Gideon's Chair

Chapter 42

The helicopter seemed to be descending , I was sat hunched on the floor my arms folded around my knees which were  bent virtually to my chest . A tiny amount of light coming from the pilot area . I kept trying to catch a glimpse of Carol , but she was positioned so as this was impossible . Not a word had been spoken throughout the flight.

I noticed on the floor near Carol a bundle of medical notes , obviously hers . How had they got her medical files . Thoughts like that were irrelevant , faced with the situation of helplessness I was in. I had to somehow survive , but from what , from whom . If these people wanted me gone , That would be it . I felt like a pinball , just cannoning around and controlled by someone else , who might flick me against the buffers or might just let me fall .Their choice .

Two men near Claudine stood and faced the door area . Claudine remained motionless sat on the floor . Her hands on her knees a crumpled blue pack of Gauloises in her hands along with a cheap disposable lighter an unlit cigarette in her mouth. There was a look of absolute coldness about her , she didn't smile or engage with the others . She showed no emotion . Her eyes were dead . Her baseball cap was by her feet her black hair scraped back off her face tied in a short ponytail. She was wearing a zip up black jacket and faded old blue jeans and some Nike Trainers. She may have just been ruthlessly efficient but that was the machine within her , her soul and thoughts were in another time and space.

She fired the lighter as a voice spoke in the darkness .

A soft bump bump as we landed .

I went to stand but the man nearest to me gestured I stay down.

The door slid open and in the doorway there appeared two men in military uniform . Two others walked past them in white medical smocks and jumped onto the helicopter and walked straight to the drips above Carol. They unhooked them from the crafts roof and held them high at arms length. The two military figures joined them and lifted the stretcher. I just managed to catch sight of Carol , still unconscious as they carried her past me.

I reached towards the stretcher , not quite touching, mouthing I love you as she was lifted off the helicopter and then she was gone into the darkness.

A figure in a dark suit appeared at the doorway and pointed at me , beckoning me towards him . I scrambled to my feet and robotically followed , jumping the two feet or so off the helicopter to the ground .

I had no feelings of anything .I was in a dream state . Terrified maybe , in shock maybe , dead maybe. Maybe one of those bullets had hit me .

I was ushered into the back seat of a  black Mercedes alongside a man in camouflage fatigues with a gun in his lap. . An identical car was positioned behind us.

Immediately the car set off . To our right glancing out of the window I saw Claudine and the unit from the helicopter walking towards another vehicle.

We were obviously at a military airfield , a line of fighter jets to our right positioned in front of hangers all with French insignia . Beyond them were two vast warehouse buildings and what looked like a control tower .

We exited the airfield by a steel double mesh gate . Two military figures hurriedly opening them as we sped through . We swung hard to the left beyond the gates immediately in convoy behind a French Police car with its lights flashing . I turned to glance through the back window . The second car was still escorting us.

The driver spoke into the rear view mirror to the man in the rear with me , who just shrugged his shoulders .

We drove on into the night and into the rain which sparkled as we past sodium lights . Lighting up districts of concrete tower blocks and graffiti emblazoned arches . Two men disappeared into the shadows hiding from view in a doorway . Desolate apocalypse like wastelands separated small blocks of apartments their windows smashed . Furniture lay strewn on the pavements . This was not the France I knew , The Paris I loved where the chic of society sipped wine and sheltered under the Pont Neuf . Lovers entwined in never ending spirals of flowing furs and swirling hair in captured moments of forever thoughts and nights that lasted for weeks .

A body lay against a doorway a pool of blood staining the broken glass and filth around it. A news sheet blew into the air , a gas pipe burned like a torch of despair as it arched perilously away from its housing. George Orwell wrote about a place like this , were people moved like vultures and preyed on each other . The strongest of the weak survive and dying is the preferred option in this state of nothing. A buffer zone of desolation .

Suddenly life became non existant .

I looked for road signs , but there were none . Small fires illuminated another area as two zombie like figures stood in the road in front of us almost defying the driver to swerve , he didn't .I covered my face and braced myself . We drove on.

The driver again looked into the mirror and in  very broken English with a strong French accent said

" Monsieur , not long now"

It wasn't a statement wishing to open up dialogue more a statement of fact.

We flashed at speed past what looked like a camp on wastelands , A group huddled in rags around a fire .They hid their faces from view as the convoy moved on.

Approximately fifteen minutes later we turned into a floodlit area at speed past two checkpoint huts. The armed guards standing aside as we passed.

We started to slow down as we approached huge steel mesh gates . They were opened by uniformed guards . Fifty yards further and another set of gates . This time maybe thirty feet high and solid . A gun tower above them. The perimeter walls as far as I could see were the same height and solid . Rolls of barbed wire sat on top of this fortress like area. As imposing as anything I had ever seen in books or in films . Where was I.

We immediately started to descend a steep incline , no more than a double car width . The procession of vehicles stopped in front of more steel gates. Solid steel supports appeared to be set into a mountainside.

The doors opened upwards  like a mouth into the mountain as if to engulf us . Two military men in black blocked our path holding machine type guns with the straps still over their shoulders. They moved aside to reveal a vast rail like tunnel . The type that had been blasted into the mountain side in Victorian times to allow railways the fastest route. Only this one didn't have rails .

We started moving into the mountain , almost as if driving into the channel tunnel , something I had done a few years earlier .

Within less than one hundred yards we stopped. The driver jumped out and stood by my door his hand on the handle .My fellow passenger got out closing his door behind him and walked to the front of the car. A middle aged man , wearing a grey suit approached the car. He was illuminated by a powerful arc light positioned above the area we had stopped. He looked very gallic , his hair swept back and a touch of arrogance about him as he dropped his cigarette to the floor stubbing it out with his highly polished brogues.

The men shook hands all then turning to look at me.

What do I do now I thought , fucking wave .

I started to panic a little . Only a few hours ago I had been with Suzannah and Carol in England with the star . Now I don't have the star , Suzannah or Carol .

Suddenly my door was opened and a hand beckoned me to leave the car.

I stood outside the car , the door opener tapped my shoulder lightly giving a follow me gesture . I did.

We walked towards a white door with a mirrored square window in the top half , through the door . Five paces in and a lift door opened in front of us. Its cold grey steel doors hissing open .WE travelled no more than one floor up into the mountain . The doors immediately opened.

A tall elegant man stood immediately in front of us . He held his hand out .

" Welcome Mr Tutbury "

My heart raced and a cold shiver ran down my spine.