Yesterday's Spy by Len Deighton Page B

Charlie.’
    There was a flash of lightning and a prolonged rumble of thunder.
    Pina mumbled a prayer into my shirt-front. I held her tight, but I didn’t relax. From here I could see right down to the puddles in the bottom of the quarry. It was a spooky place for me, its vast space brimful of memories and fears. In the war I’d hidden here, listening to the barking of the search dogs, and the whistles of the Feldgendarmerie as they came, shoulder to shoulder, across these very fields. Pina clutched my hand, and she felt there the anxious sweat that my memories provoked.
    â€˜But where?’ she said. ‘Where can we go?’ Again, lightning lit up the underside of the dark clouds, and a perfect disc of its blue light flashed from the bracken a few yards in front of me. Violently I pushed Pina to the ground, and threw myself down into firing position. With one hand I pushed my spectacles against my face and capped one eye. With the other hand I put the pistol’s foresight near the place where I’d seen the glint of reflected light. I pulled the trigger three times.
    The sound of the gunfire was reflected off the sloping ground: three loud bangs, and the echo of them came rolling back from the far side of the quarry. Pina crawled nearer. ‘Keep down,’ I said.
    â€˜This grass! I’m soaked,’ she complained.
    â€˜It’s a sniperscope, a perfect disc of light. It must have been sighted on us.’
    I rolled over enough to get some bullets from my pocket and push them into the chamber. Then I picked up the empty cases and wrapped them in my handkerchief. There was no point in trying to be clever about powder traces – the bullet holes in my pocket would be enough.
    â€˜They will try to get to the car,’ said Pina. ‘If you could get to that bracken you’d shoot anyone who tried to get down to the track where the car is.’
    â€˜You’re riding the wrong sideshow,’ I growled. ‘I’m selling tickets for the tunnel of love.’
    â€˜You’re going to let them take the car?’
    â€˜I’ll check their oil, and polish the windscreen for them.’
    Pina gave that sort of whistle that well-bred French ladies resort to when they want to swear. It was then that the Negro driver broke cover and went racing off down the slope towards the main road. If there was more than one man, this had to be the moment to rush them. I jumped up and ran as fast as I could to where I’d seen the glint of light. Pina followed me.
    â€˜I don’t understand,’ she said.
    I said nothing; I didn’t understand, either. There was no sniperscope, no high-powered rifle, no lethal weapons at all. The lightning had reflected from the front element of a zoom-lens fitted to a Beaulieu 16 mm movie camera. I fidgeted with the magazine until I got it open and then I pulled the grey film out into the daylight. A considerable footage had passed through the film-gate but the bulk of it was in the top magazine. Whatever it was intended to film had not yet happened.
    I unlatched the camera from its pan and tilt head, and lifted it on to my shoulder. Then, in some irrational fit of destructive anger, I pitched the valuable movie camera over the side of the quarry. It hit an outcrop and bounced high into the air, spilling lenses and sprockets and trailing a long tail of film. It bounced a second time and then fell out of sight before landing with a thud.
    Pina gave me the big pistol she had used. ‘It’s his,’ she said, indicating the body of the dark-skinned man, ‘I got it away from him.’ After wiping it carefully, I threw it into the wooden hut. There was a new plastic-topped table there and two kitchen chairs. Cigarette ends, pieces of loaf and the remains of hard-boiled egg littered the table top, and a length of rope was on the floor. ‘I tricked him,’ said Pina. ‘They had me tied up at first.’
    â€˜Go and wait