Stand By, Stand By
Page 33
Landed back at Puerto Pizarro by the Hueys in the second of two lifts, we found that the prisoners, including Farrell, had been taken on ahead to some holding centre. A Herc was awaiting us, and we flew straight back to Bogotá. We weren’t allowed into the embassy, but at least we got a proper shower, a change of clothes and a decent meal at an army barracks outside the city. Also, I managed to phone Tony, and asked him to call Tracy, to say we were on our way home. He filled me in on the success of the Boat Troop’s operation, but said that the guys were still on board the Endeavor, heading for Florida.
Then, that same night, it was into an RAF VC10, which had come in after dark with a reserve crew on board, and turned straight round as soon as it had refuelled. At the last moment Tony joined us, so that we had plenty to talk about during the flight. He told me he’d been through to Tracy, and she was fine.
Missing out Belize, we went north to Gander, to refuel, then across to Brize, and landed there feeling more dead than alive at 2200, after a total of fourteen hours in transit. As we waited for our baggage to come off, I dialled home, and was puzzled to find the answerphone switched on. Oh well, I thought. The plane was late. Maybe she’s come to camp to meet me?
All the same, worry began needling me. No, I was thinking, surely she’d never take Tim into camp at ten o’clock at night. There was something odd going on.
Because the operation had turned out a big success, the camp helicopter came up to meet us, and we had an immediate debrief on the aircraft as we flew down. When we reached Hereford, we found everything set for a big celebration. The ops officer was there, the CO, even the Director, who’d come down from London in the middle of the night. They cracked open bottles of champagne, and it was all congratulations and back-slapping until one o’clock in the morning. I tried to enter into the spirit, but I was too wound up to get the party feeling, especially after I’d slipped out, rung home again, and once more got the answerphone.
At last, around 0145, the duty driver took me out to Keeper’s Cottage. To someone fresh in from the jungle, the April night air seemed very cold, and I shuddered as I got out of the car outside our door. As far as I could see in the dark, everything was neat and shipshape. The Cavalier was parked on the gravel, and Tim’s miniature mountain bike was leaning against the wall. But why were all the windows dark? Why hadn’t she left the hall light on for me?
I didn’t have a key, and was about to press the door buzzer when I thought, No – she’s expecting me, so she’ll have left it open.
Sure enough, the door gave when I turned the handle. I switched on the light and looked round. Everything seemed normal. I put down my bergen and holdall and called up the stairs, ‘Trace – hi! It’s me.’
No answer.
Must be fast asleep, I thought. But a loud alarm was clanging in my head. I ran up the stairs three at a time and switched on the landing light. Our bedroom door stood open. I flipped on the light in there. The bed was made up, un-slept in. I rushed into Tim’s room. The same.
Back downstairs I tried the kitchen. There too everything was immaculate, neatly squared away. Panic threatened to choke me. I stood holding the handle of the kitchen door, rooted by fright. Then I shook myself free and went into the living room. As the light flicked on, my eye went straight to an alien object on the rug in front of the wood-burning stove.
I dived and picked it up: a Polaroid colour print, five by three. It showed Tracy, holding Tim on her hip, in front of the fireplace, and, on either side of her, a man in a black balaclava armed with a pistol. They were standing in the mock-heroic attitudes always shown in the IRA murals in Belfast.
I sat down hard on the arm of a chair, breathless with shock. How did they know? I thought desperately. How did they connect her with me? And then in a flash I remembered. That man I’d chatted to so innocently about fishing in the Spanish Galleon, the pub on the coast of County Antrim. The man who’d come round to the cottage next morning. That one contact had been enough.
My hand was shaking. I stared at the photograph, and the expression on Tracy’s face. A stranger might have thought she was smiling, but I could see how scared she’d been when the flash went off.