The Clotted Cream Thickens

"Dad?" Rose whispered. The three of them were clustered near the door at the far end of the next railroad car. Pete's face was a mask, but those who knew him could read the tension and worry.

"The timing is all off," he replied, so low that the words didn't travel beyond the ladies' shoulders. "How could he have known where we were headed? Even if we were spotted at Plymouth, he still had to have left before then to be almost here now. And I'm quite sure we didn't blow it before we left Birmingham." He glanced down at his daughter, eyes deeply worried. "Is there an informant in the Group?"

An icy shock ran through her frame. His meaning was clear. Holding his eyes, she lifted her chin, and didn't dignify the subtext with an answer. "Because of the last time she was here. I was on the other end of that time, too, remember? The two of you were tracked down here, she disappeared, you were spotted and then lost. He had agents scouring the area for weeks."

"Did he ever mention the Knolls Monument?"

She thought hard. "No... no, he never did. I think the agents' final guess was that she left by boat, then you doubled back. I'd wager they'll be concentrating on the port today." She took a deep breath and bit the bullet. "Dad... when could I have sent word? How? I was searched thoroughly for any kind of bug; I'm clean. If you've got an informant... it isn't me. But I'm not aware of any information he ever got that could have come from your group."

He stared at her a moment longer, then took a deep breath and let it out. "Sorry, princess. I'm just not used to this..."

"Trusting me, you mean?" She snorted softly, shaking her head. "Well, I'd say you had reason."

Jackie had been silent through this whole exchange; the magnitude of the situation coming ever more clear. Would she ever make it home to her husband and her tiny son? Would Rose – her Rose? She turned her head and looked out the window, tears prickling.

"Hey," Pete whispered, his arm slipping around her shoulders. "I promised, didn't I? You'll get there." He'd known somehow just what she was thinking. Just like her own Pete. Both of them.

He glanced out the window again, watching the train chug around the wide curve that brought it from the river it had been following to its final route parallel to the shoreline a hundred yards off. "Hang on, here we go. We're coming into Carbis Bay. That station is actually closer to the Monument that St Ives. We can cut out a whole lot of walking, and soldiers, by getting off here."

"Shouldn't we be slowing down?" Rose asked nervously a minute later – just as the station appeared alongside the train, then rapidly disappeared behind them. The train hadn't stopped.

"OK..." Pete finally said. "Longer walk, that's all. We'll still be fine. It's not that much further." Jackie glanced sideways at him, a tiny smile of amusement teasing the corner of her mouth. Yeah. Underneath the tough Resistance Fighter exterior, he was still the same Pete.

Just a few minutes later, they pulled into the station at St Ives, last stop on the line. They piled out of the car along with the several dozens of other holiday-makers, then Pete pulled them to the far side of the platform. "We need to be heading south and a little west," he told them. "We'll take the southern exit out of here."

They turned and began swimming against the tide of those headed to the waterfront festival, only to be stopped a moment later by another young man. "That exit's blocked, mate. You'll have to go out the other way."

Looking down the track, they saw the exit was indeed barricaded – with barbed wire and an armed guard in the shadows, no less. "I guess they're serious..." Pete mumbled as they turned back and rejoined the flow.

It took almost an hour to clear the security checkpoint at the northern exit; the soldiers stationed there were checking everyone's ID and travel papers. "Doesn't seem like much of a holiday," Jackie grumbled.

"There's been trouble at the SeaFest before," Pete told her. His raised eyebrows told her what kind of trouble: the kind his own group liked to kick up.

"Then why haven't they shut it down?"

He snorted. "Politics," was his only reply.

All three of them were extremely tense as their turn arrived; trying not to show it. Pete was excruciatingly aware of the papers several of the soldiers held; papers with photos on them. He couldn't quite make them out without obviously craning his neck, but he could guess whose. Luckily, his team of forgers were top-notch, and both their papers and their disguises held up fine; netting them only a cursory glance before they were all waved through the barricade.

They followed along with the crowd for a few blocks before cutting left up one of the tiny alleys connecting the bayside road with the one up the ridge, then turning again to follow that road out of town toward the Knolls Monument, though its twenty-foot granite spire wasn't visible from that point. They passed a hospital, some shops, and bunches of houses crowded together on the hills rolling away from the beach – and then, just about even with the train station below them again, they strolled around a tight bend in the narrow road and another barricaded checkpoint came into view, at the far end of the tarmac canyon between a high retaining wall holding back the hill on one side and a row of tall houses on the other.

Pete grabbed both their hands and pulled them through an open gate, finding themselves in a tiny private garden in front of a gaily-painted green house. As Rose and Jackie leaned against the wall, catching their breath, he craned his neck to peek through the wrought iron fencing atop it at the soldiers manning the barricade now just a dozen yards off. Cars were inching their way into the town past the barricade and then on down the one-way street, the drivers showing their annoyance with their tooting horns (once they were safely past).

He felt a strange tingle on his skin, but didn't think anything of it, as pair of obvious locals walked past the garden to the barricade. An argument broke out between them and the soldiers, as they repeatedly pointed to their own house just a few yards off, but were firmly denied. Finally the soldiers began fingering their rifles, and the locals took the hint, muttering angrily to each other as they backtracked into town.

Pete ducked back down again as they came even with the fence, coming face-to-face with Rose – and suddenly he gasped. Her disguise was flickering in and out – and there was that tingle on his own skin again. "Shit!" he swore in a hoarse whisper, diving a hand into his pants pocket to pull out the transport disk. Jackie grabbed it – she was more familiar with it, anyway – and gave it a quick once-over, then stared back at him. She didn't need to say it, all three disguises fizzled away simultaneously. The disk had run out of power.

"Half an hour to recharge?" he asked, and she nodded. "Shit." He craned his neck over the wall again, wilting when he saw the papers in the soldiers hands. Even if his own natural face wasn't on it, and he was sure Jackie's wasn't, there was no doubt that Rose's was.

Trapped. They couldn't even slip out of the garden and back down the road without being spotted.

Jackie sank back against the wall again, all the terror she'd been holding back threatening to break over her head. I don't want to stay here! I want to go home!

Rose could almost read her thoughts. Suddenly she simply made up her mind – it wasn't an active decision, it was simply there. She reached out and gave her mother's double a quick, hard hug, then turned to her father. "Daddy? I love you. Get her home safe." And she turned and walked resolutely back to the gate a few steps away.

Pete was flabbergasted. "Rose!" he whispered sharply. She just turned and looked at him. He took a breath, his mouth open to protest... but it died on his lips at her expression. Without thinking, he took the disk back from Jackie and tossed it to his daughter. "The Monument this afternoon... or the old church on the Island tonight after dark." A beat. "Or I will come after you." His intense whisper made it a solemn vow.

She'd caught the disk without thinking, and stuffed it into a pocket along with her watch. A slow sunrise smile crept across her face at his fierce promise, and she nodded.

Then she turned and slipped out the gate, and began slouching towards the barricade with her hands in her hoodie pockets, head down, ostensibly not watching where she was going. She was only a few steps away when the shouts told her they'd finally seen her – seen and recognized her, whether from the papers they held or her fame as the English Rose, she neither knew nor cared. She jerked her head up, "startled", then whirled about to run back down the road towards town, not daring to glance at the garden gate her Dad was hiding behind. Boots were pounding on the pavement behind her; she couldn't spare the second to see if it was all the soldiers, she could only hope.

As she rounded the tight curve again, she saw the perfect opportunity and grabbed it. Without warning, she swerved and darted across the road in front of a lorry that had just made it through the barricade. The driver slammed on his brakes to avoid the crazy blonde, as scripted, and the truck skidded sideways, coming to rest completely across the narrow gap, blocking it entirely.

Now she did glance back, grinning at the soldiers piled up behind the lorry, stymied. It only took a second, though, for one of them to begin slithering awkwardly underneath the blockage.

So she took off her brakes and RAN, darting down alleys and side streets whenever she found them. Most of the soldiers were left behind after just a turn or two, but one – the first one under the lorry – stubbornly stayed on her trail, just a short distance behind. She made it several blocks away, almost back to the main festival area before a stitch suddenly clawed into her side, and she staggered. She clutched her side and lurched on, rounding the blind corner of a tea room advertising Cornish Cream Tea in the window –

– and ran headlong into the arms of a tall, muscular soldier leading an entire squad up the street. He grabbed and steadied her, then peered closely at her face. A predatory smile split his mouth, and his hands clamped tight on her arms. "Guten Tag, Fraulein Tyler. General Schultz ist für Sie suchen."