Then we were gone with the fires lighting our rear for many miles.
Trish began to shake. She held on to me and cried a little. I felt a little shakiness, too, but it was caused by my exultation.
I rejoiced too soon. Somehow, the car that had chased me from Penrith got by the burning cars. And the car down the road was manned by the survivors. I had not gone more than two miles before I saw the lights of two cars behind me. They were overtaking me swiftly. These were not the sort of men to be easily discouraged.
So far, my gas tank was three-quarters full and the oil pressure and engine temperature were normal. No tires had been struck, even if, surely, the tires had been shot at.
I passed Bunkers Hill, a farm with a three-quarters castellated house. This farm, with another, Fort Putnam, further down the road, were the works of the Duke of Greystoke in 1780. The then duke was pro-American and a militant Whig, and he built the two places to celebrate the Yankee victories after which they were named. The sight of them made me consider, for a moment, asking the resident of Greystoke Castle for help. He was my very good friend, and I can count those on my fingers. Then I remembered that he was in Alaska. Moreover, I could not, no matter how desperate the situation, bring this sort of trouble on him. For other reasons, I had not contacted the authorities to help me. I was certain that Clio would be killed if the constabulary or other slow-moving and cautious authorities showed up at Grandrith. Delivering her had to be done with a sudden attack.
Another reason for not bringing in the authorities was the Nine. This was a private, or internal, affair, and there should be as little publicity and as much obfuscation as possible. Of course, if it would have helped Clio, I would have defied the Nine. I was becoming half-convinced that neither of us would be in any trouble if the Nine had not shaped events for their own dark purposes.
Now, what with the business at the airport, the crash in Penrith, and the burning cars on the motorway, the authorities would be busy soon enough and on our trails.
A half-mile past Fort Putnam, the two cars began to overtake me. I could not get the Aston-Martin past eighty now, which convinced me that the car had been damaged by the bullets. Moreover, the two pursuers were doing 100 at least. They would gain more on me when I approached Greystoke, because I did not intend to enter it above 50.
A quarter-mile outside the small village of Greystoke the engine temperature began to climb. Steam was pouring out from under the hood now. The radiator had been pierced, and I could not go much further before the engine locked. I told Trish to be ready to abandon the car and to start running.
There was no one on the streets and no lights visible when we drove into Greystoke. The pursuers were out of sight, down in a dip. For several seconds I thought of cutting north, quitting the Aston-Martin, and stealing another vehicle. The road north, which runs on the eastern side of Greystoke Forest, is not even a second-class motorway. It is crossed north of the forest by a similar road which goes westerly to another road which would take me southerly on the west side of Greystoke Forest to the road that leads eventually to my estate. This road is narrow and winding but tar-surfaced. The route would be much longer than the other way, but it had the advantage that my pursuers would not expect me to take it.
However, they would just go on to Grandrith and wait there for me, as they should have done in the first place. It was best to take the shortest route. I might be able to make my pursuers suffer more losses. The more opposition that was dead before I got to my destination, the better.
I would leave A594 in Greystoke and take the short-cut metalled road which paralleled an old Roman road and went by way of Barffs Wood. My pursuers could radio ahead and have a roadblock waiting for me at the junction of two roads, but they could do this no matter what way I went.
The road I would take out of the village met another running north from A594. This would take me past Berrier, Murrah, and Murrah Hall to a road which, in turn, would take me to my estate between the River Caldew and the Raven Crags.
As I sped into the middle of town, several things happened at once. The engine temperature indicator shot up. A door in a house by the road swung open and two men, dressed in cyclist’s clothes, stepped out. I had been in the middle of the road but I swung to the right to avoid them if they were going to cross the road. I saw a huge object, perhaps 20 feet high and eight broad. It was draped with a tarpaulin.
Just as I steered right, my front right tire blew.
34
The tire may have been weakened by a bullet or when it struck the curb at Penrith. I did not apply brakes, of course, but wrenched the wheel to direct us away from the tarpaulin-hidden object in the middle of the square. The car skidded and shuddered at the same time and slid nose-first into the base of the object. We were thrown forward but restrained by our seat and shoulder belts. The car hissed as the last of the water poured out of her smashed radiator.
We could see nothing because the tarpaulin had fallen over us. We got out of our belts, stuck the guns and ammo boxes in the pockets of our coats, and also took the bundle containing the crossbow, the bolts, and grenades. I shoved the .22 under the car.
The cyclists, laughing and cursing at the same time, their North country accents even more thickened with liquor, were trying to pull the tarpaulin off us. Then they shouted with alarm and told each other to jump out of the way. Something gave a tremendous crash immediately before our car.
We got out from under. Our first concern was that our pursuers had not caught up with us. There were no lights as yet from their cars, but lights were going on in shops and houses by the road.
The thing under the tarpaulin had toppled over away from us, fortunately. For a few seconds I could not see what it was, and then when the lights came on and Trish’s flashlight illuminated it, I did not understand what I was seeing. Then it became a configuration I recognized.
Several years before, a rich American aficionado of the author Edgar Rice Burroughs had proposed to set up in the center of Greystoke a giant bronze statue of Tarzan battling a gorilla. As any reader of Burroughs knows, Tarzan was supposed to be an English viscount, “Lord” Greystoke. The American had decided that a statue of the ape-man should be put up in Greystoke to commemorate his ancestral town.
Many natives of Greystoke objected for various reasons. Some pointed out that Greystoke was not the real title of Tarzan. The first book in the series admitted that it was a name chosen to hide Tarzan’s true identity. Thus, the real Greystoke had nothing to do with Tarzan. The pro-statue people admitted this but said it made no difference. The statue would bring the town much publicity, since everybody knew about Tarzan, even if many did not know that Burroughs was the author who had created him or that Tarzan was a titled Englishman. The tourists would flock in and the village would prosper.
The “Lord” of Greystoke was consulted for his opinion. Laughing, he said he did not object. He was not Tarzan, but this statue was all in good spirits and intent and it would bring in money, if that was what the villagers desired.
The last that I had heard, the issue had not been settled. But here was the statue, now on the ground and broken in several places. Though bronze and large, it did not weigh much. It was hollow and thin.
One of the cyclists, seeing us emerge, cried, “Now you’ve done it! It was to be unveiled tomorrow noon, rain or no!”
The other said, “And bloody good riddance, too! I say the monster’s a traffic hazard, right? Here’s this poor couple running into it, and it not even properly blessed by the city fathers, God bless their drunken souls!”
“Don’t talk that way, Arnie!” the other said, laughing.
I laughed; even though our car was wrecked, our pursuers might be on us any moment, and my stomach had a belt burn. If I survived, I would have another laugh in private with the owner of Greystoke.
The first of the chasers lit the end of narrow street. As yet, it was not on the straightaway.
I took out a number of bills, Ameri
can money, and said, “You chaps. Here’s over a thousand pounds. Will you rent me your cycles, immediately, no questions asked? Give me your names; I’ll return the cycles later.”
“No, why should we?” one said.
The other said, “This is very fishy, Tommy. Who’re you running from?”
They weaved a little and stank of Guinness. I said to Trish, “No time to argue or bargain. And here come more people. Knock them out; get their keys.”
We laid them out with chops of the palm edge on the neck. I did not like doing it, but we had to. I stuffed the money in the jacket of one, took his goggles off, took out his keys, and ran to the house outside which the two cycles were parked.
It was not necessary to ask Trish if she could operate a cycle, because she had told me about her passion for them. The vehicles were BSA Lightnings, powerful brutes capable of 100 mph. We kicked over the motors, made sure that the bundle was secured tightly to the rack, thrummed the motors, and then tore out of the other end of the square as the first of the pursuers roared into the square. A quick backward look showed me that they would have to stop. There were too many people gathered around the statue, car, and unconscious cyclists. A policeman’s whistle shrilled above the roar of our motors, and then it was gone.
35
Before we had gotten opposite Barffs Wood, the lights of Noli’s men were a mile behind. Trish, who had been behind me about twenty yards, drew even and gestured at her fuel gauge. Then she held up a thumb and finger in an O. She was close to being out of gas.
She could transfer to my cycle, but the weight would slow us down too much. I looked behind, estimated how quickly the two cars would get to us, and indicated to Trish that we would stop just as soon as we got over the crest of a hill. As we dipped on the downslope, I cut my light and she followed suit. When we had stopped, I said, “We’ll put the bikes on the road, both lanes!”
It was a variation of the roadblock that they had set up for us. The bikes were let fall on their sides, and while Trish undid the bundle in response to my quick orders, I punched the gas tank of my bike with my screwdriver. Then I dragged the bike ten feet this way and that and back to its original spot. Trish, meanwhile, had gotten out the crossbow, a small type with a handle like the butt of a pistol. It could be fired with one hand and had no great range but could bury the full length of its bolt in a man within sixty feet.
Trish ran to take her station on the right-hand side of the road in a grove of trees. Behind her, hidden by the trees, were the ruins of the old Roman road. The lights of the first car came up swiftly. It was doing at least 90 mph. The second was about 8 car lengths behind.
As the first came over the crest, I loosed a bolt at the left front tire. The driver saw the cycles in the road before him; brakes screeched; the car began to skid; it struck the left-hand machine; and it rolled over and over. My bolt had apparently missed, but it did not matter. Its inclusion was a case of overkill, anyway.
I had dropped the crossbow, snatched out my automatic, and fired into the gas tank of my cycle. The tank exploded, and the fire spread out over the road. The second car was screeching as the driver pumped his brakes and swerved to the right side of the road to avoid the burning cycle. He struck the other cycle and was considerably slowed down. The cycle was sent spinning to one side, and the car kept on going. It stopped behind the upside down car. There was a silence and a motionlessness for a few seconds as the five men inside it stared at the wrecked vehicle, the two bodies thrown out of the road, and the four within the car.
I ran down the left side of the road along the ditch. Trish’s automatic flamed twice from the trees. The car abruptly backed, its tires burning rubber and screaming. Then it shot along the left side of the road to pass the wreck, its right wheels on the pavement, its left in the mire.
The men in it were firing wildly in the general direction of Trish, whom they could not see. Despite this, she stepped out then from behind the big oak and tossed a grenade. It struck on the pavement in the path of the car. The explosion caused another screeching of brakes and a swerving from the road. Suddenly, the car was in the mire but still moving forward. It slid to one side, straightened as the driver fought it and then was back on the pavement. In the meantime, I had been firing at it and so had Trish. But it went on.
I bit my lip. We had lost all our transportation now the gamble had not paid off. I was hoping to get that car without wrecking it.
The lights of the car receded, then slowed, and suddenly they were no longer moving. I shouted to Trish to be careful, it might be a trick, and ran towards it. When I got closer, I could see those within silhouetted against the beams from the headlamps. The door by the driver’s seat was open, and two men were pulling him out. He had been hit.
One man dropped the body and whirled. I fired, and Trish’s shot came out of the darkness. He fell backwards over the driver’s body. The other man was firing into the darkness with no idea of where we were. I shifted the crossbow to my right hand, aimed, and saw him throw the automatic up into the air and then double over, clutching his leg. When Trish and I moved in, we found that the bolt had gone through his thigh and several inches were sticking out in back.
I had intended to question him, but he died a moment later. A previous wound in the ribs, plus the shock of the bolt and more loss of blood, had put him out of our reach.
A voice speaking what I thought was Albanian was issuing from the car radio. It was questioning and, when no answer came, was threaded with rage and then with hysteria. There was no point in letting Noli know what had happened, so I repressed the temptation to crow over him. I turned it off and started to haul the other bodies out. Afterwards, we collected all the arms and ammunition from the other car and put them in ours. Two men in the wrecked vehicle were unconscious but moaning. I put them out of their misery with a slash across the jugular vein.
The trunk of both cars contained flares, which I put on the floor of the rear of the big American car. They might have a use. We drove off at 11 P.M. The skies were still cloudy, and it was lightning and thundering again in the distant west, this side of Blencathra mountain.
36
Without incident, we drove all the way to the road at the foot of Raven Crags at the highest speed which the road conditions permitted. We kept a watch out for a copter. If Noli had one, he might send it off to find out why his men were not reporting in.
When we neared the fork of the road which led to the left to the village of Cloamby and straight ahead up the fell to Grandrith, we slowed down. I turned off the lights and poked along, because I suspected that Noli might have stationed men at the fork. A half a mile before the crossroads, I stopped at the bottom of a hill, and Trish and I proceeded on foot. This would delay us, but I was so sure that an ambush would be waiting for us I had to take extreme caution.
We circled through the heavy brush on higher ground. After intent observation, occupying ten minutes of quietly listening and peering, we found two men. They were on the north side of the road and a few yards below the fork. They were smoking, and, although they kept the flames cupped in their palms, I saw them. I also smelled the smoke. Reasonably certain that no others were around, I carefully approached them. They were on a slight eminence, screened by brush. Besides their tommies, they were armed with a bazooka. One had a walkie-talkie.
The road was only forty feet away; they could scarcely have missed us if we had driven by. I crawled back to Trish and told her what I had seen and what we should do. Before proceeding, I subjected the woods to another intent scrutiny by eye, ear, and nose. It was well that I did. A third man was fifteen feet up on the broad limb of a giant oak thirty feet behind the others. He had been stationed there, I presume, in case I was wily enough to do just what I was doing. He was facing away from them and had not seen or heard me because I am not one to make any noise in the woods. I found him because he sighed softly once and once moved his weapon against the bark.
It took some time to get Trish quietly
into a position where she could get a good shot at him with the crossbow. I left her and crawled back to the three. They were talking softly in English. One was born within the sound of Bow Bells and one must have been born in Germany near the Dutch border.
I said, “Freeze! Don’t make a sound!”
At my orders they turned around slowly, hands on their necks. I got behind them, and they advanced towards the man in the tree. One of them, at my softly spoken command, told him to throw his rifle down and then climb down. When the sniper hesitated, I told him he was covered on both sides. I did not add that I would kill his colleagues if he disobeyed. I doubted that he would care about them.
They were tough men but also, by their definition of reality, realists. They gave me information quickly enough. I told them I would kill a man for each unanswered question or unsatisfactory answer and torture the last one. They believed me. Perhaps they had been informed of the failures of the others to kill me.
Noli had recruited them through an agent, and they had been flown up here with ten men and landed on the meadow north of Catstarn. Others had come by car and on another flight of the big helicopter. There were probably thirty-five to forty men in Catstarn Hall and Castle Grandrith. Noli might not believe in God, but he certainly believed in overkill. Of course, he had Caliban to worry about, too.
Those of his men not Albanian—about half—had been paid $5000 apiece and promised another $5000 after the job was completed. That it, after I was killed.