Dunbar desperately wanted to swallow but did not dare. He closed his eyes completely as the light was clicked on. The next few moments were going to decide whether he lived or died. The light on his eyelids dimmed as the man’s shadow fell on them. Dunbar sensed him kneel down to his left. He could hear his breathing, smell a suggestion of foreign food on his clothes.
He felt his arm being grasped firmly but not with undue roughness. The man suspected nothing. Timing was all-important now. At the first touch of the needle point Dunbar rolled smartly away to stop it piercing his skin. He brought the metal scoop from behind his back and swung it at his assailant’s head. It connected with a dull clunk and threw the man off balance, but Dunbar knew the blow wasn’t heavy enough to knock him out. The man was already recovering and soon Dunbar was going to be in real trouble. He’d used up his adrenalin in fighting the effects of the drug.
Fuelled by panic, he struggled to his knees and swung his right fist at the Arab but his arm felt like lead and the punch carried no weight at all. The Arab evaded it with ease and grinned as Dunbar slumped back to the floor. There was no point in trying to throw any more punches; he hadn’t the strength to make them count. He backed away instinctively, now just hoping to survive as long as possible. The Arab recovered his syringe and checked it leisurely before coming after him.
As Dunbar retreated, he stumbled against the sack of animal feed, which spilled over. He grabbed a handful of pellets and flung them across the floor under the Arab’s feet. It seemed odds against, but for once he got the luck he needed. The Arab lost his footing and pitched forward, saving himself from falling by reaching into the hopper of the processing machine. Instinctively, Dunbar groped for the On switch on the control panel — it took only a second but seemed like an eternity — and pressed it.
The machine sprang to life and drew the Arab’s arm into the blades. Mercifully, he fell into unconsciousness as the scream died on his lips. The machine jammed. Dunbar hit the Off switch and was enveloped in silence.
‘Your kind of justice, I believe,’ he murmured. ‘An arm for an arm.’
SEVENTEEN
Dunbar knew his only chance of survival was to get out of the building before the other man returned or the security men came across from the gate-house. What about the staff? He decided they couldn’t be here. Research must have been suspended while Ross and the Arabs were using the farm as a prison. He was totally disorientated. He didn’t know what day it was or even whether it was day or night. He dragged himself to the front door and then stopped when he realized that he couldn’t go out this way. The door faced the gate-house. He would be seen. It might even be broad daylight out there. There was only one alternative and it wasn’t an attractive one. He would have to go out through the slurry pipe he and Jimmy Douglas had used.
He balked at the idea. He wasn’t at all sure he had either the stamina or the courage for it in his current condition but there seemed to be no alternative. But then what? There’d be no car waiting three hundred yards up the road this time and he didn’t have the strength for a prolonged cross-country run. Despair was on the horizon when he remembered Jimmy Douglas’s Land-Rover and the keys the hotel laundry had returned to him. Please God he had them with him and please God they were the only set of keys for the vehicle. Jimmy had said something about having it picked up. He felt in his pocket and found the keys.
If the police hadn’t taken the Land-Rover away, and there was a good chance that they hadn’t, he could use it… but only if he could reach it. His stomach turned over at the thought of the slurry pipe. Going out through it posed a whole new set of problems. It was going to be even worse than coming in. At least last time he’d been able to open the drain covers from the outside and step down into the pit. This time he’d have to open the covers from below. For that he would have to submerge himself completely in the sump.
Dunbar started to prepare mentally for the nightmare ahead. He imagined himself outside in the fresh air, heading for freedom across the open fields; but reality kept intruding. If he made it to the outside he’d emerge from the pipe like the creature from the black lagoon and there’d be no water or clean clothes available. He had a sudden thought. There must be some kind of clothing kept in the building for research workers. If he could find a change of clothing and some plastic to wrap it up in…
He found what he was looking for in a linen cupboard in the hallway leading to the staff locker room. He helped himself to a surgical tunic and trousers and added a towel to his bundle. A further search uncovered a roll of plastic bin sacks. He tore one off and put the clothes and towel inside, making the package as flat as possible. He tucked it inside his shirt against his chest and smoothed it as best he could.
He was getting stronger by the minute as the effects of the drug in his bloodstream wore off, but the thought of the slurry pipe still filled him with dread. If he failed to raise the drain covers from below, the ultimate in claustrophobic nightmares would become his, followed quickly by his death.
Dunbar removed the inside grille with slow deliberation and eased himself feet first into the pipe. It was only fear of the consequences of being recaptured that drove him on. The pigs round about grunted their approval. The horizontal section of the pipe was easy; then came the turn into the vertical drop. Dunbar could feel the blood pounding inside his head as he resolved not to stop and think. He closed his eyes and held his breath as he wriggled slowly backwards until gravity took over; his rate of slide accelerated and he fell straight down into the slurry, landing with a jolt that travelled up his spine and rattled his teeth. He was now standing in the slurry pit. Next he had to wriggle down and out of the mouth of the pipe and raise the drain covers, and then he would be free.
He couldn’t hold his breath any longer. He raised his face as far as possible from the slurry and took in a breath of air from above. He gagged and knew that he couldn’t do that again. He writhed and wriggled down into the pit and immersed himself in its contents before slamming his back and shoulders up against the drain covers. They didn’t budge. Nightmare thoughts of their being padlocked filled his head as he strained up at them again. This time they gave with a loud sucking sound. Recent rain had sealed the edges with mud and water, creating a vacuum seal. He took in a huge breath of night air and tried to clear the filth from his face and eyes. The sky was black as pitch and it was raining.
Fighting the urge to retch, he replaced the drain covers… and remembered the electric fence. The realization made him sink to his knees and brought him close to tears. There was no question of trying to go over it or dig a way under it and he certainly didn’t have anything to cut and bridge it with on this occasion. He’d have to leave by the front entrance.
He wriggled up to the corner of the building on his belly and decided on his route. It wasn’t going to be as difficult as he’d first imagined. The gate-house was designed mainly to monitor people coming in rather than leaving. If he could cross the twenty metres of open ground between the main building and the gate-house without being seen, he could get round the back and into the neighbouring field at the corner where the electric fence ended. He got up on to his haunches and prepared for the short sprint. He was still a little unsteady so he took his time in composing himself. A stumble could be fatal.
The men inside the gate-house seemed to be moving around a good deal. Dunbar waited until none of them was near the window facing the main building, then sprinted across the tarmac and into the welcoming shadows. He paused, motionless, for a few moments before continuing round the blind side of the gate-house and squeezing through into the neighbouring field where the electric fence ended.
Dunbar started out on his journey towards the abandoned rail station where his hopes were pinned on the Land-Rover still being parked. The night was so dark that he kept stumbling and losing his footing as he made his way diagonally across the first field to follow the line of the road. The icy rain was doing something to clear the mess from his head and face but he desperately wanted to find water flowing in one of the many ditches he had to cross. It wasn’t until he was on the far side of the second field that he found a small stream running down the side of a pine wood. The water was freezing cold, but sluicing himself down with it was preferable to carrying on in his current condition.
It seemed as if every muscle in his body went into shivering spasm as he stripped off his contaminated clothing and knelt down in the water to clean himself. When he’d finished, he scrambled out on to the bank in ungainly fashion and brushed off excess water with the palms of his hands as best he could before extracting the towel from the binsack and rubbing himself down vigorously to maintain circulation. He put on the surgical tunic and trousers, cursing the fact that it was difficult because he wasn’t properly dry and his movements were jerky because he was shivering. He emptied the pockets of his old clothes and then stuffed them as a rolled-up bundle
