by Jeremy Duns
I gestured at Sarah and we started moving away from the sound, to the other side of the floor. But we must have dislodged something as we ran, either a stone or some dust, because there was suddenly a shout from below, and when I next looked up, Barnes was standing in front of me with a machine-pistol in his hands and a murderous look in his eyes.
We raised our hands, and he gestured to the staircase with the weapon.
‘Down.’
*
The helicopter was hovering several feet above the ground, flattening the surrounding shrubbery and kicking up eddies of dust. In the cockpit, headphones over his ears, sat the beak-nosed guard, while standing a few feet in front of it was Severn, his fair hair swept back by the wind from the blades and his eyes locked on us as Barnes marched us towards him. He wiped his hand against the gash on his cheek, and as it came away I saw it was dark with blood.
I looked across at Sarah: she was still shaking, and her back was hunched over. Behind us, I could sense Barnes’ fingers twitching on the trigger of his machine-pistol, and realized that we were probably seconds away from death. But there was no way out. My chest tightened, and I could hear my heart drumming in my head.
‘Here, sir?’ Barnes called out to Severn. He was itching to kill me, to avenge Templeton.
Severn shook his head. ‘Inside.’
A few seconds’ reprieve, then. Probably because he didn’t want the trouble of carrying our corpses aboard.
We were level with Severn now. The spinning of the rotors was deafening, and it was proving difficult to walk. Barnes yelled at us to enter the helicopter, and Sarah started trying to lift herself over the ledge. She fell on the first attempt, and Barnes roughly dragged her up and pushed her up and over with one hand, the other still clutching the machine-pistol. Now? The moment I had the thought the chance was gone: he swivelled back to face me, and gestured I should follow suit.
I didn’t react. I knew he would shoot us as soon as we were both on board. Once the chopper was safely over the water, they would throw our bodies out. Barnes took me by the collar of my shirt and shoved me up and in, using the machine-pistol as a prod. As I collapsed at Sarah’s feet, Barnes leapt aboard, and Severn after him, and I soaked in the smell and atmosphere of the cramped space, taking in the beak-nosed guard up front, the bank of equipment he was operating, and the fact that we had already started to take off. I glanced up and saw Barnes looking over at Severn, who nodded.
‘Dark first,’ he shouted, pointing at me, and Barnes grabbed me by the collar again and hauled me around until I was kneeling by the door, facing out and looking down at the ground as we rose up from it and away, now already above water, my heart in my lungs and vomit rising in my throat.
This was it. This was the end. I could hear Sarah sobbing behind me, begging Severn not to kill us. She was interrupted by a loud burst of noise, static from a transmitter, and for a fraction of a second Barnes moved to register it and without even thinking I reached back and grabbed Sarah by the wrist, then pitched forward, diving blindly into the sky. The wind yanked me down, and I lost contact with Sarah and went spinning through the air, my guts in my eyeballs and my brain in my toes and a choir of gunshots ringing in my ears, and then there was a smack and a deep boom, and the water was cold, freezing, salty, and I was plummeting further and further into it…
XVII
It took a few moments to catch up with what had happened: my head was dizzy from the fall, my chest burning from the impact, and every injury on my body was suddenly seared by the salt in the water. But my mind was singing, because I knew I was alive.
I clawed my way up to the surface for air, but the moment I broke through machine-gun fire split the water around me, bursts of green and orange flame kicking up through the waves. I grabbed a breath before submerging again, and saw that Sarah was just a few feet away, and seemingly in trouble, her limbs flailing about. My mind stopped singing. There was a helicopter with machine guns right above us, and we were sitting ducks. I squinted through the bluey-green world and saw a formation of jagged grey rocks in front of me: the coastline.
About halfway down the wall of rocks was a large hole: it looked like some sort of passage. I swam frantically towards Sarah and managed to twist her round so that she was lying atop my back, and then kicked as hard as I could towards the cavern. It was large, and I swam through, feeling ripples from fish and sea-creatures around me as I did.
I came up for air a few seconds later and deposited Sarah next to me on a large cold slab of stone. She spluttered out water and wheezed, her body racked from the experience. I looked up – had they seen us? Apparently not. Directly above our heads was a large overhanging rock formation, and just a few feet away its twin. Between the two overhangs stretched a patch of pale pink sky. The hole was much larger than I would have liked: if the helicopter happened to fly over it, we were fish in a barrel. But if we had come up anywhere else, they would have already shot us.
The vital thing now was not to move and attract their attention. I explained the situation to Sarah, and we sat there, listening to the shuddering roar of the helicopter as it hovered over the area, circling back and forth, looking for us. With every increase in volume, my heart clenched, then subsided as the sound receded, only to clench again moments later. After a few minutes, the effort of staying still was starting to cramp my muscles, and I was worried that I wasn’t going to be able to hold out much longer. If I fainted now, it could be fatal. Sarah was in the same position as I was, her muscles tensed and her stomach heaving. I suddenly noticed a line of small dark dots in the corner of the window of sky. Had they spotted us? But the dots weren’t moving. My brain rearranged the perspective and I realized with a start that there was another overhanging rock between the sky and us, and that the dots clinging to it were, in fact, the heads of birds: vultures.
I squinted, and managed to make out a few of the individual heads. They were staring intently at us, and I knew why. We weren’t moving: they were starting to wonder if we might be carrion.
Keep calm.
I looked beyond them at the patch of sky. No helicopter in it, but the noise was still there, so they hadn’t given up yet, and were no doubt using binoculars to examine every possible hiding place we could have disappeared into. If we made any movement at all, they might catch it and then we would be finished. But if we didn’t move, the vultures might decide we were worth investigating further.
I switched back to the line of dots. They weren’t there any more! I caught a frantic flap of black feathers in my peripheral vision, and then saw them gliding down, seemingly not moving their wings, until they were circling directly above the nearest ledge. Any closer, and they might give away our position. But we were still exposed by the window, and any movement I made might alert Severn and the others.
The vultures were swooping nearer and nearer, a sinister sound emanating from their throats. An image flashed into my mind of their red eyes glaring glassily as their beaks pecked at our flesh, and I realized I had to risk it. The noise of the chopper momentarily fell away and I threw up a hand and retracted it almost as quickly, praying that the sudden movement would be enough to tell the birds we were alive but not enough to be seen by anyone in the chopper. There was a flickering of wings from the vulture at the head of the pack, and within a few moments they had disappeared from the window, no doubt moving on to the next outcrop. I looked up for any sign of the helicopter. Had they seen either the vultures’ interest or my hands? It didn’t seem so. The sound of the blades was fading into the distance.
Several minutes later, I realized they weren’t coming back – at least not for the time being. I suddenly felt very tired. My eyes stung, my arms ached, my legs were in seizure – my whole body was racked with pain, and all I wanted to do was lie down and sleep and let oblivion do the rest. But now wasn’t the time for such thoughts. We couldn’t stay here – they’d have the police of the whole island awake to our presence within a few hours, which would mean we
wouldn’t be able to rent a boat or catch a ferry or do anything. We had to get back to the mainland, where we’d be able to slip through the cracks, and we had to do it now. I pushed myself up to a standing position and gripped the corner of a nearby rock. There was a narrow opening between two stones that led to more rocks. I helped Sarah to her feet, and we began crawling through.
It took us about an hour by my estimation, but we finally clambered through the rocks and found ourselves on a small strip of beach. The sun had come up now, and the heat was starting to beat down on us. Hidden high above the beach I could see the outline of a large white building: a hotel, perhaps, or one of the older villas.
We walked across the sand until we came to a tiny wooden jetty. Tethered to it was a boat. It was small, but it could get us off the island. I climbed up and threw off the ropes. There didn’t seem to be a key anywhere, and I decided the best option would be to jump-start it. I hadn’t done it since the war, but this didn’t look all that different from a motor-torpedo. I was about to climb in when something stopped me dead. It was the click of a hammer.
I looked up. Standing directly above us was a man wearing a striped shirt and canvas trousers. And he was pointing a shotgun at our heads.
*
‘Che state facendo qui?’ he snarled. ‘E’ proprieta’ privata.’
He was young, in his early twenties I thought, and of much the same stamp as the sniper from St Paul’s: long dark hair swept down over his forehead and the beginnings of a beard covering his deeply tanned face.
We raised our hands and walked towards him. He looked Sarah over in a way that made me feel queasy – her clothes hadn’t completely dried and were still clinging to her in places – and then levelled the gun at my chest.
‘Abbiamo solo fatto una nuotata,’ I said. ‘Non e’ quello che pensa—’
His eyes widened. ‘E cosa penso?’
‘Ascolti, mi dispiace molto di averla disturbata,’ Sarah broke in, surprising me. ‘Avremmo bisogno di affittare la sua barca. In questo momento non abbiamo denaro con noi, ma lavoriamo per il governo britannico e mi accertero’ personalmente che l’ambasciata la rimborsi—’
‘My God,’ he said, lowering the gun. ‘You’re British! Why didn’t you say so in the first place?’
Sarah and I looked at him with shock. The voice was pure Old Etonian.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he asked. ‘You look a complete mess.’
‘Help us up and we’ll explain,’ said Sarah, and gave her most winning smile. ‘We come in peace, honestly.’
He hesitated for a moment, but a beautiful girl with an English accent can never be dangerous. He stuck out his hand, and helped her up, then offered it to me.
‘Ralph Balfour-Laing,’ he said. ‘Pleasure to meet you. And yes, of the Balfour-Laings, before you ask!’
I’d never heard of any Balfour-Laings, and hadn’t been planning on asking about them either. My first instinct was distrust, and it even went through my head that he might be a plant of Severn’s, some sort of casual watchman for the base. But I dismissed it at once – he was just a rich young layabout, and Sardinia was one of their natural habitats. Gesturing at the villa, he explained that he was a painter and that the place was a private retreat where he sometimes came to discover his muse and, it seemed, host the occasional wild party with the island’s jet set. He eyed Sarah up again and asked her if she had ever been painted nude. Before things got too out of hand I told him we were on urgent government business and needed to get back to the mainland immediately. Could he help?
‘I can do more than that,’ he said with a grin. ‘I’ll take you there myself. That’s not my only boat, you know.’
XVIII
The face in front of me was covered in the beginnings of a beard, the bloodshot eyes staring out wildly. I looked like hell, and felt worse. There was a razor next to the basin, but I decided it wasn’t a good idea: partly hidden under the beard, a long gash ran down the length of my right cheek, with grit visible inside it, and there were abrasions on my chin and throat. If I shaved, I might look even worse.
I picked up a monogrammed hand towel from a pile above the mirror and soaked a corner of it in the basin, then cleaned out as many of the wounds as I could, wincing with the pain, trying to remove as many of the surface problems as possible. Once I was satisfied, I picked up a glass from a mahogany sideboard, filled it with water from the tap, and drank down several glugs.
I walked over to one of the portholes and looked out at the island rapidly receding behind us. We’d made it. We were alive. But I couldn’t help feeling it was just a temporary reprieve. The boat was going at a healthy rate of knots – but would it be fast enough? Severn would comb every inch of the bay looking for our bodies. When he didn’t find us he would eventually come to the conclusion that we had escaped, and then his thoughts would turn to what Sarah might know, what she might have told me and what we might do next. Everything depended on how long he would keep up the search. He might start sending men into the nearby villages to look for us and ask around – or he might decide not to take any chances and immediately fly the helicopter straight to Rome. In which case, this would all have been for nothing, as he’d be waiting for us when we arrived.
I looked across at Sarah, obliviously asleep on a bank of padded orange seats in the corner of the cabin, beneath one of our host’s works of art, a blotchy oil painting that I thought might be a Sardinian sunset gone askew. On the floor, the end of a cigarette smouldered in a terracotta ashtray.
Balfour-Laing hadn’t had any food on board apart from some beans he’d found in a cupboard, which we had devoured straight from the tin, but the cigarettes had perhaps been more welcome. He had also offered us wine and beer, but neither of us was in any shape or mood for alcohol and had been more than grateful for water, and Sarah had soon fallen asleep. Some colour had finally returned to her face, and while the welts were still faintly visible on her neck, she otherwise looked in much better shape. Balfour-Laing had dug up a T-shirt and a pair of old overalls and, hunched over in them inelegantly, she looked like a child in hand-me-downs. I was wearing a pair of his trousers and a paint-flecked shirt – he hadn’t had any spare underwear, but I wasn’t about to complain. Both our outfits were completed by rather natty white plimsolls, part of a supply he kept on board for when the heat of the sun became too much for his guests to walk around barefoot on deck. Today was Sunday, he had told us: we had been imprisoned for nearly two days.
Perhaps feeling the force of my gaze on her, Sarah opened her eyes. She sat up and stared at me inquisitively.
‘Are we nearly there?’
‘Another hour or so.’
She nodded, and leaned over to pick up the pack of cigarettes from the floor. She slid one out and lit it. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘Thank you,’ I replied. ‘You got us aboard.’
She took a draught of the cigarette and looked at me intently. ‘That was nothing. You got me out of there.’
I changed the subject. ‘We need to prepare. What more can you tell me about those documents you read in Charles’ safe?’
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I told you all I know. I could only risk staying in his office for a few minutes. I saw the Service seal and “Stay Behind”, but there were hundreds of pieces of paper in the dossier and I didn’t have the time—’
‘I understand. Look, I have to stop whatever it is they are planning, so I’ll need to get back into that safe and find those documents.’
‘I know. I’ll help you.’
‘Good. I think it’s best if you tell me the combination now, and that we part ways once we reach the mainland. They won’t have put a stop on the airports yet and you’ll be able to get a flight to London soon enough. As soon as you land, go straight to Whitehall and ask to see the Home Secretary, urgently. Tell him what you know—’
‘But I don’t really know anything!’
‘You know enough. Tell Haggard everything you tol
d me, and make sure to mention “Stay Behind”. He’ll understand. He’ll ask you for proof, of course: tell him it’s coming. Don’t mention me.’ It wasn’t ideal, by any means, but I had to get her out of the country – and out of the reach of Severn.
She leaned down and crushed the remains of her cigarette into the ashtray. ‘I appreciate what you’re trying to do, Paul, but I want to stop this, too, and running away won’t help. The Home Secretary isn’t going to do anything without any evidence, and you know it. You need me to show you where the documents are – there were hundreds of them.’
‘Describe them to me. I’ve a good memory.’
Her jaw was set. ‘You’re not getting rid of me.’
‘Look,’ I said, ‘this isn’t a time for heroics or impulse decisions. If this is what I think it might be, we’re dealing with a conspiracy that a lot of very powerful men will do anything to protect. And I mean anything.’
‘Don’t you dare lecture me,’ she said, her voice rising. ‘I was already committed to stopping them, remember – I was prepared to show you the documents the other night, and I haven’t found any reason to change my mind since. Quite the contrary.’
‘Tell me how to get into the safe, Sarah. This isn’t a game.’
She cut me off with a bitter laugh. ‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ she spat out. She pulled the collar of her shirt down sharply, exposing one of the larger welts. ‘Do you think I don’t know who we’re dealing with here?’ Her gaze narrowed. ‘I want to stop whatever it is he is planning, even it means I die running from him.’
Her voice had started to crack and she put a hand up to her face. I made to lean over, but she shook her head and stood up. She walked over to the other side of the cabin, next to a lifebuoy pinned to the wall with the name of the boat emblazoned on it: PARADISO. I could see her shoulders moving a little, and knew she was crying in both shame and fury.