Dark Ages. John Pritchard
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grinned at that, and raised the CB handset to his mouth. ‘This is Catkin at Bullington … any news on the convoy, over?’
The edgy pause that followed made them all hunch forward: waiting. The radio snapped and squawked. And then a woman’s voice came through – tone firm but faint with distance.
‘… call for Herbs and Watchers along South Route … Four launchers, two controls, out of Yellow by ten past twelve …’
‘Shit,’ Kate whispered, shifting.
Fran swallowed. ‘Twenty minutes …’ She felt a tingle of relief: it wasn’t a false call. Then her stomach hollowed out. They’re on their way. They’re coming.
Heart thudding, she climbed out; the others followed. Paul unloaded placards from the boot and passed them round. Glancing up, Fran saw that a police car had appeared while they’d been talking: it was parked on the flyover above them, watching the A34.
The four of them walked in silence through the underpass, emerging in the day-glo of the link road. A handful of others were there already. Fran recognized old faces, said hello. Chatting, someone cracked a joke: she giggled with delight. The tension sometimes got to her that way.
A transit van came crawling past, and dropped off several coppers. She watched one cross the road to shine his torch into the woods. The others started spacing out along the nearside kerb.
‘Come far?’ one asked her, amiably enough.
‘Oxford.’
‘So when’ll you be getting to bed tonight?’
She shrugged. ‘God knows.’ Not much before three, if we follow it down. And I’ve got a tutorial in the morning …
‘This may be a silly question, right … but why are you wearing shades at half-past midnight?’
She reached up to adjust them with an impish little grin. ‘To preserve my anonymity, of course.’
‘Famous, are you?’
She shook her head. ‘Notorious, more like.’
The snarl of motorbikes made her heartbeat quicken. She turned her head as the outriders reached the underpass, and paused to rev their engines. Four or five patrolmen, helmets swivelling: waiting for the signal to proceed. They had it a moment later, and peeled off past her, roaring up onto the flyover and westward.
Frivolity had fizzled out. The thump of her heart felt as heavy as lead. Dry-mouthed, she started up towards the crest. A couple of Watchers were waiting there, well-marked. Silent now, the copper matched her pace.
The police car on the flyover came suddenly to life: drove backwards, blue lights flashing, to block the access road. Fran looked beyond it – but the A34 lay empty in the darkness.
A glance back at the others: they’d stayed down in the shadow of the heavy concrete span. But then she’d always been the type to strike out on her own.
A squad car – London plates – came cruising past.
‘Here they come,’ called someone; and turning, she saw the line of lights come streaming down the hill. It nosed into the far side of the system, and came snaking slowly through it: the vehicles still hidden by the roundabout mound, but their noise now rising clearly to her ears.
She’d never forget the noise they made. Above the growl of engines, a clatter and squeak that made her hairs stand up.
Transits and patrol cars rumbled past her, driving steadily upslope onto the flyover – and then the first military vehicle came off the roundabout. A camouflaged command car, riding high on its wheels – a mottled, muddy shape behind the sleek white escorts. Whistles blew; a football rattle whirred. The turnout was too small to do much shouting. But Fran’s voice would have failed her if she’d been among a crowd. All she could do was stare, and search their faces: those bleak, unsmiling faces, staring back.
Pursing her lips, she stepped up to the verge and held her hand up, proffering a silent V for peace. The copper tensed, expecting her to lunge. The first Control was following already – a clanking monster, flexing like a serpent for the turn. She challenged the gaze of its armoured cab: a skull with a sarcophagus in tow. The second rumbled after it – and then the missile launchers, in a sinister cortege, their long, low backs enshrouded with tarpaulins. Engines roared at her, and axles squealed. As each one passed, she saw the double blast-ports at the rear; the missiles resting snugly in their tubes.
Four Cruise launchers: one full flight: the standard monthly exercise deployment. The wrecker came behind them, like an iron scorpion rattling with chains. A rearguard of police vans straggled after; and then the first pursuers came in sight. Used-looking cars, bedecked with CB aerials. Merlin passed, then Elderflower. And here came Torquemada too – a Dominican priest and friars in full regalia.
Everyone on foot was running now: the police for their parked transit, the Watchers for their cars. Fran wavered for a moment – watching the tail-lights fading in the darkness; almost shaking with the force of her reaction. Then she was off and pelting down the hill.
Reaching the car, she scrambled in. The others were all aboard, the engine running. She was still fastening her seatbelt as Paul took off – back through the underpass and onto the convoy’s route. Less than five minutes after its passing, the roads were clear again, the junction silent.
It didn’t take long to catch the convoy up again. They breasted a rise, and the snake of crimson lights was there ahead of them, sharp pulses of blue along its winding length. Soon they were up with the leading Cruisewatch cars. Fran could make out the control trucks at the front of the column, their high sides marked by orange running-lights.
She sat back in her seat, and braced one boot against the dash. Kate and Marie were motionless behind her; Paul’s grim stare was focused on the road.
‘… convoy approaching first Andover bridge …’ someone said on the CB.
Getting on for I a.m., and all the world seemed dead. The chase filled her with nightmarish excitement. As they sped on through the night, she thought of all the unseen eyes that watched them: owls and foxes staring from the copses and fields. But what else might be peering through the hedgerows; what faces in the long pale grass the headlights played across? She couldn’t help but think of ghostly figures, creeping up, to watch this roaring cavalcade go past.
Past Andover, and Thruxton Hill, they reached the long steep incline into Amesbury. Salisbury Plain was spreading to the north: a sea of pitch.
‘I’m going to try and get ahead of it,’ Paul said.
They broke off the pursuit at Amesbury Roundabout – the convoy grinding on towards Stonehenge. Paul put his foot down, speeding up the empty lamp-lit road. At Durrington he spun the wheel: they turned onto the Packway and raced west. Parallel to the convoy’s route; Fran looked and glimpsed its winking lights, a mile to the south.
Behind her, Kate was studying the map. ‘They’ll road-block us at Shrewton, sure as hell.’
‘Any way round?’ Paul called over his shoulder.
‘The road from the Bustard to Westdown Camp. They won’t have covered that.’
‘Right. They might have closed it, though.’
‘It’s worth a try.’
‘Fran?’
‘Go for it,’ Fran said.
They came to Rollestone Crossroads and went tearing north again. The road rose up, and let them see for miles; then dipped again. Darkness stretched away in all directions, but strange red lights were glowing here and there. The fringes of the firing range were coming up ahead.
Fran hung on, and braced herself. The Bustard vedette showed up in the headlamps as Paul swerved onto the narrow westbound road. No one was there to see them pass. The lonely sentry hut was locked and dark.
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