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fredbassettTitle : Crow on the Cradle, Part 11 of 15
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 18
Characters : Stephen/Ryan, Lester/Lyle, Cutter, Claudia, Abby, Connor, OCs.
Disclaimer : Not mine (except all OCs), no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Summary : Lyle’s mother is on the scent of a story and it looks increasingly like the ARC team aren’t the only ones with knowledge of the anomalies.
A/N : this is my first official Primeval Big Bang! With many thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lukadreaming for incomparable beta work and for holding my paw throughout a very long writing process. The total word count is 51,277 and I will be posting in 15 parts.
Julia Denton felt the rain beating down on her and heard yet another roll of thunder. The torrential fall of water from the cloud-laden sky had forced her unwillingly back to consciousness, but as yet she hadn’t managed to regain the use of her legs. Her memory of the time that had passed since Mason had bundled her into the back of the Land Rover was hazy, but the fact that she had been stripped from the waist down was enough to help her fill in some of the gaps.
She knew she’d been slipped some sort of drug in the champagne that Mason had handed around over lunch. Probably rohypnol. She’d covered a case of celebrity date-rape a few years ago. It had resulted in the so-called star concerned making a hasty exit from his multi-million pound presenting job when the injunction his lawyers were seeking had collapsed after traces of the drug had been found in a glass in his flat that he’d failed to dispose of properly. Julia’s mind drifted for a moment to a past that was distinctly preferable to the present…
A high-pitched chirruping noise penetrated her drug-dulled mind. Julia did her best to sit up, levering herself up on the soft ground on one elbow. She found herself looking into a pair of small, dark eyes set in a thin, beaked face that could have come straight out of Jurassic Park. She didn’t need telling what would happen next if she couldn’t manage to defend herself, but her legs were still stubbornly refusing to obey orders and her arms felt like they had lead weights attached to them.
Julia stared back at the creature, feeling strangely disassociated from what was happening to her. It was as though she was viewing the world through binoculars from the end of a long, dark tunnel. She groped blindly with one hand, feeling for a rock or a stick or anything, but all she found was wet earth. Then a wave of sickness hit her. Her stomach heaved violently and expelled at speed everything she’d eaten that day. The roll of thunder overhead drowned out her gasps and the rain washed the trails of vomit from her chin.
She barely felt it when the creature pecked at her foot.
* * * * *
By the time Ryan had arranged for more vehicles to be brought up from Farnley Hall, ten minutes had passed. The captain had flatly refused to let Lyle go on ahead. For a moment, Stephen had half-expected Lyle to challenge that order, but the look in Ryan’s grey eyes had made it abundantly clear that he was expecting to be obeyed. Military discipline had over-ridden emotion and while they waited for the vehicles, with Connor and Cutter still taking readings from the anomaly and interrogating Dewar, Lyle had stepped to one side and reported to Lester by phone.
An ambulance had taken Ted McCallum to hospital. Before it had left, Ditzy had calmly commandeered various items of kit, including stretchers and intravenous fluids and had packed everything into the back of one of the Land Rovers. Both Claudia and Lester were now on their way to Farnley Hall by helicopter to contain the inevitable fall-out from the deaths of several rich – and no doubt influential – people.
As soon as Ryan was satisfied they were as prepared as they could be for what they were going to encounter, he gave the order and a convoy of three vehicles set off into the short section of tunnel. They were taking the Land Rover Dewar had driven, plus another with a high exhaust suitable for the passage of a river in flood, and a Range Rover Discovery to help with the evacuation if needed. With them came Ricky Carey, carrying some radio kit he’d brought from the house. Ryan had accepted the mercenary’s offer of help. From the story Dewar had told, another man who could handle a gun wouldn’t go amiss.
Stephen stared around him at metal walls and understood what Connor had meant by a Faraday cage. The artificial mound was lined with metal over which earth had been heaped and turfed over to create a small hillock. Into it had been built an internal gate, as well as the front hatch that lifted up to allow access. Provided the two were never opened at once, no radio signal from the anomaly would reach their detectors. They’d only picked it up at all because in his haste, Dewar had simply brought his vehicle through without waiting to close the internal gate behind him.
According to Connor, the electrical field generated by the anomaly was being grounded by the metal and so the radio wave emissions were not reaching the detector in the ARC, although they had registered on that machine as well as on their hand-held devices as soon as both doors had been opened. The readings Connor had taken showed that the anomaly was both strong and stable. Dewar said it had remained open for the past nine months and had shown no signs of closing. Mason had arranged for the building of the metal cage seven months ago. The work had been completed just before Connor had brought the prototype of the Anomaly Detection Device on line for the first time.
Stephen was in the lead vehicle driven by Dewar, with Ryan at his side, a rifle cradled across the captain’s knees. He experienced the usual moment of brief disorientation as they passed through the anomaly into bright sunshine. He stared around him in amazement, seeing the same gently rolling hills covered with short grass that he’d encountered once before, when he and Ryan had chased Helen through the anomaly that had disgorged the infected dodos. All around them, anomalies sparkled in the light, shining like a myriad fractured diamonds.
He heard Connor’s awed, “Wow,” at the same time as Cutter said something slightly more profane.
“How many of these have you been through, man?” Cutter demanded as Dewar accelerated towards another anomaly.
The mercenary shrugged. “A dozen, maybe. Not all of them stay the same.”
“You’ve got the records?” Connor sounded like someone had just rolled all his birthdays and Christmases into one and handed them to him on a plate with a sprig of holly on top.
“Mason has. The notes are back at the house.” Dewar hit the brakes, changed into a lower gear and said, “Hold on, it’s going to get a bit rough through the next one.”
Torrential rain hit the windscreen as soon as the vehicle passed through the anomaly and the tyres struggled for grip on the sodden ground. A loud crack of thunder accompanied a bolt of lightning almost as bright as the one they’d just passed through. An electrostatic charge crackled through their radios. Stephen cursed and pulled off his ear piece as around him others did the same. Dewar swerved to avoid a gigantic fern frond beaten down by the force of the rain drops.
“This is the Cretaceous all right,” Cutter declared, staring around him at a landscape filled with massive ferns and huge trees, mainly pines of some description. All Dewar did was nod. If the mercenary was surprised to find himself surrounded by a bunch of people all with knowledge of portals to other times, he certainly wasn’t showing it, and Stephen was simply getting the impression that the man was just glad he didn’t have to cope with what was happening on his own.
While they’d waited for the additional transport, the mercenary had filled them in on what had happened. Connor’s eyes had gone wide at the description of the tyrannosaurus attack, while Stephen had watched all the soldiers grip their weapons that bit harder. From what they’d heard, he was amazed that anyone had survived. Against probably the fiercest predator to have walked the earth, man stood only a very slim chance indeed, a fact that had been brought home to the hunting party in the worst possible way. Stephen and the soldiers all remembered their own previous run-in with tyrannosaurs in the Forest of Dean. It had taken a rocket launcher to bring them down with any degree of certainty – and that was not something they’d thought to bring with them when they’d been masquerading as zoo inspectors, a fact that his companions were no doubt cursing as much as he was.
The thought of someone abusing the anomalies with the express intention of killing living creatures had shocked Stephen more than he would have believed possible. As if fucking up their own world by hunting endangered species wasn’t enough, Mason had set up an operation specifically designed to cater to the blood lust of those for whom Africa or South America was no longer enough. In his time abroad, Stephen had seen the damage done by the likes of Mason at first hand and he hated him for it, even if he hadn’t yet met the man.
Stephen wasn’t the only one seething with anger, either. At his side, Lyle was staring around him in grim silence, as cold and collected as Stephen had ever seen him, even though he had to be tormenting himself with thoughts of what the hell had happened to his mother. Stephen had believed Dewar’s protestations that he had no idea what had happened to Lyle’s mother and so had Lyle, otherwise he didn’t think that any power of earth would have stopped Lyle getting the truth out of the mercenary by any means necessary. And Stephen doubted Ryan would have stood in his friend’s way. He had seen Ryan ruthlessly extracting information from one of Mason’s thugs in Cumbria and he knew perfectly well that his lover hadn’t spent the majority of his army career in Special Forces without learning how to break someone quickly and efficiently when he needed to.
If Ed Mason had any sense, he’d come clean at the first time of asking.
* * * * *
The helicopter touched down in the grounds of Farnley Hall. The pilot switched off the engine and the noise from the rotor-arms started to die away.
Lester pulled off the headphones that he’d been using to communicate with the pilot and waited for the co-pilot’s signal that he and Claudia could disembark. They made their way across the short grass of an immaculate lawn towards the entrance to the house where they were met by an immaculately-dressed woman in her late 50s. In spite of the fact that there were now three ambulances in the grounds waiting to receive casualties, the woman’s composure appeared to be unruffled.
“Sandra Willoughby,” she said, holding out a red-nailed hand. “Sir James Lester, I presume.”
Lester inclined his head and nodded to Claudia. “My assistant, Miss Brown.”
“I think you’ll find the Home Secretary is on her way,” Sandra Willoughby said, with the air of a woman playing a trump card.
“I rather thought she might be,” Lester said, favouring her with a smile. “Now, if you’d be so kind as to show me to Mr Mason’s office, I’d like to make a start on unravelling the paperwork for this little enterprise of his. Beginning with the records of exactly who is with him at the moment.”
The look the woman gave him would have gone a long way to freezing hell but Lester really didn’t give a damn.
* * * * *
The vehicles came to a halt on a small rise overlooking the river. Ryan stared out of the windscreen and uttered a quiet but heartfelt curse. He jumped out of the Land Rover onto the soaked ground and was joined by the others.
“How deep is it?” he demanded, addressing the question to Dewar.
“Looks like it’s come up a bit from when I crossed earlier. About a metre and a half, maybe a bit deeper. It’s hard to tell but it was over the wheel-arches then.” Dewar looked out across the wide mass of brown, foaming water.
“It’ll swamp the Discovery,” Ryan said, frowning over his shoulder at the other vehicles. “They’re shit in water this high, anyway. We’ll give it a go in yours and see how bad it is. Ditz, you’re with me and Lyle. If we get across we’re going to need a medic. Blade, you’re with us as well. Finn, if this is a goer, I want you driving the next vehicle, but not until I say so. You’re the best wheelman we’ve got in these conditions.” Ryan met Stringer’s eyes and said quietly, “If this fucks up, you wait until it goes down, OK?”
Stephen put his hand on Ryan’s arm. “I’m coming with you. We don’t know what’s happened to Lyle’s mother and if we get to the other side in one piece, you’re going to need a tracker.”
A momentary flash of indecision crossed his lover’s face then Ryan simply nodded. “Get in. No seat belts.”
Half of the medical kit was rapidly transferred to their Land Rover. Stephen jumped in the back with Lyle, Ditzy and Blade while Ryan took his place again next to Dewar. Without waiting to be told, Dewar slipped the vehicle into gear and turned the wheel to head a short way along the bank to their left. Stephen knew what the mercenary was doing. He was expecting the Land Rover to be carried downstream by the current, but he was aiming for the stony bank almost opposite their original position. Stephen had been on a tour of Iceland’s interior a few years ago where this was the accepted method of crossing rivers. It had nearly scared him shitless the first time, but to his surprise he’d soon got used to it.
Stephen braced himself against the back of Ryan’s seat. Dewar entered the water at an angle and almost immediately the wheels lost traction and the Land Rover started to drift. The mercenary swore under his breath and held the steering wheel steady. A moment later, Stephen felt the wheels bite on the river bed and for at least a minute they made progress under their own steam. Water started to seep in around the doors and pool at their feet.
The windscreen wipers were failing to keep up with the combination of rain and spray thrown up by the flood waters. A loud thump signified that something had just cannoned into the side of the vehicle next to Stephen and he felt it sway alarmingly. He peered out of the window expecting to see the branch of a tree. Instead he was looking at the rounded hump of a dead animal’s back. A small head on the end of a long neck bobbed loosely in the water before the current swept the carcass past them.
Dewar fought to keep control of the Land Rover and Stephen realised, to his surprise, that they had actually crossed the mid-point of the river and were making their way, metre by sideways metre, to the opposite shore. The mercenary handled the vehicle with a skill that Stephen envied. He knew there was no way he could have kept any degree of control in the maelstrom surrounding them. He was beginning to recognise and almost anticipate the moments when they would gain traction, and even though they would often lose it again almost immediately, progress was being made and they were seemingly not wholly at the mercy of the flood waters.
The tyres bit again into the shifting cobbles of the river bed and Dewar changed gear again, seeking more traction and finding it. Stephen sucked in a shaky breath and held it. The wheels spun and they drifted another few metres then with a startling suddenness the Land Rover started climbing the gentle slope of the bank, edging its way out of the water like some sort of giant turtle.
Once they were free of the river and a safe distance away from the flood plain, Dewar brought the vehicle to a halt and, just for a moment, touched his head to the steering wheel in silent relief. Around him, Stephen heard the soldiers start to breathe again. He also realised, as he stared out of the window trying to work out how far they’d been carried down-stream, that it appeared to have stopped raining.
From the front seat, in a voice as calm as if he’d just taken a stroll across a quiet country lane, Ryan announced into his throat mike, “You can stop swearing now, Joel, we’re over.” He was silent for a moment and then gave a short bark of laughter. “Yeah, you might need a change of keks.” He turned to Dewar and demanded, “So where do we find your fucking hunting grounds?”
Dewar nodded to the left. “That way. Do we wait for the others?”
Stephen watched Ryan glance back across the water and nod. Provided nothing went wrong, Finn would have the second Land Rover across in a matter of minutes but if something went wrong, they had a slim chance of providing assistance, but a slim chance was better than nothing. He watched the vehicle carrying the others edge into the floodwaters. Under normal circumstances, the river probably spent much of its time either dry or very shallow, but in torrential conditions like the ones the area had just experienced, it would fill rapidly, spreading out and covering a much wider area.
By the time the Land Rover had reached the middle of the river, even Joel Stringer had fallen silent and all their radio earpieces transmitted was the occasional sharp intake of breath, muffled curse and the noise of the engine. For one long frozen moment, Stephen thought Finn had lost control. The Land Rover lurched violently and looked like it was about to be tipped over onto its side by the force of the water, in spite of the combined weight of seven people. Stephen could see movement inside as the passengers desperately tried to provide counterbalance. Stringer managed a quiet, ‘Fuck,’ and then they were moving again.
Finn managed to bring the vehicle out of the water five metres further upstream than Dewar had done. The young soldier was grinning widely, showing surprising evidence of having enjoyed himself, a feeling that clearly wasn’t shared by any of his companions.
“Nice driving,” Ryan said.
In a matter of moments they were moving again, the Land Rovers lurching over the detritus of the storm, branches and fallen fern fronds snapping on their wheels. The soft ground made progress slow, especially when Dewar had to take a detour through a denser patch of forest to avoid a fallen tree.
As they emerged into clearer ground, Stephen spotted something and yelled, “Stop!”
Dewar brought the vehicle to a halt and Ryan demanded, “What have you seen?”
Stephen gestured into the undergrowth. “Wheel tracks.” He glanced at Dewar. “You said Mason went off on his own with Lyle’s mother. There was no sign of any vehicle other than yours having crossed the river, so where did he go? Those tracks might be our answer.”
He opened the passenger door and jumped down, his boots squelching into the soft ground. Lyle was at his side a moment later and the slamming of doors told Stephen that the others had followed. He motioned with his arms for them to stay behind him while he bent down to check for tracks.
“Two sets,” he announced. “Whoever it was drove that way and then came back.” He pointed at the second set, about half a metre away, which separated for a distance of about four metres before they merged again into one unrecognisable mass, filled with water.
“So what’s that way?” Lyle demanded, his voice cold and dangerous.
“One of the areas where we left dead bait,” Dewar said quietly, staring down at the wheel ruts. He held Lyle’s stare for a moment then said to Ryan, “I think I know where Mason might have taken her. If you follow the track we were on more or less due north you’ll find the others. Carey knows the way. The radio in the Land Rover is tuned to the frequency they’ll be using. You might even be able to raise them now.”
“And what are you going to do?” Ryan demanded.
“Help Lyle find his mother. I know the area, Ryan. We can cover the ground almost as fast on foot. If we need a vehicle, we’ll radio you.” Dewar met Stephen’s eyes. “I don’t suppose we’ll have a problem following these tracks, will we?”
“I can follow them.” Stephen acknowledged. He turned to face his lover. “He’s right, Ryan. Three of us are enough for this. You go on with the others.”
Ryan reached out and gripped Dewar’s wrist. “If you play us false, you’re a dead man.”
“I had no part in whatever Mason’s done,” the mercenary said in a voice wholly devoid of challenge. “I’m not playing anyone false. I said I’d do my best to bring a bunch of people out of here alive. That’s what I’m being paid for – and Claire Thackeray is one of those people. If she’s still alive, I want to find her.”
“Her name is Julia Denton,” Lyle said. “I trust him, Ryan. Let’s move it.”
Stephen received a swift nod from his lover. Ryan slung the M4 carbine off his shoulder and held it out. Stephen took it and without a word, the three men set off at run, following the wheel ruts.
* * * * *
Lester watched from the window of Mason’s office as a bright red sports car came up the long driveway at speed and stopped outside the main doors in a spray of gravel. The driver’s door was flung open and an attractive woman in her late 30s got out and stalked towards the door.
“She doesn’t look happy,” Claudia remarked.
“No, she doesn’t, does she?” Lester said reflectively. He strolled to the head of the sweeping staircase in time to see Sandra Willoughby hurry out to greet the person she obviously believed to an ally. “Gillian,” he drawled, sauntering down the staircase, his hand outstretched. “So nice to see you.”
She stared up at him, her face pinched and drawn. “Where’s my husband? Is he all right?”
“I have absolutely no idea,” Lester said with perfect truth.
And for the first time since he’d known her, Lester watched tears start to track down Gillian Clement’s cheeks. In other circumstances, he might have felt sorry for her, but just then, not knowing whether his lover’s mother was alive or dead, Lester couldn’t bring himself to feel any pity for the woman. Her political career was now effectively over. Or would be when she’d had the opportunity to tender her resignation to the Prime Minister. Even Gillian Clement, well-known for being a smooth-talking high-flier wouldn’t be able to wriggle out of the fact that she had been passing classified information about the anomaly project to one of her husband’s business associates.
Tony Porter, her husband, was one of the men on Ed Mason’s ill-fated hunting trip. His car registration number had been one of the ones noted down by Stringer during his surveillance of the main gates. Lester had recognised his name on the list handed to him by Connor back in the ARC.
“I think the Home Secretary would appreciate a cup of tea,” said Claudia, taking charge of the situation, directing her request at Sandra Willoughby, before adding, “You can wait in the library, Home Secretary. Maybe you’d like to speak to George Henderson. His wife was mauled by a tyrannosaurus rex. She was dead by the time she was brought back through the anomaly. Maybe he will have some news of your husband.”
Gillian Clement’s eyes went wide with shock and before Lester could catch her, she crumpled to the floor in a dead faint.
Lester looked down at her dispassionately. “Well, at least we know where Mason has been getting his information from.”
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Rating : 18
Characters : Stephen/Ryan, Lester/Lyle, Cutter, Claudia, Abby, Connor, OCs.
Disclaimer : Not mine (except all OCs), no money made, don’t sue.
Spoilers : None
Summary : Lyle’s mother is on the scent of a story and it looks increasingly like the ARC team aren’t the only ones with knowledge of the anomalies.
A/N : this is my first official Primeval Big Bang! With many thanks to
lukadreaming for incomparable beta work and for holding my paw throughout a very long writing process. The total word count is 51,277 and I will be posting in 15 parts.Julia Denton felt the rain beating down on her and heard yet another roll of thunder. The torrential fall of water from the cloud-laden sky had forced her unwillingly back to consciousness, but as yet she hadn’t managed to regain the use of her legs. Her memory of the time that had passed since Mason had bundled her into the back of the Land Rover was hazy, but the fact that she had been stripped from the waist down was enough to help her fill in some of the gaps.
She knew she’d been slipped some sort of drug in the champagne that Mason had handed around over lunch. Probably rohypnol. She’d covered a case of celebrity date-rape a few years ago. It had resulted in the so-called star concerned making a hasty exit from his multi-million pound presenting job when the injunction his lawyers were seeking had collapsed after traces of the drug had been found in a glass in his flat that he’d failed to dispose of properly. Julia’s mind drifted for a moment to a past that was distinctly preferable to the present…
A high-pitched chirruping noise penetrated her drug-dulled mind. Julia did her best to sit up, levering herself up on the soft ground on one elbow. She found herself looking into a pair of small, dark eyes set in a thin, beaked face that could have come straight out of Jurassic Park. She didn’t need telling what would happen next if she couldn’t manage to defend herself, but her legs were still stubbornly refusing to obey orders and her arms felt like they had lead weights attached to them.
Julia stared back at the creature, feeling strangely disassociated from what was happening to her. It was as though she was viewing the world through binoculars from the end of a long, dark tunnel. She groped blindly with one hand, feeling for a rock or a stick or anything, but all she found was wet earth. Then a wave of sickness hit her. Her stomach heaved violently and expelled at speed everything she’d eaten that day. The roll of thunder overhead drowned out her gasps and the rain washed the trails of vomit from her chin.
She barely felt it when the creature pecked at her foot.
* * * * *
By the time Ryan had arranged for more vehicles to be brought up from Farnley Hall, ten minutes had passed. The captain had flatly refused to let Lyle go on ahead. For a moment, Stephen had half-expected Lyle to challenge that order, but the look in Ryan’s grey eyes had made it abundantly clear that he was expecting to be obeyed. Military discipline had over-ridden emotion and while they waited for the vehicles, with Connor and Cutter still taking readings from the anomaly and interrogating Dewar, Lyle had stepped to one side and reported to Lester by phone.
An ambulance had taken Ted McCallum to hospital. Before it had left, Ditzy had calmly commandeered various items of kit, including stretchers and intravenous fluids and had packed everything into the back of one of the Land Rovers. Both Claudia and Lester were now on their way to Farnley Hall by helicopter to contain the inevitable fall-out from the deaths of several rich – and no doubt influential – people.
As soon as Ryan was satisfied they were as prepared as they could be for what they were going to encounter, he gave the order and a convoy of three vehicles set off into the short section of tunnel. They were taking the Land Rover Dewar had driven, plus another with a high exhaust suitable for the passage of a river in flood, and a Range Rover Discovery to help with the evacuation if needed. With them came Ricky Carey, carrying some radio kit he’d brought from the house. Ryan had accepted the mercenary’s offer of help. From the story Dewar had told, another man who could handle a gun wouldn’t go amiss.
Stephen stared around him at metal walls and understood what Connor had meant by a Faraday cage. The artificial mound was lined with metal over which earth had been heaped and turfed over to create a small hillock. Into it had been built an internal gate, as well as the front hatch that lifted up to allow access. Provided the two were never opened at once, no radio signal from the anomaly would reach their detectors. They’d only picked it up at all because in his haste, Dewar had simply brought his vehicle through without waiting to close the internal gate behind him.
According to Connor, the electrical field generated by the anomaly was being grounded by the metal and so the radio wave emissions were not reaching the detector in the ARC, although they had registered on that machine as well as on their hand-held devices as soon as both doors had been opened. The readings Connor had taken showed that the anomaly was both strong and stable. Dewar said it had remained open for the past nine months and had shown no signs of closing. Mason had arranged for the building of the metal cage seven months ago. The work had been completed just before Connor had brought the prototype of the Anomaly Detection Device on line for the first time.
Stephen was in the lead vehicle driven by Dewar, with Ryan at his side, a rifle cradled across the captain’s knees. He experienced the usual moment of brief disorientation as they passed through the anomaly into bright sunshine. He stared around him in amazement, seeing the same gently rolling hills covered with short grass that he’d encountered once before, when he and Ryan had chased Helen through the anomaly that had disgorged the infected dodos. All around them, anomalies sparkled in the light, shining like a myriad fractured diamonds.
He heard Connor’s awed, “Wow,” at the same time as Cutter said something slightly more profane.
“How many of these have you been through, man?” Cutter demanded as Dewar accelerated towards another anomaly.
The mercenary shrugged. “A dozen, maybe. Not all of them stay the same.”
“You’ve got the records?” Connor sounded like someone had just rolled all his birthdays and Christmases into one and handed them to him on a plate with a sprig of holly on top.
“Mason has. The notes are back at the house.” Dewar hit the brakes, changed into a lower gear and said, “Hold on, it’s going to get a bit rough through the next one.”
Torrential rain hit the windscreen as soon as the vehicle passed through the anomaly and the tyres struggled for grip on the sodden ground. A loud crack of thunder accompanied a bolt of lightning almost as bright as the one they’d just passed through. An electrostatic charge crackled through their radios. Stephen cursed and pulled off his ear piece as around him others did the same. Dewar swerved to avoid a gigantic fern frond beaten down by the force of the rain drops.
“This is the Cretaceous all right,” Cutter declared, staring around him at a landscape filled with massive ferns and huge trees, mainly pines of some description. All Dewar did was nod. If the mercenary was surprised to find himself surrounded by a bunch of people all with knowledge of portals to other times, he certainly wasn’t showing it, and Stephen was simply getting the impression that the man was just glad he didn’t have to cope with what was happening on his own.
While they’d waited for the additional transport, the mercenary had filled them in on what had happened. Connor’s eyes had gone wide at the description of the tyrannosaurus attack, while Stephen had watched all the soldiers grip their weapons that bit harder. From what they’d heard, he was amazed that anyone had survived. Against probably the fiercest predator to have walked the earth, man stood only a very slim chance indeed, a fact that had been brought home to the hunting party in the worst possible way. Stephen and the soldiers all remembered their own previous run-in with tyrannosaurs in the Forest of Dean. It had taken a rocket launcher to bring them down with any degree of certainty – and that was not something they’d thought to bring with them when they’d been masquerading as zoo inspectors, a fact that his companions were no doubt cursing as much as he was.
The thought of someone abusing the anomalies with the express intention of killing living creatures had shocked Stephen more than he would have believed possible. As if fucking up their own world by hunting endangered species wasn’t enough, Mason had set up an operation specifically designed to cater to the blood lust of those for whom Africa or South America was no longer enough. In his time abroad, Stephen had seen the damage done by the likes of Mason at first hand and he hated him for it, even if he hadn’t yet met the man.
Stephen wasn’t the only one seething with anger, either. At his side, Lyle was staring around him in grim silence, as cold and collected as Stephen had ever seen him, even though he had to be tormenting himself with thoughts of what the hell had happened to his mother. Stephen had believed Dewar’s protestations that he had no idea what had happened to Lyle’s mother and so had Lyle, otherwise he didn’t think that any power of earth would have stopped Lyle getting the truth out of the mercenary by any means necessary. And Stephen doubted Ryan would have stood in his friend’s way. He had seen Ryan ruthlessly extracting information from one of Mason’s thugs in Cumbria and he knew perfectly well that his lover hadn’t spent the majority of his army career in Special Forces without learning how to break someone quickly and efficiently when he needed to.
If Ed Mason had any sense, he’d come clean at the first time of asking.
* * * * *
The helicopter touched down in the grounds of Farnley Hall. The pilot switched off the engine and the noise from the rotor-arms started to die away.
Lester pulled off the headphones that he’d been using to communicate with the pilot and waited for the co-pilot’s signal that he and Claudia could disembark. They made their way across the short grass of an immaculate lawn towards the entrance to the house where they were met by an immaculately-dressed woman in her late 50s. In spite of the fact that there were now three ambulances in the grounds waiting to receive casualties, the woman’s composure appeared to be unruffled.
“Sandra Willoughby,” she said, holding out a red-nailed hand. “Sir James Lester, I presume.”
Lester inclined his head and nodded to Claudia. “My assistant, Miss Brown.”
“I think you’ll find the Home Secretary is on her way,” Sandra Willoughby said, with the air of a woman playing a trump card.
“I rather thought she might be,” Lester said, favouring her with a smile. “Now, if you’d be so kind as to show me to Mr Mason’s office, I’d like to make a start on unravelling the paperwork for this little enterprise of his. Beginning with the records of exactly who is with him at the moment.”
The look the woman gave him would have gone a long way to freezing hell but Lester really didn’t give a damn.
* * * * *
The vehicles came to a halt on a small rise overlooking the river. Ryan stared out of the windscreen and uttered a quiet but heartfelt curse. He jumped out of the Land Rover onto the soaked ground and was joined by the others.
“How deep is it?” he demanded, addressing the question to Dewar.
“Looks like it’s come up a bit from when I crossed earlier. About a metre and a half, maybe a bit deeper. It’s hard to tell but it was over the wheel-arches then.” Dewar looked out across the wide mass of brown, foaming water.
“It’ll swamp the Discovery,” Ryan said, frowning over his shoulder at the other vehicles. “They’re shit in water this high, anyway. We’ll give it a go in yours and see how bad it is. Ditz, you’re with me and Lyle. If we get across we’re going to need a medic. Blade, you’re with us as well. Finn, if this is a goer, I want you driving the next vehicle, but not until I say so. You’re the best wheelman we’ve got in these conditions.” Ryan met Stringer’s eyes and said quietly, “If this fucks up, you wait until it goes down, OK?”
Stephen put his hand on Ryan’s arm. “I’m coming with you. We don’t know what’s happened to Lyle’s mother and if we get to the other side in one piece, you’re going to need a tracker.”
A momentary flash of indecision crossed his lover’s face then Ryan simply nodded. “Get in. No seat belts.”
Half of the medical kit was rapidly transferred to their Land Rover. Stephen jumped in the back with Lyle, Ditzy and Blade while Ryan took his place again next to Dewar. Without waiting to be told, Dewar slipped the vehicle into gear and turned the wheel to head a short way along the bank to their left. Stephen knew what the mercenary was doing. He was expecting the Land Rover to be carried downstream by the current, but he was aiming for the stony bank almost opposite their original position. Stephen had been on a tour of Iceland’s interior a few years ago where this was the accepted method of crossing rivers. It had nearly scared him shitless the first time, but to his surprise he’d soon got used to it.
Stephen braced himself against the back of Ryan’s seat. Dewar entered the water at an angle and almost immediately the wheels lost traction and the Land Rover started to drift. The mercenary swore under his breath and held the steering wheel steady. A moment later, Stephen felt the wheels bite on the river bed and for at least a minute they made progress under their own steam. Water started to seep in around the doors and pool at their feet.
The windscreen wipers were failing to keep up with the combination of rain and spray thrown up by the flood waters. A loud thump signified that something had just cannoned into the side of the vehicle next to Stephen and he felt it sway alarmingly. He peered out of the window expecting to see the branch of a tree. Instead he was looking at the rounded hump of a dead animal’s back. A small head on the end of a long neck bobbed loosely in the water before the current swept the carcass past them.
Dewar fought to keep control of the Land Rover and Stephen realised, to his surprise, that they had actually crossed the mid-point of the river and were making their way, metre by sideways metre, to the opposite shore. The mercenary handled the vehicle with a skill that Stephen envied. He knew there was no way he could have kept any degree of control in the maelstrom surrounding them. He was beginning to recognise and almost anticipate the moments when they would gain traction, and even though they would often lose it again almost immediately, progress was being made and they were seemingly not wholly at the mercy of the flood waters.
The tyres bit again into the shifting cobbles of the river bed and Dewar changed gear again, seeking more traction and finding it. Stephen sucked in a shaky breath and held it. The wheels spun and they drifted another few metres then with a startling suddenness the Land Rover started climbing the gentle slope of the bank, edging its way out of the water like some sort of giant turtle.
Once they were free of the river and a safe distance away from the flood plain, Dewar brought the vehicle to a halt and, just for a moment, touched his head to the steering wheel in silent relief. Around him, Stephen heard the soldiers start to breathe again. He also realised, as he stared out of the window trying to work out how far they’d been carried down-stream, that it appeared to have stopped raining.
From the front seat, in a voice as calm as if he’d just taken a stroll across a quiet country lane, Ryan announced into his throat mike, “You can stop swearing now, Joel, we’re over.” He was silent for a moment and then gave a short bark of laughter. “Yeah, you might need a change of keks.” He turned to Dewar and demanded, “So where do we find your fucking hunting grounds?”
Dewar nodded to the left. “That way. Do we wait for the others?”
Stephen watched Ryan glance back across the water and nod. Provided nothing went wrong, Finn would have the second Land Rover across in a matter of minutes but if something went wrong, they had a slim chance of providing assistance, but a slim chance was better than nothing. He watched the vehicle carrying the others edge into the floodwaters. Under normal circumstances, the river probably spent much of its time either dry or very shallow, but in torrential conditions like the ones the area had just experienced, it would fill rapidly, spreading out and covering a much wider area.
By the time the Land Rover had reached the middle of the river, even Joel Stringer had fallen silent and all their radio earpieces transmitted was the occasional sharp intake of breath, muffled curse and the noise of the engine. For one long frozen moment, Stephen thought Finn had lost control. The Land Rover lurched violently and looked like it was about to be tipped over onto its side by the force of the water, in spite of the combined weight of seven people. Stephen could see movement inside as the passengers desperately tried to provide counterbalance. Stringer managed a quiet, ‘Fuck,’ and then they were moving again.
Finn managed to bring the vehicle out of the water five metres further upstream than Dewar had done. The young soldier was grinning widely, showing surprising evidence of having enjoyed himself, a feeling that clearly wasn’t shared by any of his companions.
“Nice driving,” Ryan said.
In a matter of moments they were moving again, the Land Rovers lurching over the detritus of the storm, branches and fallen fern fronds snapping on their wheels. The soft ground made progress slow, especially when Dewar had to take a detour through a denser patch of forest to avoid a fallen tree.
As they emerged into clearer ground, Stephen spotted something and yelled, “Stop!”
Dewar brought the vehicle to a halt and Ryan demanded, “What have you seen?”
Stephen gestured into the undergrowth. “Wheel tracks.” He glanced at Dewar. “You said Mason went off on his own with Lyle’s mother. There was no sign of any vehicle other than yours having crossed the river, so where did he go? Those tracks might be our answer.”
He opened the passenger door and jumped down, his boots squelching into the soft ground. Lyle was at his side a moment later and the slamming of doors told Stephen that the others had followed. He motioned with his arms for them to stay behind him while he bent down to check for tracks.
“Two sets,” he announced. “Whoever it was drove that way and then came back.” He pointed at the second set, about half a metre away, which separated for a distance of about four metres before they merged again into one unrecognisable mass, filled with water.
“So what’s that way?” Lyle demanded, his voice cold and dangerous.
“One of the areas where we left dead bait,” Dewar said quietly, staring down at the wheel ruts. He held Lyle’s stare for a moment then said to Ryan, “I think I know where Mason might have taken her. If you follow the track we were on more or less due north you’ll find the others. Carey knows the way. The radio in the Land Rover is tuned to the frequency they’ll be using. You might even be able to raise them now.”
“And what are you going to do?” Ryan demanded.
“Help Lyle find his mother. I know the area, Ryan. We can cover the ground almost as fast on foot. If we need a vehicle, we’ll radio you.” Dewar met Stephen’s eyes. “I don’t suppose we’ll have a problem following these tracks, will we?”
“I can follow them.” Stephen acknowledged. He turned to face his lover. “He’s right, Ryan. Three of us are enough for this. You go on with the others.”
Ryan reached out and gripped Dewar’s wrist. “If you play us false, you’re a dead man.”
“I had no part in whatever Mason’s done,” the mercenary said in a voice wholly devoid of challenge. “I’m not playing anyone false. I said I’d do my best to bring a bunch of people out of here alive. That’s what I’m being paid for – and Claire Thackeray is one of those people. If she’s still alive, I want to find her.”
“Her name is Julia Denton,” Lyle said. “I trust him, Ryan. Let’s move it.”
Stephen received a swift nod from his lover. Ryan slung the M4 carbine off his shoulder and held it out. Stephen took it and without a word, the three men set off at run, following the wheel ruts.
* * * * *
Lester watched from the window of Mason’s office as a bright red sports car came up the long driveway at speed and stopped outside the main doors in a spray of gravel. The driver’s door was flung open and an attractive woman in her late 30s got out and stalked towards the door.
“She doesn’t look happy,” Claudia remarked.
“No, she doesn’t, does she?” Lester said reflectively. He strolled to the head of the sweeping staircase in time to see Sandra Willoughby hurry out to greet the person she obviously believed to an ally. “Gillian,” he drawled, sauntering down the staircase, his hand outstretched. “So nice to see you.”
She stared up at him, her face pinched and drawn. “Where’s my husband? Is he all right?”
“I have absolutely no idea,” Lester said with perfect truth.
And for the first time since he’d known her, Lester watched tears start to track down Gillian Clement’s cheeks. In other circumstances, he might have felt sorry for her, but just then, not knowing whether his lover’s mother was alive or dead, Lester couldn’t bring himself to feel any pity for the woman. Her political career was now effectively over. Or would be when she’d had the opportunity to tender her resignation to the Prime Minister. Even Gillian Clement, well-known for being a smooth-talking high-flier wouldn’t be able to wriggle out of the fact that she had been passing classified information about the anomaly project to one of her husband’s business associates.
Tony Porter, her husband, was one of the men on Ed Mason’s ill-fated hunting trip. His car registration number had been one of the ones noted down by Stringer during his surveillance of the main gates. Lester had recognised his name on the list handed to him by Connor back in the ARC.
“I think the Home Secretary would appreciate a cup of tea,” said Claudia, taking charge of the situation, directing her request at Sandra Willoughby, before adding, “You can wait in the library, Home Secretary. Maybe you’d like to speak to George Henderson. His wife was mauled by a tyrannosaurus rex. She was dead by the time she was brought back through the anomaly. Maybe he will have some news of your husband.”
Gillian Clement’s eyes went wide with shock and before Lester could catch her, she crumpled to the floor in a dead faint.
Lester looked down at her dispassionately. “Well, at least we know where Mason has been getting his information from.”
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Date: 2011-06-24 03:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-24 07:24 pm (UTC)