Christopher Brookmyre - Parlabane 04 (26 page)

wrist as Joanna edged her way forward to make room. Emily could now see how it was going to work: the more of them were in the water, the greater weight secured them against the current, something their two-man pursuers would be unable to match. That was what Baxter meant when he said it was a way of putting greater distance between them.

Max followed, then Toby and Grieg before it was Emily's turn. For the second time that day, she was enormously grateful for the drysuit, her feet telling her what temperature the rest of her body was being spared. She attempted to ease her way into the flow but felt her boots slide downwards outwith any control she might exert. It plunged quicker than she'd anticipated, no gradual slope towards the centre, just a sudden drop until she was waist-deep, the tug of the current powerful and relentless. She could feel the strain at the sole of her boots, as well as the constant force her legs had to push against. All things considered, it was a bugger of a moment for Rory to lose his footing. He stumbled and fell backwards, his head briefly submerged, the jolt enough to tumble Joanna ahead of him too. The three remaining on the bank secured the line one behind the other, heaving to like a tug-of-war team, the eight in the water held in an arc until the fallen pair recovered themselves. Emily looked from bank to bank. Joanna wasn't going to reach the other side before the last of them entered the flow, at which point their fates truly were bound together.

The next couple of minutes were like her time in the tunnel intensified and infinitely elongated. As looking back required her to compromise the comparative stability of a sideways stance, she resolved to blot out what was going on behind and focus upon Joanna's progress. That way, also, she wouldn't know the point at which Baxter left dry land.

If some of the previous legs of their journey had felt worryingly slow, this was a helpless agony, suspended between wishing it was over and hoping Joanna didn't move too quickly or too suddenly lest the lot of them get whipped off downstream. Eventually, Joanna did reach the other side, but it was only when she was in touching distance of the near-vertical bank that Emily's perspective could confirm her newest fear: that Joanna was too short to make the climb. The news was relayed across in the form of a warning that the whole line would have to move upstream a few paces to where the bank was shallower. They moved not exactly as one, but there was enough slack between each to allow them to measure their paces individually. Unfortunately there wasn't sufficient slack for Rory to give Joanna a punt-up without letting go of the rope himself, but there were no further mishaps and in a comparative twinkling, the pair of them were on terra firma. Joanna untied herself and secured the end of the rope around a tree while Rory crouched down to help Max from the water. With the line now secure at the other end, Emily felt con151

fident enough to look behind, and was glad she hadn't before. There might have been slack elsewhere in the rope, but it had ended with Vale, leaving Baxter to hold only the older man's hand.

Once a few of them were safely on the other side, it felt even more excruciating that those left in the water were still necessarily moving so slowly, an effect multiplied when Emily joined them on the bank. Her moment of personal relief was merely a transient blink before she was once again tortured by the sight of those still to emerge.

Distraction came in the form of news.

'I can see the minibus,' Joanna called out. 'It's parked on the track not far ahead.'

'Campbell?' Baxter shouted.

'Don't see anyone on board.'

'Christ, where is he?' he muttered, before more audibly advising them to make for it ASAFP.

Despite Baxter's impassioned entreaty, Rory and Max stayed in place to continue helping the arrivals up the bank, while Emily remained because her eternally hypercharged conscience wouldn't leave until she'd seen them all across.

Kathy emerged, then Liz, the latter bellyflopping like a landed salmon after sliding from the increasingly nervous Max's grip and almost slipping back down the bank.

'On you go, Max,' Rory told him. 'I've got this.'

'Sure?' Max asked apologetically.

'Go. You too, Emily.'

She watched Rory grip Parlabane's forearm. After that there were only two left. This was silly, she told herself. Even sillier if she ended up the slowest runner once the last of them were clear. She allowed herself one last look behind before planning to set off, which was when she saw the soldier. He was on the far bank, not directly across, but a distance back, just on the cusp of where the river bent into her sightline.

'Look out!' she shouted, pointing to where the soldier was now taking aim. All of their heads turned in response. Rory hauled at Parlabane's arm with sudden desperate haste, successfully landing the reporter but toppling himself to his backside in the process. Down in the water, Baxter pushed at Vale as if trying to launch him ashore, with disastrous effect. His efforts did send Vale more quickly against the bank, but once Vale's bodyweight had swung from his path, Baxter's momentum carried him forward and sideways, off-balance into the current. Emily saw his head go under, then reappear amid a thrash of hands, by which time he was already yards downstream.

152

'The bus!' he yelled, spluttering, his feet finding enough purchase to slow but not stop him. 'Run!'

A rifle round was better than any starter's pistol. Emily got off her mark without looking back, finally running flat out along a track with no obstacles and a tangible goal at the end.

As she approached, she could see fumes escaping from the exhaust: glorious, blessed, merciful pollution. When she got there, she found Toby in the driver's seat, the others aboard and gazing anxiously out of the rear window.

'No sign of Campbell,' he confirmed. 'Keys were in the ignition.'

'Did you hear the shot?'

'Sure did.'

'We lost Baxter.'

'He was hit?'

'No, swept away.'

'Shit. Who we waiting for then?'

His question was answered as Rory, Vale and finally Parlabane arrived at the door and clambered quickly aboard the minibus. Emily shifted along her double seat to make room for Rory, Vale taking a spare seat next to Liz as Parlabane slid in alongside the driver.

Toby was eyeing the door, as if expecting Baxter to appear at any second.

'Drive, for fuck's sake,' Rory ordered.

Toby put the vehicle into gear and released the handbrake. As he did so, a figure clad in camouflage fatigues stepped from the trees about twenty yards ahead up the track, rifle held at his waist.

'Jesus,' Toby yelped, looking back to the rear window like he was planning on reversing.

Parlabane stretched a foot across Toby's legs and stamped the driver's sopping boot hard against the accelerator.

'Just go,' he said firmly. 'Drive at the bastard.'

The minibus leapt forward as Toby released the clutch. He bowed his head towards the steering wheel, as low as he could without losing sight of the track ahead, and then a little lower than that. Everyone else ducked too; everyone, that is, but Parlabane, who grabbed hold of the wheel and corrected the vehicle's course as it threatened to slew off the track towards the river. Emily raised her head in time to see the soldier dive out of the way as the bus bore down on him, the engine shrieking a kamikaze war cry, still in first gear. Toby sat up and changed gear, checking his rearview mirror for what everyone else was looking for out of the back window. The soldier reappeared on the track after a few seconds, shouldering his weapon and firing at will. There were screams and gasps, but no impacts. The bus accelerated, taking the first bend so fast that the rear wheels slid off the track, the vehicle threatening to 153

topple until its diversion was corrected by a sturdy tree. Toby changed down and accelerated again, heading fast along a straight stretch, putting cover and distance between them and their pursuers.

Parlabane was applauding, hands in the air. He turned around, a look of delighted devilment on his face that was incongruous to the point of offensive.

'Again, again,' he said loudly, laughing.

'What?' several voices demanded.

'You've really got to hand it to these UML guys: that was a rush. Wouldn't you agree?'

'A rush?' Kathy retorted, furious. 'There's two people missing, we almost got killed and we're still, quite literally, not out of the woods. Is this your way of telling us you're finally flipping out?'

'Oh, come on. . . Toby, slow down,' he advised quietly, putting a hand on Toby's arm. 'I think we can all breathe out now.'

'Didn't you hear me? There's two people missing. They could be dead.'

'Two people missing, both UML people. That doesn't strike you as a coincidence? Listen, I didn't want to be the prick at the cinema who keeps telling you he can see the boom in shot, but I think we can all knock off the suspension of disbelief bit now that the fun's over.'

'Suspension of--?' Kathy cut herself off, taking a moment to mull it over. Emily, it seemed, wasn't the only one who had been wondering whether it was all a set-up, but she hadn't been ready to conclude as much when doing so could prove suicidally negligent if she was wrong.

'Take a step back and examine the evidence,' Parlabane said. 'We just happen to stumble across the scene of something highly secret and dangerous at the exact moment it's taking place, amid miles and miles and miles of absolutely fuck-all? What is this,
The Secret Seven
? We just happen to have a grandstand view of whatever it is from a hilltop which conveniently affords us a major headstart when these guys, who don't know what - if anything - we might haves seen, come bombing after us? And to get us running, they start taking pot-shots from a distance of about half a mile, maybe more? Oh, and let me rewind. Campbell and the minibus are missing, having failed to make the rendezvous. Subsequent events hint that the guy may have had to do a runner or even been abducted to some grisly end, but he bravely fought off the evil baddies long enough to make sure he dropped off our lunch?

'Then to make our escape, we have to cross the river, but it's okay, because Baxter just happens to have rope and we just happen to be wearing drysuits, all of which we thought had already played their part due to a very deft curveball the man threw us earlier in the day. Baxter just happens to go last across the water, just happens to be still in there when the soldier appears, and just happens to get swept away when the last of his corporate guests are 154

ashore, heading for a minibus that just happens to be waiting with the keys conveniently in the ignition. Finally, a third soldier just happens to appear as we drive away, to give us that last fright as we fashion our escape as a newly bonded team unit.'

'Third soldier?' Toby enquired.

'Didn't you notice he was bone-dry? He couldn't have crossed the river.'

'All I was looking at was the gun.'

'What about the bullet hole in the tree?' Joanna asked, Emily looked at Max, who was gazing down uncomfortably, trying not to catch anyone's eye. She suspected he knew he was about to be, in the local tongue, 'fun' oot' regarding his professed ballistics knowledge.

'Remote-control pyrotechnics,' Vale stated almost apologetically, not wanting to humiliate the guy any more than was unavoidable. 'Detonated by Baxter. He was holding something under his map. The damage to the tree was from an outwards impact.'

Rory was the first to start laughing. Within about twenty seconds, even Max had joined in.

155

Mysteries of the Flesh

'I think we should just give everybody the vegetarian option,' said Ger. 'Tell them it's a team-building thing for them all to have the same menu.'

'There's not enough to go around. Well, I suppose if we change the starter we can use the aubergine and a few more peppers, but it's still going to look a little stretched, a little, I don't know. . . '

'Like a plate of side dishes missing the meat?'

'Guess so.'

'Aye. Actually, that's what all vegetarian dishes look to me, but that's neither here nor there. I suppose if we forget about the souffle, then we can re-route the cheese and make some individual tartlets. At least pastry's got a bit of bite. No, I cannae fuckin' believe I'm sayin' this. My first ever menu in charge and I'm talkin' aboot servin' up glorified quiche? Against the alternative of goin' with this. . .
stuff
of unknown and as far as I'm concerned dubious provenance.'

Alison and Ger looked again at the meat sitting on the worktop, blood and juices running along dozens of tiny crevices in the polythene bags it had arrived in. Its vendor had appeared at the kitchen's outside door a couple of hours after the dual departures of Mathieson and his intended main course, an unlikely messiah figure in a green full-length cagoule, mud and bloodstains on his boots. It wasn't unusual to get opportunistic hunter-cum-hawkers at the back door, looking for a quick sale (and often a swift no-questions disposal) for what they had bagged. However, what they were flogging tended to be more reliably identifiable, usually because it still had skin, bone, fur or feathers attached. Ger had spent a while trying to retrieve the situation by telephone, ringing other hotels in an initial radius of a ninety-minute round trip and then expanding this to three hours as he failed to get a result. The odds, he admitted, had been against him. This was for dinner on Saturday night, busiest of the week, and even if Sundays weren't as hot, nobody wanted to take any chances of going short before the week's first deliveries on Monday morning. Yes, somebody could probably have spared something, but not for some no-name sous-chef they'd never met. Some of them might have heard of Mathieson, but Ger 157

couldn't drop the name because the chances were either: A, that they'd hate the bastard and not want to help his establishment; or B, be pals of his and want to know why he wasn't the one on the line, leading to the same result as A.

In true desperation, he'd resorted to calling the nearest 'supermarket', which was the statutory rural Spar in Auchterbuie, to enquire what they might have in their three-foot-square refrigerated section. It turned out they had just sold the last of their meat - a shrink-wrapped gammon joint - which was a bitter shame because the kitchen had both cheddar
and
tinned pineapple rings. Sir Lachlan had proposed his own remedy for the situation by announcing his intention to take to the hills and shoot something for dinner, even if it was only a few bunnies. 'At least they'll be organic,' he had joked. However, ninety minutes later he still hadn't left the building, due to having failed to locate any shotgun cartridges. This, Alison reckoned, did not augur well for his abilities to locate anything worth shooting either. 'It's been a while since I used the old blunderbuss,' he admitted, 'but you never lose the knack.' The same, evidently, couldn't be said about the cartridges. He popped his head around the door every half hour or so by way of a lack-of-progress report, muttering about whatever possible hidey-hole he was next about to investigate.