The Will Of The People (Conspiracy Trilogy Book 1) (27 page)

There was
still no response to his wave, and Anderson tried yet again with
both arms – surely one of the computer nerds could have come up
with something better than Anderson having to wave himself silly in
order to have a piss. Still it all helped to calm his nerves.

Anderson ran
through in his mind the next few minutes: if McDowell turned up to
temporarily release Anderson, then he would try again in a couple
of hours; anyone of smaller stature and Anderson would opt for
something rather more violent – he just hoped he was brave enough
to follow it through. Most likely it would either be Laurel or
Hardy – Anderson’s chosen names for McDowell’s two associates from
the cottage: one tall and thin, one rather more rotund. Other than
that, it was a poor comparison as both were English rather than
just Laurel, and neither were particularly funny. Anderson had seen
or heard at least six other residents, and he presumed they were
mostly computer experts, with McDowell, Laurel and Hardy providing
security.

Whenever any
of the three turned up to deal with Anderson, it was always with
gun in hand, although Anderson’s pathetic demeanour was starting to
make them rather less guarded. As a commercial pilot, Anderson had
received some training in the use of handguns, and securing a
semi-automatic from one of his chaperones was high on his list of
priorities. McDowell’s gun was not one Anderson recognised, but
both Laurel and Hardy used what looked to be a Glock. That meant
there was no need to fully cock the pistol before firing the first
round, the process of simply chambering a round – or racking the
slide – partially cocking the hammer; the safety was also
integrated within the trigger, rather than being a separate lever.
Even if it wasn’t a Glock, Anderson assumed any other pistol would
be pretty similar; if not, then he’d just have to have to wing it
and hope for the best.

Anderson’s one advantage over his jailers was the small size
of his room: the en-suite of shower and toilet was adjacent to the
door, leaving a short corridor, then a space roughly nine feet by
eight for bed, wardrobe, chair and dressing-table. The door to the
en-suite faced the opposite wall of the corridor, and was some four
feet from the entrance door. Anderson’s guard could thus never be
more than a few feet away. When he’d first used the bathroom, even
though the door was left open, someone would always check it after
– but now they didn’t seem bothered. Nor did they appear concerned
about the TV, which was as loud as Anderson dared, despite him
opting for whatever programme made the most noise. Bruce Willis was
presently eliminating most of a gang of cyber terrorists in
Die Hard 4.0
, something
which Anderson could only empathise with.

He stood up to
wave for a fifth time, but abruptly the room door opened and a
familiar figure entered; despite his fears, Anderson almost smiled,
thankful it was Laurel and not someone twice his size.

“Sorry, I was
getting desperate,” Anderson said meekly.

Laurel stood
at the end of the narrow corridor, half-leaning against the wall,
gun held nonchalantly in his right hand. Left-handed, he lobbed the
key to Anderson’s handcuffs onto the bed.

“Better make
it last,” Laurel said gruffly, “And don’t take all fucking
night.”

Anderson undid
the cuff on his right wrist. As he stood up, Laurel took a pace
back to allow Anderson free access to the en-suite, gun pointing
vaguely at Anderson’s midriff.

“Thanks,”
Anderson said. “I guess I’m just a bit nervous...” He moved towards
the door of the en-suite, nodding towards the TV, “Good film; lots
of action.”

Laurel glanced
beyond Anderson and towards the TV; just for an instant, Anderson
thought to adjust his plan, then the moment was past. Laurel moved
to his left to lounge against the wall, and Anderson pushed open
the door to the shower and toilet. He had tried closing it once but
that apparently was against the rules, so Anderson had worked hard
to develop a nervous whistle – something which proved useful when
he had earlier unscrewed the showerhead. Lighter than he’d hoped,
it was still the best weapon he could come up with.

Even before
the first few tuneless notes of his musical accompaniment had
ended, Anderson was back through the open en-suite door, showerhead
arcing round for a classic uppercut to Laurel’s chin. Plastic and
chrome shattered, and Laurel staggered back, eyes shocked and
confused, his only sound a dull groan. Anderson pressed home his
advantage, knowing at any second McDowell could be on his way. His
left hand grasped Laurel’s gun arm, wrenching it up, desperately
forcing the pistol to point away from his body; his right hand,
still grasping the remains of the showerhead, swept down a second,
then a third time, striking Laurel’s forehead just above his nose.
Laurel slumped to the floor, unconscious, gun clattering down
beside him

Anderson
hadn’t time to worry as to what he had done – this wasn’t a game,
something with rules or an agreed code of behaviour, this was his
life that was on the line. He grabbed Laurel’s gun and pulled open
the bedroom door, taking a quick glance up and down the dimly-lit
corridor. It was empty, although as he watched a light flickered on
from the room opposite, a warning that Laurel’s demise hadn’t gone
completely unheard.

Anderson’s
room was closest to the central building, and it was some thirty
yards along the corridor to the fire exit, a red warning light
winking ominously above the door. Anderson backed quickly towards
the exit. Suddenly, light spilled out into the corridor as a room
door opened, and Anderson instinctively loosed off a warning shot,
no specific target in mind. Back-first, he crashed against the push
bar and the exit door sprang open, the shriek of the security alarm
sounding out its warning.

Anderson
turned immediately left, sprinting as fast as he could towards the
fence; instantly a security light blazed out to show him the way
forward. Flat open farmland would hardly help Anderson’s cause and
he was convinced the mudflats of the Wash were his only hope: if
King John could lose his baggage train and crown jewels there, then
one man should easily evade capture. If eventually he could get to
a phone, then he would take the gamble and call the authorities –
Anderson felt he now had little choice.

The glare from
the security light quickly faded, and the fence was now just a few
yards ahead. Abruptly, Anderson sensed a dark figure away to his
right, and he pivoted around, almost slipping, gun hand wavering
uncertainly.

“Mike! It’s
Charlie!”

Anderson
struggled to comprehend, but then all at once it made perfect sense
– the cavalry had arrived, just slightly lacking in numbers.

* * *

Gun in one
hand, shirt in the other, McDowell raced along the corridor and out
through the fire exit. A single security light blazed out into the
night, its beam carving out an area of brightness some thirty yards
deep, and it took McDowell precious seconds to reorient his
sleep-dulled brain. Abruptly, away to his right, he heard a shout
then the muffled crack of a pistol.

McDowell ran
towards the sound. Up ahead a burly figure knelt on the grass
halfway to the fence, gun raised, peering through the gloom towards
the sea wall and the dark shadows dancing along its edge.

“Fisher!”
McDowell shouted. “What the fuck’s going on?”

“Anderson’s
buggered off,” Fisher replied angrily. “Bastard’s armed and there’s
someone else with him.”

As a
breathless Rebane joined McDowell, the alarm was suddenly silenced.
“Morton’s half-dead,” Rebane said without emotion. “It could be the
girl with Anderson; she’s proving to be as big a problem as
him.”

“What do you
want me to do?” McDowell asked, gaze moving along the top of the
sea wall. “The phone signal out there is patchy but they’ll get
through eventually. If she uses her usual phone we’ll get her
position but it might be better for Carter to bar the phone’s
SIM.”

“Agreed,” said
Rebane quickly. “I’ll handle the police; we just need to tidy up a
bit and get Morton to a hospital.”

“And
Anderson?” McDowell prompted.

“Take Fisher
and go after them,” Rebane ordered quietly. “Kill them only if you
have to. I’ll get us some backup.”

* * *

Anderson
stumbled unseeing into the ditch, his feet slipping their way down
the greasy bank and into thick clinging mud. He slithered to a halt
and lay on his back, taking in big whooping gasps as his lungs
tried to replenish his body’s desperate need for oxygen, every
breath tearing at his chest. Charlotte tumbled down into the mud
beside him, breathing deeply.

How best to reach safety?
With
McDowell and friends close behind, there wasn’t time to concoct
something complicated – yet an escape along the sea-wall seemed too
obvious a choice. There had been the occasional sound of pursuit,
the beam of a torch briefly lighting up the darkness before it was
extinguished, but so far nothing too close for comfort.

“What’s the
plan?” Anderson asked in a whisper.

“There’s no
plan,” Charlotte said softly. “Aren’t we just making this up as we
go along, pretty much as usual? Heading east looks safest, but I’ve
no idea what the tide’s doing.”

“East it is.”
He held Charlotte’s gaze, “What about Jessica? And Adam
Devereau?”

“Mum’s okay in
Dublin… I’m sorry, Mike, there was a hit-and-run; Adam’s in
intensive care.”

Anderson nodded
in understanding, too angry to speak even though he had expected as
much.

“We need to
keep going,” said Charlotte gently.

Seconds later
they were trudging towards what they hoped was the sea, using the
gullies as tunnels to safety. The larger ones were deep enough for
them to be able to squelch along in a sort of crouching stumble
with the gully’s rim above their heads. Each one seemed to contain
at least a foot of brackish water, and at any moment Anderson
expected to find the sea surging its way towards them. He tried to
move as fast as the clinging mud would allow, but it sucked his
feet downwards with the grip of a drowning man, the black goo
slurping in protest as every leaden step was wrenched from its
sticky grasp. The rain started again, a steady drizzle that helped
rinse some of the cloying mud from their bodies.

Unlike
Charlotte, Anderson had been restricted in his choice of attire,
with T-shirt, jeans and casual shoes all proving a poor choice for
such an environment. Twice already the mud had sucked a shoe from
his foot; his jeans seemed happy to soak up ever more muck and it
felt like he was actually wearing three pairs of trousers. His
T-shirt was almost worse than useless, kindly leaving his arms free
to be scraped and clawed at by a score of hidden dangers; already
his bloodied scratches were now too many to count. Not that
Charlotte was fairing much better, her face and hands grazed and
bruised, jacket and jeans both torn.

Charlotte
stuck doggedly behind Anderson, the occasional stifled expletive
her only form of complaint. Yet Anderson was quickly becoming
disorientated: the sea-wall, so long his only guide, was lost in
the blackness, and he was relying almost entirely upon intuition
and luck. The gullies were becoming shallower now and there were
less of them, the landscape gradually changing to one of liquid
mud.

A particularly
tenacious pool abruptly resisted Anderson’s attempt to free his
feet and he lost his balance, slithering down into the syrupy grip
of cold marsh water. Charlotte waddled her way alongside, and then
she too collapsed into the mire, her body twisting sideways in a
futile attempt to protect her face.

Exhausted, they
lay side-by-side, the thick mud oozing its way around their bodies.
Slowly at first, then with gathering intensity, Charlotte began to
shake with silent laughter, the sight of them both covered
head-to-toe in stinking black sludge pushing her towards
hysteria.

With a sudden push of her arms, she struggled to a sitting
position, wiping away the mud from her face to glare at Anderson
with a look of part anger, part sympathy. “
The Last of the Mohicans
, what sort
of bloody clue was that? Hours I spent trying to work it
out.”

Anderson
clambered to his knees, “Sorry, Rebane was too suspicious, so I
just picked any old film.”

“At least
calling me Lottie was one of your better ideas. Sadly, I almost got
to like it.”

“To continue
with the mutual appreciation theme – it really was very nice of you
to come and rescue me. Or were you just passing through?”

Charlotte gave
a wry smile, “I was out for a pleasant walk and got carried away.
The alarm going off scared the shit out of me and then you appeared
– that was the good news, but I wasn’t expecting a full-scale war
with people shooting at me.”

“Unfortunately, it all seems to have got out of hand. Going to
Warsaw wasn’t going to be much of a holiday, more of a catastrophe;
so I thought it best to reject their kind offer. McDowell and I
weren’t getting on too well anyway... What’s in the back-pack,
anything to drink?”

Charlotte
slipped the back-pack from her shoulders and struggled with the
zip. “Water, food, and phone – assuming I can find the
battery.”

“Hang fire on
the phone,” said Anderson. “Once you get a signal it’s possible to
use the GPS chip to track us. Does McDowell know your number?”

Charlotte
thought for a moment, “I used my phone when I organised your visit
last week; so it’s possible.”

Anderson
weighed up the risks and was still none the wiser, neither option
particularly attractive. “Your phone, your choice,” he said
finally.