The Last Enemy

by Jim Eldridge

  ‘I’ll leave you together,’ said Gerald, pushing the door shut.

  ‘How are you?’ asked Jake.

  Gareth gave a smile.

  ‘Take no notice of all this paraphernalia,’ he said, gesturing at the medical equipment. ‘I’m perfectly fine, but the powers-that-be won’t believe me until the medics tell them I am. Please, sit down.’

  ‘We haven’t bought any grapes or anything,’ said Jake. ‘We didn’t know where we were going.’ Then, anxiously, he asked, ‘Are you going to be all right?’

  ‘According to the doctors, a few days’ rest and I’ll be fine.’ He looked at his bandaged hand and sighed. ‘Of course, I shall always be missing a finger, but that’s a small price to pay for being alive.’

  ‘What was Sue Clark doing here?’ asked Lauren.

  ‘I asked her to come and see me,’ said Gareth.

  ‘She didn’t seem very friendly today,’ observed Lauren.

  ‘Don’t be too condemning of her,’ said Gareth. ‘She saved your lives. And mine.’

  Jake and Lauren looked at Gareth, puzzled.

  ‘How?’ asked Jake. ‘Guy smashed our phones. There was no way to trace us.’

  ‘Dan’s sister, Gemma,’ said Gareth.

  Suddenly Jake realised. ‘Gemma went to see Sue Clark!’

  ‘And Sue Clark offered her money if she would keep an eye on you and report back to her what was going on.’

  ‘Gemma would be good at that,’ said Lauren. ‘Dan told us she is always eavesdropping.’ She smiled. ‘I think she’d make a good spy.’

  Gareth didn’t smile at the suggestion.

  ‘It seems that Gemma stayed in a Pierce Randall flat in London overnight, and then returned to Sevenoaks. She got Dan’s message telling her you were all going to Platt Castle, so she went along in the hope of seeing what you were up to. She arrived in time to find Guy’s crew burying three bodies.

  ‘Then she phoned Sue Clark to tell her what was happening, and where. She told Ms Clark there was no sign of any of you at the place, but she’d found Dan’s motorbike.’

  ‘She thought the bodies were us!’ exclaimed Lauren.

  ‘At first.’ Gareth nodded. ‘But, after the kids had gone back to the castle, she scraped the earth off the faces of the bodies.’

  ‘Wow!’ said Lauren. ‘That took some guts.’

  ‘Young Ms Hayward is a very brave person,’ agreed Gareth. ‘When she saw it wasn’t you, she phoned Sue Clark again and said she thought you must be locked up somewhere in there. She is someone it would be useful to have on our side. I think there’s a future for her in our organisation.’

  ‘And, after the phone calls, I assume Sue Clark swung into action,’ said Lauren. ‘Those special forces soldiers who turned up to rescue us.’

  ‘Pierce Randall have some expert resources at their disposal, including their own private SWAT teams,’ said Gareth. ‘It was a Pierce Randall team who rescued us. And, as I’m sure you realised, once we were free I got them to alert our own people and told them to go to Laker Heath and deal with Guy.’

  ‘They arrived just in time,’ said Jake. He added, ‘They killed him.’

  ‘What would you have preferred?’ asked Gareth. ‘We could have locked him up, but sooner or later some smart lawyer would have got him released, and then he would have been a very serious and dangerous problem once more.’

  ‘I saw The Index,’ said Jake. ‘It was in the hangar at Laker Heath.’

  ‘Really?’ said Gareth in a dry tone.

  ‘How long has it been there?’

  ‘I’m not really able to disclose any information regarding The Index,’ said Gareth, ‘but let’s just say our people were ahead of you.’

  ‘So why didn’t you take the Journal at the same time? That was at the chapel as well.’

  ‘The Journal of the Order of Malichea is of little interest. The Index is what people are after.’

  ‘If you’ve had The Index all this time, then you know where all the books are hidden,’ said Lauren accusingly. ‘So why all that business, for so long, of following us around and seeing if we found any of the books?’

  ‘To stop you, of course,’ said Gareth. ‘And, if you did find any, to take them off you. The books have to stay hidden for the common good.’

  ‘You haven’t thought of recovering them all and stashing them in that hangar at Laker Heath, along with the others you’ve got there?’ asked Jake.

  ‘Jake, there are hundreds and hundreds of them!’ said Gareth. ‘Many of them are safe where they are, spread far and wide, hidden, and protected by the Watchers. That way they stay safe. And with a helping hand from MI5.’

  Chapter 30

  Jake and Lauren were driven back to their flat by Gerald. As they arrived, he told them, ‘Don’t worry, your flat is quite safe.’

  ‘You’ve been inside it?’ queried Lauren.

  ‘Some of our people did a scan of it,’ said Gerald. ‘They haven’t interfered with anything, I can assure you, we were just making sure no one had left any nasty surprises for you.’

  With that he drove off. Jake looked towards their flat.

  ‘Think we can take his word for it?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Lauren. ‘With Guy dead and those kids locked up, I think we can say we’re safe.’

  ‘We’ve thought that before, and were wrong,’ pointed out Jake.

  ‘But The Index and the Journal have been found and are in a secure facility. Once everyone knows that, the game’s over.’

  ‘No it’s not,’ said Jake. ‘The books are out there, still hidden. And now that Pierce Randall know where The Index is . . .’

  ‘You think Gareth told Sue Clark?’ asked Lauren.

  ‘No, but it’s a lead, isn’t it? And the only one that we’ve got,’ said Jake. ‘Which means Pierce Randall will be pulling every string and pushing every button they can to get their hands on it.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s not over. It’ll never be over.’

  As they walked along the pathway towards the block of flats, Jake’s gaze caught their parked Mini Cooper. The side panel in the bodywork was still dented, the headlight was still broken. Lauren saw the gloomy expression on his face.

  ‘Maybe now we’ll have time to get it fixed,’ said Lauren.

  ‘I was just thinking that there’s another thing we need to fix,’ said Jake. ‘Someone we need to thank.’

  This time they drove to the caravan park on the outskirts of Sevenoaks. They’d phoned ahead to Dan to make sure that he and Gemma would be in for their visit. Gemma opened the door of the caravan to them. Dan was making coffee.

  ‘We wanted to come and say thank you,’ said Lauren to Gemma, as they walked in and sat down. ‘If it hadn’t been for you, we’d have been dead.’

  ‘I know.’ Gemma nodded.

  ‘We heard what you did, scraping the dirt off the bodies,’ said Jake. ‘That took massive courage.’

  ‘I had to find out if Dan had been killed,’ said Gemma.

  ‘I nearly was,’ said Dan ruefully, bringing a tray with coffees on it and putting it on the low table.

  ‘MI5 were really impressed,’ said Jake. ‘We hear they might be offering you a job.’ He grinned. ‘Though I guess that could be an official secret.’

  Gemma shook her head.

  ‘I’m not taking it,’ she said. She smiled. ‘I’m going into private practice. There’s more money in it than working for the government.’

  ‘Private practice?’ queried Lauren.

  ‘Pierce Randall,’ said Gemma. ‘They’ve offered me an internship.’ She leant forward, an expression of triumph on her face. ‘Sue Clark told me I could earn a million a year working for them. A million a year!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jake. ‘I expect you can.’

  ‘One day I’ll be able to buy Mum and Dan a proper home,’ added Gemma. She gestured around the interior of the caravan. ‘No more caravan park for them. And me, I’m moving into a flat in London, in the same block as Sue C
lark. It’s a very expensive place. Very smart!’

  ‘Brilliant,’ said Lauren, throwing a worried look Jake’s way.

  As Jake and Lauren drove away from the caravan park, Jake at the wheel, he said, ‘I think that Gemma will fit in very nicely at Pierce Randall.’

  ‘In fact, I bet in a few years she’ll be after Sue Clark’s job,’ added Lauren. ‘She’s very ambitious. Just the right person for Pierce Randall. What about us?’ asked Lauren.

  Jake laughed.

  ‘I don’t think we’re Pierce Randall people at all,’ he said.

  ‘I mean, what happens next?’

  ‘About the Malichea books, you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That depends,’ said Jake. ‘You always said your aim was to get that scientific knowledge out into the public arena. Use it to save lives.’

  ‘But most people seem to want to use it as weapons, or to make money,’ sighed Lauren. ‘Maybe I was wrong and Gareth was right. Perhaps it’s better for the books to stay hidden.’

  ‘Who knows?’ Jake shrugged. ‘Maybe?’ Then he grinned. ‘Or maybe not,’ he added and gave a sly chuckle. ‘Maybe that’s up to us.’

  By Jim Eldridge

  The Malichea Quest Series

  in reading order:

  The Invisible Assassin

  The Deadly Game

  The Lethal Target

  The Last Enemy

  Bloomsbury Publishing, London, New Delhi, New York and Sydney

  First published in Great Britain in September 2013 by

  Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

  This electronic edition published in September 2013 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  Copyright © Jim Eldridge 2013

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  All rights reserved

  You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise

  make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means

  (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying,

  printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the

  publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication

  may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 9781408826843

  www.bloomsbury.com

  www.jimeldridge.com

  Visit www.bloomsbury.com to find out more about our authors and their books

  You will find extracts, author interviews, author events and you can sign up for

  newsletters to be the first to hear about our latest releases and special offers