Project - 16 (12 page)

“
I'm going to check the dish and see if the Colonel has
anything for us yet,” she said in monotone and got up. I watched
her walk away and then the empty space where she'd been sat. Her
home was on fire and yet here she was in a home that had burned
down long ago.

“
There's nothing,” said Riley as I joined her outside. The day
was cold and crisp yet there were rain clouds moving towards us
from the east - fat angry looking things that blotted out the
mid-morning sun.

“
Have you spoke to him?” I asked.

“
I can only send coded messages in text form. I’ve sent a few
lines to ask what the fuck is going on over there. The good news is
we still have our 3 satellites in the air and they're still
receiving us.”

“
So you intend to carry on with your mission?”

“
Too fucking right,” she said. “This is probably the best way
to strike back at them. If the NSU really do want what Alex and
this bitch have found then I intend to be there to deny them
it.”

“
She's a bitch now?” I said.

“
Yeah, another Russian fucking bitch and if I get a chance
she's going to die with the rest of them. They should never have
let them get away with what happened in the Ukraine and Georgia.
Never. That's when all this started. As if the T-14 tanks weren't
enough warning for us.”

She knelt down to replace the scrim net that covered the dish
and tucked the digital screen back into its box at the foot of the
tripod. I passed her a second cup of coffee I'd made for her and
she accepted it.

“
Got anything stronger?” she joked.

“
Yeah but it won't change anything.”

“
I know. It's just...”

We both turned to look east as the humming of an engine
suddenly emerged from the background noise of nature. The clouds
were obscuring everything in that direction but we both knew
exactly what it was.

“
The garage!” I said, running towards the curtain of scrim
netting where the Land Rover was parked. Riley was right behind me
as the humming began to rise in pitch. It was almost on
us.

I dropped to the floor and rolled under the net sideways and
Riley followed suit, not stopping until we'd crawled under the
'Rover and led flat in the oil and the stench of diesel fumes. The
drone passed by low overhead, turned and circled the
house.

“
The stove?” she whispered.

“
I put it out but the house is already lined with stuff that
should mask it anyway. If we'd have been caught in the open we'd
have been spotted in no time. I should have been more careful but I
haven't seen a drone for some years now.”

The humming faded into the distance and we crawled out from
under the Land Rover. I dusted myself off and went back outside,
following its direction in the sky.

“
NSU?” she asked.

“
Yeah. It's not the first I’ve seen.”

“
Probably got something to do with Alex and the
girl.”

“
I can almost guarantee it. They've also done us a big
favour.”

“
How's that?” she asked. I took my pocket knife out and went
to the spot where we'd been standing when we first heard the
drone's engine.

“
It came from that direction,” I said, pointing to the top of
the pine tree I'd marked in my mind when the humming had started.
“And went away in that direction.” I went back to the entrance to
the garage, stuck my knife in the ground and dragged it in a line
roughly following the drone until I'd gone past the dish. Then I
lined the pine up in my sight and turned around, seeing where my
imaginary line intersected the one I'd marked in the dirt. I went
back to the house for a compass and began taking bearings and
writing them on a piece of paper. It wouldn't be accurate based on
my rough estimations but it would cut out a lot of initial leg
work.

“
What are you doing?” she asked and I was surprised that a
Ranger had to ask.

“
I'm trying to take a bearing from where it came from and
where it went. I'm sure that the drone either came from the bunker
they're in or was looking for it. So, given these bearings, our
first search should be any bunkers that fall under these rough
directions.”

“
I see, but you're putting a lot of faith in your
hunch.”

“
It's somewhere to start, that's all,” I said. “Have you ever
hunted something?”

“
I bagged a few bucks last year but my old drill Sergeant did
all the leg work.”

“
Well I suppose we're hunting these two kids but we've nothing
to go on really. So when you can't find a trail or spoor you go
looking for it in the likely areas. Watering holes. Natural
clearings. Near its food source, anything to narrow down your
search.”

“
Is that what we're doing? Narrowing down our
search?”

“
Yeah,” I said. “At least it gives us something to
do.”

5.

Riley, still searching for any kind of reports from home,
retreated to her room and I took the opportunity to load up my pack
for a long distance trek. I hadn't told Riley yet but any
travelling we'd be doing would be on foot. There just wasn't enough
diesel to get us anywhere. If we were going to end up combing the
country for Alex then it would be on Shank's pony. For the old
English Special Forces 'tabbing it' was as natural as breathing,
but for Rangers I wasn't so sure. They were used to flying in and
flying out and I didn't know if Riley would be up for it. She
hadn't got much choice in the end.

At lunch time I knocked on her door and I heard her tell me
to come in. I opened and saw her sat in a chair by the window with
the tablet in her hands, staring at it with red ringed
eyes.

“
Anything new?” I asked.

“
Nothing. The whole fucking network is crumbling and I'm
losing connections every five minutes. There's long lists of people
missing or dead being posted online, some chat about NSU
involvement, some say the Chinese, it's all just a pile of shit at
the moment.”

She launched the tablet onto the bed and stared out of the
window, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. Her kit was
arranged in neat piles around the room and her rifle was stood
upright at the head of her bed. There was the scent of soap in the
air mixed with gun oil.

“
You want some lunch?” I asked.

“
I want to be moving, that's what I want. I don't do 'waiting'
very well.”

“
I understand,” I said. Her head snapped round and she fixed
me with a furious stare.

“
How? How the fuck can you...?” She shook her head. “I'm
sorry, of course you can understand. I didn't mean to...” She
turned away. “Lunch would be nice.”

“
I'll give you a shout when it's ready, okay?”

“
Yeah.” I turned to leave with three of her empty coffee cups
in my hand. “Miller?”

“
Yeah?”

“
You've seen it happen before...” she said.

“
I wasn't old enough to remember.”

“
But you knew that something was wrong, that your country was
fucked.”

“
Yeah.”

“
Did it get easier to bear?”

“
I asked my Dad that once when I caught him looking at some
old photos we'd found whilst travelling north. We were looting as
we went on the off chance of finding something useful and he came
across this album on the table inside a little cottage. It was a
tiny thing with small pictures in little plastic envelopes, the
kind of thing you could carry round with you. He didn't know the
couple and the children in them pictures, but he was crying when I
saw him and I asked him if it would ever get easier for
him.”

“
And?”

“
He didn't answer,” I said, shaking my head. “He just threw
the album down and walked out of that cottage and we never went
into another house from then on until the day he died.”

“
I suppose he did answer then,” she said.

We had our lunch at the kitchen table because the rain
finally fell with a vengeance, hammering the corrugate roof of the
garage like it was trying to tear it down. Riley ate with a little
more enthusiasm as she stared out of the small window, watching the
battle take place. I poured her a cup of coffee - the last of the
American blend.

“
Is there any point in waiting for the Colonel?” she asked. “I
mean, I'm sure he's got more on his mind than my
nephew.”

“
I can't answer that,” I said. “It's your mission, your
call.”

“
My mission,” she repeated. “I suppose it is. If it hadn't
been for 'my' mission I'd be home, helping out.”

“
How?”

“
I don't know.” She got up and began pacing the length of the
kitchen. “Help with the fighting, with the disaster relief,
anything. They might have even reinstated me to my old
rank.”

“
Is that what you want?” I asked.

“
No,” she said, defeated. “It isn't. Deep down I know I have
to be here, for her, for my sister. That's even if she's still
alive. And if she's not then it's all the more important to find
Alex and make sure he's safe. For her sake. It's what she would
have wanted.”

“
Then what do you want to do?”

She stared out of the window some more, her hands clasped
behind her back and her bare toes flexing in anxiety.

“
We leave tomorrow. Do like you said, search along the flight
path of that NSU drone, try and pick up some clues.”

“
Sounds like a plan to me.” I said. “But you understand that
we'll be doing this on foot?”

“
I expected as much. You don't have the fuel and besides, with
that drone in the air the Land Rover would ghost our position. I
brought hiking gear and the dish is portable enough to be carried
in pieces.”

“
I'm glad. I'm afraid to say that some of your colleagues
didn't share your enthusiasm for walking.”

“
I don't doubt it. Fly in, fly out. That's the way they wanted
it but it's not the way I trained. If you Brits taught us anything
it was that sometimes equipment fails and you need to be prepared
to adapt. Anyway, I could do to lose a few pounds.”

“
Really?” I said. Then I wished I hadn't. That old flaring
heat appeared in my face again. “When do you want to
leave?”

“
In the morning. Prepare tonight, give the Colonel a chance,
then set off.” I nodded my agreement and she turned to leave.
“There are MRE's in the garage and I'll make up some other bits and
pieces for us.”

“
Fine,” she said. “I'm going for a run. I'll be back in an
hour.”

If we were leaving in the morning then I wanted to know
exactly what she was up to when she said she was running. There
were too many places on her track where she would have picked up
mud on her shoes - why hadn't she already? I waited until she'd
gone from view, then slipped on my jacket and set off across the
field and into the woodland where Dad and me would hammock. Then I
headed north at a fast pace, walking a long arc around to where I
expected to intercept her if she had been running. But as I
expected she wasn't there. I followed the trail that circled my
perimeter, moving carefully but with as much speed as I could
manage. I reached a slope that led up to the top of small rise and
circled around it, coming to a clearing and almost walking straight
into her sight.

I stopped suddenly and froze where I was. If she hadn't seen
me yet then any fast movement might draw her attention. She was in
a clearing some of my students had made that hadn't grown back yet
and she'd kicked off her trainers, her running pants and her tee
shirt and was stood barefoot on the grass in her underwear. In her
hand was a large plastic hoop and she was dancing slowly and
carefully around, spinning the thing left and right, sometimes into
the air and sometimes over and down her body. I was aware of music
coming from her tablet that she'd propped against a tree and she
was moving with such delicate grace that I was soon entranced by
it. Her body, far from the muscular frame I'd expected, was in fact
curved and feminine with soft, pale skin marked only by a long
black tattoo running down her thigh. She was smiling as she moved
yet her eyes betrayed how hard she was concentrating.

I felt a rush of guilt and my face flushed hot with
embarrassment. I'd expected the worse and now I'd witnessed the
most beautiful thing I'd seen in a very long time. I began to back
away very slowly until I was behind a tree, then I turned and began
walking back to the house. By the time I'd returned and poured
myself a drink, Riley was jogging back across the clearing with a
healthy colour to her cheeks. She came into the kitchen and I
offered her a glass of water.

“
Thanks,” she said. “I'm fucked.”

“
I'll stick to walking,” I said. “Much less
strenuous.”

“
No where near as fun!” she said.

“
Do you feel a bit better?”

“
Kind of. I'm going to clean up and take a look at the dish.”
As she turned I noticed the hoop, twisted into a smaller loop and
stuffed into the small of her back under her tee shirt. I hadn't
noticed it until now. Even more so I realised there was Riley and
there was Claudia and the two never seemed to meet.