Fallback (The Adventures of Eric and Ursula Book 3)

by A. D. Winch

  A sound of scratching could be heard, but there was no reply.

  Suddenly, there was a shriek, a child’ cry and then silence.

  “Hello, privet.”

  He heard a whimper and decided to enter. The door squeaked on its hinges as he pushed it open, and he was in a space no larger than a car. Against one wall was a small iron fireplace, half covered in rust, but otherwise the room was bare. There were holes in the other wall, and a staircase led upstairs to the open sky.

  A doorway led out of the room, and he heard the whimpering again.

  “Hello, privet,” he said, nearing the open doorway.

  Suddenly, he heard a loud snort and a wild, black boar came running towards him like a ferocious dog. Curved teeth like tusks protruding from its mouth and it looked hungry. Alexander jumped back but not quick enough. The snarling boar charged into his hip and sent him crashing down onto his back. It took his boot in its jaws and began to shake his leg violently. Alexander felt his toes being crushed below the leather and booted the boar hard in the snout with the other foot. The kick only resulted in the boar biting harder. Alexander kicked again and again, but this time he aimed for a tusk. Finally, the boar let go and retreated a little.

  Alexander scrambled backwards across the floor. He stayed on his back and kept the boar firmly in his sight. His boot had a visible bite mark across it and was covered in saliva. He reached the wooden staircase and stood up, just as the boar decided to charge him again. Drool hung from its tusks, and it was snorting furiously. Alexander jumped backwards onto the fourth step; the wood snapped, and his leg fell through. The boar waited on the floor, snorting loudly and staring menacingly.

  It approached slowly, its head heading straight for Alexander’s groin. Alexander struggled to get his leg free as the boar came closer. A noise distracted it, and out of the doorway came five other wild boar.

  “No!” Alexander cried.

  They approached the staircase and Alexander’s trapped leg.

  The remains of the stair had trapped his leg like a fishing hook. Every time he pulled his leg upwards the long splinters dug deeper into his trousers and into his skin. He punched downwards on the remaining bit of stair while the boar below him came nearer again.

  Alexander lunged out his free leg and aimed hopeful kicks in the direction of the wild animal. None of them made contact, but Alexander was more worried about removing the broken stair and freeing his trapped leg.

  The boar did not care about the misplaced kicks and bravely put a trotter on the first step. As it did so, the fourth step gave way under the force of Alexander’s fist and clattered to the ground. The five other boar trotted forward, to see if it was edible.

  Alexander stopped kicking and pulled himself up onto the fifth step. All the boar looked up at him, and he couldn’t help but think one small slip and he would be lunch. He had read somewhere that boar were scavengers and ate anything they could find. At the end of a long winter, he was sure that they would be hungry and wondered if they wanted to eat him or they were just protecting their territory.

  The fifth step held his weight, and he gingerly placed one foot, and then another, onto the sixth. It creaked but held. The seventh step was obviously rotten, but the eighth supported him. The boar climbed up as far as the step Alexander had fallen through. The gap was too large for it to step over, and it went back down. It seemed uninterested in Alexander now and rejoined the other boar.

  Alexander took a breath and walked slowly up the remaining stairs to the second floor. The walls had fallen down; there was no ceiling, and it was more like a roof patio. He lay down on the snow-covered wood and looked up at the sky. If he had been a prisoner here he would have done this every day, just to feel a tiny glimmer of freedom.

  Dark clouds were being blown above him. They looked heavy, and Alexander hoped that they wouldn’t bring any more snow. The wind chilled him as he lay there and after a few minutes he decided to sit up. Where his leg had been laying, the snow had turned red.

  He looked at the inside of this thigh. The wound was not bad but would need cleaning and any splinters removed when he got back. For now, there was nothing he could do; he didn’t have a bandage so left it as it was.

  “What am I doing here?” Alexander asked himself and crawled to the corner of the floor. Remains of the wall were still standing, and he sheltered there, out of the wind. He still had his shoulder bag, and he removed his mother’s book. He kept his gloves on and flipped through the pages as best as he could.

  Why did Andrea have ‘Lepley’ written on her eyeball? It didn’t make sense. There was no record in the diary of her construction, and there was no way that his mother could have built her while a prisoner here. She would have needed specialised materials, a well-equipped workspace and, probably, a team of highly skilled individuals to assist her. They would have had to have been experts in Cybernetics and Artificial Intelligence. Two scientific disciplines which were still in their infancy back in nineteen sixty-seven.

  Alexander searched through his memories to try to locate something that could be useful to him. He thought about Andrea. He had first met her in the mid-nineteen eighties. She was not quite the same as she is now. Over time, she had been improved and enhanced as technology caught up with her. She had become more knowledgeable, more experienced, wiser and more independent.

  Alexander turned to the back of the book. Inside the cover, he had scribbled down the years when his mother had come back to Russia. He looked at his scrawl - 1985, 1988, 1990, 1991 and 1992. Did they have something to do with Andrea?

  Initially, he had thought that these years were when his mother had come to visit Sasha. However, she was unable to confirm that this had happened in these years and only remembered meeting Ingrid after the fall of communism that was in nineteen nineteen-one.

  Maybe my mother came here in those years, thought Alexander. Maybe that’s the clue?

  He put the book away and stood up with difficulty. His foot was sore, and he could feel splinters digging into his inner thigh. The wind instantly blew into his face and took his breath away. He stepped into the middle of the floor and surveyed the former colony. It was empty and forgotten. Additionally, it was nearly half a day’s drive from the capital and hidden in a forest behind a newer prison. It was hardly a tourist destination. Why would anyone come here unless… unless… unless they wanted to hide something?

  Alexander walked around the floor. He examined the few bits of remaining timber that served as walls and then got down onto his knees. Most of the snow had blown away, and he meticulously brushed away the rest with his hands to look at the planks of wood underneath. It took him almost half an hour to study the entire floor, but he could find no clues.

  Downstairs is going to be a lot harder with the wild boar around, he thought.

  He stood at the top of the stairs and looked down. The boar were not there. He listened intently but could hear nothing except the wind. As quietly as he could, he went down the stairs. A few stairs creaked, but there was no movement below him. He crept across the floor to the room where the boar had charged him and peered around the doorway. The boar had gone, but their smell remained.

  Alexander walked into the room they had made their home. It was small and dark; the only light came through the doorway. He searched as best he could but found nothing. He returned to the main room and did the same. All the remaining timber was in place. There didn’t seem to be any secret hiding spaces, and there was nothing in the iron fireplace except dead insects and ashes.

  Alexander sighed, hobbled out of the building and walked away. There was nothing here. It was a fool’s errand. The thought of a long walk back to the car, with his foot and leg in their current condition, did not appeal. He leaned against one of the three trees and collected his thoughts. To come all this way for nothing made him feel as bleak as the surroundings.

  As he stepped away, he looked at the tree, and something caught his eye. On the trunk, just below his eye l
evel, a heart had been carved into the bark. It was about the size of his hand and inside ‘I + A’ had been chiselled. Underneath it was a year - 1967 - and underneath that was another year 1985, and then 1988, 1990, 1991 and finally 1992.

  “Yes!” shouted Alexander and punched the tree. Snow fell from its branches and covered him.

  After brushing off the snow, Alexander walked around the tree. The trunk looked sturdy, and there were no cracks or holes in the wood. He crouched down onto his knees and winced as the splinters dug into him.

  Snow had collected around the bottom of the trunk, and he shovelled it aside with his hands until the tree was only surrounded by short, frozen grass. The base of the tree was wider than the trunk and thick roots dug into the earth. Between the roots and the trunk were gaps, and one of them was full of leaves.

  Alexander brushed the leaves aside. In front of him were piles of twigs that looked as if they had been placed there. He threw them behind him and was left with a hole full of dirt. He tried to dig down but the ground was frozen, so he found a strong stick and hit at the earth until it cracked. When he tried to dig again, the dirt moved under his hands, and he soon revealed a metal cylinder.

  It was about thirty centimetres in length, twelve centimetres in diameter and sealed at both ends with rubber bungs. Alexander cleared the dirt off it. The metal looked brand new and was without a scratch. Alexander concluded that it had to be made of titanium. As he rolled it in his hands, he found an engraving which read ‘Where no one comes and no one wants to be, The safest place is in this tree.’ He wondered if his mother had written it or she had read this somewhere.

  Alexander found the cylinder interesting, but he was much more interested in its contents, if any. He had difficulty removing one of the rubber bungs but when it came free, he was able to pull out the contents. There was a ream of paper inside; hundreds of sheets all tightly rolled up. The paper nearer the outside had yellowed with age, but the pieces right in the middle were still white. As he unrolled them a broken black pencil fell to the ground, he didn’t bother to pick it up. There were more important things to look at.

  Alexander scanned through the papers. He wanted to be quick but did not want to rip one or have them blown away by the wind. He recognised his mother’s writing. The letters were tiny, and every sheet of paper was covered in words and diagrams. It didn’t take long for Alexander to understand that they were the plans and schematics for Andrea, and a pod-shaped craft also. He decided that he needed to look at them in more detail, but somewhere less open to the elements. Carefully, he placed them back into the cylinder and then into his bag.

  Someone was watching him. He could feel it. With difficulty, he stood up and slowly turned around. The six wild boar stared at him. They stood silently, only a short distance away. One of them snorted, and the others did the same.

  Alexander stepped to the side of the tree and walked backwards. He kept his eyes firmly on the boar and trusted his instincts that he was walking in the right direction. The boar held their ground until he was far enough away for them to move forward and to investigate the freshly dug earth. Alexander took this opportunity to turn and run as best he could.

  His foot and leg hurt, but adrenalin helped him move relatively fast. The boar ignored him until they had had enough of rummaging in the dirt, and then they ran in his direction. Alexander allowed himself one final look at the deserted camp and on seeing the approaching boar made his way quickly into the forest. The boar tried to follow, but the broken masonry and barbed wire kept them prisoners.

  When he finally got to the car, he was exhausted but happy. Sasha fussed over him and his wounds; she even put her phone down. She was too worried about what the boar had done to him to ask about his ‘pilgrimage.’

  Back to Contents

  ***

  Chapter 15 – Captain Hudson’s Contacts

  Ursula met Captain Hudson in a small café opposite a busy bus station. It was full of travellers with large bags who were sipping coffee from small paper cups and nibbling on pastries. They found a free table in the corner of the room and sat down. Coffee cup stains and empty packets of sugar littered the plastic surface.

  Captain Hudson was not concerned by the amount of people around and encouraged Ursula to tell him what had happened. Nobody paid them any attention nor listened to their conversation. Ursula told Captain Hudson about all her adventures, and he listened attentively. When Ursula had finished, Captain Hudson stood up.

  “We need to find Alexander,” he said and led Ursula to his car.

  By the time they reached Captain Hudson’s house, it was after ten in the evening. It was a plain looking white building with only two floors, and Ursula was surprised by its size. Compared to her apartment block or to the Meyer’s villa in Prague, it looked so much smaller. All the wooden shutters were open and behind them were metal grills that covered the windows. A woman briefly appeared in one before closing the curtains.

  “Come in,” invited Captain Hudson as he pushed open the heavy door.

  The house was dark but warm. Captain Hudson turned on the light to reveal a long, wide hallway that was almost a room in itself. It was the length of her grandparents’ apartment. Ursula was instantly distracted by an entire wall of shelves weighed down by books.

  “Put your coat and shoes here,” said Captain Hudson, pointing to a shoe rack and iron pegs in the wall.

  Ursula did as she was asked.

  “Follow me and please be quiet,” he smiled and his grey moustache rose towards his twinkling eyes. “Cécile has an early morning flight tomorrow. She’s probably in bed already and would have my guts for garters if we disturbed her beauty sleep.”

  They tip-toed along a deep red carpet that ran the length of the hallway. It only covered the middle of the floor and on either side the varnished floorboards were clearly visible. The wood creaked with every step and Ursula was relieved when Captain Hudson led her into a room at the end.

  “Please sit down,” and he motioned to the bed.

  The bed was covered in a thick, frilly duvet with matching pillow. It looked as if it had never been used. Ursula stood next to it and placed her bag on the floor. She was reluctant to sit down on the pristine white in case she dirtied it or put creases into the linen.

  “Sit down,” Captain Hudson encouraged. “Cécile may be house proud but she prefers our guests to be comfortable.”

  Ursula did as she was told, and the mattress sagged beneath her.

  There was a neatly organised desk next to the bed with a large computer upon it. Captain Hudson sat down in front of the screen and pressed the on button. While it whirred into life, he swivelled on his chair to face Ursula.

  “This is our spare room and office. It will be your room while you stay with us. You’ll only have me to keep you company I’m afraid. Cécile has a long-distance flight and with turnovers will not be back for a few days. She may pop in and say goodbye tomorrow morning if she hears you are up. She likes to keep tabs when I bring beautiful, young women home.”

  Ursula blushed, and Captain Hudson laughed softly.

  The computer beeped, and he swivelled back to it. His hands moved slowly over the keyboard, and he typed with only two fingers.

  “This is what we are going to do,” explained Captain Hudson. “Without wanting to sound arrogant, I can say that I have a considerable number of influential friends in the airline industry. You said that Alexander was on his way to Belarus when you parted. That was back in December, it’s March now, so…,” he counted on his fingers, “…about ten weeks ago. He may still be there, or he may have moved on but it doesn’t matter. I can ask my friends to do a passenger search for Alexander Johansen to see if he took a plane anywhere during that time. If he didn’t, then I think we can safely assume that he is still around Eastern Europe. I doubt he would want to drive a Polish ambulance across Europe. It is not exactly inconspicuous.”

  “What if he took trains or buses?” asked Ursula.

&n
bsp; Captain Hudson twitched his moustache while pondering her question.

  “Some of my contacts may know people who work in these two industries. I will have to ask, but I honestly do not know for sure. Anyway, I will send emails now asking my friends to search their passenger manifests and see what comes up. What do you think?”

  “I don’t know what else we can do. We may find him,” Ursula answered and then a thought occurred to her. “But he may be travelling under a false name.”

  “That’s not a problem. If you know the name he is using.”

  “When we were in the cottage in Ireland he told me he had many, but he would only tell me one, and that was Alexander Almas.”

  “Why did he only tell you that one?”

  “Because if anything went wrong when we tried to find Eric, he was going to use it to get into Belarus.”

  Captain Hudson smiled warmly, “We’ll definitely try that one as well then. However, I think it would be best to tell my friends that I am looking for two people – Alexander Johansen and Alexander Almas – rather than a man with two passports.”

  For the next ten minutes, Ursula sat on the bed while Captain Hudson typed slowly at the keyboard. Behind him, a wind-up clock marked the passing time with its constant tick-tock. Paintings of flowers surrounded the clock, and Ursula admired them while she waited.

  “That’s done,” said Captain Hudson. He saw Ursula looking at the paintings and, as if reading her mind, said, “They were all painted by Cécile. It’s her hobby.”

  “They’re beautiful.”

  “She’s a remarkable lady,” Captain Hudson was lost in thought for a moment. “Still surprising me after all these years.”

  He shut down the computer and walked towards the door.

  “The toilet is opposite your room, and the kitchen is down the hall. I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Sleep well and don’t worry. We’ll find him,” he said calmly.