by N Williams
*
Rachel smiled. ‘I’ll keep in touch, Uncle Ben. I promise.’
Ben waved and began to walk back towards the kitchen door just as a deafening thudding beat caused him to stop.
A black helicopter rose up out of the low clouds below the valley ridge and skimmed over the roof of the little cottage.
Rachel ducked out of instinct as the machine made no attempt to rise and barely cleared the old slates before making a quick turn, the tail slipping around as the nose pivoted back towards her and Ben. Ben was still watching, fascinated.
‘What the...?’ he started to silently mouth as a hail of automatic gunfire rapidly sketched a perforated red line across his waist.
Rachel saw his body burst open in so many places she thought there would be nothing left. The scene was surreal. She could see the look of surprise, not shock, not pain or horror, just pathetic surprise on Ben’s face as he crumpled to the ground.
Rachel screamed. ‘Ben!’
The chopper began to turn towards her as she started to shake uncontrollably. Her brain stubbornly refused to process the horror her eyes had just witnessed. A distant voice seemed to be mumbling something to her. She knew it wasn’t Ben. He couldn’t possibly be saying anything. The voice was somehow inside her. It was getting louder, repeating the same word over and over again. Finally, the voice broke through the shock and screamed, "RUN!”
Rachel threw open the door to her car and fumbled for the ignition. She turned the key, only for the car to lurch forward and stall. She tried again, this time remembering to depress the clutch. The car roared into life and shot forward over a cattle grid into the basin of the quarry. There was only one way out of the village and that was by the single-track road she had used earlier. She checked the rear view mirror and saw the helicopter down alongside the house - blocking the road and waiting for her return.
Shit! What now?
Rachel slid the Audi around inside the steep-sided quarry bowl and stopped. She was directly facing the helicopter, and could see dark shapes inside; one was holding something that had the unmistakable silhouette of a rifle. It was a western standoff, both gunslingers poised and ready to draw, but Rachel didn’t have a gun. It was a complete mismatch. She looked around for some way to escape. She would have to make a run for it.
The old railway station was to her left, between herself and the chopper. The track had been ripped up years before and the route now used as a cycle path. It had to be wide enough for an Audi TT. Three large boulders were blocking the track between the station and the bank to her left, placed there to prevent vehicle access, but the narrow platform was still clear.
Rachel slammed the car in gear, steered left and slid the tail out to the right, aiming for the upward sloping ramp. The Audi might just have a few inches to spare between the crumbling platform edge and the walls of the old station building – but it would be close. Rachel was relieved that the ramp led directly up from the quarry floor.
She held the wheel tight as the Audi shot up the block-stone ramp and along the old platform. Hand-cut edging stones began to break away and fall onto the track as the wheels of the little car bounced across the platform.
Rachel could sense the presence of the helicopter above and behind her right shoulder, temporarily hidden by the station building.
Eyes locked ahead and gritting her teeth as the car rattled over the crumbling herringbone patterned slabs, Rachel stared ahead but could still see the vertical pointing arm of the speedo in her peripheral vision indicating she was close to sixty as the car hurtled towards the down ramp back onto the old line. In the distance, she could see a tree-shrouded embankment that could offer some cover from the helicopter. The old line led directly through the trees and wound its way along the top of the valley towards the next village of Coelbren, about four miles away.
The Audi hit the end of the platform, and Rachel kicked the throttle to the floor and screamed as the little coupe shot off the edge, a fleeting glimpse of a low sheep fence passing beneath her car before it crashed down hard on the other side.
The helicopter cleared the station and fell in behind the Audi. The noise was deafening, even over the protesting scream of her car engine.
Rachel quickly glanced out the side window and saw the unmistakable sight of a gun barrel kick as it was fired. Pillars of dust erupted in front of her, and she hit the brake. She ducked low at the sound of a dull thud and sickening scraping sound on the roof of the car. The skids of the helicopter dropped down towards the bonnet and then bounced back into the sky.
Rachel floored the accelerator again, only twenty or thirty metres to the trees.
The chopper regained its stability and began its turn back towards her as she hurtled towards the tree-shrouded embankment. She held her breath; anticipating more shots, and ducked down over the steering wheel - waiting for the end - when everything went dark.
CHAPTER 6
The nose of the helicopter dropped low as the craft began to increase speed.
The little Audi was weaving along the old railway line, mud and loose stones spraying up in its wake.
Farber leaned out through the open door. Being the smaller man in the group, he had taken the front seat because he was the only left-hander and most suited to firing from the co-pilot seat. He aimed the cross hairs of the assault rifle at a point just behind where he expected the driver’s head to be and let off a short burst of rounds as the car disappeared into the trees.
‘Shit!’ Farber seethed. ‘Get ahead of her. Put the chopper down on the track. She’ll have nowhere to go.’
The pilot looked horrified. ‘And we’ll have nowhere to go too. If she hits us...’
Farber ejected the spent magazine and clicked a new one in place. ‘Do it now!’
The pilot reluctantly pulled back on the cyclic, dropped the collective and kicked the rudder to bring the chopper around and down into a clearing between the trees.
*
The Audi hurtled through the dark canopy. Rachel finally exhaled. She couldn’t see the chopper, but that was probably a good thing. If she couldn’t see them then there was a chance they couldn’t see her. The trees wouldn’t provide her with much protection from the bullets, but at least it would give her enough cover to have a chance of escape, however slim.
The trees along both sides of the track bowed inwards to form an archway of interlocking branches over the route of the old line. To her left was the rising side of the valley whilst to her right was the drop down to fields and the river below. The width of the embankment varied in places from four or five metres to less than three where the engineers had built a series of small stone bridges over the valley run-off culverts that fed the River Tawe below.
Rachel kept the speed constant. She couldn’t outrun the chopper; she just had to get to civilisation to give the pilot something else to think about. She could make the village - as long as the council hadn’t placed a barrier across the path to stop cars doing precisely what she was doing now.
The surface of the track was mainly solid with intermittent patches of loose gravel, punctuated by clumps of grass.
A break in the trees appeared ahead, patches of dappled light merging into a bright light at the end of the tunnel. The analogy of the tunnel and its association with death hadn’t escaped her. She had to get through the clearing and back into the trees on the other side as fast as possible.
The Audi sped towards the clearing, then Rachel saw the helicopter drop down onto the track ahead, the rotor blades filling the available space between the rising fields to her left and the drop to the valley below on the right. There was nowhere to go.
Rachel reacted without thinking. She swung the car to the left and slammed the accelerator to the floor. She felt a chassis-buckling crash as the front end of the car hit the bank and bounced up onto the grass slope. The momentum of the car initially took it up above the height of the rotor blades, but the car was losing traction and began to slide sideways towar
ds the chopper.
Helpless, she was carried down towards the lethal blades. She screamed as she floored the throttle once more. The rear of the car flicked from side to side, but there was no stopping the plunge towards a gruesome death. There was just one slim chance. More power. This time she steered the car down the slope towards the chopper. There was still the faintest hope of avoiding the blades.
The back end of the Audi flicked left, Rachel steered to counter and the tail straightened. The car thumped down below the spinning blades, with inches to spare, and sideswiped the fuselage of the chopper.
Rachel saw the horrified expression of the pilot, frozen momentarily as her side window shattered into millions of pieces.
The car bounced off the helicopter as the aircraft was pushed towards the side of the valley, toppling away from the little car.
The Audi bounced once more off the mountainside, a twenty-grand pinball - and shot clear.
The sound of the helicopter engine screamed like a wounded animal as the craft began to slide off the track and into the abyss.
Rachel allowed herself a small smile of satisfaction at the sight of the substantial damage to the side of the chopper. It hadn’t been designed for side impact, but it appeared the rotors had escaped damage. That could still mean trouble.
The Audi had covered about half a mile before she saw the helicopter in the one remaining wing mirror.
The track curved gently around to her right, a pine forest on the embankment to her left. Thank God for Victorian civil engineering.
Rachel slid the car around the sweeping bend; she could see the helicopter close on her tail. A burst of automatic fire kept Rachel’s mind focused. She had one chance at this, and she had to get it right.
The helicopter took up a position alongside her to her right - making a clear shot at the car. Rachel was glad that the pine trees were forcing them to remain up above fifty feet. That at least made the shots less accurate.
The Audi bounced over lumps of turf and into ruts left by farm vehicles. She heard an almighty clang as the exhaust was ripped off the car. Sounding like a tractor, red warning lights flashed, and smoke began to enter through the dashboard. The engine had lost some compression and speed, but Rachel refused to ease up on the torture and kept her foot down. The car slid at every turn, plumes of exhaust smoke filling the air behind her. Hard braking was not an option; the surface was still wet and slippery, and it was all she could do to keep the car on the track.
It seemed like ages had passed without any gunfire. The track began another slow curve around a left hand bend. The width was getting critically narrow. She was now only about a mile from the village. She could hide there and get help.
*
They had just one chance left before the car reached the village; another break in the trees ahead as the old track wound left around a tight bend.
‘Drop me off. I’ll get her as she takes the corner.’
The pilot dropped the chopper once more and hovered briefly as Farber jumped from the cockpit onto the track.
The helicopter rose quickly, not wanting to get struck by the car once more.
Farber stood in the middle of the track, waiting for the Audi to appear. Best escape was up the grass bank to his right. He tucked himself into the bank and aimed the weapon where he guessed the car would appear. All he needed was a few seconds to take the shot and put an end to this.
*
Rachel eased off the throttle, not wanting to lose it over the edge. The bend ahead looked sharp. As she slowed, and slid the car around the corner, she screamed as she saw the assassin tucked into the left bank. No time to wonder how he had got there. The helicopter hovered off to her right. A shot smashed the windscreen, followed by a hail of bullets peppering the front lights and hood. Steam and smoke began to pour from the vehicle. There was nothing she could do. The speed began to drop rapidly, and if she stopped now she was dead. Still screaming, Rachel aimed the front of the car directly at the killer.
The tables had been turned on the black-clad man. A desperate attempt to scramble up the bank into the trees failed as the loose earth tore away in clumps. There was no way he could pull himself up and no time to do anything else.
The Audi struck the gunman as he fell in slow motion back from the embankment. The force of the collision threw him up and over the front of the car. As he cartwheeled over the bonnet his head struck the already shattered windscreen. A large clot of blood burst through the glass onto Rachel’s face and into her open mouth. Rachel choked back vomit and spat the blood onto her lap. She was trembling, and tears in her eyes were clouding her vision. She smashed the remaining glass from the front screen and wiped her eyes. The back of her hand was covered in blood. She was grateful that it wasn’t her own.
The helicopter matched her speed for a moment before it rolled to the right and disappeared from view.
The car still had some power left, enough to make it the mile or so to Coelbren.
CHAPTER 7
The helicopter stood on its tail, arresting forward momentum in a stomach-churching manoeuvre. The skids touched the ground briefly for Bourse and Tourrain to collect the remains of their teammate before flying off towards the town of Ystradgynlais.
‘At least we have her address,’ grunted Bourse. ‘We’ll wait for her and finish the job there.’
Tourrain smiled. The dead body of Farber was slumped in the seat alongside him. The woman had done a good job on him. He’d never liked Farber. The cocky little bastard was always bragging of his time with the Special Forces. He laughed as he thought of the irony of an SAS trained soldier being killed by a museum curator.
*
The Audi was nursed all the way to her home on the hill that led to the centre of the town of Ystradgynlais. Rachel had trusted to luck as she decided to push on from Coelbren in the hope of making it the extra three miles or so to her home. The little car coughed, backfired and hissed as it shut down for the last time.
Rachel burst through the front door and quickly double-locked all the doors and windows of her obsessively ordered house. Her hands were shaking as the package was ripped open and the photocopies scanned and then uploaded with the DVD onto her computer. Whilst the digital files were being transferred, she stripped off the blood-soaked clothes and stepped into the shower. The flow of water turned pink as it swirled down the waste hole between her feet. No amount of scrubbing could make her feel clean again.
Stepping from the shower, she grabbed a perfectly folded bath towel and checked on the progress of the transfer.
The diary did look authentic. It was written in Italian, and the handwriting seemed consistent with the style of the time.
As she flicked through more of the sheets, she began to feel uneasy. Although her Italian was poor she understood enough to realise that the notes seemed to suggest that Adelina had taken part in the recovery of something very valuable from Egypt, something brought discreetly to the UK.
An hour later, Rachel closed the Google Translator, sat back in her chair and began to cry. What she had read had deeply shocked her. At least she now understood why Ben had been killed and why she too was in mortal danger.
She quickly moved the contents of the DVD into her disc writer and created a secure password for the files, then copied the data onto another disc and quickly filmed an introduction. The information was potentially earth-shattering.
There were only two people she could trust. If something happened to her, she would at least be sure that the information was in safe hands.
Rachel sealed the two discs in envelopes and addressed them ready for posting. She also sealed her own copy in an envelope and addressed it to her holiday home in Ireland.
She knew she had to get away from the area for a while. She had used some of her salary as a deposit on a flat in Roscommon and could stay there for a few weeks. She could call in to work and ask for time off for stress, something not too far from the truth.
Less than thirty minute
s later, her bag was packed with the essentials for her stay. The Audi was dead. It would have to be a bus to Swansea and a hire car from there. It was too late in the night to hire a car; it was nearly nine p.m., and a Sunday wasn’t the best day to travel. The roads would be quiet, but the bus service was always poor on the weekend. She’d have to stay the night somewhere in Swansea and book out the car in the morning. A fifty-mile trip down to Fishguard would get her onto a ferry. Just being out of the house and travelling would make her feel safer.
Her first port of call had to be the post office box in the town centre.
She hoisted the heavy holdall onto her shoulder, checked the road outside and, satisfied all was clear, set off down the hill.
The post office occupied a building close to the cross roads at the centre of the town. Rachel crossed the street, approached the box and fished the envelopes out of her bag. The sound of heavy footsteps running behind her made her turn. Two large men were sprinting towards her. In the split-second between her glance and her brain processing the instruction to flee, she noticed that one of the burly men was bald and extremely big indeed.
Rachel panicked; she stuffed the envelopes deep inside the post box and as she turned to run, caught a glimpse of a cigarette glowing inside a car parked on the other side of the road. She looked back quickly in the hope that help would be at hand, but the car now seemed empty.
She ran across the street in the direction of where she thought she had seen the light. A junction led off to her right, leading back in the direction of her home. Taking a quick look over her shoulder, she saw that the smaller of the two men had stuck his hand into the letterbox, fishing for the contents. She could hear the bigger man shout something before they gave up at the box and set off after her.
