Emerald Decision

The van's nearside struck the wooden wall of the barn, more bullets ripped through the rear doors, angling out again through the driver's side above McBride's head — tyres still good, he thought, swinging the wheel, tearing off the nearside running-board, the van sliding with a groaning wobble into the narrow space. Starlight, then blackness, a heavy thump, a scream, and something rolling wildly across the roof over McBride's head and sliding off behind the van. More bullets, and one of the double doors at the back of the van began flapping open, magnifying the shouts, the noise of engines behind them, the shots. McBride punched out the remainder of the windscreen, cutting his hand, cursing and elated.

The Citroen lurched lamely out of the narrow gap between cottage and barn, engine screeching, wheels gripping the gravel of the track to the road.

'Christ, what's happening!'

'Don't worry, Peter, we're on our way!' McBride shouted, almost gaily. Lights dazzled in the rear-view mirror for a moment, then he had turned onto the road. The village lay ahead, a few poor lights defying the black-out. He pressed the accelerator, demanding more from the protesting engine. 'Don't worry — you all right?'

Gilliatt climbed awkwardly up out of the footwell, very carefully brushed glass from the seat, and slumped next to McBride as he was overbalanced by the van's cornering speed.

'You're all right?'

'Ah, hell — I'm always like this!'

The first houses of the village. Lights behind them, spilling like ignited fuel up the road to engulf them.

'I'll try to shut the doors,' Gilliatt grinned. He accepted the adrenalin madness, felt it coursing through him like a transfusion from the Irishman. It wasn't a sane world any longer. 'Try not to shoot me out onto the road, there's a good chap.'

McBride looked at him, then nodded, sensing a transformation in Gilliatt. He might now run almost as far, almost as fast as himself.

'Hurry back, I need a navigator.'

The Citroen slowed slightly until McBride heard the doors slam, the road noise diminishing in his ears, then he accelerated again as Gilliatt clambered back over the seat. The map was in his hand. He flicked on a small torch.

'They'll know we're heading for Brest,' Gilliatt observed.

'Sure they will. How did they know we were there — did they follow us, or were they told?'

'Told? Left here!'

The van swerved noisily, bumping into a lane overhung with leafless trees, rutted and puddled. McBride gripped the wheel like a rally driver, stiff-armed, ready to wrestle with its vagaries. 'I don't know what I mean, either!' The noises in the van sounded as if it was tearing itself to pieces. 'Hold on, you brave tyres!' he yelled, surrendering to Gilliatt's navigation and to the stupid, senseless excitement of the chase. Lights in the mirror, dipping and swinging into the lane. McBride felt the van lurch against the bank, tear at roots and earth, then pull free.

'Another turn on the right, in maybe fifty — there it is!'

McBride heaved on the wheel, the van slid in the opposite direction like an unwilling animal. McBride spun the wheel, evening out the skid, then he stamped on the accelerator as he met the slope of the new track and the Citroen almost refused.

'All I know, Peter, is that they get closer to me every time I come for a visit — and they're not that clever!' Gilliatt listened but kept his eyes on the map. 'But, what the hell! They must have heard the Wellington, wondered about it, then found Hoffer and put two and two—'

The Citroen bounced off a low wall surrounding an isolated church. Gilliatt saw McBride cross himself with one hand, steering with the other, the grin never disappearing for a moment from his lips. Then they were over a rise, swinging down. McBride switched on the headlights for a moment to orient himself, then doused them again. He turned left into thicker trees that had thrown back the headlight beams in twisted, skeletal whiteness. McBride then drove totally on reaction, concentrating grimly, swerving innumerable times, hitting the boles of trees glancing blows twice, stalling the engine once, skidding frequently.

Then they were out of the trees.

'Nearest track?' he snapped.

'Keep ahead. We may have to open a gate or two, but eventually we'll find the road!'

McBride looked at him, and winked.

'That we will — we will.' He laughed.

Behind them, the first of the pursuing vehicles, an open Einheits-programme VW Type 82, entered the trees, headlights on full, followed more cautiously by an Opel Blitz three-ton truck with a platoon aboard and the dead, glassless searchlight for which there were no spare bulbs. They were a little more than a quarter of a mile behind the Citroen van, fifteen kilometres from the outskirts of Brest.

October 198-

He'd found two items by the time the records office was due to close, and he was tempted to take them with him, knowing they would be unlikely to be missed, perhaps for years. The first was a notification from the Admiralty that Lieutenant Gilliatt had been temporarily reassigned to shore duties, and that his replacement, Sub- Lieutenant Thomas, would be arriving in forty-eight hours. There were no other details. He could not find a later reassignment of Gilliatt to the Bisley, or any ship at Milford Haven.

The second item was the deposition of a Leading Seaman Campbell who was charged with being drunk and disorderly while on shore leave from Bisley in Milford Haven. He was also accused of discussing, in a manner prejudicial to security and the safety of his ship, the sweep from which Bisley had just returned. After three days on board twiddling his thumbs, Campbell explained that he was disgruntled and resentful, but had not intended to breach the strict security under which he had carried out his recent duties. He claimed to be unaware of the level of security.

He referred, in his deposition, to the breach that had been found in Winnie's Welcome Mat — McBride had been puzzled by the soubriquet until Campbell had referred to it more properly later in his statement. And then he had indulged his delight. A German sweep of the minefield, recently carried out, running north-south between Ireland and France.

McBride, the evening closing in, cloudy and rain-threatening outside the windows, the unshaded lamp throwing a hard, dusty light on the papers and the table, wanted to leave at once, be with Claire as his just reward for successful industry. Evidence of Emerald Necklace — he could open up the whole can of worms with it. He looked around him, and swiftly pocketed the deposition, then closed the file. Hoskins could return it. Hoskins, something about Hoskins—

He grinned. He was seeing links everywhere. It was a popular history, a best-seller he was writing, not the scheme of some mystic philosophy. He laughed, picked up his briefcase, and left.

Outside, Hoskins was watching for him. When McBride headed for the station at London Fields and disappeared from sight in the rainy evening, Hoskins entered the telephone booth beside which he had been sheltering. He arranged his ten pence pieces on the directory, wrinkled his nose at the graffiti scrawled on the small mirror in felt pen, and dialled a number. The hotel switchboard put him through to the room he requested.

'Yes?' It was Goessler.

'He's found something — probably Campbell's deposition, or something like it. Pleased as Punch, he is.'

'Good. You've made an approach?'

'Yes. He didn't seem to hear me, though.'

'Never mind. Tomorrow will do, Hoskins. Tell him in plainer terms, eh?' Goessler laughed. 'Well done, Hoskins. Report on any further progress at the same time tomorrow.'

The connection was broken. The telephone purred in Hoskins' ear, and despite his umbrella and trilby, a thin dribble of water which must have lodged in his hair ran down his collar, much to his annoyance.

November 1940

Gilliatt was dog-tired, the adrenalin having seemingly vanished from his bloodstream, taking energy, willpower, consciousness with it. He watched the map, in the mesmeric pool of torchlight, move in and out of focus, taunting his eyes. Villages, hamlets, no more than spots in front of his eyes—

He rubbed his eyes.

'You OK?'