220
It occurs to you that the colony may still be close enough for radio contact. As it may be the last chance you will get to speak to them before your rendezvous at Kent one week from now, you decide to give it a try. You invert the handset of your CB and key in the frequency that Pop Ewell monitors aboard the school bus. But, for some unknown reason, the frequency is saturated with static and you are unable to transmit. You search for a clear channel and, by chance, you lock on to part of a two-way conversation:
‘OK Gold … Sit tight and quit y’bellyaching … I’m sending some o’ my men back to cover it. You just put a tail on ’em … keep ’em in sight. We’ll let ’em run a while and then hit ’em when they reach the mountains. D’you copy … over?’
There is a loud burst of static, and then a voice replies:
‘I copy … Gold out.’
The channel falls silent and you are left staring at the handset, trying to make some sense of what you have just overheard. Then you hear quite a different sound, a sound that sends a shiver of fear coursing down your spine.
