There were thicker trees. Mister had gone into them.
Then a path. He was on the path and off it when he heard Mister's feet break dry wood. Mister hadn't told him of the path, hadn't warned him of it, hadn't guided him down it. He tried to run but was capable only of a slow, waddling trot. His breath came in great heaves and his stomach bulk bounced on his belt. He tripped. Moonlight didn't penetrate the canopy of the trees above him. He fell flat. The fall burst the air from his lungs. His fingers scrabbled for a grip, to push himself up. The dog was closer, and the staccato voices urging it on. His fingers found the smooth shapes. Long thin shapes, then wider but still smooth, then the shapes of locking joints, then narrower cross-shapes, then the teeth, and his fingers slipped into the eye sockets and on to the rounded plate of the skull. The Eagle whimpered. The skeleton was across the track. He could not see it, but could feel it and touch it and understand it as clearly as a Braille reader would have. He pushed himself up. The dog's barking drove him on. He had gone twenty more short strides when he realized that his left shoe was off. Thorns, small stones, bramble stems, broken branch wood slashed his foot. He hobbled after Mister and sobbed from the pain. Mister was at the edge of the wood. There was thin grey-white light from the moon and an emptiness in front of them that was cut by a dark line where water ran loud, then more emptiness, then the lights. The lights were a grail. Mister had his foot down on a tape of dull yellow.
' I lost my shoe and the other's broken.'
'Chist, you're my burden.'
The Eagle stepped over the tape. Mister passed him. The Eagle's feet sank into thick grass.
Maggie had her torch on the map.
' I think I've found where we are. The village, the hear one, that's Ljut – and over there, the far one, that's Vraca… If you look in my bag, Frank, in the back, there's a flask. Won't be hot but better than nothing.'
She switched on her mobile and banged out the numbers.
Muhsin and the dog, and Ante had stopped at the tree-line. Joey reached them, with Fahro and Salko.
The dog strained at the leash, but Muhsin held it.
Joey could see the shadowy shapes, separated, slipping away towards the dark cut. He stepped forward: he would follow where he was led. Arms caught him, hands gripped his coat. He struggled to free himself.
Wherever the road led, he would follow. Ante lifted the tape and Salko pressed Joey's head down till his eyes were inches from it.
Fahro said the word, and Muhsin echoed it.
'Mina… mina.'
552
Chapter Eighteen
The watch on the Eagle's left wrist stopped at one minute past ten o'clock.
At ten o'clock, Mister glanced down, saw the hands of his own watch shine luminously at him, sucked in breath, and looked back. He reckoned he had reached a half-way point in the open ground between the tree-line that he had come through and the black strip that was his target, where there was the rumble of fast-flowing water. He turned his back on the distant lights. He had the PPK Walther in the belt at his waist and the Luger was hanging in his suit-jacket pocket.
There would be wheels in the village, where the lights were and, with the PPK and the Luger to persuade, he would take a car. If the dog came close, he would shoot it with the PPK or the Luger.
He didn't know why the dog, the following men and Cann had not broken clear of the tree-line…
Then he remembered the rifles. He realized the target he made and crouched down, the dew on the grass soaking into the lower legs of his trousers. Mister saw the blundering, gasping approach of the Eagle, maybe forty yards away. The Eagle meandered towards him, like a drunk's walk. How long would he wait for him?
Half a minute? The Eagle had stopped. He teetered on one leg. In the light from the moon, Mister could see that the Eagle had his arms out wide, like he was a trapeze man walking the wire. He seemed not to dare to put down the other foot, from which the shoe was lost, and swayed. He would not go back for him. But Mister thought himself a good, kind man, a loyal man, and he made a little pledge to himself: when they reached the river – and from the sound of it there would be a wicked current to fight against – he would carry the Eagle over it. He would have the Eagle clinging on his back, or under his arm, and he would take him over the river. He could walk the rest, to the lights, where there would be a car – of course there would be a car.
He thought he'd waited the half-minute.
'Come on, Eagle, shift it.'
He felt no fear. The river did not frighten him, or the thought of the rifles that might be aimed at him.
Neither did he feel fear of the young man with the big spectacles who had dogged and followed him. The sensation was pure excitement. He was challenged, tested. The excitement ran in him as a strain that was
– not that Mister knew the word – virulent. From any challenge thrown at him, any test put to him, he was
– always had been – the winner. And when they were over the river, had reached the lights and taken a car, the Eagle would be the witness.
'Come on – or do you want the dog to have you?'
One minute past ten o'clock.
'Coming, Mister – and thanks for waiting.'
Mister was about to turn, to hurry on towards the dark strip and the river, but he watched. The Eagle hopped on his shoe, danced like he was a circus clown, rocked, then reached out the foot that had no shoe, sank on it. The flash was golden in its intensity.
The Eagle was caught in the flame, then lifted up as if a fine wire jerked him. After the flame was billowing smoke and the thunder caught in Mister's ears. He felt the wind's rush against him and for a moment he thought he would be driven over but he rocked at his knees and the wind passed him. The flash had wiped his vision. There was only black darkness around him.
A silence came.
Mister stood statue still. He had no eyes, and his ears rang tinny from the blast. It was like nothing he had ever seen or ever heard. Then the voice came.
'You are in a minefield, Mister.'
The voice boomed into his consciousness.
'You have walked into a minefield, Mister.'
The voice was nasal, like it was synthetic, and amplified.
'There will be mines in front of you, beside you, and behind you – all around you in fact, Mister.'
The voice came from the tree-line and he thought it was shouted through cupped hands.
'You went into the minefield when you stepped over the yellow tape, Mister.'
The voice was flat-toned and without pleasure or triumph and it cleared the ringing from Mister's ears.
He sank down. He put his buttocks' weight onto the wet grass where his shoes had been, and then he tucked his feet as close to his buttocks as he was able
… It started as a whimper… He had only once before heard the voice, but he recognized it. There had been seven words spoken by the voice, then small, not nasal and amplified. The words dinned at him: That was a mistake, Mister, a mistake… From the whimper came a low sob… He had his arms tight around his body. A light breeze rustled in the grass close to him, waved it. Because he was low down on the ground the lights seemed further distant than before, where a car would have been, beyond the river he would have swum… Where he thought the Eagle lay, the sobbing turned to a high-pitched scream that pierced Mister's skull… Cann hadn't screamed when Mister had beaten him. He sat hunched in the grass and he could not escape the Eagle's scream. The scream was a knife that sliced into him, the sound of a dying animal. He took his hands from his chest and slapped them over his ears and pressed the palms against his skull, but he could not lose the sound of it. The scream eddied in the grass around him, burrowed in the ground under him, it was around him – as the mines were.
