The Border Reiver (16 page)

Rory continued, “Jesse said he was going to send someone back for me, to take me north, the Rowell brothers are up in Wooler with hundreds of rebels. The NSO has no presence up there, it’s safe. I know what’s happening here, Claire, and it is becoming unsafe for all of us. Hexham is becoming a crucial piece of land for the NSO. There is word that the Scots are arming the rebels and the NSO are sending troops north. War is coming, Claire, and Hexham is going to be the theatre.”

“How do you know all this, Rory?”

“It’s my job, Claire; I am paid to know what is going on.”

As he said the words, there was a knock at the front door. Her beautiful dark eyes flashed towards Rory. His face drained of blood, the eyes opened wide and his head sank. He knew from Claire’s face that she wasn’t expecting anyone, and it was too soon, surely, for the rebels to be collecting him.

She gulped and pointed to the stairs without uttering a word. He stole across the room and tiptoed up the stairs taking two at a time. Claire heard the familiar click of the landing cupboard open and shut, then her attention was drawn back to the front door by a more impatient knock. She shook herself down, tried to clear her mind of the fear and called back,

“Hang on! I’m coming!”

She opened the front door to four grim looking men, each one carrying a gun. The closest, a thick-set, unshaven brute, stepped forward into her personal space putting one foot inside the door so that she was unable to shut it again as her instinct screamed out inside her.

He spoke quietly and with a cockney accent, “We know all about you, bitch.”

With that he turned the weapon and smashed the butt of the gun into Claire’s face, knocking her senseless to the floor; she could taste her own blood as she lost consciousness.

*    *    *    *    *

Start was hunched over the telephone. He had an elastic band in between thumb and forefinger and he twisted it, watching the elastic curl at the ends like a worm as it wound tight. He spoke calmly but with determination,

“Tell me, you have him?”

“Who? We have the journalist, not the farmer.”

“Well, it’s a start. What’s wrong with you, Truter, you sound off, tired or something?”

“I had an accident, broke my arm, it’s nothing.”

“Hmm, you tell me if it’s getting too much for you. We need to step up the land reform. Burn out all the landowners if necessary - we need to control food production and we need to secure Northumbria.”

“I need more men, there are more rebels daily; we took four rebels today - two had Lancashire accents and the other two were from the Midlands. This isn't a local thing, Lucas...”

“What are you doing with the prisoners?”

“We aren't taking prisoners; they're in a ditch off the road to Scotland.”

“I'll have more men with you soon; you contain the rebels and get those fucking farms cleared of their occupants. Our grip on power is dependent on what happens in the borderlands.”

Start put the telephone down without another word and turned to the men who sat across from him on the other side of his desk.

The first was a man in his mid-forties with dark, cropped hair, pale skin and a severe expression. His name was Quentin Harris, Brigadier Quentin Harris, and he was the army's instrument of attrition. No one else was able to reduce enemy numbers like soldiers under Brigadier Harris's command. No matter what the odds or the numbers, Harris's armies seemed to grind an enemy to dust like a glacier over bedrock. The second man was Harris's boss, General Anthony Beaston. A cold, merciless man, Beaston was small, wiry, with not an ounce of fat on his ageing body or his bony face. His mannerisms were super-accelerated and he blinked wildly, but he knew the art of war and he understood the nature of stealing another man's hope.

“You two will leave tonight; meet your troops at Aldershot Garrison and get up to the borders. You can station yourselves at Albemarle and the mission is simple: secure Northumberland and Cumbria under NSO control and redistribute every inch of farmland to government collectives.”

“We know the mission, Mr Start, and we have no doubt about the outcome, but we need to know two things,” Beaston spoke the King’s English, mostly through his nose. His face twitched and rolled as he spoke, but his eyes remained unnervingly trained on Start.

“I'm listening...” said Start.

“What are your views with regards the local population and should the instance arise that we are facing Scottish troops do we open fire on them?”

“The answer to both questions is do whatever you see fit to secure that region.”

*    *    *    *    *

When she came to, the blood Claire tasted was like iron, metallic in her mouth, and it was now caked around her lips. The swelling felt heavy on the side of her face. Disfigured and in pain she had no strength for the situation she was in. With eyes open wide she could see nothing but pitch black; her mind raced, was she blind or in a room with no light whatsoever? She opened her mouth to speak, but the dull ache exploded into excruciating shards of pain emanating from her jaw travelling through her skull and down her spine. She understood immediately that her jaw was broken. The pain made her whimper, which was answered from within the darkness by a shuffling sound and a hollow murmur,

“I’m sorry Claire…I – I...” Rory's voice drifted off; there was nothing to say.

She didn’t answer. She was prone in the darkness. Her head lolling. Her backside was numb on the cold concrete. Her back against the wall paralysed by fear and one thought travelling through her head: she would rather be dead than face the door to that room opening.

The fire crackled as the sun rose high and its rays began to find their way directly into the little valley. The heat from both sun and fire bathed Nat’s face; he had felt the cold the night before so the warmth was a welcome luxury.  A blackbird had joined their party and danced around the camp in search of an easy meal. The constant babble of the stream seemed louder, more overpowering this morning. He was not in a good mood.

He gazed over at his daughter. Amber was nestled with her back against the grassy bank, totally at ease in the rough camp; she was intently sharpening her hunting knife. In the early grey light of the day, they had been cleaning all the weapons they had amassed.

They had heard the crack of Stuart’s rifle sound off four or five times so they knew they were eating meat that morning. Father and daughter did not speak while they worked, neither were good communicators. He knew from her eyes she had questions - if he was honest with himself he could work out what the questions would be. But she didn’t know how to ask, and he could not bring himself to talk about the subject.

So, as her vivid green eyes connected searchingly with his, piercing the dull air, his tanned hide would crease across his brow. The best he could muster was a thoughtful, reassuring smile before his head, with a slight shake of that white mane, moved back to concentrate on the job in hand. The emotion was all too raw for both, but it was all the communication Amber needed, and the tears burst the banks of her eyes and rolled silently down her cheeks as she nodded to the old man. She wiped them away with the rough, dirty sleeve of her wax jacket and swept her tight ringlets away from her face. Looking back at her knife, she sharpened it with a renewed ferocity.

He watched the pot bubbling on the fire. The flames danced around it as it brewed, the water churning over and over, tossing the tea bags around as it boiled. As he watched, the earth seemingly hiccupped and the pan of water fell on its side in the flames.

Nat looked up into the trees, as the roosting crows flew from their perches and pheasants’ warbled clucks filled the air as they too flew in fright. The forest had been jolted to life by some sort of seismic wave. Then came the rumble of a distant explosion; Nat looked at Amber and without a word they leapt to their feet and started running to the nearest vantage point - the edge of the forest.

They moved quickly through the thick dewy undergrowth, the smell of the fresh morning woodland was rich in peat and leaves. Stuart came bounding out of the trees with four rabbits over his shoulder, shouting, “what the hell was that!” They ran together, three hunters like sprinters on a track, they moved with ease and fluidity through the barrage of foliage and hazards the forest threw at them.

The three reached the edge of the trees and, as they walked out into the wide open expanse of the valley, they looked up to the west. There in the distance, where they were used to seeing the ugly chimneys of the huge chipboard factory, they saw a huge thick black mushroom cloud billowing above the factory which was engulfed in flames. The huge piles of wood chip were now burning too; an irrepressible inferno overwhelmed the site.

Nat’s eyes surveyed the valley he was so used to admiring. He had never been bored or unmoved by its beauty and ever changing detail. Now it was un-recognisable: the drama was no longer natural. Man had placed his boot on the heart of his valley and the scene he viewed now was like Armageddon. To the east, black smoke continued to drift upwards from the ashes of the paper factory, which had been burning for days. In front of them stood the ruin of his home, burnt to the ground with a collection of vehicles littered on the drive and now to the west this latest devastation.

He looked across at his friend, “That is no accident.”

“It looks like war is here, my friend.”

“Aye, I thought the paper factory was kids or even the NSO, but it must be rebels…I can see it now…take out the employment centres and the NSO will soon lose support if they can’t provide people with work.”

“Let’s go into town and see if we can make contact with the rebels, it may be we can help one another…” said Stuart.

“Agreed,” called Amber with enthusiasm.

After brief contemplation, Nat nodded, and the three started walking down the hill. Each a few yards apart and in a line, half force of habit, half to spread themselves as a target, just in case.

By the house, there was an ever-increasing choice of cars. Stuart called out “keys in this one,” Nat nodded and held up the carcasses of the rabbits Stuart had passed to him. He turned towards the barn.

No sooner had he stepped into the darkness of the barn than he knew. He smelled the tea and the sweet oats of porridge or flapjack. He didn’t flinch with the realisation; he carried on as though it were normal, moving between the farm equipment. It was a route he had trodden a thousand times before to where the rafters of the mezzanine offered him the hooks to hang the kill. He tied the animals from their hind legs to the two thick rusted meat hooks that he presumed had hung meat for centuries.

He knew the feeling of being watched; and, it wasn’t Esme from beyond the grave. It was the plastic pop in the trees he’d heard the other night; the shots which had killed the two Regime troops who were themselves about to take his own life; the smell of tea and oats in the air. ‘Ghosts don’t need night sights and they certainly don’t need breakfast,’ he thought to himself as he went back to join the others. The only question lingering in his mind was why the ghost had saved his life.

*    *    *    *    *

The spectre had enjoyed the relative lap of luxury the barn had offered. He had even felt comfortable enough to make himself a brew and eat his beloved flapjack there right where he had slept. As his teeth plunged into the rich oats, the barn had shaken under the seismic waves of the explosion then the boom had hit. He jumped up knocking his brew over in the process; he cursed himself as this was a trail and the reason why he should have left the barn before eating.

He looked out of the cracks in the barn’s timber cladding and he could see the inferno that was the chipboard factory. He knew the farmer would be stirred by the kerfuffle so he eked his view around in a small slit he had found, his cheek pressed hard against the dusty wood and he waited. Like clockwork, his subject appeared at the edge of the wood. As he watched them begin walking down the hill, his mind found its gear and he turned to his predetermined plan.

The tea was now spilt, so he stood his cup on the floor and looked up at the metal frames hung from the roof on which the farmer had stored planks of wood. The ghost then reached up and grabbed the end of the wooden planks and athletically he kicked his legs up and over his head and onto the planks where he lay on his front. He then drew his handgun and quietly screwed the silencer onto it and pressed it to the plank next to his head. He lined up the shot so that should someone discover his cup and walk over to pick it up, his bullet would hit his target. He controlled his breathing and waited. Watching, as he always did.

It was a few minutes before he heard the footsteps at the entrance to the barn. There was no pause as the man weaved his way through the machinery, he hung rabbits almost directly below and then left without inkling there was someone else in the barn. The dark figure left in the barn, silenced weapon at the ready, could not understand. He had highly overestimated the man he was watching: the old farmer had been oblivious to his presence.

*    *    *    *    *

Nat squeezed into the cramped passenger side of a fifteen-year-old Japanese sports car. His knees pulled up tight to his chest, he looked across at Stuart as if to say ‘great choice!’

Stuart smiled, turned the key and gunned the accelerator, and they raced down the long drive. As they descended the hill, Nat surveyed his livestock grazing either side of the driveway. The numbers looked right and they all looked healthy at a glance. As they came to the end of his land, the little car vibrated violently over the cattle grid and they sped out into the country road.

The thick black smoke rose in plumes up into the vast sky and drifted high along the valley creating a menacing darkness to the day. Stuart drove fast; the little car responded well, flying over the undulations of the military road with Hadrian’s Wall snaking along the wild country to their right. Every drop and dip in the road sent Amber’s stomach through her mouth, she felt sick but knew better than to mention it: any mention of slowing the car to Stuart would have the opposite effect. So she sucked it up and concentrated on the horizon.

It was no time before they all lurched to the right absorbing no insignificant g-force as the little car took a sharp turn without losing speed onto the narrow road leading into Oakwood. Nat’s hand grabbed the dashboard; Amber knew the driving was making her father nervous too, but he would never give his friend the pleasure of asking him to slow down.

They were about two hundred yards out from Rowell’s driveway where Nat had seen the articulated truck barricading the entrance before. Now there was the familiar blue bus belonging to a local bus company parked at the end of the drive. The bus had rudimentary grills attached to the windows and metal skirts over the wheel arches. They knew this must be NSO. Stuart slowed the car aggressively, Nat’s arm took the strain against the dashboard and Amber pressed tight against her taut seat belt. He cruised past the end of the drive at about ten miles an hour giving them all a chance to assess the situation.

Rowell’s trailer had been rammed out of the way by a JCB digger, both vehicles now sat dormant on the grass to the side of the drive. In the distance they could see ten to twenty men swarming around the farmhouse which had been set on fire - smoke was billowing out of the first floor. The men around the house were armed and were, on the whole merely watching the blaze unfold. As the view of the house was eclipsed by the NSO bus, three heavily armed men stood in front of it. Their stares were long and hard, their three heads following the car in unison as it slowly passed them by. Their weapons hung across their chests. Nat noted that the beaten up black market weapons had gone; they were carrying shiny new semi-automatic assault rifles. The NSO were getting organised.

Stuart turned to Nat. “Do we need to go see the factory?” he asked.

“No, turn around down here. Amber, you stay put. Make sure the car is side-on to them, Stuart.”

Stuart drifted into the side of the road and then spun the wheel to full lock and the car turned easily. Heading back towards Rowell’s farm, they drifted slowly into the entrance. Nat lowered his window as they pulled into the driveway. He leaned his head out of the window as if to ask what was going on. Two of the guards began walking towards them waving them on and shouting ‘move away’. Nat pretended he couldn’t hear; he gripped the handgun tight as he watched the men approach. He watched the distance decrease with every step making the target larger, the fresh air from the open window doused his face, the adrenaline making the moments feel like slow motion. Like so much of his life recently, these moments of reality were so surreal, no time for thought processes or questions, just actions. Simple, decisive, deadly actions.

The little car was still rolling slightly. Nat could hear the purr of the engine and the crunch of gravel under the tyres, there was a slight squeak of the breaks as the car pulled to a stop. The man leading the advance raised his gun pointing it at the car as he approached; he was ten feet from the vehicle at this point. Nat was about to raise his weapon against the man when he noticed a wave of recognition. A lightening in the face of realisation, as the guy on the right, grasped the fact that he was face to face with the ‘killer from the hills’.

The man who recognised Nat did not have a killer’s instinct: rather than pointing his gun at the car and squeezing the trigger he lurched toward his comrade, grabbing his arm to warn him of the danger. In that instant of distraction, the killer inside Nat took his chance. He raised his handgun out of the open window, firing two rounds into the nearby body mass of the lead guard. As he fell onto his backside, looking at Nat stunned by the brutal reality, the third man came directly into Nat’s angle of fire and he squeezed the trigger again twice.

This time, he missed with the first shot but hit the man in the cheek bone with the second, the small round ripped through his skull. The man was dead before his head bounced on the gravel with a dull crunch. The guard on the right was left now, he was paralysed with fear trying to click the safety off his weapon but his thumb couldn’t flick the switch. Nat trained his gun on the nameless man and shot him in the chest. He fell backwards until he was sitting slumped on the drive, staring blankly at the car. As the three stepped out of the car, the life drifted from the third man, his lurid figure remained hunched in a sitting position as the last rakish breath passed his blood-soaked lips.

Nat marched over to the body and kicked it to the ground with a fleeting glance over to Amber, as though a dead body lying down was more palatable than one in a sitting position. He bent down and picked up an assault rifle and handed it to Amber. Stuart had grabbed one for himself and Nat took the third.

He told Amber to stay by the car and cover their rear, and Nat opened fire on the bus, peppering the wheels and engine compartment with bullets. Stuart had positioned himself at the gates to the house and was taking single shots at the NSO men at the house. They began falling to the ground - one, two, three were down - when the confusion set in.