'They'll stop us.'

'No, George, they won't stop us, but they might try. You must understand that when they do try, I might have to deal roughly with them. It will be too late then for you to change your mind, because we'll be leaving behind some very hostile natives.'

'I said I'm coming with you.'

'Well, don't change your mind, George. This is a costly way to travel, and when Elizabeth Windsor is picking up the tab she doesn't like no-shows.'

*

We left in a Fiat as soon as it became dark, and made a detour so that I could see who was interested in us. It was a big black Volvo estate. There were four of them inside it; big men bundled up in overcoats as if they were expecting a breakdown and ready to push. They made little effort to hide the fact that they were following us.

The wild forest, preserved from forestry experts, was a magnificent jungle of beech, firs and birch. The ground was hard and frosty and the narrow forest tracks, sheltered from the snowstorms, meandered away and disappeared into the night. I was pleased to have spent a few hours of the previous day doing a tourist's run around the neighborhood. Now, as we approached it from the northern side, I knew the airstrip was coming up, and at the very edge of the strip there was a place where the track was too narrow for them to overtake us. When I stopped the car they would have to stop behind us.

I looked at George. He was girding himself for a big effort. 'This is what I want you to do after I stop the car, George. Get out and make a fuss. Get well away from both cars and get their attention. Scream and shout. Tell them you are being kidnapped. Tell them you are hurt. Tell them anything. But get their full attention. Can you do that for me?' I was driving very slowly by that time. In the mirror I saw the Volvo with the main beam headlights flashing to tell me that the game was up. One of the men was leaning out of the window waving his hand. He was wearing gloves, I noticed. That was encouraging. Men wearing gloves are not quick on the trigger. 'Where the track widens out to the lake I will stop.'

'What are you going to be doing?' said George.

'I'm going to steal their Volvo. These are local security cops, posted to this godforsaken region because they are not smart enough to be in action where the real trouble occurs.' I looked at the lake, swamped in a malignant and mysterious haze. To the other side of us there was a forest where slim black trees — their lower trunks hidden by deep snowdrifts — seemed to be suspended in midair. Between forest and water there ran a drained strip of land, its function as a wartime airstrip long since forgotten.

'But if you steal their Volvo, they'll simply steal our Fiat.'

'No they won't. And you get their car key. I don't want to be grubbing around trying to find it in the snow.' I knew in fact that they would all be carrying a car key, and in a last resort, that hot-wiring their car was only a thirty-second task, but it was better that George had something to think about.

'How can you be sure what they will do?' said George. He was nervous and he was agitated. I had to get him fully occupied or he would freeze on me. I'd seen it happen before.

'Several reasons — you'll see. But the principal reason is that while you are holding their attention I am going to kill them. Okay?' George's face went as white as a sheet. Without waiting for a reply, I gave him a hefty shove and said, 'Jump out and start screaming. This is it.'

George put everything he had into his performance. He jumped and shouted and threw his arms in the air. No one could have resisted it.

And while the boys in the wide-brimmed hats, were watching his solo dance performance and jumping out of their car to grab George, I was splashing the contents of a bottle of petrol over the interior of the Mat so that when I tossed a lighted match into it the fumes ignited with a whoomp, that took my eyebrows off.

You've got to understand what it was like for those men to watch someone set light to a precious motorcar. In the West, to reproduce the deep emotions my action generated, you'd have to watch some yuppie torch his Bentley-Turbo or Ferrari.

The hot engine helped, and the flames went up twenty or thirty feet, so that the whole clearing was lit by brilliant light that caught the five men as if in a flashlight photo. The picture is printed upon my mind. George had stumbled into a snowdrift and was halfturned, his hand held up to his face as if shielding his eyes. He was as surprised as anyone to see me torching the car. The security men had turned to see it. There were four of them: dressed in long overcoats and large felt hats, their faces gleaming in the light of the fire, their faces registering shock and bewilderment. While the others remained still, George moved. Now he realized what was coming. He was backing away, stumbling through the deep snow and kicking away the frozen debris as his feet encountered it. George thought I was after all five of them.

I could hear the buzz-saw engine of the plane. The sound of its piston engines was reflected from the lake to make a deafening sound as he came over us very low. The pilot with his face pressed against the glass was no doubt worried sick about what was happening. This was the moment of maximum danger.

As the plane droned out of sight I was hit by a suffocating smell of burned rubber and plastic from the blazing car. Big red sparks darted around like fireflies and then I was enveloped in a sudden billow of black oily smoke. The security men began shooting at something on the other side of the blaze. Perhaps it was the movement of the smoke that attracted their shots, or a wild animal disturbed by it.

Whatever it was that caught their attention, I was grateful for the respite. I quickly folded back the Skorpion's skeleton metal stock and pulled it tight 'into my shoulder. The sights were crude and virtually useless, so I fired with both eyes open. The Skorpion has a simple blowback action, but like all such lightweights it rises and rises and will end up firing straight up into the air if you don't hold it tight and point it low.

'Rrrrip.' The rate of fire was faster than I remembered it. The first burst hit the nearest of the men. He crumpled, but by that time two of the others were firing back at me. I fired again — two very short bursts — but I couldn't see if I registered hits or not. I listened: no aircraft engines, no shouts, no cries of pain.

The silence was broken by half a dozen aimed shots from them, the last coming uncomfortably close. That was always a sign to move on. They had only handguns. Their automatic weapons would be in a rack in the car, I could almost hear them cursing their misfortune. At this range and in this light, their single-shot fire was a risk I could afford to take provided I kept moving. It was darker now. The initial flare was over. The Mat's choicest morsels were ash. The excited yellow flames had become orange and red, and were settling down to enjoy devouring the car slowly, like a lion with a juicy carcass.

I didn't have enough time, or the inclination, for a gun battle. Suddenly the engines of the plane sounded very loud as he roared over the treetops to get a last look at what was happening before turning on to finals. There was nothing for it but to finish this off. I fitted the second, and last, magazine into the Skorpion and got to my feet and ran forward. It was dark, the flames making moving shadows everywhere. There were more shots and I fired back, hose-piping the whole magazine as I went. I wasn't trying to find a way of killing them, I just wanted to make sure that all four men had a few disabling wounds to keep them from chasing us and giving me trouble.

George was struggling with the door of the security men's Volvo by the time I reached it. 'I got the key,' said George. 'I got it from the one you shot.'