Steel waited for an answer.
Stratton got to his feet. The cold expression on his face said enough. ‘Thanks for supper,’ he said to the others as he strode to the door and walked out into the rain.
Steel watched the door close behind him. ‘I didn’t have Stratton pegged as a prima donna,’ he said.
‘Isn’t that unfair?’ Louisa said. ‘It sounds like a dangerous operation.’
‘Oh, Stratton ain’t afraid of any operation. Not that guy. This is a walk in the park for someone like him. It’s me that he has a problem with. He’s got his feathers ruffled. I wasn’t exactly cordial to him when we first met. I was busy, had a lot on my mind. Truth is I didn’t know a whole lot about him then. Let him cool off. He’ll come around.’
‘He’s leaving in the morning,’ Victor said.
Steel collected his maps and photographs and put them back into his bag. ‘Let’s wait and see.’
‘If he won’t do it, is there any other way we can?’ Victor asked.
‘Let’s talk about that later,’ the American said. He picked up his poncho and hat and left the cabin.
Sebastian got to his feet.
‘If we could, would we do it?’ Victor asked him.
‘Kill Chemora?’ Sebastian said, his expression reflecting revulsion at the mention of the man’s name. ‘I’d drive a stake through his black heart as soon as look at him.’ He headed for his room, pausing at the door to look back at Victor. ‘What do you think of Stratton?’
‘I think he is honourable.’ Victor shrugged. ‘But he has his own path. He said it isn’t his fight.’
‘It wasn’t his booby trap either but he went back into the burning wood to get those men,’ Louisa said.
‘His mind rules his heart,’ Victor said. ‘He’s brave, of course, but he would have calculated the odds on his survival before going into that fire.’
‘I don’t agree with you,’ Louisa said.
Sebastian left them alone, closing the door to his room behind him.
‘One day you’re trying to kill Stratton and the next you look as if . . . well, you’re different with him,’ Victor said.
Louisa went back to clearing up the table. ‘I was wrong about him, that’s all.’
Victor went to the front door and looked back at her, a smirk on his face. ‘I’m still French, you know.’ He winked and walked outside.
Stratton sat stripping his pistol and placing the parts on the dining table. Water dripped from the roof of the cabin into several pans he had placed on the floor. The door opened, the draught almost blowing out the candles on the table as Steel hurried in to get out of the weather.
‘Goddamned rain,’ he cursed, shaking the water from his hands.
Stratton went back to his weapon.
Steel put down his bag and took off his coat, glancing all the time at Stratton as if trying to figure him out. ‘You mind if I have some wine?’ he asked, looking inside a jug on the table that was empty.
Stratton ignored him.
‘Come on, Stratton, lighten up,’ Steel said, going to the wine casks and filling up the jug. ‘We got off on the wrong foot, that’s all.’ He brought the jug to the table and filled two mugs, holding one out to Stratton. ‘We could be of help to each other. I’ve got a lot of connections in our business, on your side of the pond as well as mine.’
Stratton decided to humour the man and see how far he would go. He took the mug.
Steel smiled and tapped Stratton’s mug with his own. ‘To the revolution,’ he said, taking a good swig.
Stratton took a sip.
‘Sumners, your boss back in London - he’s no big fan of yours, is he? He’s never said as much but I can read between the lines. It’s kind of why I was the way I was with you in the beginning. I got the impression he didn’t rate you too highly. Let’s face it, this job is way below your skills grade. What is it with you guys?’
‘As you say, he doesn’t like me.’
‘Yeah, well, that’s between you both, I guess. If you’re wondering how he feels about you getting involved, I spoke to him last night, told him we were considering an op that might require your expertise. I asked if there were any issues. He had none.’
Stratton was not surprised. Sumners would love to hear that Stratton had been caught, or worse.
‘You know,’ Steel continued, ‘if you plan this right it’s a stand-off attack. You could trigger it and be miles away from there before anyone turned up to see what had happened. What do you say? Any comment at all?’
‘No.’
‘Are you at least thinking about it?’
Stratton said nothing.
‘I need to know one way or the other. If you don’t do it I walk out of here and, well, hell, this rebellion’s over. They can’t do this op, not without you. I know it’s a heavy load I’m puttin’ on you, I mean, you having to be the one who calls in the rebellion. But, well, that’s the way it is sometimes. More often than not the biggest decisions in war come down to just one man. Kind of funny really. Neravista and those people in there think they control this war, when, right now, it’s all down to just you and me.’
‘What are you going to do when you leave this business, Steel? Sell second-hand cars?’
The Marine colonel found the comment amusing, but there was a darkness to his chortle. ‘I like you, Stratton, you know that? You’re a funny guy. Tell you what,’ he said, finishing his drink and collecting up his stuff. ‘I’ll let you sleep on it. But come morning I want an answer, and no answer means no.’
As Steel stepped back out into the rain, Stratton put down his mug. It was possible that Sumners had given the man permission to make use of Stratton but he would bet everything he owned that the conversation had not been recorded. If Stratton was caught both men would deny having anything to do with him and his mission, he was sure of that. They would say that he had done it off his own bat. He had become involved.
Stratton began to clean the various parts of his pistol and put it back together.
Chapter 5
Stratton got up as the sun’s rays broke over the treetops and started packing his gear. His gut instinct was to get out of there as soon as he could but he had woken feeling all over the place. Steel’s statement that the rebellion would falter without the attack had got to him, despite his efforts to dismiss it. He felt guilty, in spite of the clumsiness of the American’s manipulation. Then there was Louisa. She was the least of the reasons he had to stay and should not have been one at all. But he could not deny that she had a greater influence on him than anything else. It was crazy. The sooner he got away from the camp the better.
Stratton picked up his pack and parachute, left his charred clothes and unusable M4 on the floor and walked down the stairs.
He dumped his kit on the table and decided to make himself a cup of coffee. While waiting for the water in the old percolator to boil he mulled over the ramifications of getting involved in the rebellion and London finding out. It soon became confusing and he wondered why he was even considering it.
The percolator bubbled and he turned off the heat, checked inside a mug for bugs and half filled it with the hot black liquid. The coffee was strong.
The front door opened and in walked David, Victor and another young rebel soldier carrying two large plastic ammunition boxes between them. Panting with the effort they lowered the cases heavily to the floor, grabbing their aching arms after releasing their load.
‘Whose idea was it not to rest until we reached the cabins?’ Victor asked.
‘Yours,’ David replied, out of breath and inspecting his palms where the ammo-box handles had cut into them. David’s hair was short all over to minimise any contrast with the patches that had been burned away. His face and arms were already beginning to peel.