Movement to his left. A boot connected with his bike. David swore. He wobbled and slid, but managed to stay upright. Moments later he felt his palms go slick with sweat. That had been close. His stomach and fingertips tingled.
David searched the area for a way out. There was low ground on the other side of the hedge. To his left, the ground banked steeply upwards. That way led back to the equipment shed. He had to get over that hedge and into the next field. There was no way he could outrun his pursuers. On the flat, maybe. His bike was faster.
He dipped into a steep ditch and was forced to brake heavily. He slowed. The wheels slid, locked, and he walked the bike up the other side. He turned to see that the other bikers had gone high to ride around the top of the ditch. They were waiting for him. Abruptly, he heaved the front of the bike around, surprised at its sudden, dead weight, and headed back the way he had come.
He retraced his route along the hedge. He built up his straight-line speed. After a glance at the camera, he pulled on the back brake and spun the rear of the bike. He sat and panted. His breath clouded the visor so he flicked it up. There were lines of sweat on his temples.
He removed his gloves—they dangled by strips of Velcro—and looped the chin strap through its metal link and tugged. It held. He had maybe four seconds until the oncoming bikes reached him.
He slapped down his visor and raked the throttle. Once again he was riding, gathering speed.
Something in his expression, or his posture, gave pause to the incoming riders. They fell to the left and to the right and David shot through the middle with centimetres of clearance.
He rode on towards the large ditch. He did not bounce in the seat as he had done before. Now he rode with his fingers and toes. A glance at the rear-view camera confirmed that the other bikers were following. With some disappointment, he saw that they were moving as fast as he was.
The ditch approached.
Here it was.
Into the rapids.
He swerved left, hillward, then cut right, towards the ditch at a cruel diagonal. He spurred his heels and felt the answering sibilance of opening valves. Accelerant mixed with the fuel. The engine whistled and the bike found a new speed. He dropped low to its tank, willing himself to stay onboard.
He rode up the other side of the ditch, now pressed into the seat, and caught its lip as a ramp. He was airborne. The hedge was a brief glimmer of dark green below. He heard the wheels swipe its surface. He became weightless. Then the bike touched down. David watched as the steering column rose to meet his chin. His mouth slammed shut. The back wheel touched, bounced, and the front did the same. The bike became a bucking bronco. But the intervals shortened and, though the bike shook and swerved, the onboard computer was able to keep it upright. It came to a graceless halt some thirty metres from the hedge.
David tapped the petrol tank.
He opened his visor and risked a look over his shoulder. The other bikers had stopped to watch him. He wondered why they didn’t race on to the nearest gate. One biker removed his helmet and stabbed angrily at a phone. David managed a little wave and began to ride away.
When he reached the road, he turned south. The tyre spikes rattled uncomfortably until the bike retracted them. According to Easy Rider(TM), the present road led, via a tortuous pre-programmed route involving minor roads and country lanes, to London Heathrow. If he rode without a break, it would take one day, nine hours, twenty-eight minutes and twenty-seven seconds.
It was 8:00 am. He rode on.
Chapter Fourteen
The empty hotel lobby had twinned staircases that rose like the edges of a cobra’s hood. Saskia passed across dark and light tiles: milky veins in the brown, black cracks in the white. Her small heels made clacks. Deliberately, she lifted her gaze. The ceiling was shot through with lights.
A man hurried towards them.
‘No, no, fucking no,’ he said.
He had the countenance of a soldier who had learned to march in his youth and had never recovered his relaxation. He was beyond retirement age, but the tightness of the skin around his throat spoke to fitness. His eyes travelled up her legs, perched briefly on her breasts, and flitted to Jago. ‘You’re bloody persistent if nothing else.’
‘Thank you, Colonel McWhirter,’ replied Jago. He was motionless. They did not shake hands.
‘You have not met me yet,’ said Saskia. ‘Frau Kommissarin Saskia Brandt, Föderatives Investigationsbüro, or FIB.’
McWhirter stared at her hand as though he wished to break it, and a branching diagram of self-defence sprouted in her mind’s eye, discreet as a menu offered by a butler. It varied on dimensions of incapacity (light, moderate, severe), completion time (7 seconds, 30 seconds, a minute), and weapon type (unarmed, pencil, McWhirter’s sweater).
Saskia raised her fist to her mouth. She coughed lightly. The menu slid away.
‘The continental FIB hereby requests your full cooperation in the capture of Professor David Proctor, Colonel.’ Her face closed on his. She saw the blackheads and the bloodshot sleepiness of his eyes. She looked at his lips and tilted her head. ‘I will give you five minutes. Call the person who pays you. Ask them to confirm my identity with the Berlin section chief, Beckmann. Then return and, first of all, explain to me and my deputy your rationale for this…filibustering. Second, try to talk me out of arresting you for obstruction of a terrorist investigation.’
McWhirter frowned. His anger was imperfectly contained. Saskia imagined him as an actor who was dumbstruck by the improvisation of a fellow performer. He spun on his heel, crossed the foyer, and was gone.
Jago turned to her.
‘Deputy now, is it?’
‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t apologise. I’ve never been a sidekick. It’ll be a new experience.’
‘A sidekick?’
‘You know, a sidekick. He asks the hero dumb questions so the audience knows what’s going on.’
‘Ah, I understand.’ A memory—a precious jewel—glinted. ‘That happens on Enterprise, the 60s TV show. You beam down with the captain. If you are wearing a red shirt you will be subject to a fatal special effect.’
‘You’d better call me Scotty, then. He never gets killed.’
‘Do you think my speech worked?’
Jago found his smile, then lost it. ‘We’ll get the gen, or a bullet in the head. Either way, it’s progress.’
The rear lawn was pressed and smooth, sloped like a fairway, and tree islands put winter half-shadow across Saskia, Jago and McWhirter as they walked.
‘What about the woman on the motorbike?’ Saskia asked.
‘She’s aged between thirty-five and forty-five,’ said McWhirter. ‘We would have her in custody if it wasn’t for the local police.’
To Saskia, Jago said, ‘We like to be useful.’
At the peak of the garden, where one could look back across the shoulder of the hotel to the widening valley, a large, camouflaged tent flexed in the wind. A man in civilian clothing stood next to its porch. His hands rested on an assault rifle. He saluted McWhirter as the party entered. Inside, a dozen men and women were packing computer and office equipment into crates. Unlike the guard, they did not acknowledge the visitors.
‘It’s lucky you came today,’ said McWhirter. ‘We would have been gone by tomorrow.’
Saskia moved to the centre of the tent, where a huge shaft had been opened. Its mouth was large enough to admit a car. Four coloured ropes dangled into the hole from a pyramid scaffold.
‘Is this the only way?’ she asked. The inspiration from her body, filtering through her chip, was clear: she must go down. But it looked dangerous.