by Gavin, Rohan
Two floors below, Knightley reached the bottom of the staircase and moved across the hallway, the baton aimed ahead of him, lightly humming. Through the kitchen doorway he saw Bogna’s feet laid out on the floor, pointing upward, still wearing her Crocs. Now fear took hold of Knightley too. She couldn’t be dead. She had the constitution of an ox. He put his feelings in a locked box and tried to keep his wits about him. He was too old for this, too ill prepared. He crept quickly across the carpeted living area, circling with the baton to cover every angle. He crossed onto the linoleum and knelt by Bogna’s body, which was spreadeagled on the floor. He found a strong pulse in her wrist, then she let out a long, bronchial snore. Knightley exhaled with relief and got to his feet, moving back into the living room, then he stopped.
The heavy curtains over the front windows appeared to move. Knightley aimed the baton ahead of him and used it to part them. The tip of the shaft crackled loudly with a rhythmic ticking sound, sparking off the curtain fabric. With a quick movement he tore them open, letting sunlight flood into the room. He shielded his eyes as—
Presto appeared from behind a sofa unseen, directly behind him, wearing a Spanish gaucho hat pulled low over his face.
Knightley sensed something and spun around to find Presto approaching across the carpet. Knightley instantly swung the baton, too wide. Presto ducked and seemed to reappear on the other side of the room, out of range. The stun baton connected with an overhead lamp in a shower of sparks. Blue wisps of high-voltage electricity ran up and down the length of the weapon as Knightley turned to face his opponent again.
“Got any other tricks, Alan?” said Presto, his mouth leering under the brim of the hat.
“What do you want?”
“I warned you not to proceed with this investigation . . . You chose to proceed.”
“Old habits die hard,” said Knightley, slipping his hand through the wrist strap for security.
“You’ve lost the old magic, Alan—playing second fiddle to the boy.”
“Leave him out of it,” warned Knightley.
“Not my fault you made it a family affair.”
Knightley lunged toward him but Presto dodged the baton again, trapped Knightley’s arm, pivoted, and threw him over his shoulder.
Knightley gripped the stun baton, which crackled and sparked off everything it touched on the way down. He smashed through a coffee table and awkwardly staggered back to his feet.
Presto spun and kicked his opponent’s arm, sending the baton ricocheting against Knightley’s chest, giving him the full brunt of the charge. Knightley’s eyes rolled back, then the baton made a deafening pop and jerked out of his hands, skittering to the floor. Knightley flinched, recoiling onto the sofa in a heap.
“The Coh—” Knightley stuttered. “The Cohm—”
“What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?” Presto swaggered toward him as if performing for an invisible audience.
Knightley rolled himself off the sofa and crawled toward a desk. “The Combination . . . ,” he said, sounding strangely surprised.
“That’s right, fella. Alive and well.”
Knightley dragged himself across the carpet, seeing only optical white noise, the remnants of electricity running pell-mell around his head. Then a row of numbers and letters appeared on his visual cortex, burnished like exploding stars, beginning with the characters 2 and D. It was what he’d been looking for all this time, on street signs and on the back of buses. The shock treatment had apparently dredged them up from the depths of his subconscious. His brows knitted as he tried to read them in his mind. He didn’t even know what they meant; he only knew they were important.
“Yes-yes . . . ,” he muttered, crawling on all fours through the jungle of carpet fibers toward where he knew the desk was.
“Where are you going, Alan?” Presto bent down and picked up the stun baton, then held it over Knightley’s scuttling body. “It’s sleepy time.”
Presto touched the baton to Knightley’s back, sending voltage coursing through him. Knightley cackled hilariously as the current ran through him, causing his limbs to dance crazily, then he rolled over and continued in a sort of backstroke across the floor. Presto laughed too. A forced, bellowing laugh that resounded through the whole house.
While Presto’s head was back, roaring, Knightley raised his leg and delivered a spasmodic kick to the groin. Presto’s laugh reached a maniacal high-pitched crescendo as he doubled over in pain.
While Presto was distracted, Knightley hauled himself up against the desk. The numbers and letters in his head were now clear as day. His fingers groped blindly across the desktop, quickly locating the notepad and fountain pen that were always kept there. He grasped the pad and pen, pulling them to the floor, then removed the pen top with his teeth and frantically began to scribble, before balling up the note and throwing it under a chair.
Presto came to stand over him, grabbing Knightley’s lapels and hauling him to his feet. “Game’s over. Someone wants to see you.” Presto swung his right hand, knocking Knightley unconscious.
Darkus heard a thud from downstairs, but was unable to move due to the confines of his hiding place or to see anything other than a very faint ray of light through the tunnel of darkness that extended some nine feet above his head. Darkus stopped believing in Santa Claus many years before the rest of his peers. He considered it his first criminal case. After conducting a cursory examination of the logistics involved, Darkus deduced that children the world over were laboring under an illusion. Now, finding himself wedged inside a chimney, he found the idea even more laughable. He shuffled farther up the narrow tunnel, keeping his shoes pressed against the inner walls for stability, not sure whether he would make it to the top, but certain he needed to get as far up as possible.
He now heard another noise: a heavy car door being slammed on the street outside.
The catastrophizer told him that his father had already been taken. But, fortunately, if the villains had wanted his father dead, they wouldn’t have issued a warning. Darkus had to conclude that his dad was now in the hands of the enemy, and he was on his own.
Whether or not they wanted him was another matter.
He pressed down with his feet, keeping himself wedged into the chimney to stop from falling. His clothes would be covered in soot, and he imagined himself a Dickensian character stuck in a plot that was far more sinister than anything he had ever read about. He wondered if any other children had followed these same tracks in years gone by, climbing through the darkness and hopefully emerging intact at the other end.
He heard a different noise now. It was the creak of the office door opening. Someone was still in the house, on the top floor, only a matter of six feet below him. He froze, listening for any noises that were funneled up to him. He heard a floorboard give slightly, the whisper of a foot brushing the carpet. Then he looked down, seeing a tall, slim shadow fall over the fireplace.
“Come down, Darkus. I know you’re up there.” Presto’s disconnected voice echoed up the chimney.
Darkus began shuffling higher, dislodging large bits of carbon from the walls. He accidentally inhaled soot and choked, trying to fight back coughs. His throat tightened, his stomach cramped, his lungs burned and contracted until he coughed heavily, unable to stop himself.
The voice appeared again. “Do you like magic tricks? All kids like magic tricks. Come down and I’ll show you one.”
“Leave me alone!” Darkus called down the shaft, feeling the blood pound through his head. He looked down, seeing the shadow over the fireplace grow and expand to cover the whole grate.
Then an arm leaped up the chimney after him. A gloved hand grabbed at his feet. Darkus stumbled and tried to move farther up, but lost his footing and dropped straight down several feet. He cried out in terror as he wedged his back and feet into the inner walls, tearing his jacket but stopping his fall. The hand groped again, getting hold of his ankle and yanking sharply downward. Darkus’s teeth chattered, his mo
uth unable to form words, even to scream. He wedged himself deeper into the narrow space, then kicked down, dispensing with the hand, which crumpled and recoiled.
A muffled curse came from below him in response. Then a series of sounds were funneled up to him in quick succession. A wailing alarm pierced the walls, blaring out across the whole street. Then a thundering stampede arrived on the stairs, ascending to the top floor, created not by a group but by a single person. A torrent of Polish swear words accompanied the wild clanging of a frying pan.
Whatever happened was over quickly. A tussle resulted in the shattering of a windowpane, and the shadow vanished from the fireplace. A car door slammed on the street below, an engine revved up, and the car screeched away, leaving just the blare of the alarm, which did little to calm the nerves.
“Doc? You are okay?” Bogna’s face appeared at the bottom of the chimney like a vision of the Virgin Mary.
“Yes-yes,” Darkus answered nervously, then began his descent into the office.
“Your clothings!” said Bogna, looking appalled.
“Dad,” he stammered. “They’ve taken Dad.”
After Bogna disabled the alarm, Darkus explained why they could not contact the police until he had conducted a superficial examination of the scene. Bogna reluctantly agreed, suspecting that this was exactly what Knightley Senior would have done in the circumstances.
Darkus retraced his father’s steps, moving across the front room, noting the roughly drawn curtains, the displaced cushion, the collapsed coffee table. He then got to his knees and crawled across the carpet, observing the subtle changes in the direction of the nap. His father had left a trail of sorts, like the path of a large snake, meandering from the sofa toward the desk.
Darkus found the fountain pen without its top. The nib was dripping black ink onto the rug. Bogna’s eyes went wide, and she quickly descended on the stain with a damp cloth until Darkus stopped her. A pen without a top meant his father had to have left him a message.
Lying flat on the floor, he peered under the furniture, swiveling around on his front to check every corner. Discarded under a bookshelf he found what he was looking for: the balled-up piece of paper. He reached for it, his fingers rolling it arduously into his grasp. Then he got to his feet and uncrumpled it, spreading it out on the desk. The paper was creased in all directions, the handwriting was jagged and out of control, but the message was clear enough:
The meaning, however, was anyone’s guess.
Chapter 20
Loose Threads
Bogna, still clutching the frying pan in a defensive stance, watched Darkus stare at the piece of paper and waited patiently for instruction.
Darkus looked up, mystified, and gently removed the pan from her viselike grip, then advised her to apply a cold compress to her head, to ease the concussion she’d clearly received. Bogna slipped out, then reappeared wearing a turban made from dish towels and bags of frozen peas.
“You think Alan is okay?” she asked. “You think they will feed him?”
“I don’t know,” Darkus said, then reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone, and dialed Bill’s number. It rang and rang with no response.
Fearing the worst, he looked up the number for University College Hospital and dialed it. The receptionist put him through to a nurse on the ward; Darkus said he was calling to check on his uncle—using Bill’s birth name, Montague Billoch. She put him on hold, and Darkus became convinced that Bill had either been abducted, or worse.
The nurse returned to the line. “Mr. Billoch is currently in surgery for his leg. It’ll be several hours before he comes around from the anesthetic.”
Darkus breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you.” But he didn’t have several hours. “When he wakes up, please tell him Darkus called, and it’s urgent.”
He put down the phone, his mind racing. With his father and the Knowledge both gone, he was left with nothing but his own memory, and his own instincts.
Bogna vanished upstairs, then returned with fresh towels and a tall pile of clothes wrapped in tissue paper. “Alan instruct me to go to Jermyn Street. He gave me your size. I hope it fit . . .”
Taken aback, Darkus received the pile of clothes in his arms; it was so tall it obscured his face. He took a few steps backward and lowered it onto the sofa, admiring it as if it were the best Christmas present he’d ever received, which, in a way, it was. He slowly unwrapped the tissue paper to find socks, undergarments, collared shirts, and a Donegal tweed jacket and trousers. Darkus stared in wonderment. He carefully removed his own soiled jacket and set it aside, then picked up the new one, admiring the cut, feeling the soft yarn of the cloth.
He slowly tried it on. It fit perfectly, and it felt like a dagger to the heart. He had misjudged his father—the one person he had ever really had anything in common with—and now he was gone; worse still, he was in grave jeopardy.
Darkus found his eyes full of tears, unable to reason with them, unable to contain them any longer.
“There, there . . . ,” Bogna said, then smothered him, patting him gently on the back. “I know Alan. Alan can take care of himself.” Unseen, Bogna shook her head, looking far less convinced of this.
Darkus wiped his eyes and turned back to the pile of clothes with a mixture of sadness and determination.
“I’ll go and get changed,” he said. “Can you be ready to leave in five minutes?”
“Leave? Leave where?” asked Bogna.
“I’ll explain on the way. I’m afraid you’re driving.”
“In Alan’s taxi-car?” She looked bewildered. “I haven’t drive since I am a teenager in Klopoty-Ba´nki.”
“Then we’ll just have to stay in the bus lane,” said Darkus.
Chapter 21
A Bad Trip
Clive slid into the Jag, put on his seat belt, and pressed the Start button, waiting for the engine to warm up. He liked his car; he felt safe in it, even though he had to admit it felt slightly less perfect since Knightley had hijacked it. It had been misused, ridden roughshod and generally mistreated. The brakes felt a tad softer, the ride less agreeable. There were some squeaks and rattles that Clive could have sworn weren’t there before the incident. What other torments Knightley might have subjected it to during its abduction didn’t bear thinking about—particularly the tow truck, the time spent in the impound yard, in the company of unfamiliars, old Ford Fiestas and who knew what; not to mention the sweaty men in oil-stained jumpsuits—hardly the seasoned Jaguar technicians Clive usually entrusted her to. And then, of course, there was the scratch on the rear quarter panel of the gorgeous midnight-blue paint. Darkus had blamed it on the jacket, but secretly Clive was still convinced it was the work of his next-door neighbor.
Clive realized, with reluctance, that he was falling out of love with his car, and deep down he knew he would have to replace it.
As luck would have it, today was a road-test day, easily the best perk of his job. The production offices of Wheel Spin, his widely watched (but poorly reviewed) cable TV program, had brought over a rare Italian supercar for him to review. The detailers would be waxing it to a showroom shine; the cockpit-cam would be set up to record his every impression and off-the-cuff remark as he put the car through its paces on the track. Clive didn’t have the ludicrous budget of certain other car-review programs, but he had an intimate knowledge of motor vehicles and the bubbly personality to back it up—which never ceased to win him compliments at the gas station or the local pub.
Clive idled on the driveway for another moment, and his thoughts turned to The Code, bringing on a warm tingle of positivity. He turned his heated seat down a notch, then accelerated away from the house in buoyant spirits. He hadn’t told Jackie about the book—she wouldn’t understand. But she’d notice the change in him soon enough; everyone would. He’d only read a few pages, but he could already feel the difference. Today was going to be a good day. His “thought transmitter” was fired up and ready to go. He was going to “be the
change.”
Clive reached the production offices in record time, despite being held up by an infuriating old lady in a compact car, whom he dispatched with a stamp on the accelerator and a horn blast for good measure. Just because she was old didn’t mean she shouldn’t be expected to understand the rules of the road. Speed kills, but so do senior drivers.
After coffee and a Danish pastry in his trailer, Clive took an admiring walk around the multivented, cherry-red supercar that was waiting by the track. If anything could ease the pain of losing the Jag, this would.
Finding a moment to himself, Clive took his e-book reader from his jacket pocket and opened it up.
“Camera ready, Clive!” the director called over to him from the camera truck.
“Roger,” said Clive, and got into the supercar, pressing a button to lower the door into place.
The cockpit came to life with gauges and readouts, and Clive set aside the e-reader, tucking it into the glove compartment. He pulled on his driving gloves, checked his hair in the rearview mirror, glanced at the video camera mounted in the passenger seat and the second camera on the truck behind him.
“Showtime,” he said, and gunned the Italian horses to life. The engine roared and Clive’s eyes lit up, glowing with the reds and greens of the dashboard lights.
The director’s voice crackled out of the walkie-talkie attached to Clive’s belt. “Okay, Clive. We’re rolling.”
A red light blinked on the cockpit-cam in the passenger seat, indicating it was recording.
Clive eased the supercar out of the parking lot and coaxed it down an access road toward the deserted racetrack where the review would be conducted. He turned the wheel, guiding the beast past another camera crew located on a grassy shoulder alongside the main straight. The crew gave him an enthusiastic thumbs-up. Clive returned the signal vigorously with both hands.
The track extended in either direction. A few carefully placed piles of tires were the only objects on the wide, endless horizon. Clive took up position, pointing straight down the center. The camera truck idled beside him, focused on the side of the car.