This is a work of fiction any resemblance to anyone alive or dead is unintentional.

I was gob-smacked! Dr Wilson a terrorist? It seemed absurd. But I thought about it for a moment. He was an Egyptologist, many of the founders of Islamist terror were Egyptian. It could prove an opportunity to make contact with people in Egypt. Supervising a dig or going around sites there could enable all sorts of extra-curricular activities. However, my gut instinct was that Monica was wrong. Could she have an ulterior motive for reporting him, such as jealousy? Hell hath no fury…etcetera.

“You seem shocked Captain Curtis?” said Monica, who had not only stolen the initiative earlier, but had kept a firm hold on it.

“If I’m honest, yes I am.” I blushed as I spoke.

“I thought you were experienced in chasing terrorists?” she said almost casually.

“I have never claimed to be experienced in anything. Is this a wind up?”

“No, I wouldn’t do that to you. I should have thought you knew me better than that.” She was still claiming the initiative.

“So what makes you think Dr Wilson could have some involvement in terrorism?”

“He has strange messages from the middle east, he spends quite a bit of his time in middle eastern embassies and consulates. He has a very anti- British opinion at times. When I try to put my finger on it, there’s nothing tangible to show, it’s rather more a hunch than a fact.”

Just then, my mobile rang. I excused myself and went outside to take the call which was from Don. “Yes I’m at the university now, investigating a lead as to a possible cell.”

“I don’t know about terrorist cells, but the guy who runs the Egyptology department is a Mossad agent.”

“How do you know that?” I asked incredulously.

“I can’t remember how exactly, but it came up some while ago. It stuck in my mind because it seemed incongruous that someone who studies Arabs, should spy for Israel.”

“Don, Egyptology is about ancient Egypt. It isn’t about Arabs, there were no Arabs in those days.”

“Don’t get all pernickety with me, you know what I mean. Anyway, he’s the guy somebody Wilson, I think.”

“Why did you call me?” I enquired.

“I’ve finally identified some of the authors of that report. Seems it was done by a committee. I’m going off to speak to a couple of them, thought you might miss me.”

“Okay, I do miss you, but don’t tell your wife. Let me know what you discover.”

“Of course I will, ma’am.”

“I thought we were a team?”

“We are, but you’re still a captain to my sergeant.”

“Right sergeant, carry on. Stand at ease, etcetera.” He rang off before I could finish. I went back in to continue my conversation with Monica.

“That was a colleague. I’ve initiated the process.”

“What process is that?” she asked almost absent-mindedly.

“The investigation process, surveillance and all that.”

“That was quick,” she seemed shocked.

“Once we perceive a threat, we act very quickly. If I thought there was any danger from say explosives or weapons, I could have a team here within the hour. In a few hours, I could seal off the whole city. I can also get a shoot to kill policy operational within an hour, and I obviously have a firearms certificate myself.”

“Seeing as you have shot several people, I’m glad to hear it. It’s reassuring to learn you have some competence with a gun. It makes it less likely that you’ll shoot me by mistake.”

Once again the barriers were up between us. Was she reacting to my apparent pompousness? Or was there some sort of female rivalry occurring, her the old hand being undermined by the younger, faster gun. I wasn’t at all sure. But my respect for her was diminishing. “It wouldn’t be by mistake,” I said and left.

I reflected on my position. The progress I had made was nil. I knew something about Dr Wilson, which may or may not prove useful, and I suppose I also knew a bit more about Monica and Chloe. I couldn’t see much value in any of it. So why had Sekhmet sent me here? It didn’t make much sense at all, yet I knew from past experience, she didn’t make mistakes. Therefore, it had it be me. I was or wasn’t doing whatever it was I was supposed to be doing. Sadly, working that out didn’t constitute much in the way of progress.

I decided I would go and sit on the college green and have a little think, maybe some inspiration would occur. I couldn’t think of anything else to do, so a sit and a think it was.

As an investigator, I made rather a good nurse. I needed out of this and on to something I considered useful. What good was I doing here? Absolutely none. What was I trying to achieve? Prevention of an assassination of a US president on British soil. The British soil, was very much secondary, because given a chance I would help to prevent the former wherever it happened.

I had intuited the attempt would take place at the US embassy, with a faked air crash covering for a previously planted bomb. It had a high probability of success, it was simple enough and even if the plot was finally uncovered, it would be too late to save the lives that would be sacrificed.

As I cogitated on this dilemma, I unconsciously watched a small aircraft circling around above me. “Yes, one like that.” I said to myself. Then a moment later, I thought. “My God, that is the one. No wonder I was made to come here. That is the actual plane which will be used, and perhaps the same pilot.”

Seconds later I was walking quickly back to my car. I needed to get the number of that plane. Then, a moment of inspiration. Opposite the college was a camera shop. I borrowed a pair of binoculars and two minutes after that, I took them back. I still couldn’t see the number on the aircraft. I’d have to get it the hard way. I set off through the traffic towards the airfield. What is it they say about writing? “ten percent inspiration, ninety percent perspiration.” I began to see that intelligence work had a similar ratio.

Theoretically, even if I went to the wrong airfield, I should be able to discover who was flying and where the plane was kept, air traffic should resolve that. However, this was the real world, where things don’t happen in accord with theory…and this damned traffic.

I took nearly an hour fighting the rush hour traffic to get to the nearest airfield. I made myself known to the security people and was escorted to the air traffic control tower. It drew a blank, I had a feeling it would.

Back outside, I called the office. Don was back. I quickly explained what I believed was about to happen. He accepted what I said, after a couple of demonstrations, without question, however crazy it sounded. He would get a list of all aircraft flying over Oxford that afternoon.

There was still a risk the people, and I use the term loosely, who were planning this would be one jump ahead of us. As I drove home, my mind was in fast forward. Even if I knew which plane it was, the person flying it may not be the one who flies it into the embassy. It could be anyone. For all I knew, it was one available to rent, like a car.

I pulled over at a petrol station and bought a road map. This was last ditch inspirational stuff. Opening the map out to the Oxford area, I took off my bracelet and using it as a cord, attached a ring to the end of it. Would I be able to dowse with it. “Damn.” I couldn’t.

Oh well, nothing else for it. I grabbed a long hair and pulled. My scalp felt it detach. I then tied the ring to its end and tried again.

“Give me an answer for yes.” I instructed the makeshift pendulum and it spun in a clockwise manner. ‘No’, was anticlockwise, and ‘don’t know’ was back and fore. I was in business, perhaps. I’m not the world’s best dowser, but sometimes it worked.

“ Will you show me the airfield from which the plane I saw took off and landed.” I asked the pendulum. It responded affirmatively.

For those of you who have never dowsed, I recommend you try it, it can be good fun. I still feel self conscious when talking out loud to an inanimate object, but it focuses better for me that way.

In map dowsing, you split the map up into sections, and running a finger from the other hand over each section, simply ask if the thing you want to find is in this one. It can be time consuming, and there are obvious shortcuts. I took some and eventually determined the area I needed to investigate was closer to Abbingdon than Oxford. There were no airfields shown on my map, but the pendulum went berserk as I homed in on a particular place.

It was going to be dark by the time I got there, I would return early the next day better dressed for prowling about the countryside, and with torch and sandwiches. My stomach was rumbling, and I felt the need for food. Home it was.

My parents approved of my new car, Dad was pleased I’d taken his advice and told me how I would pay him back. As he’d been so generous I could hardly disagree. Mum was glad I should no longer need to borrow hers. In a way, so was I. I had a car of my own to fill up with empty drinks cans and crisp packets.

More importantly, Mum had cooked some pork chops and saved me one plus some spuds and vegetables. I was famished, my meal with Chloe seemed long ago.
They’d already eaten, Dad was busy with Browning, he reminded me I had some more scanning to do for him. Why he refused to learn the basics of computers, defeated me, except he’d have to do things for himself then.

Mum was dashing out to a meeting with one of her charity’s biggest contributors, so I was left to my own devices. It wouldn’t be the last time. I took the meal out of the oven, it smelled divine. I blessed my mother for keeping me back some. It tasted pretty good too, especially with the glass of wine Dad had left for me in the bottle on the table.

Replete, I was able to go up to my room and speak to Don. I told him what I planned to do the next morning. “If there is anyone who has a plane they are hardly going to show it to you, are they? Especially if it’s going to be used for something nasty.”

“Except, they aren’t going to think that some whacky student, looking for crop circles is with the security services.”

“That’s your cover is it?”

“Can you think of a better one?”

“Are you armed?”

“What for? In case there’s any little green men in the crop circles?”

“Don’t be facetious with me, young woman. You know as well as I do, these are desperate characters and just in case your crazy theory is right, you could be in danger.”

I had a proper map out on my bed, an Ordnance Survey one, and from the contour lines, there were only a few places a small aircraft could take off and land. I told him these places, and promised to call in each time I explored one.

I didn’t like guns, even though I seemed rather good at holding the safe end and pointing the other at people, who subsequently expired. So I rarely carried one. I hadn’t brought such a thing to my parent’s home, that would be beyond the pale.
I did the scanning my father wanted, and left him still deep in his thoughts of Browning. His work could run to several volumes and take him ten or more years to complete. He barely noticed I was there, such was his concentration on his subject. It gave me hope, that when I got to his age, I’d be able to do study or just completely absorb myself in something. It’s something they say wanes with time, but obviously not in his case.

I stood watching him, cross referencing some notes, his fountain pen scratching away, nineteen to the dozen. I poured love at him, he did look at me at one point but in reality he looked through me. I eventually left, after kissing him on the cheek, which he barely acknowledged. It wasn’t a rejection, I kept telling myself, just him being too busy to breathe. I went to bed.

At some godforsaken hour I was awakened by my alarm clock bleeping. I dragged myself out of my nice warm bed, washed and dressed in jeans and sweater, then went for breakfast. I ate heartily, a big bowl of porridge and then some fruit.

I made up a flask of coffee and some sandwiches, which I put in my small rucksack along with a camera and my small binoculars. I had my small handbag which was big enough to include a purse and a few other small items. I laced on my walking boots, grabbed my anorak – yes an anorak, it’s a Gortex walkers’ one, and carried my stuff out to the car.

It was light now, but there was a thin film of moisture on the car and the hills in the distance were veiled in a light mist. The car started first time and I was off to test my hunch. I left a book on crop circles on the front passenger seat. I’d bought it second hand, so it looked well used, just in case someone should challenge me.

I’d tied my hair back in a pony tail, so looked every inch the student, slightly scruffy but otherwise clean. Okay, so I resembled a middle class stereotype of a student, but then I was probably investigating people whose ideas would conform to that stereotype, I hoped.

The traffic was easy, I’d beaten the rush hour, and about fifty minutes after embarking on this task, I was at my first prospective site. I drew out the dowsing rods I’d brought from the house. Originally I had used ones made from old wire coat hangers, but more recently had progressed to brazing rods which were more substantial and worked better in a breeze.

I consulted the rods, they showed me a direction and off I set. Sadly, they were wrong, nothing resembling a landing strip or place suitable to keep an aircraft appeared after half an hour's walking, so I turned back to the car and the next one.
I admit I know next to nothing about flying. Usually when I get on an aircraft, the bloke in the driver's seat gets paid to do it for me. I did know that things like wind direction is important to take off and landing, and had noticed wind socks at farms, presuming they had a plane or helicopter. So this was what I was looking for, primarily, with a barn big enough to stow an aircraft and sufficient regular ground to act as a landing strip.

The next place I searched was more promising, but the farmer didn’t like the idea of crop circles and declared, “there were none on his land yesterday.” I did my little girl lost act, and his manner softened a bit, giving me permission to look if I promised not to tell everyone else before him. They can be quite lucrative if you charge people to view or walk in them.

“I promise if I find any, I shall come back and tell you about them before anyone else.” I said and he let me go. I knew then I wouldn’t find the aircraft I was seeking, but twenty minutes later I did find a crop circle. I photographed it, and measured it as best I could. As I got closer to it, my head felt quite strange and I had to walk away.

Three times I had to retreat, from what I can only suggest felt like a strong electromagnetic energy. It drained the battery on my camera and my mobile.
It was fascinating, about thirty metres in diameter with several smaller ones around it. I could have quite happily played there all morning but I had work to do. I informed the farmer on the way back and his face lit up. Sadly I couldn’t show him any pictures, my camera being dead.

I plugged my phone into the charger, and managed to call Don for the second time. Two more to go.

On my way to the third one I spied a windsock. My heart began to quicken and my solar plexus flipped. It seemed to look promising. My dowsing rods were moving very quickly. Something was definitely happening.

I closed the car and locked it, pulled my rucksack on and set off. I walked a wide circle around the farm, wishing my camera had been available because in no more than fifteen minutes I saw a plane. From memory, it resembled the one I saw yesterday, a single-engine job, which could have been anything. From my binoculars I could see its registration letters and noted then down, I think I could see the word ‘Piper’ on it too, presumably the manufacturer’s make or model.

I reached for my mobile to call Don and get him to start identifying the owner, but as I reached in my handbag, I realised I’d left it in the car, plugged into its charger. I noticed a buzzard circling round, waiting for thermals to help it soar. I felt envious of his ability to fly.

I continued my circle of the farm, and as I completed it and approached my car two men stepped out of the hedgerow, one of then bearing a cocked shotgun.

“Find what you’re looking for?” said the gun man.

“No.” I replied feeling very uncomfortable.

“What were you looking for?” he asked intimidating me with the gun.

“Would you mind pointing that at something else?” I asked politely but firmly.

“ ‘n’ if I don’t, what you gonna do, take it off me?” He laughed at his own joke and his colleague chuckled with him.

I didn’t feel it was appropriate to tell him it is impolite to laugh at one’s own jokes. Instead, I said, “Look those things are rather dangerous, so please point it at the floor.”

Of course he waved it in my face. At which I pushed it to one side and brought my boot up into his crutch. The gun roared, firing pellets into the tarmac, which ricocheted everywhere. He dropped the gun, and fell to his knees. I wasn’t quite quick enough for his friend, who managed to spring upon my back and knock me down on my face. He rolled off me, and was faster in the recovery. I rolled away but he jumped on me and hit me in the face, my head rocked back against the road and things went black.

I woke up a little later, I was trussed up tighter than an oven ready turkey and about as likely to escape. They noticed I was awake.

“Who are you working for?”

“I don’t work. I’m a student.”

“What are you studying?”

“Parapsychology. I’m looking for crop circles. I found some over the other side of the valley.”

He slapped me on the face, “Liar.”

My head was aching, and I had slight double vision. “Who are you?”

“Janet Curtis.” I said, being slightly economical with the truth. I had left all my identifiers at home just in case. If they had found my ID card, I’d be dead by now.

“Where’s your union card?” He said referring to a student’s union pass I would have if I were a student.

“At home.”

“Where’s that?”

“Oxford. I live with my uncle and aunt, he teaches at the university, at ‘doubting’.

“So you know some uni jargon, eh. It don’t mean anything. Why did you attack me?”

“Why did you wave a shotgun in my face?”

“I’m asking the questions or had you forgotten?”

“My head hurts, I feel sick.” I said.

“Good,” he snapped, “my fuckin’ bollocks hurt.” He rubbed them very gently. I knew I’d made a good contact with my boot, he’d be black and blue for days. “Now unless you want another slap, tell me why you attacked me.”

“I am scared of guns, my father was shot by one.” I began to cry, hoping tears would work where reason didn’t. It didn’t either, he slapped me again telling me to shut up. Of course I screamed even louder.

“Well unless you tell me who you are working for, you are gonna follow in his footsteps, missy. So stop blubbing and start talking.”

“Sob……Profes…..sob……sor……sob…..Pon…hic…. ting.”

“Who? Speak more clearly.” He grabbed my face in his huge hand and squeezed it hard. I tried to bite him. He slapped me, I screamed.

It seemed to go on like this for hours. I was eventually left a sobbing ball of pain, my face was bruised and my head ached. I knew I had a black eye starting, as seeing out of it was a problem. I knew I was still alive, I hurt too much to be dead.

I heard a third man approach, I couldn’t see him, but I heard him. His accent was American. I could be in the right place, in which case my life was definitely in grave danger. Should I have carried a gun? If I had, could I have shot both of them?

Improbable, one was behind me. If I’d been carrying one, they’d have known I wasn’t a student. I could see the contents of my bags on the floor, together with the remains of my mobile and the torn up book on crop circles.

I tried to call up help, but my aching head stopped me concentrating enough to visualise a lioness, or anything else. I slipped into a pain-filled sleep, at least I think it was a sleep, except I remained aware of the pain. Perhaps I was drifting into more unconsciousness.

My head was splitting and I couldn’t see through my right eye. I could taste blood in my mouth. I hoped none of my teeth were loose. I was gagged and thrown behind some bales of straw, some more were thrown on top of me. I began to think I was going to die.

I wasn’t so much frightened as angry. So many people I needed to say goodbye to, and now there was no time. The ignominy of being killed by suffocation or starvation, it could be days before they found me. The attack on Mrs Carlton would work, and we’d both have died in vain, trying to make the world a better place.

I felt so sad, I would never see my parents again or John. I began to weep silently. Breathing was an effort, lying on my face, my hands behind me covered in heavy bales of straw. Then I heard a strange noise, a crackling noise. It was muffled by the straw, but there was definitely a noise. I tried to work out what it was but my head was muzzy and breathing was difficult.

I think I blanked for a moment, then I came to with a jolt. The crackle was becoming a roar. They had started a fire. I was going to die.

I visualised John and said my goodbye to him, wishing we’d been able to sort things out, as I did love him. Then I said goodbye to my parents, and to Sharon, and Chloe and Dr Wilson. I don’t remember much else, but I think I could smell smoke.