Джеймс Блатч - The Final Flight

As they removed the first screw in the next lock, they heard an engine noise.

Both women froze.

A vehicle door slammed close by.

“Shit,” Samantha said.

Susie looked back along the room to the tea bar. She pushed the cabinet doors shut, but had to leave the lock hanging off.

“Follow me.” She ran in a crouch across the full length of the room, just as a door swung open on the airfield side.

The two women reached the bar as the beam of a torch swung over the surrounding desks.

They tucked themselves in. Susie was out of puff but desperately trying not to pant.

She clutched the rucksack, now full of stolen documents, and opened her mouth wide to breathe as quietly as possible.

Samantha, who was nearest the edge of the bar, leant out.

“I think he’s gone into the hangar,” she whispered.

“Nothing we can do.”

They waited.

After what seemed an age, they heard footsteps back in the room. The torchlight swung about again.

The footsteps grew louder.

The women’s hearts thudded in their chests.

The man shuffled up to the tea bar; Susie could hear his breathing.

She rolled her eyes up, without moving her head. If he stepped behind the bar, they were caught.

A hand appeared. She almost let out a whimper.

The hand settled on the tea urn, followed by a disappointed grunt, and the footsteps receded.

A minute later, they heard the vehicle start up and drive off.

Susie and Samantha rose to their feet.

The room was empty; the open cabinet hadn’t been spotted.

Megan and David appeared at the door.

“Over here,” said Susie.

They walked over, Megan with a pronounced limp.

“He didn’t see you?” asked Samantha.

“No, we were inside the Vulcan but we switched the light off in time.”

“Are you OK?” Susie asked, nodding at Megan’s foot. “Do you want me to carry your stuff?”

“I’ll be fine.” She waved a hand.

Susie glanced down. Megan held the camera.

“I think this is the quickest way out,” Samantha said, pointing at the door the security guard had used.

It had a Yale key they could open from the inside. The group spilled out onto the brightly lit apron.

They stood still for a moment, and Susie strained her ears. She could just about hear the guard’s vehicle retreating.

This time they didn’t avoid the shadows; instead they ran across the apron. After thirty seconds they found themselves back in cover on the grass.

They eventually reached the fence, adrenaline flowing, but couldn’t locate the cut wire.

Megan whimpered with pain.

“You did a good job disguising the entry point,” Susie said to David.

“It’s here somewhere…” He ran his hand along the lower part of the wire.

Behind them: the distant sound of an engine. Susie spun around to see a pair of headlights heading across the apron.

“Quickly, for Christ’s sake!” Megan shouted, no longer worried about being overheard.

“Over here!”

They ran in the shout's direction, a hundred yards further along.

Susie held back and helped Megan through, keeping an eye on the patrol vehicle. It hadn’t spotted them.

She was the last to crawl out. As they made their way around, she kept her eyes fixed on the camera while she carried the documents.

Back at the peace camp, they hurried to the wigwam.

Sampson was waiting. He emptied the contents of the rucksack on a trestle table and shone a light at the documents.

Susie caught sight of some headings.

‘Laser Function Parameters’ was one.

A laser? She whistled to herself.

She picked up a tape. “What are these?” she asked Sampson.

He shrugged and said nothing.

Megan placed the camera on the table.

“You got something?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Right. Give me five minutes.”

Sampson disappeared behind a screen into his makeshift darkroom.

Samantha took Megan off to her tent to inspect her ankle, leaving David and Susie alone.

“We need to hide the rucksacks and tools in the woods,” said David. “Sampson will take the keys.”

Susie glanced at the camera. “Would you mind doing that? I’m shattered.”

“Of course.”

He checked the rucksacks to make sure they had retrieved everything bar the tools, and headed out.

Susie figured she had a few seconds before Sampson would reappear from the screens. She pointed the torch directly at the camera, turned its back toward the light and fiddled with the catch on its base until the back flipped open.

She held it in the light for as long as she dared.

Too long.

Sampson appeared next to her.

Shit.

She closed her eyes. There was nothing she could do. Caught red-handed.

Nothing happened.

Opening her eyes, she reached forward and as softly as possible pressed the camera shut.

“Move, please,” he eventually said.

She looked to her left to find him crouching under the table, groping for something.

As he stood up, with a brown A4 size envelope marked ILFORD PHOTOGRAPHIC PAPER , he nodded toward the torch. “Switch that off, please. Go outside and make sure no-one comes in. I’m about to open the camera. Where is it?”

She handed it to him.

“Susie,” she said as he walked away. “I’m Susie.”

“Thank you, Susie,” he said without looking back.

She pulled the flaps of the wigwam closed and took her position guarding the entrance.

Megan reappeared in shorts with a neat bandage around her ankle.

“Samantha’s done a good job,” Susie said.

“It’s fine.”

Susie handed over guard duty and slipped off to her tent.

She sat cross-legged in the opening, pulling a sleeping blanket around her to keep off the overnight chill.

And waited.

Her watch said 4.10AM. They were just a few days from the summer solstice, and the sun was about to come up.

It was deathly quiet.

After a few minutes, she saw Sampson appear at the wigwam opening.

A rising inflection in Megan’s voice.

It sounded like panic.

“No! Impossible!”

Susie got up and walked over.

“Everything all right?”

Megan shot her a look like thunder.

“There’s nothing on the bloody film. It was all for nothing.”

“What do you mean, nothing on it?” Susie asked, looking wide-eyed and innocent.

Megan pulled out a packet of cigarettes and lit one. Sampson appeared through the flaps of the wigwam, his arms laden with the darkroom equipment.

“The film’s exposed,” he said, as he headed to the back of his van.

“Exposed? How did that happen?”

“It happens,” Sampson said.

“Or someone sabotaged us,” Megan said, exhaling a cloud of smoke.

Sampson didn’t look up but he made a derisory snorting sound.

“Sabotage?” Susie said.

“Leaky camera,” Sampson said. “I told you to test it.” He disappeared back into the tent to retrieve the rest of his kit.

Susie turned to Megan and spoke with as much sympathy as she could muster.

“We still have the folder. Where is it?”

The lines of Megan’s face looked deep in the grey first light. She didn’t reply, and wandered off.

When Sampson came back out, he held a bulging rucksack.

She followed him, not taking her eyes off the bag.

“Can I help with anything?”

“No.”

There was something in the way he looked at her. The first signs of suspicion, maybe?

She decided not to push her luck.

It was out of her hands, now.

As she walked back toward her tent, he drove past, the Morris van rocking as it trundled over the uneven grass. It turned onto the main road and disappeared from view on the other side of a hedge.