New Tracks, Part 19
"New Tracks" by Aelfgyfu
PARTS: 20 plus epilogue
RATING: FRT (fan-rated teen: violence, occasional bad language)
CATEGORIES: Drama, angst, hurt/discomfort, some humour; AU, fix-it
SUMMARY: Noel Miller tries to find his place on Nick Cutter's team; Stephen Hart tries to find his way back onto the team; and Nick has to deal with them, creatures from the past, and his own stubbornness.
SPOILERS: Everything through 2.07 and my own story "Fresh Scars"
WARNINGS: Some tasteless humour, some medical detail
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Many thanks to Brilliant Husband (dudethemath), kristen_mara, and lukadreaming, all of whom acted as betas and made many helpful suggestions and corrections. All remaining errors, infelicities, and poor judgement are my own.
DISCLAIMER: Primeval and its characters are owned by Impossible Pictures, ITV Productions, M6 Films, Pro 7, and possibly other entities I couldn't easily find on IMDb. No copyright infringement is intended, and indeed the story probably won't make sense unless you've watched. So watch the show, buy the DVDs, etc. I do not profit from fic except insofar as comments make me happy.
Additional notes and links to all posted parts at this story's launch page
Previous Installment: 18
The end is near!
Nick phoned Lester as soon as the car pulled away and gave him a brief report. Lester made no jokes but promised to send someone round to Stephen's to get his medication, and a change of clothes, which Nick hadn't even thought to ask for. He followed Abby back to Miller while he finished the call. Miller was slowly and methodically working his own spiral out from the bodies.
"Just wanted to be sure Mr Hart didn't miss anything, sir," he called out in explanation as he looped near them. "I don't see anything so far."
Nick stood there, uncertain what he should do next. Abby relieved him of the need to make a decision by turning on him.
"If Stephen's off the team, I'm leaving too," she said, in a low but angry voice.
"He's not off the team!" Nick exclaimed, but Abby shushed him. "I took it back, didn't I?" he asked, almost in a whisper.
Abby crossed her arms and glared at him.
"Didn't I?" he repeated more to himself.
"That's not exactly what I heard," Abby told him. How could she be so fierce and so quiet at the same time? Nick glanced around. Maybe she wasn't as quiet as she thought; Noel kept glancing at them.
"Well, it's what I meant." Nick held up his hands placatingly. "Look, I told him we'd call him back if we needed him, right? Well, we couldn't do that if he was off the team."
Abby's arms flew apart in a gesture of disbelief. "That's not the same thing at all!"
Noel moved away, studying the ground very studiously.
"You don't even know why you do the things you do, do you?" Abby hissed at Nick.
He had no idea how to answer that question, but she remained silent and stared at him until he started fumbling towards an answer. "I think that usually I know what I'm doing, and why. I don't-look, I cocked up, all right? I thought I'd made that clear enough. What? Do you think I should phone him now?"
Abby looked away, and Nick knew he hadn't been quite fair. Stephen couldn't have arrived yet, so it wasn't as if he would be asleep. Yet the last thing his nerves needed right now was a call from Nick. He'd assume the worst, even if only for the time it took him to answer the call.
"Look, I will say something tomorrow." Nick raised his voice. "And I'll say right now, to those who are listening: Stephen is not off the team. I... I was wrong."
Abby's posture relaxed a little. Nick looked around enough to see Noel raise his head from looking at the ground, but he was now too far away for Nick to make out his face. The other two soldiers, still standing near the body, lifted their heads as well.
"Right now is not the time to settle this," Nick continued, looking again at Abby. "We've got work to do. What's our next step?"
"I don't know!" she said, flinging her arms again in exasperation.
Right. Nick was in charge. Before, when Nick had run out of ideas on a site, Stephen usually made suggestions. He made them so smoothly no one seemed to notice that Nick hadn't a clue anymore.
Abby looked past Nick again, out into the darkness. "I suppose we go back towards the anomaly?"
Nick turned. "Noel? How's it coming?"
Noel cast torchlight on the ground around him one last time and then came striding towards them. "If Hart missed anything," he said as he drew close, "I can't find it. I think we killed all the ones that came this way."
"What do we do now?" Abby asked even before Nick could.
Noel reminded them that Captain Robinson had the men who weren't tracking doing a search pattern, and that was how the dog had been found. They left the two soldiers with the bodies. Robinson was sending an ARC truck round to pick them up, human and raptor alike, to take them back for study. Noel had tried to find an ID on the woman while the others were waiting with Hart for the car, but she didn't seem to have one. She had no handbag and nothing in her pockets but a handkerchief. She had a house key on a little wrist strap.
Jenny would have to come up with some explanation for the woman's death. Would she use the same story of unexploded bombs that they'd been using to secure the area? Nick didn't care to think about it, or the woman's family. God, if only he hadn't made Stephen fight to come here, they'd have had him on the trail earlier. The woman needn't have died.
Nick didn't exactly follow Noel's explanation of what they were doing. He had no need; they weren't splitting into groups smaller than two, and since Connor couldn't return for at least twenty minutes more, Nick would go with Abby and Noel. Abby called Connor to tell him to return to the anomaly site instead of where they had been. Perhaps Connor could learn something more there.
If he'd been so unclear that Abby hadn't realised he'd regretted his earlier words to Stephen, what on earth did Stephen think? And what would he think tomorrow?
"Abby," he said, breaking the silence of the last few minutes.
She turned sharply, shining her light into his face until he threw up an arm to protect his eyes. She lowered it then.
"I had already changed my mind about Stephen, you know. I didn't do that just because you...."
"Threatened to resign?" she asked, but he couldn't hear any anger in her voice. She might even be a little amused.
"And I don't want him thinking that I'm keeping him on only to keep you happy."
"Not a chance," she said decisively. "Hear that, Noel? That conversation never happened."
"What conversation?" Noel asked, and Nick couldn't tell whether he honestly hadn't heard anything or was simply saying that.
Abby turned around and began walking, playing her beam in front of her again, but she asked, "He'll be all right, won't he?"
"Connor will let us know if he's not," Nick said with more confidence than he felt. They'd been through far worse than this. Stephen-all of them-could pull through this one.
***
They didn't have enough people to execute a proper grid search in a space this size. A spiral search from the point of insertion was the only thing that made sense, but when Noel had said so, Robinson had thanked him politely and instituted the grid search. After the roads had been barricaded, the men who had closed them had mostly been put on the search, but their small numbers weren't sufficient for the space they had to cover.
Of course, Noel's idea might not have worked much better. Since it had begun getting dark, only Noel and Hart had had any luck finding tracks. Men who couldn't recognise them were as likely to stumble blindly past or over them doing a spiral search as they were a grid pattern.
Abby and the professor spoke a little about Hart, but mostly they seemed focused at the task on hand. Damn it, though, in full darkness, without Hart, they'd need another body of some kind before they knew they had more raptors. Noel prayed they'd killed the last of them. He'd clearly miscounted by at least one, so why not more? And God knew he might even have missed a set of tracks.
Still, Noel was finding nothing in this field. A lot of farmers were going to be very upset in the morning: young crops trampled, hedgerows wrecked. They'd never even know what it was all for. He supposed it was for the best. He understood the need for secrecy in warfare, and intelligence, but... how could he even describe this?
Seeing a bit of a mess on the ground, Noel stooped for a moment. There were a few feathers! Abby squatted next to him.
"Bird fight?" she asked. "They don't look the same as the feathers on the raptors."
She was right-or, at least, he thought she was. Cutter agreed. The feathers were small and grey or brown, like ordinary, 21st century birds. He'd rather have had Hart's opinion, though. Oh, damn. He hadn't got photos at the site where he'd killed the raptors. Well, they'd have the creatures' bodies to study. They didn't need the photos. He'd forgotten to take any since he'd killed the ones back in the hedgerow. They'd been too busy.
Noel couldn't make out any tracks to or from the scuffed area on the ground, so after a few minutes they moved on. Every so often, Abby shone her light into a tree.
"They can't fly, can they?" Noel asked belatedly.
"Not as far as we know," she answered.
Great. Well, it didn't hurt to make certain.
Abby stayed slightly behind and to his left, Cutter a bit farther back. Noel looked back every so often to make sure they weren't losing the professor, but he didn't appear to be dropping any farther behind. Cutter lagged just a little, sometimes shining his torch back the way they'd come. He kept up the pace, but his shoulders were hunched and his head a little down. The professor must be exhausted.
Emotional work could be as draining as the physical kind. Noel felt grateful he didn't have the degree of emotional entanglement weighing on the rest of the team right now. He couldn't afford that. He had to keep people safe. He'd failed once already that evening. He couldn't fail again anytime soon.
Maybe there was nothing they could have done. He'd run all out once he heard the scream. He needed to improve his tracking skills, though, so that he didn't have to rely on an exhausted man with a walking stick.
They were nearing the end of the field. Noel checked in with the soldier coordinating the search, who told him to go on to the next field. Keeping his temper in check, Noel asked if his skills might be better used back where they'd had positively identified tracks. "I'm not the best tracker, I know," he said. "But with Hart down for the night...."
While the man went to check in with Robinson, they reached the end of the field. Noel shone his torch around the next field-another fallow one, and he'd have difficulty finding anything in that.
"This is a waste of time," Abby said with annoyance after she'd shone her own torch as far as it cast useful light.
"Look, the driver must have brought Connor to the anomaly site by now. Why don't we phone him to come and fetch you back there as well?" Noel offered.
"Can't leave you alone," the professor said.
"I think I'll probably be coming back too, but I'll need the captain's permission. I-"
The sight of headlights made Noel break off. He contacted Rosenfeld again.
"I'm sorry, Lieutenant, but Captain Robinson hasn't-"
"It's not that," Noel said quickly. "We've got a vehicle in our area. Are any of our people here?"
The hesitation on the radio lasted long enough that Noel began running before he heard the answer. Naturally, Rosenfeld had to verify his location, and Noel did his best while running. He could hear the other two coming after him. If there were any raptors out here, would someone running spook them out into the open? Or drive them to hide?
Noel made it out into the road; what the hell was he supposed to do now? He said a quick prayer, slid his weapon around behind his back so as not to frighten a civilian driver, and waved his arms. Abby came into the road behind him while the car slowed, and Cutter seemed to be coming as well.
A car pulled up and a man stuck his head out the window. "Need some help?" he asked worriedly.
Noel walked up to the car for a closer look. He was horrified to find that the man, probably in his early thirties, had two children in the back. A small boy was sleeping, but a slightly older girl blinked at him. "Sir, what are you doing here?" He struggled to keep his anger in check.
"I live here," the man said, his eyes leaving Noel's face to stare at Abby, who had also walked up to the car now.
"They've closed the roads," Noel said tightly. "You're not supposed to be here!"
"Really? Where? We've come back from London tonight, and I didn't see any-"
"What the hell?" Cutter had finally come close enough to see inside the car.
"I live only a couple of miles from here," the man said, still sounding worried but nothing more. "We were out late for a school event, and I'd like to get the children back. We-"
"Turn around and go back the way you came!" Cutter shouted.
"Dad?" the girl asked from the back.
"Get your children out of here. You should be able to come back tomorrow," Noel said with restraint.
The man wasn't looking at his face, however, but at his uniform and what he had strapped to him. "You're a soldier," he said finally.
"Yes! And we're asking you to leave for your own protection!"
The girl in back drew her knees up to her chest.
"But why?" the man asked in perplexity.
"Unexploded wartime bombs." Noel was surprised how easily the lie rolled off his own tongue.
"Only it's not... all... unexploded anymore," Abby said, and the tone of her voice clearly stopped the man dead.
"Professor! Perhaps you could go along with these people and get them safely out of the area. You can see if a road block has been removed or something like that," Noel suggested. The professor might not like weapons, but Lester had made him bring both a tranquilliser gun and a Beretta. Cutter wouldn't hesitate to use them for the children's sake, Noel knew from the way he had defended Noel against Abby's anger. Between the vehicle and the weaponry, the car's occupants should be safe.
Cutter looked at him for a moment, then nodded. He went over to the passenger side.
"Erm, I don't mean to seem... but... could I see some identification?" the driver asked very quietly.
Noel whipped his out. Seeing a proper military ID should set the man's mind at rest more than seeing whatever it was Cutter carried, and create fewer questions. After a quick look, the man unlocked the door.
"I'll call Rosenfeld. We'll have a car meet you and bring you back, Professor."
Cutter nodded at him and climbed in.
The man needed several tries to turn the car around in the narrow lane, his nerves surely making it worse. Once the car had turned, it drove away straight enough. And fast enough.
"Oh, God," said Abby. "They'd have passed-they'd have passed...."
They'd have passed the field with the body. A couple of miles, the man had said. From the direction they had been going, Noel guessed that they must live near where the raptors had killed that woman. If any were still out there....
'Oh, God' was right.
***
Nick couldn't believe the man had heard and seen nothing to indicate the roads were closed. What the hell use were the damned soldiers if they couldn't even close the roads? Well, they were so short-handed that those two idiots who'd been placed on restricted duty after they pulled guns on Stephen and Henrietta had been called out. Maybe they were responsible.
The driver tried to make conversation, offering his name and his children's names. The boy slept in the back, oblivious, but Nick suspected that the girl was watching everything. She kept quiet, though. He gave his own first name and tried to avoid saying too much.
"We weren't listening to the radio," Ben explained yet again as the CD played on. "You know, our neighbour Mrs. Martin doesn't even have a telly? I wonder if she heard. Maybe you could... erm...."
"Send someone round to see if she heard the news?" Nick considered. "We're stretched a bit thin, I'm afraid. She'll have heard it on the radio, right?"
He didn't like the driver's hemming and hawing at that.
"Well, it is getting late," Nick said at last. "I hope she'll be in for the night?"
Ben looked at the clock on the dashboard. "Yes. Yes, I hope so. Only-I hope she didn't go out with her dog for an evening walk. Or that he didn't get out. She loves him...."
Ben prattled on for a bit more, but Nick couldn't listen for a bit as he tried not to think about the bodies he'd seen. He spent his energy making sure he couldn't see any unusual movements in the headlights.
"Is something wrong?" Ben asked unexpectedly.
Nick realised his hand had gone to his gun. He still had it holstered, but his hand was on the Beretta, not on the tranq gun in his lap.
"That's a funny-looking gun," Ben said, apparently noticing the direction of Nick's gaze. "May I ask...?"
Nick took a quick look in the back seat. The girl seemed to have fallen asleep, her head against the window, her mouth a little open.
"Ben," he said, "I hate to ask this, but... someone will ask at some point. Erm... Mrs. Martin.... Where did she live?"
Of course, Ben gave an answer that meant nothing to him, and he had to ask him again in terms of where they'd met the car. The answer was too close for comfort.
"Is she... older?" Nick hated himself even for asking, but if they were talking about the same woman, Ben would find out at some point. Maybe Nick could save some trouble by asking now. He could also divert attention from the damned tranq gun. Jenny had done a good job with the cover story, and he didn't want to undermine her work.
"Ye-es," Ben answered slowly. "Oh, God, I'm not going to want to know why you're asking, am I?"
"A woman...." He shouldn't have done it. His judgement was rubbish after all, wasn't it? "A woman, apparently out with a dog.... Or she'd gone out after, to find the dog..."
They sat in silence a minute or two longer while Ben checked his rear-view mirror a little too much and a little too carefully.
Nick finally realised the man was looking at his child and not the road. He turned his head; her eyes seemed finally to be closed. "I think she's asleep," he told Ben in a low tone.
"So Mrs. Martin...is dead?"
Nick took a deep breath. Who gave a damn about the tranq gun anyway? He should have kept his mouth shut. "Someone is dead. The woman... didn't have any identification on her."
"Mrs. Martin turned 75 recently. There was a party... we were invited, even though we're new to the area. Same church, you see. We don't even go often, but.... And she is our nearest neighbour."
"I'm sorry," Nick blurted, remembering just in time to keep his voice low. "I shouldn't have...."
"Well," Ben said shakily, "somebody has to identify her, right?"
Nick nodded, even if Ben wasn't looking at him. "And we know where to start looking, where... to see if somebody's not home."
After another couple of minutes of silence, Ben said, "She's a lovely woman. Widow. I never... I have no idea who her next of kin might be."
"We'll sort it out," Nick said as reassuringly as he could. "You've been a help, telling us who it might be."
"Glad I could be some use," the man answered. "Not just the useless sod driving his children into danger!" He glanced at Nick quickly. "Sorry."
"It's not your fault," Nick said quickly. "There should have been a road block."
The lane they were on was very rough, though. The car seemed to be travelling just in ruts made between hedgerows and fences. In places it was just wide enough for one car, with some passing spaces in case someone came the other way. Ben drove very cautiously.
"So... unexploded bombs, you said? Did she...?"
"I'm sorry," Nick said again, with feeling. "I shouldn't have said this much. I'm not authorised to release information."
His mobile rang, and he answered. It was one of the soldiers, telling him they were having trouble finding the road he was on; he didn't happen to see a satnav in the car, did he? Ben had one, and he reoriented it so that Nick could read it off to the soldier.
The damned lane wasn't on their maps, so the soldiers hadn't blocked it. It wasn't their fault.
***
Part 20
***
PARTS: 20 plus epilogue
RATING: FRT (fan-rated teen: violence, occasional bad language)
CATEGORIES: Drama, angst, hurt/discomfort, some humour; AU, fix-it
SUMMARY: Noel Miller tries to find his place on Nick Cutter's team; Stephen Hart tries to find his way back onto the team; and Nick has to deal with them, creatures from the past, and his own stubbornness.
SPOILERS: Everything through 2.07 and my own story "Fresh Scars"
WARNINGS: Some tasteless humour, some medical detail
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Many thanks to Brilliant Husband (dudethemath), kristen_mara, and lukadreaming, all of whom acted as betas and made many helpful suggestions and corrections. All remaining errors, infelicities, and poor judgement are my own.
DISCLAIMER: Primeval and its characters are owned by Impossible Pictures, ITV Productions, M6 Films, Pro 7, and possibly other entities I couldn't easily find on IMDb. No copyright infringement is intended, and indeed the story probably won't make sense unless you've watched. So watch the show, buy the DVDs, etc. I do not profit from fic except insofar as comments make me happy.
Additional notes and links to all posted parts at this story's launch page
Previous Installment: 18
The end is near!
Nick phoned Lester as soon as the car pulled away and gave him a brief report. Lester made no jokes but promised to send someone round to Stephen's to get his medication, and a change of clothes, which Nick hadn't even thought to ask for. He followed Abby back to Miller while he finished the call. Miller was slowly and methodically working his own spiral out from the bodies.
"Just wanted to be sure Mr Hart didn't miss anything, sir," he called out in explanation as he looped near them. "I don't see anything so far."
Nick stood there, uncertain what he should do next. Abby relieved him of the need to make a decision by turning on him.
"If Stephen's off the team, I'm leaving too," she said, in a low but angry voice.
"He's not off the team!" Nick exclaimed, but Abby shushed him. "I took it back, didn't I?" he asked, almost in a whisper.
Abby crossed her arms and glared at him.
"Didn't I?" he repeated more to himself.
"That's not exactly what I heard," Abby told him. How could she be so fierce and so quiet at the same time? Nick glanced around. Maybe she wasn't as quiet as she thought; Noel kept glancing at them.
"Well, it's what I meant." Nick held up his hands placatingly. "Look, I told him we'd call him back if we needed him, right? Well, we couldn't do that if he was off the team."
Abby's arms flew apart in a gesture of disbelief. "That's not the same thing at all!"
Noel moved away, studying the ground very studiously.
"You don't even know why you do the things you do, do you?" Abby hissed at Nick.
He had no idea how to answer that question, but she remained silent and stared at him until he started fumbling towards an answer. "I think that usually I know what I'm doing, and why. I don't-look, I cocked up, all right? I thought I'd made that clear enough. What? Do you think I should phone him now?"
Abby looked away, and Nick knew he hadn't been quite fair. Stephen couldn't have arrived yet, so it wasn't as if he would be asleep. Yet the last thing his nerves needed right now was a call from Nick. He'd assume the worst, even if only for the time it took him to answer the call.
"Look, I will say something tomorrow." Nick raised his voice. "And I'll say right now, to those who are listening: Stephen is not off the team. I... I was wrong."
Abby's posture relaxed a little. Nick looked around enough to see Noel raise his head from looking at the ground, but he was now too far away for Nick to make out his face. The other two soldiers, still standing near the body, lifted their heads as well.
"Right now is not the time to settle this," Nick continued, looking again at Abby. "We've got work to do. What's our next step?"
"I don't know!" she said, flinging her arms again in exasperation.
Right. Nick was in charge. Before, when Nick had run out of ideas on a site, Stephen usually made suggestions. He made them so smoothly no one seemed to notice that Nick hadn't a clue anymore.
Abby looked past Nick again, out into the darkness. "I suppose we go back towards the anomaly?"
Nick turned. "Noel? How's it coming?"
Noel cast torchlight on the ground around him one last time and then came striding towards them. "If Hart missed anything," he said as he drew close, "I can't find it. I think we killed all the ones that came this way."
"What do we do now?" Abby asked even before Nick could.
Noel reminded them that Captain Robinson had the men who weren't tracking doing a search pattern, and that was how the dog had been found. They left the two soldiers with the bodies. Robinson was sending an ARC truck round to pick them up, human and raptor alike, to take them back for study. Noel had tried to find an ID on the woman while the others were waiting with Hart for the car, but she didn't seem to have one. She had no handbag and nothing in her pockets but a handkerchief. She had a house key on a little wrist strap.
Jenny would have to come up with some explanation for the woman's death. Would she use the same story of unexploded bombs that they'd been using to secure the area? Nick didn't care to think about it, or the woman's family. God, if only he hadn't made Stephen fight to come here, they'd have had him on the trail earlier. The woman needn't have died.
Nick didn't exactly follow Noel's explanation of what they were doing. He had no need; they weren't splitting into groups smaller than two, and since Connor couldn't return for at least twenty minutes more, Nick would go with Abby and Noel. Abby called Connor to tell him to return to the anomaly site instead of where they had been. Perhaps Connor could learn something more there.
If he'd been so unclear that Abby hadn't realised he'd regretted his earlier words to Stephen, what on earth did Stephen think? And what would he think tomorrow?
"Abby," he said, breaking the silence of the last few minutes.
She turned sharply, shining her light into his face until he threw up an arm to protect his eyes. She lowered it then.
"I had already changed my mind about Stephen, you know. I didn't do that just because you...."
"Threatened to resign?" she asked, but he couldn't hear any anger in her voice. She might even be a little amused.
"And I don't want him thinking that I'm keeping him on only to keep you happy."
"Not a chance," she said decisively. "Hear that, Noel? That conversation never happened."
"What conversation?" Noel asked, and Nick couldn't tell whether he honestly hadn't heard anything or was simply saying that.
Abby turned around and began walking, playing her beam in front of her again, but she asked, "He'll be all right, won't he?"
"Connor will let us know if he's not," Nick said with more confidence than he felt. They'd been through far worse than this. Stephen-all of them-could pull through this one.
***
They didn't have enough people to execute a proper grid search in a space this size. A spiral search from the point of insertion was the only thing that made sense, but when Noel had said so, Robinson had thanked him politely and instituted the grid search. After the roads had been barricaded, the men who had closed them had mostly been put on the search, but their small numbers weren't sufficient for the space they had to cover.
Of course, Noel's idea might not have worked much better. Since it had begun getting dark, only Noel and Hart had had any luck finding tracks. Men who couldn't recognise them were as likely to stumble blindly past or over them doing a spiral search as they were a grid pattern.
Abby and the professor spoke a little about Hart, but mostly they seemed focused at the task on hand. Damn it, though, in full darkness, without Hart, they'd need another body of some kind before they knew they had more raptors. Noel prayed they'd killed the last of them. He'd clearly miscounted by at least one, so why not more? And God knew he might even have missed a set of tracks.
Still, Noel was finding nothing in this field. A lot of farmers were going to be very upset in the morning: young crops trampled, hedgerows wrecked. They'd never even know what it was all for. He supposed it was for the best. He understood the need for secrecy in warfare, and intelligence, but... how could he even describe this?
Seeing a bit of a mess on the ground, Noel stooped for a moment. There were a few feathers! Abby squatted next to him.
"Bird fight?" she asked. "They don't look the same as the feathers on the raptors."
She was right-or, at least, he thought she was. Cutter agreed. The feathers were small and grey or brown, like ordinary, 21st century birds. He'd rather have had Hart's opinion, though. Oh, damn. He hadn't got photos at the site where he'd killed the raptors. Well, they'd have the creatures' bodies to study. They didn't need the photos. He'd forgotten to take any since he'd killed the ones back in the hedgerow. They'd been too busy.
Noel couldn't make out any tracks to or from the scuffed area on the ground, so after a few minutes they moved on. Every so often, Abby shone her light into a tree.
"They can't fly, can they?" Noel asked belatedly.
"Not as far as we know," she answered.
Great. Well, it didn't hurt to make certain.
Abby stayed slightly behind and to his left, Cutter a bit farther back. Noel looked back every so often to make sure they weren't losing the professor, but he didn't appear to be dropping any farther behind. Cutter lagged just a little, sometimes shining his torch back the way they'd come. He kept up the pace, but his shoulders were hunched and his head a little down. The professor must be exhausted.
Emotional work could be as draining as the physical kind. Noel felt grateful he didn't have the degree of emotional entanglement weighing on the rest of the team right now. He couldn't afford that. He had to keep people safe. He'd failed once already that evening. He couldn't fail again anytime soon.
Maybe there was nothing they could have done. He'd run all out once he heard the scream. He needed to improve his tracking skills, though, so that he didn't have to rely on an exhausted man with a walking stick.
They were nearing the end of the field. Noel checked in with the soldier coordinating the search, who told him to go on to the next field. Keeping his temper in check, Noel asked if his skills might be better used back where they'd had positively identified tracks. "I'm not the best tracker, I know," he said. "But with Hart down for the night...."
While the man went to check in with Robinson, they reached the end of the field. Noel shone his torch around the next field-another fallow one, and he'd have difficulty finding anything in that.
"This is a waste of time," Abby said with annoyance after she'd shone her own torch as far as it cast useful light.
"Look, the driver must have brought Connor to the anomaly site by now. Why don't we phone him to come and fetch you back there as well?" Noel offered.
"Can't leave you alone," the professor said.
"I think I'll probably be coming back too, but I'll need the captain's permission. I-"
The sight of headlights made Noel break off. He contacted Rosenfeld again.
"I'm sorry, Lieutenant, but Captain Robinson hasn't-"
"It's not that," Noel said quickly. "We've got a vehicle in our area. Are any of our people here?"
The hesitation on the radio lasted long enough that Noel began running before he heard the answer. Naturally, Rosenfeld had to verify his location, and Noel did his best while running. He could hear the other two coming after him. If there were any raptors out here, would someone running spook them out into the open? Or drive them to hide?
Noel made it out into the road; what the hell was he supposed to do now? He said a quick prayer, slid his weapon around behind his back so as not to frighten a civilian driver, and waved his arms. Abby came into the road behind him while the car slowed, and Cutter seemed to be coming as well.
A car pulled up and a man stuck his head out the window. "Need some help?" he asked worriedly.
Noel walked up to the car for a closer look. He was horrified to find that the man, probably in his early thirties, had two children in the back. A small boy was sleeping, but a slightly older girl blinked at him. "Sir, what are you doing here?" He struggled to keep his anger in check.
"I live here," the man said, his eyes leaving Noel's face to stare at Abby, who had also walked up to the car now.
"They've closed the roads," Noel said tightly. "You're not supposed to be here!"
"Really? Where? We've come back from London tonight, and I didn't see any-"
"What the hell?" Cutter had finally come close enough to see inside the car.
"I live only a couple of miles from here," the man said, still sounding worried but nothing more. "We were out late for a school event, and I'd like to get the children back. We-"
"Turn around and go back the way you came!" Cutter shouted.
"Dad?" the girl asked from the back.
"Get your children out of here. You should be able to come back tomorrow," Noel said with restraint.
The man wasn't looking at his face, however, but at his uniform and what he had strapped to him. "You're a soldier," he said finally.
"Yes! And we're asking you to leave for your own protection!"
The girl in back drew her knees up to her chest.
"But why?" the man asked in perplexity.
"Unexploded wartime bombs." Noel was surprised how easily the lie rolled off his own tongue.
"Only it's not... all... unexploded anymore," Abby said, and the tone of her voice clearly stopped the man dead.
"Professor! Perhaps you could go along with these people and get them safely out of the area. You can see if a road block has been removed or something like that," Noel suggested. The professor might not like weapons, but Lester had made him bring both a tranquilliser gun and a Beretta. Cutter wouldn't hesitate to use them for the children's sake, Noel knew from the way he had defended Noel against Abby's anger. Between the vehicle and the weaponry, the car's occupants should be safe.
Cutter looked at him for a moment, then nodded. He went over to the passenger side.
"Erm, I don't mean to seem... but... could I see some identification?" the driver asked very quietly.
Noel whipped his out. Seeing a proper military ID should set the man's mind at rest more than seeing whatever it was Cutter carried, and create fewer questions. After a quick look, the man unlocked the door.
"I'll call Rosenfeld. We'll have a car meet you and bring you back, Professor."
Cutter nodded at him and climbed in.
The man needed several tries to turn the car around in the narrow lane, his nerves surely making it worse. Once the car had turned, it drove away straight enough. And fast enough.
"Oh, God," said Abby. "They'd have passed-they'd have passed...."
They'd have passed the field with the body. A couple of miles, the man had said. From the direction they had been going, Noel guessed that they must live near where the raptors had killed that woman. If any were still out there....
'Oh, God' was right.
***
Nick couldn't believe the man had heard and seen nothing to indicate the roads were closed. What the hell use were the damned soldiers if they couldn't even close the roads? Well, they were so short-handed that those two idiots who'd been placed on restricted duty after they pulled guns on Stephen and Henrietta had been called out. Maybe they were responsible.
The driver tried to make conversation, offering his name and his children's names. The boy slept in the back, oblivious, but Nick suspected that the girl was watching everything. She kept quiet, though. He gave his own first name and tried to avoid saying too much.
"We weren't listening to the radio," Ben explained yet again as the CD played on. "You know, our neighbour Mrs. Martin doesn't even have a telly? I wonder if she heard. Maybe you could... erm...."
"Send someone round to see if she heard the news?" Nick considered. "We're stretched a bit thin, I'm afraid. She'll have heard it on the radio, right?"
He didn't like the driver's hemming and hawing at that.
"Well, it is getting late," Nick said at last. "I hope she'll be in for the night?"
Ben looked at the clock on the dashboard. "Yes. Yes, I hope so. Only-I hope she didn't go out with her dog for an evening walk. Or that he didn't get out. She loves him...."
Ben prattled on for a bit more, but Nick couldn't listen for a bit as he tried not to think about the bodies he'd seen. He spent his energy making sure he couldn't see any unusual movements in the headlights.
"Is something wrong?" Ben asked unexpectedly.
Nick realised his hand had gone to his gun. He still had it holstered, but his hand was on the Beretta, not on the tranq gun in his lap.
"That's a funny-looking gun," Ben said, apparently noticing the direction of Nick's gaze. "May I ask...?"
Nick took a quick look in the back seat. The girl seemed to have fallen asleep, her head against the window, her mouth a little open.
"Ben," he said, "I hate to ask this, but... someone will ask at some point. Erm... Mrs. Martin.... Where did she live?"
Of course, Ben gave an answer that meant nothing to him, and he had to ask him again in terms of where they'd met the car. The answer was too close for comfort.
"Is she... older?" Nick hated himself even for asking, but if they were talking about the same woman, Ben would find out at some point. Maybe Nick could save some trouble by asking now. He could also divert attention from the damned tranq gun. Jenny had done a good job with the cover story, and he didn't want to undermine her work.
"Ye-es," Ben answered slowly. "Oh, God, I'm not going to want to know why you're asking, am I?"
"A woman...." He shouldn't have done it. His judgement was rubbish after all, wasn't it? "A woman, apparently out with a dog.... Or she'd gone out after, to find the dog..."
They sat in silence a minute or two longer while Ben checked his rear-view mirror a little too much and a little too carefully.
Nick finally realised the man was looking at his child and not the road. He turned his head; her eyes seemed finally to be closed. "I think she's asleep," he told Ben in a low tone.
"So Mrs. Martin...is dead?"
Nick took a deep breath. Who gave a damn about the tranq gun anyway? He should have kept his mouth shut. "Someone is dead. The woman... didn't have any identification on her."
"Mrs. Martin turned 75 recently. There was a party... we were invited, even though we're new to the area. Same church, you see. We don't even go often, but.... And she is our nearest neighbour."
"I'm sorry," Nick blurted, remembering just in time to keep his voice low. "I shouldn't have...."
"Well," Ben said shakily, "somebody has to identify her, right?"
Nick nodded, even if Ben wasn't looking at him. "And we know where to start looking, where... to see if somebody's not home."
After another couple of minutes of silence, Ben said, "She's a lovely woman. Widow. I never... I have no idea who her next of kin might be."
"We'll sort it out," Nick said as reassuringly as he could. "You've been a help, telling us who it might be."
"Glad I could be some use," the man answered. "Not just the useless sod driving his children into danger!" He glanced at Nick quickly. "Sorry."
"It's not your fault," Nick said quickly. "There should have been a road block."
The lane they were on was very rough, though. The car seemed to be travelling just in ruts made between hedgerows and fences. In places it was just wide enough for one car, with some passing spaces in case someone came the other way. Ben drove very cautiously.
"So... unexploded bombs, you said? Did she...?"
"I'm sorry," Nick said again, with feeling. "I shouldn't have said this much. I'm not authorised to release information."
His mobile rang, and he answered. It was one of the soldiers, telling him they were having trouble finding the road he was on; he didn't happen to see a satnav in the car, did he? Ben had one, and he reoriented it so that Nick could read it off to the soldier.
The damned lane wasn't on their maps, so the soldiers hadn't blocked it. It wasn't their fault.
***
Part 20
***