by Jack Higgins
20
There was silence in Ardman’s office. Sir Lionel sat with his head in his hands. Eventually, he looked up, face pale and voice strained as he said:
“I’ve made a terrible error of judgement.”
“He took us all in,” Ardman said.
“That is not an excuse. And he was my friend. Or so I thought.”
“We’ve all been guilty of misjudgement,” Chance said.
“I shall resign at once.” Sir Lionel got to his feet. “I’ll make an appointment to see Henderson in the PM’s office as soon as I can.”
“No,” Ardman said sternly. “I’d rather you did nothing for the moment, Sir Lionel. The last thing we need now is a change of command.”
“What do you want?”
“The authority to pursue this. To do whatever it takes to get back the Banker and Rich Chance, and expose the Tiger.”
“You have it.”
“I’ll need it in writing.”
“Of course. Anything else?”
“Go home,” Ardman said. His voice was devoid of emotion – no accusation, but no sympathy either. “I think it best if you keep out of the way and let my people do their job.”
He did not wait for Sir Lionel’s reply, but turned at once to Chance. “Get up there, John. Quickest way possible. I’m afraid our ruse may have backfired – the Tiger believes he only has until nine tomorrow morning. We may have forced him into taking extreme action.” He sighed. “I’m sorry. Do what you can until Goddard gets a full assault team in place.”
Sir Lionel slipped out of the room, his shoulders bowed and his head down.
“I’ll get on to the RAF,” Chance was saying. “There’s an airbase just thirty miles from Calder. I expect they can find me a car.”
“I expect they’d appreciate it back in one piece,” Ardman said. He turned to Goddard. “Best option?”
“It’s a castle on an island and they may be expecting trouble. We know they have small arms and grenades. Our own people aren’t trained for that.”
“SAS then,” said Chance.
“We’d need the full backing of COBRA before they could go in.”
“You’ll have it,” Ardman assured him. “Get on to the SAS at Hereford. Get them briefed and up there soonest.”
Chance was already on his mobile. “I want a car ready and a personal call to Air Vice-Marshal Remick at CHQ, and I want them in the next five minutes.”
A narrow road skirted a stretch of woodland that extended to the coast. It was the closest they could get by car. From the map, it looked an easy walk through the woods. Then Jade and Halford would find themselves opposite the island of Calder.
Halford drove the hire car off the road, leaving it on a stretch of grass between road and wood. They hadn’t seen another vehicle for over an hour. As soon as Jade got out of the car, she realised the walk was not going to be as straightforward as she had hoped. Her foot sank into the muddy verge and she saw that the car had left deep tracks where it pulled on to the grass.
“Will we get it out of the mud again?” she wondered.
“Let’s worry about that when we need to,” said Halford. “Brought your wellies?”
They trudged across the grass and into the woods. The ground was not so damp there, sheltered under the trees. It was almost dark, but Halford had thought to buy two powerful Maglites at an electronics shop at Heathrow. Not only were they powerful, he had told Jade, but virtually indestructible too.
The woods seemed to go on forever, and Jade hoped Halford knew where he was going. She guessed the man had a good sense of direction from his army days. How often must he have traipsed across desert or through jungle behind enemy lines?
There seemed to be a vague path through the trees – a natural way to go where the trees were slightly wider apart and the ground a little worn away. Was it accidental, Jade wondered?
She listened, but could hear no signs of life apart from their own footsteps crunching through dead wood and sloughing through leaves. Beyond that she fancied she could hear the sound of the sea – waves breaking on the rocky shore. She was still looking round and listening intently when Halford stopped suddenly.
So suddenly that Jade almost walked into him.
“What is it?”
“Not sure,” Halford said. He was shining the light at a patch of ground just ahead of them.
Damp leaves had blown across, forming a small pile. But Jade could see the glint of metal as well. Someone had deliberately hidden something under the leaves, right in the middle of the path – just where anyone would naturally walk to get to the coast.
“It’s a trap,” she realised. Both Jade and Halford froze, not daring to move. “We’re in a minefield.”
The RAF Tornado F3 Air Defence Variant was flying with its wings swept back. It had a crew of two, but on this flight the pilot was taking a passenger – John Chance.
Chance was wearing one of the new LARM flight suits that were still on the secret list. It was similar to a standard flight suit, with liquid held between two layers of tough material. Chance was surprised to find it didn’t hamper his movements at all.
The liquid was as thin as water, barely more than a millimetre thick. But as well as maintaining his body warmth while flying at 12,000 metres, it reacted to pressure. He had felt it moulding into shape under the weight of his body as he squeezed into the Tornado cockpit. That was why it was called Liquid Armour. If the pilot ejected, or was in a crash, the suit would become a protective shell wherever there was an impact.
Provided it wasn’t fired from too close, and wasn’t an armour-piercing round, the liquid could harden quickly and solidly enough to stop a bullet.
“Got you a car, sir.” The pilot’s voice was filtered and distorted, but clear enough.
“Thanks.”
“Base commander’s lending you his. Says to tell you he’s been warned to ask for it back in one piece.”
“Not a problem. Well, probably not.”
“And if you get a chance, it could do with a wash.”
“I think I might be pressed for time. How are we doing?”
“Not long now, sir. Just touching mach two point three. Pretty much top speed.”
“And what’s that in English for us non-techies?” Chance wondered. He knew it was fast. He could feel himself being pressed into the seat, and the suit reacting whenever the aircraft banked or turned.
“It’s about fifteen hundred miles per hour.” The pilot turned slightly, though his face was all but hidden behind his flight mask. “Beats the train any day.”
Keeping the torch steady on the pile of leaves, Jade watched as Halford carefully removed one leaf at a time.
“You were right,” he said at last. “It is a trap. But not quite as sophisticated as we thought.”
He moved aside so that Jade could see what he had uncovered. Two small arcs of metal with sharp teeth cut into them were held apart by a sprung base plate. An animal trap.
“That’s so cruel,” Jade exclaimed.
“Wasn’t meant for us. Too small. Hoping to catch a hare maybe.”
He picked up a stick and poked it at the trap. The two sprung jaws snapped together and the dry stick shattered. Jade winced.
“Who would set a thing like that?” Jade demanded. “That’s got to be illegal.”
“I’m guessing this is private land too,” Halford said. “So he’s probably a poacher.”
“Who?”
“The man who thinks I can’t hear him as he sneaks up on us from behind you.”
Jade whirled round in time to see a dark figure step out from among the trees.
“So you’re not as clueless as I thought,” the man said in a thick Scottish accent. “Heard you from about a mile away, crashing through the woods here. I wondered if you’d maybe find my traps.”
“They’re horrible,” Jade told him. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“Oh, for catching wee animals? Don’t worry, girl –
the rabbits I miss will be torn apart by the local foxes. Might take them longer to die, of course, but hey – that’s mother nature for you.”
“You’re a very sick man, you know that?”
“And you’re trespassing here as much as I am,” the poacher pointed out. Now he was closer, Jade could see he was in late middle age – a small man with grey stubble round his slack chin. “What you doing? Not after a rabbit for the pot, that’s for sure.”
“We’re looking for Calder Island, for the castle,” Halford said. “Maybe you can help us?”
“And why should I do that?”
“We’d be very grateful,” Halford said.
The poacher pointed the way they’d been heading. “Keep going the way you are, you’ll reach the sea. You can’t miss the island.”
“Is it easy to get to? The island?” Jade asked.
The poacher laughed. “Impossible. Unless you’re hiding a boat somewhere. Got one in your pocket maybe? Inflatable, is it?”
“Too far to swim?” Halford asked.
“Unless you’ve swum the channel, I’d say so. Oh, it isn’t too far, but the sea’s not kind and it’s mighty cold. You’d freeze to death before you drown, I’m thinking. There’s the old causeway, but that’s under water now. Some say you can walk across at low tide, but I wouldn’t want to try it. Even if you knew the route, I’d think it’s crumbled and rotted away by now. You’d be over your head before you got halfway.”
“We need to go back for a boat,” said Jade.
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” the poacher said in surprise. “You really want to get across to the island?”
“Yes, actually, we do.”
“Like I said, we’d be grateful for any help or advice,” Halford said. He pulled his wallet from his pocket and held it where the poacher could see. “Extremely grateful.”
“Can you help?” Jade asked.
The poacher sniffed. “Depends on how you feel about fishing. Know how you feel about rabbiting. What about fish? Catching them in a net cruel, is it?”
Jade opened her mouth to tell him that yes, it was actually. But Halford put a hand on her shoulder to stop her.
“You a fisherman as well?” he asked.
“Might be.”
“With your own boat?”
“Might have.”
“Which could be for hire?”
“Might be.”
Jade sighed. “Oh, for God’s sake, give him some money and let’s get this boat.”
The boat didn’t look very safe. It was an old wooden rowing boat with water sloshing about in the bottom. The paint on the outside was chipped and cracked, and the varnish inside was flaking off like cellophane. One of the oars had a chunk taken out of it, as if it had been bitten by a shark. Jade hoped it hadn’t.
The poacher had his boat tied up to a large rock in an inlet out of sight of the island. The island with its huge castle was a dark shape in the distance, looming up against the dark grey of the sky. There were dim lights at some of the windows, and Jade fancied she could see a curl of black smoke rising from it. The whole place looked dark, oppressive and forbidding.
The poacher took a bundle of notes from Halford and left them to it. He disappeared almost silently back into the woods.
“Are we really going over there in this thing?” Jade asked.
“No,” Halford told her. “At least – you’re not.”
“What?”
“Your father told me to look after you and not let you get into trouble. Going over there is trouble with a capital T.”
“But Rich is over there.”
“Probably over there,” he corrected her. “I’ll go alone. And I’ll find out for sure. If he is, maybe I can get him out. More likely, I’ll have to come back or send you a signal. But once we know for sure, then we can sit tight and wait for Ardman.”
“Oh, great. So why bother coming at all? Why not just sit tight back in London till Ardman gets his finger out?”
“Because,” Halford told her, “you’re right. I’m sure Rich is there. And I suspect he’s in trouble and needs help. And fast.”
“Then let’s go.” Jade put one foot into the boat. It rocked precariously under her weight.
Halford pulled her back out. “I’m serious, Jade. You’re not coming. That boat won’t take both of us safely. Let’s face it, it probably won’t take one of us safely.”
“I’m lighter than you,” Jade protested. “I’ll go.”
Halford laughed. “No, you won’t. Anyway, I’ve got a wooden leg, so I’ll float.”
“That’s crazy and it isn’t wood, it’s plastic or something. I’ve seen it.” But Jade laughed despite herself.
“You call your dad and tell him what’s going on. If I know John Chance, he’s on his way up here already – whatever Ardman says.”
“OK,” Jade said. “I’ll call Dad.” The wind was pulling at her coat and she pulled it tight round her. “But you – be careful. And get Rich out safely.”
“Right.” He untied the boat.
“And be quick.”
“Quick as I can,” Halford promised.
He climbed down into the boat and pushed it away from the shore with one of the oars. Jade watched him start rowing towards the island with practised ease.
She couldn’t get a signal on her mobile. Typical. But maybe it would be better from higher up – back in the woods. Still cursing Halford under her breath, Jade knew in her heart that he was right. She retraced her steps slowly, watching the display on her phone, waiting for any tiny suggestion of a connection.
She heard the voice at the same moment the phone got a signal. Jade froze. Listened. Looked round.
There was a faint glow from between the trees, a way off to the left. Slowly and silently, she edged towards it, struggling to hear. She recognised the poacher’s accent before she could make out his words. The glow was his own mobile. But who was he calling?
“That’s right, two of them. Man and a girl…”
Jade stopped dead.
The poacher listened then went on, “Oh, I tried to put them off, but the mad jokers were desperate to get to your castle. So I lent them my boat. Figured you’d sort them out better than me. Figured you’d be grateful too. As usual.”
Jade backed slowly away. The poacher ended his call and moved off deeper into the woods. As soon as she felt safe, Jade turned and ran. She called Halford on her mobile, hoping the signal would hold. But all she got was his answer service – her mobile might be connecting, but his wasn’t.
By the time she got back to the inlet she could see no sign of the little boat. Halford was heading into a trap and there was no way Jade could warn him.
21
Rich and the Banker had talked for a long time. There didn’t seem to be any way out of it. If they didn’t give the Tiger the information he wanted, he would kill them. But the Banker said he didn’t know it – the data was written down, and his daughter had that safe. His daughter who could be dead for all he knew. Rich didn’t press the man on the subject.
And in any case, it seemed to Rich that if they did somehow get the information the Tiger wanted, he would kill them once he had it. A lose-lose scenario.
“Even if Eleri is all right,” the Banker said sadly, “she must be in Mr Ardman’s care. He isn’t likely to allow her to get the access codes and account numbers to us.”
“Let’s just hope she’s got them safe,” Rich said glumly.
“Oh, quite safe,” the Banker said. “You see, we had the information etched, with a laser—”
He broke off as the door suddenly opened. The Tiger stepped into the room. From his demeanour and bearing, Rich knew at once it was him.
“You’re early,” Rich said.
“Such wit,” the Tiger replied. “I can see that we’re in for a treat tomorrow.” He turned to go, then paused. “I knew there was something.” He turned back, his face split by an unpleasant smile. “I just had a telephone call from a
local gentleman who has my interests at heart. I thought I would pass on the message.”
“And what’s that?” Rich asked. It didn’t look from the Tiger’s smile as if it would be good news.
“Well, I don’t know if you are aware that at this very moment a couple of your friends are attempting a daring and dramatic rescue. With a boat and everything.”
Rich looked at the Banker – could it be true?
“A man and a girl,” the Tiger went on. “So very sad. I just wanted to tell you that I’m afraid the rescue is…” He paused, licking his lips as he savoured the moment. “… And I think this phrase is particularly apt. Dead in the water.”
With a sudden guffaw of laughter at his own joke, the Tiger turned to leave. But then he paused, and turned back.
“Bannock – there are no windows in this room.”
“No, sir.”
“That’s not good at all. Please see that my guests are moved to a more convenient room. One that has a good view of where our infrared cameras have picked up the boat. I’d hate them to miss the show.”
Chance had managed to squeeze a small bag of clothes and equipment into the cockpit with him. He quickly pulled on dark trousers and a sweater and jacket over the top of his LARM flight suit.
He tossed the bag on to the passenger seat of the performance blue Ford Focus ST. It was parked at the side of the service road, close to the runway where the Tornado had come to a stop. Beside it was an illuminated sign warning that the speed limit on the base was 20mph. Chance assumed that applied to the roads not the runways.
“You will take care of it,” Wing Commander ‘Flip’ Anderson said anxiously.
“Like it was my own,” Chance assured him, climbing in.
Anderson didn’t look much encouraged. “Only had it a month. Got nearly as many gadgets and controls as the Tornado. Still working some of them out.”
“Which one’s the ejector seat?” Chance asked with a grin.
“You sure it’ll be all right?”
“I’m only driving thirty miles to the coast.” Chance adjusted the position of the seat and the rear-view mirror. “What could possibly happen?”
