Narrow Escape (A Spider Shepherd short story) Read Online Free PDF

whistling. You will say “The pigeons are back in the loft”, and he will reply “But my cat will chase them”. Got that?’
     Shepherd nodded, impassive. Giving runners embarrassing passwords to say was just another way of taking them out of their comfort zone. ‘That’s it?’ he said.
    The agent nodded. ‘But obviously you can’t study your map here. You have to leave the area of the RV before you can do so.’
     Shepherd turned on his heel and left the barn without another word. He made his way back up the hillside to the site of his OP and then unbuttoned his shirt and pulled out his map. The moon was in its final quarter and, unlike the previous night, there were enough cloud breaks overhead for him to read his map by its light. He stifled an inward groan at the amount of ground he still had to cover. He took a direction of march and then replaced the map next to his skin and set out. He kept moving throughout the remainder of the night and almost all the day that followed. Speed marching, and running wherever the ground allowed him to do so, he crossed several more steep-sided valleys before he at last reached the wood he was seeking just at last light.
    A rough forest track, newly marked with tyre treads, led into the wood, but he avoided that, moving around the perimeter of the wood and then making his way in through the trees. The wood was of conifers mixed with splintered mountain oak A tangle of fallen trees, uprooted in winter storms, fallen branches and dense undergrowth and brambles made his progress painfully slow.
     Had time not been an issue, he would have set up an OP as usual, remaining in cover and observing the site of the RV until he was sure it was safe. But he no longer had the luxury of time and with night falling he knew that it would take him a long while to extricate himself from the wood and get back onto the moors. He figured there was only a 24-hour window in which to reach the last RV. If he arrived there after that time, he would find the RV deserted and he would be deemed to have failed Continuation at the very last stage and would be RTUed. He had no way of knowing what might be waiting for him in the wood, but he felt that he simply had to press ahead and take his chances, even though he was abandoning all the standard operating procedures that were designed to keep him safe.
     He found the path he was seeking in the heart of the wood. As he stepped out onto it, he saw a movement, a dark figure emerging from behind a tree to his left. As he approached, to his surprise, Shepherd made out the bulky figure of Brummie F, who stopped a few yards from him. Shepherd’s anxiety and impatience made him careless. ‘Why the fuck are you not whistling?’ he said.
    Brummie F smiled and then his gaze switched to look past Shepherd’s shoulder. There was a faint sound behind him and as he turned, something hard smashed against the back of his head and he slumped to the ground, semi-conscious. He was dimly aware of a set of footsteps moving away, and his hands and feet being bound with cable ties and a hood pulled over his head. Then one of his captors gave a piercing whistle and at once Shepherd heard an engine start nearby and saw the glow of headlights through the cloth of his hood. He realised that the hood was not sacking, but a fine-woven cloth, and even in his dazed state he remembered The Bosun’s warning about water-boarding. He managed to suck a bit of the fabric into his mouth and began working it between his teeth, trying to bite a small hole through it.
    He was picked up, carried through the wood and then thrown into the back of a van. The door slammed and a moment later, the van set off. He felt it slipping and sliding, struggling for grip in the mud and leaf litter, then accelerating away as it reached the gravel track at the edge of the wood. They drove for no more than a couple of miles before he felt the van descending a steep slope and the engine note changed as the