by David Gilman
His exit strategy had been in place long before anything in this present situation turned ugly. As the gas mains worker gave the “go” into his radio, and his partner the traffic warden moved quickly to Farentino’s front door, half a dozen rough-looking men sprang out of the furniture lorry and covered all the exits. The street was blocked off, the black-gloss front door was smashed open and the gang burst into the beautifully cool, timelessly stylish house. And as the door was smashed open, the last of the cold ash from the cigar fell neatly into the crystal-cut ashtray.
Exactly as Farentino had intended.
Several hours before Max managed to send the vital information, Sayid felt as though the can of worms he’d opened had turned into a barrel of snakes. They were in the headmaster’s room and Mr. Jackson stood, quietly observing from the fireplace, hands shoved into the pockets of his corduroys. Sayid sat with his mother on the creased sofa, with Mr. Peterson opposite them. The uniformed village policewoman had been ushered from the room by both a Detective Chief Inspector of the Devon and Cornwall CID and a regional member of Special Branch. The village Special Constable was a speck in the universe compared to the people who now filled Mr. Jackson’s room.
Sayid watched a couple of men from London: cool-dude number one, in tailored jeans and casual jacket, slightly built but with a look of danger about him; he gazed back without blinking, without a smile on his face—in fact, no one in the room was smiling. A surfer cool-dude, number two, looked as though his feet should be curled over a long board, not jammed into the very expensive trainers he wore. This unlikely pair was MI6. Not exactly the way Sayid imagined Secret Intelligence Service types would look. Never judge a horse because he looks like a donkey, there may be an Arab stallion inside, was one of his granddad’s stupider sayings. Perhaps it made a bit of sense now.
And Mr. Peterson, he was the biggest surprise of all.
“Listen, Sayid, what you did was exactly right. A hundred percent,” Mr. Peterson said.
“I’m not in trouble?” Sayid asked.
“MI6 aren’t too happy,” Peterson said, looking at cooldudes one and two, “but I can square it away. Besides, if it wasn’t for you, things could be a lot worse.”
“I thought you were one of the bad guys, and when I listened in on your phone call it sounded as though you were out to get Max, his dad and Angelo Farentino.”
“OK. Briefly, this is how it is.”
Mr. Peterson spelled it out quickly and without fuss. He left out a lot of background information, but the important bits fell quickly into place. He had once served in the army, where he met Max’s dad. They were both adventurers and became firm friends. That was why he had those paintings of the mountains by Max’s dad on his wall. When they left the army, they worked for a government department—not MI6 or MI5, but they were trained by those people and often passed on relevant information to them. The easiest way of explaining it was to say that they were international watchdogs. Anyone—big business, corrupt governments, illegal trading of weapons, destruction of natural resources or threat to endangered species, anything they found that could cause irreparable damage—they tried to stop. But Tom Gordon and his wife, when she was alive, and Peterson with a whole bunch of others realized they could never do their job properly as government employees. So, together with similarly minded scientists, they took on the problems themselves. And there were times when governments used them when they themselves did not wish to be seen to be involved.
It was a win-win situation. And the phone call Sayid heard was Peterson asking for help from MI6—for favors owed. When Tom Gordon took on the investigation in Namibia, there were already signs that it could be extremely dangerous. Peterson had only been at Dartmoor High for a few months and he was working there undercover.
To protect Max.
What he didn’t have was access to the message Tom Gordon had left Max in the vault or the letters Sayid had delivered privately to his best mate. What Tom Gordon hadn’t known was that Peterson had moved in to keep an eye on his son.
“But Angelo Farentino was there to help Max. That’s what his dad’s message meant,” Sayid said.
“No, it was a message warning him against Farentino. I think Max’s dad had realized just who was behind everything—had been for years. A perfect secret life: pretending to be a major environmentalist, but in reality building up a huge power base. I thought Max was really going to Canada, but when I found out he’d gone to Africa, and someone had tried to kill him at the airport, that’s when I knew Farentino must have been involved.”
“I warned Farentino he was being watched.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“But he got away.”
“We’ll find him.”
A scruffy bloke, about twenty-four years old, wearing a V-neck sweater over a T-shirt and ripped designer jeans, flung open the door. Dr. Lee Mathews, an IT expert, had been monitoring Sayid’s computer. “Nothing from Max Gordon, but we’ve had contact from Namibia. Some kid called Kallie van Reenen.” He handed Mr. Peterson a printout. “I patched it through to my guv’nor. UK Eyes Only,” he said.
Sayid stared at the computer whiz-kid. Everyone seemed to be really important around here. And Sayid knew that “UK Eyes Only” meant that this message was destined for the top: the prime minister, the foreign secretary and the head of MI6.
Then it all happened in a hurry. Everyone seemed to know what to do the moment Peterson said, “We’re going. It’s on.”
Cool-dudes one and two had cell phones to their ears in a split second, doors opened, running feet echoed down the corridor. Sayid was almost manhandled by Mr. Peterson as he barreled down the corridor. He’d nodded to Mr. Jackson, who had moved quickly to Sayid’s mother and put a comforting arm around her as her son was whisked away.
“Mr. Peterson! What’s happening?” Sayid asked. “What about Max?”
They were through the doors, and Sayid saw and heard the military helicopter on the school’s rugby pitch. A couple of armed soldiers were waiting, and they slid the helicopter’s door open as Mr. Peterson’s voice rose above the sound of the thudding blades.
“We don’t know where he is. We’ve been on standby, waiting to get something positive out of Namibia. Now we have something.”
The two soldiers grabbed Sayid, lifted him into the helicopter and slammed the doors closed as Peterson gave the thumbs-up to the pilot, buckled himself and Sayid into their seats, pulled on a set of headphones, then settled another pair over Sayid’s ears. Sayid steadied himself as the helicopter rose and banked sharply.
“We may not be able to help Max and his dad right now; we have to stop Farentino and Shaka Chang. We have to get help from the Namibian government,” Mr. Peterson said, his voice scratchy from the microphone attached to the headset.
“How are you going to do that?”
“I’m working with a senior police officer in Namibia. Somehow or other he’s got his hands on one of Tom Gordon’s maps and, together with what this Kallie girl has told him, we think it gives us enough reason to make a low-profile incursion. Trying to get governments to react in time is like trying to stop a supertanker—it takes too long. Our government won’t get involved directly, but they’re pulling diplomatic strings.”
“An incursion?” asked Sayid. “Like an attack, you mean?”
“No, we’ll be going in as advisers; only when we hear something more concrete will we reevaluate the situation. There’s an abandoned military airfield in the desert; we’re going to help the Namibians assemble a strike force.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“Some of these blokes’ friends”—he looked at the grim-faced young soldiers, their faces streaked with camouflage cream and carrying foreign-looking weapons—“are joining us.”
Sayid studied them for a moment.
“SAS?”
“A long time ago, before you both were born, Max’s dad and I served with them.” Mr. Peterson smiled and put a finger to his lips. �
��Don’t tell anyone.”
Sayid listened to the muted roar of the engines outside the protection of his headphones. The helicopter had flown low and fast across Dartmoor, then swung south towards Plymouth. Sayid could already see their destination—a small airfield—below them. The local civilian airport was used to seeing Sea King search-and-rescue helicopters landing, so this military chopper wouldn’t be out of place. Now the pilot eased the camouflaged beast down towards a hangar on the edge of the airfield.
A civilian twin-engined jet sat waiting. Gathered around it were half a dozen men in civvies; their military Bergen backpacks were being loaded into the hold.
“That’s a Citation X,” Peterson told him. “Flies at just under Mach One. It’s available for special ops when they have to keep a low profile. Belongs to a well-known business-man who happens to own hotels in South Africa, so it’s a good cover for the time being. One refueling stop in Lagos, and we’ll be there.”
Sayid was beginning to feel way out of his depth. Big adventures and risk-taking were Max’s domain, not his.
“Why am I going?”
“Kallie van Reenen.”
“She thinks the policeman over there is working for you, I mean against Max’s dad.”
“Exactly. She may need convincing to tell us everything she knows. She’ll feel more confident when she sees you.”
“She got away from that copper.”
“Well, he’s found her again.”
“How do you know?”
“She told her dad.”
When Ferdie van Reenen got Kallie’s radio message, he used his credit card to pay another company to secure his clients’ ongoing safari, refueled the twin-engined Baron and flew by the most direct route to where she had landed. He scorched along low and fast, old flying techniques never forgotten from combat days. On the way, he gave Mike Kapuo an ear-splitting mouthful, using language that was definitely not correct radio procedure, on what he thought was the policeman’s damned carelessness and irresponsibility in allowing his daughter to get herself in danger.
It took Kapuo a couple of minutes to tell van Reenen everything, which made him realize just how precious his daughter was to him. People had to be independent and strong in an environment like the Namibian outback, but maybe he’d left his daughter alone too often. He swore quietly to himself that he would make amends and spend more time with her, but he couldn’t help feeling a deep sense of pride at what she had done.
Max had worked his way back through security, using Zhernastyn’s palm-print, then replaced his father with Zhernastyn in the bed, strapped him down and covered his face with an oxygen mask over his taped mouth. With any luck, that would fool anyone taking a cursory glance into the room. But for how long? Max knew time was against him, but he had to find a way of reaching Shaka Chang’s control center. If that could be damaged or destroyed, it might delay the dam gates being opened.
Max looked instinctively at his wrist. The watch was gone, of course, but the moment allowed him a fleeting thought for !Koga. Bring help, !Koga, I need as much as I can get.
He had cradled his father, easing him back into the wheelchair. Tom Gordon drifted in and out of consciousness. Max’s mental clock ticked away. There was precious little time to hang about in this hospital. He ran back into the hydroelectric tank room and dropped the vital disc, taped back in its box, through the iron grid into the water. Hopefully, by now Sayid would have the information. Max didn’t dare risk being caught with it, because then both his and his father’s lives would be worthless.
But where could Max escape to? He tried to reason it out. If the fort had been built in the 1800s, then there certainly wouldn’t have been any lift shafts in place, all that came later with Shaka Chang. So, there had to be stairs, especially down to the basement area, where the original old iron grid lay across the water tank. In their day, servants might have hauled water up to the kitchens and living quarters. There must be steps going higher. If there was a way up to that hangar without using the lift, that was his best chance of getting himself and his dad out of this murderous place.
Using screwdrivers from the maintenance man’s tool belt, Max had wedged open the doors he needed to get through, but he had to make a move quickly. It seemed likely, he reasoned, that the lift shaft would have been dropped down alongside any stairwell that had been cut into the rock face a hundred-odd years ago. Max trundled his father out into the area where the lift doors opened. Somewhere on one side or the other of that modern glass cage was his way out. He gazed up into the darkening space that would swallow the lift car, letting his eyes search the cables and steel supports. It was open rock at the back of that structure, all the way up, as far as he could see.
He had missed the obvious. He must be more tired than he realized. There was a door with a small danger sign—HIGH VOLTAGE. The door felt as solid as steel and it was locked. The maintenance man was still trussed up—but his work belt sat like a gunslinger’s holster around Max’s waist. His fingers searched out a screwdriver. He would use it to twist and break the lock, but then he saw the T-bar of a short metal rod, about fifty centimeters long and with a beveled base, in a small pocket of its own. It fitted perfectly between his fingers, allowing him to grip and turn the T-piece. The angled cuts at the end of the bar slid into the hexagonal lock on the door. A twist of his wrist and the door opened. Just like the gas man opening the meter box, back home.
Half a dozen stairs rose up before him and then dog-legged to the right, following a zigzag path upwards behind the lift shaft. He would never get a wheelchair up there.
A light came on above the lift door. The top floor. Shaka Chang’s private domain. Someone was in the lift and they were coming down.
Third floor.
Second.
Time had just run out.
Mr. Slye felt uneasy.
Routine was the backbone of his world. A rigid system of behavioral patterns meant people were always doing what they should be doing at the time they should be doing it. But there had been no reply when he phoned Dr. Zhernastyn.
And the tracking computer had shown that the doctor had left the medical area, gone to the hangar and returned again. That was a break in his routine. Why had he gone there? For what reason? There was nothing there that … Ah. A flush of relief soothed Mr. Slye’s anxiety. Zhernastyn was a smoker. That disgusting addiction. It added to the stench of his breath and his rotting teeth, and smoking was strictly forbidden anywhere inside the fort. Zhernastyn had gone to the maintenance area to have a cigarette. That must be the reason. No matter, he was now back where he belonged and he could begin the torture of the captured scientist.
Slye closed his eyes and breathed a meditative sigh, releasing the tension he always kept so tightly entombed inside his cadaver-like body. He caught a brief glimpse of his reflection as the lift glided downwards; the glass darkened as it slipped past the rock wall. His black hair brushed severely back from his long, gaunt face gave him the appearance of an undertaker. Caring for and burying the dead. Yes, that was appropriate, he supposed. He cleared up so many secrets and buried them so deeply, only he knew where they were. If he were less loyal, he could make a fortune. If he were less scared, he would be dead.
The lift stopped. The doors opened. The voice welcomed him.
“Basement. Hydroelectric unit to the left, seismic recording instruments straight ahead and torture cells to the right. Have a nice day.”
“Oh, do shut up,” Mr. Slye muttered.
Max had undone the tool belt, lengthened it as far as it could go, then put it around his father. Squatting in front of the wheelchair, he pulled his dad onto his back, hooking the belt’s clasp around his own chest. He heaved the weight for balance and gave the wheelchair a shove back down the corridor, then dragged himself to the stairs. There was a light switch, but he didn’t dare to use it—he needed the etched darkness to hide them for as long as possible.
His knees buckled, but the steps helped him lean forward
and bear his dad’s weight. He managed to clamber up half a dozen steps before the glass box that was the lift cage slid down past him. Max saw the back of a man dressed in black, his hair swept back over his head, hands behind him, fingers clutching a personal organizer. The man stepped out into the basement area and turned right towards the medical area. Max had probably less than a minute to get as far away as possible.
Max could hardly breathe because of the belt crushing his chest; sweat greased his body and the fetid air smelled like bad drains. If the slimy-looking man found Zhernastyn, he would know Max was inside the fort. A quick search of the basement would reveal the maintenance man and Mr. Death-Warmed-Up would realize that Max could not have escaped using the lift. And he would not fail to see Max through the glass.
Alice Through the Looking Glass, more like—crazy thoughts in a crazy, unreal world—words trying to make light of his predicament. “Malice Through the Looking Glass” would be better. Concentrate! Climb!
He craned his neck upwards into the reflected light from the lift shaft. The steps went on forever. He was never going to make it. His heart sank. He’d come so far, he’d found his father and the evidence, but this last effort was going to defeat him. A dull sheen on the rock face wall, a couple of meters ahead of him, had a different texture from the rest of the stairwell. He stared at it, trying to make out what it was, and then felt a hand grip his shoulder.