Capital Falling | Book 4 | Sever Winkless, Lance (most popular ebook readers TXT) 📖

“If that will be all, Major? I don’t want the girls catching a chill,” Catherine asks, already edging back towards the cottage.

“When you speak to Captain Richards, please ask him to phone Lieutenant Winters immediately, Ms Hamilton,” Rees asks defeated.

“Of course, Major,” Catherine replies and goes back inside the cottage, ushering the girls in front of her.

The unannounced visitors are unceremoniously left stranded on the grass in front of the cottage, wondering what to do with themselves now.

“Back on board,” Rees orders defeated, for now.

Winters climbs back aboard leaving Rees to give his orders to the pilots. He presumes that Rees must be ordering them to fly them back to base. What else is there to do? Winters thinks. It was a close-run thing, but in the end, Rees met with a dead-end at the cottage.

“Are we heading back to base, Sir?” Winters asks Rees when he is back on board and just before he puts his headset back on.

“We are, Lieutenant, we just need to make a quick stop first,” the Major replies cryptically before he turns to his two men in windbreakers. “Sergeant, get your gear together. You will be dropped by the edge of town; get any supplies you need and then return to the cottage. Take up a position where you can observe the cottage and report back to me what you see. Richards might not have been inside, but he could be close by. Inform me immediately if he is, understood?”

“Yes, Sir,” the older of the two men confirms as the pilot starts the engines.

“Oh, and Sergeant. Don’t take Richards for granted, he is well trained and will probably be expecting company. Don’t make a move until you have my order.”

“Yes, Sir,” the Sergeant simply says again before he and his partner reach under their seats. Both men pull out generously sized and tightly packed army issue rucksacks, having come prepared.

Winters curses himself for not anticipating Rees’s move, but he doubts it will be of much consequence. He knows Andy is not close by, but the relevance of the men’s presence is likely to change as this plays out.

Following Rees’s orders, the pilot finds a field near the edge of Salcombe and brings the helicopter in to land. The area is more than enough distance away from the cottage for the helicopters landing to go unnoticed by the occupants of the cottage.

“Keep a low profile, Sergeant,” Rees reminds the two men before they grab their gear and pop open the cabin’s door.

Chilly air and bits of grass blow into the cabin when the door is opened. The pilot doesn’t stop the helicopter’s engines while the two men disembark, jumping down onto the grass. The younger man slams the cabin’s door shut behind himself, cutting off the attack of wind and then he turns and runs, head down under the powerful, spinning rotors. As soon as the two men are clear, the pilot guns the engines and lifts the helicopter back into the air. Both the two men and the pilot are clearly well trained, as the helicopter was on the ground for no more than a minute.

Winters manages to watch the two men for a moment out of the window as the helicopter lifts off. Neither of them looks back at the helicopter as it leaves. They simply sling their rucksacks over their shoulders and march off in the direction of the town before they disappear into the darkness.

Tongues will be wagging in town, Winters thinks as the pilot flies right over the town centre, in the opposite direction to the cottage. He keeps flying in that direction for a couple of minutes before he brings the helicopter around on a new bearing, a bearing that will take them back to base.

“ETA, please?” Major Rees asks the two pilots.

“Approximately fifty minutes, Sir,” the co-pilot replies.

“Patch me through to General Cox, secure line,” Rees orders.

‘Yes, Sir,’ is the last piece of conversation Winters hears through his headset as the secure line is established with General Cox for the Major. After that, Winters’ headset goes silent, cut off from the conversation that he can see Rees having with the General, but cannot hear. That doesn’t bother Winters; he may not be privy to the conversation, but he can imagine what is being discussed. Winters takes the opportunity to close his eyes and get some rest for the remainder of the flight. He doesn’t get any sleep, but his headset cuts out a good proportion of the sound of the helicopter engines and he at least gets the chance to rest his eyes and do some thinking.

Chapter 9

Winters' eyes remain closed until he feels the pilot begin to bring the helicopter down. He isn’t sure how long Rees was talking to the General and he is pleased his headset remained silent for the entire journey. The silence gave him time to rest and to think, and it also meant there weren’t any probing questions put his way by the Major.

Ignoring Rees and his assistant next to him, who both look at Winters with disdain, Winters instead peers out of the window beside him. The light of the cabin reflecting in the window makes it difficult to see anything in the darkness outside. He leans forward and manages to block some of the cabin’s light so that he can get a partial view into the darkness.

Illuminated below are the buildings and roads of Porton Down, the top-secret and controversial, Ministry of Defence research facility. Situated just outside the town of Salisbury, it is probably the most top-secret site in the UK, both before and after the virus outbreak. Known for its chemical weapons research amongst other clandestine activities, the facility has always been a favourite source of material for ‘crackpot’ conspiracy theorists, peddling their wares on the internet. Nowadays, however, since the outbreak, those theories have moved into the mainstream media. There isn’t