The Marching Season

dragged the Zodiac off the beach and hid it in the gorse-covered dunes. Spencer walked back to the beach and shouldered the duffel bag. Rebecca led him to the Vauxhall.
    He studied her face. "When's the last time you slept?"
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    "I can't remember."
    "I'll drive."
    She tossed Spencer the keys. He placed the duffel in the trunk, then climbed behind the wheel and started the engine; he was shuddering with the cold. He switched the heater on full, and a moment later the inside of the Vauxhall felt like a sauna. They stopped in the village of Ballochgair and bought tea and bacon sandwiches from a roadside cafe. Spencer devoured three of the sandwiches and slowly savored the tea.
    "Tell me about it," he said, and for fifteen minutes Rebecca described the topography of the Norfolk Coast and the layout of Hartley Hall. She was exhausted. She spoke automatically, as if reciting from memory without conscious thought. It was silly for Gavin Spencer to be here—he was a strategist, not a gunman— but she was glad he had come.
    Rebecca closed her eyes as he asked more questions. She did her best to answer, but she felt her voice growing weaker as the car sped through desolate moorland and the Carradale Forest. The stifling warmth from the heater sapped the last of her strength. She fell asleep—the deepest sleep she had had in a very long time—and didn't wake again until they were racing along the Norfolk Coast.
    28
    HARTLEY HALL, NORFOLK
    BY ALL APPEARANCES IT WAS A TYPICAL WINTER'S DAY AT HARTLEY Hall. The weather was clear and bright, the air fresh with the scent of the sea. After lunch they drove to Cley in Douglas Cannon's official car and walked the sands of Blakeney Point, bundled in their overcoats and wool hats. The North Sea sparkled in the brilliant sunlight. The Special Branch bodyguards walked quietly behind them while Nicholas Hartley's retrievers terrorized the terns and brent geese. Rain moved over the Norfolk Coast at dusk. By the time the dinner guests began arriving, the storm had matured into a full-fledged North Sea winter gale.
    It was just after 10 P.M. when Gavin Spencer slipped from the blind in the North Wood and hurried through the trees back to the beach. He opened the trunk of the Vauxhall and removed the
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    canvas duffel. He carried the bag across the campsite and rapped on the door of the caravan.
    Rebecca Wells parted the curtains in the window next to the door and peered out. She opened the door, and Spencer climbed into the caravan. The wind blew the door shut behind him. The tiny space was crowded with the members of his unit. Spencer had personally selected the team ; and he knew each of the men well: James Fletcher, Alex Craig, Lennie West, and Edward Mills.
    The air was thick with cigarette smoke and the smell of nervous men who had been sleeping in tents for two days. Fletcher and Craig sat at the small galley table, West and Mills on the edge of the bed, faces unshaven, hair disheveled. Rebecca was making tea.
    Spencer placed the duffel on the floor and ripped open the zipper. He removed the Uzi submachine guns one by one and passed them to the men, followed by ammunition clips. A moment later the caravan was filled with the sound of metal on metal as the team shoved the clips into their Uzis and worked the sliders. Spencer took the last weapon and tossed the empty duffel onto the bed.
    "Where's mine?" Rebecca said.
    "What are you talking about?"
    "My gun," she said. "Where is it?"
    "You've no training for this sort of thing, Rebecca," Spencer said softly. "Your work is done."
    She slammed the teapot onto the table. "You can make your own bloody tea then, can't you."
    Spencer moved forward and put a hand on her shoulder. "Now's not the time for this," he said softly. "I put our chances of success at one in two at best. A couple of these lads might not make it home again. Don't you think you owe it to them to keep your head in the game?"
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    She nodded.
    "All right, then. Let's get down to business, shall we?"
    Rebecca opened the cabinet above the stove and took down a large folded piece of paper. She spread it on the table, revealing a detailed map of Hartley Hall and the surrounding grounds. Spencer let Rebecca handle the briefing.
    "There are several entrances to the manor house," she said. "The main entrance, of course, is here"—she tapped the diagram with her fingertip—"at the south porch. There are also entrances here