Alex Archer Rogue Angel 06 The Lost Scrolls

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appeared, showing an angular mass of land narrowing into the northeast,
breaking into a trickle of islands, as if squeezed from a cake froster with a
tendency to drip. A red cross showed in the water above and to the left of the
last island.
"We've our latitude and longitude. Now let's see what's there."
The map shrank and moved to the left of the screen. A text box appeared, and
next to it the image of what appeared to be a Cubist mountain rising from the
sea. The box showed the bolded words, Claidheamh Mór B.
"Cl cl whoa," Tex said. He looked at Annja, who shook her head.
"Sorry. I don't do Gaelic."
"Ah, but you should," said Gannet. "Just say it Claymore B, and you'll not be
far off. That's what it means." He clicked some more at his keys. "Abandoned
1998. Bought in 2002 by a then newly formed oil consortium called Euro Petro."
"I've heard of them," Annja said. "I've seen their commercials."
Tex nodded. "I don't know about you," he said, "but something about that perky
self-righteousness about how environmentally and socially conscious they are
just goes right down my spine like a cheese grater."
"Me, too."
"Especially since it's all a sham," Gannet said cheerfully. "They deserve the
name pirates far more than our lot."
"What do you mean?" Annja asked. "I thought the European Union was the
majority owner."
"And that makes a difference how?" Gannet asked. "Most of the world's known
oil reserves are owned by government companies. All just a matter of what you
call the thieves in charge, innit?"
Phil Dirt came up and laid a meaty ring-laden hand on his shoulder. "Noble
work, boy," he said in his deep voice. "But you've got to do something about
that uncontrollable cynicism about government. That's not what anarchy's all
about."
"That's an airplane?" Annja asked.
"Sure is," Tex said with satisfaction. He was holding his Stetson on his head
against the brisk salt wind with one hand. "An ultralight. Hand-built with
love. And no small measure of genius."
"Uh-huh," she said, shading her eyes against the morning glare. "Just one
question."
"What's that?"
"Where do you put the key to wind it up?"
The aircraft Annja had a hard time thinking of it as an airplane whined
past them down the narrow strip. It didn't look much like an airplane. It had
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a big pod-shaped cockpit enclosed in wraparound glass, a single fuselage and a
high wing. But where it parted company with real airplanes, to Annja's mind,
apart from being the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, was that it kept its
propeller at the rear of its high-mounted wing. That, she thought, was just
wrong.
She could see it well deserved its moniker of ultralight, and suspected that
was why, after a very short landing run, it slowed and turned to taxi back
toward them at the pace of a brisk walk. Annja noted the landing strip was
very short indeed. For all its picturesque desolateness and quaint sense of
ends-of-the-earth isolation, on the northerly Orkney Island of Papa Westray
there wasn't room for anything else.
"How you feelin'?" Tex asked.
"I feel as if I'm filled with ants," she told him, "and an earthquake just hit
the mound."
He nodded. "I hear you. We got plenty to do," he said. "It'll take your mind
off worrying."
"Did I ever tell you how much I hate positive thinking?" Annja said. He only
laughed at her.
The little craft came whining up to them. Annja tried hard not to think about
mosquitoes. It stopped as a young woman in coveralls and a ball cap came
dashing out from the airfield shack to stick fat wooden wedges under its
tricycle landing gear. A door opened beneath the wing and a short man with
short white hair, a snowy mustache and aviator shades popped out.
"Tex!" he exclaimed. He strutted forward, sticking out his hand.
"Leo!" Tex shook, and then they embraced briefly. Either the little English
aviator was accustomed to such typically American intimacy or he faked it
well.
He turned to the young woman. "Thank you much, my dear," he said. She nodded,
grinned and scampered back inside.
"Annja," Tex said, "I'd like you to meet my old buddy, Leo." He smiled and
spoke with great enthusiasm, as if reunited with his very best friend after
decades. From spending a couple of days in his company Annja guessed he'd
display the same enthusiasm if he was meeting a stranger for the first time.
And it would be, so far as she could tell, entirely genuine, each and every
time. "Leo, Annja Creed."
"A pleasure," she said, shaking his dry hand. It felt as if he could crack
walnuts with it, although his touch was no more than a firm, quick squeeze.
"My pleasure, Ms. Creed."
He turned away with a look close to genuine alarm on his face. "My soul, who
are these people? Did a caravan of travelers somehow make their way out here
to Papa Westray?"
"These people" were Phil Dirt, Vicious Suze, Lightnin' Rod and Ob Noxious.
"Travelers," Annja knew, was what the British called Gypsies. The motley bunch
were trotting out from the little cluster of low structures beside the
airfield toting bulging knapsacks and rolls of blue groundsheets. Despite the
punk names, they were dressed more in the fashion of long-leftover hippies.
Annja surmised that punk had in the end just been a phase for them. Their rest
state was perpetually the Summer of Love.
"So you're the intrepid aviator," Phil Dirt boomed in his best Shakespearean
baritone, rolling forward with hand extended.
Leo shook his hand with good if bewildered grace. "I say," he said, "what are
your people doing?"
"Let's go inside," Tex said, taking the pilot by the shoulder and tugging him
gently toward the buildings. "Leo designed and built this aircraft himself,
Annja. He's a wizard that way. Total legend in the aviation world. Test-flew
England's first supersonic bomber in the early sixties. Even did a stint at
Edwards."
"But my Ariel " Leo said.
Rod and Ob were unrolling the shiny blue tarps around the aircraft and
weighting them down with head-sized chunks of rock. Kneeling, Suze was
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unpacking big rolls of masking tape and cans of spray paint. Phil's job seemed
to be to shake the cans to make sure they rattled properly.
"She'll be fine, Leo, just fine. The paint'll wash right off. And if it [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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