Finding a place to lay low until nightfall? That was my new plan.
Farms were good in that regard. If I found a farm that had a few outbuildings, odds were I could slip into one and find a hiding place, maybe in a barn, buried under some hay, and spend a good portion of the afternoon and night all sacked out there, unconscious, and wake up around midnight. Under cover of darkness, I could start moving again, less worried about getting spotted out in the countryside because almost everybody would be asleep at that hour. I could cruise through the fields in the (hopefully lack of) moonlight, and get my ass heading on toward the next destination.
Which I had yet to pick out. Because I needed to try and make plans again.
Cresting the next hill, I found another of the seemingly endless farms out here in the countryside. This one didn’t seem to be in production, the fields filled with hay—which, I suppose, was a kind of production, but not the kind you had to assiduously watch and care for, necessarily—and otherwise a little overgrown.
The barn was old and rickety, and next to it was another squarish building, what we in the midwest would have called a pole shed. This one had a wide bay door that was open, and inside I could see it was set up like an auto shop, with a car inside. There was a mechanic standing outside, smoking a cigarette and facing the other way. He was just standing there, minding his own business, about a hundred and fifty yards away. And playing on his phone.
I came creeping down out of the hills, taking a dogleg path around so I could approach from behind the building. It was getting late in the day, my run and swim having burned most of it. I estimated the sun wouldn’t set for hours yet, but here I’d found a nice little set of buildings, and an automotive shop would be an ideal place to hide for the night, especially if this guy were to knock off soon and call it a day.
As though someone was sensing my thoughts, I heard someone call, “Angus!” from the farmhouse, and I reached the cover of the back of the automotive shop just as he started to head in. I couldn’t see him, hunkering down in the shadow of the building, long grass tickling at me where I crouched, but I could hear his footsteps as he headed toward the house.
“What is it?” he asked as he opened the door and let it slam behind him.
“Did ye hear from Mactaggart?” a female voice asked him, muffled by the fact that there were now house walls and an automotive shop between us.
“Nae,” he said. “Did he call?”
“Aye. Said he’d been trying to reach ye for hours.”
“Did he call the shop?”
“I don’t know. Just he’s been trying to reach you.”
“I bet he called my mobile, the daft prick. He should know I can’t hear it when I’m working.”
“Aye, he’s a bit thick. But you should call him back.”
A bit more disgruntled: “Aye. Tomorrow, though.”
She seemed to perk up, this unseen woman. “Oh? Are you done for the night, then?”
A pause, then he answered. “Aye. I want to see what happens next on Stranger Things.”
“If we hurry—” she sounded hopeful “—we could squeeze in an episode before Great British Bakeoff.”
“That’s what I was thinking, too.” He seemed enthusiastic. “Let me lock up the shop.” I heard something else, and it took me a second to realize it was kissing. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
More kissing. Yeesh. Get a farm, you two.
This seemed like my chance. I darted around the building and into the automotive shop. There was a big under bay beneath the car that was parked within. The car wasn’t lifted up at all, no jack or hydraulic lift, so it seemed like maybe Angus just did all his work underneath. I spied stairs going down in the corner, and I headed for them, darting down quickly, pausing a couple steps beneath the start and just sitting there, waiting.
It actually took a few minutes before the guy came in. He was humming, and I got a feeling he was a pretty happy fellow. I listened to his hum morph effortlessly into a whistle, and couldn’t help breaking into a smile myself. He had a fun night ahead of him, watching a TV show he liked next to a woman he loved.
Must be nice.
The door of the shop clanged shut a second after the lights went out, throwing me into darkness. A few high windows cast a little grey light over me. The smell of oil was thick in the air, stronger beneath the car where I suspect an oil change had actually been in progress before he’d decided to call it a day for some Netflix and chill time. I waited a few seconds before moving, until I could no longer hear him whistling, and until I heard the door to the farmhouse slam.
Finally, I was alone in the dark.
I scouted the pit beneath the car first. It was dark, but I could see well enough to notice the vat of oil. I’d need to avoid that, but otherwise the pit seemed like the place to settle down for a nap when the time came. It was nice and dark, even compared to the rest of the shadowy shop, and it was under enough cover that an IR scope would have a hell of a time picking up one human body heat signature under all that concrete and the chassis of the fairly large farm truck that was on the rack above.
I crept up the stairs, figuring there was no point in being loud. There was a fridge in the corner, and I immediately headed toward it as though it contained the secret of life. Which it sorta did, because I found a few beers, something called Irn Bru, which came in a can and looked like a beer also, or maybe an energy drink.
No food, though.
I checked a cabinet just to the side of the fridge, and jackpot. Terrible-for-you snacks were stockpiled here like some brilliant ant had seriously readied himself for winter, a wise precaution in Scotland given the length of those suckers. I busted into them like they were food and I was a starving person—both true things, because I hadn’t really eaten since John’s house earlier today, and not very well.
Cracking open an Irn Bru, I took a sniff and decided, yeah, this was probably an energy drink of some sort. I mentally flipped a coin and decided to pass on it for now, figuring the potential caffeine wasn’t worth the risk. I was going to have enough trouble sleeping as it was; no need to compound the problem.
Instead I chugged a different soda to rehydrate, then found a sink and drank straight from the tap. I didn’t want to make enough of a mess to get the mechanic thinking someone had been in here, so I carefully cleaned up after myself, leaving the Irn Bru out, fizzling quietly on the bench; I’d chug it before I headed out later tonight. Everything else I put in the trash can, taking care to try and bury the food wrappers under other stuff so it wouldn’t be blatantly obvious someone had pigged out in this guy’s stash.
Cleanup done, I started looking around the quiet, hazy shop for the phone the mechanic had mentioned earlier. I found it on the wall, and dialed that number I’d memorized for Mr. Nils. I waited a few seconds, hoping that I hadn’t messed up the dial as I always seemed to here in the UK, but within a few seconds, it started to ring.
“Hello?” a voice answered on the other side. No familiarity now, which would have been irksome under normal conditions.
“It’s me,” I said, still avoiding saying my name, just in case the wired UK telecom system was set up for easy listening. Hopefully the NSA or whoever had tipped off the military types that showed up at the airfield weren’t tapped into it. That left open the possibility that Rose was, but I had no time to worry about that right now.
“Ah, yes,” Mr. Nils said coolly. “I was wondering when I would hear from you.”
“The answer is now,” I said. “Listen—I need you to place an order for me with a different supplier. Whoever you want to use, whatever it takes, within reason. I mean, I don’t want you to give away the whole—”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Mr. Nils said quietly. “Your account has been locked.”