The Lost Scrolls (06) by Alex Archer

Author:Alex Archer [Archer, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-01-12T07:00:00+00:00

"Ah, but you should," said Gannet. "Just say it Claymore B, and you'll not be far off. That's what it means." He clicked some more at his keys. "Abandoned 1998. Bought in 2002 by a then newly formed oil consortium called Euro Petro."

"I've heard of them," Annja said. "I've seen their commercials."

Tex nodded. "I don't know about you," he said, "but something about that perky self-righteousness about how environmentally and socially conscious they are just goes right down my spine like a cheese grater."

"Me, too."

"Especially since it's all a sham," Gannet said cheerfully. "They deserve the name pirates far more than our lot."

"What do you mean?" Annja asked. "I thought the European Union was the majority owner."

"And that makes a difference how?" Gannet asked. "Most of the world's known oil reserves are owned by government companies. All just a matter of what you call the thieves in charge, innit?"

Phil Dirt came up and laid a meaty ring‐laden hand on his shoulder. "Noble work, boy," he said in his deep voice. "But you've got to do something about that uncontrollable cynicism about government. That's not what anarchy's all about."

****

"That's an airplane?" Annja asked.

"Sure is," Tex said with satisfaction. He was holding his Stetson on his head against the brisk salt wind with one hand. "An ultralight. Hand‐built with love. And no small measure of genius."

"Uh‐huh," she said, shading her eyes against the morning glare. "Just one question."

"What's that?"

"Where do you put the key to wind it up?"

The aircraft – Annja had a hard time thinking of it as an airplane – whined past them down the narrow strip. It didn't look much like an airplane. It had a big pod‐shaped cockpit enclosed in wraparound glass, a single fuselage and a high wing. But where it parted company with real airplanes, to Annja's mind, apart from being the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, was that it kept its propeller at the rear of its high‐mounted wing. That, she thought, was just wrong.

She could see it well deserved its moniker of ultralight, and suspected that was why, after a very short landing run, it slowed and turned to taxi back toward them at the pace of a brisk walk.

Annja noted the landing strip was very short indeed. For all its picturesque desolateness and quaint sense of ends‐of‐the‐earth isolation, on the northerly Orkney Island of Papa Westray there wasn't room for anything else.

"How you feelin'?" Tex asked.

"I feel as if I'm filled with ants," she told him, "and an earthquake just hit the mound."

He nodded. "I hear you. We got plenty to do," he said. "It'll take your mind off worrying."

"Did I ever tell you how much I hate positive thinking?" Annja said. He only laughed at her.

The little craft came whining up to them. Annja tried hard not to think about mosquitoes. It stopped as a young woman in coveralls and a ball cap came dashing out from the airfield shack to stick fat wooden wedges under its tricycle landing gear. A door

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