One Shot Kill - Robert Muchamore Page 0,24

best way to avoid that was to change her route and time of departure.

After dressing quietly and packing her things, Rosie left her bag by the front door then sneaked back upstairs to check on Edith. Joseph had kept her hydrated and changed her position every so often to prevent bed sores. Because of the fever, she was naked with a rubberised sheet beneath her that could be wiped if she urinated.

The window was open, but the smell of sweat clung to the air. Rosie watched Edith’s expressionless face and felt tearful. She had to leave, but hated the possibility that Edith would die, or that she’d win the battle taking place inside her body, only to be shipped back to Lorient for execution.

Rosie couldn’t stick around, because Joseph would know she was leaving the instant he saw her fully dressed. If the house was under German surveillance they’d be watching the front door for sure and there might be someone at the back.

Rosie found paper and pencil and scrawled a note which she left on the kitchen table.

Joseph

Changed plans for security reasons.

Hope to be back soon.

Please look after Edith, whatever happens.

Rosie.

She had second thoughts about underlining whatever. And what if they were honest people and took offence at her sneaking off ? But she’d been through all the possibilities a hundred times already. Rosie had to forget repercussions and focus on getting away.

After grabbing her pack, Rosie picked a small side window for her exit. She felt guilty trampling a narrow vegetable plot, then athletically vaulted a crumbling wall and dropped on to the overgrown track that marked the boundary between the house and the surrounding fields.

Rosie took a forlorn look backwards at the open window of Edith’s room, glanced around looking for any sign of surveillance and then began wading into a field of knee-high wheat. After fifty metres, she dived down on her face and began crawling in a different direction.

Following five minutes on hands and knees, Rosie crawled out on to a road and started running back along the route that the horse and buggy had taken earlier on. There would be no passenger trains for hours, but she reckoned she could pick up the coal train when it stopped by the water tower. She’d ride inside one of the coal skips for a while, then bail out and switch to a passenger train heading towards Paris before it got too light.

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHERUB campus, three days later.

It was 5:30 a.m. and still dark as a United States Air Force policeman strolled lazily out of a guard hut next to a wooden barrier. There was a motorcycle ticking over, its rider’s leather suit getting pelted with big blobs of rain.

‘Dangerous night to be out on that thing,’ the big American said.

‘I’ve been driving back and forth for half an hour,’ the rider said. ‘I’m trying to deliver a package for the Royal Navy Espionage Research. But I can see that’s not you.’

The American laughed as he put his hand to his brow to keep the rain out of his eyes. ‘You’ve got the right spot, but I’ll need to see your security clearance.’

The rider took his gloves off and fumbled inside his jacket for a security pass.

‘Looks good to me,’ the American said, barely looking at it. ‘You gotta ride up three hundred yards. At the fork, you branch off left. You’ll see an old school building with a cottage next door. Might have to rattle some windows to get them out of bed this early.’

The motorbike didn’t like the rain and the engine stuttered as the rider passed under the gate. The fork was a gap between trees which he almost missed. A muddy track led him up to the school building, where a crack of light escaped around the edges of a black-out curtain in the main door.

A lightning bolt turned the world blue as the rider put down his kickstand and he was surprised to see a pretty young woman in Royal Navy uniform rolling towards him in a wheelchair.

‘I believe you have a package for me, Aircraftsman?’

The rider looked confused as he unlocked a metal storage box behind the saddle. ‘I have instructions to deliver this into the hands of First Officer Slater.’

‘Which would be me,’ Joyce Slater said. ‘And just because I’m in a wheelchair, it doesn’t mean you don’t have to salute me.’

‘Sorry, ma’am,’ the rider said, as he gave a mildly sarcastic salute. ‘I’ll need to see your identity badge