Rainbow Bridge Read Free Page B

serene broad face, long-time chief lighting designer for Aoxomoxoa and the Heads. Her colleagues jeered. Ooh, art-for-a-cause, the old Italian connection. Ooh, she’s an intellectual in’t she. If Caro was such a suck-up, someone inquired, did she have ‘The East Is Red’ in her catalogue? ‘You bet I have. Coming soon.’
    The event, barely a month after the ceasefire, was sanctioned. The Chinese had dealt harshly with the suppurating sore of delusion: they wanted to make the point that they had no quarrel with the English people. Or with England’s legendary Rock and Roll solution to the global crisis, apparently. They called the Ashdown Festival ‘an appropriate and healthy resumption of cultural life’. The Commanding General of the South East, Lü Xiaobao, had expressed concern for the well-being of the masses. He’d donated six truckloads of straw, to be collected from the 18 th October Line. They’re a predictable lot, our conquerors. They wanted to be liked.
    But it might be a trap.
    And yet here they were, like fish in a barrel—
    A piercing, amplified voice invaded the engineers’ private world, no camp fires and you cannot cut down any trees… May not, muttered Caro, defender of the arcane beauties of Native English. A bearded hippy, a grizzling toddler in his arms, crossed and re-crossed the Bruegel foreground, getting the headshake from everyone he stopped: no, haven’t seen your loved ones. He was one of many, and not the only raver in proscribed Countercultural dress. Chinese had fucking better be in an understanding mood, when they look around here. A chunkily built black man in obsolete British Army uniform had collided with the despondent hippy. He recoiled and blundered on, groping his holstered pistol—
    ‘Fuck.’
    Sage retreated behind the desks, making a feeble attempt to disguise his height by stooping down and hunching his shoulders. Fat chance. The wild-eyed soldier charged for the stage, those in his path swiftly getting out of the way. This was Richard Kent, the former British Army major who had created Ax’s barmy army: hero of the Islamic Campaign, commander of the Reich’s armed forces. He should not be at Ashdown. Chinese goodwill didn’t extend that far. He’d been warned (make that begged ) to stay away. But of course he’d turned up, with his chiefs of staff. They were telling anyone who would listen that they were here to organise the resistance.
    The roustabouts gave Colonel Kent a boost, they weren’t going to argue with an armed lunatic. He marched smartly to the trestles, where Sage was hiding behind his visionboard. Richard had lost weight, and there was a thick close growth of beard around his jaw. Deep-gouged lines of strain scarred his cheeks and brow, red rims to his hollow eyes, but he stood foursquare and belligerent.
    ‘I want to talk to you… Sage , look at me when I’m speaking!’
    The engineer sighed and shoved back his hood, revealing gaunt angelic beauty, sketchy blond cane rows; a vivid pair of blue eyes.
    ‘It’s good to see you, too, Richard.’
    ‘What the fuck’s going on? Not a word from my leaders, all through the invasion, and we knew you were free. We were in contact with the Scots who sprung you out of jail. But not a word from you three, nothing … I suppose it was impossible. I held a meeting of the chiefs of staff, we decided that Ax meant the lads to lie low. We have to talk. I’ve been out of my mind. It was hellish, hellish, watching the regulars fall apart like wet toilet paper, and doing nothing—’
    Abruptly, Richard lost conviction. ‘Are you listening ? Are you on some other fucking plane? Are you playing dance tracks in that private little world of yours?’
    ‘I c’n hear you,’ said Sage. He tipped the soundbead from his ear anyway, and looked at the pistol butt. ‘Did the Rangers say you could carry a firearm?’
    Richard made an impatient gesture, breathing hard.
    Lowly electricians, who’d begun to cable-up