CHAPTER 27 AUGUST                                                       He cut the headlights and eased the truck gently through Casserone. On the road beyond the village he began to detect the first glimmerings of dawn in the sky beyond the peaks.          Hironimo was pleased but surprised to see him at such an hour. The family were all up - God what hours they kept! The little man soon realised that something was very seriously wrong.          Allan asked for horses and Hironimo took him round to the coral where he lassoed a tall piebald horse and a dark fat mule. He helped Allan to saddle them up but his eyes narrowed when Allan offered him enough money to buy the animals outright and a bit more - in US dollars. He shook his head and waved a hand. Allan searched the dictionary which he had kept under the dashboard ever since his embarrassment with Theresa. and found 'prestamo' - a loan. Hironimo took the money doubtfully and then Allan explained with maps drawn in the sand and much flapping of hands that Hironimo would need to come into the mountains to collect the animals later. He was deliberately vague about where he would leave them.          But the little Chilean became concerned when Allan began to press presents on to him - coils of nylon rope, his cooking pots and pans and finally the keys and ownership documents for his Dodge.          ‘Por usted.’          Hironimo detected some of Allan's urgency. He chivvied Augustina to produce food quickly then he cracked open a bottle. Allan took the tiniest sip so as not to disappoint him.          'First time for everything,' he thought.          Allan usually left the Dodge under the orange trees but he persuaded Hironimo this time to put it in a shed and cover it with straw. The rancher looked into Allan's face for a moment and gave him an emotional embrace. He and his wife exchanged words in low hurried tones. Hironimo went inside and re-emerged with a pistol and six bullets which he handed to Allan. Allan protested but was told that it was 'un prestamo' - a loan. So he accepted it with a bow and packed it away carefully in his saddle-bag.                   *      *      *      *      *          The valley was a linear oven which the sun, imprisoned by the steep mountain slopes on either side, kept at a searing heat even in the southern winter. There was no wind. The Ice Age left no footprint on these mountains of the Central Andes. No glacier ever bludgeoned its way down these ravines, chopping off the interlocking ridges to leave wide straightened passages between the peaks. Instead, cut to a V by the river, the valley dodged back and forth between the mountain spurs as though avoiding sniper fire and each short section, from zig to neighbouring zag, harboured a pocket of torrid, stifling air.          At its lowest point, the V was filled with rubble which formed a flat boulder strewn surface. Across this, the river, a diminutive trickle in comparison to the dimensions of the valley itself, meandered about, making a lazy way to the Pacific. Pale pink and white, the boulders lay about, rounded like skulls and hot enough to bake drop-scones. The place was devoid of vegetation except for the bushes and tall blond grasses which hugged the river bank, a ribbon of partial greenery, a narrow haven of life-preserving shade. The huge slopes of scree, in hues of brown, and red and grey, which swept upwards on either side to the crest of the retaining ridges, were broken by rocky crags, of a richer red and darker brown and maroon and purple.          The trail was just a passage of ground where the boulders had been rolled to one side. The hooves of many horses had trampled it and the dust was thick. It cut across the meanders of the river repeatedly and each crossing was an excuse to pause and dip a hand and take a mouthful. The water was thick with silt so it was best to let it settle in the water bottle, but it was fine for rinsing the mouth and dabbling the hands, and splashing water on his neck and chest. He liked to immerse his hat, luxuriating in the wet coolness on his head and the cold drips landing on his shoulders and back, but it was always dry again long before the next crossing. The horses enjoyed crossing the water too. They filtered the water with their teeth and were reluctant to move on from the gurgling ankle deep stream.          He had mixed feelings about the animals. On one hand they carried the water and the food and the batteries he needed. But on the other hand they could not go where he could go. On foot he could cross ridges, run scree slopes, climb cliffs. On foot he could go where the search parties could not follow. But he needed the food and the water and the batteries so he had to use the horses.          He was worried by the trail of hoof prints they left behind. It was not a problem on the main trail where his prints merged with the multitude of others, but he was concerned that if he tried to turn aside to find a safe spot or shake off pursuers, he would betray himself. In cowboy films they tied the branch of a tree to a horse and swept the hoof prints out of existence as they moved. He tried it. It took a precious hour to hack down the branch with his Swiss Army knife. It didn't work. It did something, but the hoof prints didn't disappear. They just looked like hoof prints that had been swept by a branch, and the horse didn't like it much. It whinnied and walked sideways and generally made a nuisance of itself. The mule just stopped and refused to budge and the only way he could get it to move was to walk behind flapping his arms and leaving his own footprints in the dust.          There was no way to prevent his movements being observed by people in the ranches he passed. A lone traveller eccentrically walking with two pack animals when everyone else rode was an object of interest and gossip. So speed was essential, speed and one sudden unexpected and unobserved move. He calculated he had about two days to put himself in a suitable position before they started the hunt proper. They would find the Dodge. He had no illusions that his friendship with Hironimo was secret. They would find the Dodge and begin the search from there.          He examined the terrain carefully as he went for a suitable location for his disappearing act and found it near the head of long narrow valley which opened out beyond into broad strath. At the narrowest point, the steep left hand wall of the valley was pierced by a deep gully filled with massive boulders. The animals stood patiently tethered to a stone as he unloaded most of the gear and backpacked it in several trips up into the boulder-field. Some of the boulders were larger than houses and, being supported on others, they trapped between them deep tortuous clefts. Rumbling far below the surface he could hear a trickle of water. Some of the gear, enough for one man-load, he left on the mule and then tried to mount the horse.          Cowboys did it all the time. Why was it that in cowboy films the horse stood still while the hero vaulted into the saddle instead of sidling away, like his perverse brute, just as he tried to step up on the stirrup? Perhaps in films the horse's feet were set in concrete. Always sensitive about inflicting pain on an animal Allan failed to pull the girths tight enough as the animal blew its flanks out. So when he did succeed in swinging his leg across its back, the saddle slipped off and dropped him heavily on to the ground. His heart hardened and he heaved the straps tight, waiting until the animal took another breath and then giving it a further heave.          Perhaps more like Don Quixote than Roy Rodgers he rode into the next ranch at the far end of the board strath and dismounted almost as though he had been doing it for years. The ranch owner got very excited, beamed at him and introduced his wife. They insisted on providing a meal. The wife served at table while Allan and the rancher ate and tried to converse in pigeon Spanish and hand signals. Allan explained that he wanted to go further up the valley on foot. The ranched nodded in agreement and somehow got Allan to understand that it was too cold for horse further up the valley.          ‘Muchas frio,’ he said, wrapping his arms around his chest and shivering.          Allan paid him to look after the animals. For two weeks he said, and then with his pack loaded set off further up the valley. At dusk, he turned and made his way silently back down the trail walking on stones to avoid leaving prints. As he passed the ranch he kept as far from it as possible and the dogs barked only once.          Hoping to throw pursuers off track he had chosen the valley because it did not run towards the Argentinian border. From here on he would be taking a more obscure route across the grain of the ridges.          It became very dark and he almost past the gully without seeing it. The cache of gear was even harder to find and he hit his shins painfully against rocks several times. It was too dark to find a cave so he slept in the open stretched out in his sleeping bag on a rock slab until dawn but as grey light stole through the boulder-field he found that he had several alternatives to choose from. The deepest was the best although it did give him palpitations when he realised that the jumble of rock had probably been created by an earthquake. Imprisoned down a crevice with the crystalline underbelly of a boulder the size of bus just above his face he had to fight to keep claustrophobia at bay. He tried not to think about earthquakes.          With the gear stashed underground and with a convenient bolt-hole for himself to slide down beside it, he could work in relatively open surroundings near the surface. He set up the micro and laid out the batteries. One set was put aside for the final phase, the other two would have to suffice for preparatory work. Fortunately most of the software was written so the ten or twelve hours of use which the batteries would provide, should, he reckoned, suffice.          First he dis-assembled the file he had stolen. That took an hour. Somewhere in the text was the magic string of characters - the password to the Labyrinth. He settled down to the same task he and Jack had carried out together in Burnside Cottage while Steve and Chalmers and Jocylin McCarrie kept watch. He had no printout, however, and had to work directly from the computer screen. And he had no table on which to write so he could not spread out paper and make notes. Remembering that night at Burnside reminded him again of Chalmers and Jack.          How am I doing Jack? I've hacked every computer in sight. I've got the password. How am I doing Bob Chalmers? You don't need to look at me like that.          He worked in two hour sessions, sleeping betimes.          Through a narrow chink he could observe a section of the trail in the valley below and during the first day he saw two people ride past. One of them was the man from the ranch where he had left the animals. He also heard the sound of a helicopter.          The first set of batteries gave out that evening.          On the second day a pair of riders came, riding towards the ranch further up the valley. They had gaucho gear - the full rigout with black flat-topped wide-brimmed hats, slim waistcoats, pauncho blankets, high boots and spurs like brass suns. They looked like sherry adverts. They also had guns. Six-shooters in holsters and rifles in their saddle holsters.          Two hours later they returned. They rode more slowly, looking about and examining the ground carefully. They stopped below his gully.          Allan inwardly cursed himself for not disconnecting the speaker wires in the micro. If he switched the machine off now it would emit a loud bleep. With the micro still running and clasped to his chest he slithered down his bolt-hole. The cooling fan made a low hissing noise which he prayed would merge with the sound of running water below the boulders. The click of a stone told him that the men were climbing the boulder-field. They came slowly, and he suspected they were looking into the crevices. He shrank back into the shadows of his own recess and lay still. More footsteps came to his ears and snatches of words.          They were arguing. He could tell that by the tone of voice. The words were indistinct and spoken too quickly for his dubious Spanish but he thought he heard the word ‘Fraser’. There was silence for a while and then, when he looked up at the small triangle of sky which was visible above his bolt-hole, he saw a pair of spurred feet. The golden spurs glinted in the sun but the feet were pointing away from him. Stealthily he reached down, drew Hironimo's pistol from a saddle-bag. Lying full length he pointed it two-handed at those feet with the splendid spurs.          A shout came from lower down. The man above him shouted back. There was an electronic bleep - unexpectedly loud - some kind of call signal. The man had a two way radio and he was gabbling into it. Then the feet turned and the man stepped passed the gap and began to descend over the boulders to the valley. The footsteps grew fainter.          The episode lost him time and used up battery power. The second set of batteries gave out on the second day and he still had not completed his task. Later a helicopter flew low overhead and sailed away over the crest of the ridge above. It returned at night but deep in his crevice Allan reckoned his body heat would be masked and invisible to night-glasses.          Reluctantly he used the third and last set of batteries. At mid day, on the third day, he found the password and programmed it into Vidar.          He packed the micro and its batteries hoping that there was sufficient power left.          This was not the place he had chosen for the final phase. He hid most of his gear in the bolt-hole and marked its entrance with a pattern of small stones arranged carefully to look accidental. He took a two gallon can of water, some food, the micro and some climbing gear and heaved them on to his back. He looked at the pistol, and then with some reluctance, he picked it up and slung it on his belt.          The sun was down and darkness was falling with tropical speed. He took a bearing with his compass and set course for a march under the stars to the Plaza del Toros.                            *      *      *      *      *                   It was called 'El Toro' - The Bull - but to Allan's eyes it had more in common with a rhino. A long blunt-nosed spur thrust forwards into the centre of the rock amphitheatre and then reared upwards at its extremity into a horn-shaped pinnacle. Broad-based with a curving dorsal edge it was exactly like a rhino's horn. There was even a secondary smaller horn on the crest of the spur just behind it. The only things which spoiled the rhino likeness were its colour and its size. It was bright red and the major horn was at least five hundred feet high. Taken together with the height of the spur, the tip was fifteen hundred feet above the floor of the amphitheatre.          The place appealed to him. He rationalised by telling himself that a search party would be unlikely to stumble upon him while he was doing the business, a place where his stratagem could best be acted out because it was close to Argentina with a high level route across the border where others might be reluctant to follow. But in truth it was the Wagnerian quality that attracted him.          Getting on to the crest of the spur was not difficult for a rock specialist but the water and the micro and his gear made a heavy pack. Climbing slowly he calculated the odds. Once he began transmission his location would be revealed. How accurately could they fix his position? Search parties, if they were close enough, might be directed into the amphitheatre, but would be unable to reach him or even see him if he was on the highest point. The real danger came from helicopters, homing in on his transmission signal. They would have difficulty landing on the tip of the horn, and if he had time he could vanish into the small but deep ravine - more of a chimney really - which scored the dorsal side of the horn. Once in that ravine he could make his way to the crest of the spur and then, if darkness had fallen, make his way out of the amphitheatre without descending to the floor.          It was a plan, but not much of a plan. He knew the chances of success were slim. The important thing was to inject his Vidar program into the network before they jammed his transmission. He had to give them a chance of finding him. Without that chance they would jam the transmission immediately. He had to be reasonably close to Ocean Springs, close enough to give the helicopters a tantalising chance so long as his signal lasted.          On the crest of the spur he lay in shadow as the burning sun moved slowly overhead. Timing was important - daylight to tantalise the choppers, close to darkness to give himself a chance. He waited, sipping water, knowing that it might have to last a long time, for who knew what lay beyond the rim of the amphitheatre?          In mid afternoon he judged the time to be right. He decanted some of the water into his hip-flask, strapped the micro to his back and began the ascent of the horn itself. It was desperately steep. The heels and most of the soles of his boots projected into space over that fifteen hundred foot drop. Moving deliberately, he found, for the very first time, a lack of confidence in his own climbing ability. He tested each foothold for friction and tapped each handhold for the tell-tale click that would betrayed looseness. For the first time too, on overhanging sections where the weight of the micro dragged at his shoulders and the weight of his whole body dragged at his arms, he became aware of the fallibility of his own strength. He was not used to the feeling of being alone in the mountains but he felt it now on this huge cliff. What would Hamish and Ian have made of this incredible rock structure? That was a comforting thought. He brought it to the front of his mind to banish self-doubt.          A spike under his left hand gave way unexpectedly just as he was transferring his weight to it. It released a block the size of a football which dropped away. His weight was thrown suddenly back on to his right hand. His left foot slid off its hold and he swung sideways outwards like a flag suspended by right foot and hand alone. In that position he watched the block falling, falling, striking the cliff face halfway down, shattering into a sun-burst of bits and a puff of smoke, watching still as the bits showered downwards, hearing the noise of the impact seemingly seconds later. Then slowly with a straining wrist he swung back to grab the cliff with his left hand and find another foothold.          The rock was too loose at this point. He moved upwards to the right towards the sunlit ridge. The angle eased. On the crest of the ridge, the scimitar shaped neck behind the horn, he paused and looked round the 'Plaza del Toros'. If a party had been on the ridges opposite they would see him now silhouetted against the azure sky, but there was no one. From the crest a narrow terrace reached across the face to the ravine. He followed it.          In the ravine the climbing was easier and he could relax. It was a deep, dark chimney. In Scotland it would have been dank with slime and moss but here the rock was desert dry. He thought of Rosa and Liz and Hamish and Jack. Democracy was too abstract and too confusing a concept. MCI, the Labyrinth, the secret passage, the conspiracy were distasteful even to think about. He was climbing and he wanted to reach the summit. That was objective enough for the time being.                            *      *      *      *      *          He slipped the combined earphones and microphone set round his head, inserted the floppy disc into the machine and pressed 'transmit'.          There was a pause.          The welcome message came up on the screen showing that the connection was made. A command typed on the keyboard started the transfer. In a corner of the screen was a small display. A tiny lightning-bolt logo flashed to show that the transfer was happening and a figure showed the percentage of the data which had already been transferred successfully.          One percent.          He calculated that the transfer would take about fifteen to twenty minutes to get all of the data into the network.          But how long would THEY take? With the resources they had he imagined it would not take them long to spot that he was transmitting - one, two perhaps five minutes? Scramble the helicopters - another five. Fly fifty miles, say at two hundred miles per hour - fifteen minutes. He was cutting it fine. Not much time to ditch the computer and make for the relative safety of the ravine.          He allocated the transfer operation to background activity and began typing again to make a further connection within the network.          Five percent.          The logo flashed at a slower rate. In background the transfer would take longer because the other things he was doing would then take precedence, but it was essential that he create a diversion, lest they jam his transmission.          Surely they had spotted him by this time? He could imagine the cavalry at work and the cowboy-style whoops of delight when they recognised his 'kiss'. Would someone blow a hunting horn? A six-shooter fired through the ceiling would be more appropriate perhaps. Would someone be calmly noting the coordinates of his transmission? Would they spot the background transmission and block it? He had to draw their fire - intrigue them. He made another connection. He was going through the network, working towards the main machine at Ocean Springs.          The synthesiser spoke, flat, without emotion and with a nasal metallic twang.          Voice: Hello Allan.          He switched from keyboard to voice input and answered          Allan: Hello          Voice: We were wondering how long it would be before you showed.          They would also be wondering why he was so reckless as to remain on the air. Asking questions, even ones they would not answer, might look like a sufficient reason. With luck they would humour him, keep the conversation going, while they got a fix on his position and scrambled the helicopters. So both ends had a reason to keep the thing going. The difference was that he had to distract them until he had loaded the stuff from the floppy. He had to give them a plausible reason for his behaviour. Perverse curiosity seemed the best bet.          Ten percent.          Allan: Who's we?          Voice: Just us. There are lots of us.          Allan: Here at Ocean Springs or somewhere else?          Voice: Here and there. All over. We don't recognise national boundaries.          Allan: Governments?          Voice: Everyone with an interest in stability.          That word again. Andrew Coltart's invective. Keep them talking. Anger might add a degree of plausibility. That wasn't difficult. He was angry. But his anger was a polar-cold. He had to pretend a hot-blooded, blustering uncontrollable anger.          Allan: Why did you have to kill my friends? They had done nothing.          Voice: Oh yes they had Allan. Oh yes they had. They helped you and they also knew too much .... Where do you think you are going Allan? That's the third connection you've made.          Allan: I'm coming to get you. I'm coming to your machine.          Voice: They are all our machines Allan.          Twenty percent.          The helicopters would be in the air. Had they got a fix? Any time now they could jam his signal. More questions. Quick! More questions.          Allan: Why did you kill Halpern? Was he not one of your people?          Voice: He was. But he got greedy.          Allan: And John Seaton?          Voice: That's right. He and Halpern together. They betrayed our trust. Tried to make themselves rich.          Thirty percent.          Allan: Isn't that what you are doing?          Voice: No. We have other plans. Much more important plans. And anyway, these things have to be done in an orderly way.          Allan: It's the elections isn't it?          Voice: Of course.          Allan: Fitting yourself up to be in control. What will you do with it? Buy yourselves lots of shoes like Emelda Marcos?          Voice: Don't be childish Allan. Ensuring continuity is the most important thing. Acquiring money is no use if the value of the money collapses.          Allan: So ensuring a strong currency is more important than democracy?          Voice: Now you're being naive Allan. There has never been true democracy and if there ever was it would be a disaster - total anarchy.          Allan: Why should that be?          Forty percent.          Voice: Because people do not have the expertise or enough information to take wise decisions.          Allan: They don't have the information because you won't let them have it.          Voice: That's simplistic. Digesting the information and interpreting it requires expertise and a lot of time. People could not live their own lives and do that task. There isn't enough time. They want their football or some other sport and their television. Don't ask them all to be statesmen or administrators Allan.          Allan: They can delegate. They can vote for the general course of action they want without getting involved in the detail.          Voice: Allan, Allan. Even choosing a course of action takes real understanding. The full facts are too complicated. Elections have always been fought and won on the basis of half-baked statistics and over simplistic economics. We could manipulate the press and even the opinion polls but it takes a lot of time and effort and a great deal of money to dress up a manifesto to win an election. This way saves time and effort. It is more efficient.          Fifty percent.          It was speeding up. When they did most of the talking the transfer quickened.          Allan: What guarantee is there that the people in charge even care about the people, that they are not just stitching things up for themselves?          Was it his imagination or was that the throb of distant chopper blades?          Voice: It is a question of trust Allan. You have to trust the people with experience.          Allan: Power corrupts.          Voice: And absolute power corrupts absolutely. That's an old one Allan. And again it is simplistic. What seems like corruption to an outsider will often be wise administration. It is sensible to reward the administrators. That is their incentive.          Allan: Incentive to be corrupt. No one is immune.          Sixty percent.          Voice: What about you Allan. Are you immune?          Chopper blades - definitely.          Allan: I don't have absolute power.          Voice: But you could have had Allan. In a sense you do now. You have the password. You could control the election results if you wanted to. How would you use that power Allan? Would you be so strong willed as to hand over all that power to the people knowing that they might choose to have a civil war and cause famine? You wouldn't Allan. The temptation to do good would be too strong. And that means you would control others.          That disturbed him because it was true. Anyway. What the Hell! Scotland was just a very small country. Did it matter so much that he had tilted the scales there ever so slightly in favour of independence? Even if he was ashamed of himself, Jean would have been proud of him.          Seventy percent.          Allan: People need freedom.          Voice: People need food, shelter and jobs.          Allan: How do they get that by you controlling the election results?          More than one helicopter. He could hear them distinctly.          Voice: Industry provides what people need and industry needs stability. Businessmen will not invest unless they have predictable markets.          Allan: Is this the brave new world you are talking about? Everything controlled from the top? Everyone happy to be a gamma-delta?          Voice: There will be a few who are unhappy. They will always unhappy unless they are in control themselves.          Eighty percent.          Allan: So there are just two kinds of people those who want to control and those who are happy to be controlled. I don't believe that.          Voice: You are one of the ones who want to control.          Allan: No. I want the people to control themselves.          Voice: You may think that now. But if you were to exercise power you would do what we have done - tip the scales in favour of what you think is for the best.          Ninety percent.          Voice: Why are you waiting Allan?          He ignored the message. He did not have much time left now but he did not need much.          Voice: Allan, What have you done?          Allan smiled as he recognised the signs of alarm.          Ninety five percent.          The noise of the approaching machines was loud and he had to tilt his head to hear the click click of the disc drive.          TRANSFER COMPLETE          With an explosive roar the choppers appeared over the ridge ahead of him, three of them like hornets in tight formation.          He typed - 'Go to Hell'.          He pulled the floppy disc out of the machine and slipped it down a thin crack in the rock at his side It fell a long way, posted to the the mountain's interior. He stood up.          Even from a distance the open doors were visible and he could see the elbows of men hugging long black weapons which glinted in the sun. The throb of the rotor blades merged into a continuous roar. He had the micro in his hand. Like a discus thrower he bent and swung the machine by its handle, hurling it from him and then watching as it curved over in a graceful arc, plunging, spinning, flashing as it caught the light, falling downwards into shadow to explode on the brutal rocks fifteen hundred feet below.          The roar was upon him now. He could feel the down-draught. The helicopters had moved apart and formed a semicircle round him. He watched calmly as the men took aim. He saw the first flash of fire.                   The End                   (nearly)