“No problem,” Jan said, taking the key. “Would you have the pack put in the room? I want to go out before the shops close.”
“Our pleasure.”
Everything went as planned. Sara nodded when she heard the room number and continued past him without stopping. He had an early meal in the grill and was in his room by seven. In the bookcase he found a John Buchan novel, almost required reading here, and he sat down with that and a weak whiskey and water. Without his realizing it the lost night’s sleep caught up with him and the next thing he knew he was starting awake at the light tapping on the door. Sara slipped in quickly.
“Everything has been arranged,” she said. “You will take the local train tomorrow to a station named Forsinard.” She consulted a scrap of paper. “This is in the Achentoul Forest. Do you know it?”
“I know of it. And I have all the maps.
“Good. Emerge from the train with the other skiers, but look for a local man, very husky, with a black eyepatch. He is your contact. Follow him and he will take it from there.”
“What will you do?”
“I’ll be on the seven o’clock train south in the morning. There is nothing more I can do here.”
“Oh, no!”
She smiled, with a warmth he had not seen before. “Turn off the lights and open the curtains. There is a beautiful moon tonight.”
He did, and it drenched the white landscape with an even paler light. Shadows, darkness, and snow. Jan turned at a sound and the moonlight fell on her body as well. The firm, round breasts he had glimpsed so briefly, her taut stomach, full hips, long thighs. Sara held her arms out and he gathered her to him.
Twelve
“We’re not going to get much sleep this way,” he said, tracing the contour of her arable breast with his finger, her outline still clearly visible in the moonlight from the window.
“I don’t need much. And you’ll have plenty of time for it after I leave. Your train’s not until noon. Did I thank you yet for what you are doing to help rescue Uri?”
“Not in so many words — but there are other ways. Who is Uri that he is so important?”
“He is not important, not in himself anyway. It is what will happen if Security discovers who they have. His cover is an Italian seaman, and it is a good cover. But eventually they will discover that it is false. Then the interrogation will begin in earnest and there is no way to stop them from finding out he is an Israeli.”
“Is that bad?”
“It would be disaster. Our country’s international policy is one of strictly no contact, none whatsoever except through official channels. Some of us in external security don’t see it the same way. We have to know what is happening in the outside world to protect our own nation. And once we discovered what life is like here it was hard to remain neutral. So, despite all orders to not get involved, despite the logical reasoning that any involvement is a threat to our homeland — we are involved. It is impossible just to stand by and do nothing.”
“I’ve been standing by, doing nothing all of my life.”
“You didn’t know,” Sara said, putting her finger to his lips to silence him, moving the warm length of her body against his. “And you are doing something now.”
“Oh yes, I certainly am!” he whispered, gathering her in his arms. He silenced her laughter with his lips.
Jan was awake later when she dressed and left, but there was nothing for either of them to say. He did not think he would be able to sleep after that, but he did. It was full daylight when he awoke and he was ravenous. The breakfast did justice to the Highland cuisine, the smoked kipper was a thing of joy, and he was feeling remarkably fit, whistling while he dressed. Since arriving in Scotland it had been more like a holiday than a hurried attempt to save a man’s life. Perhaps save an entire country. These were just words, the reality had not sunk in yet.
Nor did the trip on the clanking train do anything to change the way he felt. There were a few locals aboard, but the majority of the passengers seemed to be skiers on holiday, filling the coaches with bright clothes and laughter, bottles passing from hand to hand. One thing, he certainly would not be noticed in this crowd. With people getting off and on at each station there would be no trace of where he had actually alighted.
By midafternoon the sky had darkened and a thin snow had begun to fall. This dampened feelings somewhat and, when he lifted the packs and skis down from the guard’s van in Forsinard, the bite of the wind drove the last traces of merriment from him. This desperate business was about to begin.
His contact was easy enough to spot, a dark blob among the colourful anoraks and salopettes. Jan dropped his burden into the snow and knelt to fumble with the lace on his boot. When he arose again he went back in the direction of the station, following the stocky form of his contact: Along the road, then off onto a beaten down path through the trees. The man was waiting in a clearing well hidden from sight of the road.
“What do I call you?” he said when Jan came up.
“Bill.”
“Well, Bill, I’m Brackley, and that’s no code name and I don’t care who knows it. I’ve done my time and left an eye behind to prove it.” He pointed to the black patch and Jan noticed the puckered scar that crossed his cheek and went under the patch, continuing up over his forehead and vanishing under the wool cap pulled low on his head. “They’ve been trying to do old Brackley for years but they haven’t done me so far. You cold?”
“Not very.”
“Good. Make no difference if you were. Be dark before the track comes. What do you know about the work camps?”
“Little or nothing. Other than the fact that they exist.”
Brackley snorted and nodded at the answer, then extracted a plug of tobacco from his pocket and bit off a corner. “That’s the way they want it,” he said indistinctly around the large cud he was chewing into shape. “What happens, people get out of line, they get sent up here, maybe a ten-year sentence cutting trees. Good for the health unless you cross the screws, then you get this,” he jerked his thumb at the eyepatch again, “or worse. Dead too, they don’t care. Then when you serve your time you find out that you got to serve the same term again working in the Highlands, no going back to the joys of the Smoke. And there ain’t no work here. Except grazing sheep. You people, begging your pardon, your honor, likes their little bit of meat, don’t they’. Poor buggers up here freezing their arses off to see you get it. So what with ten years inside and ten years with the sheep, most don’t get back south, and them what do. they keep their noses clean so they can stay south. It’s i good system they got, works fine.” He spat a great brown gob into the white snow.
“What about escapes?” Jan asked, stamping his feet as the cold began to seep through.
“Easy enough to get out. Couple of strands of barbed wire. But then what? Wilderness on all sides, a few roads well watched, trains watched as well. Getting out’s no problem, staying out is the one that counts. That’s where Brackley and his boys come in. All of us done our time, now we’re out but can’t leave the Highlands. So while we’re here we don’t make trouble, but anyone goes through the fence and finds us, why we make trouble for the screws. Get them out of here. South. Like an underground railway. Turn them over to your people. Now you want one out in particular, right out of a security cell. Not easy.
“I don’t know the details.”
“I do. First time you’ve given us guns. This could stop other things working around here for a long time. Once we have this man out we go back to our crofts and lay low for a long time. Raise our heads we get ‘em cut off. This man better be important.”