by Chris Hawley
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
OUT OF THE FRYING PAN INTO THE FIRE
I woke the next morning wondering what Albert Smith was doing and why he was being so quiet. His newspaper article had set the whole country talking about me but I couldn’t see how he was going to make his fortune, unless he had the whole story from me that he would then sell to the world. Albert Smith is going to make a move soon, I said to myself.
I had a call from Tim while Sonia and I were eating our toast and marmalade.
‘Hey, how were the disguises? Did you try them out?’
‘Yesterday,’ I said, washing down a piece of toast with a gulp of tea.
‘Were they good?’
‘Terrific,’ I assured him.
‘Ben and I are going for lunch in town today. Want to join us?’
‘If you can bear to sit with an ancient Australian.’
‘That’d be cool. Why not? Did he ever play cricket for Australia, by any chance?
‘I have a feeling he did …… but probably before Bradman was born.’
‘That ancient!?’ exclaimed Tim.
‘Okay, what time and where?’
‘Mac’s at one o’clock.’
‘Okay, I’ll try to be there on time,’ I said. ‘But you know I don’t get about as well as I used to when I was young.’
‘Don’t run or you’ll have a heart attack in the middle of the High Street,’ quipped Tim and he switched off.
After Dad had gone off to work, fighting his way through the hoards of reporters who were already besieging the house, and Mum had gone upstairs to hoover the bedrooms, Sonia and I took the same route as the day before. We climbed through the hole in the fence that Mrs. Fawcett had made and knocked on her back door.
‘That’s funny,’ I said. ‘She must be out.’ I knocked again.
Suddenly the door flew open and there in the doorway to the kitchen stood none other than Albert Smith. Behind him was another man. He grabbed me by the shoulder and quickly pulled me inside before I could evade his grasp. The other man lunged at Sonia, taking hold of her by the hair and pulling her into the kitchen. We were both flung into wooden chairs. The bags with our disguises were abandoned outside the door.
‘So, now I’ve got you William Steadman,’ he growled, ‘and this time you will not escape. And Sonia, what a surprise to see you!’
He stood back and stared at us. The other man moved back and leaned against the wall. He was of similar build to Albert Smith, but with a heavy moustache and a grey stubble on his face. Sonia and I were still too shocked to speak.
‘Sonia, I never thought you’d ditch me like that. I thought I could count on your loyalty. I never thought I’d live to see the day when my own daughter ganged up against me, after all I’ve done.’ He shook his head. ‘I tried calling my sister in Toronto and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why she was not answering the phone. Tell me, how on earth did you get back here?’ he looked at Sonia bitterly.
Sonia made no reply: she just stared at her father.
‘Never mind, I will find out,’ he said, turning to me. ‘Well, I admired the way you escaped from my house. Of course there is the little matter of the damage to the doors.’ He grinned. ‘You were overconfident, my lad. One of my spies saw you leave this house yesterday and get into a van. I guessed correctly that you would use the same way again and so, as soon as the lady of the house left this morning we got in and waited for you.
‘The lady will come back and you’ll be in the soup,’ I said.
‘I don’t think so,’ was his reply.
‘What did you do to her?’ I asked anxiously.
‘Nothing. But she got a cable this morning from her sister to say she should come to London urgently.’
‘I suppose you sent the cable,’ I suggested.
‘Clever boy!’
‘And the husband?’
‘He’ll come in the afternoon, by which time we’ll be safely away from here.’ Albert Smith creased up his face in an evil grin.
‘Where are you going to take us?’ I asked.
‘That would be telling, wouldn’t it? I don’t want any of your friends finding you, until I’ve got my story.’ He grinned again. ‘How long that will be depends on you.’
Sonia looked into her father’s face. ‘Dad, let us go. You will get into terrible trouble! You’ll end up in jail!’
‘I’ll risk that, my dear. I have waited too long for this chance and I’m not about to give up so easily.’
Has Dad come yet, I wondered. He had told me he would have to report for work that morning and then try to get away, so that we could repeat the routine of the previous day. There in the kitchen I had no way of knowing if he was waiting outside in the street with the Ford van.
I glanced at the other man, who was staring into space. Albert Smith intercepted my glance.
‘Let me introduce you to Wally. He’s an ex-policeman and a very good interrogator.’
The other man, on hearing his name, looked at me and the faintest smile flicked across his lips. ‘Pleased to meet you, Steadman,’ he said gruffly. I said nothing but I wondered what kind of techniques he used to extract information from his suspects.
‘Now the introductions are over with,’ said Albert Smith, ‘it’s time to get going! But before we go I am going to have to blindfold you. You won’t know where you are when I take ‘em off. And your mobiles: hand ‘em over right now.’
With that he took both our mobile phones and frisked me roughly, just to make sure I didn’t have another one stashed away in my pocket. Then he took two large handkerchiefs from his pocket and tied them tightly round our faces, first Sonia’s then mine. Then I could feel my hands being tied behind my back. In the darkness I was led roughly out of the front door, down some steps and into a waiting car, which sped off down the road. Dad cannot have been there outside the house! He would not have stood by and watched his son manhandled like that!
I knew Sonia was there in the back seat of the car, because I could hear her sobbing quietly beside me. I would like to have reached out my hand to comfort her.
‘Have faith, Sonia,’ I said to her. ‘We’ll get out of this, you’ll see.’
‘Shut up!’ came the voice of Albert Smith. ‘No talking or I’ll gag you as well.’
I kept quiet but my mind was desperately trying to get in contact with Michu. If anyone can help now, it is Michu.
Nothing more was said and after some time all that could be heard was the purr of the engine. I guessed that we had left the town behind and were heading for a place where we were not so well known. I began to feel very cut off from help and I my only consolation was that Sonia was with me in the car and Michu was with me in spirit.
Suddenly the car increased speed and there were mutterings from the front. Albert Smith was cursing something and then he said, ‘faster Wally, that car behind is tailing us.’ We reached a bend in the road. The sound of screeching tyres made me tense my whole body and I was thrown sideways against Sonia. But the driver, whoever he was, succeeded in gaining control of the car and it accelerated again. The squeal of brakes announced another bend. I was thrown forward onto the back of the seat in front and then against the door as the car took the right-hander, tyres screeching again. Not being able to see and only having a vague idea of what was happening was agony. I wondered what Sonia was feeling.
At that moment there was a sound of splintering glass and instantaneously a zinging sound as a bullet passed my ear by a very uncomfortable margin. I had seen enough films in which bullets fly around to know the sounds they make. I instinctively ducked my head and shouted to Sonia to do the same. I crouched as far down as I could, waiting for the next bullet to enter the back of my head. It never came.
All of a sudden there was a loud bang and the car swerved violently to the left and then to the right as the driver tried to control it. I guessed that those following had put a bullet into one of the rear tyres. I was rigid with fear. More curses came from the front.
The car slowed to the sound of the remains of the tyre flapping madly and the smell of burning rubber attacked my nostrils. Then I was thrown into the air, hitting my head against the roof as the car left the road and leapt and dipped over rough ground. I heard Sonia cry out. Finally, after lurching and veering madly, the car came to rest and the engine died. The smell of burning rubber lingered in the air. There was the sound of doors opening and I could hear Albert Smith’s panic-stricken voice telling Wally to run. Their voices quickly faded away and for a few moments all was quiet. I sat still, amazed that I was still alive. I called to Sonia but there was no answer. I feared she was hurt badly.
‘Are you guys okay?’ came a voice from the open passenger door.
I was too shocked to speak.
‘Okay, let’s get that blind off.’
The door beside me opened and I felt a pair of hands on the back of my neck and suddenly I could see again. Momentarily I was blinded by the light. I glanced quickly at the man beside me without taking in anything and then I turned the other way to see if Sonia was alright. She was lying still.
‘Sonia!’ I cried out. ‘Sonia! Can you hear me?’ There was no answer. At that moment I thought she was dead.
Another man appeared on the other side of the car and opened Sonia’s door. He checked her pulse, removed her blindfold and lifted an eyelid. ‘She’s out cold but she’ll be okay. It’s probably just mild concussion,’ he said.
I felt a knot in my throat. If Sonia dies I’ll never forgive myself, I thought. I was the one who got her involved in my troubles.
I looked around me. After leaving the road, the car must have travelled a long way across a stretch of grass and through some thick bushes, stopping short of a line of trees. The road was hidden from view. The car that our captors had used, a BMW, was parked fifty metres behind, well screened from the road by bushes. There was a neat hole in the back window of our car where the bullet had passed through. A large jagged hole in the front windscreen showed where they had knocked out the shattered glass for the driver to see ahead.
The man who had taken off my blindfold went round the back of the car and the two men began a conversation, standing some few metres on the other side of the car. It was then I realised that they were Americans although I could not understand much of what they were saying. They were dressed in jeans, shirts and jackets. They were both medium height, one was dark haired and thin, the other was lighter and thickset.
I set about trying to work out why they had kidnapped us. It had to have something to do with the story in the newspaper but what in particular could they want from me. Were they journalists from The New York Times or Herald Tribune? Were they scientists interested in the secret of travel to Mars? Were they NASA men out to steal information, or were they CIA or FBI agents? To me they hardly looked like any of these, more like Texan ranchers straight from the prairie. They were certainly not stereotypes from Hollywood suspense films. One thing for sure was that they were serious. You don’t go around shooting through the back windows of cars just for fun! And Albert Smith knew that too: he didn’t hang around to ask them who they were and what did they want.
After a few minutes they turned towards the car. They light haired man took hold of Sonia and carried her, still unconscious, towards the BMW. The dark haired man motioned to me to get out of the car and follow him. Instead of putting Sonia into the car, the dark haired man placed her on the grass and untied her wrists. He slapped her face in an attempt to revive her. She moved slightly and was still. The wire that bound my wrists was removed and I was told to sit on the grass. I moved my hands and massaged them together to restore the circulation. One wrist was bleeding due to the violent movement of the car as it had bounded across the grass and through the bushes.
‘Your name is Steadman, right?’ said the thin man.
I nodded.
‘And the girl is the daughter of the reporter who started this whole thing, right?’
I nodded again.
‘Tell me Steadman, is the story in the newspaper true?’
‘No. Why do you want to know?’
‘I’m asking the questions, okay? He said impatiently.
I said nothing. I was beginning to dislike the man. He’s as cold as a fish, I thought. The other man sat quietly on the grass, not appearing to take much notice of what his partner was saying. He absent mindedly picked a long stem of grass, which he put in his mouth and twirled it round. He then got to his feet and told his companion that was going to check out the road, to make sure they were alone. He walked off, still twirling the grass with his lips. The thin, dark man continued.
‘Since you want to know why I want to know, I’ll tell you, not that it’ll be of much consequence. We work for the US Government, CIA.’
He paused and looked coldly at me with dark eyes. So they are CIA agents after all! Of all the possibilities, this was the most frightening. Fear began to spread through my body as I watched his expressionless face. My next thought was he could be Italian, why I should think of something so irrelevant I didn’t know.
‘What do you want from me?’ I said and immediately I regretted having asked another question. He looked daggers at me.
‘No more questions!’ A pause and then, ‘As a matter of fact, I want nothing from you.’
I was surprised at this. They practically killed us all but they didn’t want anything.
‘Smith is convinced the whole story is true, otherwise he would not have gone ahead and published it. We also believe it. You went to Mars, God knows how but you did. You brought back an outfit made of some yarn from another planet, not Mars maybe but some other planet somewhere out there. You have a Martian dame, who you write to. It’s true, isn’t it?’
‘It's not true: it’s just a game,’ I repeated.
He grunted and then went on in his slow drawl.
‘NASA has sent many unmanned spacecraft to Mars, some landed and some just took pictures. None of these has confirmed life exists on Mars. At least that is the official line. Unofficially we know for sure that there is life out there some place. How do we know? Because aliens have landed here in our own backyard! Maybe you remember reading about it. The military had to be called out to deal with them. They were taken to be analysed. We learned a lot from that. Officially nothing of the sort happened. Those who saw the bodies of the aliens being taken away were labeled as crazy and they were ridiculed. But the Government knew it was true. We never figured out where they came from. Their spaceship was examined, submitted to many tests and then demolished. The whole thing had to be hushed up, see? The President himself made the decision to exterminate them. We couldn’t have the whole nation in fear of invasion, could we?’
I couldn’t understand why he was telling me these things, if they were meant to be kept from the people, but I was to learn why soon enough.
‘If there is life on Mars, we are going to find it sooner or later. Of course it will be kept strictly secret. Ordinary folk will never know, that is until the Government decides it’s okay. For now, our job is to make sure the news of your little escapade don’t get no further.’
‘I swear I’ll not tell a soul,’ I said.
‘Too right you won’t!’
The way he said it sent a shiver running up my spine and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
‘The girl, fortunately for her, will not feel a thing. She won’t know anything about it. For you, Steadman, I’ll try to make it as painless as possible.’
I was unable to speak. My throat knotted up and a cold sweat broke out on my forehead. There was nothing to say or to ask: his message was as clear as day. I thought of my parents and my friends. I thought of Sonia there on the grass and I thought of Michu. Michu, where are you? I need you now! Michu! I closed my eyes and prayed to God for an end to this nightmare. Michu, Michu, can you hear me? Michu!
The thin, dark man opened his jacket and put his hand inside, drawing out a hand gun, which was fitted with a silencer. He ope
ned the breach, looked inside and then clicked it shut.
‘Harry, the blind,’ he called to his partner, who had just returned from his walk, announcing that there was nobody around and had sat down again, still twisting the grass stem around in his mouth. The thin man went on speaking slowly.
‘The blind, Harry! We don’t want him to see what’s happening. We are human beings.’
Harry got up and came towards me with the handkerchief that Albert Smith had put on me earlier.
‘Let me go! I won’t breathe a word to anyone, I promise,’ I pleaded.
‘Sorry fella, It has to be this way.’ He didn’t sound a bit sorry. ‘Your little secret must not go any further. You will die and your secret will die with you.’
‘Michu is on her way here!’ I yelled.
‘Your Michu will have to get here pretty damn quick.’ He grunted. ‘Harry, put on the blind!’
I struggled for a while but was I only delaying the inevitable? I stopped struggling and allowed him to fix the blindfold. He then roughly retied my hands behind my back. I winced with the pain in my wrists. Harry stepped away from me. I waited with beating heart for the thud that was to put an early end to my life. The seconds ticked by. Is this man going to do it, I asked myself. What kind of human being is he, keeping me in suspense like this?
Suddenly a voice came from behind the thin man.
‘Drop the gun! Now!’
