by Glenn Cooper
Will resisted the urge to tell the guy to go to hell. He needed his cooperation.
After twenty minutes of climbing they had traversed another five walls. Wilson looked at his NetPen and declared, “This is th’ approximate spot where your son set off th’ beacon.”
“I’m going to call for him now,” Will said. “You okay with that?”
“We’re high enough we won’t be disturbing anyone in the valley.”
“Phillip!” Will shouted. He waited and called again. “Phillip! It’s Dad! Where are you?”
Will wandered a few yards in each direction and tried again.
The whistling wind carried no response.
The officer swept the hillside with his light.
“What’s that?” Annie asked, pointing at some dark masses.
“Sheep, I reckon,” Wilson said, “but we’ll take a look. Stay together. We don’t need more missin’ people.”
They approached the shapes, which were indeed a cluster of sheep huddled near a small field hangar. Wilson checked inside. It was empty but for some straw. He poked around with his shoe and declared it clear but Will insisted on repeating the exercise himself.
They spent half an hour wandering the sloping pasture surrounding the beacon coordinates as Will desperately called for his son over and over. Finally, Wilson insisted that they were done for the night. He’d return with more officers in the morning, request a helicopter from the Cumbrian Constabulary, but any more tramping about blindly was pointless. Will reacted furiously, got into Wilson’s face, and had to be tugged away by Annie, who pleaded with him not to alienate the local authorities.
“We don’t have our own resources up here, Will. We need their continued help. Think about your son, okay?”
Will felt the fatigue buckle his knees and bowed to her gentle logic. They hiked down off the fells.
At 9 A.M. local time, Roger Kenney and his team disembarked from a US Air Force Sikorsky transport helicopter at the 421st Air Base Group at RAF Menwith Hill in Harrogate, North Yorkshire. It was sharply cold and the sun was harshly bright. The three Americans slipped on mirrored sunglasses and climbed into a Humvee.
They had landed in England directly from Nevada earlier that morning, touching down at RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk, the home of the USAF 100th Air Refueling Wing. There they immediately boarded a chopper to take them onwards. In transit, arrangements had been made to support the Groom Lake team at Menwith Hill, the National Security Agency/CIA satellite ground station and communications data intercept post.
As the chopper approached, Kenney had pointed out the array of giant white antennae housed in globular white radomes stretching out over the countryside. “Kind of look like big old amanitas, don’t they?”
He had two of his best trackers with him, Lopez, an ex-Ranger, and Harper, ex-Delta—both as loyal as they came, both BTH. Lopez yawned, and Harper contagiously followed suit. “What’s that, chief?” Lopez asked.
“Death cap mushrooms. Good eating until they kill you. Just ask Emperor Claudius.”
“Whatever you say, chief,” Lopez said.
Soon they were comfortably belowground, their natural habitat, in a hardened bunker capable of taking a direct nuclear hit. An American NSA liaison officer showed them around their suite which had a situation room, a dedicated VidLink to Groom Lake, some bedrooms and a self-catering kitchen.
“Thanks for your hospitality,” Kenney told the NSA man. “Feel right at home.”
“Just close your eyes and pretend there are cacti up there,” their host said. “Give us a shout if you need wheels.”
“How long’ll it take to drive from here to Kirkby Stephen?”
“How heavy’s your foot?”
“Made of pure lead, man.”
“About two hours.”
While his guys washed up, Kenney logged onto his Groom Lake server and established sync with his surveillance programs. Within a few minutes he was up and running. There was a queue of audio files of mobile calls between Piper and his wife and text files between Annie Locke and her superiors at MI5.
He quickly learned that little progress had been made during the night but they were set to resume the search for Phillip Piper that morning. Kenney dragged Will’s and Annie’s photos onto the wall screen and as he called up the locations of their mobile devices on a grid map of Cumbria he cheerfully spoke to each photo in turn. “Annie Locke, you are a fine-looking young thing. I hope we get to meet, preferably under some nice fresh sheets. And Will Piper, I hope we get to meet too, real soon. I owe you for Malcolm Frazier. I am going to seriously fuck you up you sanctimonious son of a bitch.”
Will paced restlessly in the hotel lobby after consuming a piece of toast and some bad coffee. There was no sign of Annie, and her tardiness irritated him. He was tempted to ditch her but she had the car keys so he marched up the stairs and banged on her door.
Through the wood he heard, “Just a sec!”
She cracked the door and when she saw it was him, she opened it fully. She had a brush in her hand, and though she was dressed her blouse was partially undone.
“Come in if you like,” she said. “Coffee? I had a carafe sent up. There’s plenty left. I’ll just be a minute. I’m not late, am I?”
“Yeah, you’re late,” he said, ambling in and sitting on her unmade bed. He figured the best way to hurry her up was by planting himself.
She was already back in the bathroom. “Terribly sorry about that. I promise to make it up by driving faster.”
“Have you heard from the cop?” he asked.
“Officer Wilson? Yes indeed. He rang to tell me that he and four other officers were going to be searching Mallerstang this morning. I believe they’re in transit.”
“Mallerstang?”
“That’s the valley we were tramping about last night.”
“What about a chopper?”
“Yes, well, that’s a bit more of a challenge, apparently. It’s being serviced.”
“Well, let’s get another one!” Will shouted, rising from the bed. “Call your people in London! Get one from the RAF.”
“I did place a call. Got quite a lot of blowback, I’m afraid. That’s why I’m running behind schedule.”
“Jesus,” he growled. “I’ll call Washington to light a fire under their asses.”
She emerged from the bathroom, hair in order. “By the time that’s yielded results, the Cumbrian police helicopter should be back in operation. I’m hoping for this afternoon. Ready?”
Her blouse was still undone. He pointed helpfully, but when she didn’t catch his drift, he said, “Your buttons.”
She did them up without blushing and looked him in the eye. “When we find your son, I’d like to help you celebrate.”
He sighed. This was familiar territory. “I’m possibly old enough to be your grandfather.”
“You look just fine to me.” She grabbed her coat and her shoulder bag. “You know, I felt I knew you before we met. I think I developed a schoolgirl crush when I saw your waxworks at Madame Tussaud’s during a class trip.”
He grunted in embarrassment. “That can’t be on display anymore.”
“I think they might have taken it out of storage and dusted it off in honor of the one-year countdown to the Horizon. Perhaps you can take Phillip before the two of you return to America.”
They drove south on the same route they had taken the previous night. The B6259 wound through the floor of Mallerstang, a long dale carved into the Pennines by the River Eden. What had been black and unfathomable in the dead of night was now clear and sun-drenched. They were in a U-shaped trough of wilderness. To the east and west were high undulating grassy fells with limestone outcrops and scattered woodlands. The fells rose to nearly two thousand feet on both sides of the road. Down in the narrow valley, Will had a visceral and claustrophobic reaction to the fells. He felt they were leaning in, pressing his chest, making him work for air, a blunted version of the way he’d felt during his he
art attack.
Up and down the fells he saw the complicated latticework of drystone walls like those they’d encountered in the dark. Scattered on either side of the road were gray stone farmhouses and barns, some at the end of winding dirt lanes. Because the drystone walls and the buildings were of the same limestone as the crags they seemed to be part of the landscape, thrust out of the bedrock, not man-made.
They passed a small iron sign. Pinn.
“Not much of a town,” Will said.
Annie agreed. “There isn’t even a pub.”
Ahead were two squad cars. Annie passed them and pulled off the road. They were empty. Will got out and strained his eyes, looking for the policemen in the hills, but he couldn’t make them out.
“Okay,” Will said. “Hopefully, the police are doing what they’re supposed to be doing. Let’s do our job. Where’s the first house?”
They’d stuck a digital pin in the map on Annie’s NetPen display and drawn a circle with a radius of one mile. Within that circle, there were eight houses plotted on the 1:10000 scale Ordnance Survey map. They’d start there, then extend the radius by half-mile increments.
Will scanned the fells. Someone in Mallerstang, someone in this damn valley knew where his son was.
“We’ll walk to the first two, then hop back for the car,” Annie said. “That house up there’s got a charming name: Scar Farm. Think it’s a different meaning than scar face, but nonetheless, perfect place to start.”
The house at Scar Farm was a limestone cottage lying partway up the fell, as were most of the farms in Mallerstang. The meadows down to the road were for hay and silage, and those up on the fells were for rough summer grazing. Annie knocked on the door, then knocked again when there was no response. Will took over and slammed his heavy fist into it a few times.
A dog started barking behind the house. Will headed around back to investigate and saw a man on a tractor in the field beyond the barn; he climbed onto a low stone wall, balanced himself, waved his arms, and shouted out a series of “hellos.” The man noticed him, pointed the old petrol-fueled tractor, and motored down the hill in their direction. At the same time a woman emerged from the barn and cautiously approached.
The farmer pulled his tractor up to the wall and dismounted. The dog was on his side of the wall and with a sharp command, he stopped its barking. He was a grizzled-looking old fellow in a tattered padded jacket and Wellington boots. Will was still atop the wall. The man shouted at him, “Divn’t dee that yer divvy!”
“What did he say?” Will asked Annie.
“Haven’t a clue I’m afraid.”
The woman drew closer. She was a similar vintage to the farmer and just as weather-beaten.
“He said, ‘get off our wall, you idiot.’ This here’s private property,” she said.
Will climbed down. “Sorry, ma’am. I wonder if you’ve got a minute to talk to us.”
“You lost?” the woman asked.
“No, ma’am. I need your help. Could I have a minute of your time? I’m looking for my son.”
The farmer was fuming and shouting something unintelligible.
“Shut yer moy, John,” she said. “The man’s boy’s gone missin’. Get back t’ it, I’ll take care of ’em.”
The old man swore, got back on his tractor, and puttered off.
Will took a picture of Phillip from his jacket. “Thank you. This is my son. We know he was close to here last night.”
“Up on that fell,” Annie said, pointing at a hillside.
“What’s your laddo doing in Mallerstang?” the woman asked Will.
“I’m not sure. I think he met a girl online.”
“No girls here. Haven’t seen your boy. You two are th’ first strangers in a while. We get ramblers in the good months but nowt in th’ winter.”
“Have any of your neighbors talked about a boy’s being in the area?” Will asked.
“We don’t have time t’ sit around at scordy. Farms don’t run themselves.”
Annie pulled a card from her purse. “Well, if you see or hear anything, please ring me, will you?”
The woman took the card without looking at it. “You’re not a horney then. What are you?”
“Horney?” Annie asked back with an amused look.
“Police.”
“No, ma’am. I’m with the Security Services. From London.”
She turned to walk back to the barn. “Don’t know nowt ’bout that.”
The rest of the morning brought more of the same. By lunchtime they had visited five houses with receptions ranging from suspicious to hostile. No one had seen Phillip. Two households had teenage girls at school in Kirkby Stephen. They left Phillip’s pictures behind with a request to be called if the girls recognized him.
Walking back to the car, Annie’s NetPen chimed. It was Officer Wilson on his way back to town. They’d scoured the pastures and fells for hours without finding a trace of physical evidence.
“Shall we find a pub for a spot of lunch?” Annie asked Will.
“I’d rather we kept going.”
She sighed, rummaged through her bag, and waved a chocolate bar. “I’ve got an emergency Fruit and Nut. Want to share?”
They finished the chocolate bar at the entrance to Lightburn Farm, then drove up the dirt lane around a hillock that concealed the property from the road. The ancient farmhouse looked much like the others they had visited that day—gray stone, rectangular, center entrance with asymmetrical windows and a sharply pitched slate roof. An attached barn was at a right angle to the house on the fell side.
A middle-aged woman with fiery red hair was hanging laundry on a line by the side of the house. She stared hard at them as they exited the car.
“Hi there,” Will called out. “I wonder if you could help us, ma’am?”
“With what?” was her curt reply. She was a handsome-looking woman in her forties who might have passed for a beauty with a bit of makeup and better clothes.
“My son is missing. He came here from America. We know he was near here last night. Could I show you his picture?”
“You his mother?” the woman asked Annie.
“No! Bit young for that. I’m with the Security Services.”
“From London?”
Annie nodded.
“So we’ve got a Yank and a lady minder from London. What’s th’ boy doin’ up here?”
“We think he met a girl from here online,” Will said.
The woman set her unhung laundry in a basket. “I see.”
“Do you have any daughters?” Will asked.
“I do.”
“Can we speak to them?”
“Just the one. She’s at school. Tell you what, come into th’ house. I’ll offer you something t’ drink, and we’ll look at your picture, but I can tell you straight off we haven’t seen any American boys.”
As they followed her to the front door, Annie whispered to Will, “First glimmer of hospitality we’ve had so far. And I can even understand what she’s saying!”
They found themselves inside a large single room dominated by a mighty hearth with a waning fire. To their left was a kitchen, to the right, a cozy sitting area with some old furniture, a hooked rug, and an ancient TV set—pre–flat screen, big, and bulky. The woman immediately went to tend the fire, adding a few lumps of coal.
Will had a good look around, and asked, “How old is the house?”
A man’s voice came from the stairs. “Fourteenth century, parts go back farther. Who’s asking?”
The woman quickly answered. “Daniel, come down. We’ve got visitors. This man’s laddo’s gone missin’. He’s come all th’ weh from America.”
The man had black hair, long black sideburns, and several days of stubble. His right arm was in a sling.
“I’m Daniel Lightburn,” he said. “I’d shake your hand, but mine’s busted.”
Will and Annie introduced themselves.
The woman joined in. “I’m Daniel’s wife, C
acia.”
“What a lovely name,” Annie said.
“Sit down,” Daniel offered. “Don’t often get visitors. Cacia, offer them a bevvie.”
“Tea or whiskey?” Cacia said.
“Tea for me,” Annie said eagerly.
“I wouldn’t say no to a whiskey,” Will said, wearily sinking low into the shot springs of the old sofa.
He hadn’t touched scotch since his heart attack. His doctors didn’t want him back on his nectar of choice; Nancy didn’t want him back on it. But his resistance was worn low by jet lag and worry. The drink hit his pallet sharply but went down with an easy familiarity.
He smiled at his hosts. “I don’t mind telling you, but we’ve seen a bunch of your neighbors this morning, and you’re the only ones to invite us in.”
Daniel had two fingers of whiskey himself. “Fowks here aren’t keen on offcomers.”
“Some of them have an impenetrable dialect,” Will joked. “You don’t.”
“Varies, I suppose,” Cacia said. “We don’t mix much with others. So we don’t pick up all their ways.”
“We’re what you’d call, self-sufficient,” Daniel said. “We grow our veggies, milk our cows, butcher our sheep and chickens. We don’t want for much that th’ outside world has on offer.”
“It’s just you and your daughters?” Annie asked.
“We’ve got two grown sons up tending th’ sheep. And me brother and his wife and their wee ’uns are in th’ other cottage out back. We’ve got a gey clan.”
“Let’s see your picture then,” Cacia said.
Will handed over a copy.
“Good-looking boy, isn’t he, Daniel, but like I said, we haven’t seen ’im.”
“What make you think he’s around here?” Daniel asked.
“He sent a signal from his NetPen.” They were staring at him blankly. “It’s a mobile communicator. It operates on GWS, the global wireless system.”
Annie held hers up to show them.
Daniel shrugged. “We’re not big on technology. Th’ telly was th’ ol’ fella’s, may he rest in peace.”
“The signal he sent last night tells us he was less than a mile from this house.”
