The girl bounced excitedly up and down in her camping chair. `Hey -- I've beaten you at last, Ellen!'
`It's always the same,' Ellen grumbled. `I once taught a nephew to play chess, an eight-year-old, and he ended up wiping the floor with me after three days. It's taken you two days.'
`Another game?' asked Claire eagerly.
Ellen tipped the chessmen into their box. `I've had enough. One thing you will learn about me in the fullness, Claire, is that I'm a bad loser.'
`How about Monopoly so that we can all play?'
Ellen glanced across the cave at Vikki who was staring listlessly at the mammoth mural. `How about a game of Monopoly, Vikki?'
Vikki made no reply.
`Vikki?'
No reply.
`With a face like yours, we'll let you be the boot.'
`I don't want to play any fucking stupid games!'
`I will not tolerate such language in my cave!' Ellen retorted.
Claire giggled. Vikki scowled at her and returned her gaze to the painting. The older women exchanged despairing looks. Ellen had had enough. She and Claire had spent much of the two days they had been incarcerated in the cave trying to comfort Vikki in her grief over the death of Sarah. Ellen rose from her chair and confronted the girl.
`Vikki, look at me.' The girl refused to turn her head so Ellen forced her chin around. `Now you listen to me, young lady. We've had two days of this ridiculous sulking and we're both heartily--'
`I'm not sulking!' Vikki snapped back. `How would you like it if your best friend was murdered in front of you?'
`That's a stupid question and you know it is. We both understand how you feel. But this isn't going to help Sarah, and it certainly isn't helping us. Heaven knows how long we're going to be stuck in here, so for God's sake please pull yourself together and try to make life a bit more bearable for all of us.'
`It would've been better if they'd let us burn instead of interfering--'
Ellen's answer was a hard slap across Vikki's face that jerked her head back, her eyes wide with shock. `You ungrateful little bitch! A lot of people have taken terrible risks to save your miserable skin, including Claire. They're probably being hunted down now, their families arrested, and God knows what else. Now you make yourself more amenable, young lady, or, I swear, you'll wish you had ended up at that stake!'
`That's what I do wish!' With that Vikki burst into tears. She jumped up and threw herself on her bed, her back to the cave, shoulders heaving. `I don't suppose that did much good,' said Claire quietly, a note of rebuke in her voice.
Ellen shrugged. `Maybe not. But it did me a power of good.'
Chapter 68.
THE TERROR ORGANIZED BY VANESSA Grossman began quietly enough with a dark-clad figure leaving the Pentworth House bakery just before dawn clutching a loaf that was still hot from the ovens. There were always a few early risers anxious for the first bread of the day therefore a small queue outside the bakery before first light when the gates opened was not unusual. What was unusual was that the figure did not leave through the gates but vaulted quickly over a safety zone fence, dashed across the grass, and rolled under the main low-pressure methane storage tank that supplied gas to the bread ovens. There were two of the 10 metre diameter tanks supported on brick piles, and a third under construction. The methane was produced from pig manure.
Once out of sight, the saboteur crawled to within a metre of one of the pressure-relief breather pipes -- the smell was appalling -- and unpacked the components of his incendiary device. It was fiendishly simple, consisting of paraffin wax fire lighters fixed to the underside of the storage tank with gaffer tape. Pushed around the fire lighters were small balls of tissue paper that had been soaked in potassium nitrate -- used for curing meat and highly inflammable. Hanging from each fire lighter was a length of fluffy, white cotton string. There was a good deal of debris under the tank: bits of paper, straw, even a few pieces of wood, which he arranged into a neat pile under the fire lighters. Last operation was to light the end of each dangling string and quickly blow the flame out leaving a smouldering point of red at tip. The strings smouldered at a rate of a centimetre per minute which meant it would be 30 minutes before they set fire to the balls of tissue paper which, in turn, would ignite the fire lighters.
Satisfied that the string fuses were smouldering properly, he wriggled out from under the tank, picked up his loaf, and made sure that no one was about before hopping over the fence and rejoining the shoppers leaving the bakery.
The entire operation had taken less than ten minutes. The saboteur prided himself on his technique. The beauty of his device was its simplicity and that all the component parts were combustible and would be burned. As with all his work, there would no incriminating bits of timer or metal to arouse the suspicions of insurance investigators: everything would be destroyed. All that he had to do now was make a phone call from a phonebox that implicated the Country Brigade. He had worked for Vanessa Grossman before in the days before the Wall. She had paid well then, and tomorrow she would hand over the second half of his fee.
One tiny worry as he tore a crust off the loaf and chewed it while putting distance between himself and Pentworth House: where was he going to get such delicious bread after the inevitable outcome of his mission?
Chapter 69.
IT WASN'T SO MUCH AN EXPLOSION, but a huge sheet flame that ripped the methane tank open and destroyed the second tank in a similar spectacular manner. The resulting fireball climbed into sky, briefly illuminating the entire town. No one was hurt but the ground fire threatened to engulf the nearby grain silos. Pentworth's two fire appliances were on the scene within five minutes, branch pipes dousing the bakery and the grain silos to stop the fire from spreading.
A crowd gathered and an announcement followed on Radio Pentworth to say that the radio station had received a phone call purportedly from the Country Brigade claiming responsibility for the sabotage.
Vanessa Grossman was first to start work on the 4th floor of Government House. She made a cup of tea and listened on her radio to the comments of outraged citizens being interviewed in Market Square, while reflecting that everything was off to good start. The previous day Diana Sheldon had accepted Prescott's offer as director of the supplies agency with some eagerness -- anything to be completely independent of Prescott -- and had moved out of Government House by midday.
Vanessa now had Diana Sheldon's old position in Prescott's outer office but not for long: she had earmarked a separate office for herself so that she could plan her intrigues in private. Her intercom buzzed. The lobby desk blackshirt tipping her off that Prescott had arrived. She was getting them trained.
`Bad business, Miss Grossman,' said Prescott when he came in. `Who would've thought that that rabble would have the nerve to do such a thing in the middle of the town?'
`Who indeed,' said Vanessa handing him a briefing note. `You're due down the corridor in the radio studio in ten minutes. You'll be deploring this cowardly act without overtly blaming the Country Brigade, and calling on volunteers to join the new part time police reserve.'
`What police reserve?'
`The one you'll be announcing on the radio in ten minutes,' said Vanessa patiently. `While you're doing that, I'll be fixing up some transport to start shipping our grain out of Pentworth House's silos and getting local bakers geared up to produce bread instead of fancy cakes.'
`My God,' said Prescott suddenly, as a thought occurred. `This business is going to work to our advantage. Roscoe had a virtual monopoly on bread production.'
`Yes,' said Vanessa drily. `It had drifted across my mind.'
`He once threatened me with closing his bakery unless I played ball with him. Damned impudence.'
She removed an imaginary thread from Prescott's safari shirt. One small gesture for a woman; one giant leap for domination. `Well, he won't be doing anything like that again. Now off you go and do your piece, Prescott. Call to arms. Pentworth facing a crisis. You do that sor
t of thing well.' She meant it, and sent him packing.
The other girls came in, chatting animatedly about the bakery explosion. They liked Vanessa and accepted her promotion. That she had children, worried about their schooling, understood the problems of running a family and a job, gave her a certain empathy that Diana Sheldon had lacked.
Vanessa called the messenger service and sent for Tony Selby, the boss of Selby Engineering. While listening to Prescott, she read a file on the engineering company's resources that Diana Sheldon had put together.
`We don't know, as yet, how the explosion was caused,' Prescott was saying. `You can't expect me to comment until we have more information, but the perpetrators of this cowardly act will be caught and brought to justice.'
`We had a call claiming it was the work of the Country Brigade,' said the presenter.
`Anyone can make a phone call,' was Prescott's guarded reply.
Vanessa closed the Selby file and concentrated on Prescott's interview. She rolled a press release blank into her typewriter and rattled out a short statement saying that the Country Brigade had not denied responsibility for the attack therefore they were under suspicion. She signed it on behalf of Prescott and used his seal. A messenger took it to radio station's newsroom. It was certain to be mentioned in the next news bulletin.
Chapter 70.
TONY SELBY WAS USHERED INTO Vanessa's commandeered office. He was a grave-looking man of about 35. He had taken over his father's engineering business at the age of 23 and, in an unusual move for a British company, had promptly borrowed the equivalent of five years turnover for investment in new machine tools. With new shapers, capstans, lathes, mills, stamping presses, injection moulding equipment and a wide variety of other tools, Selby Engineering and its 100 employees had been able to tackle any business that came their way. Immediately following the Wall crisis they had doubled their staff and turned out solar cooker dishes by the score -- from which they had acquired skills in papier mache moulding. They had followed this with solar water heating panels, methane lamps, and charcoal cookers -- all well-designed and built to last, and with good spares support, because Pentworth could not afford to waste materials on planned obsolescence. They had even designed and built a pair of 20 kilowatt methane-powered generators to supply their plant's power needs, and had converted a number of vehicles to run on the gas.
After a few opening pleasantries, Vanessa got down to business. `Mr Prescott is embarking on an ambitious expansion plan for the police.'
`Certainly something needs to be done after that business with the bakery, Miss Grossman.'
`It's not only the Country Brigade that concerns him, but the fact that such a force would be poorly armed should our Silent Vulcan friends in Pentworth Lake make any hostile moves.'
Selby grinned. `I don't think any weaponry we could turn out would be much of a match against the technology that produced the Wall.'
`But we must be prepared to meet any threat to the best of our ability,' Vanessa insisted. `There's a bag in corner beside you. Take a look please.'
Puzzled, Selby unzipped the Nike sports bag and took out a sub-machinegun. The lightweight weapon had an open frame stock made of pressed steel, and a folding butt. `Good heavens. A Sterling. Some years ago we had an overhaul subcontract from Royal Ordnance at Blackburn on few hundred of these things.'
`So you're familiar with them?'
`My chief designer is.'
`And there're two loaded magazines,' Vanessa added.
Selby opened the weapon and inspected its ejector mechanism. `Where did it come from?'
`A woman handed it in to the police a few days before the Wall appeared. Could you reproduce it, Mr Selby?'
The engineer sensed a joke. `These things are incredibly crude and simple,' he commented. `That's the whole point of them. Cheap and nasty. Easier to make than, say, wind-up clocks. About half-a-dozen moving parts to work the blow-back and ejector mechanism via the trigger, a barrel, and that's about it.' He put the gun down on the desk and picked up one of the magazines. `As for these things -- almost an empty box for the rounds and a coil spring that rams them into the chamber as they're fired. The only difficult bit about the gun itself is machining and heat-treating the barrel. But these are low-pressure weapons so it's nothing fancy.'
`How many could you make?’
Selby met Vanessa's gaze and realized with a sinking feeling that she was serious. He took a steel tape from his pocket and measured the length of the barrel. `We've got enough mild steel bar stock to turn out about 200.'
`Excellent. That sounds like a sensible number.'
`The pistol grip, the sights, even the frame could be easily made from moulded plastic using this gun as a pattern.' The engineer paused. `Miss Grossman -- we could turn out 200 Sterling copies with very little trouble but it would completely exhaust our stock of 50 mill diameter bar stock mild steel. Forgive me if I'm speaking out of turn, but do you think it wise to expend our limited resources on armaments on such a scale? We'll need that steel for water pumps, generator armatures, hospital equipment -- a whole range of socially useful applications.'
Vanessa's smile was icy. `You are speaking out of turn, Mr Selby, and you are forgiven. Expenditure on defence is essential to maintain peace otherwise there is no point in your socially useful applications.'
`But the cost--'
`Can be met by pruning other budgets,' said Vanessa, thinking that education and health were having too much spent on them anyway. `But that's not your concern, Mr Selby.'
`There's a major problem,' said the engineer. `The ammunition. We can mass-produce the cases, the noses -- no real problem there. But we can't produce cordite for the firing charge, or the impact-sensitive material for the percussion caps. You're going to need a chemical manufacturing plant.'
`I've thought of that, Mr Selby. Who would be best to advise? Bob Harding?'
`I'd certainly start with him.'
Vanessa summoned a messenger and sent him to collect Bob Harding. `Right, Mr Selby. 200 Sterlings. Let's talk prices. If we can agree, I'll raise a purchase warrant here and now. But I want a batch of at least 20 within ten days, with or without ammunition, and I want them produced under conditions of absolute secrecy.'
Selby assured her that only a few trusted employees would be tasked with assembling and testing the finished weapons. He left Government House wondering if Pentworth's little world was going crazy.
Chapter 71.
OF ALL PEOPLE, ANNE TAYLOR was one person that David Weir could not bring himself to lie to so he bent the truth to the best of his ability.
`I'm sorry, Anne, but I can't tell you where Vikki is. But I can promise you that she's safe.'
`Then you must know where she is.'
The green eyes staring at him were disturbingly like Vikki's eyes that had regarded him across the courtroom.
`That's not what I said, Anne.'
Anne indicated the bag and a large, threadbare cuddly bear that she had dumped on David's kitchen table. `You can at least see that she gets these. That's Benji -- Vikki will be lost without him.'
For God's sake, Anne! She's 16 now!
`I can't, Anne. You would've been seen bringing Benji here, so you'll have to be seen taking him back.'
Anne produced a cardboard tube. `Surely you can give her this? It's Dario -- a wall poster of a Zulu warrior -- she adores him.'
`Did she have it in her bedroom?'
`Yes.'
`Then put it back, Anne. And the teddy bear.'
The mother's shoulders slumped. `You're right, of course. I've had the sentinels around twice now, looking for her. They've turned the place upside-down. What can I do to stop them? I'm alone, there're no phones.'
`They've tried it on here,' said David grimly. `But there're too many of us for them to be a nuisance. They get escorted around the farm and then kicked off.'
`Have the police been around?'
`Yes. They wanted a statement about the shooting of S
arah Gale.'
Anne grimaced. `Poor little Sarah. Thanks to you and Mike Malone and the others, it looks like that bastard, Faraday, is going to get away with it.'
`From what we all saw, it looked like an accident. Sarah was trying to get the shotgun off him. We'll never know if the second barrel going off was an accident or deliberate.'
Anger flashed in Anne's eyes. `He would've killed you all if it hadn't been for Sarah! And now he's going to get away with killing Sarah thanks to you!'
`I'm sorry if you think that, Anne. We all told the truth.'
The mother was suddenly deflated. `I'm the one who should be sorry, David. I must sound so ungrateful after all the risks you took to rescue them.'
`There's nothing to be sorry about, Anne. And you sound as a mother should sound who cares for her daughter. I'm only sorry that I can't tell you anything other than to promise you that Vikki is safe.'
`If the police aren't looking for Vikki and Ellen, I would've thought it would be safe for them now.'
`Those warrants and those convictions are still in force,' said David. `Until they're set aside, they have to remain in hiding. If anything, it's even more dangerous for them now. Have you seen the notices that have gone up around the town?'
Anne looked puzzled. `What notices?'
`Roscoe is offering 3000 Euros for information that leads to the recapture of Vikki and Ellen.' The mother looked devastated. `I had no idea.'
`He's got the money now that the banks are allowing conversion of ten per cent of cash held before the Wall. At a nice, fat commission of nine per cent, of course.'
Anne shook her sadly. `It all looked so good at first... Everyone working together for the common good. A clear distinction between what the state provided and what the private sector provided. The way socialism was meant to work in a market economy before it lost its focus. We all had a sense of community and purpose. Now there's talk of privatizing the bus service and the radio station, water, the laundries. It's gone so horribly, horribly wrong.'
Chapter 72.
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