Джеймс Блатч - The Final Flight

“She wasn’t after the silver,” said Rob. “She’s got what she came for.”

Mary stared at him. “The box?”

He nodded.

“It was a woman?”

“I’m sure of it. I recognised her.”

“What?”

“I don’t know her name, but she’s one of them, from the camp.”

IN THE GLOOM of her tent, Susie switched on a torch and shuffled through the contents of the open box.

She had given herself a few minutes to calm down; the couple had appeared home unexpectedly early.

Luckily it hadn’t taken her long to find the box.

“I hope you’re better at flying than you are at hiding things, Flight Lieutenant May,” she whispered as she leafed through the contents.

She read the title on one of the sheets.

GUIDING LIGHT.

She flicked through quickly. Lots of numbers, some sort of handwritten calculations, and what looked like a wiring diagram.

None of it meant much to her, though there were repeated references to a Vulcan bomber.

Susie reached the end of the box and examined two cardboard sleeves containing reels of magnetic tape.

She retrieved her notebook and wrote a description of the contents.

The key thing was the TOP SECRET stamp on virtually every sheet.

Highly sensitive military documents, in the hands of a junior test pilot, apparently retrieved from the house of a recently deceased engineer, currently the subject of a security investigation.

A recently deceased engineer who had contacted the British Security Service shortly before his death.

It was getting late, and she was shattered. She piled the paperwork back into the box and covered it with some clothes.

She rested her pillow against the box and lay down.

Had May recognised her? Maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea to leave a lasting impression on him with her loose fitting top. At the time, she thought it might be useful.

She used the few minutes before she was ready for sleep to allow her mind to flow freely. It was a technique learned from an eccentric former MI6 type in training. She’d sensed the other newbie agents, including Roger, had dismissed him as a lunatic, but Susie felt the logic in his thesis that our minds hold more than we can readily access, and some things only rise to the surface when our thoughts are elsewhere.

A few minutes later, Susie reached for her pad again and made a final note.

May=Milford.

Rob rose at 7AM, feeling jaded.

He sat alone at the kitchen table, mulling a course of action he had settled on in the early hours.

Back upstairs, he pulled on an old pair of beige trousers relegated to gardening duty. He also found the scruffiest short-sleeved shirt he owned and headed out in the car.

Instead of turning left onto the road that ran up to the West Porton main gate, he turned right.

He parked the car on a verge and walked on until he came to an old five-bar gate, adorned with a large white bedsheet with a painted fallen cross CND symbol.

He entered the field and walked as confidently as he could toward the collection of tents.

Although it was early, the peace camp was alive with movement.

Slowly, the occupants of the field noticed their uninvited visitor.

Two men and two women, in a loose formation, moved toward him.

“What’s up, mate?” called the hairiest of the men.

“One of your lot broke into my house last night.”

“We’re not thieves.”

More protestors joined the initial four.

“It was one of you. I recognised her.”

“Her?” said a woman next to the hairy man.

“Yes. And she has something of mine.”

“What?” asked the woman.

“I can’t tell you.”

“Oh, right. So, you came here for our help but can’t tell us who you need to speak to and you can’t tell us what she’s supposedly got. I think you need to leave, chap.”

“Look, I’m not with the police—”

“We know who you are,” the hairy man interrupted and Rob stared at him.

“No, you don’t.”

The woman who was behind the leader stepped forward.

“You’re one of them.” She gestured toward the airfield.

A movement behind the small group caught his eye.

A slim woman emerged from an orange tent, a few hundred yards away.

“Hey!” he shouted, and started to move forward. But the largest man blocked his path and put a hand on his chest.

The slim woman stared at him but stayed put.

“Wait here,” a woman in the group said, before moving off.

Rob stood in an awkward silence as the protestors stared at him. More joined the back of the crowd.

“Nice haircut,” said someone. Others laughed.

“So, what do you do?” one of the men asked. “You a pilot?”

“You the one who gassed us?” asked another.

He looked between the heads in time to see the slim woman disappear back into her tent.

The protestor who had spoken to her walked back, shaking her head. “She doesn’t know what you’re talking about, and she doesn’t want to speak to you. It’s time for you to leave.”

“She would say that, wouldn’t she? Please let me search her tent. It’s important.”

“Search her tent?” a woman in the crowd snapped. “I hope you’re joking. If it’s important, go to the police. Now, please leave, before we call them.”

Rob took a step backwards, staring at the group. No-one budged.

He turned and walked back to the car.

MARY WAS UP and sitting at the kitchen table when he got home.

“Where have you been?”

“Futile attempt to recover the box.”

“You went to the peace camp? Are you mad?”

“What choice did I have? I lost the secrets, I have to recover them.”

He walked through the kitchen and headed upstairs to change. Mary followed.

“But it’s so risky, Rob. What if they report you? You said yourself no-one can know the box was here, so no-one can link it to you. Unless you suddenly go around asking for it back.”

He sat down on the bed; Mary stood in the doorway.

“What I don’t understand is how she knew.”

“The peace girl?”

“I mean, how on earth did she even know to come looking for it? And how did she know to come here and not Millie’s?” He looked up at Mary. “She must be watching me.”

“I don’t understand any of this, Rob. Who is she? Why does she know anything about this? You don’t think…” Mary trailed off and sat next to Rob on the bed.

“Think what?”

“You don’t think she was working with Millie?”

“Impossible.”

“There’s no chance Millie was passing something to her? To the peace protestors? Was he angry at the gas bombing? Trying to make amends?”

Rob shook his head. “No, of course not.”

“Then what’s going on?”

“I don’t know.” He dropped his head and stared at his fingernails. Black dirt, probably from the five-bar gate to the field. “I’m missing something, Mary. Something important. God, I just want to talk to him.”

Mary stroked his hair. “Why don’t you speak to someone you trust? Someone like Red?”

“I can’t. It’s too late now. I have to protect you. If anyone finds out I had the box and then lost it, then… I don’t know. It’s the end of my career for a start. Maybe prison.”

THE PADDOCK at Golygfa Fynyddig farm showed signs of its temporary role as a helicopter landing area. For the third time that day, a yellow Wessex settled into a hover twenty feet above the surface, before firmly dropping onto the worn grass.

A winchman slid open the side door. Mark Kilton emerged.