The O.D. Read online

  At four in the morning, McConie woke Pilot with an urgent message from one of Vaalon’s spies in the Hague. When he’d finished reading it, Pilot dressed and sprinted to Bradingbrooke’s hut. “Wakey, wakey, Henry,” he said, poking the man’s shoulder. “They’re coming to get you.”

  Bradingbrooke, half asleep, gathered up a few essentials, donned his head torch and sloped off to the cauliflower patch with Pilot, who was already wearing his. Between the third and fourth rows, they located the stone that marked the entry to the bunker, brushed away some soil and lifted the hatch on the Hussein-asylum. Fifteen rungs down the ladder chimney, Bradingbrooke entered the ten square metre cell that Soldo had recently finished building and flopped onto its canvas cot. Above, Pilot lowered the hatch, brushed the soil back over it with his foot and went back to his cabin to await their visitors.

  Three white helicopters with UN markings set down an hour later and disgorged troops of various nationalities united only by their common blue berets. The Belgian Colonel in charge approached Pilot, introduced himself and stated the reason for their presence. A lawyer from the Cour Internationale dé Justice emerged from the shadows and began reading the charges laid against Henry Bradingbrooke, Bart., relating to the negligent genocide perpetrated eighth August, last, with the full knowledge and complicity of the defendant. “Mr. Pilot,” the man said solemnly, “lead the Colonel here to Mr. Bradingbrooke, if you please.”

  “That, I cannot do,” Pilot said, handing over a piece of paper. “This is the printout of a message we received from Henry Bradingbrooke an hour ago.”

  The lawyer took the sheet and read the loaded message.

  Éxito. Arrived Quito undetected. Henry.

  The lawyer handed the message to the Colonel, who didn’t believe a word of it. “Find him,” he ordered his second-in-command as the first rays of dawn began to project above the western rim. “I want every dome and shed turned upside down.”

  Three hours later, the hunt for Bradingbrooke was called off. The UN visitation ended to the cacophony of rotor blades screaming in frustration as the heavy helicopters reluctantly took their leave. On the ‘all clear’ rap on his hatch, like a Viet Cong soldier emerging from his tunnel to finish his coffee after a multi-million dollar B52 bombing raid, Sir Henry Bradingbrooke exited the Hussein-asylum, inhaled the delicious Atlantic air and headed to the mess hall for a late breakfast.

  From that moment on, because the exact number of islanders on Eydos was known to the outside world, one person always had to remain in their cabin out of the watchful eyes of the spy satellites in permanent orbit above them and the camera drones, fashioned to resemble seagulls, that occasionally flew over Nillin to count bodies and otherwise spy on the Islanders. Meanwhile, bogus messages from Henry Bradingbrooke continued to be sent weekly by one of Vaalon’s agents in Quito. The accepted intelligence in The Hague was that their prey had joined the growing colony of international whistle-blowers and political fugitives enjoying their freedom in extradition-free Ecuador.

  A message from Vaalon two days later also involved a charge of murder. Not against Bradingbrooke, but against Mirko Soldo. ‘Five years ago he was running a multi-million-Neuro con, smuggling counterfeit BMW car parts made in China into Stuttgart,’ the note read. ‘One of his partners, a German, wanted a bigger slice of the cake, so Mirko killed him. There’s a warrant for his arrest in Germany. Thought it could be of use to you. Latest intelligence suggests you only have until April, so a solution to Buvina will have to be found quickly. – Forrest.’

  A brainstorming session with the Pentad had yielded no obvious answer to the problem of how to deal with Mirko Soldo and the Knights of Blasius. Pilot had wanted to confront the man face to face and reason with him. The others were dead against it, saying that it was Soldo, together with Dragić, who had cooked up the coup in the first place and had justified its necessity. “To reason things out, you both have to speak the same language,” Macushla Mara said. “You don’t.”

  “The second he thinks you’re on to him, Soldo will blow the whistle and the Knights will be on this place like girls on a boyband,” Bradingbrooke added.

  As the sun crested the escarpment and rose into a cloudless sky, Pilot’s disposition was anything but sunny. Quite the opposite. The cause of his ill humour had left their dome in the middle of the night and not returned. It was the third argument they’d had that week, and the 7th that month. Pilot was finding Dubi Horvat’s moodiness increasingly difficult to bear. He had his own mood swings, but they were hidden and harmless, whereas hers were overt, hazardous and impossible to handle. Like the balloon he’d be flying in a moment, Pilot’s relationship with Dubi had become directionless. More than that, it was diverting attention away from important concerns and wasting valuable energy. For Pilot, Dubi’s last performance was the final straw.

  He exited his cabin, zipped up his flying suit and headed for the balloon pad. Two flights had been scheduled for that morning to take advantage of the gentle southwesterly surface breeze the forecast had promised. Provided it held true and they stayed below a certain altitude, they were in for an interesting ride of at least twenty-five miles before they ran out of land. Three wagons had already been sent northeast to take position along the balloons’projected course− two to carry the baskets and canopies back, the third to haul the camping equipment needed for the overnight stops.

  When Pilot arrived at the pad, Rebecca Schein was already there with Bart Maryburg and Jane Lavery. The latter’s tall, slim figure was so swathed in clothing against the cold that, with her copper hair extended in the breeze, she looked like an Olympic torch. She, Maryburg and Schein were to ride with Pilot in Blitzen. Leon Bonappe’s brother, Philipe, had taken temporary residence on the island as their instructor, and would carry three further passengers in Donner.

  “Pressurise the tanks to 125psi,” Bonappe instructed the ground crew.

  All of this hot air would lead eventually to a working balloon route between Eydos and the mainland, Pilot hoped. Philipe had gone so far as to prepare a feasibility study, based on his brother Leon’s wind maps, and had even drawn up a series of possible routes. But without the favour of the countries he hoped to land in – and no time had been available to curry this – Pilot was powerless to fly beyond the borders of their own coast.

  The noise of the fans as they began the initial inflation of the canopies was deafening. When the canopies had reached the appropriate level of inflation, the gas burners were fired to heat the air within. As the two baskets, which had been lying on their sides, began to move to the perpendicular, the excitement of the passengers rose accordingly. The late March air smelt spring-like and full of promise− a powerful, emotive aroma that was beginning to intoxicate everyone on the island.

  When everything looked stable, the signal was given for the passengers to enter their baskets. Pilot felt he would never become desensitised to the thrill of balloon travel, but there was something else this time that was adding to his arousal. He caught Jane’s eye and, to his surprise, felt a warm rush of blood in his chest as she returned his searching gaze with one of her own. It was that special moment when two people’s eyes meet at the frontispiece of their story, and neither wanted to look away. It was Pilot who cut off the current. He had a balloon to fly, after all, but a connection had been made and the sky wasn’t the limit.

  To the cheers of the many onlookers, first Donner and then Blitzen left the ground. Their ascent began in the vertical, but as they cleared the protective windbreak of the canyon rim, they were swept north and east towards the rising sun by more than the light breeze the Comtrac V weather satellite had predicted. The jolt to the basket caused by the sudden injection of lateral acceleration forced a stifled scream from Lavery and it would be several more minutes before she could raise herself from the floor of the basket and peer down at the rolling grey rock below. “It looks like the sea has been turned to stone through some ancient Celtic curse,” Pilot whispered in her ear.
r />   “Poetic, Lonnie. It looks like rock to me. How strong are these cables?” Lavery reached up and touched one of the steel stays connecting the basket to the skirt.

  “Strong enough. Look back there, Jane.” Pilot pointed towards the last few domes of Nillin as they disappeared behind the receding basin rim and then studied her profile. Her hair was blowing everywhere and he reached over to guide it away from her face, brushing her freckled cheek with the back of his hand as he did so. She inclined her head slightly to reveal wide brown eyes framed by smile lines. He smiled back.

  Pilot had cut out his burner almost immediately after takeoff, and several minutes later Blitzen stabilised at around three hundred feet. Bonappe in Donner was still climbing and thereby ran the risk of reaching the prevailing westerlies higher up and being swept on to France.

  The gap between the two balloons soon grew to half a mile and even from that distance Pilot could see that Donner’s burner was still at full blast, sending the balloon higher still.

  “Is that us, or them?” Lavery said.

  Pilot followed her line of sight to a large shadow chasing them across the ground.

  “Us. Donner’s the smaller one behind.”

  “But they’re ahead of us.” In seconds, Jane figured out that it was Bonappe’s greater altitude that placed his shadow behind theirs. “Nevermind. I get it.”

  “It’s like orbiting the moon,” Maryburg said to no one in particular. Below them, only occasional sediment-filled depressions relieved the bland sameness of the landscape. Maryburg wasn’t alone in finding the island’s topography oppressive. But, according to their botanist, it wasn’t a scene that would endure for much longer. Citing what had happened on Surtsey, the volcanic island that had emerged off Iceland in 1963, he predicted that Eydos would likewise be green within a year, even without the benefit of fertile volcanic ash. As if to reinforce the theory, the fliers could detect a musty, fungal aroma in the air. Even so, the vision of their silver sliver of an island one day wearing a furry green fleece was difficult to imagine.

  For the next two and a half hours, the balloonists talked about a future none could see. But in the valley of the blind, the one-eyed Jack is King, and Lonnie Pilot, alone of all of them, could at least see the corners ahead, even if he were unable as yet to see around them. Jane Lavery, for her part, was beginning to see their rangy, silver-flecked pilot in a brand new light, and she liked what she saw.

  Bonappe had timed his run to perfection. From his initial climb to two and a half thousand feet, he had cruised the fifty miles with no further application of heat and was now, through deft use of the deflation port, coming down for a landing barely a mile short of the gently lapping waves of the shallow northeast coast. There was no chance of the wagon reaching them in time for the ground crew to assist Donner, but Bonappe was a master of landings and fired the burner with perfect timing−just long enough to arrest the descent without reversing it− and set his basket down with the lightest touch. Within seconds, he was pulling the cord to collapse Donner’s canopy.

  Half a mile to the south, the wagon pulled by Nirpal Banda and seven other volunteers found itself directly below the descending Blitzen. So close were they that the trailing line Pilot had thrown out nearly parted the Indian’s hair. He made a grab for it, but missed. “Drop your traces. Run for the rope,” Banda shouted to his fellow huskies as he sprinted after the elusive line. “Slow down, Lonnie.”

  “It doesn’t work that way,” Pilot called back from the basket above. “We’ll come down eventually.”

  Before a further exchange could be made, the man from Mumbai leapt gazelle-like into the air, grabbed the line with one hand and, while making a half turn in mid-air, threw his other hand around to join it on the rope.

  “Hold his legs,” Pilot shouted to the other runners below. He pulled the deflation line to speed their descent, but before anyone could reach Banda’s thrashing legs, a gust of wind kicked in underneath the balloon, pitching it upwards and forwards.

  In the confusion, no one saw two crew drop their traces on the third wagon, which was downwind from Pilot’s balloon, position themselves along Blitzen’s line of flight and grab hold of the Indian’s legs as he passed them. The sudden braking action nearly pitched Pilot over the side.

  Seconds later, with the weight of the three men pulling it down, the basket crashed to the ground, impacting one corner of the compartment and causing Lavery to faint. Pilot was beside her in seconds, caressing her face and gently squeezing her hand. She came to quickly. Pilot watched her eyes dart around the basket and finally land on his hand, which was still holding hers. She clasped it tight and the fear in her face melted away. “That was quite a whallop,” she said.

  “Can you stand up?” Pilot raised her to her feet and helped her out of the basket. Four layers of clothing did nothing to dampen the electricity flowing between her body and his hands. He walked her to the wagon and sat down next to her; put his arm around her waist; placed her head on his shoulder; inhaled her hair…

  At five o’clock, with the light failing and the caravan having covered ten of the thirty miles back to Nillin, a halt was called for the night. Tents were erected on a suitable sheltered sediment pit and dinner prepared for twenty-four.

  Late that night, with the camp sleeping, Pilot left his tent and crept to the third one from the left. She had left her flap unzipped…

  Two days later Lonnie Pilot was lying awake in Nillin’s dawning light carrying out a post mortem on his relationship with Dubi Horvat. The physical side of it had been blissful, but the language barrier, though unable to stop her acid rantings, had prevented a deeper connection. Conflicts with outsiders he could handle. He didn’t want to sleep with them. With Jane the bond was all-encompassing, and if he weren’t mistaken this time, promised calmer sailing ahead. The sound of the helicopter’s arrival ten minutes earlier had gone unnoticed. A rap at the door pulled Pilot from his thoughts.

  Leidar Dahl poked his head around the door. “Austin Palmer came in with the mail and wants a word with you, Lonnie.” Pulling on a wool jumper and windbreaker, Pilot followed the Norwegian out of the cabin and into the crisp morning air to greet Palmer.

  “Lonnie. Good to see you.” They shook hands. “I’ll be flying back in a minute, so I haven’t much time. I’ve got a proposition to make to you.” Before Palmer could begin, Josiah Billy appeared from around the corner.

  “We’re ready, Lonnie.”

  “Thanks, Josiah− I won’t be long. What’s your proposition, Austin?”

  “It concerns the Fishing Wars. We’re running a News Briefing Special in light of the latest sinkings and I’d like to have you on as part of the wider debate about over-fishing, stock depletions, pollution of the seas and so on. We’ve got representatives from all the EU countries, plus Iceland and Norway, and we’d like to have you, too.”

  “But we don’t fish.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I know you’ve got things to say and this would be a great vehicle for you. We’d record in London next Monday for a Tuesday airing. It can only strengthen your posi – “

  “The short answer is no. I think it would be approaching the problems from the wrong side− locking the doors of empty stables. The problem wasn’t the bullet in Abraham Lincoln’s head, it was the intent in John Wilkes Booth’s. Until the intent of the world’s fishing industries changes, the problem of continuing stock depletions will worsen.”

  “That’s exactly the kind of thing you should be out there saying,” Palmer said. “You’ve got the advantage of having no vested interest. You’re independent in the true sense of the word and can be impartial. So, anything you say, people will listen to in a different spirit altogether.”

  Pilot shrugged. “You’re giving us more credence than we’ve got at the moment, Austin. Do you really believe the world’s going to listen to what people like us think about their fishing feuds or their population problems or their chemical waste? This is a long-term project and we mig
ht not be able to even get into first gear for another five or ten years. Until then, we have to be involved by being uninvolved. As soon as an outsider gets caught up in specific issues, it’s impossible for him to be fair to everyone. If we get up on a pulpit now, well short of our critical mass, we’ll become as impotent as all the thousands of voices already out there. They’re fine, saying all the right things, but they’re powerless. It’s a frustrating problem, but the pulpit we’re building will be unlike any that’s gone before. It’ll take as long as it takes.”

  “You’ve just torn up the winning lottery ticket,” Palmer said, still trying to change Pilot’s mind.

  “Look at it as a rollover,” Pilot answered. “Just think what it’ll be worth in five or ten years’ time.”

  As Austin Palmer flew out of Nillin surrounded by empty mail sacks, final preparations were being made for the second of seven planned balloon outings over the island. Since the last trip, the weather had been unfavourable for any useful ballooning, but the day before, perfect conditions and a moderate westerly wind had been guaranteed for forty-eight hours at least. So, wagons had been sent off towards the projected landing site and a draw made for the twelve places aboard the balloons.

  This time, all three were to be used. Pilot would fly Rudolf, Bonnape would fly Donner and Jack Highbell the slightly damaged Blitzen.

  Pilot changed into his flying clothes, then led Highbell and Bonappe to the balloon pad where the winners of the draw were waiting. The three inflation fans were at maximum blow. Rudolf was already three-quarters spherical. The other two balloons were lying on the pad like giant quivering parathas. When the burners were lit to complete the inflation, Pilot took rookie balloonist Highbell aside for a few last-minute instructions.