(1995) By Any Name (31 page)

Chaloner stepped in behind them and opened another door. Prodding them in at gunpoint, he acknowledged two clerks who sat, stunned by their sudden appearance.

‘I need transport and a driver,’ Chaloner pulled off his mask.

‘Yes, Captain Chaloner. Right away, sir. Is that who I think it is?’ the clerk stared at Elizabeth and John’s masked faces.

‘Radio out to the patrols and order them in. Tell them the search has been called off, there’s no need to give them a reason.’

‘Yes, sir.’

The second clerk went to the door. ‘I’ll get a driver, sir. They’re in the dining room.’

‘I need two, both armed. And not a word about this prisoner to anyone,’ Chaloner warned.

‘Not even advance warning to Stirling Lines, sir?’

the clerk with the radio asked.

‘Especially Stirling Lines. If word of this gets out before I’m ready to release the information, I’ll see both of you court-martialled.’

‘Yes, sir,’ they chimed.

‘Send the drivers to the car park. I’ll wait for them there.’ Chaloner jerked his head towards the door and West and Elizabeth walked outside.

Whether the mist was beginning to lift, or whether it was because they were lower down the mountain, they could see across the car park.

‘You promised we’d drop Elizabeth in the police station in Brecon, and you’d wait there for the reporters to arrive after you telephoned the media.’

‘I did.’ Chaloner swung the pack from his back and extracted a knife and a rope.

‘You’re not going to tie him up,’ Elizabeth protested.

‘Less painfully that he did me last night.’

‘It’s all right, Elizabeth.’ John held out his hands.

Propping the gun against his leg Chaloner fashioned a slip knot and pulled it over West’s wrists.

Drawing it tight he proceeded to lash them together.

When he finished he looked at Elizabeth. She’d pulled down the hood of her suit and removed her ski mask.

Her face was flushed, her hair tousled, her figure hidden beneath layers of clothing, yet she looked beautiful. He could understand why West, whoever he was, felt duty bound to protect her. He would have felt the same way himself if he’d been fortunate enough to have had her all to himself for three days – and nights.

‘Clerk said you want drivers, sir?’ Two men walked out of the Storey Arms and joined them.

‘That’s correct. I’ll need your gun, corporal.’

‘My gun, sir?’ the corporal asked in surprise, looking at the machine gun Chaloner was holding and the Browning in his holster.

‘These are the prisoner’s weapons. He could have interfered with them. You,’ he nodded to the relief driver. ‘Keep your rifle primed and aimed at the prisoner. You and I will sit in the back either side of the prisoner. Dr Santer, you will sit alongside the driver.’ Taking the driver’s rifle, Chaloner pointed it at West who climbed into the back seat. ‘Swing your legs out.’ Chaloner lashed West’s ankles together.

‘Shouldn’t you tie me too?’ Elizabeth demanded caustically.

‘Is it necessary?’ Chaloner asked her coolly.

‘I have no intention of trying to escape, if that’s what you’re implying.’

Chaloner stepped back so the relief driver could climb in alongside West. Elizabeth sat beside the driver, Chaloner waited until she had fastened her seat belt before entering the vehicle.

‘HQ, sir?’ the driver started the engine.

‘Stirling Lines via Brecon,’ West broke in forcefully.

‘Sir?’ The driver turned to Chaloner.

‘Take the Brecon road, corporal.’

Chaloner sat back, the rifle he had appropriated from the corporal aimed at West’s ribs. He’d captured his man. After the disaster of the night before, his reputation would be restored with the Regiment.

Nothing could possibly go wrong – not now.

Elizabeth sat, watching the road as intently as if she, not the corporal was driving. She knew that if she or John made one wrong move Chaloner wouldn’t hesitate to fire. She thought through every detail of the past few days, searching frantically for any scrap of information that would help prove John’s innocence.

The radio crackled and the driver’s call sign echoed over the airwaves.

‘Stirling Lines?’ Chaloner was instantly on the alert.

‘Probably Captain Clutson, sir. I’m due to pick him up in Tal-y-bont in an hour. Storey Arms would have radioed to tell him to expect a replacement; he probably wants to find out why I’m not available.’

‘Ignore him,’ Chaloner ordered.

‘You will leave Elizabeth in Brecon?’ West checked.

‘No!’ Elizabeth countered. ‘You can’t take John anywhere without me. He could regress at any moment.’

‘We can look after him,’ Chaloner assured her wryly.

‘It’s not your safety that concerns me, captain, but my patient’s. Besides I’m the only witness who can corroborate his story. There’s no one else who can vouch that the paramedic and the captain in the office in Brecon were alive when he left them.’

Chaloner looked at West sitting detached and enigmatic, the ski mask still covering his face. ‘She has a point.’

‘It’s too much of a risk to take her into Stirling Lines,’ West said flatly.

‘What do you think could possibly happen to her in HQ?’ Chaloner asked.

‘The same thing that happened to the guards outside my door in the hospital, the paramedic and the hospital consultant.’

‘You think someone in HQ is a murderer?’

Chaloner snorted derisively.

‘Several people I have come into contact with have wound up dead shortly after I left them, and most of the people following me are army.’ West looked Chaloner steadily in the eye. ‘It could happen to you, captain.’

‘No it couldn’t, because you’re disarmed and immobile.’

‘I assure you I didn’t kill them.’

Something in John’s calm denial struck a chord.

‘All right, supposing – just supposing for argument’s sake you didn’t kill them. You can’t really believe those people were killed simply because they came into contact with you?’

‘If they were, it’s obvious that as Elizabeth has spent more time with me than anyone else, she is at risk.’

‘If all those men are dead because you talked to them, you must have some idea why they were murdered?’

‘None.’

‘Amnesia or not… ’

‘I assure you John’s condition is real,’ Elizabeth interrupted.

Chaloner decided to feed West a few crumbs of information and monitor his reaction. ‘HQ has connected your appearance with the disarmament conference.’

‘You have proof that I’m a terrorist?’

‘We know an experienced assassin has been given a brief to kill delegates in an attempt to sabotage the conference.’

‘By which organisation?’

‘Testing my knowledge, West? Chaloner asked.

‘Let’s just say certain Middle East interests.’

Elizabeth suddenly found it difficult to breathe. All she could think of was John’s command of Arabic.

‘So, are you working for Islamic fundamentalists?’

Chaloner continued conversationally.

‘The conference is in London, isn’t it? Where exactly is it being held?’

‘I have no idea,’ Chaloner answered warily.

‘Neither have I, and if I’d been given a brief to wreck it, I doubt that I would have left London to come haring up to this wilderness.’

‘Unless the briefing evaporated along with your memory.’

‘You can’t have it both ways, either I have lost my memory or I haven’t.’ John looked through the window and saw that they were approaching the roundabout on the outskirts of Brecon. ‘Order the driver to the police station.’

‘Leave me behind and I’ll tell the police and the press that it was the army who killed Dave and that paramedic.’

‘They won’t believe you,’ Chaloner dismissed.

‘Aside from John I’m the only witness, and unlike him I’m a professional with a reputation for honesty and integrity.’

Chaloner didn’t need any more persuading. He knew the last thing Heddingham, HQ and the government wanted was adverse publicity. ‘Stirling Lines,’ he briefed the driver.

‘No!’ West shouted. ‘You gave me your word… ’

‘She’ll be safer in HQ,’ Chaloner justified.

‘The storming of the house and offices in Brecon was manned by army personnel, and you tell me your friend wound up dead.’

‘I’ll personally guarantee her safety.’

‘Who’s going to guarantee yours, Captain Chaloner?’

Chaloner didn’t answer. He asked for the radio receiver. After checking with the command centre in the Storey Arms that the call signal for the patrols he’d sent out hadn’t changed in the last few hours, he began transmitting, first to Stirling Lines then to his patrols.

‘Captain Chaloner wants all the patrols to head back directly to Stirling Lines and not linger in the Storey Arms, sir.’

Sergeant Price turned to the radio operator in his group. ‘Then he must be organizing a celebration party.’

‘You think he’s got him, sir.’

‘Don’t you?’

The radio operator smiled. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘We have our orders, private.’

‘Sir.’

Price checked their position on the map. ‘Radio back to command, tell them to arrange for transport to pick us up at the Mountain Centre and to check that the other groups RV at the nearest road points. If the captain wants us there as quickly as possible, I suggest we do all we can to accommodate his wishes.’

John looked past Elizabeth through the window, and watched the darkened countryside speed past. He could make out the blue-grey shadows of trees, hedgerows and farm buildings that he thought he recognized. Houses with gleaming windows that hinted at cosy, warm living rooms. Comfortable Victorian and Edwardian villas that he knew he’d once walked past. He was pinning not only his own, but Elizabeth’s life on being recognized in Stirling Lines. But what if no one did? What if he and Elizabeth were taken on a long walk down a corridor that ended with a bullet in the back of both their heads?

As though she’d read his thoughts, Elizabeth turned and squeezed his roped hands.

‘No touching the prisoner,’ Chaloner warned.

‘You’ve broken your word once, Chaloner,’ West said fiercely when the Land Rover slowed to turn into the lane that led to Stirling Lines. ‘Don’t do it again.

Promise me, whatever happens you won’t leave Elizabeth for an instant. Not until she’s safely in the hands of the press or police?’

‘There’s no need… ’

‘Please, you owe me that much for breaking your word. Don’t leave her for an instant?’

‘I promise,’ Chaloner reassured.

The driver slowed to a halt at a barrier set before the gates. He pressed the button that activated the window but the soldier on sentry duty went to the back of the vehicle.

‘Captain Chaloner?’

John lifted his hands and wrenched back his hood and ski mask. It wasn’t easy with his wrists lashed together, but now he was finally in Stirling Lines he intended to expose his face to as many people as possible. He knew they would have all seen his photographs, but he still hoped his physical presence would spark someone’s memory.

‘Your patrols have all radioed in, sir. They’re on their way. I’ve had orders from Major Simmonds to check your transport and ensure that your prisoner is immobilized and disarmed. Once that’s done, you’re to progress directly to Command Cell, sir.’

Chaloner opened the door and climbed out of the vehicle, still keeping his gun trained on West. ‘Out,’

he commanded.

John swung his hobbled ankles through the door.

Slipping his hand through the cords on West’s wrists, Chaloner hauled him to his feet. ‘The prisoner is immobilized and disarmed, sergeant. You may check the vehicle.’

The sergeant inspected the inside of the cab, patted West’s camouflage suit and directed the captain to a waiting jeep. ‘You’re free to proceed to company offices, sir. There’s an escort waiting at the door.’

Chaloner pushed John towards the jeep. Elizabeth followed. The driver waited until they climbed in before heading for the building and the escort squad.

‘Remember, you gave your word, Chaloner,’ West reminded when Chaloner heaved him out of the jeep.

‘I remember.’ Chaloner cut the bonds on John’s ankles before pushing him ahead. Elizabeth walked alongside John. The escort closed ranks around them.

John was aware, not only of Chaloner’s gun but the weapons of the twenty men in the squad. He felt acutely vulnerable. One sweating finger slipping on a trigger could blow him and Elizabeth out of this life.

A simple, but convenient “accident” that could be explained away as the nervous reaction of a soldier to an attempted escape.

The door in the single storey building in front of them opened. Chaloner prodded John forward with his machine gun. They walked down a central corridor. A door was open at the far end. John caught a glimpse of a room furnished with steel grey desks and filing cabinets. Apart from the furniture, everything was blinding white. The vinyl tiles on the floor, the walls, the ceiling with its powerful, recessed lighting.

A man moved into the doorway.

‘Come in, John West. It is good to see you again. It looks as though we’re going to have that interview after all.’ Major Simmonds stepped back as West entered the room. ‘Dr Santer,’ the major greeted her politely.

‘Major Simmonds.’ She looked across the room and saw the lieutenant-colonel who had visited West in the hospital, standing next to a tall, painfully thin man at the head of a conference table.

‘Please, come and sit down, West.’ Heddingham could have been welcoming a VIP visitor rather than a prisoner. ‘Dr Santer, it is good to see you. I’m afraid we feared the worst. Are you well?’

‘Perfectly, thank you.’ She fought off an attack of giddiness at the change in temperature. The room was claustrophobically, tropically hot.

‘Captain Chaloner, perhaps you would be kind enough to escort Dr Santer to more comfortable quarters?’

‘No!’ Elizabeth’s reply was unequivocal. ‘I haven’t travelled this far with John to abandon him now.’

‘You must be exhausted, Dr Santer,’ the major began patiently.

‘No, I am not.’ She tried to ignore the unnatural warmth that threatened to sap what little energy remained to her after the stiff climb up and down the mountain, and the cold ride back to HQ.