(1995) By Any Name (25 page)

He prised open the window. The wood was rotten and he dug a hole around the catch with the scalpel he still carried. Stepping over the sill he found himself in a darkened bedroom. He could make out very little beyond a white painted door opposite. Standing behind it, he opened it cautiously. He looked out. A street lamp shone through a window at the far end of a long passage, providing enough of a glow for him to see that there were no infra red detectors in the corridor either. He could carry Elizabeth up here.

Provided they remained on the top floor they wouldn’t run the risk of setting off the alarms, but would they gain anything? It was as cold in here as it was outside.

He stole along the corridor, opening other doors along the back wall. He found a bathroom with dry taps and an airing cupboard with a tank and an immersion heater. He dropped the switch and a red light glowed. Suspecting the water had been switched off and the tank drained, he switched it off immediately. There was electricity – and that might mean warmth.

Further along the corridor he discovered a bedroom with a double bed, the mattress swathed in plastic sheeting, and an electric fire. He turned the fire on high. The only window in the room faced the back so there was no danger of the glow being seen from the road. The curtains were already drawn. He dragged the mattress from the bed and laid it on the floor in front of the fire.

If he brought Elizabeth here, she would be warm and safe for tonight and possibly even tomorrow. All he had to do was find the stop cock, turn on the water and steal some food. Where could he get food? Not this village. The last thing he could afford to do was alert the army to their presence.

He left the room and climbed back out on to the roof. The wind had whipped up, and he had to fight his way down through a snow blizzard. He returned to the shed where Elizabeth was beyond shivering, her body rigid, soaked and frozen. He picked her up and carried her and the blankets to the flat roof. Hoping no one was watching from a darkened window he propped Elizabeth against the wall and flung up the bundle of blankets. He climbed after them, lay on his stomach and offered Elizabeth his hands. Grasping her wrists he pulled her up beside him and opened the window. Throwing in the blankets, he helped her inside.

‘Don’t go downstairs or you’ll set off every bloody alarm in the place.’ He led her into the bedroom. The electric fire had already warmed the air. He dropped the machine gun beside the mattress. ‘Strip off your wet clothes, wrap yourself in the driest blanket and stay there until I get back.’

‘Where are you going?’ she mumbled through frozen lips.

‘Shopping, we’re right out of groceries.’

‘But… ’

‘I’ll be back.’ He left the room, closed the door softly behind him and walked along to the broken window.’ He climbed out on to the roof, pushed the broken wood back into the hole and pushed the window shut before sliding down to the ground. He found the stopcock and turned on the water, hoping none of the pipes inside the building were frozen.

He backtracked to the edge of the village as swiftly as he could, given the wind and the depth of the snow, that sucked him down deeper with every step he took.

Suddenly very conscious of the cold, he looked down at himself. He’d been a fool. He should have taken the flame retardant suit from Elizabeth, but then how could he have explained why he was wearing a flame retardant suit to a patrol, when everyone else would be in cold weather gear and snow suits?

He stopped when he reached the edge of the village. The mountain centre was within walking distance, no more than a mile or two, but although there was a cafeteria there it was also alarmed, and probably better alarmed than the guest house. What did that leave?

Back to Brecon? Too risky, the whole town would be alerted to him by now. He pictured a map, Defynnog and Sennybridge lay to the west, Llansbyddydd to the north, various isolated farmhouses to the south. What he needed was somewhere where he’d be least expected, preferably somewhere that would lay a false trail. He flexed his fingers. He also needed weatherproof clothes and gloves, preferably an army uniform with a ski mask to hide his face. Somewhere up ahead there’d be a road block.

But what he needed most of all was luck.

Privates Moore and Jones were not the army’s finest.

They’d been released early from Shepton Mallet military prison, not because of any effort they’d made to atone for their misdemeanours, but because of a shortage of manpower that had led to the drafting in of every available man to help with the search for West.

Their reputation as slapdash, slovenly soldiers had preceded them.

No platoon wanted to work with them so Chaloner had used them to man a roadblock on the back road that led from Libanus to Defynnog. He had been able to sideline two dozen men from the search for West, most of them poorly motivated, sloppy soldiers like Moore and Jones, and had used them to ring the area around the Storey Arms with roadblocks that covered every minor road and lane as well as the main A and B class routes.

Using the excuse that he was checking on the progress of the search on the Beacons, Chaloner travelled from roadblock to roadblock on the roads Heddingham hadn’t considered worth searching, but he felt uneasy. From what little he knew of West from the storming of the flat, he knew he wasn’t the type to go marching down a main road. He was more likely to creep up behind the troops manning the roadblocks and slit their windpipes, and with the quality of troops he had stationed at some of the roadblocks, he didn’t doubt that West would succeed in immobilising them before they noticed anything was amiss.

When he stopped at the block that had been set up on the Libanus to Defynnog road, he found Privates Moore and Jones cigarettes in mouth, rifles slung carelessly over their shoulders, sitting, hunched and shivering on boulders at the side of the road. He debated whether to lecture them, but decided to save his breath. Better officers than him had undoubtedly tried – and failed – to lick them into shape in Shepton Mallet and he wasn’t egotistical enough to think he could succeed where they hadn’t. The best he could hope to do was galvanise them into tightening the security on the road block. Otherwise they may as well pack up and go back to barracks.

Shouting the password, ‘White alert,’ he climbed out of his Land Rover and prepared to deliver a morale-boosting speech.

West had trekked a mile out of Libanus on the back road that led past the mountain centre when he spotted a road block through the soup of swirling snow. A Land Rover pulled up almost alongside him. He heard the exchange of passwords, and saw a captain leave the vehicle and walk towards two privates manning the barricade.

He slipped behind a stunted tree. The roadblock didn’t pose a problem, on foot it was easy to circumnavigate, but it did make him wonder just how many other roadblocks and patrols were in the area.

The captain’s Land Rover was parked in front of the temporary barrier the men had erected. It had a canvas cover over the back, and he hoped there’d be spare sets of clothing and boots stowed there in case of emergency. Even if there weren’t, it offered an opportunity to cut his journey time to the next village.

He crept forward on his hands and toes. The captain was berating the privates, but the snow veiled their figures, just as he hoped it would conceal his.

Darting to the back of the Land Rover he clambered in beneath the canvas.

The vehicle was loaded with survival gear, boots, suits, hypothermia blankets, emergency rations, torches and sleeping bags. In less than thirty seconds he was crouched beneath them, his head just below the driver’s seat, his Browning in one hand, a thin nylon rope he’d filched from a sleeping bag in the other. He tested its strength between his hands. It made a perfect garrotte.

Cursing the stupidity of Jones and Moore, Chaloner returned to his vehicle, switched on the ignition and windscreen wipers, turned up the heater and waited for the privates to lift the barrier. He wondered if there was any point in risking incurring Simmonds’ and Heddingham’s wrath by continuing with this pointless exercise. He had erected three more road blocks in this area, one on the main road between Defynnog and Libanus, one on the Sennybridge to Brecon road, and the other on the Llandovery to Sennybridge road.

He decided he may as well check them out before returning to Tal-y-Bont and enough army presence and hullabaloo to alert a regiment of drunken lager louts, let alone the skilled professional West had proved himself to be.

He slowed down when he saw the road sign for the crossroads that opened on to the A road ahead. The snow was so thick both in the air and on the ground; he could no longer make out the actual road. If it hadn’t been for the signpost he might have believed he was driving over the hill. His headlights bounced back at him, from the snow-spotted, impenetrable mist. No rational man would be out on a night like this, but he still knocked the indicator down to the right from force of habit.

A hand pulled back his hood; fingers clawed into his hair, and jerked his head back. A thin rope slipped around his neck biting into his flesh, almost – but not quite – cutting his air supply.

‘Hit the brake and pull on the hand brake.’

The instinct for survival kicked in and Chaloner did as he had been commanded. The last thing he saw before the world turned black was his windscreen coated in thick snow.

The moment West was certain the captain was unconscious he unwrapped a bandage from the first aid kit, stuffed it into the officer’s mouth and secured it with the nylon rope. Taking a length of climbing rope and a hunting knife, he climbed into the front of the Land Rover. He secured the captain’s hands behind his back, and tied his ankles together. Heaving the inert body into the back of the vehicle, he looped a rope between the bonds that secured the ankles and wrists and fastened the officer’s legs high behind his back. It was then he noticed the captain was wearing a winged dagger badge. His captive was a fully fledged member of the SAS.

He switched on one of the torches and rummaged through the gear. He found a white camouflage suit and boots that fitted him. Donning a white ski mask, he filched the captain’s insignia and badge, and noting the red ribbon tied high on the officer’s arm, purloined it and tied it on to his own before covering the officer with sleeping bags. Jumping into the driving seat he continued on the route that unbeknown to him, the captain had intended to take, towards Defynnog and Sennybridge.

He hadn’t travelled half a mile before he hit another road block. He stopped, kept his hand on the Browning, wound down the window and shouted,

‘White alert,’ as the captain had done.

Two soldiers snapped to attention.

‘Anything to report?’ he barked.

‘No, sir.’

‘Carry on, corporal.’

‘Sir!’ both men snapped.

He pushed the gear stick home, revved the engine and set off again when they raised the barrier. He’d succeeded in fooling them, but that was hardly surprising when every officer and man was wearing a ski-mask. The foul weather was working in his favour, and he’d had the good fortune to acquire an officer’s insignia. Thanks to the ingrained army discipline that didn’t encourage men to question officers’ commands, and the size of an operation that had apparently led to troops being drafted in from any, and every unit that had men to spare, his confidence increased as he drove slowly but steadily towards Defynnog.

The tyres slipped twice, losing their grip on the compacted ice beneath the snow, but by dropping into low gear and slowing his speed he managed to inch forward. He tried not to consider what might happen if he was forced to abandon the Land Rover. He could hardly leave the captain to freeze in the back. He didn’t dare risk setting him free, and the survival gear and emergency rations would be useless if the officer was immobilised and couldn’t reach them. With the roads snowed up the vehicle might well not be found for days.

He concentrated on what little he could see of the road ahead and planned his return journey. He couldn’t drive to Libanus, the vehicle would be an absolute giveaway parked in the village and, as he’d encountered two roadblocks in less than five miles, there was no reason to suppose there’d be fewer further on. He’d have to find somewhere safe to leave the captain, a place where both he and the Land Rover would be easily found, and preferably one where it might be assumed that he’d travelled on in the opposite direction to Libanus. But that would mean finding a different form of transport for his return.

One that wouldn’t be easily tracked, not that anyone would be able to track anything for long in this storm.

He found what he was looking for outside Defynnog, a pub with a sign advertising lunches. He drove past it before cutting his lights and engine. After checking the captain was still breathing, he emptied two sleeping bags from their nylon covers. Taking the covers he walked back, sinking knee deep in the snow. A dog barked when he approached the back door. He inched his way along the wall of the house until he found the bins. He had little problem locating the pigswill, even in the cold, the smell told him which lid to open. Tipping it on to its side he trailed the mess it contained to the back door. He sprang the lock with the scalpel and stepped back as a Doberman leapt out. The dog rushed straight past him to fall on the slops.

He found everything he needed in the kitchen. He opened the fridge and tossed bread, butter, cheese, cartons of milk, and wine, packets of ham; an enormous veal and ham pie, and pasties into one bag.

Opening another bag he packed an electric kettle, bread, coffee, tea, sugar, tins of corned beef and beans and soap. He enticed the dog back into the house with a lump of raw steak. Locking it in the pantry, he returned to the Land Rover. Dumping his bags in the back, he picked up the captain, slung him over his shoulder and returned to the pub. He left him, cushioned by a sleeping bag on the floor of the kitchen in front of the range. The officer would be warm and discovered first thing in the morning. It was the best he could do.

He drove the vehicle to Sennybridge and abandoned it outside the first house he came to.