Lie of the Land by Michael F. Russell

hills. ‘Rats always fucking survive.’
    He jumped the ditch and started walking at a right angle to the road, ignored by the crowd, up the green slopes that rose towards the heather and hilltops of bare rock. He left the crying and silence behind.
    Late in the afternoon he returned, exhausted, to the hotel, his feet soaking, clothes and hands filthy, knuckle grazed from a fall. George was right about the conifer forest though: you couldn’t really go through it because the trees were so densely packed. He was tired, worn out, limbs aching as he flopped onto the couch in the residents’ lounge. Burned it off, he had. But the terror would be back. Even now he could feel it around his stomach, coils tightening. He lay there, dozed, imagined; tried to feel lucky. A car pulled up outside. Who was driving? He heard the hotel door open.
    Footsteps. Silence.
    Still lying on the couch, Carl opened his eyes, aware he was being watched. It was Brindley.
    â€˜I’ve been looking for you,’ he said, sitting down in a leather chair.
    Carl turned away, faced the back of the couch. He just wanted to go to sleep, but his curiosity got the better of him.
    â€˜How did you get here, Mr Brindley? To Inverlair, I mean.’ His voice was level, expressionless.
    The leather chair creaked.
    â€˜With great difficulty. Friends of mine, they tried to get me to go with them, on their boat.’
    â€˜Friends?’ Carl sat up. Sleep could wait.
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜So where are they now?’
    Brindley sighed. ‘West coast of Ireland, I hope. That’s where they were headed. SCOPE was being trialled in Dublin – they had their own Civil Contingencies Secretariat – and down the east coast, and in the north, but parts of the west coast should be okay, I think.’
    Carl turned to face Brindley. ‘So you did manage to persuade at least some people that SCOPE was a danger?’
    â€˜Yes, close friends, my sister and . . .’
    â€˜That all?’
    Brindley narrowed his eyes. ‘Yes.’
    â€˜So why didn’t you go with them, these friends of yours?’ Carl sat up on the sofa. ‘And why exactly did you choose to bring me up here?’
    â€˜To save you, I suppose.’
    â€˜Save me?’
    â€˜Yes. Who else would follow a lead connected to SCOPE all the way up here? It was your job.’
    That was something Carl didn’t want to think about. Instead of thinking he could sleep, or walk. Being hungover didn’t helpmatters, made it harder for him to judge the truth of what he was being told. It had been his job to sniff around ugly secrets such as SCOPE. Exposing that kind of crap was supposed to be a calling, a vocation; at least that’s what he’d believed. Maybe he’d failed to do his job properly. If there had been any saving to be done, he should have been the one doing it, in banner headlines over an exposé. But nothing like that had been possible.
    â€˜Why didn’t you try to stop it?’
    Brindley folded his arms, his eyes flashing. ‘What the fuck are you talking about? You don’t think I tried to stop this?’ He jabbed a finger at Carl. ‘You must have known that SCOPE was more than a communications system. You knew that. You must have. You said you had the full spec – you mentioned bioactive frequencies for Christ’s sake in one of your pieces. You must have known, at least suspected . . . you must have talked to Cobhill or Haarland or one of these guys.’
    Carl heaved himself off the couch, anger rising in him. ‘I couldn’t have stopped this any more than you.’
    Silence.
    The hint of a smile played around Brindley’s thin lips. ‘You think I was any less impotent than you?’
    Carl didn’t answer. He headed upstairs without looking back.
    â€¢
    Shadow marked the deepening evening, sun sinking behind the northern headland. Carl got up to sit by the window and