Terror's Cradle

CHAPTER FOUR

As I stumbled quickly between the sheltering rocks, I heard the car stop and doors open and close. Then there was silence. I kept going, frantic to get space and distance between myself and the road. Already I was disturbingly conscious of the heat. The sun blasted down out of a brilliant sky; there was no wind; the spaces between the rocks were filled with air so hot it was uncomfortable to breathe. In the open spaces it was worse. I tripped and fell, then dragged myself to my feet and plunged on between two red, rock outcrops. Within fifty yards sweat was streaming off me. Then five more yards and a bend in the narrow passage and I was faced with a blind end, a massive lump of red sandstone ten feet high, blocking the way. But it was fissured, there were big cracks. Maybe I could scramble up . . . I tore at it, jammed my foot into a low crevice, grabbed for handholds., and forced my way up. Seven or eight feet above ground was a narrow ledge and I strained to reach it, managed to haul myself up. From there to the top was simple: two easy footholds and I was standing, then flinging myself flat as a bullet sang by. The rock was intensely hot to the touch; I could feel it even through my soaking clothes and it was too hot for my bare hands. All the same, I had to get off the flat top of that rock. I turned, rolling over across the bumpy, scorching surface towards the far edge and glanced down. The drop was a good fifteen feet into a rough fissure strewn with stones. I swung my legs over the edge and eased my body backward, trying to grip the smooth rock with hands that demanded relief from the burning contact 'with the red sandstone. Then my feet found a ledge, but there was nothing for my hands, no way down but to jump and pray I didn't break leg or ankle.

The jar as I landed hammered at joints I scarcely knew I had, and drove the breath out of me, but at least there was a passage now and it seemed to offer a route away through the stone jungle. I staggered bone-achingly on, threading my way along the defile. Òver here!' The shout came from behind me, and not so far behind at that. I looked over my shoulder and saw a man standing, not fifty yards away, on top of a rock. He was raising his rifle. I flung myself sideways into the shelter of a boulder and heard the crack of the shot. Now if I moved it would be into the open into his sights. But no, there was another gap, dark in the sweltering shadow, four or five feet away. I took a deep breath, launched myself into it and found that a rocky track led steeply upward. By now I could scarcely breathe; the heat was unbelievable, the air itself seemed to scorch my lungs, sweat cascaded out of my hair and off my forehead and ran saltily into my eyes. Valley of Fire the sign had said, one place in the burning Nevada desert that had been singled out for its heat, one place hotter than all the others. Oh God!

I staggered up the narrow track, my heart beginning to hammer frighteningly. Then I blundered out into the open, where another defile crossed mine and instantly a rifle cracked and I heard the bullet fizz by, smacking into a rock to my right. I dived forward, flinging my body headlong into the defile ahead, scraping knees and elbows painfully on the rough sandstone. It ,was like diving on to emery paper. But I was up quickly and driving my body forward because there was nothing else I could do. It couldn't go on. I'd travelled only about a quarter mile and I was almost exhausted, my energy was being drained away fast by the murderous combination of heat and height. Up there, three or four thousand feet above sea level, the air is thinner. I was flogging along with my sea-level lungs and a body accustomed to temperate climates, in a high-altitude desert.

Trying to move fast, I knew I was slowing with every step, forcing each leg forward with my hands on my knees, not even aware until I heard the shot that I'd left shelter and was exposed again. Blindly I flung myself flat, but on to a lump of rock that smashed against my ribs and sent a tremendous flash of pain through my body. I glanced back dizzily. I could see nobody, but that didn't mean a thing; they could be in any of a hundred places, waiting to pick me off as I rose. I didn't rise. I edged my body agonizingly forward across the baking rock until I could slide into a dark, protected crevice and crouched there, gasping, knowing I was done. I no longer had the strength to run, barely the strength to crawl. I was bruised and beginning to suffer from oxygen starvation; sweat was sluicing out of me and the sun was hot as hell. What lay ahead, if I lived that long, was heatstroke.

That was when the thought struck me. I don't know why it hadn't hit me before. It came in the form of a question, and the question was: if they were hunting me with rifles, why in hell hadn't they hit me? Because they were bad shots? Hardly. At forty or fifty yards it'

s not difficult to hit a man-sized target. Then why? Even to think was appallingly difficult. I felt as though I were crouching in a furnace and my mind seemed to be only a quarter my own. I forced myself to concentrate. On the lake I'd been forced along, shepherded, driven northward. And then, at Overton Beach, there hadn't been a cruiser between me and the shore. And in the car . . . the shot that had been fired at the car had missed. From fifty yards it had missed a car? A car! The driver had been in cahoots too, waiting for me. That's why they hadn't hit the car. But up here? Among the red rocks? A rifleman need only go high, wait for me to show myself and pick me off, True or false?

It could only be true. So why was I still in one sweaty piece? There had been at least two easy chances.

I thought I knew the answer, but still I weighed it carefully. The only possible answer seemed to be that they hadn't shot me because they didn't want to shoot me. But was that the only possible answer? It seemed to be, unless they were all blind and their hands trembled as badly as mine. Which couldn't be true. They could stroll in the heat, come slowly and easily towards an unarmed man. Also, they'd be accustomed to the temperature, to the high land.

No. The first answer must be the right one. They didn't want to shoot me. Next question: what did they want? No answer; no way of guessing. I didn't begin to comprehend what was happening. But . . . I clung to the one thought: they weren't going to shoot me!

Slowly I forced myself to stand upright and looked round for a way to the top of the rocks. If I was wrong, they'd shoot me now instead of ten minutes from now, by which time I'd be a sweating, semi-conscious wreck a short distance farther on. Over there. Over there it would be easier. There was a worn rock forming almost a staircase upward. I began to climb, awkwardly because my strength was almost gone, making each upward step with an audible grunt of effort. One more yard and I would be in clear sight. I hesitated. What if I were wrong? But I 'already knew the answer to that. I took a deep, gasping breath and forced myself higher.

Crack! The bullet smacked into the sandstone a yard from me and instinctively I almost dived for cover again. I was trembling so much I could hardly keep my balance, but I forced myself to straighten and turned my head to look in the direction from which the shot had come. A man was standing there, atop a rock, rifle at his shoulder, perhaps forty yards away. As I watched he moved his head to sight and fired again and red stone chips flew from the rock a couple of feet away. Two shots at forty yards. Two shots that missed. I struggled one weary step higher, straightened and stood with my hands loose at my sides, staring across at him.

Then a movement caught my eye. Another man, another rifle, off to my right. The next shot came from him and it, too, flew w by. I looked round. There were two more of them, an arc of four men, all with rifles at the shoulder, all close. And quite suddenly they all started firing at once. God knows how many shots there were! And God knows why I didn't fling myself down on the blistering rock! From four directions the shots whistled past, one after another, a stutter of firing that sounded almost like a machine gun. I ber closing my eyes, clamping my teeth together, waiting for one to hit me. It seemed impossible that among all that rifle fire not one bullet should touch me, even by accident. Then, suddenly the last sounds had bounced away among the rocks and I was standing in an incredible flat silence, uninjured, looking across that weird landscape from one man to the next. For all of a minute it stayed like that. Then one of them shouted, 'Okay, let's go!

' And they turned their backs to me and began to move slowly away, back down towards the road.

Maybe it was the relief, perhaps sheer weakness, but I was suddenly dizzy and almost passed out. I know I stood swaying in the burning sunlight until the sheer heat of it reminded me that to collapse on the spot would be more certainly-lethal than the rifle fire.

It took me nearly an hour to pick my way back to the road and even though it was downhill, I wasn't recovering at all. Sweat still flooded out of me, breathing was difficult. I remember glancing at my watch and being astonished that it was still only eleven, and realizing that the worst of the heat was still to come. The two cars had long gone, of course, and the road was deserted. I stood beside it for a little while until I realized just how hot the sun was on my head and neck, so I found myself a shady place beside a big boulder and crouched there, waiting. It was forty minutes before a vehicle came along and I must have been halfdozing because I almost missed it. In a panic I staggered out of the shade on to the road, waving my arms, and forced it to stop or run me down.

I blinked at it. The car was bright and clean and shiny and the blazing sun shone blindingly off its chromium. Then the door opened and a middle-aged woman got out. When she spoke, there was a quaver in her voice.

Ìs something wrong?'

I almost laughed,' not because the words were funny, or even because they were conventional, but because I was close to hysteria.

I said, simply, 'I got lost.' My month was so dry it hurt to speak.

`Lost?' The quaver was still them She was torn between a wish to help and fear of this unknown stranger on a lonely. road.

`Lost,' I croaked. 'I've been out in the sun. Have you water?'

`Water? No.'

_ .`Could you give me a lift?'

`You're British?'

`Yes."

The quaver disappeared, Nobody's afraid of the British, I suppose. She said, 'I'm going to Vegas.'

I managed a grin of thanks. 'Perfect!'

Only two miles along the road we came to a building labelled Visitor Center and she stopped. 'There'll be water in there.'

There was. I drank about six pints of it and walked back to the car feeling it switching round inside me..I'd also washed and I felt better.

We talked a bit on the fifty miles or so into Las Vegas. However had I got lost? I told'

her a little lie about setting off for a walk from Echo Bay. Walk! She was horrified and gave me a long, solicitous lecture on the manifold dangers of walking in the United States. It wasn't she said, like England. She was right there. She was a nice woman, her ancestors came from Noocastle,

and she insisted on driving me right to the Dime Palace, where she warned me again with some severity about walking, and drove away with a wave.

I walked into the foyer, and a large man in a uniform that would have stifled him five yards away from the air conditioning, looked at my dishevelled state as though he was contemplating throwing me back on to the street.

Tour-one-oh-five, please.'

`Here it is, sir.' The smiling girl handed me an envelope along with my room key. I looked at it for a moment then ripped it open with my thumb. A single sheet of paper, folded once, no signature, type-written. It read: 'Take three o'clock United Airlines flight Chicago. Connect direct to London. You will be watched. If you do not go, you will be killed.'

I swallowed. The message was clear enough, the morning's horror recent enough. I still didn't understand why, couldn't see how I could be a danger to anyone, or why it should be necessary to somebody to get me out of the US. But evidently it was, and Susannah Rhodes certainly wasn't worth staying for. Not at the price I'd pay. Alex Scown would be annoyed or worse, but Scown at least wasn't a killer. Not in the short term, anyway. I said, 'My account please.'

`Cashier's counter is right over there, sir.'

I waited for my bill and paid it, went and had a cup of coffee and a hot pastrami sandwich at the casino snack counter, and then went up to my room. I hesitated before going in but when I finally summoned up the courage it was empty. There weren't any message lights on the phone either. Presumably they thought I'd have got the message now, loud and clear. And so I had.

When I'd showered and put on some clean clothes, I sat on the bed and tried to phone Alsa, but there was an hour and a half's delay on calls to Gothenburg. I then tried to telephone Spinetti but he was out. His girl didn't know when he'd be back. She knew nothing about me, nothing about the arrangements and sure wasn't interested. Nor, by that time,

was I. I used my cable card to send a message to London. There was no point in phoning because I was telling not asking, and not even Scown would change my mind for me. After that I slung my goods in a bag, and winced as I remembered the tape recorder I'd left in the boat. Not that Scown would mind; it wasn't his machine. But my possessions were certainly getting scattered.

I waited out front until a cab arrived, my suitcase ostentatiously at my feet to proclaim to the world at large and watching eyes in particular that I was in fact departing, then rode out to the airport.

At the United Airlines desk, I inquired whether any seats• remained on the three o'clock flight for Chicago.

Ì'll see, sir. What name?'

`Sellers.'

Òne moment, please.' The clerk looked at his list. 'Sellers is the name?'

`Yes.'

Àlready a reservation for you, sir.' He wore that patient look given to idiots by people paid to be polite. •

`Thanks.' I handed him my ticket and my credit card and waited while the new ticket was made out. Then I handed over my suitcase, went along to the departure gate waiting room, and sat watching the other intending passengers in a furtive kind of way to see if I could discover which of them was doing the same to me.

I suppose somebody must have been there, but I didn't spot him. I didn't spot him in Chicago, either, which was hardly surprising because O'Hare International Airport's a big place and by that time three restorative Scotches were cutting down my powers of concentration a little. I added a fourth in the soothing coolth of the Four Seasons bar while I waited for the British Airways Chicago-Montreal-London flight to be called. There was still an hour's delay for Gothenburg and I hadn't an hour. I've taken that flight before. At Montreal it fills up with parcel-laden, misty-eyed grandmothers heading back to Bristol or Bury St Edmunds, but the Chicago-Montreal leg isn't exactly jammed. This time there were six of us scattered thinly around the cabin of the VC10. The captain, as captains will with an almost empty aircraft, gave a performance demonstration, taking it up like an express lift then levelling off to hot-rod through the airways, while the cabin staff kept the passengers amused. There were three stewardesses and a steward between the six of us, so the service was excellent and less starchy than usual. While I sipped my Bell's and water, a pretty blonde girl with shiny, much-brushed hair, chatted me up a bit, went away and came back.

`There's another journalist aboard,' she announced, all helpful. I responded. politely. 'Oh?' He could be one of the drunks from El Vino's and I'd be back in El Vino's soon enough, thank you. It's a bar in Fleet Street. In El Vino's nil veritas. Not much, anyway, and not often.

`Would you like to meet him, sir?' They maintain certain standards, these girls; people must be properly introduced. When there's time, anyway.

`What's his name?' I asked cautiously.

`Mr Elliot, sir. He's American.'

I said, 'I'm sorry to be finicky, but does he look the reminiscent type? I don't want ten hours of past triumphs.'

She smiled. A nice smile. 'He seems rather quiet, sir. He works for the National Geographic.'

She nodded towards the back of a head six rows nearer the nose. Another girl was talking to him. Presumably sounding him out about me.

`Well . .

I hesitated.

She giggled. 'We're picking up a hundred and thirty war brides' mothers in Montreal. Not one much under seventy-five.'

`That settles it. I'll join him. Will you bring a pair of Bells, please.'

We were properly introduced, hand-shaking, smiling politely and sizing one another up in the usual kind of way. He was pleasant enough, a tall, rangy, bespectacled man, fogyish, lantern-jawed, with dark thinning hair and a worry line or two on his forehead. We didn't talk a great deal, just the usual mild arguments about who'd pay as glasses were replenished; the kind of argument that amounts really to keeping score. We had dinner after take-off from Dorval, Montreal, not talking much because it would have been difficult to make ourselves heard above all the grandmotherly pride and the negotiations about exchanging seats and who was to look at whose snapshots first. Then, smiling at the noise and each other, we tilted the seats back and slept until we flew out of. darkness into brilliant dawn sunlight above the clouds. When we woke up, we looked at each other sympathetically, both dry-mouthed from the whisky and I persuaded the shiny-haired girl to bring orange juice.

`Where are you going?' I asked after a while. The long day stretched ahead and he must be going somewhere. `Lapland.'

Ìf I recall,' I said, 'National Geographic has done Lapland before.'

He grinned. 'Three hundred and eighty-two times. But it's a lot of territory. You?'

`Back to base.'

`Where've you been?'

I hesitated, then told him about Las Vegas. Not all of it; just that I'd been threatened and decided safety lay in flight.

He raised his eyebrows. 'You must have crossed. somebody. The Mob's pretty sensitive.'

Tut you're not surprised?'

`Not any more. Times have changed. You know, we've got a thing called Trick or Treat. The kids play jokes on people, knock on doors and run away. Kind of a sacred custom,'

right? People hand out candy and apples. Well, a little girl I know got an apple 'with a razor blade inside. Nothing surprises me any more. You were right to leave. Tell your boss I said so.'

`Hope he'll believe it.'

He laughed. 'Yeah. They never do. Who d'you work for?'

So we talked shop, gently and companionably, as the VC10 started its slow run in from somewhere over Northern Ireland, then shared a cab into London from Heathrow. I went direct to the News building and up to Scown's office. Neither of his secretaries was there, but their coats were and voices could be heard faintly through the teak door. I put my suitcase down and sat down to wait. About ten minutes later the editor, Rowlands, came out looking worried, with the shreds of that day's paper in mournful hands. Not that that was in any way remarkable. Three hundred people sweated sixteen hours to put it together; Scown tore it apart in ten minutes of choice phraseology. Then the operation began again, six days a week. Rowlands glanced at me, shrugged, and gave a thin grin as he went by. But Scown must have seen me through the doorway, because a moment later Secretary Two appeared. 'Mr Scown would like to see you now, Mr Sellers.

'

I swallowed and rose. Just a few hours earlier I'd been cringing, exhausted and terrified, in the Valley of Fire. My emotions, as I entered Scown's office were not dissimilar. The two secretaries exited slickly past me, getting out of range. The stiff quiff of white hair with the wave in it bristled up from his forehead and the cold blue eyes looked me over. `Well?'

I told him. Briefly. He likes short sentences, Scown does. Then I waited for the blast. He said, 'Money up the spout. Good story lost.'

I blinked. It was like being tapped with a feather when you're expecting to be hit by a bus. There'd be more to come.

Surprisingly there wasn't. He said, 'Silly cow!" `Susannah. Yes, she is.'

`Not her, you bloody idiot. Alison Hay.'

Alsa! That phone call. Damn! I said, 'Why? What's she done?'

He looked up at me for a moment and there was something in his eyes I hadn't seen before. He said, 'Christ only knows. She's vanished,'