62

I drove up to the Forest, once again following the path of the bomber. This time, though, I knew where I was headed.

I parked under the old redwoods. Vaughn’s house was dark from this side, but I heard voices. Vaughn and -Freddie.

I walked round to the back of the house, overlooking the Forest.

‘Stop,’ Vaughn said, laying down his end of what looked like a coffin. They were halfway up the steps to the -terrace.

‘Who’s there?’ Freddie asked. He was at the bottom of the steps, and had the view up towards the house. He had a bundle of silk over his shoulder. A parachute.

‘Looks like you could use a hand,’ I said, stepping out of the shadows of the house.

*

We laid the casket on the terrace. It was metal. Its corners were rounded, and it had several loops on the upper edge. Each loop was connected to a metal clip, and each metal clip was fastened to a length of rope. Some kind of harness. The ropes had been cut several feet from the ends.

The underside of the coffin was crusted with sand, from where it had bedded itself into the ground.

‘Father Christmas come early?’ I asked, as Freddie busied himself undoing the clasps. He looked like he knew what he was doing.

‘Gift from the gods,’ he said, looking up at the dark sky.

Freddie busied himself unbuckling a set of clasps along the side of the coffin, giving a grunt of effort with each one. It was well engineered. Designed to withstand a hard landing without springing open.

‘You had the Leckies killed,’ I said to Vaughn.

‘What’s it to you?’ he replied.

‘She was my first teacher,’ I said. ‘A long time ago. And I liked her.’

‘I hated my teachers,’ Vaughn said.

‘Does that tell us more about them, or about you?’ I asked.

Freddie looked up at us, but kept going with his work. He unclipped the last fastener, and the lid of the coffin rose slightly. It had been tightly packed.

Freddie pulled open the lid with a flourish. He picked up his oil lamp so we could see what was inside.

‘What do you think?’ he asked.

‘I think Vaughn owes me an explanation,’ I said.

‘I thought you were with us,’ Vaughn said. ‘All that stuff about turning double agent. But you keep on about the blasted Leckies. Makes a man think you’re not on his side.’

The coffin lay open like a clamshell. Both sides were full. The top half was guns. There must have been a dozen -automatic weapons, packed head to toe like sardines in a can. I didn’t recognise them. That in itself wasn’t remarkable – it had been sixteen years since I’d left the army. A lot had changed. But I didn’t think these guns had come from one of our factories. Next to the guns were a set of grey, metal canisters, printed with dense text that I couldn’t read. -Ammunition, I assumed.

The bottom half was covered with canvas, kept in place with studs. A couple of the studs were opened, and Freddie grabbed the canvas and pulled it up. The rest of the studs popped loose, and Freddie peeled the canvas back. Underneath, the coffin was packed with what looked like cloth-wrapped bricks. Each one was the size of a small bag of flour. Freddie took one out and threw it to me. I caught it. It was a dense material with a slight give. It made a -crinkling sound as I squeezed it. I peeled back the cloth. -Inside the cloth was another wrapper made up of some kind of waxed paper. I ripped the paper. It was what I’d -expected. Yellow putty. TNT.

‘What’s this lot for?’ I asked. Safer to talk about guns and explosives than about the Leckies.

‘The fight for peace,’ Vaughn said.

‘You could make a fair amount of peace with that lot,’ I said.