A Feast Unknown Part 12

"We could parachute down," Trish said. "The country is unpopulated back of your estate, you said. There'd be no danger of the plane cras.h.i.+ng into a house."

"There are too many trees around there," I said. "Moreover, Noli will be looking for us to do just that, you can bet. And if I were able to make a landing on the road near Cloamby in this rain, you can bet that Noli would know it before we landed. He's listening in to the radar reports on us. He must have shortwave equipment. He'd have a car down on the road with his thugs and be ready for us."

"Then he'll have men waiting at Penrith for us."

"He won't know I'm going there until the last minute, if I have anything to say about it. He'll be able to send men then, but they'll be too late then, I hope."

"He may have figured out that that's the only place you can land," she said. "In which case, his men will be on the way now."

"That's possible. We'll see."

The radio reported that visibility was still zero but that the winds had dropped to 20 miles per hour. The airports in the entire county were closed except for emergency landings.

The military might be thinking like Noli and also have men waiting at Penrith. I did not tell Trish that; she was nervous enough.

I went by Keswick city somewhere in the blackness below and over the lower edge of the great Skiddaw Forest and probably over Burnt Horse and then the Mungrisdale Common. The Bowscale Fell (peak height of 2306 feet) was beneath us, if I reckoned correctly and if my own radar was functioning correctly. Then I was over my own estates but could see nothing, of course. I had taken this route instead of going directly to Penrith because I wanted to throw both Noli and the military off.

I cut in again to the frequency on which my presumed agent had been operating. I said, "Start signaling."

He sounded nervous. He said, "Surely, m'lord, you're not going to land here! It's impossible! You'll get killed!"

Noli and Caliban would say the same thing. Noli would want me alive for the elixir (unless Caliban had told him that the elixir could only be gotten from the Nine, and he was not likely to do that). Caliban would not want his cousin killed (if he knew that she was with me). Nor would he want me killed, since he intended to do that with his bare hands.

I wondered what the Nine would think if one of us died an accidental death? Would the survivor then have to fight the next candidate? Or did the Nine want one of us dead for some unknown reason?

I replied to the man whom, by now, I was convinced was pretending to be the agent.

I said, "What do you advise?"

"The airport at Penrith is by far your best chance," he replied eagerly.

"I think I'll land on the road into Mungrisdale," I said. "I'll get a car there."

"You can't do that, m'lord!" he said. "It'd be suicide! At least Penrith has landing lights!"

"Mungrisdale it is, anyway," I said.

However, I agreed with him. My plan had been to lure Noli or Caliban into sending men down the road from Cloamby to Mungrisdale and detouring them from Penrith until it was too late. If Noli was intelligent, however, he would send men to Penrith anyway, if he had not done so already.

I realized then that I was convinced that it was Noli down there. Caliban might be close, but he was only on his way to, not in, Grandrith. The time element made this seem likely.

I put the plane into a steep dive from five thousand feet and did not begin to level out until the radar showed that I was 500 feet above ground level. Actually, we were probably much closer. There was just enough visibility for me to see several hundred feet ahead. Since the topography varied much within a short time, our progress resembled that of a very irregular sine wave. Trish gasped once and then closed her eyes. A moment later, she said, "I'm all right now. I just put my fate in the hands of the great G.o.d Old Crow."

I did not have much time to indulge in conversation. Nevertheless, I said, "Old Crow?"

"Yes. When I was very little, I heard my father say, more than once, that the greatest thing in the world was Old Crow. In my child's mind, I thought that Old Crow must be a great Indian chief, like Sitting Bull or Hiawatha. Then I thought that it must be the Great Spirit of the Indians and that my father had a place reserved for him in the Happy Hunting Grounds. So I started to pray to Old Crow. Later, when I found out that it wasn't an Indian G.o.d but a whiskey, I refused to admit my mistake. A G.o.d was created in my mind, and it has stayed there since. And I am especially honored above all humankind, because only I have been admitted to the wors.h.i.+p of the great G.o.d Old Crow."

By the time she had quit talking, we were close to Penrith. The radio was getting hysterical. Apparently the military had picked me up, and both frequencies, the port's and the military's, were screaming warnings, threaths, and pleas at me.

I thought for a moment of cras.h.i.+ng the plane on the Penrith golf course, which is a fairly large one, and parachuting in. I abandoned the idea at once, because I did not want to take a chance on killing someone. No, it would have to be the airport.

I dropped down fast, banked, and came in at the port as if I intended to strafe it. The lights suddenly became visible; I was coming in at the correct location and angle, though too swiftly. The lights along the strip were blurs, and the big lights on top of the control tower were diffused stars. I dropped the plane in from too great a height, not caring if I drove the wheels up through the wings. We struck hard but the wheels and gear held, and the tires did not blow. On the second bounce, I straightened her out and cut the engine speed and feathered the props more. The end of the runway still came up too swiftly, and I went past it, across the gra.s.s, and was able to stop it only just short of the parking lot fence.

There was no time to sit and gasp in air and take time to unjangle our nerves. We scrambled out with our bundles in our arms, opened them, put on the raincoats, stuck the automatics in our pockets, and ran towards the gate with the rest of the weapons in our arms.

The doors to the control tower and the pa.s.senger buildings were open; figures were running through them towards us, wildly waving their arms. The parking lot held six cars, none of them military or police. Perhaps they did not really think we would try to land there after all the foofaraw, or perhaps they had been delayed for some reason.

Trish used her pencil flashlight to light our path as we ran. We got to the cars well ahead of the people from the buildings. Moreover, these at first ran towards the plane; they did not know we were in the parking lot until a few minutes later. The six cars were a Hillman Minx, two Volkswagens, an MG, a Facel-Vega, and an Aston-Martin DB4. All were locked and none had keys in the ignition locks.

I smashed in the window of the Aston-Martin and reached in and unlocked the door. Then I raised the hood and, while Trish held the flashlight, went to work with screwdriver and pliers. It took only a minute to jump the wires, but by then we could hear voices, m.u.f.fled by the wind and the rain. I completed the connections, put the hood down gently, and we scrambled into the car. At that moment, a pair of headlights swung around the corner of a building at the far end of the street which ended at the gates of the airport.

A man yelled, "Here! I say! What do you think you're doing there?"

Five men ran towards us. I put the car into gear and took off with a squealing of tires. Wet as the pavement was, the rubber burned. There was a pinging sound as we went through the open gates. A hole appeared in the winds.h.i.+eld between us. I s.h.i.+fted to second. A second car had appeared behind the first down the street. In my rear view mirror I could see a pair of headlights come on in the parking lot.

Trish was busy taking the automatic from my pocket and laying it on the seat beside me, breaking open the .22, and a.s.sembling it.

Flames spurted from alongside the first auto heading for us. I began swerving but had little room to maneuver because the hundred-yard gap between us was narrowing swiftly. I was doing 60 mph by then, and the oncoming cars were probably doing 40 mph. It swerved away when I did. The driver had acted defensively; he must have thought I intended to crash him or was playing "chicken" and he did not want a head-on crash with an impact of 100 mph.

In any event, we both skidded. I compensated properly but the Aston-Martin continued to turn, moving forward also and spinning around its vertical axis. The other also turned. Like two waltzers, or ice-skaters, we pa.s.sed each other, our fronts missing by an inch or so. As we did so, Trish fired her automatic three times.

She said, "I think I got one! A hand flew up and dropped a gun out the window!"

Our car ended its whirl pointed in the right direction, so I just kept on going.

33.

The second car must have put on its brakes. It was skidding but the driver apparently got off the brakes in time to regain control. Jets of fire leaped from its side as it went by. And then we were past each other.

Trish, looking through the rear window, said, "The first car has stopped; it's headed away from us. So's the other one. They'll have to turn around. But the one that was in the lot-it's coming. Watch out!"

The warning was not for me but for the third car. Its driver had tried to stop it when he saw the roadway blocked by the two vehicles. He skidded and slammed into one of the cars, their two sides, right and left, colliding, according to Trish. The lights of one went out.

I took the corner with a minor skid, straightened out, and was on my way for a straight shot for six blocks. I had to go through the "Square." I was on A66, my immediate destination was A594, leading westward out of town. The six blocks were traversed with no sign of pursuit. Since I slowed down before taking the corner, I did not skid much. Several cars honked angrily as I flew by. I was splas.h.i.+ng water on both sides as if I were a motorboat trying for a speed record. Pedestrians, hearing me at a distance, raced for the sides of buildings, against which they flattened themselves. Their efforts to avoid getting hit were successful but they could not dodge the spray. I could imagine the fists and the curses. They were lucky they did not get run over. And, for all I knew, the pursuing cars would hit some.

Just before I turned the next corner for a shot at the central part of town, two cars came in sight behind us. One had only a single headlamp working.

A policeman stepped out of a pub and blew his whistle hysterically. I kept on, and he jumped back into the doorway as a blanket of water rose to cover him. I almost lost control again rounding another corner and then I was two blocks away from Market "Square." Trish, leaning out of the window, emptied a clip at the pursuers. The lead car swerved, and she exclaimed that she must have shot the driver. But it straightened out and flames jetted in reply from both sides of the car. As far as I knew, no bullets struck our vehicle.

Then I was roaring into the "Square" but double-clutching to gear down. At the end of the "Square" a large white board sign with the word ARNISONS shone in my beams. I swung left and, again, could not keep from skidding. Fifty miles an hour was too much for wet pavement and such an abrupt movement. As the car's rear end described its arc, my headlights pa.s.sed across the black letters on the white plate. A594 KESWICK. This sign was on a black and white pole on a triangle of cement between three roads. A watchtower stood on the triangle behind the signpost.

The beams swung past that and illumined the front of the Midland Bank, and the car's rear went over the curbing of the triangle and struck the road sign. The pole bent with a crash; the car slid off it and continued on down A594, past the bank and headed westerly.

I was lucky not to blow a tire or overturn. The pole must have damaged the side of the car, and I had been thrown against my seat and shoulder belt towards the right. She had been pressed against the door.

The first car to follow us was not as lucky. It was about 40 feet behind us and going, I estimated at 60 mph. I don't think the driver was familiar with this town, otherwise, he would have been more cautious. It skidded, too, and went up over the curb of the island, completely bent the pole under it, and smashed broadside into the tower. Its lights went out, and I did not see it again.

The car behind it did not try to turn. It put on its brakes and skidded on down the street past the tower and out of sight behind the bank. However, it must have turned around swiftly, because a minute later I saw its lights a half-mile behind me.

The third car, which I presumed was driven by some of the airport personnel, did not appear again.

A594 bent slightly southwest out of Penrith and then, near the Greystoke Pillar, a monument, turned northwesterly. Between Penrith and the village of Greystoke was a stretch of five miles with only farmhouses on either side of the road and not many of them. The road was excellent, a Minister of Transport motorway. Despite the driving rain and wind, I was going at 80 mph and occasionally at 90. I traveled this fast only because I knew the road well. I was hoping that my pursuers had no local men among them.

Although I kept most of my mind on the driving, I could spare some for thinking about the situation. Those men had fired at me with intent to kill, not just to warn. It did not seem likely that Caliban's men would shoot at me if he knew his cousin was with me. Moreover, Caliban wanted to handle me personally.

Noli knew where the gold was, or where it had been. He wanted the elixir, however, and he needed me alive to tell him how to get it. Or did he? If he had Clio-I felt cold then he could get the secret out of her. And so there was no reason for him to keep me alive except for personal vengeance. But he knew how dangerous I was and may have decided to let the torture go for an a.s.surance that I was no longer a threat to him.

If I was right about Noli, then he was double-crossing Caliban. Noli was not only trying to frustrate Caliban's plans for me, he was trying to kill Trish.

I began to think that Noli was not so intelligent after all. Didn't he realize that Caliban was extremely dangerous? Noli's actions were those of a man who lets two tigers out of a cage, both of whom want to do nothing but kill him.

I topped a hill then and looked across the dip to the top of the next hill. I saw, fuzzily through the rain, lights on or near the top of the hill. And, at that moment, the rain ceased. The wipers cleared the winds.h.i.+eld, and I saw that there must be more than one car on the other side of that hill. Two sets of beams turned sidewise, briefly shone out past the hill, and were turned off. If it hadn't been for the rain suddenly quitting, I might not have known that two cars were turned broadside to block the motorway.

The car behind me speeded up. Either the men in it felt more confident now that they could see better of they were in radio contact with those ahead. I suspected that both were true.

I did not increase my speed more than 5 mph going down the hill. The pursuer drew up behind me, doing approximately 95 mph. When about 30 feet away, its occupants fired six shots, one of which put a hole in the window behind me and in the winds.h.i.+eld. I jerked because the bullet burned the top of my shoulder. I asked Trish to feel under my s.h.i.+rt, and she said that I was welted but there seemed to be no blood.

After that, the car dropped away. This convinced me that they were in radio contact. By the time I was almost to the crest of the hill, the car was only halfway up and still slowing down.

I took my foot off the gas pedal as I came over the hilltop. The hill ran at a 45-degree angle at this point. Bright in the glow of my lamps were the two barricading cars, only 180 feet ahead. They were in tandem with the rear of one off the road and the nose of the other sticking over the edge of the pavement. A hundred yards down, a third car was parked half on the road, facing us.

Nine men stood by the two broadside cars. Three were on the left beyond the ditch and holding submachine guns. Six were by the ditch to the right and holding pistols and rifles.

They began firing immediately. Trish crouched down but fired with her automatic at the men on the right. The hand grenades lay on the floor at her feet, ready for use.

Events happened so swiftly there was time only to react. I took the left side because there was more room on the wet clayey ground between the car and the ditch. Also, because there were only three weapons on that side, even if they were rapid-firing.

Gearing down, I ran at the left-hand car with my left wheels on the mire and my right on the pavement. I was crouched down as far as I could get and still see.

At this close range, we should have been riddled. But in the excitement and uncertainty, as almost always happens, the firing was anything but accurate. And the men must have been concerned about my cras.h.i.+ng into them. Holes did appear in the plastic just above my head. Bullets whistled by. Something burning hit my neck. It was, I think, a deflected bullet that just touched the skin with its hot metal and then dropped onto my shoulder.

The three men with the submachine guns scattered because I could easily have slid across the mud and into them. They realized, too late, that I was not going to stop and let them shoot me and that I might be intent on running over them even if I got killed in the process. It was well for us that they broke, because if they had stood their ground they could have blasted us at point-blank range. I swung off the road onto the shoulder, there was a slight b.u.mp as my skidding rear struck the nose of the blocking car, and we were in the mud.

Just before that, Trish, with a coolness and precision that I had no time to admire then, tossed a grenade. She did not see where it struck, of course, but it must have been stopped by the wheels or some part of the car.

Our vehicle shot through the mud, towards the ditch. I geared down to first and we straightened out and slid close enough to the road for my right-side wheels to get back upon the pavement. I got back onto the road completely just as the grenade blew up. Trish said it exploded under the right-hand car, not the left-hand one, under which she had thrown it. It did not matter. Both cars went up in flames and smoke as their gas tanks exploded. Three of the men on the right side and run across the ditch to fire at us. They were caught by the outgush and set afire.

The third car, parked down the road on the right side, protected three men firing at us. Two men were on the other side of the hood, shooting rifles. A third was stationed behind the car and firing with a tommy. This, unlike the others, had tracer bullets.

We should have been skewered. But the explosions of the two cars must have shaken them up, even if they were hardened professionals. I further unnerved them by angling across the road, accelerating swiftly, as I aimed directly at them. The tracers. .h.i.t the pavement to my right and behind us and then swung up towards us. I turned the front of the car away at the last moment, skidding again, while Trish continued firing with my .38. Just before the headlamps swung away from them, I saw one man behind the hood throw up his hands and fall backwards. The man with the tommy, thinking I was going to ram the car, which I almost did anyway, ran to the left, and my rear, skidding around, knocked him into the air and against his car.

Then we were gone with the fires lighting our rear for many miles.

Trish began to shake. She held on to me and cried a little. I felt a little shakiness, too, but it was caused by my exultation.

I rejoiced too soon. Somehow, the car that had chased me from Penrith got by the burning cars. And the car down the road was manned by the survivors. I had not gone more than two miles before I saw the lights of two cars behind me. They were overtaking me swiftly. These were not the sort of men to be easily discouraged.

So far, my gas tank was three-quarters full and the oil pressure and engine temperature were normal. No tires had been struck, even if, surely, the tires had been shot at.

I pa.s.sed Bunkers Hill, a farm with a three-quarters castellated house. This farm, with another, Fort Putnam, further down the road, were the works of the Duke of Greystoke in 1780. The then duke was pro-American and a militant Whig, and he built the two places to celebrate the Yankee victories after which they were named. The sight of them made me consider, for a moment, asking the resident of Greystoke Castle for help. He was my very good friend, and I can count those on my fingers. Then I remembered that he was in Alaska. Moreover, I could not, no matter how desperate the situation, bring this sort of trouble on him. For other reasons, I had not contacted the authorities to help me. I was certain that Clio would be killed if the constabulary or other slow-moving and cautious authorities showed up at Grandrith. Delivering her had to be done with a sudden attack.

Another reason for not bringing in the authorities was the Nine. This was a private, or internal, affair, and there should be as little publicity and as much obfuscation as possible. Of course, if it would have helped Clio, I would have defied the Nine. I was becoming half-convinced that neither of us would be in any trouble if the Nine had not shaped events for their own dark purposes.

Now, what with the business at the airport, the crash in Penrith, and the burning cars on the motorway, the authorities would be busy soon enough and on our trails.

A half-mile past Fort Putnam, the two cars began to overtake me. I could not get the Aston-Martin past eighty now, which convinced me that the car had been damaged by the bullets. Moreover, the two pursuers were doing 100 at least. They would gain more on me when I approached Greystoke, because I did not intend to enter it above 50.

A quarter-mile outside the small village of Greystoke the engine temperature began to climb. Steam was pouring out from under the hood now. The radiator had been pierced, and I could not go much further before the engine locked. I told Trish to be ready to abandon the car and to start running.

There was no one on the streets and no lights visible when we drove into Greystoke. The pursuers were out of sight, down in a dip. For several seconds I thought of cutting north, quitting the Aston-Martin, and stealing another vehicle. The road north, which runs on the eastern side of Greystoke Forest, is not even a second-cla.s.s motorway. It is crossed north of the forest by a similar road which goes westerly to another road which would take me southerly on the west side of Greystoke Forest to the road that leads eventually to my estate. This road is narrow and winding but tar-surfaced. The route would be much longer than the other way, but it had the advantage that my pursuers would not expect me to take it.

However, they would just go on to Grandrith and wait there for me, as they should have done in the first place. It was best to take the shortest route. I might be able to make my pursuers suffer more losses. The more opposition that was dead before I got to my destination, the better.

I would leave A594 in Greystoke and take the short-cut metalled road which paralleled an old Roman road and went by way of Barffs Wood. My pursuers could radio ahead and have a roadblock waiting for me at the junction of two roads, but they could do this no matter what way I went.

The road I would take out of the village met another running north from A594. This would take me past Berrier, Murrah, and Murrah Hall to a road which, in turn, would take me to my estate between the River Caldew and the Raven Crags.

As I sped into the middle of town, several things happened at once. The engine temperature indicator shot up. A door in a house by the road swung open and two men, dressed in cyclist's clothes, stepped out. I had been in the middle of the road but I swung to the right to avoid them if they were going to cross the road. I saw a huge object, perhaps 20 feet high and eight broad. It was draped with a tarpaulin.

Just as I steered right, my front right tire blew.

34.

The tire may have been weakened by a bullet or when it struck the curb at Penrith. I did not apply brakes, of course, but wrenched the wheel to direct us away from the tarpaulin-hidden object in the middle of the square. The car skidded and shuddered at the same time and slid nose-first into the base of the object. We were thrown forward but restrained by our seat and shoulder belts. The car hissed as the last of the water poured out of her smashed radiator.

We could see nothing because the tarpaulin had fallen over us. We got out of our belts, stuck the guns and ammo boxes in the pockets of our coats, and also took the bundle containing the crossbow, the bolts, and grenades. I shoved the .22 under the car.

The cyclists, laughing and cursing at the same time, their North country accents even more thickened with liquor, were trying to pull the tarpaulin off us. Then they shouted with alarm and told each other to jump out of the way. Something gave a tremendous crash immediately before our car.

We got out from under. Our first concern was that our pursuers had not caught up with us. There were no lights as yet from their cars, but lights were going on in shops and houses by the road.

The thing under the tarpaulin had toppled over away from us, fortunately. For a few seconds I could not see what it was, and then when the lights came on and Trish's flashlight illuminated it, I did not understand what I was seeing. Then it became a configuration I recognized.

Several years before, a rich American aficionado of the author Edgar Rice Burroughs had proposed to set up in the center of Greystoke a giant bronze statue of Tarzan battling a gorilla. As any reader of Burroughs knows, Tarzan was supposed to be an English viscount, "Lord" Greystoke. The American had decided that a statue of the ape-man should be put up in Greystoke to commemorate his ancestral town.

Many natives of Greystoke objected for various reasons. Some pointed out that Greystoke was not the real t.i.tle of Tarzan. The first book in the series admitted that it was a name chosen to hide Tarzan's true ident.i.ty. Thus, the real Greystoke had nothing to do with Tarzan. The pro-statue people admitted this but said it made no difference. The statue would bring the town much publicity, since everybody knew about Tarzan, even if many did not know that Burroughs was the author who had created him or that Tarzan was a t.i.tled Englishman. The tourists would flock in and the village would prosper.