Omega (47 page)

'I
don't'
Eileen burst out.
‘I
only
...'

'You only kick him where it hurts, that's all. Because, God help him, he's as much in love with you as you are with him. Which you
are.'

Eileen, white-faced and miserable, looked at her in silence for a moment and then walked away, leaving Angie - once she had cooled down - thoroughly ashamed of herself.

Moira and Dan watched the approaching convoy with some surprise. It was usual for one or two of the New Dyfnant villagers to escort newcomers to Camp Cerridwen, to satisfy themselves that they were both harmless and acceptable.

But this group - a farm cart tented with sheet polythene, an odd-looking contraption of a wheel
-
less motor caravan lashed on to a flat-topped cart, and two horsemen - was headed by Dai Police himself riding with Liz and the children in the returning pony-trap, and two more villagers, mounted and carrying shotguns, brought up the rear.

' 'Afternoon, Dai,' Dan called when the convoy was a few metres away. 'What's all this, then? Wells Fargo?'

Dai signalled the convoy to halt and jumped to the ground. 'Just being careful, Dan bach. They seem all right and there's three young kids with 'em - but it's enough guns they have to be a raiding party.'

'Guns?'

'Three Army rifles, a four-ten, three pistols and a good bit of ammo. We took it all off 'em and stashed it in the pony-trap here. They didn't complain - and that's a good sign. Only reasonable, they agreed it was, seeing that they want to join you.'

'Hey - Moira, Dan - remember me?'

They turned at the call and saw the man who had jumped down from the caravan and was walking towards them.

Dan replied: 'I know your face, but
...'

'Jack Ramsay - and my wife Sue's still in the van. We met last year at that healing seminar in St Pancras Town Hall. Gardnerians, from Uttoxeter.'

'That's
right - I remember - don't you, Moira?'

T do indeed. We lunched together and you and Dan blinded us with science about Kirlian photography . . . Blessed be!'

'All right, then, are they?' Dai Police asked, relieved.

'If Jack here will vouch for the others
...'

.'Absolutely,' Jack said. 'We owe 'em our lives, for a start. Them and half a dozen battling schoolgirls - but tell you about that later. . . . Oh, just one of us is a stranger the fair-haired one on the chestnut. We fell in with him this morning, on the way in. Name of Underwood. Say's he's got a message for you. One of the pistols is his, by the way. He
doesn't
want to join you but the rest of us do. May we?'

The Central Cabin was packed to meet the newcomers because everyone was intrigued to learn that three of them -Philip and Betty Summers and the American journalist Tonia Lynd - were escapcrs from Beehive. They were bombarded with questions, and Tonia had some of her own when somebody mentioned that there was a radio ham in the village who had recently, with improving conditions, picked up at least some fragmentary news from America. It was all they could do to dissuade her from rushing straight back to New Dyfnant to meet him; Liz Warner promised to take her down to the school in the morning and introduce her. The young Jewish girl, Miriam, too, asked as many questions as she answered; Moira had a feeling she would be an intelligent and useful recruit to the camp.

But Moira was puzzled by the fair-haired man wh
o had introduced himself as Gare
th Underwood, but had said he would deliver his message to her and Dan in private when things were quieter. She noticed that he spoke little and that he listened to what the Summers and Tonia had to say about life in Beehive with what seemed to her to be an inner amusement.

Moira whispered to Tricia Hayes: 'What do you make of the Underwood man?'

Tricia, who had found her way to Camp Cerridwen all by herself, was perhaps their most gifted clairvoyant with an almost unnerving talent for reading people. Fiftyish, with an unmemorable face and thin mousy hair, she looked too frail to be the determined survivor she in fact was, and at first sight no one would suspect her of being gifted at anything.

'I've been watching him,' Tricia whispered back. 'He's strange. Knows a lot but very self-controlled - and he's swimming against the tide.'

'What tide?'

'The tide of whatever he's supposed to be doing. I think he's official. None of this talk about Beehive is new to him. But he's not
supposed
to be here and he's on edge.'

'Can we trust him?'

'Yes, I think you can.
Because
he's not supposed to be here, you know? Though he'll tell you something you don't like. He doesn't like it, either.'

Moira had confidence in Tricia but she was still wary when she and Dan were able to talk with Underwood alone, walking together along the river-bank out of earshot of everyone else.

'What's your message, then, Mr Underwood?' Dan asked. 'And who's it from?'

'It's not really a message because it's only from me. It's a warning - a tip-off. . . . Look, I'm an Intelligence agent from Beehive but I'm here off my own bat. If my boss knew, I'd end up in the cells or worse. I'm supposed to be on my way back to Beehive from Savernake Forest - does that ring a bell with you?'

'It does. Go on.'

'I'll be reporting back four or five days late but I've got a good story to explain the delay. All the same, I'm pushing my luck a bit. . . . The tip-off is that Harley, who's pretty well the absolute dictator in London Beehive now, has made a secret alliance with the Angels of Lucifer.'

'Jesus!
...
An alliance for what?' Dan asked.

'To fight against the white witches in general and this group above all.'

‘
I don't believe it!'

'Why don't you believe it, Mr Mackenzie?'

'Because John . . .' Dan broke off, as though he had second thoughts about giving a reason.

The agent smiled. 'Because John, whatever he's done or become, is still too fond of you two to harm you personally? You're right. But Karen - the locals call her the Black Mamba - has no such scruples. She'd
enjoy
harming you. She knows how to handle John and when Harley sent me down to contact them and offer the alliance, she fixed it that I took her back to negotiate with Harley alone. She was in Beehive for three days, incognito except to Harley and me and one other person, and then I had to escort her back. I came straight on here, because I wanted you to know.'

'Why
did you want us to know? What's in it for you?' Dan asked.

'There's nothing in it for me except sticking my neck out. I just think the Black Mamba's pure poison and I don't like the way things are going. I know Beehive's got a lot to answer for - but it could, conceivably, serve a function in due course to get what's left of Britain back on its feet,
if
it keeps its nose clean. But if this alliance is symptomatic of the way Harley's thinking, I haven't much hope of that..
..
And look - if I'm an
agent provocateur,
what's the object of the exercise? To stir up conflict between the white witches and the black? T
hat exists already and nothing I
say is going to turn it into a pitched battle. Or am I here to spy on you? If so, why have I said all this and why am I rushing straight off again? I'd do better to claim to be a refugee, stay a few days, and then disappear. Sab
otaging your radio-ham friend's
equipment on the way out - because that's the only significant thing I've learned. If I'm not speaking the truth, why am I here?'

'I think you
are
speaking the truth,' Moira said. 'Dan?' 'Yes, it all figures.
...
What did Karen and Harley agree on?'

'That I don't know. They spent hours by themselves and all I was told at the end was to organize the secret material help he'd promised her. I was able to do some of the simpler things at once - like filling a rucksack with pistols and ammunition - and the more complicated ones, like more horses and saddles, I'll organize when I get back.'

'But what practical action does Harley want from
them}'
Dan asked. 'A physical attack on us? Not very practicable. Surely not magical action? He wouldn't believe in it.'

'On
the contrary,' Underwood said, ‘I
think he's hooked on it. And possibly on Karen as well.'

'Now I'm taking you really seriously,' Moira told him. 'Karen's terribly ambitious. If she's been offered
that
kind of a pact with Beehive, she's going to do something about it, and if John gets in the way she'll get rid of him. . . . Your warning is worth having.'

'Can you look after yourselves, when she starts anything?'

'We can. Our psychic defences are as good as hers. But without you, we might have been caught napping.
...
Do
you
believe in this kind of thing?'

'A month ago I'd have said "I don't know". But I've seen and learned a lot in the last couple of weeks and now I wouldn't take any chances. I hope you won't, either.'

Moira thought for a moment, then asked: 'Why go back to Beehive at all? Why not stay with us here? They'd write you off as dead, wouldn't they? It could happen to anyone, riding about the country solo.'

He shook his head. 'Call it professional habit but I've a hunch I can be more useful as a double agent. Might even be able to give you more tip-offs. Tell you what -

I'll go down with your Yankee fr
iend on m
y way out and have a word with the radio ham. Is he trustworthy?' 'Yes.'

'Then I'll give him a frequency and a daily listening time, and a simple code for "Expect physical attack", "Expect psychic attack" and so on - half a dozen basic messages I might want to send. I'm always giving the radio operators timed code messages for Beehive agents and I don't have to explain them, so I could slip an extra one in if it was urgent to tell you something.'

'Watch that neck of yours.'

'I will.' He smiled. 'Frankly, I'd like to stay with you. But apart from anything else, "where a man's treasure is, there will his heart be also". So I'll be on my way in the morning.'

'What's the treasure's name?' Moira asked. 'Brenda. Throw in a spell for her, when you've a mom
ent. She could do with it,' Gare
th Underwood said.

'Have you got a typewriter?' Tonia asked eagerly.

'Typewriter, yes,' Geraint Lloyd said, 'but I'm having to watch the paper. This is a school, remember.'

'You could spare a dozen sheets a week, say, I'm sure. We could do one copy for the village and one for the camp, on notice-boards - and each place would keep the back numbers as archives. Goddam it, man, you're a community asset. You're in touch with the world, even if only in bits and pieces. Passing it on by word of mouth isn't enough. We can have a
newspaper.'

Ge
raint had to admit he found the crop-haired American's enthusiasm infectious. She had arrived with Liz and the camp children and the mysterious Underwood, at nine o'clock, and had been barely able to contain her impatience while Underwood insisted on fifteen minutes in private with

Geraint before he went on his way. Geraint had come out to find she had already arranged for Liz to take charge of both classes for the first hour so that she could have him to herself. Within forty minutes she had sucked his brain dry of everything he had learned and could remember of his radio-collected information from Britain and abroad. She had particularly wanted to know, naturally, about America. He had to tell her that radio reception had been very bad after the earthquake and had only just begun to improve to the point where he could manage occasional exchanges with American hams; a tall aerial which Greg had built for him had helped a lot. The States, from what his scattered contacts could tell him, were in much the same situation as Britain. Population loss seemed to have been slightly less disastrous because although the vinegar-mask announcement had been simultaneous with Britain's, the clock-difference had meant the Washington announcement had been made while the shops were still open and also the quake had hit America a couple of hours later than Europe, so more people were prepared. But this advantage had been partly offset by the fact that unlike Europe, where the Dust had cleared within hours of the earthquake, the Western Hemisphere had suffered from it with irregular renewed outbreaks for nearly a week, by which time the less fortunate had no vinegar left, while others, believing the first outbreak would be the only one, had become careless.