'What other chance is there? They'll have gone out of range for a bit. We'll have to catch them up. Look. There they are already!'
'Yeah, you beauty!' Skinner cried with delight. 'You bastards won't do that again,' he growled at the trace, as if, through it, Alex's kidnappers could hear him. He looked again and saw that the Senator was headed due north. '
'So, now where're they off to?' asked Adam Arrow, and the atmosphere at once grew more sober again.
'What does the map say?' asked Skinner.
'I don't need the map for that,' said Martin. 'They're headed up Crow Road, towards Anniesland Cross. From there they can go in four different directions. It's anyone's guess now which one they'll take.'
'Whatever it is,' said Skinner, 'we've got to guess their destination, and get there before them. Otherwise…' His voice tailed away wearily.
'Let's see what they do,' said Martin. 'They could even cut back across the Erskine Bridge and come into the airport from the other side. Anniesland Cross'11 tell us that. They must be there now. The trace has stopped. That'll be the traffic-lights. Of course they're so complicated there, it's always possible the bugger could get lost!'
He stared at the screen. 'There he goes again. West is it? No, he's going north still. That makes it Bearsden, and Milngavie beyond that. That's the wrong way for a boat, and it's away from all the airports. Christ knows where he's off to. Bob. To lie low for a few days, d'you think?'
Skinner shook his head. 'No, they've got what they came for.
They won't let the sun come up on them. Somewhere there's an aircraft. Any ideas, pilot?'
'No, sir. Not in this direction. I have to warn you, though, if they've got a full tank, they'll outlast us, especially if we're flying stop-and-start like this.'
Skinner nodded. 'Aye, I figured. Look, my last option is that if we're going to run out of fuel, we land on the road in front of them and shoot their tyres out. But that's nightmare stuff. It's the slimmest of all chances for my daughter.
'How long have we got?'
'No more than half an hour, sir.'
'Jesus.'
'Here, Bob. Hold on a minute. I've got it.'
Skinner looked over his shoulder to the rear seat. A sly smile showed on Martin's face. The green eyes, made even greener by the reflection of the screen caught in his contact lens, seemed to glow brightly in the dark. •He's off to Balnaddar.'
96
'Sorry to bother you, sir, but we've got a mystery here.'
Maggie Rose had come through on Mackie's direct line, nc long after he had finished passing Skinner's message on ti Superintendent Haggerty. She explained to him that Sarah s Julia Shahor had vanished, find that there were clear signs t, their disappearance had been sudden and unplanned.
'So what have you done about it?': 'We've checked the doctors' call-out service. No emergency calls have been put through to Sarah tonight. Then we've checked the hospitals. She hasn't been?een at any of them. We've checked with Telecom. No calls to or ffom this number all evening. We've checked with UCI and the other cinemas that take credit-card bookings. None made by either Sarah or Julia. Oh yes, and we've even searched the garden, just in case they saw us and decided to play the fool. All in all, sir, s? far not a trace of them.'
Mackie took a few seconds to consider what he had been told.
'OK, Maggie. You've done everything right so far. I'll take things from here. You two stay there and wait for them getting back from the Chinese or yvhatever carry-out shop they've probably gone to. I'll have an East Lothian car check out Gullane.', 'You going to let the boss krtow?'
'No bloody way. He and Arfdy have enough on their minds, without nonsense like this!'
97
The airfield was just where Martin had said it would be. It lay a few miles north of Milngavie – 'T' UK's least pronounceable town', as Arrow had dubbed it – on the A81 to Blanefield, and ultimately to Aberfoyle, just where the flatter landscape gives way finally to seemingly endless hills.
Skinner had committed the helicopter as soon as the trace showed that the Senator had taken the fork to Milngavie.
Swinging wide round the car, the pilot had outpaced it easily.
Now, the dead screen showed that they were well in front of it, but Skinner was unworried. He knew that there were no other forks or turn-offs on the road for their quarry to take, but if he was wrong, and this was not to be the stopping place, he still had fuel in hand for the gambler's last throw which he had contemplated earlier.
'What was this place used for, then, Andy?' he asked as the helicopter hovered low over the strip.
Martin did not answer for a moment, as he watched the searchlight beam follow the entrance road from the A81, sweep along the short grey tarmac runway, and finally pick out the hangar, the only building in the field.
The University Flying Club used it in my day,' he said eventually. 'They ran three planes out of here. A few private pilots flew from here as well. Then some of them played silly buggers and got too close to the Glasgow flight-path, so the CAA had it closed down. After that somebody rented it for a while and ran it as a go-kart track, until mountain-bikes and video games came along and killed that business stone dead. Since then it hasn't been used at all. As far as I know, the University still owns it, but they can't think of anything to do with it. They can't get planning permission for houses, and so they can't sell it. The last I heard of it was when I saw in a graduates' association circular in the spring that it was going to be used for a charity Bungee-jump.'
'Who'd be likely to know about this place, other than the locals and students?' Skinner asked.
'Just about any pilot with access to the right charts. It'll still be marked on them – like for emergencies only.'
As he spoke, the helicopter touched down, facing the hangar.
The pilot switched off the engine and, as the craft settled, raised the beam of the searchlight and played it on the rusting doors.
They stood slightly ajar. The policemen, the soldier, and the pilot jumped from the Jet Ranger and walked towards the hangar, their shadows on its doors growing smaller as they neared it.
They saw immediately that it was impossible for the doors to be pulled fully shut because of thick grass which had sprouted in their runner. One by one the men squeezed through the gap, although for Arrow, who seemed squatter than ever, it proved a tight fit.
Martin's torch had a wide beam adjustment. In the broad light it cast, they saw, in the centre of the hangar, its propellers facing the doors, a small twin-engined aircraft. Martin shone the torch into the aeroplane. It had four seats, two in front, two to the rear, with storage space behind. What make is it?' Skinner asked the pilot.
'Could be some sort of Fokker.'
'Range?' 'Depends on the load, but if it's fully tanked up, quite a way:
Southern Ireland no sweat, well into France, the Benelux countries, Scandinavia even. And this one is fully tanked up.
Look at the way she's sitting on the suspension.'
'That says it all,' said Skinner. He reached inside his jacket and took a Browning automatic from its holster. 'Right. We haven't got all night. We must get that chopper airborne again, now.
Adam, you and I are the reception committee. You in that corner over there, against the wall and beyond
