Tunnels 06 - Terminal

brightly in the clear sky as they ducked through an opening in the airfield’s perimeter fence and headed across a field of wild grasses towards the nearest road.
    ‘Warm for the time of year,’ Jiggs commented, undoing another button on his shirt.
    Drake tried to catch the rays on his face. ‘This is glorious. Funny how much you take for granted,’ he said poignantly, allowing his eyes to shut for a moment. ‘I’ve probably been out in the morning sun on a thousand days precisely like this one, but this is first time I’ve really felt it.’
    They pushed through a hedge and scrambled down a grass verge, finding themselves on a minor road. Their boots thudded on the tarmac as they walked as fast as Drake couldmanage, neither of them remarking on the branches and debris scattered everywhere. The road shouldn’t have been in such bad condition, unless there’d been recent storm winds, and neither of them could see any other evidence for this.
    Drake pointed at a small wooded area. ‘That’s where I hid the Range Rover when I dropped Will and the poor old Doc off.’ He laughed to himself. ‘It wasn’t that long ago, but it feels like a lifetime now.’
    ‘Hold up,’ Jiggs cut in, bringing them both to a halt. ‘See the vehicle up ahead?’ He unclipped the top of his holster but didn’t take his handgun out.
    ‘Got it,’ Drake said.
    They advanced slowly towards the car, taking their time because it had been left at an angle right across the road, making it impossible for anything to get past.
    ‘Someone stopped in a hurry,’ Drake noted, directing Jiggs towards the skid marks. ‘What happened here?’
    But Jiggs was already by the driver’s door, staring intently at it. ‘This is odd.’ The door panel itself was pushed in as if it had been hit with some force from the side, and the window had been broken – pieces of it were scattered over the road. ‘The key’s still in the ignition, and there’s dried blood on the seat,’ Jiggs said as he ducked his head inside the car.
    ‘Here, too, where someone’s been dragged,’ Drake said, as he stepped slowly away from the car, following the dark smears of blood. ‘But no sign of a body, just some personal belongings.’ He picked up a wallet and mobile phone from a drainage ditch at the side of the road.
    ‘I don’t understand,’ Jiggs said, as he tried to piece together what had happened. ‘Something impacts the car – hard – then the driver is yanked out through the window?’ he asked, as hesquatted to examine the pieces of torn-off cloth that had snagged on the broken edges of window, and all the blood on the exterior of the door itself.
    Drake was trying the mobile to see if it was working. ‘Typical! No signal,’ he said, ‘although it could be because the battery’s low.’ Then he flipped through the wallet he’d found. ‘The driver was local,’ he began saying, but then abruptly dropped the wallet and began to sway on his feet.
    Noticing something was wrong, Jiggs helped him over to the car.
    ‘Sorry,’ Drake said. ‘Legs went on me all of a sudden.’
    Jiggs was looking at him with concern, at the sheen of fresh sweat on his face and the way he was shaking as he leant against the car. ‘You’d better get in, and we’ll make tracks for the nearest village,’ he suggested. ‘I need to get you to a hospital.’
    The car started without any problem, and they set off along the road. They hadn’t been driving for more than five minutes when they went over a small humpback bridge, only to squeal to a halt because the road was blocked by a group of around twenty men. Some were wielding shotguns and small calibre rifles, while others had pickaxe handles and even pitchforks.
    ‘Good grief – are we about to be butchered by a lynch mob?’ Jiggs said.
    ‘I suppose we are in Norfolk,’ Drake replied.
    A portly man in a tweed jacket stepped forward from the group. ‘Would you two gentlemen please step out of the car?’ he asked. ‘And for all our sakes, kill that engine!’
    Drake began to cough – it sounded so raw that it was painful to listen to him. Jiggs leant out of the broken window,but left the engine running. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘And what’s the story here?’
    ‘Turn off the engine and step outside the car, then we’ll tell you,’ the portly man said impatiently. As Drake continued to cough, the man glimpsed his head and all the bandages covering his burns. ‘Your friend … he doesn’t look in