‘Right,’ she said, ‘I’ll tell you about it as we walk, but don’t look round like a tourist – only if I point things out. You’ve got to be so engrossed in me that no one expects us say anything to them as we pass. Talk very quietly though in case they hear your accent.’
They’d crossed a strange national border into a mongrel land where the worst of British council house architecture was surrounded by a sedimentary layer of Americanization. Some of the cars parked at the kerb seemed to rival the houses in size. Bright red and yellow plastic was everywhere, slides, sandpits, climbing frames; their colours, designed to battle Texan sunshine, undimmed by the Yorkshire sky’s feeble challenge.
There were houses both sides of the curving road, brick houses built in ugly little terraces, four to each terrace with open grass around them. Beyond the houses they came to a school with a red roof, bright pictures taped to the windows surrounded by a playground full of more climbing frames, ladders, scrambling nets though the plastic was here replaced by wood, soaked in red ranch-paint. After that was a bank with an unfamiliar cash machine in the wall, then a big building with a glass conservatory built on one side in which they could see people eating.
‘That’s the commissary, the restaurant,’ said Heather, ‘the food’s quite good.’
‘You’ve eaten in there?’
‘Not since they got to know my face and tightened up security.’
Not since they got to know my face – and here he was walking beside that face. Oh God, he thought, this could be the final test of Ivor’s pulling power. In the office you knew they’d get you out of trouble somewhere down the line. Was it really the same at MI7? He wondered.
‘Where are we going?’
So far no one had taken any notice of them but there hadn’t been many people around by the houses. Now though, they were approaching a crossroads. Ahead lay a series of more industrial-looking buildings; stores and workshops, it seemed. There were things going on there, trucks moving around them, people walking in and out of the doorways. To their right the road led past a series of low office buildings straight to the main gate and the police post a couple of hundred yards away. Heather swung left.
‘Down the yellow brick road,’ she said.
The road led straight down a gentle slope into a wide open landscape of grassland dominated by the giant puffball shapes of the radomes scattered across it. There were a few low roofed buildings grouped among them but Johnny’s eyes were drawn to the bunkers, grass growing on their ramped sides, each flat top large enough for a pair of football pitches. The radomes and the other installations were protected by double or triple wire fences. This wasn’t a road for walking down and he knew they were conspicuous. Vans and cars drove past them and now it was quite obvious they were attracting some curious looks. Heather started pointing things out.
‘That’s Saddlebush over there,’ she said, ‘the big bunker on the right. That’s the real state of the art bit. They’re very proud of it. The one on the left where they’re building is the Frogwood— Uh-oh.’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘That camera just swivelled. It’s looking straight at us. They’ve picked us up.’
A feeling of stepping still further into the unknown swept through Johnny. ‘So what do we do, go back?’
‘Come on, Mr Intrepid Pilot, where’s your sense of adventure? Remember that entrance we saw from the plane? Follow me.’
She sprinted off the road across the grass and he followed, finding he had to run hard to keep up, taking a quick look back over his shoulder and seeing there was no sign yet of any pursuit. The Frogwood bunker loomed out of the earth closest to them, cranes and parked dump trucks showing it was still under construction. A tarmac driveway led to a big entrance on the side facing them but Heather veered left, hurdled a pile of concrete blocks and ran round the corner. There was a shout from somewhere behind them. At ground level, the place they had seen from the Cessna was hidden by a heaped-up bank of earth, but she found it straight away. It was small and dark and it gave access to a low tunnel running downhill into the heart of the bunker. It looked like a duct or temporary access of some sort, due to serve its purpose during construction and then be closed up. They had to bend down and go slowly but it went all the way through and as the tunnel came to an end, lights showed ahead. The inside of the bunker was one enormous open space, maybe twenty feet high and at least two hundred feet along each of its walls. It was still being built but work had clearly finished for the day. Floors were being laid at one end and great bunches of cabling were sticking out of ducts on all sides, just waiting to be connected up. A temporary office had been set up directly opposite them, a square box with big windows in its plywood walls. Crescent rows of folding chairs were set out on a new section of floor in front. An easel with a flip-chart board stood there.
Heather ran up the wooden steps to its door, went inside and was back out before he could follow. She was grinning and she had a piece of paper in her hand.
‘All ready for their meeting,’ she said. ‘There’s a whole pile. Can you believe it? They just left them there!’
She held it out to him. ‘Can you take it? Stuff it down your pants or something, then they might not find it.’
Might not? He took it as though it might burn him, four photocopied A4 sheets stapled together. He got out his penknife, slit the stitching for an inch inside one jacket pocket, rolled the pages, pushed them through and let them unroll into the space inside the lining.
There was the sound of running feet. They both turned and four men burst in through the main entrance, They were all in police uniform and all out of breath. The oldest of the three, wearing sergeant’s stripes, was red in the face and looking very angry.
‘Oh, Sergeant Hayter,’ said Heather grimly, ‘this is a surprise. I was just showing a friend around.’
‘Check the place, Davis,’ said Hayter, ‘you and Ferrall. Any damage, I want to know about it sharpish.’ He turned to Johnny. ‘Right, what’s your name then? I know who this cow is, but I never seen you before.’
‘John Kennedy,’ said Johnny.
‘Address?’
I should have worked this out before, he thought. They’ll check it, it’ll have to be a real one. Johnny could never remember postal districts except his own, so pressured by a silence that was already too long, he broke all the rules and gave his own. ‘Three, Cadogan Mansions, Oakley Street,’ he said.
‘Oakley Street where?’
‘London SW3,’ said Johnny, as though it was obvious.
‘Right, Miss Weston and Mr Kennedy, I have to tell you on behalf of the occupier that you are trespassing and you are required to leave at once. I have to tell you on behalf of—’
‘OK, Sergeant, we’re going,’ said Heather, ‘forget that three in a row nonsense. By the way, you’re meant to give us time to do what you ask. We’re going. Is the van outside? I do hope it’s clean. I don’t mind walking if you’d rather save petrol.’ She turned to Johnny. ‘Sergeant Hayter’s inclined to forget himself. We have to be very polite to him.’
Davis and Ferrall came back, reporting no signs of damage, and – shepherded by the three constables – they were led outside to where a white police van sat with its engine running and a driver waiting at the wheel. All the policemen were looking at Johnny with interest. He was clearly right out of the usual run of intruders. Sergeant Hayter came along behind, speaking quietly into his radio.
Heather talked all the way. ‘Now, Mr Davis, tell me. Do you have any idea what they’re going to do in there when it’s finished, when they’ve got Frogwood working?’
Davis made the mistake of replying. ‘Course I don’t.’