was the Special Agent, the hero, the good kid, and he had come to get the scum face, the dirt bag, who had dared to stand against Old fucking Uncle fucking Sam. Ride on, Bill Erlich, Special Agent, hero, good kid. He was the guy who rode off into the setting sun, he was the joker that they loved to patronise in their rocking chairs on the verandah behind the white picket fencing. Heh, Bill, how's it going…? Going okay, don't you know. Going good, just have to get into this goddam museum pile, move around a bit, find the mother. Got to shoot, kill, bury the mother.
Got to line up then for the thanks of the great fat smug ranks of the bastards, so that they can say 'thank you', and light up the barbecue, and unpack the camper trailer, and turn their backs on what their taxes pay for. And who cared…? Did any bastard care on the east side, getting their cocktails in before the Beltway home? Any bastard on the west coast, just back from lunch, care?
Did they hell… He was FBI, he was armed, he was going to shoot a guy who had killed an American government servant.
It was what a good government and a grateful people paid Bill Erlich to do, to get on with. Did they care? Did they, hell…
He was breathing hard, like he had been taught to, like through the heavy stained door to the back bar was Condition Black…
Holy God…
The wind and the first shower of rain funnelled up the road through the village, caught at the legs and backs of those who watched.
The group grew. The solicitor stood with his eldest son under a titled golf club umbrella. The bank manager was there, with his pyjama trouser bottoms peeping from underneath the waterproof leggings The Home Farm tenant was there, rubicund and overweight and chewing a cube of cheese and with his dog, Rocco's sire, at his heel. Old Vic and his wife were there, and he had a quarter bottle of rum in his hip pocket .
In the centre of the road, as far forward as they were allowed to stand, were Billy and Zap, Kev, Zack, Charlie, and Johnny with his arm hard round Fran's shoulder.
In their clusters they waited.
The solicitor said that if ever there was a boy born to be hanged it was Colin Tuck, God rest his mother, and his son who was Colt's exact contemporary, who had secretly admired him and who had yearned for Fran for years, said nothing. The District Nurse, who had just joined them, said that il was the blessing of God that Louise Tuck had not lived to witness this final humiliation. And she thought that when it was over she would go to the Manor House and break the news to him, and make him one last pot of tea. The bank manager said that he had heard at Rotary that Colt was wanted for terrorism now and that prison would be too good for him. The Home Farm tenant said that he had always known the kid to be a wrong 'un, stood out a mile since he had got himself involved with those Animal Liberation bastards. Old Vic said he'd miss him, didn't mind who knew it, and his wife said that she had never known anything but politeness from Colt.
Zack said, and he laughed but sure as hell it wasn't funny to him, that he'd be kissing goodbye, and the rest of them, to what they had raised in the pub. Kev said, bright-eyed in excitement, that Colt had the gun, and that Colt would take them with him. Fran cried and buried her cheek in Johnny's chest.
All of them, waiting for the action, waiting for it to end, stood among the puddles and the tractor mud. They watched what Colt had brought to their village, his village.
In a blur of movement the shrouded figures ran to take their positions round the building and the outhouses and garages at the back. Heavy movements because they were weighed down with their bulletproof vests and ammunition pouches and radios and the battery-driven power lamps and the image intensifies on the barrels of their rifles.
Hobbes tried to scrape the helicopter sound from his ears. He hadn't got a bloody coat, and he had walked across the football pitch from the helicopter and already his London shoes squelched. He was told that an American, an F. B. I. agent, had been allowed forward because he was the only one on site with a handgun.
'Where forward, Sergeant? The back door?' In a sickening instant Hobbes could see how this nightmare would end.
'Commander,' he yelled.
'Right beside you, Mr Hobbes,' said a calm voice. 'We've seen him, and we know where he is. Do you want him out of there?'
'What's he doing, for Christ's sake?'
' H e looks as though he's counting to a hundred before he goes through the back door.'
'Well… My God Almighty would certainly say that he's earned the privilege, going in first. Your cat's paw, eh, Commander? Just don't have him shot by one of ours. Or the boffin, for heaven's sake. Got that?'
' Y e s, Mr Hobbes.'
He thought that Colt should have been back.
All the time he watched the staircase. It must have been three, four minutes since he had last heard Colt's step from the ceiling above the back bar.
He did what Colt had done. He untied the laces of his shoes and he retied them tight, strained the cord and then tied a double knot. They would be running across fields, couldn't have his shoes sucked off in the mud, not if he were running and needing to keep up with Colt.
It was the third time that he had undone his laces and retied them, reknotted them.
They should have been, if they had taken off from the airport when he had been told they would take off, somewhere over the Eastern Mediterranean, somewhere over Greece, or over Cyprus.
They should have been beyond recall, sharing a drink and a meal with Colt in the safety of the aeroplane. He was tired, so tired…
The dragging on of the day that had started with breakfast in Lilac Gardens, and with the drive up Mount Pleasant and Mulfords Hill, and with the check at the Falcon Gate, and with the examination of his I/D at the H3 barrier. So tired… He thought of the hours he had spent in front of his screen, working, concentrating. So tired… and he heard again Basil's muttered and embarrassed praise of his paper, and the cheerfulness of Boll's departure. So tired… and there was a meeting in the morning of Senior Principal Scientific Officers and Senior Principal Engineering Officers at which he was expected. It was all madness, and sharp through the exhaustion of his mind was the shouting of his name in the airport, the clatter of gunfire, the collapse of a man in pursuit.
So tired, and so scared by the running away. But they had still the chance of the ferry.
He watched the staircase behind the bar counter. He looked for the reckless and vivid smile of Colt.
He was ready, ready to run with Colt.
' M r s Bissett, until we can resolve our differences, you won't get to bed, I won't move out of your house, and you don't get your children back.'
'I have nothing to say.'
The Security Officer settled again on the kitchen chair. The house was quiet. There were only two policemen left in the house with them, and they were sprawled out in the sitting room. The search was over. She knew they had found nothing, because as the ripping and tearing went on she had heard the bad temper replace their earlier laughter and chat. She had not heard them attempt to repair what they had broken.
She stared out through the window. She had not turned when the telephone had rung, nor when the Security Officer had been called out of the kitchen, nor when he had come back and the chair had groaned under his weight.
' M r s Bissett, please listen to me very carefully. Your husband was being escorted from the country by a man wanted for murder in Athens, London and Australia. He was intercepted. This young man… '
She muttered the name, the name was Colt.
'… is armed. He is dangerous and unstable. We have to fear for your husband's safety. They are together at the moment in a public house in Wiltshire. They are ringed by armed police.
There is a distinct possibility that the young man will reject ail sensible courses of action, that he will try to break out. He is armed, so he may open fire on police officers, and the armed officers may be forced to return fire… '
She shuddered.
'… and then Frederick would be in the gravest danger. It is a small thing to ask of you, but it could save his life.'
