Cut to the Chase (34 page)

‘Aaaah!'

‘Sssshhh!' hissed McKay.

‘It hurt!' Wallace gasped. ‘It still does…aaahhh!'

‘Shout a bit louder, why don't you? I don't think they heard the first time.'

‘It bloody hurts!' Wallace protested.

‘It'll hurt a damn sight more if these bastards catch up with us…now come on!'

They landed on the pavement outside the wall. McKay had a quick look around and hared off to the left. Wallace followed as best he could in an undignified waddle with his testicles and lower belly aflame.

‘What now?'

‘Head for the car.'

‘Where is it? Aaaah!' the pains in his groin and lower stomach became worse, he could hardly move his legs.

‘Christ, they're coming…run you stupid bastard!'

He sprinted down the road and Wallace managed to limp along in his wake. He risked a glance behind and could see two shadowy forms emerge from the driveway and take off in pursuit. McKay leapt into a garden over a low wall, Wallace struggled to catch up with him as he heard pounding footsteps behind. He vaulted the wall as a hand grasped his shoulder, spinning him onto a suburban lawn. As he sprawled upon the turf he shielded his head with his arms and then a heavy body crashed onto him. He heard another dull clop and a groan and the body rolled off him. Another shadowy shape vaulted the wall and was met by McKay. They fell upon the lawn wrestling furiously.

‘What's going on here?'

McKay fell headlong as he was on the receiving end of a swing to the head, as his opponent tried to leap on him Wallace came in from the other side, ignoring the householder who was standing uncertainly in his porch. Despite the discomfort in the lower abdomen, Wallace sank his knee into their opponent's stomach and he fell with a grunt, then McKay finished the job with a rabbit punch. Wallace added a kick in the ribs for good measure as they took off and they scuttled past the porch and clambered over the fence. Wallace could hear the householder shouting for someone in the house to phone the police.

Wallace could hear heavy footsteps on the pavement as he followed McKay over the fence and into the back garden. Wallace was becoming something of an expert in using back gardens as an obstacle course. He easily avoided cucumber frames and rose beds while McKay floundered through them cursing angrily. Wallace headed for the back fence and half climbed, half fell over it. They were in an open area and Wallace ran hard across an open space with McKay hard upon his heels. His groin was still giving him hell but fear lent wings.

As McKay caught up, Wallace turned his head towards him.

‘Where's the car?'

‘If I knew where we are now I could probably tell you. Frankly, right now, I haven't a clue.'

‘How did you find me?'

‘After I got out through that escape hatch, I climbed over the side of the boat and jumped into some reeds by the bank, I got wet feet in the process,' he panted. ‘There was only one place they could have been parked, the same place as I was, so I headed for that and hid behind a couple of bins. I saw them bundle you into their car, so I followed. I nearly lost them twice but tailed them here.'

‘How long have you been here then?'

‘About two days, I've been outside the house wondering how to get in. I was stalking that bastard in the back garden when you landed in front of him.'

‘Couldn't you send for the police?'

‘The police? Not a hope. If they'd called in response to an anonymous phone call what could they have done, everything would have been pristine white, Kalim and his men would have seen to that.'

‘Well, I'm glad you were here,' Wallace said grudgingly.

‘Hmph!' grunted McKay, praise from that direction was obviously a rare morsel to be savoured.

‘Where do we go now?'

‘You're asking me? Just stop asking bloody silly questions and keep going before those gorillas catch up with us.'

They carried on in silence, the terrain was undulating and there seemed to be banks at odd intervals and once they found themselves slogging through sand. It was not until they were crossing a small flat area that Wallace realised what they were on.

‘We're on a golf course, look, there's a flag marking the hole.'

‘Oh Great! We're all right then. They'd hardly commit sacrilege and kill us on a golf course,' McKay responded sarcastically.

‘Get stuffed!' Wallace retorted angrily. McKay may have had a bad week, but Wallace's had been a damned sight worse.

They slugged their way across another fairway and entered a small spinney of trees. Wallace looked back, he could see about four shadowy shapes gliding along in the rear about 400 metres back, though from the direction they were heading they didn't seem to have any firm idea where their quarry was. They reached a boundary fence and found themselves on a roadway.

‘Have you any idea where we are?' Wallace asked, and despite all his efforts to control it an iota of sarcasm must have percolated through.

McKay growled angrily in response and set off to the right. Wallace would have gone the other way but there was no point in splitting up at this stage, two heads – and two sets of fists – were better than one.

They crossed over to one side of the road and clambered over a fence, though not before Wallace had fallen into the ditch and had to be rescued by McKay.

‘You bloody, useless bastard, can't you watch where you're going?' he rasped furiously. ‘Now come ON! What the hell are you waiting for now? Are you waiting to shake hands with them?'

‘No,' Wallace responded coldly as he rummaged in his pockets. ‘I was just checking that I still had their flash drives on me, that's all.'

‘Well hurry up and check and let's go, for Christ's Sake, they'll be…what was that? Flash drives? You mean memory sticks from a computer?'

‘Yes!'

‘What flash drives?'

‘Some I removed from the house before I climbed out of the window.'

‘Flash drives from where?'

‘From their computer room: where bloody else?'

McKay digested this in silence, he was so taken aback that he momentarily forgot to abuse Wallace when he tripped over a tree root and blundered into him.

‘What's on them?'

‘I couldn't say what's on two of them, but the third one seems to be an organisational chart. It was on screen so I saved it before I took the drive out of the computer.'

‘You took three of their flash drives…Bloody hell!'

McKay stopped dead for about ten seconds, he was clearly speechless. Then he recovered himself and they both carried on at a jog trot.

‘What sort of organisational chart?' he asked at length.

‘It seemed to describe some sort of organisation,' Wallace responded coldly with a trace of sarcasm. ‘It had the usual lines that lead from one box to another. It looked to me as if it dealt with the organisation that's following us now.'

Wallace had used a tone such as one would when describing something to a child, a thick witted one at that. He knew McKay would like that.

‘Give them to me,' McKay rapped.

‘Go and stuff yourself,' Wallace retorted.' Once you've got them you'll probably fuck off and leave me, no thank you!'

‘Why should I do that?' he snapped angrily. ‘I followed you here and got you out didn't I?'

Wallace had to admit he had a point there. There was also another aspect, if he was caught and McKay escaped, there was no point in having all the eggs in one basket because Wallace held all the memory sticks. He reached into his pocket and drew one of them out.

‘There's one,' he snapped. ‘I'm keeping the other two.'

McKay subsided into angry muttering and put it in his pocket with bad grace.

‘Come on then,' he growled and struck off again towards the horizon.

They reached a railway; McKay stumbled over one of the rails and stumbled headlong before recovering his balance, much to Wallace's delight.

‘Shit!'

‘Watch the flash drive,' Wallace called provocatively and McKay cursed again.

‘This way,' he snapped and struck off left. Wallace's sense of direction was somewhat battered by this time but he was inclined to follow without protest.

Whether their pursuers were still on their tail they couldn't tell, they were in a cutting and though the sky was growing lighter in the east the cutting was shrouded in shadow. There was a cold nip in the air that hit their ankles, the tips of their ears and the end of their noses. Yet the air was fresh as Wallace drew it into his lungs and despite the seriousness of the situation he felt good. Even the discomfort in his testicles and lower stomach had subsided.

McKay eventually called a halt.

‘Listen,' he said.

‘What do you mean, listen? Listen to what?'

‘Just bloody listen, will you.'

Wallace listened. He could hear very little, a few cars in the background from a highway that was about 500 yards away, the sound of a train whistle in the distance and the shriek of an owl.

‘I can't…!'

‘Just shut up and bloody listen.'

Then Wallace heard it, the sound of heavy feet on sleepers. McKay knelt down and pressed his ear to the rails.

‘Well?' Wallace asked.

‘They are following us, whether they know where we are or are just playing a hunch I wouldn't know. That train we heard a moment ago, I'd say that will be with us shortly, I just picked it up listening to the rails, probably a goods train at this time of the morning.'

‘Oh God! What do we do?'

‘Just keep going. Come on.'

'I
'm worried about the train.'

‘Good God! We'll hear the damned thing coming a mile off. It seems to be travelling slowly enough.'

‘That's what worries me,' Wallace rejoined acidly. ‘If you were tracking someone along a railway line and a slow goods train went by, what would you do?'

‘Just walk alongside it…!' McKay nodded. ‘I see what you mean, hitch a lift.'

‘And if there's four of you, two hitch a lift and the other two continue walking…!'

‘…and catch us in the middle,' McKay nodded again and looked back. ‘How far away is it you reckon?'

‘I'd say about a couple of miles, probably less. The sooner we're off this track the better. If they do hitch a lift it won't take them long to know we're not on the tracks any more, the further we are from the railway the better.'

‘Good enough, we'll deviate at this bridge that's coming up.'

They did so, clambered up the embankment and headed into a field that seemed to be full of cows and sheep. The bridge itself was one of those erected in the early days of railways construction in the 1800s to enable farmers to despatch their livestock across the newly laid railway from one field to another without risking them being run down by trains. Wallace heard the lowing of cattle, the baaing of sheep and a bellow that could have emanated from a bull.

‘Hells bells!' he ejaculated. ‘There's a bloody bull around here somewhere.'

‘Then hurry up! God help you if he mistakes you for a cow!'

‘There's a road up ahead.'

They headed for it and found it was a main road but decided not to walk along it and stayed on the other side of the hedge. Wallace had estimated that there would be another six men at the house and had noticed at least three vehicles when he had been escorted up the drive shortly after being hi-jacked. Two men walking alongside a main highway or trying to hitch lifts would stick out like sore thumbs.

‘What about the police?'

‘What about them?'

‘Why not give ourselves up into police custody?' Wallace asked.

‘Oh great!' Sarcasm appeared to be McKay's strong suit. ‘Glad to meet you, you're the killer of Ravindran, aren't you…and who is your friend? Oh I see…somebody from the Australian High Commission, is he? He's been helping you has he?'

‘Well what would you suggest?'

‘Get back to the High Commission if we can, I'm tired of slopping around the countryside and stepping into cow pats. In any case, I want to see what's on these computer drives.'

He suddenly turned around as a thought struck him.

‘When you took the discs with you, did you clear the screen?'

‘No, I don't think I did.'

‘So while they may have realised that you've taken one of their memory sticks, the one that was in the computer at the time, they would also know what's on it.'

‘Yes,' Wallace said slowly, waiting for the abuse. ‘They probably do.'

‘So they won't rest until they catch us. How the hell do we get miles away without being caught on the way? How many cars did you say were in the driveway?'

‘Three, they may have access to more.'

‘How far are we to the nearest town?'

McKay squinted at the signpost they were approaching; they could just see it over the top of the hedge.

‘We seem to be near a place called Shifnal; this road leads to Bridgnorth. That one over there…' McKay pointed off to the left: ‘…goes to Shrewsbury.'

‘Then this railway must be the main Wolverhampton to Shrewsbury line,' Wallace suggested and McKay pursed his lips.

‘Apart from anything else, assuming we survive the day, we'll need some food…any ideas?'

‘Steal it,' Wallace suggested.

McKay nodded.

‘A good idea as suggested by a true Australian. But, and it's a big but, by so doing we may draw attention to ourselves. How much cash have you got?'

They compared wallets, Wallace's had been left untouched by his captors, they didn't appear to have been interested in robbery, merely making sure he was held under restraint. He had about £30.

They hung around Shifnal, a large village, until the shops opened. McKay, who looked more presentable than Wallace did despite the scuffling he had done when the enemy had briefly caught up, went into a local shop and purchased some items of food. As they examined their spoils Wallace could feel his mouth watering. McKay had bought two cartons of milk, coffee flavoured, a couple of apple pies and some bars of chocolate. He had also purchased a small packet of cheese biscuits and some small triangles of cheese.