INCARNATION (57 page)

David and Nabila found themselves on a gently sloping bank of sand leading into a vast unlit interior. Nabila threw her pack down and rummaged inside for a torch. With its help, she surveyed the area around the opening, while David hunted frantically for his pistol.

‘Leave that for now, David. We’ve got to get out of his line of fire.’

They scrambled to one side of the opening, putting themselves out of reach of the bullets that still poured into the building.

Suddenly, the firing stopped. For a few seconds, all that could be heard was the drumming of the rotors, then there was a sound of grinding and screeching. The pilot, intent on firing into the opening, had let himself get too close to the wall.

There was an enormous crash, followed by an explosion. David rushed to the entrance to see the helicopter fall apart, its rotors spinning out of control then breaking up in what seemed like slow motion. The body of the helicopter seemed to crumple, then crashed to the ground in a ball of fire that gave out an intense heat.

An ominous silence followed.

'Thank God for that,’ said David, turning to Nabila, who was now beside him, trying to make sense of the wreckage.

‘Shhhh,’ she said.

‘What’s … ?’

She put out a hand to silence him. Then he heard it too. A deep groaning, then a crunching sound.

‘Get back from the doorway for God’s sake, David!’

Nabila ran forward and grabbed his arm, pulling him back from the entrance. Moments later, there came a complicated sound made up of creaks, groans, and heavy bangs. The sound picked up volume quickly, then there followed a ghastly grating sound. They both looked up to see a great stone slab rush from its moorings, slipping downwards along well-chiselled grooves to slam with an almighty crash on to the threshold. It filled the opening precisely, as it had been intended to do all those years ago when it was first cut and set in its high place.

Western Region Military Installation 14 (Chaofe Ling) [Coordinates classified] 
Level 3, 

Guojia Anchuanbu offices, Security Classification: Absolute

‘I
’m sorry to disturb you, sir, but I thought you should see this right away.’

‘Yes, what is it, Jia?’ snapped the colonel.

Chang Zhangyi was busier than usual. The test had gone satisfactorily, and the Iraqis were impatient to get the warheads on board the plane that was waiting at Lop Nor. That wasn’t a problem in itself: the warheads and other components could easily be moved down the long tunnel that had been built deep beneath the desert in order to allow building machinery and vehicles unseen access to the Chaofe Ling site. But Chang Zhangyi was worried about keeping the fate of Kashgar secret long enough to get the bombs out of the country. That was taking up all his time at the moment.

His aide, Jia Hsiujia, gingerly placed a sheet of flimsy paper on the colonel’s desk. The old man had been getting increasingly tetchy, and Jia had had his head bitten off more times in the past week than he cared to remember.

Chang Zhangyi grabbed the flimsy and threw it off his desk.

‘I want you to tell me!’ he nagged. ‘That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it? I don’t have time to read this infernal rubbish you keep giving me.’

In the background, the air conditioning chuntered gently away, transforming the impossible atmosphere forty feet beneath a blistering desert into something cool and bearable. Further down, it worked a lot less efficiently. But up here in Chang Zhangyi’s office it had never broken down. In spite of prominent notices to the contrary, the colonel insisted on smoking whenever possible, which meant most of the time in this, his private sanctuary. In acknowledgement of that fact, he slipped a long cigarette from a half-empty pack of Zhonghuas on his desk and lit up.

‘A report has just come through that one of the helicopters involved in the desert search has had some son of accident.’

‘A serious one?’

‘We don’t yet know, sir. Possibly. All we know is that he was making an urgent radio report when contact was cut off.’

'I hardly see why you’re disturbing me with this. Accidents like that happen in the desert. Sand gets into a vent ...’

‘Yes, sir. If he resumes contact, no doubt we’ll find oul But ... there is the matter of the actual radio message.

Chang Zhangyi’s eyes lit up. He sensed something peeping round the shadows.

‘I take it you have the wording.’

‘Yes, sir. On the … on the sheet I gave you.’

‘I can’t be bothered with that. Just give me a summary.’

‘Well, he says he made visual contact with a man and a woman, and chased them into some sort of opening that ended in a cave. He opened fire on them, but found it hard to keep them in his sights. The last thing he transmitted was: “I’m going in closer, see if I can flush them out.” Then we get some smashing sounds, him shouting ...'

‘Shouting what?’

Jia shook his head.

‘We listened for several minutes. It wasn’t intelligible.’

‘And then?’

‘The radio goes dead. They’ve been trying to raise him since then, but either his set is switched off or it’s been smashed.’

‘Was the pilot dependable?’

‘Dependable?’ Jia looked shocked, though he’d never have said so. ‘Sir, the air crew selected for this mission were our top people.’

‘Yes, but even top people make mistakes.’

Chang Zhangyi got up from his chair. He was smoking furiously, excited at the thought of being so close to Laing at last.

‘Did he give coordinates?’

‘There were none on the message, sir. But we do know the precise sector he was working through when this accident happened. If there’s been a crash, we should be able to locate it quite quickly. The other crews have been ordered into that sector already.’

“Let’s hope the idiots don’t start crashing into one another. Tell them to pull out as many as possible and leave three or four to carry out the search. A helicopter can’t be that hard to find. And order the pilots not to waste time trying to rescue their friend. They’re to spread out and go on looking for our fugitives. They can’t have got far. We’ll launch a full-scale search in the morning.’

He waved a hand to dismiss Jia, then summoned him back.

‘Jia, you said something about a cave.’

'The pilot mentioned it, sir.’

‘Surely he was mistaken. There aren’t any caves in the desert.’

‘There are several mountain ranges. The Mazartagh, the Hamitagh.'

‘They’re all much too far south. I’m sure there’s nothing in the northern region.’

‘Sir, he said something about the cave being in a cliff.'

‘That’s just as unlikely. When did this happen?’

‘Sunset, sir. It was almost totally dark when the helicopter crashed.’

‘Then he could easily have been mistaken about what he saw.’

‘I’m sure he was, sir.’

‘All right, Jia, you’ve wasted enough of my time. Let me know the moment there’s anything further to report. I want a helicopter and a sober pilot to stand by in case I need to fly out there.’

Jia saluted and went out, looking for a buggy to take him back to the central communications room. Set on auto, the almost silent buggies patrolled the rubber-lined corridors of the complex. You could almost set your watch by them.

Inside his office, Chang Zhangyi finished his Zhonghua and stubbed it out in a large ashtray littered with the corpses of its many predecessors. He drew another from the box and lit it. A thin twist of smoke made its way up to the ceiling, wreathing the white-and-red smoke alarm which Chang Zhangyi had long ago disabled.

He opened a drawer and pulled out a large map. Unfolding it as far as possible, he let it flop back over the desk.

He glanced at it for a few minutes, straightening it here, folding it there, until he was satisfied.

He picked up the phone and keyed in a short number.

‘Helicopter control? Chang Zhangyi. I believe you’ve had an accident ... So I understand ... Now, do you have details of the sector covered by that particular craft? ... I see ...’

He wrote a series of numbers on the margin of his map, then some letters.

‘No, I need nothing else. But let me know the moment further information comes in.’

He hung up almost absent-mindedly. All his attention was fixed on the map. It took him very little time to locate the crash sector and to mark it out in bright red ink. He had never imagined that Laing could make it this far. It made him all the more formidable an adversary.

‘Well done,’ he whispered. ‘You very nearly made it. What a pity it has to end this way.’

He refolded the map and put it in its drawer. He paused to extinguish his cigarette, then got to his feet. For a moment, he felt a touch of disappointment at having outwitted Laing and his girlfriend. But there would be compensations, he reassured himself - untold compensations.

S
he was feeling bloody annoyed with Anthony, and she’d said so several times, in precisely those terms. Packing her back to London like that, and staying on up there just so he could help wean the precious Maddie off her drugs, as he put it. It was infernal cheek on both their parts.

To make things worse, she’d returned home to find her car as dead as a dodo, God alone knew why. While his, of course, was up there in the land of the fucking heather, enjoying the scenery. Bloody, bloody cheek.

She’d rung him straight away, vented her feelings, and demanded he find her something at once.

‘I don’t have anything, dearest. Why don’t you just ring Hertz or one of those people? You only need something to tide you over. A little runabout.’

‘I don’t want a fucking Ford Sierra. I need a car, Anthony, a real car. Something with a bit of spunk in it. I’ve got to drive Laurence to the Lakes and back. We’re entertaining major clients at the Sharrow Bay. We’ve taken over the hotel. I can’t turn up at the Sharrow Bay in a Vauxhall, can I?’

‘Well … do you have to drive?’

‘That journey’s hell by train, and it’s even worse since privatization. Pooley Bridge is miles from anywhere, you should know that. It’s why people go there. And there’s that narrow road along the lake. Come on, now, you must have something in that bloody pool of yours.’

‘Oh, all right. I’ll have something sent round. But it’s strictly irregular. You do know that?’

'I’ll feed it some All Bran, dear - that should clear it up. How’s the kid, by the way?’

‘Your daughter? Wondered when you’d ask. She’s fine. Rather better on cocaine than she was on the stuff Rose was giving her. At the moment she’s a bit shaken by what happened up here. She’d grown quite fond of our young thug. She needs to take it easy. I’ll stay here with her as long as I can. We’ve got plenty of provisions, if you like sausages and bacon and baked beans. And I’m treating myself to an introductory course in something called line dancing.’

‘It sounds perfectly vile. You’ll have to wear a stetson and high heels. Not your sort of thing at all. Now, when should I ring for the car?’

‘No need, I’ll have someone drive it round. Just give them a couple of hours. And, darling …’

‘Mmmm?’

‘Lighten up, do. life can be great fun if you put your mind to it. Buy some records to take to the Sharrow Bay. Patsy Cline - that should loosen you up. Not to mention the staff.’

‘Tony, do you love me?’

‘Of course I do, why on earth should you ask?’

‘No, I mean, really love me. You wouldn’t just use me, would you?’

‘Of course not. Darling, what is all this about?’

‘Promise you won’t leave me down here on my own much longer. I just have such a bad feeling about things.’

1 promise, really I do. Once Maddie’s on the mend.’

‘Can’t I come up to visit?’

‘Absolutely not. For both your sakes. But once this is over, we’ll all go on a big holiday together. A cruise, maybe. Something worthwhile. Greece, possibly, with Swan Hellenic. We could have lectures on line dancing on Knossos.’

‘Very droll. I’d sooner Disneyworld. Now, be sure it’s a decent motor, dear. A Jag if they have one.’

'I’ll do my best.’

And he did.

Lizzie enjoyed driving with automatic transmission. The racing green Jaguar responded to her touch like a dream, much to Laurence’s alarm. He was a cautious driver who thought the speed limit far too high, and seldom drove above third gear.

They’d reached Pooley Bridge two hours early. Inordinately pleased with herself - she hadn’t had a drink since just before leaving - Lizzie had insisted on taking her brother into Windermere to do some sightseeing before they drove back to the hotel. She thought she’d buy Laurence one of those sheep made from wool and wood that they sold in little gift shops; but she didn’t think he’d see the joke, not even if she called the bloody thing Laurence.

In fact, she couldn’t have cared less about Windermere. What she was after was the drive down this wonderfully steep, twisting road, and the sight of Windermere at the end, the lake and the town together, and the sun burning on glass and painted metal. And the chance of scaring the socks off Laurence.

‘I wish you’d slow down a bit, Lizzie. We’ve got plenty of time. And Windermere’s really a bit dull.’

‘Don’t be such a wimp, Laurie. Sit back and enjoy the scenery.’

‘For God’s sake, Lizzie, there are other cars on the road.’

‘I’m perfectly well aware of that.’

‘You don’t seem it.’

She shaved past a Reliant Robin and pulled back in to her side to the sound of enraged honking. Seconds later, the local bus came in sight on the other side, huffing and puffing its weary way up the steep incline.

‘Laurence, whose idea was it to hold this ruddy dinner up here? I didn’t think you liked the Sharrow Bay.’

‘I don’t, if I’m to be honest. Too much chintz for my taste. If anything moves, they put a tassel on it.’

‘But the food’s first class. Even you have to admit that. And as for the view from the lounge ...'

‘Oh, yes, I know all that. Personally, I find the food a bit on the rich side. All those sauces.’

‘So why on earth did you choose to entertain such important guests there?’