Harvest (11 page)

He looked more closely at the bodies. They were certainly all dead, their hands tied behind their backs, their throats slit. A neat, tidy, cruel job.

‘Fyrd,’ he murmured to himself.

Times certainly had changed so far as humans were concerned. Hydden bodies would never have been left on view a year before, especially by the Fyrd. They would have been burnt.

Their garb was distinctive.

Each wore white fustian robes with woven girdles. Their feet were bare and dirty. Not far off was a pile of sandals. They had been made to take them off before they were killed.

Their hair was ill-cut and short. These were hydden monks who had seen better days.

He retreated back to the others, eyes checking everywhere, near and far. An easy place to hide, especially in fading light. An impossible place to investigate without putting themselves in
jeopardy.

‘Well, Stort,’ he said, ‘they were killed very recently. They look like the monks you might have been hoping to talk with . . . but right now we go back up the hill and make
camp somewhere safe among the pines, where we are not sitting ducks. I think Fyrd have been here, and recently. We may have disturbed them but I don’t think so. Were that the case they
probably would have waited to attack us, for to have killed these monks in such a way needed at least as many as us and probably a whole patrol.’

‘Shouldn’t we get right away?’ said Katherine.

Jack shook his head.

‘If we’ve been seen we can be followed. Up there we’ll be hard to get at without us hearing them approach. If no one saw us arrive, they’ll not know we’re here and
we can investigate further by the light of day.’

They retraced their steps up the hill and set up camp under a wooded bluff which gave them protection from above and the sides. Jack set up thread-alarms – simple stretches of well-placed
strong black thread to a cobnut rattle in their tent, easily triggered by intruders into their space – and set their staves and his crossbow ready.

‘I’ll take first watch,’ he said, ‘while you two fry up that pike.’

It was going to be another long night and now a cold one.

There was a nip to the air, and mist hung about the trees.

I
n the time the military allowed Arthur before they left, he thought hard and fast and collected the few essentials he might need. He included some
items from what had once been a workshop and a laboratory in the former stables, among which was some stiff wire and a wire-cutter. He had this for creating structures to hold equipment. He hoped
now the cutters would have another use.

He had to be sure that, if he could not find a way to escape to the Hyddenworld before they took him to Croughton, he had what he needed when he got there.

Stressed he might now be, but it was a long time since he had felt so alive.

He went upstairs to pack a small case and returned with it to his study, where he placed it on his desk and removed the item that was inside. It was an ancient leather portersac from the
Hyddenworld. Inscribed on the inside of the flap in a Gothic script in black ink was ‘Yakob’, Jack’s German name.

When the White Horse carried the six-year-old Jack to safety in Englalond, and he entered the human world, the ’sac and its few contents was his only possession. It remained his only
connection with his childhood and Arthur had decided it was about time he had it back.

For now he took a few small items from his desk, relics of his Hyddenworld explorations: a tiny brass compass of hydden manufacture, a cannikin, the essentials to make fire and a brew the hydden
way, a brot holder, a bedroll that looked far too small for him, a flint lighter.

‘Oh, and my stave!’ he said to himself, taking up what looked like no more than a stumpy stick with brass ferrules at each end, from his walking-stick stand.

He gathered some maps and papers and printed off the attachment which Bohr had sent, which showed the places in the British Isles where there had been recent Earth incidents.

He put the case by the front door. The portersac he kept with him, as if in his haste he had forgotten it was in his hand. If he succeeded in getting to the tree henge he would need the things
inside it. ‘I’ll just make sure the bottom garden gates are secure,’ he told the officer waiting, and hurried outside.

‘Feel free, Professor. But we need to leave in twenty minutes.’

Arthur left the case but carried the ’sac. If his first plan worked he’d be gone before they knew it with all he needed in his ’sac. If not then he would move on to Plan B when
he got to RAF Croughton.

He walked through the conservatory and out across the lawn towards the two trees that marked the entrance to the henge. If he could just get through the trees and turn dexter into the shadows he
would be beyond the reach of Bohr.

Five yards, four, two . . .

‘I’m sorry, sir, you cannot go any further.’

Arthur stopped abruptly.

A soldier in camouflage appeared from behind one of the conifers. Another rose from the ground thirty yards off. Both were armed.

‘But . . .’

There were no buts, none at all.

As Arthur had feared, he was going to RAF Croughton, like it or not. He would have to rely on Plan B. If that failed he had no plans at all.

He went round to check the gates, followed by one of his minders, collected some lemon balm for show and reluctantly turned back to the house.

Back in his library he found his copy of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office Royal Commission Report, titled
Archaeological Remains on Ministry of Defence Properties in England, Wales and
Scotland.
Professor Arthur Foale was cited with four others as a co-author. His work had focused on MoD properties in the Midlands and South-East of England, of which there were forty-seven.
They were listed alphabetically.

RAF Croughton was seventh in the list.

He studied the entry he himself had written, with satisfaction. Then he got up, ran his fingers along his collection of large-scale Ordnance Survey maps and took down the Croughton map. He
examined it closely alongside the maps and plans he had drawn for the original report. Then he turned on Google Earth, looking over towards the door as he did so. He scaled up to the largest image
of RAF Croughton he could find, closed in on the south-west corner of the airfield and studied it carefully, committing three things to memory: the boundary fence and where two areas he had himself
surveyed lay in relation to it: one adjacent to the fence itself, the other a couple of fields away.

A minute later the officer in charge knocked at the door and came straight in.

‘Professor Foale? Time to go, sir.’

Less than an hour later Arthur found himself approaching RAF Croughton on the A43.

Even had he not studied the map and Google Earth earlier, he would have known the road. As it was, he knew what to look for, particularly the southern perimeter which they passed before turning
into the well-guarded entrance: a high wire fence, checkpoint and white-helmeted military police. Charming.

It all looked very different from the way it had when he had done his archaeological fieldwork around the site three decades before. There were aggressive KEEP OUT signs, legal notices to
would-be trespassers, towers, electrical and telephonic structures and satellite dishes beyond.

It looked like a mock-up of a space station and, despite the millions that had probably been spent on the place, even before going through the checkpoint it had an eerie, derelict air. There
were squat, pale, ill-painted buildings, concrete barricades, men in the distance in uniform, stopping and staring at passers-by who lingered too long; and, probably, dog patrols, CCTV and
listening devices.

Derelict but also unpleasantly futuristic.

But then, he knew, despite its RAF tag, it was a United States Air Force base with a particular speciality, which was why Bohr had chosen it for the location of his ad hoc symposium. RAF
Croughton was the most important of the USA’s telecommunication centres in Europe. Aeroplanes might be thin on the ground, the runways modest, but the place buzzed with covert electronic
activity.

The perimeter fence was certainly higher than he remembered and now had razor wire along the top.

But he knew from experience of other airbases where he had done fieldwork before runways were extended or new buildings put up, that the outer fence was show, the real security lay inside and
around the core buildings.

A raggle-taggle group of people with placards stood by the RAF Croughton sign, as near as was legally permissible, shaking placards which read: US RENDITION IS INHUMANE AND
ILLEGAL. STOP ALL FLIGHTS HERE.

The driver ignored the protesters, one of whose placards grazed the side of the vehicle as they drove past. The shouts faded away behind them.

Stern-faced, crop-haired, uniformed guards as muscled as bull-terriers stopped the car. The barrier stayed where it was. Other guards, armed, watched coldly from a distance.

Windows whirred down, the vehicle, its driver and the passengers were checked, quiet words exchanged, a salute given and the barrier rose up.

As the car moved forward through the gate, Arthur looked back. The protesters on the road were staring after him, the barrier coming down swiftly, the guards turning back to face a hostile
world.

Within seconds, as they drove forward into the base its closed world came down upon him. Unlit, unmarked buildings sped by, anonymous tarmac everywhere, sharp turns to right, to left, the roar
of a helicopter engine, silhouettes of men standing, a pause, another guard checking and far glimpses of the same high fence; and sheep grazing on rough grass.

Sheep!?

He might have smiled had not a flock of gulls risen suddenly up from the roof of yet another faceless building and swung, screeching and scattering, over the car.

He already felt restrained, as if his hands and arms were pinned to his side and a fist thrust against his chest. His throat went dry with premonition.

The car stopped.

A blue door opened onto a wide, well-lit, windowless corridor blocked by another officer.

His car door was opened from outside.

‘Professor Foale? Good. This way. Your bag will be taken to your room.’

‘My papers . . .’

He leaned back into the car, they spilled from his briefcase; he fumbled about and felt a fool.

When he re-emerged, the smile on the face of his greeter was fixed, his welcome not a real welcome at all. He might just as well have been a military asset being shelved. Perhaps he was. One
being put into cold storage so the enemy couldn’t get at it.

The steps he followed, and those to his side, were military.
Dammit, this is an armed guard
, he told himself.

Arthur’s final glimpse of the outdoors was an angled piece of darkening sky through a door.

He was taken to a room whose windows were too high for him to see out of unless he clambered up on a chair. Which, the moment he was alone, he proceeded to do. He had the uncomfortable feeling
he was being watched by hidden cameras. The view was not beautiful and he had seen some of it already: nondescript airbase buildings, a sorry-looking baseball field and three structures that looked
like giant golf balls, one white, two red.

At least I know where I am
, he told himself,
relative to where I need to be.

The room had a desk and the phone on it rang.

‘Twenty-seven minutes, Professor Foale,’ someone said.

‘Has Dr Bohr . . . ?’

The operator was gone.

He tried the door.

It opened onto a corridor in which two armed men stood.

‘Sir?’ one said unsmilingly.

Arthur retreated, shaking his head.

He went through his papers, his head clearing. He worked out what his line needed to be about the Hyddenworld. It was to say little and imply less. He wondered now how long he was going to keep
them at bay. Not long if circumstances made them think it was imperative to know more, especially if they thought that the hydden might offer a solution to a problem that otherwise seemed beyond
the capacity of humans to solve.

But that depended on a lot of things, not least the extent to which Bohr had discussed his brief and foolish revelations concerning Hyddenworld with others. He glanced at his watch: eight
minutes to go.

He could play the fool, he could lie, he could try to confuse them, he could plead ignorance. None of it would work, not with some of the sharpest minds he knew, including that of Erich Bohr.
His watch showed three minutes before time.

Arthur felt panic and a kind of hopelessness.

He had to get away and fast.

He had to get away before the questions really started, which was going to be tomorrow, early probably.

He . . .

His door opened.

‘Professor, please. This way.’

His phone rang again.

The officer took the call.

‘He’s on the way.’

The briefing room had low windows which gave him a panoramic view to the west and north of the base. The satellite terminals were across the fields to the left, a road to
personnel accommodation to the right, while straight ahead, past the baseball field, the tussocky grass stretched for several hundred yards to the south-west corner of the base. The perimeter fence
converged from north and east, beyond it rough grass and a public highway behind trees. He could see occasional traffic, but that was a long way off.

The windows were shut tight and locked. He was going to have to use the door.

‘Ah, Professor Foale . . .’

He began to shake hands. In different circumstances the greetings on all sides would have been more effusive and taken longer. As already indicated by Bohr, he knew most people there and had
collaborated closely with one or two, but the mood was sombre and businesslike and there was no small talk.

Erich Bohr had filled out in the decade since Arthur had last seen him. His face was grey and lined. Responsibility and power had not so much corrupted but worn him down,
sucked him dry and removed the last vestiges of humanity from his eyes, his being.