The Three Most Wanted (7 page)

6

WEIRD CHATTY BRITS

My heart was beating again, thundering in my chest. I placed a casual hand on Bane’s arm, managing to merely touch rather than bruise.

“Bane,” I spoke softly in English. “There are two policemen further up the street. They just ID’d a group of three backpackers; two guys, one girl.”

Jon’s arm, looped through mine, went rigid.

Bane swallowed—turned casually as though admiring the town. Turned back just as casually. “We need food. It’s five days to Clermont. The lot in front are about to pay, let’s wait.”

Come on, hurry up
. The stallholder’s wrapping had been brisk enough before but now she seemed to have gone to half-speed. She finally handed over the last purchase and announced an amount of Eurons in French.

One of the New Adults ahead of us—the black guy—took out a wallet and passed over some notes with a polite mutter, also in French. Then took the clipboard and began to fill in his details. He was the world’s slowest writer. Or maybe I was just so aware of those policemen, coming nearer, step by step, group by group. Any group of two guys and one girl. The group at the stall were going to get ID’d too. Or maybe not, with one of them so clearly not British C (Caucasian).

“
Merci.”
The stallholder accepted the clipboard back and said something else. The French New Adults looked surprised and queried her, then shrugged—the black boy took out his ID card and displayed it.

Swallowing down panic, I spoke to Bane in Esperanto, as though continuing a previous conversation. “Oh, go on,
let’s
get some of those pies? They look so nice...”

“We’re at the front of the line here, now... Oh, fine, we’ll go to the pie stall.” We followed close behind the group in front as they moved on up the street, Bane sliding chummily in between the two boys. “Where are you from, then? Nearby?”

“No, we’re from the south of the department,” came the tolerant reply from the black one.

“Ah, I don’t know if we’ll be going there. You’ve got some really big mountains, haven’t you?”

“Oh,
oui
, very big.”

We had to get across the river so I understood the plan, but without Jon’s pressure on my arm, leading me towards those policemen as he followed Bane’s voice, I couldn’t have moved. After a few steps I got sufficient hold of myself to edge Jon and me alongside the girl.

“They’re not as big as the Alps there, though, are they?” I said, trying for friendly curiosity. “Are you all from the same place?”

“
Oui et oui
, but our mountains are more beautiful than the Alps,” said the girl firmly. She’d dark hair and reminded me superficially of Jane, though she was French C not French Asian.

“I’ll take your word for it,” I said cheerfully. Hmm… I’d better try to find out. “Ah… did I see you showing your ID at a
stall?
Seems odd.”

“
EuroGov says
, apparently. They’ve lost a load of reAssignees, you must’ve heard.”

“Oh, that.”

“Good for them, I say,” said the girl bluntly. “The reAssignees, that is.”

“Nuisance for the stallholders, though.”

“It’s only temporary, she said. Until they’ve caught them all.”

“Oh, right.”

We were almost alongside the policemen. Bane had cleverly steered his conversation—from the heads together and low voices—onto the sort of thing guys prefer girls not to hear them talking about. Should I keep my conversation going, make sure we looked like one group? But the police had only to catch the Esperanto and they’d know better, perhaps I should stay quiet...

Or perhaps not. The girl was looking sideways at Jon and me, a rather intent look on her face... Before I could say anything she made a loud comment in French, flung a comradely arm around me and laughed as though I would’ve understood. The policemen were meters away... I laughed too, and so did Jon.

Then the police were behind us! We walked on over the bridge and out the other side of the town, chatting away in Esperanto until we reached a crossroads. The French girl never explained what she’d said and I was afraid to ask. Had she recognized us?

They were heading in broadly the same direction, apparently, but detouring to see some splendid old castle, so they were going right. We needed to go left—no police in sight, so we parted company.

Glancing back, I caught the girl doing the same, as the black boy threw up his hands and said something—the fair-haired boy shrugged in response. Probably something along the lines of, “What weird chatty Brits! You normally have to pry them out of their shells like snails.”

Never mind. We’d made it out. And on the correct side of the river for the next leg.

I took discreet glances over my shoulder but the girl didn’t seem to be telling her companions anything interesting and they were still heading off along the road when I lost sight of them. Once clear of the town, we plunged back into the safety of the forest.

“Damn it, the EuroGov’s on to us,” snarled Bane, pausing momentarily and immediately striding on again, making Jon stumble to catch up. “They know who’s missing and they suspect what we’re disguised as!”

“Suspect, or know?” I said uneasily. “Apparently that stallholder said, ‘Until they’ve caught them all.’ Have they got the others?”

“‘Until they’ve caught them all’ doesn’t mean they’ve actually caught
any
of us yet,” pointed out Jon.

“No... but they seem a little close to the truth and if they had caught them—someone would’ve talked.”

“Exactly.” Bane stopped again and this time turned to speak to us properly. “And every town anywhere near our likely route would be crawling with plain clothes agents. Which they clearly aren’t or we’d never have got out of there. They’ve just sent a few police to all the small touristy towns backpackers frequent. So it’s at least as likely the others have made it, and their spies have got just close enough to know the other boys went with the Resistance but we three went separately.”

“In which case they soon
will
know roughly
where
we are and
exactly
what we’re posing as,” said Jon glumly.

“
Damn
. We were getting on so well.” Bane dismissed his regret with an impatient jerk of his head. “Well, we can’t go into towns anymore and that’s that.”

Our supply of sachets weighed a lot but made a depressingly small heap. And we’d well over a thousand kilometers to go.

“How are we going to get food?” My voice squeaked slightly.

“We
have
to save enough sachets for the Alps,” said Bane. “We’re almost halfway to Zurich already and we can take one of the quieter passes beyond.”

“
Half the way there
butters no parsnips if we’ve no parsnips to eat to get us the other half.”

“We could spend more time hunting and gathering,” suggested Jon dubiously.

“We haven’t caught
anything
yet and we could spend all day gathering and not have one full meal from it.”

“Margo’s right,” said Bane, “that’s not going to work. Worst comes to the worst, one of us will have to go into town alone to buy food.”

No prizes for guessing which one.

“No. We can’t risk that.” What to do? I’d never precisely taken food for granted—the lifelong problem of filling the extra mouths of priests and sisters ensured that—but... how? That group from the French department were no doubt walking along without a care in the world, their biggest decision whether to have cheese or sausage for lunch...

“I know! We stop each passing group on a hiking trail at dusk, all friendly and shamefaced, say we’re out of food and can they spare us something for supper? Bet most of them will give us a baguette or a tin or a sausage and it’ll add up to a day’s food if we’re lucky.”

“What if some of them have eyes in their heads and recognize us?” said Bane.

“We’ve been risking stallholders, haven’t we? Anyway, we haven’t much choice.” Better not mention the way the French girl had been looking at me.

“She’s right,” said Jon.

“I don’t know,” said Bane.

“Oh, come on, if you go tearing into towns like the lone ranger, it won’t be long before you don’t come back, and then where will Margo and I be?”

Bane stopped biting his lip. “
Fine
. Let’s get moving.”

“Okay, how do I look?” I asked Bane.

His eyes made the familiar circuit. Forehead—makeup applied; hair—loose; hat—well pulled down; shades—in place. Check, check, check, check.

“Nothing like the bloc’s most wanted. Let’s go.”

Jon followed wordlessly as we slid down a bank and onto the evening’s chosen hiking trail. No comment about the easier walking; he stumped along in silence, leaning on the stick rather too convincingly. Both his knees and shins were mottled purple-black-red with bruises and cuts. I shot him an anxious look. His face was thinning, dark circles accenting his eyes. But what could we do?

This daily begging routine was slowing us down even more—and exposing us to the close scrutiny of ten times more people than buying from stalls. But after pulling it off three nights in a row I no longer had to count on embarrassment to put some color into my pale cheeks. So far only a group of four girls had refused me—so Bane had charmed their
backpacks open with a few delightfully pink-cheeked apologies.

It was ages tonight before a group appeared, overtaking us from behind. We stepped to the side to let them pass...
Oh no
... The French New Adults from Vouziers.

“Well, look who it is,” the fair-haired boy greeted us in Esperanto.

“
Bonjour
,” said the other two.

“Oh, hi again,” we chorused in return.

“How was the castle?” asked Bane casually.

“I thought it was fantastic! I have never seen a chandelier that size, ever, for one thing!” The fair-haired boy paused, a slightly sour expression crossing his face. “Not everyone agreed, huh, Juwan?”

The black boy caught his look and shrugged. “I did find it rather disappointing. The fortifications had been so degraded by all the later work to make it
fashionable
. Wouldn’t keep out an army of tin soldiers now, let alone the real thing.”

The fair-haired boy snorted. “You’re supposed to appreciate the
art
and the
history
, not analyze its defensive attributes.”

“It’s a
castle
, Louis, it
is
a defensive attribute.” The girl spoke at last. “Or should be...”

Try and get some food off them? Tempting to let them walk straight on by, but... the further from Vouziers the quieter the hiking trails got. This was the first group we’d seen today. Reluctantly, I started my spiel.

“Um, actually, you know, we looked in our food bag earlier and were horrified to find it empty—very silly of us—um... I don’t suppose you could spare something for our supper?”

The girl looked us over yet again—she’d been looking us over ever since she stopped. “You
ran out of food?
That’s not too bright, is it?”

Okay, she reminded me more than superficially of Jane. I managed an embarrassed laugh. “Yeah, well, one of those silly misunderstandings. Josh thought Dane had checked, Dane thought I’d said we’d plenty left and I thought Josh was in charge of all that. We’ve got ourselves organized now.”

“You’d better have. This isn’t Hyde Park, y’know. Guess you should’ve bought those extra pies.”

Just how sharp was she? She’d heard what we said in Vouziers, before we’d even met—and noticed we hadn’t done it.

Louis sniggered, but said, “’Course we’ll help you out. Dominique always buys loads.”

“Good job too, eh, Louis? With hapless babes in the wood like these.”

Bane’s jaw was beginning to look rather rigid, but he just said dryly, “Yeah, that’s us. Babes in the wood.”

“Well...” Dominique broke off as a curve of the path revealed a green forest meadow with a little rivulet trickling through the most distant corner. “Ooh, campsite!”

“Hey,” said Louis. “Let’s all make camp together and have a feast!”

“Yeah, why not?” said Juwan.

“And you three can wash up,” added Louis.

“Well, looks like you’ve got yourself your evening meal,” Dominique told us. “Let’s make camp. Dibs on that flowery spot...”

I exchanged a discreet look with Bane. How could we refuse their offer and carry on? Too suspicious for words. But how long could they hang out with us before getting suspicious? Especially of Jon. On the plus side, it was almost dark. We had to risk it.

Bane had reached the same conclusion, because he was walking casually down the bank to the meadow as though he’d not had a moment’s hesitation. Jon stood rather straight and stiff, ears no doubt straining.