Blood Run East

by Philip McCutchan

  *

  In the early hours Shard was himself picked up: he was stopped at a road block on the A-338 from Salisbury to Ringwood and never mind that he was coming the wrong way; by now, the police were letting nothing slide. Shard identified himself as the co-ordinator. “Don’t react, laddie,” he said, and the PC stopped his salute in time. “What’s the news?”

  “No contact reported yet, sir.”

  “Armed forces?”

  “We have military assistance, sir.” The constable gestured to his left: Shard saw khaki move into his dipped headlights, a corporal of the Light Division with an automatic weapon held across his body.

  “How are the public reacting?” Shard asked.

  “Some of them don’t like the delay, sir —”

  “They’ll like it still less in the morning! We’re going to be popular when the jams start. You’re telling them it’s an exercise, of course?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Shard’s offside rear door came open and a soldier started rummaging. Another was busy in the boot. When he was given the okay, Shard drove on past a parked police mobile and a military personnel-carrier. He headed on for Ringwood, made for the police station where the officer in charge, together with a major of the Royal Greenjackets, was making an all-night stand of it. Checking in. Shard was given up-to-the-minute news from Whitehall: the RAF was on an alert, with aircraft of Strike Command at High Wycombe and HQ Allied Maritime Air Force Channel standing by. Screens were airborne over the South Downs and west of Exeter.

  “Covering Nancekuke?” Shard asked.

  “Among other places, sir. All the West Country’s at risk, or could be. All those holidaymakers, it’d spread around the coastal areas like wildfire.”

  Shard nodded: things were moving. But still no sign of Lavington. “Worthing?” he asked.

  “Three more deaths, sir. Golfers. There was a bit of a party at the local golf club —”

  “Yes, I know. Are the police there holding the situation?”

  “As of now, sir, yes. It’ll be a different story after daybreak.”

  “When they want to go to work — quite! They’ll have to make the best of it.” Shard paused. “I don’t know why Lavington’s car hasn’t been seen. Have you any theories?”

  The Chief Inspector pulled at a neat moustache, shrugged, glanced at the Major. He said, “For my money, he’ll have made a switch — but nothing’s been reported stolen yet. We may have better luck in the morning.”

  “By which time he’ll be well away. I’m making the assumption he’s slipped through the mesh somewhere. He’s got the brain to talk himself through and maybe some of the PCs feel pressured. The traffic’s building up westwards, Chief Inspector. I’d like you, and you, Major, to warn all road blocks in all areas — from me — that national security is paramount and to hell with the carborne masses. They can rave as much as they like, I don’t give a damn how long they’re made to wait and I don’t give a damn if the roads are jammed right back into London.”

  “That’ll be passed at once,” the Chief Inspector said. “But how about you, Mr Shard? You’ll be hemmed in with the rest —”

  “Not so,” Shard said, grinning. He turned to the army officer. “Major, I’m asking for a helicopter to be flown in here to pick me up — can you fix that?”

  The soldier nodded. “Right away.” He lifted a perfunctory eyebrow at the Chief Inspector, then took up a telephone. Within twenty minutes a helicopter from Salisbury Plain touched down in Ringwood’s car park, night-emptied of vehicles, and Shard was heading west, skimming above the holiday traffic on the roads. Later, a message came in on the radio: Detective Chief Superintendent Shard was to report soonest possible to the police training college on the Exeter by-pass. Soon, not so far off Exeter, Shard looked down at the stop-crawl line of vehicles stretching way back east; then at the strongly-manned road block some distance back from where the by-pass diverged from the route through the city centre. Was Lavington down there? Lavington wasn’t working on his own, he would have other avenues … there was all England open to his death-use! Wales, Yorkshire and the northern counties of Cumbria and Northumberland, Scotland — he could get lost until it suited him to reappear, and he could have been north of Salisbury before the net had begun to close. Yet Shard felt in his bones that the die had been cast westwards, that England’s tourist playground had been selected as the best breeding-ground for a big-scale demonstration, that only after that would be the time for the outside attack on the South Downs storage plants and the wholesale scatter that would cleave through the south-east and spread inexorably over the British Isles.

  On touchdown in the training college grounds. Shard was met by a chief superintendent of CID. Inside the building he was handed a folded sheet of paper. “It came in Home Office cipher,” the chief superintendent told him. “It’s in plain language now.”

  “And the man who cracked it?”

  “Safe as houses. You have my guarantee there’ll be no leak. Just you read it!”

  Shard glanced at the chief superintendent’s face: it was unbelieving. Shard unfolded the sheet of paper: the originator of the message was his own Head of Department in the Foreign Office, but Assistant Commissioner Hesseltine had been the transmission agency. The message itself was simple but horrific. A telephone call demanding the Prime Minister in person had reached Downing Street, made by an unidentified man whose voice had betrayed a Middle Eastern background: and in this and in the threat that had followed Shard read the deep fears of the traditional oil producers for their economic future, and never mind what Hedge had said at the start about the imponderables of North Sea oil — and never mind, too, that on the surface the demands had an Irish context. When the Prime Minister had come on the line, the threat had been uttered: selected areas of Britain, initially localised, would be saturated with all the devices of chemical warfare, including the dissemination of botulinum in the vicinities of certain strategic water reservoirs, unless specific demands were met. Currently there was no time limit indicated but this was to be notified within forty-eight hours of the call, which was timed at 0345 hours that morning. The demands themselves were two in number: firstly, the British Government was to make a positive declaration of intent in support of the status of Northern Ireland, back-tracking from its earlier postures of semi-support for aspirations emanating from dissidents in the Republic; there was to be an unconditional guarantee from the Cabinet acting in concert that there would be no more talk of shared responsibility. The frontier with the Republic was to be garrisoned immediately and strongly by British troops and armour on a permanent basis, and Dublin was to be warned that the actions of any of her nationals against the security of Ulster would lead to armed attack on the Republic. The Prime Minister’s response had been firm: he had rejected this demand out of hand.

  Nevertheless, he anticipated difficulties in Cabinet: the threat was immense, was total and final, and was most eminently possible of execution. On the second demand he had promised consideration: consideration being a euphemism for utter dilemma and a necessary procrastination, since the second demand had been for the handing over of Katie Farrell, now dead and disintegrated.

  “Why the Middle East, for God’s sake?” the CID man asked in bafflement.

  Shard tapped the transcription. “I go along with the Prime Minister’s assessment as given here in the message. They’re getting dead scared. Their own fields have a limit, and ours are just starting up.”

  “But —”

  “It’s a nice little method, painless to themselves, of upsetting our apple-cart, isn’t it? To produce North Sea oil costs money and manpower and we can’t afford hindrances. Look: if Whitehall sticks firm, we’re goners anyway. If Whitehall concedes, the Arabs’ll make hay while the sun shines bright for them — because the Provos, in a perfectly natural reaction that the rest of the world will support after we’re seen to wield the big stick, won’t leave a British town unbombed. Maybe they’ll be the ones who�
��ll blow up the North Sea oil rigs … acting as the Arabs’ catspaws!”

  “And the Arabs?”

  “Well, they deny the whole thing, don’t they? They have nice clean hands — and so far we have no proof!” His face grim, Shard brought out his lighter, put flame to the paper. It curled up, blackening as the fire rose. He dropped the burning ember into an empty metal waste-paper basket, seeing the symbolism that linked Katie Farrell’s death with the likely deaths of them all.

  *

  The report came in from Worthing police before Shard left for take-off westwards: Lavington’s car had been found abandoned deep in scrub a long way up a little-used track off the Washington by-pass sector of the A-24. From there it seemed he may have hoofed it over the Downs into Storrington, from whose outskirts a car parked in a driveway had now been reported missing. This could be coincidence but it could not be neglected; the new car’s number had been circulated to all police authorities. It would now be going out to the mobiles and the road blocks — somewhat late for effective action in Shard’s view. Lavington had had a fine start. Once caught, all must hinge on getting him to talk. Lavington might be the pivot, the tame expert in situ until now, but he was far from being the whole works. If Shard knocked him off, it was true he would be personally inhibited from any more disease-scattering; but the contents of the South Downs dumps, of Porton and the MRE, of Cornwall’s Nancekuke and its VX gas among other horrifies remained no less susceptible to being blown sky-high — unless Lavington talked loud. You couldn’t go around collecting and arresting germs, cultures and gases. And in the meantime neither could you bring back to viable life for hand-over the husk that had been Katie Farrell …

  Beyond the focal point that was Exeter, the traffic below Shard thinned as it diverged onto its onward holiday routes to Plymouth and district, to Barnstaple, Tiverton, Bodmin and the rest. Still following his hunch about Nancekuke, Shard directed the helicopter pilot to cover the A-30 into Cornwall by way of Okehampton and Launceston. Some choice had to be made and that was his; it might be desirable to come down at Launceston and set up a central headquarters with Devon and Cornwall Police, keeping the helicopter handy for fast movement when required. He had made up his mind to do this when wonderful gold was struck: the radio came up with an urgent message from Exeter. The car, the stolen car said to be in use by Lavington, had not in fact been apprehended as yet, but a road block on the A-386 Okehampton-Tavistock road, set up near the Dartmoor Inn a little east of a secondary road that branched right for the village of Lydford, had arrested a man answering Lavington’s description and was holding him pending Shard’s arrival.

  “I’m coming in now,” Shard said, feeling a surge of excitement and relief. As the pilot altered course towards the A-386 the rain started: black cloud had rolled in from the west and now started dropping its drenching load over the northern fringe of Dartmoor. Coming lower, Shard looked down on huddled sheep massed together for warmth and shelter, some of them on the roadsides; and down on the long line of cars and lorries edging slowly towards the check-point: the check was continuing, in case the police had the wrong bird after all. It was a desolate scene, given added gloom by a rising wind. The police, as Shard’s machine dropped to the roadway, looked miserable beyond words after a long, long night. A sergeant approached as Shard clambered down.

  “Mr Shard, sir?”

  “Right. Where’s the man?”

  “In a patrol car, sir. If you’ll follow me, please.” The sergeant turned away through mud and rain, water bouncing from the crown of his cap. Shard peered through the window of the patrol car, conscious of deep excitement, of satisfaction and anticipation. Devon and Cornwall Police had done a good job of recognition: beyond a doubt the man was Lavington. Shard brought out the heavy police revolver for which, back in London before leaving on the manhunt, he had exchanged his lighter automatic. With the sergeant and two constables behind him and two more men guarding the other side of the car, Shard opened the rear door.

  “This is the end of your road, Dr Lavington,” he said. “Get out quietly, and move for the helicopter. We’re heading for Whitehall. There’s a string of questions for you to answer —” He broke off suddenly and swung round on the sergeant. “The car he was using. Where is it?”

  The sergeant gestured. “In the car park of the inn, sir. That one.” He indicated a light blue Ford Escort Estate.

  “Watch it but don’t disturb the contents. Some of them are lethal.”

  “We’ve been warned, sir.”

  “Good.” Shard nodded, turned back to the man in the car. “Out now,” he said, “and take it easy. The police are armed and so am I.”

  Lavington smiled. “You spoke of questions. You want me alive, don’t you?”

  “No-one’ll shoot to kill, Doctor. Just to immobilise.”

  “I see.” Lavington heaved his body to the edge of the seat, put one foot out into the rain and the boisterous wind, then paused in his movement. “I say again, you want me alive. I dare say you want to live, too. Sergeant?”

  “What is it?” the sergeant asked.

  “You want to live too. And your constables. Am I right?”

  Belligerently Shard said, “Get on with it, Doctor. We’ve neither the time nor the inclination for conundrums. Just get out and be dead careful.”

  Again Lavington grinned. “Dead’s the word,” he said. For an instant his tongue showed: on it was a small capsule or pill, red with a purple stripe. He brought his tongue back in. “Touch me not,” he said, “or I crunch. After I’ve crunched, it’ll be too late. There’s an antidote, but it’s not here. I’ll die. You can’t prevent it, none of you. I —”

  “You don’t want to die, Lavington.”

  “No?” Lavington smiled, an icy grimace above which the eyes blazed crazily. “My dear Shard, many men prefer death to failure. After I’ve brought this off, as I shall, believe me, then I’ll have —”

  “Complete power over life and death, sitting in riches alongside a Middle Eastern oil well, Lavington?”

  Another smile. “A fair assumption. Does any man, when he’s close to that kind of promise, consider death worse than losing it all?” Lavington shook his head, a mocking look on his face now. “No, Mr Shard! I’ll die if I have to, and when I do, I’ll bloat. Very quickly. When fully bloated I’ll explode. When I explode, I scatter. I think you understand, don’t you?”

  He eased himself from the patrol car. “You’ll have to hope to catch up with me again,” he said. “That’s your only hope, isn’t it?”

  He stood up straight in the roadway and slammed the car door. There was a curious sound from the police sergeant, who began backing away and looking at Shard. Shard gestured him to continue his withdrawal. “Lavington’s speaking the truth,” Shard said in a low voice. “I’m sorry, but we’re stymied. Too many people around.”

  “But millions more elsewhere, sir.”

  “Yes, Sergeant. But it hasn’t happened yet, and we need him alive. That’s over-riding and vital. Like he said — we try again. Next time, maybe I’ll catch him on my own and unprepared.” He raised his voice, calling to the police. “Keep clear of him, he’s worse than dynamite. Stand away — let him go.”

  Lavington gave a deep bow of irony: it was gall to Shard. “Thank you for your co-operation, Mr Shard,” Lavington said, and turned away, walking around the police car and pulling a short motoring greatcoat close around his body.

  No-one spoke; in silence broken only by the sound of his footsteps, Lavington walked towards his car. Men pressed away from his progress, feeling already the uncleanness of a terrible death. Still in silence Lavington got into his car and switched on the ignition. He drove out from the inn and turned down the road for Lydford. They watched him out of sight, down the hill past a petrol station on the corner. The police sergeant said, “If we shoot to stop him now, sir —”

  “No. He means what he says. Dead, he’s worse than useless. I have to get him again, and like I said, unprepared.
Which is why I’m not even going to follow.”

  13

  SHARD USED THE radio in one of the mobiles and called Launceston, convinced that events were moving across the Tamar into Cornwall. Taking a chance, hoping none of Lavington’s local associates would pick up the police frequency, he passed the registration number and description of Lavington’s current car, asking for it to be circulated in the Duchy and to Tavistock. The car, he said, was to be picked up and kept track of but not approached. Extra security forces already detailed for the chemical warfare establishment at Nancekuke were to be given an immediate alert and the army’s South-West District Command at Taunton informed to this effect. Shard indicated that he himself would head out for Nancekuke in the helicopter. His message passed, he at once re-embarked, telling the pilot to head over Lydford for Launceston. As the machine lifted and swung to cover the lonely road descending into the fringe-of-moorland village Shard stared down through worsening weather: the wind had dropped but the rain had turned to swirling mist, patchy so that at times he could see the ground and buildings. On the lip of the tourist spot of Lydford Gorge a tall grey house rose castle-like, with turrets surrounding a large expanse of roof. Past this house the roadway turned, leading down to cross the gorge. Shard could just see the rushing water deep between the rock sides, then the helicopter had moved on, keeping above the road into Tavistock until Shard gave the order to swing north towards the A-30 and then head west above it. He had the Tamar just in view when the radio came up: he was to come down in Launceston at a point indicated to the west of the town where a mobile would be waiting: there was an urgent call for him, from Whitehall. A ring of lights would be provided to guide the helicopter in through the mist. As they approached, the town buildings were only just visible: but the loom of the lights came up ahead, strengthening as they came nearer, and the pilot made a good landing.