Last time Bill related his evening with Mike and Alan to Allie.

Chapter 16

The morning brought a fresh crisp day, one of the better ones of the trip so far. The Evans were just beginning their morning routine with their animals when a big black shiny car pulled up to the main gate and a young man got out and strode forward to the house, glancing around cautiously.

“He must be here for Mr Cunningham,” Mrs Evans said to her husband, putting down the sack of grain she was carrying and hurrying into the yard.

Bill, sleeping lightly, had heard the purr of the engine and the slam of the car door and entered the kitchen just in time to see Mrs Evans bustling around with the tea-things, not paying any heed to Johns’ protestations. He had quickly thrown on some clothes before coming down, wanting to see who had arrived. He had a hunch it might have been someone from the office but he wasn’t sure and wanted to make sure that the visitor wasn’t hostile.

Johns was trying very hard not to let Mrs Evans cook him a full blown meal. He had eaten on his way up, and had had some strong black coffee. She wasn’t listening, however, and he found himself hen pecked into a chair in the kitchen and waiting as she made him eggs and bacon with toast.

“No use,” Bill said to him as he sat down, glad that it was the ever stolid and sensible Johns that would be accompanying him that evening. “She’ll force food on you, no matter what, so best just to eat it.”

Johns sprang to his feet and held out his hand to shake Bill’s. “I’m beginning to realise that, sir,” he said before sitting back down and taking a deep drink of tea.

“Don’t stand on ceremony,” Bill said, letting him know he didn’t have to be so formal. “We’re in for a bit of a strange one. Might be some off the record stuff. OK?”

Johns raised an eyebrow but nodded minutely. He knew better than to question Bill in front of a civilian. “I’m ready for anything,” he confided. “I even brought some equipment down in the car, in case it could come in handy.”

“Good lad.” He looked up as he heard footsteps on the stairs and Allie appeared, wrapping her robe around herself.

“I thought I heard voices,” she said.

“My backup,” Bill said shortly, crossing the kitchen to her and blocking her from Johns’ view. It didn’t seem right for him to see her in her nightwear. “We’ve got a lot of plans to make, so why don’t you head back to bed and get some more sleep. It’s still early yet.”

“As if I could sleep,” she retorted.

Bill fixed her with a stern look but then relented quickly as she was, quite rightly, not sleeping well while the children were missing. “Go and freshen up then and join us for breakfast,” he said softly. “Mrs Evans is making eggs and bacon so it won’t be long.”

Allie disappeared with a swish of her robe and Bill returned to the table. “How’s she holding up?” John asked, tilting his head in the direction of the now-empty hall.

“Better than could be said for most women with missing children,” he said graciously but not really wanting to discuss Allie with Johns. He liked the stolid-looking agent and thought he was very good at his job, but the one thing Bill knew from his longer service history, was that it was easier to not discuss anyone close to you with work colleagues. The less they knew about each other the better. Anatoly was an exception to the rule and Bill sometimes wondered why he had ever allowed himself to get close to Anatoly and his father in the first place. It was easier not to think about it especially as it brought up a lot of emotions for Anatoly, never mind lots of questionable missions that Bill had scraped out of with Grigori Petrov’s help and knowledge. Lost in his thoughts for a moment, he hadn’t registered what Johns had said. He grunted, as he tuned into the lad’s voice. “Speak up lad. Don’t mumble.”

To his credit Johns simply repeated his words which had been; “Hopefully we will bring them back tonight for her.”

“Hopefully,” Bill agreed. With breakfast served he insisted that Mrs Evans leave them to continue on with her early-morning chores. “I can serve Allie some breakfast, and get us seconds if need be,” he said. “You just get on.”

“Well,” she said dubiously. “You just shout for me if you need anything, look you. There’s more bacon in the larder, and eggs too, and…”

Johns grinned as Bill finally ushered the woman out the kitchen door and closed it. “She’s something, all right.”

“She’s been very kind and looked after us well, especially Allie, er, Mrs Mannering,” Bill corrected himself. “Her heart’s in the right place,” he added.

“Her cooking’s good as well,” Johns added.

Allie reappeared soon after and Bill put out some food for her. “I assume you two are going to shut yourselves away later and make your plans?”

“We might emerge for food, eventually, but yes, we’ll need to shut ourselves away for a good while,” he agreed.

“And will you tell me… will you let me know what you’re planning to do?” she asked.

Bill considered this, it wasn’t standard practice, but none of this was. “I’ll let you know what I can,” he agreed, just cautious that Johns shouldn’t know too much about Bill’s own brand of rule breaking other than what was strictly necessary.

With breakfast eaten, though plenty was still left on the stove, Bill and Johns set off to find a private place to make their plans. There wasn’t anywhere suitable in the farmhouse. The kitchen and sitting-room were too open, the scullery and larder too small, the bedrooms impractical unless they wanted to sprawl on the bed. In the end they settled on one of the smaller barns, one which had an old wooden table in one corner. It had been lying on its side and when they went to turn it upright they discovered it was missing a leg, but they were able to prop it up using an old barrel and it made a reasonable work-surface then.

Bill spread out a couple of maps and placed his notebook beside them. “So, about this mountain,” he began.

To be continued…

Last time Bill met the two pilots, Alan and Mike, and discussed their secretive helicopter job.

Chapter 15

Bill was driving back to the Evans’ farm after the pub closed and Alan and Mike had gone off for their holiday, thinking over everything that had been said in the pub that evening. Bill’s feeling of dread about what the children had gotten themselves mixed up in, was increasing at every moment. He wasn’t going to tell Allie everything because he knew she would get upset if he did.

He had already called in to the SIS, requesting a co-pilot for the next evening. Tomorrow! Alan really had left it until the last minute to recruit someone. Apparently he’d had someone in mind but it had fallen through, which was a stroke of luck for Bill. If they hadn’t been desperate he’d have stood no chance. It didn’t give him much time to prepare, but there wasn’t an awful lot to do, really. Someone would arrive the next morning to be his co-pilot, bringing a pair of phony pilots licences in case anyone asked to see them, and they’d have the day to make their plans before flying out in the early evening.

He hadn’t updated Inspector Morgan as he hadn’t yet decided how to proceed on that front. He’d make a decision in the morning. First he had to worry about what to tell Allie. Mike and Alan had been cagey on the details themselves. What he had heard, though, was hard to believe. Anti-gravity wings? It sounded like something from a science-fiction story. Alan had made vague comments about there being some teething problems with the wings. If these men were jumping out with wings that didn’t work, well, there was only one possible outcome. That made the dogs an even more important asset. A dead man couldn’t get up and make his own way back.

Allie was still up when Bill returned to the farm. “I was getting worried,” she chided, coming out to meet him at the car. “Come inside, Mrs Evans has left you supper and you look like you could use a good rest and some cocoa!” She led him inside and let him go and wash while she warmed some cocoa in the fire for him. She wanted desperately to ask him lots of questions but held her tongue, knowing how tired he was. Allie was nervous about the children but she didn’t want Bill to think she was nagging.

Hoping he didn’t smell too much of the pub, Bill returned downstairs after freshening up. He’d only had a few pints, and they’d been part of his cover but he didn’t want Allie thinking he’d been off boozing instead of working. Mrs Evans had left an enormous plate for him, what must have been a full quarter of a meat-pie, three hard-boiled eggs, heaps of cold new potatoes, lashings of tomatoes… He’d be hard-pushed to eat even half of it.

Allie was at the table, trying not to be impatient. She was flipping ideally through the daily paper she must have read about five times that day. She got up when the metal kettle began to whistle for the cocoa.

“I’ll sort that,” Bill said, but Allie brushed him off. He supposed she found it easier to keep busy. He sat down to his mountain of food as she poured the drinks. “I have a lead,” he told her when she joined him at the table again.

“You do?” she asked eagerly, leaning forward in her chair. “Do you know where the children are?”

“I’m still working on the assumption that they’re in that mountain,” he told her. “I met someone who just happens to have landed a helicopter on top on more than on occasion and he told me that there’s a trap-door in the mountain top. He doesn’t know where it leads to, he’s never been near it, but he has seen men come out of it.”

Allie gasped. “A trap-door in the mountain? Do you know what’s going on there, from this man?”

“He’s given me a fairly good idea,” Bill replied. “There’s some sort of testing outfit been installed there. A new-fangled sort of parachute that resembles a pair of wings. Sounds highly dubious to me, which is why I’m going to be flying in tomorrow night.”

“Wings?” Allie asked startled. She looked fearful. “You don’t think those people would make the children try these things?” she looked very worried that the children could be in more danger than she could have even imagined to begin with.

He had hoped that Allie’s mind wouldn’t have gone there, as his had, but she was a clever woman. “No,” he said, putting as much confidence into that one little word as he could. “They’re children, not trained paratroopers.”

He had questioned Mike and Alan as much as he could without arousing their suspicions. Mike had stressed that the guys trying the wings all seemed too heavy, and he’d warned them to try someone smaller. That had immediately had Bill’s heart in his throat, thinking of the children. Jack and Philip were sturdy for their age but still a good bit lighter than your average paratrooper. “Someone a lot younger might be lighter, perhaps?” he had managed to say quite calmly.

Alan had shrugged. “If they’ve got any skinny young lads we’ve not seen them. Just them great hulking blokes.”

“I told them I’d not take any big blokes up again, so goodness knows what they’ll do. You might turn up to find there’s no-one to jump tomorrow. I doubt it, though. I told them I’d be sending someone less particular than me next time, so I’m betting they’ll try to push the usual types on you. It’s up to you if you take them, though,” Mike had said and it had taken Bill a moment to catch up to what he had said about sending someone new.

“How do you know how particular I am? Or that I’d be the one going, in fact?” he’d asked.

Mike had laughed awkwardly. “Well, I had a mate of mine in mind for this but he’s… otherwise engaged right now.”

“At her majesty’s pleasure,” Alan had said into his pint.

That explained why he, Bill, was being trusted at this eleventh hour. So, if he went, he might well be faced with them trying to make the children jump. At least he would be able to intervene, then. If Mike and Alan had gone… it didn’t bear thinking about.

Allie listened to what he was saying, her face very pale and her lips set in a thin line. “You won’t let them try it on the children will you, Bill?” she said eventually when she had digested what he had said.

He bit back a retort about not being as stupid as all that. “No, of course I wouldn’t,” was what he said instead. “I’m flying in tomorrow to take out the next trooper testing the wings, and I’m going to do as much snooping around as I can. If I can see the kids and get them away then I will do, if not I’ll hopefully have more to go on for another attempt.”

To be continued…