Dan replied: 'I know your face, but…'
'Jack Ramsay – and my wife Sue's still in the van. We met last year at that healing seminar in St Pancras Town Hall. Gardnerians, from Uttoxeter.'
'That's right – I remember – don't you, Moira?'
T do indeed. We lunched together and you and Dan blinded us with science about Kirlian photography… Blessed be!'
'All right, then, are they?' Dai Police asked, relieved.
'If Jack here will vouch for the others…'
.'Absolutely,' Jack said. 'We owe 'em our lives, for a start. Them and half a dozen battling schoolgirls – but tell you about that later… Oh, just one of us is a stranger the fair-haired one on the chestnut. We fell in with him this morning, on the way in. Name of Underwood. Say's he's got a message for you. One of the pistols is his, by the way. He doesn't want to join you but the rest of us do. May we?'
The Central Cabin was packed to meet the newcomers because everyone was intrigued to learn that three of them -Philip and Betty Summers and the American journalist Tonia Lynd – were escapcrs from Beehive. They were bombarded with questions, and Tonia had some of her own when somebody mentioned that there was a radio ham in the village who had recently, with improving conditions, picked up at least some fragmentary news from America. It was all they could do to dissuade her from rushing straight back to New Dyfnant to meet him; Liz Warner promised to take her down to the school in the morning and introduce her. The young Jewish girl, Miriam, too, asked as many questions as she answered; Moira had a feeling she would be an intelligent and useful recruit to the camp.
But Moira was puzzled by the fair-haired man who had introduced himself as Gareth Underwood, but had said he would deliver his message to her and Dan in private when things were quieter. She noticed that he spoke little and that he listened to what the Summers and Tonia had to say about life in Beehive with what seemed to her to be an inner amusement.
Moira whispered to Tricia Hayes: 'What do you make of the Underwood man?'
Tricia, who had found her way to Camp Cerridwen all by herself, was perhaps their most gifted clairvoyant with an almost unnerving talent for reading people. Fiftyish, with an unmemorable face and thin mousy hair, she looked too frail to be the determined survivor she in fact was, and at first sight no one would suspect her of being gifted at anything.
'I've been watching him,' Tricia whispered back. 'He's strange. Knows a lot but very self-controlled – and he's swimming against the tide.'
'What tide?'
'The tide of whatever he's supposed to be doing. I think he's official. None of this talk about Beehive is new to him. But he's not supposed to be here and he's on edge.'
'Can we trust him?'
'Yes, I think you can. Because he's not supposed to be here, you know? Though he'll tell you something you don't like. He doesn't like it, either.'
Moira had confidence in Tricia but she was still wary when she and Dan were able to talk with Underwood alone, walking together along the river-bank out of earshot of everyone else.
'What's your message, then, Mr Underwood?' Dan asked. 'And who's it from?'
'It's not really a message because it's only from me. It's a warning – a tip-off… Look, I'm an Intelligence agent from Beehive but I'm here off my own bat. If my boss knew, I'd end up in the cells or worse. I'm supposed to be on my way back to Beehive from Savernake Forest – does that ring a bell with you?'
'It does. Go on.'
'I'll be reporting back four or five days late but I've got a good story to explain the delay. All the same, I'm pushing my luck a bit… The tip-off is that Harley, who's pretty well the absolute dictator in London Beehive now, has made a secret alliance with the Angels of Lucifer.'
'Jesus!… An alliance for what?' Dan asked.
'To fight against the white witches in general and this group above all.'
‘I don't believe it!'
'Why don't you believe it, Mr Mackenzie?'
'Because John…' Dan broke off, as though he had second thoughts about giving a reason.
The agent smiled. 'Because John, whatever he's done or become, is still too fond of you two to harm you personally? You're right. But Karen – the locals call her the Black Mamba – has no such scruples. She'd enjoy harming you. She knows how to handle John and when Harley sent me down to contact them and offer the alliance, she fixed it that I took her back to negotiate with Harley alone. She was in Beehive for three days, incognito except to Harley and me and one other person, and then I had to escort her back. I came straight on here, because I wanted you to know.'
'Why did you want us to know? What's in it for you?' Dan asked.
'There's nothing in it for me except sticking my neck out. I just think the Black Mamba's pure poison and I don't like the way things are going. I know Beehive's got a lot to answer for – but it could, conceivably, serve a function in due course to get what's left of Britain back on its feet, if it keeps its nose clean. But if this alliance is symptomatic of the way Harley's thinking, I haven't much hope of that…… And look – if I'm an agent provocateur, what's the object of the exercise? To stir up conflict between the white witches and the black? That exists already and nothing I say is going to turn it into a pitched battle. Or am I here to spy on you? If so, why have I said all this and why am I rushing straight off again? I'd do better to claim to be a refugee, stay a few days, and then disappear. Sabotaging your radio-ham friend's equipment on the way out – because that's the only significant thing I've learned. If I'm not speaking the truth, why am I here?'
'I think you are speaking the truth,' Moira said. 'Dan?' 'Yes, it all figures… What did Karen and Harley agree on?'
'That I don't know. They spent hours by themselves and all I was told at the end was to organize the secret material help he'd promised her. I was able to do some of the simpler things at once – like filling a rucksack with pistols and ammunition – and the more complicated ones, like more horses and saddles, I'll organize when I get back.'
'But what practical action does Harley want from them}' Dan asked. 'A physical attack on us? Not very practicable. Surely not magical action? He wouldn't believe in it.'
'On the contrary,' Underwood said, ‘I think he's hooked on it. And possibly on Karen as well.'
'Now I'm taking you really seriously,' Moira told him. 'Karen's terribly ambitious. If she's been offered that kind of a pact with Beehive, she's going to do something about it, and if John gets in the way she'll get rid of him… Your warning is worth having.'
'Can you look after yourselves, when she starts anything?'
'We can. Our psychic defences are as good as hers. But without you, we might have been caught napping… Do you believe in this kind of thing?'
'A month ago I'd have said "I don't know". But I've seen and learned a lot in the last couple of weeks and now I wouldn't take any chances. I hope you won't, either.'
Moira thought for a moment, then asked: 'Why go back to Beehive at all? Why not stay with us here? They'd write you off as dead, wouldn't they? It could happen to anyone, riding about the country solo.'
He shook his head. 'Call it professional habit but I've a hunch I can be more useful as a double agent. Might even be able to give you more tip-offs. Tell you what -
I'll go down with your Yankee friend on my way out and have a word with the radio ham. Is he trustworthy?' 'Yes.'
'Then I'll give him a frequency and a daily listening time, and a simple code for "Expect physical attack", "Expect psychic attack" and so on – half a dozen basic messages I might want to send. I'm always giving the radio operators timed code messages for Beehive agents and I don't have to explain them, so I could slip an extra one in if it was urgent to tell you something.'
'Watch that neck of yours.'
'I will.' He smiled. 'Frankly, I'd like to stay with you. But apart from anything else, "where a man's treasure is, there will his heart be also". So I'll be on my way in the morning.'
'What's the treasure's
name?' Moira asked. 'Brenda. Throw in a spell for her, when you've a moment. She could do with it,' Gareth Underwood said.
'Have you got a typewriter?' Tonia asked eagerly.
'Typewriter, yes,' Geraint Lloyd said, 'but I'm having to watch the paper. This is a school, remember.'
'You could spare a dozen sheets a week, say, I'm sure. We could do one copy for the village and one for the camp, on notice-boards – and each place would keep the back numbers as archives. Goddam it, man, you're a community asset. You're in touch with the world, even if only in bits and pieces. Passing it on by word of mouth isn't enough. We can have a newspaper.'
Geraint had to admit he found the crop-haired American's enthusiasm infectious. She had arrived with Liz and the camp children and the mysterious Underwood, at nine o'clock, and had been barely able to contain her impatience while Underwood insisted on fifteen minutes in private with
Geraint before he went on his way. Geraint had come out to find she had already arranged for Liz to take charge of both classes for the first hour so that she could have him to herself. Within forty minutes she had sucked his brain dry of everything he had learned and could remember of his radio-collected information from Britain and abroad. She had particularly wanted to know, naturally, about America. He had to tell her that radio reception had been very bad after the earthquake and had only just begun to improve to the point where he could manage occasional exchanges with American hams; a tall aerial which Greg had built for him had helped a lot. The States, from what his scattered contacts could tell him, were in much the same situation as Britain. Population loss seemed to have been slightly less disastrous because although the vinegar-mask announcement had been simultaneous with Britain's, the clock-difference had meant the Washington announcement had been made while the shops were still open and also the quake had hit America a couple of hours later than Europe, so more people were prepared. But this advantage had been partly offset by the fact that unlike Europe, where the Dust had cleared within hours of the earthquake, the Western Hemisphere had suffered from it with irregular renewed outbreaks for nearly a week, by which time the less fortunate had no vinegar left, while others, believing the first outbreak would be the only one, had become careless.
When Tonia had gleaned all she could, she insisted on being shown his equipment and asking if he would teach her to operate it, so that between them they could increase its hours on the air. Once she had his promise, she plunged into her plan for a village-and-camp newspaper.
'For God's sake,' he laughed when she paused to draw breath, 'not so fast! You'll choke yourself.'
She grinned back at him, engagingly. 'Never get in the way of a frustrated journalist who smells an outlet. You're apt to get run down.'
Liz Warner put her head round the door and asked: 'Could I have him back now, do you think? It's been two hours.'
Eileen stood in the cabin door, tasting the air of sunrise and finding it good. Nobody was yet up except for Greg on sentry patrol and very probably Peter out doing the round of his snares – but she turned aside from that thought; it was too lovely a morning to examine distress. She closed the cabin door behind her and walked.
There had been some reshuffling of sleeping arrangements now that three family cabins were ready. Old Sally had moved in with Angie to share her motor caravan, which by now was cosily lagged and just right for the two older women, who had become close friends. Eileen and two unmarried girl newcomers, now joined by Miriam, had been allocated one of the family cabins which had promptly been dubbed the Spinster Shack. Since the oldest of them was twenty-four, they had taken no more than pretended offence at the name.
Although it was late October – only a few days to go to Samhain – the weather, apart from a couple of damp and chilly weeks at the end of September and beginning of October, had been exceptionally kind with temperatures over 15 degrees almost every day and mild nights. Dan, who had found a maximum-minimum thermometer in the greenhouse of one of the ruined houses in New Dyfnant which had been allocated to them for 'looting', and an old barometer in the kitchen (he wished it had been a barograph), kept daily records. He wondered out loud whether the world cataclysm had produced permanent climatic changes. Peter, for one, hoped not; he had no desire to see Wales or anywhere else for that matter lose its character, its evolved natural balance. Others, still only half-adjusted to rugged pioneering, were not so sure. If Wales goes sub-tropical,' Sam Warner said, 'that'll suit me fine. Nature will find a new balance. When interfering man is as thin on the ground as he is now, ecology has a chance to be self-adjusting.' The discussion was academic in any case; it would be years before any permanent changes became discernible from chance fluctuations.
This morning Eileen cared nothing for long-range climatology. It was enough that today's sky was soft and clear, that only the gentlest of breezes made sea-sounds in the treetops, that the ground was dry under her rubber sneakers and that she felt no need for a jacket over her sweater and jeans.
She strolled over to Greg who had stopped to talk to the goats tethered among the tree-stumps where daily felling was pushing the edge of the forest back. The goats looked at them with their strange primordial eyes and went on munching. They laughed and left them, Eileen walking beside Greg as he continued his patrol towards the logging lane, round the bend of the tree-line.
'Still an hour to breakfast,' Eileen said. 'I think I'll climb up to the Giant's Bed.'
'Wish I could come with you. It'll be marvellous up there, on a morning like this.'
She waved to him from the edge of the plantation and started walking up one of the dark, straight, two-metre-wide paths that quartered the forest like a chessboard. It was more a tunnel than a path, for the tall conifers brushed each other's branches above her head. Every now and then she came to a little clearing, some of them dictated by outcrops of mountain rock. She was heading for the bigger outcrop, known locally as the Giant's Bed, half a kilometre above the camp and when she reached it, it was worth the climb. She picked her way through the brambles that guarded the foot of the grey bastion, scrambled among the bilberries and mosses that hugged its crevices and found herself at last on its table-top, jutting into the sky clear of the downhill trees. The whole of the camp's private valley spread below her and the ring of mountains faced and flanked her, under a vast kindly sky. She could see one or two of the camp roofs and the woodsmoke of the kitchen stove being lit for breakfast, through the ranks of Christmas-tree fingers that pointed up singly from each tree, seeming to admonish her: Be still, watch, listen…
Eileen sat cross-legged on the rock, absorbing the morning's contentment, till she realized it must be time for breakfast.
She skipped happily through the brambles and down another tunnel leading more directly to the camp.
It was at the first intersection that she glimpsed, briefly, the strange man leading away the stolen goat. She jumped back quickly into cover, trying to collect her thoughts. The thief must have sneaked the goat away while Greg was at the other end of the camp and while the people who were up were still either in their cabins and caravans or busy in the kitchen. It was all too easy; the goats were a few metres from the forest edge but a good hundred and fifty metres from the buildings. A quick dash from cover, a knife through the rope…
Which way was he heading? She had only seen him for a second and although she could find her way around, it was hard to build up a map of the forest paths in her mind. Anyhow, what could she do about him? He must be armed, at least with a knife. She would have to try to get another glimpse of him, fix his direction and then run for help. He could not move very fast pulling a goat, and even if they failed to catch him, they might frightened him into abandoning it.
She hurried through the trees in what seemed to her the most likely direction, doing her best to move quietly. Her guess had been all too accurate; she emerged into a clearing at the same moment as the thief – and in that moment they both saw Peter.
Eileen shouted a warning. Pet
er, sprawled on the ground loosening a rabbit's body from an awkwardly placed snare, jerked his head round, saw the stranger coming for him knife in hand and leaped to his feet. His twelve-bore was propped against a tree a few paces away. He lunged towards it but the man headed him off.
For a few seconds they faced each other, half-crouching, while Eileen held her breath. The man's eyes flicked to the shotgun and back again. He seemed to realize he could not reach it without risking the advantage of his knife, for Peter would be on him as he grabbed at it.
The goat, released and indifferent, moved away in search, of tastier grass.
Point forward, the man's knife-blade wove menacingly in the air – one quick feint, which Peter side-stepped -then a determined rush. Eileen screamed and Peter tried to side-step again, but his foot struck a root and he stumbled. The man leaped on him and the two of them were wrestling on the ground, Peter disadvantaged by his fall, the man's knife within a finger-length of his throat.
Eileen's paralysis broke, swept away by a berserker tide of love and fury. She leaped for the gun, cocked both hammers with hands that barely knew how, jammed the muzzle into the man's ribs and pulled both triggers.
The explosion seemed to stun her, physically and mentally. The recoil jerked the gun out of her inexperienced hands and it fell across the bleeding corpse as Peter pulled himself from underneath. He jumped to his feet, still panting from the struggle and put an arm round her shoulders as she stood staring wide-eyed at what she had done.
Gently he turned her and led her away from the body, sitting her down against a tree, facing where she could not see it.
'I killed him,' she said at last, in a voice of halting amazement.
'I know, love. And you saved my life.'
'I killed him. I took a gun and shot him to bits because I love you. And I'd do it again. Peter, what's happened? What am I?'
'You? You're the most wonderful woman in the world. The only woman I want, now or ever.'
She turned and looked into his eyes, still bewildered, as though she had not heard him. 'But don't you see? If anyone tried to hurt you, I'd do it again! Me!'
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