Whiteout(74)

He felt he might have veered from the road. He stopped, and with his bare hands dug down into the snow.

"What now?" Nigel said bad-temperedly.

"Just a minute." Kit found frozen turf. That meant he had strayed from the paved road. But which way? He blew on his icy hands, trying to warm them. The land to his right seemed to slope up. He guessed the road was that way. He trudged a few yards in that direction, then dug down again. This time he found tarmac. "This way," he said with more confidence than he felt.

In time, the melted snow that had soaked his jeans and socks began to freeze again, so that he had ice next to his skin. When they had been walking for half an hour, he had a feeling he was going around in a circle. His sense of direction failed. On a normal night, the lights outside the house should have been visible in the distance, but tonight nothing shone through the snowfall to give him a beacon. There was no sound or smell of the sea: it might have been fifty miles away. He realized that if they got lost they would die of exposure. He felt truly frightened.

The others followed him in exhausted silence. Even Daisy stopped bitching. They were breathless and shivering, and had no energy to complain.

At last Kit sensed a deeper darkness around him. The snow seemed to fall less heavily. He almost bumped into the thick trunk of a big tree. He had reached the woods near the house. He felt so relieved that he wanted to kneel down and give thanks. From this point on, he could find the way.

As he followed the winding track through the trees, he could hear someone's teeth chattering like a drumroll. He hoped it was Daisy.

He had lost all feeling in his fingers and toes, but he could still move his legs. The snow was not quite so thick on the ground, here in the shclter of the trees, and he was able to walk faster. A faint glow ahead told him he was approaching the lights of the house. At last he emerged from

the woods. He headed for the light and came to the garage. I he big doors were closed, but there was a side door that was never locked. Kit found it and went inside. The other three followed. "Thank God," Elton said grimly. "I thought I was going to die in sodding Scotland."

Kit shone his flashlight. Here was his father's blue Ferrari, voluptuously curved, parked very close to the wall. Next to it was Luke's dirty white Ford Mondeo. That was surprising: Luke normally drove himself and Lori home in it at the end of the evening. Had they stayed the night, or . . . ?

He shone his flashlight at the far end of the garage, where the Toyota Land Cruiser Amazon was usually parked.

The bay was empty.

Kit felt like crying.

He realized immediately what had happened. Luke and Lori lived in a cottage at the end of a rough road more than a mile away. Because of the weather, Stanley had let them take the four-wheel drive car. They had left behind the Ford, which was no better in the snow than the Astra.

"Oh, shit," said Kit.

Nigel said, "Where's the Toyota?"

"It's not here," Kit said. "Jesus Christ, now we're in trouble."





3:30 AM

CARL OSBORNE was speaking into his mobile phone. "Is anyone on the news desk yet? Good—put me through."

Toni crossed the Great Hall to where Carl sat. "Wait, please."

He put his hand over the phone. "What?"

"Please hang up and listen to me. Just for a moment."

He said into the phone: "Get ready to do a voice record—I'll get back to you in a couple of minutes." He pressed the hang-up button and looked expectantly at Toni.

She felt desperate. Carl could do untold damage with a scaremongering report. She hated to plead, but she had to try to stop him. "This could finish me," she said. "I let Michael Ross steal a rabbit, and now I've allowed a gang to get away with samples of the virus itself."

"Sorry, Toni, but it's a tough old world."

"This could ruin the company, too," she persisted. She was being more candid than she liked, but she had to do it. "Bad publicity might frighten our . . . investors."

Carl did not miss a trick. "You mean the Americans."

"It doesn't matter who. The point is that the company could be destroyed." And so could Stanley, she thought, but she did not say it. She was trying to sound reasonable and unemotional, but her voice was close to cracking. "They don't deserve it!"

"You mean your beloved Professor Oxcnford doesn't deserve it."

"All he's doing is trying to find cures for human illnesses, for Christ's sake!"

"And make money at the same time."

"As you do, when you bring the truth to the Scottish television audience."

He stared at her, not sure if she was being sarcastic. Then he shook his head. "A story is a story. Besides, it's sure to come out. If I don't do it, someone else will."

"I know." She looked out of the windows of the Great Hall. The weather showed no sign of easing. At best, there might be some improvement with daylight. "Just give me three hours," she said. "File at seven."

"What difference will that make?"

Possibly none at all, she thought, but it was her only chance. "Maybe by then we'll be able to say that the police have caught the gang, or at least that they're on the trail and expect to arrest them at any moment." Perhaps the company, and Stanley, could survive the crisis if it were resolved quickly.