by Ali Sparkes
Suddenly the car lurched to a stop. The engine cut out and Rachel could only hear her own heartbeat and terrified, ragged breathing. What now? She tried to keep calm and listen. Now she heard a woman’s voice—the librarian—talking urgently in a foreign language. She must have a mobile phone with her. She sounded angry and panicked but then there came another sound … a chopping noise, cutting through the night air. A helicopter. Or was she imagining that? It might just be thunder … but no, there was no thunder and no rain; she would hear it on the metal of the car. The storm must have passed. How long had she been lying unconscious with Polly in this boot?
‘Yesss!’ she heard the librarian say. ‘About time!’
One of the car’s doors slammed and Rachel had only seconds to think of what to do next, because she was certain the boot was about to be flung open. And she was right. There was a scrabble at the catch and a second later, torchlight flooded into their cramped prison; Rachel kept her eyes closed and her mouth open, hoping she looked unconscious.
‘All right, sleeping beauties,’ muttered the librarian. ‘Time to go.’
The helicopter noise grew much louder and through her mostly closed eyes Rachel could see the librarian’s brown hair whipping around her head. In the weird flashing light, she looked like Medusa. ‘You first!’ said the woman, reaching in and grabbing Polly. Rachel wanted to leap up and claw at the woman’s eyes, but something told her to wait. Just a little bit …
Mistake. Three seconds later the boot lid slammed down and she was trapped again. Rachel bit her lip and tried not to cry. She wasn’t thinking straight. She still felt so foggy. She pushed against the metal above her but it did not give. She began to fumble around inside the boot and after a while her hands fell upon what felt like a canvas bag. It had a zip, which she undid. Under her hands she felt a cool tin—some plastic packages—some material … ah … it must be one of those first aid kits. She rummaged further and then felt something round, like a plastic barrel … heavy … with a sliding switch. Rachel squeaked with hope and pushed the switch and at once light streamed out from the bag. She’d found a torch. She pulled it out and swung it around her. The boot was black metal with a black carpet beneath her. The catch on the inside of the boot lid was silver coloured metal and had little moving parts.
She emptied the bag, hoping for something metal … something she could try to pick the catch with … surely there would be safety pins or scissors. But there weren’t—only wipes and bandages and plasters and the cool can of something. Antiseptic spray. She wailed with frustration and tried to turn around in the confined space. And as she did so, she felt a slight jab in her school trousers’ pocket. She paused and then dug her hand in. Her fingers fell on something hard, pointed and metal. She gasped out a dry chuckle, despite her fear. Polly’s hair clip! She pulled it out and stared at it. Was it strong enough? Hair clips she’d bought in years gone by would bend in seconds … they were pretty flimsy. But this, of course, was a Fifties hair clip. Built to last. It was strong and well-made with a pointed, sharp back-clip which would probably be outlawed by twenty-first century health and safety rules. On an impulse, Rachel tucked the antiseptic spray into her blouse and then turned to face the catch of the boot. Outside the chopper noise was steady, as if the aircraft had landed. She might have only seconds before the librarian returned. ‘Well … here goes 1956!’ she breathed and poked the clip into the lock.
Three seconds later there was a clunk and the boot lid opened a crack. Rachel could not believe it. She stared out through the crack and saw shadowy grass. The flashing light behind revealed that the helicopter must be off somewhere to the front of the car. She could hear voices. They were shouting.
‘Leave them!’ bellowed a male voice. ‘We only need the girl and the dog. Leave the other two—we haven’t got time.’
Rachel gasped and threw herself out of the boot a second later. She turned and pulled the lid back down quickly, and then ducked down, her heart beating a wild tattoo in her chest. Who else was in the car? Just as she peered through the window, the door on the far side was wrenched open and the lights all came on. She had just enough time to see Ben lying unconscious on the back seat before ducking down again. The car door slammed and the librarian called out. ‘All right, he’s too heavy for me on my own anyway— let’s go.’
Now there was a different set of lights—car head-lamps, several of them, and blue flashing lights. The police were coming, bumping over the grassland that Rachel now recognized as the downs above Dark Wood— just a mile from their home.
But the helicopter was ready to fly and the librarian was handing Bessie aboard. At her feet was Polly. And now she was lifting the girl up while the pilot reached down. It was too late! They would get away!
‘NO!!!’ screamed Rachel and ran faster than she had ever run before. The librarian looked back over her shoulder and gaped, Polly dangling, semiconscious, in her arms. Rachel hurtled towards her and then took a great leap at the woman. She cannoned into her and Polly was dropped to the grass as her captor was knocked over. Rachel, falling with her, had never been so furious in her life. She pulled hard on the woman’s hair but was slapped harder across the face as the librarian struggled to get up. Rachel felt something cool in her blouse and reached in to grab it as she was rolled over onto her back. Next she had the wind driven out of her by a knee hard in her chest.
‘You really should learn when to give up, little girl!’ spat the librarian, her eyes flickering in the helicopter’s tail light and her face flashing blue and white in the light of the oncoming police cars. The closest runner of the helicopter began to ease up out of the grass beside them as the librarian lifted her hand and balled it into a fist.
‘Corders don’t give up,’ croaked Rachel, lifting the aerosol can and pressing the button.
A strong jet of antiseptic shot right into the librarian’s eyes. She shrieked and let go of Rachel, just as the helicopter tried to rise again. The librarian tried, blindly, to leap into it, but only staggered into the side. There was a volley of sound from the police cars— warning shouts through loudspeakers. Rachel grabbed Polly, whose eyes were now open, and dragged her away from the deafening aircraft.
Other arms closed around them. ‘It’s OK, you’re safe,’ said a voice. ‘We’ve got you all safe now.’
‘Oh, not another needle! Why does everyone have to keep jabbing me with needles?’
Ben opened his eyes and stared across a white room, in time to see a man advancing on Polly with a syringe. He shot upright and shouted ‘No! Leave her alone! Polly—run!’ The man paused and Polly looked round, but she was smiling. Sitting next to her was Freddy, with his arm around her. He was smiling too.
All of a sudden a rush of images filled Ben’s mind—the rain and the dark, the men in black carrying Polly and Rachel, striking someone’s head with a flail, Freddy staggering along at the side of the road, bleeding and blind. The lightning strike …
‘What’s happening? What’s happening?’
A hand rested on his shoulder. ‘It’s all right, Benedict. It’s all right now.’ He spun round and saw Uncle Jerome. Ben realized he was in a bed—a medical kind of bed in a small ward with a highly polished floor. Polly and Freddy were sitting on another bed across the room, wearing green pyjamas, and beyond Uncle Jerome, Rachel also lay in bed in green pyjamas, her eyes opening, grinning at him sleepily.
‘You’ve been absolutely brilliant—all of you,’ said Uncle Jerome, warmly. ‘I cannot begin to say how proud I am of you. You managed to stop our country from losing something very, very precious.’
‘So who is that?’ said Ben, his nerves still jangling. ‘And why are they injecting Polly? I thought we agreed—no tests, Uncle J—no tests!’
‘It’s quite all right, Ben,’ said Polly. ‘We have to have this. It’s to stop the bleeding and the going blind thing. Freddy told me what happened on the road,’ she gulped. ‘They say this will stop it happening again and make us both well.’
‘You’re in a special government hospital—quite safe, Ben. And I promise you, we won’t ever do any kind of testing on Polly or Freddy without family consent. They are extremely precious to us.’
Rachel now sat up, looking around. ‘Where’s Bessie?’ she demanded. ‘She needs an injection too! Did you rescue her from the helicopter?’
‘We did,’ smiled the man. ‘The pilot had the good sense not to try to take off, surrounded by British Special Branch. Don’t worry, Bessie’s already had her injection and she’s just along the corridor, being looked after by a very delighted civil servant. We like dogs around here.’
‘Ouch,’ said Polly, as the man, in a medical uniform, gave her the injection. Ben held his breath but nothing happened—Polly didn’t pass out and the man didn’t suddenly advance upon them all, waving a syringe.
‘Are you all quite awake now?’ asked Uncle Jerome. ‘Chambers and I have quite a lot to tell you. You’ve been out cold for just over a day, Ben … You must have got the biggest dose of knock-out juice! It seemed it was a bit hit and miss, because Rachel woke up very quickly after her injection.’
‘Lucky for me,’ smiled Polly and Rachel beamed back. She was still too exhausted to do much more.
‘So you can make Freddy and Polly well?’ asked Ben, looking at Chambers. ‘They won’t die … like the rats.’
‘No,’ said Chambers. ‘We know exactly what to do to stop the bleeding and the other side effects. They will be absolutely fine. We’ve been given all the information we need. Now … are you all ready for a bit of a story? I think you’ve earned it.’
‘It starts fifty-three years ago,’ said Uncle Jerome, getting comfortable on the edge of Ben’s high bed, and looking around at them all, ‘but for Chambers here, it started late in 2007—when Richard Tarrant came home. You see, fifty-three years is a long time in the government and pretty much nobody here even remembered the old Emerson case—not until Tarrant showed up one day in November 2007. He wanted to confess, to get some kind of pardon—to be left in peace to die back in his own country after half a century in Russia. He had defected you see … and he took Henry Emerson with him.’
‘No!’ shouted out Freddy, with a sob in his voice. ‘No! I don’t believe it! Father would rather have died than defect! He loved his country!’
‘You’re right,’ said Chambers. ‘He would rather have died. Tarrant betrayed him—took Soviet agents to his house to seize him.’
‘Uncle Dick did that?’ Polly looked shocked beyond measure.
‘Yes—I’m afraid he did. Your father was overcome, abducted, and smuggled out of the country. And he probably would have killed himself once he was captured, but he couldn’t, you see. He had a terrible secret. The Russians imagined you and Polly were at school when he was taken—and later they got the idea that you’d been taken to a government safe house for your protection. They didn’t really care either way—they just wanted your father’s genius. He was an incredibly clever man and they knew he was a great advantage to Great Britain in the Cold War. They wanted him for themselves, if only to take that advantage away from us.
‘But your father had this secret. He must have been absolutely tortured by it. He had left his beloved son and daughter in cryonic suspension—in a living death—buried in the woods behind his house. He had only just had time, when he realized he was being hunted, to shut you in and bury the hatchway in the woods,’ Chambers went on. ‘When he saw the men who were coming for him on camera, he was down underground. He should have locked himself in too, but he was desperate to hide some more of his work back in the house, if he could. Most of all though, he had to hide his children. If the Soviets had taken you two along with him, they could have made him do anything.’
‘So what did he do for them?’ said Freddy, almost whispering. He looked white and his mouth was trembling.
‘For the Russians? Nothing they wanted him to at first—nothing to do with weapons, although he knew a great deal about them. He was sick of war and bombs. So, in the end, he shared with them the very thing he had tried to hide from us—his cryonic stasis breakthrough.’
‘Why would he do that?’ said Freddy. ‘Why would he do anything for them at all?’
‘He didn’t do it for them,’ said Uncle Jerome. ‘He did it for you. It was the only thing he felt he could do for you.’
There was silence in the room and then Ben asked: ‘How do you know all this?’
‘Some of it came from Tarrant,’ said Chambers. ‘Of course, the minute he pitched up back in England we went into the files, and as thirty years had passed and it was no longer Top Secret, we got a lot more background on the case from other departments—found out about some of the early breakthroughs the professor had made in cryonics … all to no good apparently— the rats kept dying. And once Tarrant had returned we tried to find out, through our own network of agents in Russia, if there was any chatter about Professor Emerson. Tarrant hadn’t seen him for fifty years, himself, when he came back—he’d just collected his money and retired to the Russian good life, such as it was. He couldn’t tell us much more about what had happened to his old friend—or the children. I think he was quite haunted by what he did—to all of you—if it helps you to know that.’ Freddy stared at his feet and said nothing.
‘We couldn’t find anything significant,’ went on Chambers, ‘so we decided to put a sleeper—an undercover operative—in place in Amhill, just on the off-chance that the professor himself was still alive and might one day come back. We placed her in the library. Her job was to keep her ear to the ground and report to us if anything occurred around Darkwood House or connected with the old Emerson case.’
‘She was working for you!’ Ben tried to stand up, on shaky legs, suddenly full of fear again.
‘Yes, she was working for me,’ said Chambers, while Uncle Jerome grabbed Ben’s shoulders.
‘Wait, Benedict,’ he said. ‘Hear him out.’
‘She immediately noticed that you were interested in the Emerson history and so she made sure one of the library’s security cameras recorded you all. She had studied the files for a long time—including family photos—and she could not believe what she saw, as soon as she laid eyes on Freddy and Polly. Just couldn’t believe it … but she worked out that the only possible answer was your father’s research—cryonics.’
‘So you sent her with men to get us! Inject us! Kidnap us!’ said Ben, through gritted teeth.
‘No, Ben—of course not. We didn’t even know ourselves until yesterday. Tara Chapman didn’t send the tape to us—she sent it to Russia. She was … well, what you would call a double-agent. They’d convinced her to pass information to them, not us, not long after she was put in place. As soon as they realized what she was saying was probably true, they sent in their own people to help her find and abduct you all.’
‘We did come for you!’ said Uncle Jerome. ‘As soon as I realized that I had to get help to you. Should have just been straight about it from the start. Would’ve saved a lot of trouble. We sent men to Percy’s place too—he left me a message and we guessed he might be in trouble—and they ended up chasing you and Freddy across the town! We got to the house just in time to find three men’s bodies on the driveway and Freddy screaming his head off.’
‘That spy woman must have known how to start the car with its wires. Father showed me how to do that once, on our old Austin,’ said Freddy. ‘She jumped into the front seat and was driving off seconds later, even though I still had the key!’
‘That was brilliant, when you took the key,’ remembered Ben. ‘How did you do that? You couldn’t see!’
‘Well, after a while my eyesight came back. Once I’d got my breath back I could see well enough to come on after you. I saw yo
u crack that man with the camera. You were super cool! Then I hid behind the car when the others came up, and reached in and got the key while they were all distracted by you and your killer bicycle pump!’
Ben grinned as he remembered. Then he gulped. The lightning. ‘Are those men dead?’
‘Well, they were OK when we packed them off on a plane to Moscow this morning,’ said Chambers. ‘Some minor burns and concussion … I think the one you hit with the camera had the worst headache.’
‘You did what? You sent them home?’ Freddy looked aghast.
‘We negotiated with the Russian president,’ said Chambers. ‘Turns out they had something we wanted rather badly, so we sent them back their men.’
‘What did they have that you could possibly want that badly?’ said Freddy, angrily.
‘I guess you should see for yourself,’ said Chambers and walked to a side door of the room. ‘Come on in,’ he said, to someone beyond it.
The door opened and a man who looked about the same age as Ben and Rachel’s dad walked in. He wore a brown suit, and a grey tie. He looked dazed as he stared at Polly and Freddy. Ben couldn’t work out who this might be. He had been hoping for an old man … Polly and Freddy’s father. He felt a surge of disappointment.
Then Polly cried out and ran to the man, flinging her arms around him. ‘Daddy! Daddy! Oh, Daddy! Daddy!’
Rachel and Ben stared at each other in amazement. Where was the ninety-one year old?
Then, of course, they realized what Professor Henry Emerson had done. He had built another cryonic chamber for the Russians—and then managed to get inside it himself.
The young man before them … because really, he was still a young man, knelt down and put his arms around his daughter and his face creased with emotion. He looked across the room at his son. Freddy’s face was hard—almost angry—also holding back tears.
‘Father,’ he said, standing up and clenching his fists at his sides. ‘I have to tell you something. Sir, I have to say this!’