muzzle started flashing a stuttering flame and then he was down and so was I, the bullets hammering through me. I tried to stop the damage but my sight greyed out and I collapsed unconscious.
I became aware of Sophie first of all. As I swam back into the light of consciousness my new sense opened first and she was there, her warmth flowing over me. I reached for her and held her, beginning to absorb her feel, her scent and finally the glorious sight of her, smiling and unharmed, as I finally opened my eyes.
Richards discreetly waited a few minutes before he entered the room and sat down on the other side of my bed. I looked around and recognised yet another hospital room.
'How are you feeling?'
'Wonderful!'
'I meant physically.'
I paused to check my physical state. Not too good. There were no obvious injuries, but I felt weak and tired. 'Not good. About the same as I always used to feel up to a year ago.'
'You continue to amaze us. These were found under your body. It seems that they made their own way out.' He handed me four bullets, their brass-coloured jackets grooved by rifling.
'My body is a quick learner.'
'Yes, you have no remaining signs of injury, but even so you were lucky. The Special Branch man heard the gunshots and, rather recklessly, decided to go in rather than waiting for reinforcements. He found you down and out, losing blood fast – one bullet had cut an artery. He was able to staunch the worst of the flow, which it seems gave your body time to recover and repair itself. Although if a normal man had taken such wounds, he would have been dead before help could arrive.'
'Then he came into my room and untied me.' Sophie added. 'I was going mad with worry – I guessed that the shooting meant that you had arrived.' She grinned suddenly. 'I never doubted that you would - even if you did take your time about it!'
'We now have four more captives, including the new leader. Would you mind de-brainwashing them? Even if they won't agree to go back in the field for us, a change in their attitude might be helpful.'
I s
ighed, rather reluctant. 'All right, and I want to see that Special Branch man to thank him personally. But then we need a break.'
'No problem!' He said cheerfully. 'We actually have a place for you both, very remote, so you can recover in peace.'
He was right. The "place" turned out to be an isolated wooden chalet on the Essex coast. It was built just on the landward side of a sea wall, close to an estuary, giving a view from the veranda of the North Sea stretching to the horizon. The wall sloped down to a narrow sandy beach. In contrast, the estuary was surrounded by mudflats formed of river deposits, covered at high tide. The chalet was reached only by a long, narrow road between the drained pasturelands, little more than a track, with the nearest village so far away it was out of sight. We were entirely alone.
It was now full summer and the weather was kind. Day after day dawned bright and clear, the huge sky making the landscape seem small-scale and insignificant. The chalet had been well-stocked with necessities, so we had nothing to do except relax and enjoy ourselves.
We would walk each day along a path beside the estuary, becoming familiar with the way its appearance and cycles of activity varied with the tide. At low tide, the mudflats teemed with birds. The home contained some guides to the wildlife so we tried to identify as many as we could. The various gulls were easy enough to spot (although we had to learn to distinguish the more slender terns), as were the black-white-and-brown shelducks, filtering the surface mud with their orange beaks. The smaller brown birds scurrying about were more of a challenge.
We also walked along the beach, noting the different bird life and what the sea cast up on the shore. The strange, black, pillow-like fish egg cases were frequently washed up, as were the long, narrow razor shells and the coiled whelk shells. Odd bits of well-worn driftwood were common and so, sadly, were the indestructible plastic remnants of our throw-away society.
Of course, I could not resist the sea. I felt it drawing me from the first day we arrived and was soon swimming far out each day, until the sea wall was just a line on the horizon with the chalet a small bump. Sophie came with me sometimes – she was a good swimmer and there were fins and snorkels in the chalet, but she could not keep up and anyway found the water too cold to stay in for long.
I especially loved diving down to the sea bed and cruising just above it. It was mostly rippled sand, with the occasional stony outcrops liberally covered with molluscs and seaweed. Crabs and shrimps scurried away from my shadow, fish darted past, and sometimes the sand erupted as a flatfish decided I had come too close and broke cover to swim away. Occasionally I would sense more complex life and find a seal – each of us examining the other with curiosity. I realised that I could detect the presence of animal minds and, with the more intelligent species, even gain some feeling for their mood.
The sea seemed to have a healing effect on me – not just physically, but psychologically. It was like a giant, cool, womb, a place to immerse my mind as well as my body.
We also talked – a lot. I learned about Sophie's world, the way in which her perspective on life had become channelled into assessing all information for its potential as a news item. Her reaction to that was to escape into poetry, rather surprising me with her preference for the Romantics. As she pointed out, she needed their innocent idealism as an antidote to the murk she normally had to delve in.
It seemed that there was nothing about me that she didn't want to know. I found myself explaining about my reaction against my religious upbringing, the constant rivalry and arguments with Luke and, more awkwardly, my inability to maintain relationships for very long: I had never married, and none of my girlfriends had lasted for more than three years. I picked up the impression that she was determined to change that pattern. She even did her best to become interested in the library of jazz music I had brought with me.
One day Sophie was in a more than usually contemplative mood, and was clearly trying to hide something from me. 'Out with it,' I commanded jokingly.
'Well, I'm not certain yet, but I think I might be pregnant.'
I gaped at her for a second. 'But that's impossible – I had a vasectomy long ago!'
'Perhaps that's something else that got repaired.'
I placed my hand on her abdomen and scanned. Nothing approaching a mind was detectable, but there was definitely something unusual about her womb. I looked at her in wonder. 'I think you might be right!'
'Do you mind?'
I thought about that. The paternal instinct had passed me by and I had never contemplated having children, but I now felt confusion. 'I'll have to get used to that idea!' I joked, privately wondering what kind of baby my new genes might produce.
'Oh, you will!' She snuggled up to me confidently.
It was an idyllic time, and days flowed into weeks without us noticing. There was a radio but we never turned it on. There was a phone but it never rang, and we never used it. There was no post, no papers. Of course, it could not last.
I woke in the night, feeling uneasy. My thoughts immediately went to Sophie lying next to me, but she was fast asleep. I scanned around the house, but could find nothing wrong. Puzzled, I got up and went over to the windows, quietly sliding them open so I could walk out onto the veranda. I looked out to sea, but it was a moonless night and the stars were covered with a thin layer of cloud, so even my eyes could detect little.
Then I let my special sense flow outwards – and it recoiled. Three groups of four men, each group in a small inflatable boat, were paddling for the shore. Further out I could sense more men, probably in the larger craft which had brought them. Their minds were bright with excitement, with lethal ferocity. And they were coming for me.
I moved swiftly back into the house. 'Sophie, wake up and put some clothes on. Now.' She didn't argue but got up immediately. I went into the living room and picked up the phone to dial an almost forgotten number. It was answered instantly, and I briefly described what was happening, then rang off.
Sophie was now ready – and the boats were close to the shore. I whispered an explanation as we crept out of the back of the house, and ran as fast as we could along the road. There was no obvious cover except for drainage ditches beside the road, and we dived down into one when I sensed that the first of the men was climbing up the sea wall.
Their attack on the chalet was fast and well coordinated. Grenades were hurled through the windows, shattering the structure with fragments, then some of the men charged into the building, bursts of fire hammering from their weapons. There was a pause of a couple of minutes before they re-emerged, turning back to throw what must have been thermite grenades; the chalet burst into flames. In the light of the fire I could see that they were all carrying guns, and had odd bulges on their foreheads – night vision equipment, I realised. Then they started looking for us.
We were close to a bridge over the ditch, which provided an access from the road onto the farmland. In fact, it wasn't so much a bridge as a tubular concrete pipe with earth piled on top. I pushed Sophie into the pipe and then moved back towards the men. I had to attack, or they would soon find us anyway.
The men had spread out, two groups of four running in opposite directions along the sea wall, searching the land below. The third group came straight along the road towards me, looking in the ditches on either side as they came.
I moved to meet them, as close as I dared, and then submerged in the shallow ditch, instinctively adjusting my skin colour to match the muddy water. I waited until I sensed them going past, then surfaced and slipped onto the road, racing silently after them.
The first two fell as I touched them and their weapons clattered on the ground. The others spun round – one was too slow and already falling before he completed his move, but the other opened fire.
I dived to one side as the muzzle flashes split up the night, then bounced up again and touched him. By then, the other groups had turned back and were racing along the bank towards the road.
I picked up a weapon, which I recog
nised as a type of Kalashnikov, and swung the gun into the aim, noting that it had an optical sight with an illuminated aiming mark. I placed the mark just in front of the first running man and pulled the trigger. The man dropped immediately, but the muzzle flipped upwards with the recoil so I corrected my aim, held the gun more firmly and fired again.
I wasn't sure how many I had hit but it wasn't enough, and the others had taken cover on the seaward side of the wall. I realised that I was totally exposed and slid back down into the ditch, just as the return fire crackled the air around me.
A bright flash followed from behind the wall, and a streak of fire shot towards me. I ducked as the rocket-propelled grenade detonated on the road a few yards away. I sensed movement behind the wall and suddenly realised that they were getting in line with the ditch so they could fire directly along it. I rolled rapidly across the road and into the opposite ditch as the next grenade streaked along the ditch before detonating.
I felt a flash of agony from Sophie and in rage and desperation reached out with my mind to the men behind the sea wall and wrenched. There was a sudden silence and stillness, in which I became dimly aware of a distant throbbing, growing rapidly louder. A bright searchlight flicked on, spearing through the night and sweeping down over the scene. I raced to the bridge and dropped into the ditch, then realised the terrible truth. The second rocket-propelled grenade had hit the bank just in front of the pipe, blasting a lethal shower of fragments down it. I pulled out Sophie's torn and bloodied body and held her in my arms, frantically seeking with all my senses for any sign of life, any chance of revival. There was nothing.
As I held her, a flash illuminated the sky above the wall, followed by a loud explosion. I scarcely noticed at the time, and only later realised that helicopter had flown on and destroyed the "mother craft".
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