Chapter 2

Doyle rowed back the way he'd come. Despite the cold night, he was bathed in sweat by the time he got back to the starting point. He got out awkwardly, nearly slipping in the water. The body of his friend was no longer there. Fear clutched at him that Jack had fallen in. However, once he'd dragged himself onto the quayside and retrieved his walking stick, he saw Jack in a phone box, probably telling someone about his stolen boat. Doyle knew that the call wouldn't be to the police who were under the yoke of the Flak. He wished that he could tap on Jack's shoulder and tell him all was well, but it was best that Jack remain ignorant of who had borrowed his boat. Doyle also noticed that the Flak's car was no longer there. They'd obviously got what they wanted and had returned back to their lair.

Doyle continued on his slow and painful way back home. His route wasn't as circuitous as before - he was just too exhausted and in too much pain to play games any more. He was getting careless in his weariness. However, he didn't meet anyone along the dark deserted streets. He staggered up the steps to his flat. Home at last. He saw that a note had been stuck in the milk bottle during his absence. He took the bottle in and read the note thoughtfully as he closed the door and put the bolts in place.

Jack and Jill - noon

The writing could have been Bodie's, or it could have been forged. Doyle remembered that Terry had been taken and could be telling the Flak all sorts of interesting information - or as much as he knew. Anyone would talk under those conditions. Doyle drifted into his bedroom and sat on the bed reflecting on how much Terry could actually tell them. He knew of Bodie certainly, but did he know all the codes used by some members of the cell to others? Doyle wasn't sure. There was only one way to find out - be there at noon and see what happened.

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. So went the nursery rhyme. There was a pub at the top of Masons Hill where you could get more than a pail or two of water, or whatever else you fancied. That was where Bodie meant. At 11 o'clock Doyle limped along Byfleet Road. It wasn't the most direct route to the pub but was in the right general direction. He didn't think he was being followed. The lower half of his damaged face was covered in a scarf, for warmth and to detract attention. However, a man with a limp and black eye was an easy target to spot and an even easier body to follow. As Doyle neared the end of the road, ready to turn left, a man approached him from an alleyway.

"You're so predictable, Doyle," Bodie whispered as he continued on his way without missing a step.

Anger fired throughout Doyle's mind and body. He raged at his friend's smugness and raged at his own incompetence. You bloody try it! Doyle screamed illogically in his mind. Just to be awkward, Doyle found a busy café and settled himself in there instead of the pub. If Bodie wanted a word, he'd have to work for it. It was nearly 40 minutes before Bodie found him. It had started raining, and Bodie came in looking bedraggled and angry. He ordered teas and settled himself at Doyle's table. The chairs were packed in, making any private conversation impossible.

"Ok, Ray, point taken," Bodie conceded.

"I'm just so bloody tired," Doyle murmured by way of an apology, lowering his scarf and moving his empty cup to make way for the fresh brew.

Bodie looked at him anxiously for a while. Doyle misunderstood the silence.

"Yeah, I know. We're all tired. Sorry,"

"Don't be. Just be careful. Ok?" Bodie tried not to belittle his friend.

"Terry's been taken," Doyle said softly into his tea.

"Yeah, I know."

The conversation couldn't be taken much further with customers jostling their elbows and ears aflap.

"You nearly were too. Look at the state of you. Granny sends her love by the way."

Doyle looked up and smiled tiredly. He interpreted the last sentence as: I wouldn't trust you to help my granny to cross the road! Reading each other's minds, they paid up and left. In the relative privacy of the street, Doyle looked round furtively before telling Bodie that he'd got Olsen home to the 'land of the Vikings'. Bodie didn't ask for details, he just nodded. He knew that since Terry had been taken, Franc would be next on the Flaks' list of 'most wanted'. How Doyle had managed to spirit him away in his state, Bodie could only wonder.

He added his own news to Doyle's saying, "Rumour has it that the Yanks are going to join our gang."

Doyle stopped, looking into his friend's eyes to see if he were serious. Seeing that he was, Doyle's smile melted to a chuckle. He clutched his scarf to his mouth to stifle a guffaw. Bodie never could resist Ray's merriment once he got going. If they weren't careful they'd be giggling like school girls and all the attention that would attract. Doyle pulled himself together with an effort and they continued walking aimlessly.

"Well that's one way to start a Third World War," he said more seriously.

"They'd have to find England on a map first though," Bodie countered.

"Well that should keep them busy for a while, then."

It had been a long time since either man had been in the mood for banter. When was the last time they'd laughed? In the beginning, when it looked like they could win the war against the Flak, when it looked like other countries would never allow fascists on their borders, they were relaxed and confident of victory. They could smell it in the air. Now, two years on, the war had been well and truly lost. The Europeans had decided that any interference in an internal war across the Channel could lead to all kinds of complications. Look what happened when Archduke Franz Ferdinand had been shot in 1914 - a man no-one knew, in a country few had heard of. Then Poland decades later. No, it was better to keep out of other nations' backyards.

So England had been left alone to fight its own war; its friends - or those it thought it had - turning a blind eye and a deaf ear to what was going on. George Cowley organised his operatives as best he could when the writing was unmistakable on the wall, spreading his agents thinly in strategic places; MI5 and other shady organisations doing the same. Then George was gone. Fortunately he had whispered in the ear of his finest before he left to reassure them all that he was well. He'd told Bodie that he was going away for 'a wee while'. With the amount of knowledge Cowley had amassed, and the location of his agents, it was felt that it was far too dangerous for him to remain where he was. Rumour had it among his operatives that he was not too far away. An island, the rumour mill had suggested. That could be anywhere from the Outer Hebrides to the Channel Islands.

"Why UK?" Murphy had mooted during one of their early and rare meetings. As an ex-copper, he had a natural distrust of unfounded rumours. "It could be the Caribbean, or the West Indies."

His audience had laughed at the suggestion that George Cowley would be lazing on a tropical beach somewhere.

"He'll probably still be in his suit and tie," someone suggested, "and the natives trying to find an interpreter!"

"Och, no," McCabe countered, stretching his Edinburgh brogue. "He'd be in a kilt, airing his full regalia!"

The men and women had laughed at the image - how long ago that seemed now - but they often wondered where their leader was as the years dragged on. That he was still pulling strings, and moving operatives like pieces on a chess board, they had no doubt.

The end, when it came, was swift and surgical. The rumours had been half right - not the U.S, but the U.N had come to the rescue - not with a grand 'hurrah' and all guns blazing - but with a battalion of parachutists gently tumbling from a winter sky in the early dawn of an otherwise ordinary grey Monday morning. The pale blue helmets of the United Nations Peace-Keeping Force dangled under white parachutes. They tumbled from a fleet of aircraft as quiet as thistledown. They were backed by a flotilla coming across the Channel from France and Belgium. There had been enough fifth columnists within the Channel Island Government that they quickly overcame the puppet government there as soon as the eagerly awaited code word was received over the radio. Once free of Flak, the islands became another launch pad in the battle for England's soul. The underground agents on the mainland were quickly mobilised, sleepers were awakened, and organisations the general public had never heard of jumped to attention. The emergency services and the armed forces were quick to 'defect' and to take orders directly from the UN. The Flak hadn't seen it coming. Over two years of hell; two years of people quietly disappearing - not just the usual suspects of Jews, gypsies and those with a different skin and a different point of view - but others too whom individual Flak members had a grudge against. It was so easy to take them out. Now the tables had turned, the Flak were on the run and their former citizens were baying for blood and revenge. The UN peace-keepers had their hands full trying to protect the Flak rather than battling against them. Their capitulation had been just as quick and sudden. They knew when they were outnumbered and outgunned.

The 31st of March was a day of celebration. It was declared a National Day, and it was the day George Cowley came home. His agents welcomed him with open arms and riotous celebration. They hadn't realised how much they'd missed him. He would never admit to missing them - but he had; nor would he admit to where he'd been these past years. His agents had managed to pull a few strings themselves and had found a restaurant who could cater for them all. And a few agents were sat close enough, that first evening, to secretly inspect George Cowley for any signs of sunburn!