And the World Changes

by A M Kirk

  “Where?”

  “I can’t see clearly, but I know it’s somewhere in the planet’s magnetic field… north, somewhere north… in the sky. And because of a distortion in the magnetic field we can’t detect it on Earth. It’s another game. They’re hiding in the sky! They’re actually hiding where we could see them, but they’re using the planet against us. Particles from the sun, what do you call it, the aurora… ?”

  “The aurora borealis? The Northern Lights?”

  “That’s it. Particles from the sun cause our radar and stuff to go all wonky, and the Soros make use of that.”

  “You know, you get most of your insights when you’re drinking tea. Have another cup!”

  Mark laughed. “Maybe I’ll make a fortune teller some day.”

  Then he froze. “Satellite surveillance just swept over us. But it’s okay. They didn’t see the car.”

  Janette looked out of the window. “I never really noticed last night, but I’ve parked under a tree. Perhaps we should be leaving.” She got up immediately.

  “What is it, mum?” Mark asked.

  “There’s a police car pulling in to the car park.”

  Their bags had already been packed, so it was a matter of minutes to retrieve them. She fetched them herself, stuffing Mark’s notes in one of the side pockets, while Mark went outside. They knew without anything being said that if they were separate the two policemen, who by now were examining the Hyundai, would probably not recognise them. Together they ran the biggest risk.

  Mark stood beside an old yellow Mercedes, looking as if he were waiting for his parents to come out of the hotel. He lounged against it, surprised at how cool-headed he felt. He even turned to look at the policemen. One of them had returned to his car and was speaking into his radio. The other was keying something into his notepad.

  Mark was toying with the passenger door handle when, much to his surprise, he found it opened when he tried it. It was the act of a second to get in and check the ignition for keys. There they were. Mark got out of the car. Now his heart seemed to be thudding into his mouth.

  Janette appeared on the steps of the hotel. She barely glanced at the policemen. The one with the notepad was now approaching the hotel. Mark tried to signal to his mother. She saw him, but looked away, and gestured subtly to the other side of the road. The railway track and the station were virtually opposite the hotel. She started to cross the road.

  Mark felt that this was right, and then, as he began to follow her, he realised that trying to make a getaway in a stolen car, with the owner still in the hotel, and the police right there with a probably faster car, would not be logical. The most they could hope for would be a five-minute start.

  A subway led under the railway track to the station and the platforms. Mark caught up with his mother there. “We’d better take a brisk walk,” she said. “Follow me.”

  She stuffed the luggage bags into a yellow plastic container by the side of a wall. The letters GRIT advertised the container’s contents, but there was room enough for two small bags. Then they made their way under another subway that led on to the West Highland Way footpath. It was a track wide enough for a Landrover.

  “My shoes are not really made for this,” remarked Janette as she clambered over a style, “and if I get mud on this skirt I’ll scream, but needs must.”

  “May I ask just where we are going?”

  “Just a little walk, dear, just a little walk. This way!”

  Before long they came to a place on the track concealed by low trees where they could look back on the hotel and see what was happening in the car park, and they were far enough away, and able to conceal themselves, so that there was little likelihood of anyone at the hotel seeing them.

  “We’ll wait here for a bit,” said Janette. “Then, when the coast’s clear, we’ll grab the next train. They will think we’ve long gone. Buses come through here all the time, so they’ll probably follow that line of enquiry. I wouldn’t have thought they would set up roadblocks. We’re not that dangerous, surely.”

  They waited for two hours.

  **********

  Cameron was tired, and getting cold from inactivity. He was pretending to be interested in the deer and buzzards on the hill opposite him, beyond the hotel, but he was himself situated a little way up Ben Dorain. From his vantage point, Cameron watched through binoculars the woman and her son stop by the stand of hazel trees. They kept looking back towards the hotel. It was obviously the police who had made them jumpy, though the police car had long since moved on. The G5 buzzed. Cameron activated it and saw Logan’s face on the small viewer.

  “What are they doing?” Logan was positioned in his Jeep, still waiting for instructions.

  “They’re just sitting on a couple of rocks, talking. I think they’re waiting for a train. Why don’t we just do it now?”

  “No, Cameron, we wait.” Logan cut the connection and called up the interface. He himself could not understand the reason for the delay.

  **********

  Janette stood up and paced impatiently. “You know, if this were a novel, it’s at this point that we would meet up with a rough, tough male who would know exactly what to do in this situation,” said Janette. “He would be wearing a checked shirt, a pair of jeans – “

  “And a beard. Don’t forget the beard!”

  “ – and he would be ex-Special Forces and be highly trained in martial arts – “

  “ – with access to weapons.. “

  “Yeah! Loads of them. Weapons would be useful. We could use weapons.”

  “And he would just step right up and save the day…”

  “But not without getting horribly hurt in the process,” said Janette.

  “But you, being a doctor, would cure him and he would fall in love with you and be a perfect dad.”

  “With a big dog.”

  “So,” said Mark, “do you know anyone like that?”

  “No.”

  Eventually a couple of West Highland Way hikers passed them, but neither sported a checked shirt or jeans. Mark and Janette’s lack of equipment provoked no curiosity either. The walk south to Tyndrum was only seven miles and it was popular with people out for simple stroll, which was what the hikers assumed Mark and Janette to be.

  **********

  At last, they saw the train from a considerable distance, coming from the north, from Fort William, heading for Glasgow. Taking their time, they sauntered back and joined a handful of others on the platform. They split up. Janette gave Mark some money for his ticket and went to get the bags, which she did without complication. There was no sign of police, she noticed.

  The train stopped. A young man carrying a binoculars case came running off the hill. Obviously a bird-watcher, thought Janette. Some people disembarked; those who had been waiting got on, the birdwatcher included. Tickets were bought on board, from small machines in each carriage. A conductor would pass up the train at some point to check everyone had paid. The train waited a few minutes then slowly moved off. At the same time the battered Jeep left the hotel car park and turned towards Tyndrum.

  Two minutes saw the train safely away from the station. They placed their two bags on the luggage rack near the carriage door. Janette went to the toilet and Mark looked out of the window. On the same road he and his mother had travelled down the previous night, he noticed green, canvas-backed army lorries moving north. They were carrying soldiers. He could see the soldiers in the open backs of the trucks. Could they be looking for him? he wondered. A solitary Jeep was making its way south.

  He looked away, and studied the people around him. They all looked harmless enough. Students, holidaymakers, weary hikers.

  The dividing door at the far end of the carriage, by the toilet into which Janette had disappeared, slid open with a soft hiss and a solid-looking uniformed policeman stepped through. He had obviously been on the train for some time and now he was checking the passengers who had just embarked. Mark sat b
ack down. His heart pounded.

  “Done for!” he thought, running hid fingers through his hair.

  The policeman held his electronic notepad in his hand, and he was checking something on it. Mark knew it had his electronic image on it. How did he know that?

  He reached out with his mind and saw –

  School files, a picture of Mark, aged 13, his last official school photograph, stored in the school’s admin computer. Accessed and downloaded with no problem. Sent shooting through the Internet to a central computer somewhere in Glasgow, and from there to all the terminals in all the police stations and cars up and down the West Highland Line and all over the Highlands. His face was on every policeman’s electronic notepad. So was his mother’s.

  I know this, but can I change it?

  Now he imagined himself reaching out with his mind and –

  Abruptly two mobile phones simultaneously set up a crazy buzzing cacophony further down the carriage. The policeman stopped. He frowned at his notepad. It’s gone blank.

  The policeman shook it.

  Not technically minded, then, thought Mark, for there are no moving parts to it. Even the keys are touch-sensitive.

  Janette appeared behind the back of the policeman. She rolled her eyes to express her appreciation of the irony of the situation. Mark got up and moved along the aisle to join her. As he moved past the policeman he said “Excuse me,” but the policeman was too busy pushing keys to even pay any attention. He joined his mother further up the carriage, at a table for four. No one paid them any attention.

  “He’s already checked up this way, so I should be all right for now,” said Janette. “Anyway, I haven’t had my picture taken for over ten years, at least not one that would appear on any database, but the Soros wouldn’t know that. So whatever resemblance of me he has on his notepad is not likely to be very close.”

  “He doesn’t have anything on his notepad any more. I think I’ve wiped it clean.”

  “How?”

  “I think magnetism.”

  “But that’s fantastic. You’ll be bending spoons next!”

  “Why would I want to bend spoons?”

  “A guy called Uri – oh never mind. So how did you do it?”

  “Like this.” Mark held out the wrist that carried his quartz watch. “There’s a little electric current in this, and the display is something to do with magnetism, I think, so…”

  The display went blank. Then it flashed alternately black and grey. Then the word “HI” appeared, followed by “SEE?”

  “The face is magnetised. The current reverses the magnetism in certain places and that’s what causes the numbers to appear. It seems I can play with that. It’s like passing a magnet over the face of it.”

  “Then you’d better stay away from my CD collection.”

  “CDs, computer disks, tapes, anything that depends on magnetism.”

  “This could be very useful.”

  “I had the same thought, mum.”

  They paused, looking out the window at the passing hillside.

  “I just haven’t figured out how!”

  Janette said, “I’ve just remembered – I don’t have a CD collection any more.”

  Mark, in a very adult gesture, reached over and took her hand. “So what’s this with spoon-bending?” he asked.

  At that moment Mark’s headrest exploded in a shower of cloth and foamy fragments.

  **********

  The word had come through: Now! Before the train reaches the horseshoe curve. Kill the boy now! He almost swerved into the grass at the side of the road. The horseshoe curve was just a couple of klicks from Bridge of Orchy, a huge feat of Victorian railway engineering that followed a contour along the slopes of two hills, joined by a long, curving bridge that spanned a wide grassy valley.

  Logan’s heart leapt. He almost felt sick. This was really it! He fumbled the keys on his G5, but succeeded in connecting to Cameron.

  “Go!” said Logan. “Do it now! Then make your way to the road and I’ll pick you up.”

  “You’re on.”

  Cameron replaced his hand set and turned from the door window where he had stationed himself. He had been keeping an eye both on his targets and on the Jeep trailing the train, which was visible from time to time through the trees that lined the track. He stepped into the carriage and took out his gun. The boy was right there, twenty feet away. Right there, a sitting duck! This would be a piece of cake.

  He raised the weapon and it did not shake. His finger squeezed the trigger, gently, as he had practised it, and he felt the soft kick in his hand.

  But, inexplicably, the boy had moved his head. He leaned forward, saying something to his mother. The back of the seat disintegrated, just completely blew apart, its stuffing flying through the air. The pistol was virtually silent; the only noise had come from the impact of the bullet. The boy’s mother was on her feet screaming “Look out!”

  Instinctively the other passengers in the carriage ducked, although they had no real idea what was going on. All except the boy. He got to his feet and turned.

  Cameron felt the next cartridge click into place as he walked forward. A snarl of fury contorted his face. Then he was grabbed from behind and a strong grip forced his arm upwards. The bullet shot through the roof leaving a gaping hole through which he saw sky. The boy and his mother were out of their seats now, running down the aisle, running away. It was a policeman who had Cameron’s arm and would not let go. But the confined space was awkward and Cameron stamped down hard on the policeman’s foot. He pushed the man back and a hand came free. He managed to strike the policeman’s nose, then head-butted him. Now the gun hand was free. Hardly thinking at all, he fired a bullet into the man’s chest and saw a lot of blood come out from behind before the man collapsed against the luggage storage compartment.

  Cameron turned in pursuit of the boy and his mother, oblivious to the screams of the others.

  **********

  The external carriage doors were locked and could not be opened from the inside without a special key. Mark stepped up and placed a hand over the “open/lock” control panel. He imagined the layout of the controls. With a swift rush of air from outside the door slid open.

  “We have to jump,” said Mark.

  “I can’t jump from a moving train!”

  “It’s that or be shot.”

  Janette swore and peered out of the opening at the track ahead. “There’s some kind of bridge coming up. “

  “Before the bridge, then. We don’t want to go plunging over bridges. On three?”

  They both heard the internal sliding door hiss open behind them, and knew it was the killer. Both felt a jolt of fear that made them damn the consequences. “Three!” Janette shouted and pushed Mark out of the train, flinging herself out immediately afterwards. There was a sickening flight through the air, a terrifying glimpse of a wire fence coming up to meet her, then she had cleared it and with a bone-jarring thump smacked hard into the grassy slope of Ben Dorain. The train rolled on towards the bridge. She swore again.

  A face appeared at the open doorway. Then she saw the gun. But by now a considerable distance had opened up between them. Nevertheless she screamed and shielded her head as bullets whacked into the ground to her right and ricocheted off the boulder she rolled behind for cover.

  There followed a calm of a few seconds. Mark managed to get up and approach Janette. He was not hurt but the jolt of hitting the ground seemed to have shaken up his internal organs. He felt very ill, and wanted nothing more than to lie still for a while. Janette hugged him.

  The train rolled on, rhythmically clanking over the spaces between the rails. Then the sound changed as it moved on to the bridge. At that moment, a figure came through the open door. It was the killer. But his judgement had mis-timed.

  Cameron had delayed those precious seconds in order to tell Logan what had happened. Those few seconds were important. His carriage was now on the bridge. He had to try to j
ump just right so that he landed on this side of the fence, otherwise he would go flying over the side of the bridge. And now it was a long way down.

  Gun in hand he flung himself out of the door. But he was moving too fast and his angle was wrong. If only he could have practised this, he thought, as saw himself fall towards the metal fence. If only he had not been so damned tired from his uncomfortable night’s sleep he would not have misjudged. But it was too late now – it was all too late, now. He hit it at thirty miles an hour and it knocked the wind right out of him, breaking his ribs. His body kept on going. He was going over the edge. Frantically he scrabbled to grab a hold of the top rail, but his pain, and the confusion swirling in his reeling mind, and the clumsy gun in his hand made a good grip impossible. He cartwheeled over the rail and fell twenty metres to the valley slope.

  Mark saw it happen. Janette too. He vomited his breakfast on the ground. The train curved away from them now, but wild curious faces were appearing at the windows. Finally someone had the presence of mind to pull the emergency cord, but it would be a minute at least before it could come to a halt.

  Trees had obscured Logan’s view, and the train’s open door through which they had jumped had been on the side he could not see anyway. But Cameron’s last call had alarmed Logan. When he finally found a space to park and to use his binoculars, the train was stopping at the far end of the horseshoe curve. Tracing the line of the track back, however, he could make out two figures trying to descend into the valley. So they had jumped from the train and were on the run. Well, they would not escape. He picked up his G5 and began to summon his men. And this time there would be no mistakes. He would tighten his net and have them both.

  15Conference Room 4

  In conference room four in the United States Defence Control Command there were tense faces. Major Jack Bruce was there, and Sam Webster. The meeting was chaired by General Herbert Locke.