The Devil's breath dz-1

by David Gilman

  “Namibia.”

  Diamond country. Namibia’s coast ran for thousands of kilometers along the south Atlantic. Vast tracts of land were off-limits because there were diamonds waiting to be picked up. Max’s dad had told him about Namibia before. A huge triangle of a country, bigger than France and the UK put together. Away from its mist-shrouded coast was an arid, brain-sizzling desert and scrubland. The Okavango swamps with their crocodiles lay to the east in Botswana; Angola was north, beyond the Kunene River; and South Africa lay to the south. There was a lot of game: lions, elephant … but what else? Max’s brain couldn’t put it all together. His dad must have been injured, or worse. If an assassin had come in the night for Max, whoever wanted him dead must have captured or killed his father first. Why?

  Jackson’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Naturally, if this wasn’t a random attack on you, then we have to assume there’s a connection.” Max nodded. What would Dad want him to do? “In the circumstances, Max,” Jackson went on, “we think we should go to the vault.”

  The vault. That was where you heard voices of the dead. Max had known a couple of boys whose parents had died-they’d been taken down to the vault. Every pupil had his own key, kept in Jackson’s safe, which unlocked a deposit box in the underground chambers of Dartmoor High. The vault was fireproof, bombproof, everything-proof, because it was cut into the granite hills on which the school was built. When a parent died, it was a legal requirement that a guardian be nominated to look after the boy, and that information was in each boy’s deposit box. Sometimes there were personal letters, mementos, and usually a legal document that gave a lawyer’s name for his inheritance-if there was one. It was also a condition of attendance at Dartmoor High that each parent left a digital recording for their child. Jackson believed that if tragedy struck, the comforting voice of a parent was just about all a boy had left to help him cope with the trauma.

  Voices from the dead. Going to the vault was so final.

  Matron tapped on the door; Jackson nodded for her to come in. “We thought we’d do that tomorrow, Max,” Jackson said.

  Matron was carrying a glass of water and a pill holder. “The doctor reckoned you should get a proper night’s sleep. Help you deal with things.” Matron offered the sleeping pill to Max. “It’s only a mild sedative. OK?” Jackson assured him. Max nodded, took the pill and a gulp of water and gave a reassuring smile to Jackson, Peterson and Matron.

  “Good boy,” Matron said.

  “We don’t want to cause any alarm, Max, so as far as anyone else is concerned, you strayed into the Danger Zone and took a tumble. Are you all right with that?”

  Max nodded.

  The moment he was outside the study, Max spat the tablet out. He’d tucked it under his tongue and pretended to swallow it. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust anyone; he just wanted to keep a clear head and think this through. That was what his dad would want him to do. That was why he’d sent him to this school in the first place.

  Max’s room was big enough for a single bed, a small table used as a desk, a chair, a bookcase, a trunk for personal bits and pieces, and a single wardrobe. It might originally have been built as a prison cell, but now it offered enough space to have the essentials-but no luxuries, not even a television, though there was one in each House’s common room. There were four Houses at Dartmoor High: Eagle, which Max belonged to; Wolf, Otter and Badger.

  Max lay on his bed. He realized he might be facing the starkest moment of his life. If his dad had been killed, he was an orphan. No, he just didn’t believe that. His father was too resourceful, but no sooner had this positive thought arrived than another one chipped in. Nobody is immortal and if they, whoever they were, had killed his dad then they must have taken him by surprise. Ambushed him. As they had tried to do with Max.

  Max let out a deep, troubled sigh. He had escaped; maybe his dad had too.

  He turned his head on the pillow, his eyes gazing idly at his desk and bookcase. Something wasn’t right. He looked again. Things weren’t exactly where they should have been. A small pile of textbooks was nudged across the desk at a different angle. He always had them in a certain place because he liked to rest his left elbow on them when he wrote his essays. And that Cook Island figurine of a war god was facing slightly away from the window when it should have been gazing directly across the moors. What else had been moved? Bits of stone from the ruins of Aglason in Turkey where Alexander the Great had attacked across the mountains; a rock crystal found in the Himalayas which had a glint of some magical light in it, said to be from the cave of an ancient mystic; the amber teardrop from Russia which a hundred million years ago had encased a wayward insect in its resin. All bits and pieces his dad had given him. Now Max’s senses sharpened. Letting his gaze sweep across the room, he realized that someone had pulled books away from the wall, checked them and put them back a bit too neatly. He knew the artifacts were not in exactly the place where they should have been because, despite the obligation to keep his room tidy, there was always a faint layer of dust noticeable on any flat surface. Max wondered what on earth the intruder had been looking for.

  There was a knock on the door. “Max?” It was Sayid, whose mum taught Arabic at the school. Max let him in and closed the door quickly behind him. Sayid was his best friend.

  When Max’s father had worked in the Middle East, Sayid’s dad had been killed by terrorists and Max’s dad had pulled strings to get Sayid and his mother, Leila, into Britain. Max was never sure what the connection was between the two men, except that they had worked together, and it seemed that Tom Gordon owed some sort of debt to the Khalif family. Max’s father explained that Sayid and his mother needed a safe place, well out of harm’s way, and he told Max to keep an eye on the new boy. Max did exactly that, but now Sayid had been there long enough and didn’t need looking after anymore.

  “The whole place is buzzing, Max. The army, the police coming and going. What’s going on?” Sayid whispered quickly.

  “I went for a run and decided to get a closer look at the guns.” Max shrugged.

  “You can be gated for that! No more Saturdays in town for months.”

  “Yeah, I know, it was stupid. The firepower was awesome, though. The whole place was shaking.”

  Sayid looked over his shoulder at the closed door nervously and Max could see something was up. “Max, you’d better tell me if there’s anything else. I’m your mate, yeah?”

  “Yeah, course. It was nothing. I broke a school rule. Big deal.”

  Sayid gave him a disbelieving look and then pulled a crumpled envelope out of his back pocket. “Sorry this got a bit mangled, but I didn’t want anyone else to see it.”

  “What?” Max asked, because Sayid still looked as though he knew there was something going on.

  “This is addressed to me,” Sayid said as he handed over the letter. The envelope was open but there was another one inside with one word written clearly-MAX. Sayid shrugged. “Your dad obviously wanted this to get to you without going through the usual channels. It came in this afternoon’s post-I couldn’t find you.”

  Max nodded. His father had used the one person in school whom Max could always rely on in a tight corner. He ripped the envelope open-and on the piece of folded paper inside there was, again, only one word. FARENTINO.

  Max knew what his dad wanted him to do.

  Sayid waited patiently.

  Max took a deep breath. “Sayid, listen. My dad’s in trouble, he’s gone missing….”

  “Bloody hell! Where?”

  “I’m not sure, but he was last heard of in Africa, and this note he sent you confirms that he’s trying to contact me. He’s laying a trail for me. Sayid, listen, mate, you’ve got to keep this to yourself. I mean, things are pretty bad…. I didn’t just wander into the Danger Zone tonight. I was running from a bloke who was trying to kill me.”

  Sayid Khalif knew the gut-wrenching fear that assassins had brought into his own life. Only he and his mother had survive
d an attack in Saudi Arabia, and if Max and his dad were targets then he felt the fear as keenly as Max. “I won’t say a word, promise.”

  “Not even to your mum.”

  “Especially not Mum, she’d be frantic for you and your dad.”

  “Thanks. Right, well, I reckon that once I’ve opened my box in the vault tomorrow morning I’ll be off. My guess is Dad has left me another clue in there.”

  “You leave school, and Mum’ll find out your dad’s missing.”

  “No, Mr. Jackson will tell everyone it’s compassionate leave, that Dad’s sick or something. Don’t tell her the truth, Sayid, I’m already putting you in danger by telling you.”

  “I could come with you.”

  “No you couldn’t. Besides, I’ll need someone back here I can trust. Can you sort something out computer-wise, a decent code system or something? Then you can act as my backup.”

  When it came to computer science and technology, it was Sayid everyone turned to. He’d come close to causing a major scandal and a national security alert when he hacked into the Ministry of Defense’s computer system which the government had paid hundreds of millions to create. Their computer analysts had chased Sayid through a labyrinth of code and almost got to him, before he led them down a dead end with a trapdoor and self-destructed his whole program. Had they caught him, the repercussions would have been enormous: a fourteen-year-old kid from Saudi, inside the heart of the British defense security system! Only he and Max knew about it. That was a secret worthy of real friendship.

  “I’ll be here. I’ll set up a rerouting system so any message you send will be hard to trace.”

  “Make that ‘impossible to trace,’ Sayid. My life might depend on it.”

  3

  The vault was one hundred and thirty-three steps below the ground floor. It was amazingly dry and damp-free because the granite walls were so thick and the warm air from the geothermal heating unit was channeled into the school from beneath there. Mr. Jackson stood back a respectful distance as Max opened his safe-deposit box. The envelope inside was security-stamped and tagged with a tamper-proof clip. Max tore open the envelope. Inside was a USB memory-stick MP3 player that would hold his father’s message. Max’s passport was there, a credit card with a PIN and account number and what looked like a couple of thousand pounds in cash. There was also a lawyer’s letter, which stated that Max’s father had few assets other than the country cottage in France; his dad always rented a furnished apartment during his brief stays in London. All of which, Max realized, meant he was pretty much broke and that Max’s legal guardian was to be someone in Toronto whom he had never heard of-Jack Ellerman. Max looked again at the packet that held the envelope with the money and credit card. But if Dad was stony broke, what was all this about? Then he saw the symbol on the envelope: a small drawing of an Egyptian hieroglyphic-the jackal-headed figure of Anubis, god of the underworld. Underworld. Hidden from view. His dad was sending him a message to hide the contents of the envelope. Max pushed the money and the credit card under his jacket and then turned. Mr. Jackson was right behind him, had he seen Max hide the envelope?

  “Everything all right, Max?”

  Max held up the USB player and the letter. “Seems Dad’s broke and he’s sending me somewhere I really don’t want to go.”

  Mr. Jackson put a protective arm around Max as he read the letter from the lawyer. “I see. Well, that’s why we hold a parents’ contingency fund. We’ll arrange that ticket for you. But there’ll be enough in your school trust fund to cover the rest of this term; we wouldn’t force you to leave. We can make a plan, Max. A lot of the boys have scholarships to be here.”

  Max smiled gratefully, but shook his head. “Once I’ve heard Dad’s message I suppose I’d better do as he asks.”

  They started their long walk up from the vault-ascending from the underworld-and Max remembered that Anubis was also the Egyptian god of the dead.

  * * *

  Max said his goodbyes to Sayid and his mother, then Mr. Peterson drove him to the station for the London train. Three hours later, he was in London, a modest-sized rucksack on his back with everything he needed-which was little more than a change of clothes. He’d listened to his dad’s voice on the recording three times, but it was only twenty minutes’ worth. There were no clues, no hint as to what his dad might have expected to happen to him. It was mostly about Mum and how much they’d always loved him, and how his dad hoped that the school had been the right choice … how much he missed Max. It was all a bit vague. But his father’s secret message on the envelope made Max extra cautious.

  When Max got off the intercity train, he turned as if making for the Heathrow Express platform, but then he cut around a fast-food stand and backtracked, towards the short tunnel that led to the taxi rank. There was a long queue but he lingered for a while, casually watching to see if anyone was following him. Then he moved quickly back inside the building and went down to the tube station. He kept looking; there didn’t seem to be anyone familiar, but then he saw a man in his twenties-quite scruffy, possibly a musician or art student, listening to his iPod. His rough-cut hair and worn clothes blended in well, but Max noticed that he was wearing a pretty expensive-looking watch, which he checked frequently. Max suddenly realized that he had seen him hanging around the Heathrow train platform.

  Max squeezed into the carriage and the iPod man, using another door, got into the same one.

  His senses now sharpened, Max looked up and down the carriage, through the connecting doors. He noticed a middle-aged woman, quite smartly dressed, her expensive fashion bag over her shoulder. Max realized she had been about ten places in front of him in the taxi queue.

  Someone must be after something he had. But what? Why would they have tried to kill him on Dartmoor if he had something important they wanted? It made no sense. Not yet, anyway. The important thing now was to make sure no one followed him to his father’s contact.

  When the train arrived at Charing Cross Underground station there was the usual push-and-shove as those on the crowded platform tried to get on board. Max watched. iPod Man was trying to observe him, looking sideways so there was no direct eye contact. And Smart Bag Woman was doing the same. Half a dozen people managed to squeeze in just as Max pressed towards the doors and the throng on the platform. The doors were closing when he shouldered his way through, and as his feet touched the platform he turned and saw the man and woman push their way out. So, they were following him; it wasn’t a figment of his imagination. However, he’d already thought of a plan. As he stepped onto the platform he dropped his rucksack between the sliding doors so that when they closed they immediately sprang open again. In that instant he plucked the bag off the floor and edged his way back inside. He was strong enough to push aside a couple of heavier men; that was one thing about Dartmoor High, they made you use every muscle in your body-maybe it was so as to deal with traveling on the London Underground.

  As the train pulled away he saw the look of surprise and panic on his watchers’ faces. He’d beaten them. How many more were there to get past before he could reach Farentino?

  Outside the National Gallery he jumped on a tour bus full of foreign tourists and took a seat upstairs in the open-topped Routemaster. It was too cold for most people, but he wanted a clear view to see if he was still being followed-besides, he didn’t mind the cold; he was used to it.

  As the bus made its way along the Embankment, the Thames seemed to be flowing faster than the traffic, so he jumped off, sprinted up the steps near the Courtauld Institute, dodged across the traffic snarled up in the Strand and into the fringe of Soho. At last he felt sure he had put enough distance between himself and whatever teams of watchers there might have been.

  By the time he’d walked up towards Soho Square he’d listened to his father’s message again. Dad had always been so open with his feelings when they’d been together. Fathers and sons were always going to fall out at some stage, Dad told him once, but Max should und
erstand that, no matter what happened, he loved him with all his heart. So, Max reasoned, if his dad was usually open about how he felt, why was he saying so little on a recording which he knew would be played if something happened to him? Perhaps it was because he feared someone else might have listened to it first-if that was the case, was there a hidden message Max hadn’t picked up on yet? He didn’t know, but he’d keep listening until he had exhausted that possibility.

  Soho Square, its edges planted with shrubs and trees, made a welcome oasis among the city buildings. There were office workers grabbing a quick coffee or a sandwich as they took their lunch hour; a couple of people sleeping rough hogged the benches, while pigeons ducked and bobbed as they hunted for crumbs from the sandwich-eaters.

  Max skirted the square, then cut across it diagonally. He was as certain as he could be that he was no longer being followed. He approached a black, high-gloss-painted door, which was crammed unobtrusively in between two other old buildings. One, the Zaragon Picture Company, was an independent filmmaking company, the other the head office for a wine merchant. Max checked the small brass plaque on the black door-FARENTINO-to make sure he’d remembered the location correctly; it had been a couple of years since he was here last. Farentino. That was all it said. No description of what business was conducted there. He pressed the intercom and told the voice that answered who he was. The door clicked open and he stepped into the quiet, safe world of his father’s most trusted friend.

  Max could smell the musky odor of the animal’s skin. It seemed so out of place in the well-furnished rooms of Angelo Farentino. The animal pelt had never been properly cured, but it served its purpose of protecting the bundle of handwritten notes from the elements. As Max let his hands feel the texture of the animal skin and the papers it protected that he had just been given, Farentino paced back and forth, his expensive Italian shoes making hardly a sound on the marble floor. Max wanted to devour the words on the pages-they were his father’s field notes-so he skimmed across them, desperate to learn any information about what had happened to him in Africa.