(1995) By Any Name (30 page)

Elizabeth opened her eyes to see John hauling a figure dressed in the same military camouflage suit and ski mask that they were wearing, into the hollow.

‘Your men have moved on.’ West pulled the guns from Chaloner’s back and holster and tossed them away. ‘If you want to see them die, call out and I’ll shoot them when they appear.’

‘You bastard.’

‘You know that for a fact?’

‘It’s not enough that you made me look a bloody fool last night… ’

‘That was you? Bad luck,’ John commiserated. He aimed his machine gun at Chaloner’s chest and kept it there.

‘How many more men are you going to kill?’

Chaloner watched John pull his hood back and strip off his mask.

‘Do you recognize me?’

‘Your face is plastered all over HQ.’

‘I mean from before.’

Chaloner stared at West’s face not knowing how to react. The wind wailed down the mountain. Bitter cold crept upwards from the frozen ground through his thick boots and socks. Was this it? The end of the line? The last sensations he would feel?

‘Do you?’ West reiterated.

Chaloner tried to look beyond the face he knew from the photographs he’d been studying for the past few days. The square jaw line, the deep blue eyes, the black tousled hair. The features looked vaguely familiar, but wrong, as though he had seen them in a different pattern, perhaps in the photograph?

‘No.’

Someone climbed out of a sleeping bag on the ground and stood next to West. Dressed in camouflage and a ski mask it could have been anyone but he presumed it was the psychiatrist West had taken hostage. He wondered if she was armed and if she was, whether she would come down on his or West’s side if there was a shoot-out.

‘What do we do now?’ Chaloner kept his voice as low as West’s, playing for time in an attempt to establish a rapport.

‘We go down the mountain,’ West answered.

‘And from there?’

‘What’s your name?’ West ignored the question.

‘Chaloner, Ross Chaloner.’

‘Captain Chaloner, SAS, this is your lucky day.’

To Chaloner’s astonishment West dropped the machine gun at his feet but he kept his handgun. ‘I surrender to you on two conditions.’

‘What conditions?’ Chaloner demanded suspiciously, eyeing the handgun.

‘First, you give me your word as an officer, that you’ll guarantee Dr Santer’s safety.’ He pointed to Elizabeth. ‘That you’ll take her to a police station, and once you’re there, you’ll call in the media for a photo call.’

‘Why would you want me to do that?’

‘To prove she’s survived an encounter with me.’

Chaloner allowed the suggestion of conspiracy to pass. ‘And the other conditions?’

‘That you take me with you to Stirling Lines.’

‘Unarmed?’

‘Yes.’

‘You would be taken back to Stirling Lines after capture anyway. Why would you give yourself up when you’re the one with the weapons?’ Chaloner stared at the machine gun, but was reluctant to reach out for it until he was certain there was no trick involved.

‘Because I know that by surrendering to you, I’ll live – at least until I get to Stirling Lines. Do you agree?’

Chaloner didn’t hesitate. ‘I agree.’

West pulled the handgun from his holster. Holding the barrel between his fingers he allowed it to fall on top of the machine gun.

‘What makes you think I won’t shoot you when I pick up those guns?’ Chaloner gazed at the weapons.

‘Because you’re an officer and a gentlemen.’ West managed to turn both adjectives into insults. ‘There is no catch.’

‘And you won’t kill me when I pick them up?’

‘I have no other arms. You can shoot me right here and now if you want to. As I said, all I want is Dr Santer’s safety and entrance to Stirling Lines.’

‘You really don’t know who you are, do you?’

Chaloner asked.

‘No.’

‘And you think someone will recognize you in Stirling Lines?’

‘Or I’ll recognize someone there.’

‘You’ve obviously had military training, but we have no missing personnel.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘One hundred percent. All the services have been checked and double checked, even down to MI5 and MI6.’

‘He could have left the forces,’ Elizabeth argued.

‘Not in the last fifteen years.’ Chaloner debated whether or not to mention the IRA identification, and decided against it. There was no saying what the man might do if he was a terrorist and suddenly remembered his orders. He looked from West to Elizabeth Santer. Although her face was masked there was a tension between them that was almost palpable.

‘Is there anything else I need to know?’

‘Only that you’re the one in control.’ West stared pointedly at the weapons that Chaloner had made no attempt to retrieve. ‘Perhaps you should start behaving accordingly.’

‘I don’t trust you.’

‘I’ve told you what I want and given you my terms. I won’t go back on my word.’

‘Forgive my scepticism but how do I know that you haven’t a bomb strapped under that suit? That you won’t blow us all to kingdom come once I get you into Stirling Lines?’

‘Do you want me to strip?’ West challenged.

‘Yes.’

He unzipped his suit. Keeping his eyes focused on Chaloner, he removed all his clothes. He stood blue and shivering while Chaloner checked every garment.

‘Turn around, slowly,’ Chaloner ordered. ‘Bend over.’

‘You want me to spread myself?’

‘You obviously know the drill, so I don’t need to give the order.’

He shone his torch over every inch of West’s body before kicking his clothes back to him. ‘Dress.’

‘You’ll take Dr Santer to the police station in Brecon, and me to HQ?’

‘It’s a long walk.’

‘Not to the Storey Arms, you can call for transport from there. But do yourself a favour; don’t tell them that you have me until they actually arrive.’

‘Why not?’ Chaloner watched West fasten the buckles on his suit and pull on his gloves.

‘Because you could end up dead before they get there.’

Chaloner laughed.

‘He’s not joking,’ Elizabeth rejoined shortly.

‘You’re the doctor he took hostage?’

‘I am.’

‘And because he spared your life you’ve thrown your lot in with him.’ Chaloner finally picked up the guns and checked their mechanisms.

‘I degreased both of them before I brought them out,’ West informed him.

‘I’ll do whatever I can to help this man because he’s my patient,’ Elizabeth interrupted. ‘And he hasn’t killed anyone.’

‘There are four maybe five corpses that say otherwise.’

‘I saw the dead soldiers in the hospital and like you I assumed that he had killed them. He took me hostage shortly afterwards, and since that moment he’s only left me once, and that was last night to get food. He didn’t kill the consultant Dave Watson. Dave was alive when I last saw him in the hospital and there’s no way John could have reached him without me knowing about it. I checked that paramedic myself before we left the ambulance in Brighton. The man was fine, he was unconscious but breathing, he should have come round in an hour… ’

‘Possibly he would have if he hadn’t been shot.’

‘Not by John West.’

‘And the captain in the house in Brecon?’

Chaloner demanded. ‘He was a friend of mine.’

‘He came after us into the front office. He was Special Services working in a hostage situation, trained not to take chances. I shot him in the arm… ’

‘His chest had more holes than a sieve.’

‘Then someone went into that office after we left.

He was alive when we last saw him.’

‘I can testify to that,’ Elizabeth insisted.

‘You expect me to believe that five people were killed after you left them?’

‘It’s the truth,’ Elizabeth asserted.

West pulled the ski mask over his face. ‘If I remember rightly,’ he murmured, his lips moving oddly under the small round hole in the cloth. ‘This hill always was more fun to go down than up.’

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Chaloner kept his position of “tail end Charlie” – it was the best vantage point from which to watch West

– and Dr Santer. He’d guessed right when he’d suspected West knew the Beacons. Although the hills remained shrouded in mist and snow the man unerringly picked the least hazardous route. He also paused frequently to help Dr Santer over the most difficult obstacles. Chaloner didn’t believe their relationship was doctor/patient. The more he observed them, the more he was convinced they were far closer.

He wished they weren’t wearing ski masks so he could read the expressions on their faces. But his major concern was West’s identity and motives. He tried to imagine what one unarmed man could do in HQ and drew a blank. Surely West realised he would be kept under armed guard in Stirling Lines.

He fought off exhaustion. He couldn’t afford to allow West out of his sight for an instant Two ambushes in two days were two too many for any officer, particularly one as ambitious as himself.

The more he considered the situation West had engineered, the more bizarre it seemed. He simply couldn’t see what the man hoped to gain by going into Stirling Lines. Was he really naive enough to believe that a trained soldier could disappear from the army and not be missed?

Elizabeth realised John intended to leave her behind as soon as they reached safety, and she was equally determined not to be abandoned. She didn’t trust the young officer swaggering behind them with a machine gun aimed at their backs. There was a callous tone in his voice, and what little she could see of his eyes and mouth beneath the mask, looked sadistic and vicious.

She could imagine him shooting two unsuspecting guards in a hospital corridor… she remembered Dave and wondered if he had suffered before he’d died. The news reports had said he’d been shot. Had he been killed instantly? Or did he die later, screaming and in pain?

Engrossed in her thoughts, she slipped when they reached the foot of the mountain, plunging up to her elbows in a snowdrift. John braced his legs against a dry stone wall, leaned forward, locked his hands around her chest beneath her armpits, and hauled her out. All she could see of him was his eyes, gleaming in the snow-lightened darkness. She concentrated hard, willing him to read her mind and understand what she was about to do. As he lifted her, she pulled down the fastening on her camouflage suit and thrust herself against him. Just as she’d intended, he lost his balance. She fumbled, damning the thick padded mitten that prevented her fingers from closing over the gun he’d given her.

‘Here, you’re coming undone,’ West said loudly.

He zipped up her suit and heaved her to her feet. The weight of the gun was heavy against her. He’d understood what she’d tried to do, but had left the gun there. Why?

‘You all right?’ He brushed snow from her arms and legs.

‘Cold.’ She glanced at Chaloner who was aiming the barrel of West’s gun at them.

‘Aren’t we all,’ Chaloner muttered. ‘Sooner we get moving, sooner you can get into the warm, Dr Santer.

They have fires and hot food in the Storey Arms.’

‘You promised a Police Station,’ West reminded.

‘I did, but as you said on Corn Du, I’m the one in charge now.’

‘You gave your word,’ John remonstrated.

‘Keep moving.’

‘I won’t be put somewhere safe so you can go off to this Stirling Lines to get your head blown off,’

Elizabeth warned when West helped down the final half a mile of hillside that separated them from the Youth Hostel.

‘You have no choice. You heard our keeper, he’s calling the shots.’ Picking her up again he lifted her over a ditch filled with snow.

‘How did you know that was there?’ Chaloner demanded.

‘Slight sinking of snow around the edges. How’s your snow craft?’ John replied.

‘I’m not leaving you,’ Elizabeth said emphatically.

‘After what he’s put you through, I’d assumed you’d want to run as far and as fast from him as possible.’ Chaloner was closer to them than she’d realised.

‘I’ve begun regression therapy. He’s unstable. The slightest trigger could cause a relapse or hysteria.’

‘This is a cure for hysteria.’ Chaloner waved the gun.

‘Regression therapy takes a patient back to the initial trauma that caused the problem. Should John lapse into that state, he may not even see your gun.’

‘For someone who’s lost his memory he remembers a great deal. The road out of London, the flat in Brecon, survival tactics on a snow covered mountain.’ Chaloner paused to stamp an accumulation of snow from his boots. ‘The psychiatrist assigned to advise the Command Cell is not even sure that Mr West here, has lost his memory at all.’

‘If he hasn’t, he deserves an Oscar for his performance,’ Elizabeth responded warmly.

‘If you don’t think I’ve lost my memory, then you must have some idea who I am?’ John stopped and turned to Chaloner.

‘A terrorist?’

‘What terrorist would leave London for the Beacons in weather like this? What possible target could there be out here?’

‘Enlighten me?’

‘How about SAS recruits engaged in the Fan dance. Or do they call it the Long Drag now?’

‘So you know about SAS training techniques and jargon. Given the number of books that have been written about the Regiment that’s hardly surprising.’

Chaloner followed West and Dr Santer on to the compacted snow of the car park.

‘John’s amnesia is trauma induced and specific to his identity,’ Elizabeth said swiftly.

‘Meaning, Dr Santer?’ Chaloner asked.

‘He has a recall of military training and survival techniques.’

‘I noticed.’

‘Places, place names… ’

‘Like that flat in Brecon?’

‘Precisely. Who owns that flat?’ Even at this late stage Elizabeth continued to gather any information that might prove useful.

‘It’s in the hands of a letting agency.’

‘Someone owns it. John had memories of the place… ’

‘That’s interesting.’ Chaloner opened the door and waved them into the Youth Hostel ahead of him.

‘Hands on heads.’

‘Do it,’ John said to Elizabeth. He lifted his own hands and locked his fingers together on top of his head.