The cuckoo

Part 14 The cat is out of the bag

Security immediately informed the police of the information young Joe had given them,  and in no time at all they were looking at CCTV  footage of Harry deep in conversation with Alan in the members lounge.  As soon as they discovered Alan had a private plane of his own they dispatched an officer to Stapleford Airfield where is was only a few minutes before he learned that the little plane had departed at 3 40 for Iceland.  The time was now coming up for 5 a.m.  An immediate alert was sent to Reykjavik domestic airport  that a light aircraft with a father and son crew and a likely fugitive on board would be landing there in approximately 90 minutes time.  The police could not guess what had become of the captives May and George Stiles and the controller said that he was under the impression there was only Alan and his son aboard.

After Harvey and Nurse Glendale had contacted the police, told them their story, and given statements the whole matter was reported back to a government agency whose purpose was to monitor global security threats and share the knowledge with sister agencies in all of the major countries in the world.  Before long enough information had been gathered to convince them of the possibility that a person so dangerous that they needed to contain him immediately was on the loose.  Also an apprehend instruction was put out for anyone accompanying him to be detained for questioning as well.

Some people have a conscience and an intuitive nature but most of us don't.  Joe however did.  after making his report and re-joining the rank queue ( now right at the back after all of his lost time inside) his heart just wasn't in it so he decided to call it a day.  He felt very heavy hearted and the more he soul searched himself the worse he felt.  He had done the right thing and been a law abiding citizen, but now he felt treacherous and torn.  the notice he had seen had said that Harry was dangerous.  Generally Joe was a good judge of character and he instinctively had labelled Harry as ok.  Same as the couple who were with him,  They had struck him as gentle and honest, so why would they have been with a dangerous felon and been so obviously at ease with him.  His mind made up he pulled over into a layby and rang a friend of his who worked in security at Stanstead.  "Hey Freddie it's Joe! I'm sorry for this and you know me I never bend any rules but I'm going to ask you to do something for me that  I should never ask of a friend.  It's important and I promise I won't ever tell a soul I have spoken to you of this matter.  I urgently need to contact Alan Maine right now and he is currently  flying his Piper.  I know you have clearance to contact him I have to get a message to him.  Just tell him the taxi driver says sorry.

Andrew Regis clicked the phone off, his mind already racing.  He would lose his job over this if it got out that he had contacted a pilot in flight on the security band, and that is apart from that  whatever the message means it is not meant to be sent.   He was fairly new in the job and it was actually Joe who had been the one that got him it in the first place.  Joes uncle was in security there and had got him an associate membership of their social club.  Andrew and Joe had virtually grown up together having been friends since they were 8 years old.   Andrew was always known as Freddie and Joe was one of the few people that even knew his real name.   Some years earlier and everyone was raving about Andrew Flintoff the England cricketer who became universally known as Freddie Flintoff. Because he loved cricket and as the "in" joke of the time everybody started calling him Freddie, which in fact he rather liked and so he just sort of adopted it.   Mentally clearing his mind of his mini soul search he clicked on his security phone and called up the list of pilots registered to fly in and out of Stanstead.  Moments later Alans headset woke up and a very irregular message, namely the taxi driver says sorry,  was conveyed to him via the security channel, followed by an anguished plea of "If it gets out that I called you on this channel in flight my job is history".  Alan said with a heavy heart, guys they know where we are landing, I think there is going to be a reception committee for us when we land.