Jack stepped out of the way of the first shots, moving his body slightly to the right even as Thacker pulled the trigger. The second three were stopped in the flat of Jack’s outstretched hand.
Thacker switched to fully automatic, and let the god have it all. He missed with every last bullet, or at least, did not hit with a single one.
Then Jack was striding towards him, and he turned tail and ran. The pressure in his skull was threatening to burst his brains.
‘Worm. You dare strike me?’
Stumbling along with his hands pressed to the sides of his head, Thacker gasped. ‘I’ll dare a bloody sight more, you freak.’
‘Blasphemer. Die.’
‘Not today.’ He gained the camp, and tripped through the forest of guys and pegs.
Jack was slow, as uncertain of his steps as a new-born deer. Whilst each pace took him twenty feet, he had to steady himself before taking the next. Thacker ran as if the hounds of hell were at his back. But the god’s terrified worshipers were driven by more than naked fear. They charged after Thacker, hoping to bring him down, present him as a sacrifice, and gain a moment’s rest from a life that now promised nothing but torment.
Many of them were fitter than Thacker, younger than Thacker, plain faster than Thacker. The only thing in his favour was that he had a head start.
He made it into the front seat of an armoured Land Rover, reached across and locked the passenger door, then his own. Jack Henbury loomed large, and his minions flocked around his ankles, desperate to show their devotion and not be left behind.
Thacker prayed for the first time in a long time, and the Land Rover started. He threw it into first and hurtled up the slope to the hedge. He kept waiting for Jack to stop him, to conjure a wall for him to drive into, or melt the vehicle like he’d melted the helicopter and its crew. He could see him in his rear view mirrors.
He was through the hedge. The engine nearly stalled, and Thacker fought to save it, stamping on the clutch and gunning the accelerator. The front wheels bounced across the roadside ditch and hit tarmac. He threw the Land Rover around, tyres screeching, then worked his way through the gears until he was doing a flat out fifty-five.
Jack receded from view.
Thacker roared past the third checkpoint, and didn’t even slow for the second, snapping the wooden pole across the road cleanly in two. The first, he had to brake for. Unlocking his door, he brushed the razor wire aside, and didn’t bother shutting the door on his way back in.
A signpost for Isherwood flashed by, and Thacker took the turning, just.
He still had the radio on his belt. One hand on the wheel, he called Henbury.
‘Thacker. Lost the helicopter. Crew dead. Barely made it out myself.’
‘It’s Henbury. Where are you?’
‘On the road to Isherwood. I’ve got Jack and about a hundred, hundred and fifty crazed fanatics chasing me.’
‘It is Jack then?’
‘I have to assume so. He’s now thirty feet tall and can kill by thought alone.’ Blood was starting to obscure his vision, but he didn’t have a free hand to wipe it away. ‘Excuse me a moment.’
He put the radio down on the seat next to him and used an oily rag from the dashboard to mop himself up with.
‘Thacker again. I shot Jack repeatedly. He either anticipated where the bullets were going, or caught them in his bare hand. But there’s a limit to his powers. I got away by running very quickly, so I’m guessing his influence doesn’t extend so far.’
‘The Air Corps are here. With more helicopters.’
‘Tell them to stand off and fire as soon as they acquire their target. Too close, and they’re toast.’
‘How close is too close?’
‘Good question. Look, it’s difficult to drive this thing and talk at the same time. I’ll be with you in a couple of minutes. Over and out.’
He could make out a church spire and some red tiled roofs a few fields away. His vision was starting to swim, and he had to shake his head to get rid of the disturbance. Rather than crash at breakneck speed in a narrow country lane, he started to bite his lip, hard.
Chapter Eight
Thacker spotted the glint of glass from the church belltower: a spotter with binoculars. He’d been clocked already by the dozen soldiers crouched behind garden walls as he came into the village, and assumed that Henbury had given the order not to fire. A rash decision, but Thacker was grateful.
The village green, more used to maypoles and Morris dancing, looked like an aerodrome from the Vietnam era. There were olive green helicopters as far as he could see, and men running around underneath them, pulling safety pins from red-tipped missiles.
The pub was opposite the green. He braked hard, his senses coming and going: one moment razor-sharp, the next, dreamlike. The wheels skidded, but he held it straight and the Land Rover stopped in a cloud of dust and smoke.
Adams was at the door, opening it, manhandling Thacker out.
‘You’re buggered up good and proper, Major.’
Thacker grunted. ‘How long have we got?’
‘Nothing spotted yet.’
‘They were right behind me.’ He turned around and looked. Just Oxfordshire.
Adams carried him into the pub, and dumped him in a chair opposite Henbury.
‘Dear God. Fetch the man a whisky.’
‘Actually, I’d prefer a cup of tea.’
‘Oh shut up, Major.’ A large tumbler brimming with golden liquid was banged onto the table.
Thacker knocked half of it back in one sour-faced gulp. He almost threw up, swallowed hard, and felt the alcohol flood his system like a cold rush.
‘That’s better.’
‘You look a mess.’
‘That’s what happens when you try to beat your own brains out with a very large tree. Not recommended, but the situation was extreme.’ Thacker focussed on the tabletop, where there was a map with arrows drawn on it. ‘What’s the plan?’
‘We have a battalion of these helicopters parked out on the rec, armed with air-to-ground missiles and machine guns. I also have a detachment of maintenance crew in full combat readiness deployed in an arc facing west on the outskirts of the village.’
‘The MoD are taking us seriously then?’
‘Oh yes, although in my day it was the War Office. Apparently our Mr Dickson has been very busy with his little telephone, calling all sorts of important people and telling them to welcome Jack. We have a column of tanks and artillery coming out from Salisbury, and Guards regiments from London. The Gurkhas are in Hampshire and will probably be the first to reach us.’ Henbury took delivery of a foaming pint of bitter and took a long pull. ‘In an hour and a half.’
‘They expect us to hold the fort till then?’
‘I rather think they do. I have, however, called the Chief Constable of Oxfordshire, and he can get us about a hundred armed officers within the hour, and some are already here. Now, what are we facing?’
Thacker sipped some more whisky. It burned his lip where he had bitten it. ‘Jack, of course. He has, I suppose, some limited control over things around him. He melted the helicopter as it hovered over him. Melted the crew, too. He blew some unfortunate up as an example to his worshipers. I shot at him, but the bullets never connected. I don’t know what to suggest there.’
‘Hit him from more than one angle at once? Perhaps he has to be concentrating.’
‘It’s all guesses, I’m afraid. Then we have his entourage. They might have been our friends, our colleagues, but they’ll rip us apart with their bare hands if they get hold of us. Anything for Jack. I’m not looking forward to ordering men to open fire at people they’ve been drunk with.’
‘But if they don’t shoot them, they’ll die themselves.’