Read Online Exposure by Jane Harvey-Berrick - Free Book Online

sunshine. She really hoped she hadn’t dribbled.
    “Good morning!”
    His blue eyes, amused and unsympathetic were turned towards her.
    “Are we there yet?” she croaked.
    She regretted the words as soon as they tumbled from her mouth: she sounded like a petulant child.
    “Just beginning to make the descent,” he replied.
    Helene didn’t think it would be much of a descent. They were already so low they were practically mowing the grass.
    “Just making sure I keep us out of radar sight,” he said, answering the unspoken question.
    “Oh.”
    He lifted the nose of the plane slightly and they rose up over a low range of hills, plunging down the other side into a wide U-shaped valley sculpted by ancient glaciers.
    Helene felt as if she’d slipped out of time. It wouldn’t have surprised her to see giant, Jurassic ferns, or a herd of brontosaurus drinking from the lake.
    But the valley was lifeless: there wasn’t a single building, stone wall or even a lost sheep: just miles of short grass, fringed by pink heather.
    The lake glimmered in the morning light, a natural reservoir, banked in by a terminal moraine that also hid the valley and made it inaccessible by road. Which, she reasoned, was probably why he’d chosen it.
    The plane sank lower until the wheels were skimming over the ground and they landed with a soft thump. They bumped along the rough turf and Charlie throttled back. At last the plane came to a rest and he turned off the engine.
    The sudden silence was overwhelming.
    Helene pulled off her headphones and drank in the deep peace. She peered out of the Perspex screen, gazing around at the scenery until her eyes came to rest on his.
    “It’s beautiful,” she said.
    “Thank you.”
    She felt the colour begin to rise in her cheeks again so she was grateful when he opened his door and jumped out.
    Stiff-legged, Helene followed him, half falling out of the plane. Even so, her body was grateful for the change of position. She stretched awkwardly, trying to ignore the myriad aches and pains.
    Not bad for an old gal, she told herself.
    He threw her grab bag at her feet and pulled his own backpack out of the plane. Then he went to the storage panel in the side of the craft and fished out a heavy piece of camouflage netting.
    Without being told, Helene helped him spread it over the fuselage and wings, so it would appear hidden should anyone be searching for them by air.
    How paranoid does that sound? she wondered.
    No matter how bizarre the situation might seem to her, he clearly wasn’t taking any chances.
    Disconsolately, she heaved up her grab bag and looked around for any sort of shelter. Charlie had headed off down the valley so Helene stumbled after him, keeping one eye on his retreating back, and one on the uneven carpet of heather beneath her feet. Just when she felt miserable enough to ask him where they were going, an old crofter’s cottage separated itself from the piles of rocks that littered the valley floor. It looked derelict and any hopes she’d begun to hold of having a hot shower seemed dashed. On the other hand, she’d settle for a bed of bracken and a tin of beans on a camp fire right now. The only food she’d had in the last 24 hours had been the sausage and mash at the Trevarrian pub.
    My God! Was that really only 20 hours ago?
    But the croft was merely the set dressing for something extraordinary.
    Charlie moved a piece of old sacking in the gloom of the croft’s interior, and from behind it Helene could see the soft blue light of an electronic keypad.
    Charlie tapped in some numbers and a thick steel door slid open. He disappeared downwards as if into a well, footsteps producing a hollow ringing from the metal ladder.
    She followed him, a sense of wonder overwhelming her. He flicked on a light switch and a compact, modern, well-fitted suite was revealed inside something that looked and felt like a submarine.
    “Good grief! I didn’t think places like this really existed. Did you