Crisis (25 page)

Bannerman laughed and said, ‘What sort of post
were you hoping for?’

‘I’ve been doing an Open University degree in
geology. I should get my BA this summer. I was
hoping for a job I could use it in but it’s no go.’

‘A pity,’ said Bannerman. ‘Maybe they’ll change
their minds if you keep on at them.’

‘
That’s what I’m hoping,’ agreed Turnbull. ‘I’ve
been doing a bit of survey work on my own in the
hope that I can impress them.’

That sounds exactly like the kind of initiative
they couldn’t ignore,’ said Bannerman, draining
his glass.

‘Can I get you another?’ asked Turnbull.

Bannerman shook his head and said that he was
having an early night. He had another hard day
ahead of him tomorrow. As he got up, Turnbull looked up at him and said, ‘‘I hope you don’t mind
me saying this Doc but I think you should be a bit
careful.’

The words chilled Bannerman. He looked at
Turnbull and saw embarrassment more than threat
in his eyes. ‘‘I don’t understand,’ he said.

The power station has local support. It provides
a lot of jobs round here. Criticism isn’t welcome, if
you get my meaning?’

‘
I do,’ replied Bannerman. Thanks for the war
ning.’

NINE

Despite the soothing effects of the whisky, Bannerman
had a restless night, plagued by thoughts of the
warning given to him by Turnbull and what he saw
as the stupidity of his actions at the power station.
He would not now be sorry to leave Achnagelloch.
Whether or not he found evidence of contamination
that day he was resolved to return to Edinburgh on
the following day. There was nothing else to be done
here for the moment. He felt sure that the only source of the rogue virus was in the experimental mice at the
university.

The rain of the previous day had cleared away
to leave a bright blue sky but looking nice was
about as far as it went. It was bitterly cold and the wind was strong enough to make the chill factor a significant problem up on the exposed sides of the
glen. The landlord had done a good job in drying
out his clothing and had also offered to provide him
with two thermos flasks, one filled with soup, the
other with sweet coffee, an offer Bannerman readily accepted.

As a matter of courtesy Bannerman telephoned
John Sproat at Inverladdie to ask for permission
to spend another day on his land. It was granted
without comment. Bannerman had half hoped for
an offer of a rough terrain vehicle so that he would not have to trek all the way up the glen again, but
this was not forthcoming. He steeled himself for
the hike.

Although numbingly cold as expected, Bannerman
found the going easier than the day before because the overnight plunge in temperature had caused the
earth to freeze hard, providing a firmer footing than
the slippery mud of yesterday. This was a positive
advantage in climbing up to the head of the glen
but on the descent over the rough, broken ground
to the shore it presented a new danger in the form
of ice filled gulleys and steep, slippery rock falls with
little or no sure footing to be had.

Bannerman was relieved to make it to the railway
line by the shore without causing himself any more injury than the bad bruising to his left knee caused
when he had slipped and gone down heavily on it
while negotiating one of the rock falls. He found
a hollow to shelter in and had the soup from the
Thermos, cupping both hands round the mug so as
to make as much use of the heat as possible. The soup was followed by a Mars bar and a cigarette.

With his back against a rock, Bannerman propped
his rucksack between his knees and got out the
Geiger counter. MacLeod had also given him a few
specimen containers which he could use to take soil
samples back if necessary. He brought these out
and stuffed them into one of his jacket pockets
where they would be more readily accessible. He had already decided that the sensible thing to do
would be to walk as far west along the shore as he
intended to monitor and then turn round and carry
out a slow sweep with the counter on the way back.
That way he would have the wind behind him on
the actual slow monitoring leg.

Making sure that all his zips and toggles were properly closed and tightened, he leaned forward,
bowed his head and set off into the wind. He had
barely gone a hundred metres when a sudden loud
noise penetrated his hood and startled him so much
that he lost his footing; he stumbled and fell to
the ground. A freight train, which he hadn’t heard
because of the wind, rolled past on the single-track
line. Its driver looked out of the cab but did not acknowledge him.

Bannerman got slowly to his feet and watched the
trucks trundle by. The train seemed to consist mainly
of fuel wagons and empty hoppers on their way up to the quarry. Bannerman silently gave thanks that
he hadn’t been walking on the line at the time. The
locomotive would have hit him before he had heard
it. He reached what he thought was a reasonable
point to start working back from. If there had been any contamination of Inverladdie from the sea he
would be bound to pick up signs of radioactivity in
the four hundred metres or so of the shore that he
planned to scan. He knelt down to take the lens cap
off the Geiger counter’s sensor.

The cap was a bit tight because the cold had made
the plastic hard and unyielding so he laid down the
meter by his side while he wrestled with it. Suddenly
the glass on the meter shattered and the whole box
jumped up into the air.
Bannerman looked at the instrument stupidly as if it had been subject to the attentions of a poltergeist.
‘What the …’ he exclaimed before realizing in a
searing flash of panic what had really happened.
A high velocity bullet had hit the Geiger counter!
Someone had shot at him!

It seemed that his capacity to coordinate his limb
movements was deserting him just when he needed
it most. His arms and legs insisted on trying to
behave independently as he half ran, half stumbled
his way up the shore and over the railway line to
tumble down into the first gulley that presented
itself. It was his misfortune that it happened to
have a puddle of water in the foot of it. There
was a layer of ice on its surface but it gave way
when he crashed down on it and he found himself
kneeling in icy water. It was deep enough to cover his
calf muscles and he felt them contract and threaten
cramp in protest as he pressed his face to the muddy
wall of his refuge.

As the seconds passed in silence, apart from the
sound of his breathing, Bannerman became aware
of the pain and discomfort afflicting him. These had been ignored as secondary considerations in his desperation to get out of sight of the gunman
but now they screamed for his attention. He had
come down heavily on his already bruised left knee
and it was throbbing. Both his legs from the knees
down had become numb with cold and his back was aching through holding himself against the
wall of the gulley at an uncomfortable angle. He
couldn’t stay like this for ever but, on the other
hand, he would be a sitting target for the gunman
if he broke cover.

Perhaps the gunman wasn’t there any more,
thought Bannerman as what seemed like an eternity
passed without any further shooting. His breathing quietened and he became aware of gulls wheeling
above him in the wind. The analogy with vultures
circling a dying man was inescapable, although he
could only have been hiding for four or five minutes.
His body was insisting that he move, so, very slowly,
he edged himself up on the frozen mud wall and looked over the lip of the gulley. He was rewarded
with a face full of grit as a bullet slammed into
the ground less than a metre in front of him. He
tumbled back down into the icy puddle and let out
a cry of anguish as his injured knee took yet another
knock.

Bannerman could hardly see through tears of
frustration and pain but he fought to get a grip
on himself and tried to consider his position as
logically as he could in the circumstances. It was
a crisis and he had to deal with it. At the time
of the first bullet he had no idea where it had
come from; the Geiger meter had just exploded
and jumped up before his eyes. The second bullet
had, however, given away the gunman’s position
because of the way the grit had flown up from the
impact point. His attacker was almost due west of
him. Big deal, thought Bannerman cynically. The
truth was that if his attacker wanted to come
down and finish him off there and then there was nothing he could do to stop him. The question was,
did he?

Bannerman looked at his watch and had cause to
rue his disdain for modern digital watches and their
shockproof, waterproof casings. His own stylish, tra
ditional watch had stopped. The blob of water under
the cover glass told him why. He swore, looked up
at the sky and tried to guess the time. Somewhere
around two in the afternoon, he reckoned. In a
couple of hours it would start to get dark. That
was his only hope of escape. But if he were to
have any chance at all of getting out under cover
of dark he would have to get himself out of the
icy puddle and get his circulation going. At the moment hypothermia and frostbite seemed a more
likely scenario than escape.

It occurred to Bannerman that his attacker might
have had that in mind. If he were to die of exposure it would look like an accident. There would be no
inconvenient bullet holes to be explained away. Was
that the reason the gunman did not appear to be
interested in advancing on him? Was his plan to keep
him pinned down until nature took its course?

Bannerman put his theory to the test by raising
himself cautiously, once more, to the rim of the
gulley. He was rewarded with a bullet a couple of
metres away. The sound of the report was no nearer
and the direction of the grit spurt had not changed;
the gunman hadn’t moved.

Survival against the elements was now the name
of the game. He had to get through the next couple
of hours as best he could and still be fit enough
for a trek back to Inverladdie in darkness. As a
start, he crawled along the bottom of the gulley
and pulled himself out of the water and up on to
a small rocky ledge where, if he kept himself bent
over, he could still be out of sight of his attacker.
With great difficulty he managed to loosen the
straps of his rucksack with numb fingers and got
out the unopened coffee Thermos. He removed the
cap slowly so that he wouldn’t spill any and poured
some steaming coffee into it. Each burning sip was like a life-giving transfusion.

As soon as he had finished, Bannerman took off
his boots and peeled off his wet socks. He put them
to one side and replaced them with his spare pair
from the rucksack, then he emptied the water out of
his boots and laced them back on. He spent the next
few minutes massaging his calves vigorously until
the circulation returned to his legs bringing with it
an agonizing pain which made him throw his head
back against the wall of the gulley and screw his face
up tight until the pain began to subside.