Whether it had been McRae’s morbid description of how Maclain Macdonald and his clan had been cut down or whether it was the strange effect of the subdued light in the western Highlands that was responsible for his sense of unease, Robert Brentwood wasn’t sure, but the sight of the Glencoe Massacre was unexpectedly grim and unsettling. Looking over the jagged outcrops of the gloomy glen, he understood how it was the stuff not only of the inevitable ghost stories but of many a Highlander’s sense of separation from other men. More than one Scot, sober as the bitter cold, had sworn by everything holy that he’d seen the blood-streaked face of Alastair Maclain Macdonald.
“By God, this is a barren place,” he said to Rosemary as he stopped the car in one of the pull-outs, the sight of a red English phone booth standing by the road a hundred yards away distinctly anachronistic to the mournful, wind-riven nature of the place, the booth’s solitary presence only adding to Robert’s sense of anomie and to what Rosemary called the “spirit-filled” strangeness of the place.
Soon, out of the bruised sky above Ben Nevis ten miles to the north, more mist descended and at times completely obscured the long ribbon of narrow road behind them that had wound through the lonely valley to the desolate glen. Despite the mist, Robert was able to see a lone car.
“Second time,” said Robert.
“Second time for what?” asked Rosemary as they paused on their way back from the monument, walking toward what Rosemary called their car of “ill repute.”
“What? Oh—” Brentwood caught himself. “Nothing. Just noticed that car down there’s a yellow Honda Civic. Didn’t realize there were so many in Scotland.”
“Lord,” said Rosemary easily. “They’re common as colds in England. That other couple at the B and B had one as well — the Prices.”
“Did they?” Robert asked surprised.
“Yes. Rental companies love them.”
“Why?”
“Easy, silly. Less accidents in the fog. Best color, yellow— though I think it’s ghastly.” Then she surprised him again. “Besides, Robert, if they were following us, I should think they’d be a little more subtle than that. I mean, the only other car on the road.”
“Huh—” grunted Robert. Perhaps he was being a little paranoid. But as one of the elite skippers whose sub was one of the most powerful in the world as well as being his country’s last line of defense in the event the war went nuclear, he and everyone else on the Sea Wolf II knew their vigilance didn’t start and end with the sub. Even so, Rosie had a point. Why would the Prices, if it was them — or the other people, or anyone — be so obvious as to be seen? “Unless…”he began, but trailed off as more thick clouds born about the summit of Ben Nevis gathered and came rolling down, obliterating Glencoe’s stark beauty.
It wasn’t until they were halfway to the ferry that Rosemary, struck by Robert’s unusual bout of suspicion, felt her chest tightening in a rush of fear as she realized Russian agents would have no compunction in murdering a nuclear submarine’s captain. She turned to him wide-eyed in terror.
“It’s an occupational hazard,” he explained quietly. “Everybody knows about it when they join up.”
“Is that supposed to comfort me?”
“Guess not. Sorry — I shouldn’t have…” He paused, smiling. “Hell, we could get hit by a bus. You can’t live in a box.”
“You can the in one,” she said. “My God, you mean you accept this as a normal part of your—”
“Right. Besides, honey, I do have my executive officer here.”
For a second, Rosemary was nonplussed.
“No,” Robert explained, shifting down, using the gears as a brake on the narrow, wet road. “I don’t mean Pete Zeldman,” he said.
“Well then, who do you…”
Robert pressed the glove box button. Nothing happened. He punched it and the compartment lid dropped, spilling out road maps as well as a Smith & Wesson.45.
Rosemary, gasping for breath, recoiled from it as if it were a snake.
“Don’t worry,” he said casually. “Safety’s on.”
Steering with his right hand, he slipped the.45 between them and stuffed the maps back into the glove box. “Don’t look so shocked, honey. It’s only a gun. There is a war going on.”
Rosemary started to say something but was still too astonished by the sight of the gun.
“Hey,” he said, slipping his arm around her shoulder, “it was supposed to reassure you. That’s what it’s for.”
“Well, it doesn’t,” she answered emphatically, looking up at him as if in some way she were seeing him for the first time. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“They issue them for protection while we’re ashore — not to frighten brides.”
“It doesn’t frighten me,” she said, staring at the gun, its khaki-green camouflage pattern making it appear more ominous to her. “It terrifies me.”
“Hon,” he assured her, “I wasn’t going to show you, but you seemed so wound up about these—”
“You were wound up,” she answered.
“Yeah — well—” He was using his left sleeve to wipe condensation off the windshield, the diaphanous fog now pierced by rays of sunlight streaming down on the moss-covered crags.
“They’re gone!” she said, watching the rearview mirror. Robert adjusted it from where she’d twisted it to one side, combing her hair before they’d got out to see the Glencoe memorial. Now he could see the road farther back, but she was right — the long stretch of blacktop along the valley floor was bereft of movement. Ahead lay Loch Ballachulish, where, Rosemary informed him, they would have to catch a ferry across the loch on their way to Mallaig, the fishing village six miles farther up on the rugged west coast. In the prewar days, Mallaig had been a “repairs” port for Russian trawlers out of the Kola Peninsula, some suspected of being SIGLINT — signal intelligence — listening for NATO sub traffic around the Holy Loch sub pens eighty miles south from which, all being well, Roosevelt would set out on another war patrol as soon as Robert Brentwood returned from his honeymoon a week from now.
“I hope the ferry’s on time,” said Rosemary anxiously as they rounded the U-bend leading down to the loch.
“Doesn’t matter,” said Robert. “We can fill in the time.”
She looked quickly at him. “Oh no you don’t! Not again. I’m not—”
“No,” he said, “I didn’t mean that.”
“You didn’t?” she asked, feigning astonishment. “You’re ill!” She took in a deep breath, leaning back on the headrest, telling herself not to be a ninny — feeling better now that the car hadn’t been seen following them after all. “You’re getting tired of me,” she charged playfully.
“I’ll never get tired of you,” he said, doing a W. C. Fields: “My little cooing turtle dove.” He took her hand in his. “Never.”
“Hmm — a likely story.”
Robert could see a long, calm, cobalt-colored tongue of water coming into view, their first sight of the loch and a welcome one after the unrelieved wildness and isolation of Glencoe. Driving through the mist-shrouded valley had been cozy enough, part of the coziness coming from the safety of the warm car and its comforting dash lights, which, like those aboard a sub, created a sense of security, when in fact the line between civilization and the wild, safety and danger, was very thin.
“Where did you put the — gun?” she asked suddenly. It was no longer between them.
“In my jacket,” he said.
It was blustery outside as they pulled up to wait for the ferry, and cold, despite the sun’s attempt to break free of the low stratus.
“Think I’ll hop out and stretch my legs,” he said.
“You’ll freeze.”
“Nah — put on my old tweed coat here. No problem.”
She watched him draw up the collar of the tweed jacket as he walked away and waved back at her. She loved watching the way he walked — a purposeful yet relaxed stride that was somehow distinctly American, part and parcel of their optimism, which, no matter what the odds, refused to be dimmed. She’d noticed it the first time Robert had met her great-uncle Geoffrey. Robert, and some Australians she’d known, had no sense of class difference and so weren’t even aware they were crashing right through it with a friendly handshake and first-name familiarity. They didn’t give a fig about social status; simply rode over it, judging what a man said more than the way he said it.
She wound down the window. “Don’t go too far!” she called out over the howl of wind that was ruffling parts of the loch while other stretches of water remained surprisingly, almost alarmingly, calm. He strode back down the hill.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing — oh dear, I’m sorry, pet. Just didn’t want you to go too far. The ferry’ll be here in ten minutes or so. Besides, I don’t want you to catch a cold. You must be freezing.”
“Have to spend a shilling,” he said.
“Oh—” she began, perplexed. “Oh!” She felt herself blushing and laughing at the same time. He was walking away again.
“It’s ‘spend a penny,’ “ she said.
“Well,” he said, without turning around, “I was close.”
“You were not.”
Rosemary kept watching him and suddenly her smile and laughter vanished. Surely he could have waited until they’d reached the ferry. And wasn’t that one of those portable lavatories she’d seen parked down by the ferry ramp? “All right, Rosemary Brentwood,” she addressed herself sternly, as if bringing one of her sixth-form boys to order. “That will be quite enough of your morbidity.”
It had been the sight of the loch that had upset her — the unforgiving aspect of its gunmetal surface now that the sun was momentarily shut out again. It called up the memory of her brother William’s death on the Atlantic convoy — how one day he had sailed out, never to be seen again. So young. She took a tissue from her purse and, adjusting the rearview mirror, began making herself look presentable. “Good grief,” she told her reflection. “Will you stop worrying? Robert’ll probably outlive you.” Yes, he would undoubtedly the an old man and in bed — with her. She used just a dab of blusher, recalling Georgina’s rather high-minded counsel about how makeup was a “bourgeois conceit.” It always astonished Rosemary that here the whole world was at war, the Communist ideology so utterly discredited despite Gorbachev’s attempted reforms, and yet there were still young intellectuals like Georgina, fresh from the “thesis” and “antithesis” of university and who, filled with the outrage of people who know they will never actually have the responsibility of power, could still be drawn to the left’s unholy mysteries. She closed the lipstick holder, adjusted the mirror, and froze. Coming over the last dip before the long hill leading to the ferry was a yellow car.