Then the cupboard door opened in the second bedroom with a barely audible ‘click-crimph’. The next sound was the loose board in the third bedroom quickly followed by the cabinet doors, he was no longer being so careful. The footsteps above his head in the bathroom were no longer soft but regular. Dust fell from the ceiling of the garage after every step, Rory tried to swallow but his throat was dry, his stomach churned and he began to worry that he would be sick.
As the last footstep left the bathroom, the house fell silent. Rory waited for the next sound, sweat beading on his forehead, eyes darting but there was nothing just the click of the clock and the birdsong outside. He waited. Five minutes, ten minutes and still the tortured Rory waited. His arms ached from holding the pitchfork ready, he twisted the handle in his grip so that his arms did not go numb but still no sound.
Rory began to think the man had left. His heart began to settle slightly and his muscles relaxed slightly the pitchfork dipped from horizontal, but then he heard the barely audible scuff of the intruder’s boot on the stone steps leading up to the garage.
He had a silenced revolver leading before him in his right hand. No sooner had it split the door frame then Rory's primeval survival mechanisms kicked in: the chubby reporter lunged forward with the pitchfork out in front directed at his assailant’s gun. The prongs of the fork happened to thrust either side of the intruder’s wrist, but the uncontrollable force with which Rory had lunged had a devastating result favouring the journalist. It pushed the man’s gun and arm hard to the left, pinning it against the door frame for a split second before the bones gave way to the pressure and snapped with a horrific crack. The mysterious figure screamed in agony and bent double to take the pain as his weapon skidded across the cold stone floor. Rory lifted the pitchfork high and brought the edge of the prongs down on the back of the man’s head. The NSO officer fell to the floor prone. Rory threw the fork to the floor and jumped over his assailant, into the kitchen, out through the front door and into the empty street.
He looked left up towards the dead end, a black cat stopped still with pneumatic perfection, crouched, green eyes staring at the panting mass of human that had suddenly spilled onto the quiet street. Then in an instant it pounced into a darting run and underneath a red car. Rory turned and ran in the other direction down the hill, towards the centre of town. The narrow road made the ordeal more terrifying. There were small terraced cottages to his right and a high stone wall to his left; no escape route, so he pushed his legs as fast as they could carry him.
He stumbled out onto the main road through Hexham. The Fox and Hounds pub was in front of him and four hundred yards to the left was the police station. Which had now become the NSO command centre for the area. To the right was the centre of town and the market square from where he had made his report the day before. There were few cars around and even fewer people.
He stumbled right running aimlessly towards the town centre when a muddy black pickup truck with a huge bull bar and six lamps mounted on the roll bar above the cab swerved alongside the curb. Rory fell back against the rough stone wall, thinking that the NSO had swooped down to take him. Had he been less panic-stricken he would have registered the pickup as Jesse Rowell’s. He leaned across the cab and pushed the passenger side door open, his blonde hair was cropped close on the sides and mopped on top, his face was serious but kind. He was the thinker. His brothers were the brawn.
“What’s the matter with you, Rory? You look mental, man, running like that...” he stopped as Rory gathered himself and realised he was looking at someone he knew and could trust. He pushed himself off the wall and jumped into the pickup screaming:
“Go, go, go!”
The big truck growled as it accelerated away from the curb and Rory slumped into the passenger seat, ducking down as the vehicle passed the police station. The truck left Hexham on the Haydon Bridge Road, and Jesse spoke to Rory again,
“Tell me what's going on, Rory.”
“They came for me, Jesse; they came for me - a journalist. How the fuck is that. He was going to kill me, I saw his gun!” Rory was staring out of the windscreen, tears rolling down his cheeks, gibbering as much to himself as to Jesse.
“Who came for you?” asked Jesse calmly, knowing all too well what the answer was.
“They came to my house...” responded Rory, losing energy.
“Look, I'll get you safe - you come with the rebels now, Rory. You won't be safe in Hexham anymore; they obviously don’t want anyone to hear what you have to say. They're killing people in the countryside, Rory; you could be our voice...”
“All I want to do is fucking survive, Jesse. I am not made for this.”
“Tough, this is life now; you think any of us saw this coming?”
A short while later the pickup pulled into Claire's driveway. For precisely the same reason that Nat had ended up at Claire's: due to her friendship with so many of the rebel families and her proximity yet safe distance from Hexham, hers had become the rebel safe house. Arms were being stored in her sheds and she was the field hospital and general hunker-down stop off. It was a burden that she was not comfortable with, but she knew these men and women. She was involved.
Jesse dropped Rory in the drive with instructions to wait, he would send someone to pick him up and take him north later in the afternoon.
Rory walked nervously to the front door checking behind with every step. He was scared of the wind in the trees, the gravel under his feet; he was sure that someone was waiting to attack him at any moment. He rapped on the delicate stained glass panel. Claire was worried by the urgency of the knocking at her door - she kept to the shadows, out of sight as she squinted to see who was behind the wobbly antique glass. Suddenly, she recognised him as his sweaty red face approached the window to look in.
Claire knew Rory a little, they spoke if they met in the pub, they said hello if they passed in the street, but they were not friends as such. Acquaintances would suffice. Claire was a good ten years his senior.
Right now, she rushed to the door realising that Rory was panicking about something. As she pulled the door open, Rory was holding himself up against the frame, he almost fell into the house already blurting out a string of words that Claire had to translate.
She came up with, “Someone’s trying to kill me…so scared!”
“Calm down Rory, you need to breathe you’re in shock,” she said as she glanced outside and shut the front door gently. Rory was pacing back and forth in the sitting room. He was like a zoo animal that had spent too long in a small cage; his pacing was disturbed, erratic, and if he wasn’t spewing saliva-filled sentences, he was gnawing at his fingernails. He had always bitten his nails and had little more than patches of nail at the top of each finger. He was a proficient nail-biter but hardly had enough nail to bite, so now it looked as though he was simply chewing the ends of his fingers.
“Please stop doing that Rory, it’s disturbing and not going to solve anything. Now come into the kitchen, I’ll get the kettle on.”
Rory sat down on the worn old three-seater sofa which nestled in the corner of the kitchen next to the fire. The dancing flames of the fire divided his attention. He was recovering some sort of composure.
“Tell me what happened,” Claire said.
“Simple really, I went home for my lunch. I thought it was fucking Jenny! I went to have a bloody look and there he was - some fucking paramilitary psycho with a gun.”
“It could have been a burglar…”
“Could it hell,” Rory retorted wide-eyed. “He was in the house for a good twenty minutes, didn’t touch my belongings and you tell me how many burglars creep around with silencers on their guns?”
“Ok, so you got away…”
“I think I killed him…”
“What? ...Rory?”
“I hit him so hard with a pitch fork…I was scared.”
“Who do you think it could be?”
“NSO I think, because of my piece on Nat Bell?
”
“What about Nat?”
“You haven’t been watching the news, have you? He’s waging a one-man war on the regime, he’s slaughtered about ten of their enforcement squad already - and when I say slaughtered - he is exploring the realms of barbarism!” Rory momentarily forgot his problems as he sank into work mode, excited about his project. Then his face dropped again, “I asked some questions as to why a man like Nat Bell would start killing people…it was aired this morning and then two minutes after I get home this happens. There is no coincidence there.”
Claire was about to tell Rory about Nat but kept quiet as she was beginning to grasp the gravity of the situation. She understood all too well that the less Rory knew, the less he could say which might protect him and would definitely protect Nat and herself.
Rory continued, “Jesse said he was going to send someone back for me, to take me north, the Rowell brothers are up in Wooler with hundreds of rebels. The NSO has no presence up there, it’s safe. I know what’s happening here, Claire, and it is becoming unsafe for all of us. Hexham is becoming a crucial piece of land for the NSO. There is word that the Scots are arming the rebels and the NSO are sending troops north. War is coming, Claire, and Hexham is going to be the theatre.”
“How do you know all this, Rory?”
“It’s my job, Claire; I am paid to know what is going on.”
As he said the words, there was a knock at the front door. Her beautiful dark eyes flashed towards Rory. His face drained of blood, the eyes opened wide and his head sank. He knew from Claire’s face that she wasn’t expecting anyone, and it was too soon, surely, for the rebels to be collecting him.
She gulped and pointed to the stairs without uttering a word. He stole across the room and tiptoed up the stairs taking two at a time. Claire heard the familiar click of the landing cupboard open and shut, then her attention was drawn back to the front door by a more impatient knock. She shook herself down, tried to clear her mind of the fear and called back,
“Hang on! I’m coming!”
She opened the front door to four grim looking men, each one carrying a gun. The closest, a thick-set, unshaven brute, stepped forward into her personal space putting one foot inside the door so that she was unable to shut it again as her instinct screamed out inside her.
He spoke quietly and with a cockney accent, “We know all about you, bitch.”
With that he turned the weapon and smashed the butt of the gun into Claire’s face, knocking her senseless to the floor; she could taste her own blood as she lost consciousness.
* * * * *
Start was hunched over the telephone. He had an elastic band in between thumb and forefinger and he twisted it, watching the elastic curl at the ends like a worm as it wound tight. He spoke calmly but with determination,
“Tell me, you have him?”
“Who? We have the journalist, not the farmer.”
“Well, it’s a start. What’s wrong with you, Truter, you sound off, tired or something?”
“I had an accident, broke my arm, it’s nothing.”
“Hmm, you tell me if it’s getting too much for you. We need to step up the land reform. Burn out all the landowners if necessary - we need to control food production and we need to secure Northumbria.”
“I need more men, there are more rebels daily; we took four rebels today - two had Lancashire accents and the other two were from the Midlands. This isn't a local thing, Lucas...”
“What are you doing with the prisoners?”
“We aren't taking prisoners; they're in a ditch off the road to Scotland.”
“I'll have more men with you soon; you contain the rebels and get those fucking farms cleared of their occupants. Our grip on power is dependent on what happens in the borderlands.”
Start put the telephone down without another word and turned to the men who sat across from him on the other side of his desk.
The first was a man in his mid-forties with dark, cropped hair, pale skin and a severe expression. His name was Quentin Harris, Brigadier Quentin Harris, and he was the army's instrument of attrition. No one else was able to reduce enemy numbers like soldiers under Brigadier Harris's command. No matter what the odds or the numbers, Harris's armies seemed to grind an enemy to dust like a glacier over bedrock. The second man was Harris's boss, General Anthony Beaston. A cold, merciless man, Beaston was small, wiry, with not an ounce of fat on his ageing body or his bony face. His mannerisms were super-accelerated and he blinked wildly, but he knew the art of war and he understood the nature of stealing another man's hope.
“You two will leave tonight; meet your troops at Aldershot Garrison and get up to the borders. You can station yourselves at Albemarle and the mission is simple: secure Northumberland and Cumbria under NSO control and redistribute every inch of farmland to government collectives.”
“We know the mission, Mr Start, and we have no doubt about the outcome, but we need to know two things,” Beaston spoke the King’s English, mostly through his nose. His face twitched and rolled as he spoke, but his eyes remained unnervingly trained on Start.
“I'm listening...” said Start.
“What are your views with regards the local population and should the instance arise that we are facing Scottish troops do we open fire on them?”
“The answer to both questions is do whatever you see fit to secure that region.”
* * * * *
When she came to, the blood Claire tasted was like iron, metallic in her mouth, and it was now caked around her lips. The swelling felt heavy on the side of her face. Disfigured and in pain she had no strength for the situation she was in. With eyes open wide she could see nothing but pitch black; her mind raced, was she blind or in a room with no light whatsoever? She opened her mouth to speak, but the dull ache exploded into excruciating shards of pain emanating from her jaw travelling through her skull and down her spine. She understood immediately that her jaw was broken. The pain made her whimper, which was answered from within the darkness by a shuffling sound and a hollow murmur,
“I’m sorry Claire…I – I...” Rory's voice drifted off; there was nothing to say.
She didn’t answer. She was prone in the darkness. Her head lolling. Her backside was numb on the cold concrete. Her back against the wall paralysed by fear and one thought travelling through her head: she would rather be dead than face the door to that room opening.
ELEVEN
The fire crackled as the sun rose high and its rays began to find their way directly into the little valley. The heat from both sun and fire bathed Nat’s face; he had felt the cold the night before so the warmth was a welcome luxury. A blackbird had joined their party and danced around the camp in search of an easy meal. The constant babble of the stream seemed louder, more overpowering this morning. He was not in a good mood.
He gazed over at his daughter. Amber was nestled with her back against the grassy bank, totally at ease in the rough camp; she was intently sharpening her hunting knife. In the early grey light of the day, they had been cleaning all the weapons they had amassed.
They had heard the crack of Stuart’s rifle sound off four or five times so they knew they were eating meat that morning. Father and daughter did not speak while they worked, neither were good communicators. He knew from her eyes she had questions - if he was honest with himself he could work out what the questions would be. But she didn’t know how to ask, and he could not bring himself to talk about the subject.
So, as her vivid green eyes connected searchingly with his, piercing the dull air, his tanned hide would crease across his brow. The best he could muster was a thoughtful, reassuring smile before his head, with a slight shake of that white mane, moved back to concentrate on the job in hand. The emotion was all too raw for both, but it was all the communication Amber needed, and the tears burst the banks of her eyes and rolled silently down her cheeks as she nodded to the old man. She wiped them away with the rough, dirty sleeve of her wax jacket and swept her tight rin
glets away from her face. Looking back at her knife, she sharpened it with a renewed ferocity.
He watched the pot bubbling on the fire. The flames danced around it as it brewed, the water churning over and over, tossing the tea bags around as it boiled. As he watched, the earth seemingly hiccupped and the pan of water fell on its side in the flames.
Nat looked up into the trees, as the roosting crows flew from their perches and pheasants’ warbled clucks filled the air as they too flew in fright. The forest had been jolted to life by some sort of seismic wave. Then came the rumble of a distant explosion; Nat looked at Amber and without a word they leapt to their feet and started running to the nearest vantage point - the edge of the forest.
They moved quickly through the thick dewy undergrowth, the smell of the fresh morning woodland was rich in peat and leaves. Stuart came bounding out of the trees with four rabbits over his shoulder, shouting, “what the hell was that!” They ran together, three hunters like sprinters on a track, they moved with ease and fluidity through the barrage of foliage and hazards the forest threw at them.
The three reached the edge of the trees and, as they walked out into the wide open expanse of the valley, they looked up to the west. There in the distance, where they were used to seeing the ugly chimneys of the huge chipboard factory, they saw a huge thick black mushroom cloud billowing above the factory which was engulfed in flames. The huge piles of wood chip were now burning too; an irrepressible inferno overwhelmed the site.
Nat’s eyes surveyed the valley he was so used to admiring. He had never been bored or unmoved by its beauty and ever changing detail. Now it was un-recognisable: the drama was no longer natural. Man had placed his boot on the heart of his valley and the scene he viewed now was like Armageddon. To the east, black smoke continued to drift upwards from the ashes of the paper factory, which had been burning for days. In front of them stood the ruin of his home, burnt to the ground with a collection of vehicles littered on the drive and now to the west this latest devastation.
The Border Reiver Page 14
