‘Which areas do you want me to cover?’
‘London first, then spiralling radially outwards if there’s nothing there.’
He pursed his lips. ‘OK, but it’ll take a bit of arranging. We’ve the flightpaths for Heathrow and City airports to consider, and if we go further out we’ll run into Gatwick and Stanstead traffic as well. Fortunately, it won’t be so bad at this time of night. I’ll get in touch with Air Traffic Control.’
He left me and entered the cockpit. There was ample space in the seven-seat interior and there was nothing else I could do, so I made myself comfortable and waited.
Ten minutes later he returned briskly. ‘Right, we’re on our way. We’ll be taking off in a couple of minutes.’
The little passenger jet banked steeply after taking off and headed back into London. I shut down my five normal senses as much as possible, then opened my other sense to the full.
The steady mental roar of London’s millions was indescribable. Imagine the noise from a thousand heavily-trafficked motorways side by side and you might begin to grasp the scale. I was instantly afraid – picking one mind out of that seemed impossible.
Then I forced myself to calm and thought of Sophie. I thought of her sharp wit, her laughter, her saucy grin. I thought of the taste of her mind, the warmth and ironic humour, the keenness and intelligence. And how she responded to me. Then I held that pattern and scanned for my life, and hers.
The minutes ticked by, stretched into an hour. We had been following an irregular path around London, repeatedly changing altitude and direction to avoid the airliners lumbering like giant geese in to land, or clambering up into the sky. The roar in my head had retreated into a bland white noise, hissing against my mind. All of it unfamiliar. She was not in London.
I felt the plane turn again as the pilot began the outward spiral. One hour turned into two, then three. I became numb with despair, desperately trying to suppress the fears howling into the dark, to concentrate on the scan. The constant effort took its toll and I fell into a semi-conscious state, a corner of my mind still filtering, assessing.
When contact came, it was so faint that it scarcely registered. Then I was out of my chair and into the cockpit before I was fully awake. ‘Turn the plane – to the right!’
The pilot complied, and the signal strengthened.
‘Where are we?’
He checked the map display. ‘Approaching Leicester.’
I waited tensely, making a minor correction to our course, then we were directly overhead. ‘Mark this point on GPS!’
‘Got it.’
‘I need to land as close as possible, and to have a car waiting for me.’
‘The closest is a commercial airport, Nottingham East Midlands. I’ll get onto it.’
The next half hour was a torture of waiting. I held the thread linking me to Sophie for as long as I could, until it became so thin I wasn’t sure if it was still there, or was just a wish, a memory.
At the airport an unmarked car was waiting, driven by a rather grumpy Special Branch officer whom I assumed had abruptly been wakened from a sound sleep. We sped down the M1 towards Leicester as the sky lightened with dawn. I had sensed that she was being held in the northern part of the city, so we turned off at Junction 22 to take the long, dual-carriageway A50 through Groby. As we entered Leicester I felt the thread strengthening, firming up. I had her now!
A few more turnings and we were getting very close. As we entered the street I felt the tension and excitement rising and forced myself to be calm. I said nothing to the driver as we went past the house, but noted the number. I asked him to turn off at the next junction and stop.
‘They’re in house number twenty-seven. All four of the terrorists are together, asleep, in two rooms upstairs. The hostage is in a third room, also upstairs. I’m going in now. Call reinforcements, but they are to arrive silently and stay out of sight until needed. Keep away from the house yourself – if any of them wakes and looks out of a window, I don’t want him to see anything that wasn’t there before.’ The driver acknowledged and I left the car.
The street was probably interwar, the small rear gardens of the old red-brick town houses backing onto a traditional alleyway. I sprinted silently along this until I was behind number 27. It was surrounded by a high wall, and the gate to the garden was locked.
Apart from swimming, I had never given much thought to the dramatic improvements in my strength and fitness since the accident, but I was grateful for them now. I flowed over a wall which would have completely defeated me a year ago, and glided silently up the back of the house. Windows of two of the bedrooms were visible. I could sense that Sophie was in the right hand one, but the window was closed. Two of the terrorists were in the left hand room, and its window was slightly open.
The high wall extended from the back of the rear garden up to join the left side of the house. I climbed on top of the wall and stood at the same level as the window, a few feet to one side. I took a deep breath, and launched myself across the gap. I caught the sill, and hung there for a moment, then raised myself up and checked the window latch. It was a side-hinged, outwards-opening, steel-framed window, on a simple latch which I could easily reach. I couldn’t see into the room – the curtains were drawn.
Hanging on with one hand, I slowly raised the latch arm from the frame, pulled it towards me, and left it dangling outside the room. Then I took another breath and pulled the window wide open. The hinges screeched loudly.
A drowsy voice spoke as I threw myself through the window, bursting through the curtains into the room. Two single beds were side by side, across my path. The first man never woke as I touched him in mid-air, but the wakener got out a strangled shout before my hurtling body reached him.
I threw myself off him and wrenched the door open, dashing into the hallway as the door to a front bedroom was opening. I flung myself at that, dropping the man as he emerged, but his partner was out of bed and the ugly snout of a sub-machine was swinging towards me. One last leap as the muzzle started flashing a stuttering flame and then he was down and so was I, the bullets hammering through me. I tried to stop the damage but my sight greyed out and I collapsed unconscious.
I became aware of Sophie first of all. As I swam back into the light of consciousness my new sense opened first and she was there, her warmth flowing over me. I reached for her and held her, beginning to absorb her feel, her scent and finally the glorious sight of her, smiling and unharmed, as I finally opened my eyes.
Richards discreetly waited a few minutes before he entered the room and sat down on the other side of my bed. I looked around and recognised yet another hospital room.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Wonderful!’
‘I meant physically.’
I paused to check my physical state. Not too good. There were no obvious injuries, but I felt weak and tired. ‘Not good. About the same as I always used to feel up to a year ago.’
‘You continue to amaze us. These were found under your body. It seems that they made their own way out.’ He handed me four bullets, their brass-coloured jackets grooved by rifling.
‘My body is a quick learner.’
‘Yes, you have no remaining signs of injury, but even so you were lucky. The Special Branch man heard the gunshots and, rather recklessly, decided to go in rather than waiting for reinforcements. He found you down and out, losing blood fast – one bullet had cut an artery. He was able to staunch the worst of the flow, which it seems gave your body time to recover and repair itself. Although if a normal man had taken such wounds, he would have been dead before help could arrive.’