Doctor Who_ Cat's Cradle_ Warhead - Andrew Cartmel [49]
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The tombs on the island were still visible, but as she watched they were disappearing against the hillsides in the gloom. Using her flashlight Ace took the black envelope from her rucksack. The word Ace glowed on it, milky and luminous. She opened the envelope and had a final look at the map the Doctor had provided. Then she read his instructions again, a single page of his scratchy fountain‐pen handwriting. On the sheet the Doctor described the general disposition of the enemy encampment, their equipment, including weaponry and a generator, and the probable numbers of personnel. Ace read the last paragraph several times then folded the sheet and put it back with the maps in a waterproof plastic case. Then she studied the drawing the Doctor had made. It showed what Ace had come to think of as the object, with approximate details of its size written beside the drawing. She folded the drawing and put it with the maps.
One of the Kurds had a radio playing, music quietly drifting out over the silent water. The mercenaries made no attempt to shade their lights or stay out of view, except when they were handling weapons. From the shore or a passing vessel their yacht would look like any other pleasure boat breaking its journey before taking a lazy route among the islands.
They were picking up a UN armed forces radio transmission out of Izmir, broadcasting to the American marines in the Mediterranean and Aegean. It was Bo Didley playing ‘Mona’. Ace changed into a black long‐sleeved shirt and a combat vest. She remembered the first time she’d heard the song, played on scratchy vinyl in a tiny hot room in a boys’ college. Years ago and on the other side of the world. Her boots on the floor heavy with mud beside the boy’s. His older brother had been in the Bromley Contingent. Gas fire on high and the door locked.
She checked the Python for the fourth time, unloading and reloading bullets as she listened to the ghostly harmonics of Bo Didley’s guitar. This riff had first been played in a studio in Chicago in 1954, travelling out through the pickup of an electric guitar, coded as phantom patterns on magnetic tape, decoded through loudspeakers and radio towers. The song she listened to was coming at her out of the past, out of a tobacco‐stained room half a century away. In a sense it was still the original signal, still coming out of that box‐shaped guitar with the Gretsch neck in Chicago in 1954, still travelling. The sound waves had moved on spreading outwards but the electronic signal still propagated, along a less predictable route.
Ace watched the red dot of a burning cigarette travelling back and forth amongst the Kurds. Dfewar came forward holding the stub of it between his fingers, politely offering it to Ace. Ace bobbed her head, lifting her chin. For the first few days in the country she had still been shaking her head in response to questions. In Turkey that meant Yes. It was a common mistake which had almost led to some difficult situations for Ace when she’d been haggling with the Cypriot twins for the software.
Dfewar shrugged and showed her his wristwatch. When he pressed a stud on the side the animated analogue hands blurred for a moment and displayed a new time. Dfewar released the stud and the hands on the watch reverted to their old position. He walked back to his men, still holding the cigarette. Ace checked her own watch. They would go in and land on the island in an hour’s time.
The radio played another song by Bo Didley, then another. The armed forces DJ seemed to have fallen asleep. The CD kept spinning on its transport, decoded by laser, sending its data out from a radio control room